15 ms·

The Deported

158 points by 1sembiyan 4y ago

trhway 4y ago
>We base our objections to the Armenians Objection to an ethnicity. Key indicator of genocide for any action taken based on such an objection. >on three distinct grounds. In the first place, they have enriched themselves at the expense of the Turks. In the second place, they are determined to domineer over us and to establish a separate state. In the third place, they have openly encouraged our enemies. They have assisted the Russians in the Caucasus, and our failure there is largely explained by their actions. Reads almost verbatim just like Nazi Germany on Jews back then or Nazi Russia on Ukrainians today. > We have therefore come to the irrevocable decision that we shall make them powerless before this war is ended.” Again very similar to the perception of themselves as the master race (Nazi Germany) or the master nation (Nazi Russia) and thus perceiving themselves as having the right to act in such a way.
- JasonFruit 4y ago
  It's also very similar to the sort of talk I hear about Muslim immigrants in the United States: "In the first place they take jobs from Americans, in the second they want to impose Sharia law, and in the third place they support terrorism." There's always an 'other' who will be blamed, and we have to guard our minds against plausible talk like this.
  - p1necone 4y ago
    The Republicans are doing a perfectly good job imposing Sharia law themselves. No need to let anyone else steal their thunder.
- jpmoral 4y ago
  > so that I can explain our position on the whole Armenian subject. Also very similar is the use of the phrase "the <ethnicity> subject|question|issue" to plant the seed in the mind of the listener that there is indeed a problem that needs to be "solved".
- baybal2 4y ago
  Russia is coincindentally heading right the way of Ottoman empire, seemingly step, by step. Decades of futile attempts to retake Balkans after Greek revolt lit the fire in Europe, and caused a chain reaction of support for Ottoman dismantlement. For Russia to survive as a state in coming decades, it will not need a "Russian Washington," but rather somebody more like a Russian Ataturk.
  - hoseja 4y ago
    And yet again, the problem is that the dismantlement wasn't thorough enough.
- eggsbenedict 4y ago
  Nazi Russia? Not once, but twice?
  - trhway 4y ago
    Nazism = totalitarian fascist state plus political nationalism. Fascist Italy and Spain weren't nazist for example, while Germany was and Russia today is. Informally that specific flavor of the Russian Nazi ideology is called "rashism".
    - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - trhway 4y ago
        I'm a Russian, grew up in USSR and like for many others in USSR members of my family fought, died, got decorated fighting German Nazi in WWII. So I wonder what kind of disrespect you mean. >I know American use the term extremely casually like it meant nothing. Do you think genocide and ethnic cleansing that the Russia Nazism conducts now in Ukraine is "nothing"?
        WastingMyTime89 4y ago
        It’s not disrespectful to Russia. It’s disrespectful to the actual victims of Nazism, the ideology of the NSDAP. Nazi is not a placeholder nor a meaningless adjective. Does Russia follows the ideology of the NSDAP?
        trhway 4y ago
        As i said i have members of the family who actually died in that fight, and i don't see anything disrespectful toward them in calling a nazist regime for what it is.
        4y ago
- f6v 4y ago
  > Nazi Russia Be honest, you came here just to write this.
  - akhmatova 4y ago
    Sometimes analogies actually do apply.
    - f6v 4y ago
      And sometimes they’re completely nonsensical.
      - akhmatova 4y ago
        And other times - they're right on the money.
z3c0 4y ago
“I wish,” Talaat now said, “that you would get the American life-insurance companies to send us a complete list of their Armenian policy holders. They are practically all dead now and have left no heirs to collect the money. It of course all escheats to the state. The government is the beneficiary now. Will you do so?” If anybody else is wondering what happened with some of those life insurance policies, The New York Life Insurance Company attempted to pay out 2,200 unclaimed policies in 2004[1]. That's only after avoiding it for almost a century, and it's still unclear how many were actually claimed in the end. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/12/us/insurer-to-pay-armenian-massacre-claims.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/12/us/insurer-to-pay-armenia...
- rob74 4y ago
  That's really something! I mean, the state already got all their possessions, that's par for the course, same as the Nazis did with the Jews, but I don't think the Nazis thought about also collecting the life insurance...
- toxicFork 4y ago
  Archive link: https://archive.is/bJKvS https://archive.is/bJKvS
- mrtksn 4y ago
  Disturbing, isn't it? Turks might have collected their possessions and even went after the life insurances but Turks lost so much more. The Armenians were part of the Ottoman society and their contributions were invaluable. Today in Turkey, you can still see their legacy all over the place. The best neighbourhoods to live in Istanbul are those who used to have a large Armenian population. Neighbourhoods with concentration of cultural heritage that is still alive often have an Armenian church somewhere. A civilian building with a great architecture? It was probably built by Armenians or Greeks who were uprooted during the collapse of the Ottoman empire. You can see the pattern al over Istanbul and Turkey. When you visit Turkey, pay attention of the writings on old and beautiful apartments or houses and more often than not you will see that those writings are not in Turkish or Arabic but Armenian, Greek or Hebrew. In the context of the Ottoman Empire, Turks were the warriors and the rulers and the local minorities were the artisans, the scientists, businesspeople. If Turkey managed to preserve its Armenian or Greek minorities, the country would have been much much nicer and sane place. I hope that one day the country will make peace with its past and have its minorities back again.
B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
"On every one of these points, I had plenty of arguments in rebuttal. Talaat’s first objection was merely an admission that the Armenians were more industrious and more able than the dull-witted and lazy Turks." ... something turntables ...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
1sembiyan 4y ago
> “You are making a terrible mistake,” I said, and I repeated the statement three times. > “Yes, we may make mistakes,” he replied, “but”—and he firmly closed his lips and shook his head—“we never regret.” And they never did. They don’t even acknowledge it. Interesting to contrast the response of the German state to its genocide and that of Turkey’s. > We base our objections to the Armenians on three distinct grounds. In the first place, they have enriched themselves at the expense of the Turks. Similar reasoning and calls for genocide are routine by the ideologues in power in Tamil Nadu, India: https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/national/south/dmk-spokesperson-supports-periyar-s-call-for-killing-brahmins-subramanian-swamy-moves-ec-1116752.html https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/national/south/dmk-spokespe... Thankfully no large scale violence so far though, they have just stuck to the rhetoric.
- cscurmudgeon 4y ago
  > Thankfully no large scale violence so far though, they have just stuck to the rhetoric. This is exactly how it looked in Rwanda and other places before some spark lit large-scale violence.
- WaxProlix 4y ago
  Not that it's okay, but the Tamil Nadu situation seems (to an outsider) to be a class/caste based call to violence more than a racial genocide. Sort of like "eat the rich", where there's no specific call to ethnically cleanse anyone, "just" for class warfare. Definitely possible I'm missing something, and it's a touchy subject, but one I'm increasingly interested in these times. So feel free to correct if I'm wrong, or just chime in.
  - 1sembiyan 4y ago
    In Tamil Nadu, there are racial overtones to this call for violence. It’s targeted specifically at Tamil Brahmins, regarded as “outsider Aryans”. There are other wealthy landed castes, but they are not the target of this rhetoric (and they are the ones in power). So it’s not just “eat the rich”. Along side this, there’s actual physical violence between other caste groups. The ones targeting Brahmins is interesting because of the language used (example above) and how normative it has become (Tamil mainstream media will not call it out, pop culture acceptance and tropes), their complete lack of political power in the state and the absence of much physical violence. There’s some very fascinating history behind this. In case you are interested in how the current moment came about, two books: 1. The Emergence of Provincial Politics, DA Washbrook - https://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Provincial-Politics-Presidency-1870-1920/dp/0521053455 https://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Provincial-Politics-Preside... 2. The politics of south India, CJ Baker - https://www.amazon.com/Politics-South-1920-1937-Cambridge-Studies/dp/0521052769 https://www.amazon.com/Politics-South-1920-1937-Cambridge-St...
_rgun 4y ago
As a Turk with very little interest to History, would like to share my guesses about viewpoints of these characters have. First of all I am very impressed about how modern the ambassador is for 192X. He is Liberal exactly like someone from USA would be today. Now! Liberalism is not a idea that is easily accessible back then. Let alone find a any group of people that will backup you in this way. Even in current Turkey's politics: only 2-3 parties are viable in election and they are all about deciding whether country should go Muslim-National (Auth-Right but Muslim Traders Only) or National-National (Auth-Left) Considering that Ottoman Empire was multi-cultural gaint and considering that literacy of people of Ottoman Empire were about low as %10. People from same culture/race/religion lived near together and even tho there have been problems here and there, they were probably doing fine like humanity of today. But when once-in-a-life-time event occurs and you find yourself survived a war but your old government is colepsed; and the New authority (politicly) doesn't look anything different from a group of revolters/rioters from at your standpoint. Who can you trust in the middle of all this chaos other than people of your race/culture/religion. Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Muslims Cults/Sheiks, Old Ottoman Government's supporters, all rioted and tried to overthrown the new authority of TBMM (team Ataturk/Republic) within very near time spans. At that point it must have been normal to react to these 'issues' with this much aggression. Calling it 'Ptsd of an authority' would sum it maybe. Still the whole event is presumably a overkill/genocide when we take a look at from the current perspective.
- mda 4y ago
  "Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Muslims Cults/Sheiks, Old Ottoman Government's supporters, all rioted and tried to overthrown the new authority of TBMM (team Ataturk/Republic) within very near time spans. At that point it must have been normal to react to these 'issues' with this much aggression." Your timeline is off, The new parliament (TBMM) was established in 1920 and new republic in 1923. The events described in the article happened in 1915. Ambassador's letter was written in 1916.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- 4y ago
nostromo 4y ago
Huh... Bing and DDG both seem to avoid autocomplete for "Armenian Genocide" - requiring one to type it out almost completely. Google suggests it early on, as one would expect.
- mojuba 4y ago
  DDG does bring the completion after typing "Armenian" for me, however Bing even after typing the whole phrase "Armenian Genocide" brings totally unrelated completions while also suggesting "armenian genocide museum dc" as No. 3. This is so strange!
f6v 4y ago
And with all that genocide talk, Turkey is a NATO member and was(technically is?) an EU candidate. Moreover, rumors are, Finland and Sweden will submit to Turkish demands regarding Kurds. Turkey has also led a military campaign against Armenia together with their satellite just recently. Maybe it really doesn’t bother western liberal democracies whether genocide happened. And it’s only used as a tool.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  > Turkey has also led a military campaign against Armenia together with their satellite just recently That is not true, in 2020 Azerbaijan successfully liberated a region that was under Armenian occupation since 1994. I say liberated because that land was and is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Also, Azerbaijan suffered atrocities conducted by the Armenians, for example the Khojaly massacre[0]. Yes Turkey helped Azerbaijan, Russia helped Armenia. It was the first showcase of the Turkish drone technology in a war between regular armies but the Turkish help was not only in providing weapons, it was much deeper. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khojaly_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khojaly_massacre When it comes to the Kurds, IMHO the Turks deserve most of the blame for the feud BUT what Turkey demands has nothing to do with Kurds but with internationally recognized terrorist organisations that operate in Turkey. Think of it like this, if you are sympathetic of the people of Iraq for the horrible things that the USA did there would you also support ISIS? If your answer is NO then you don't have a case for supporting PKK against Turkey because PKK is a terrorist organisation that blows up public buses or kills teachers. If you are not familiar with their activities, there's ample amount of information online.
  - CyanBird 4y ago
    > That is not true What you just said does not dispute the fact that turkey led the campaign against Armenia alongside Azerbaijan You are giving context, which I guess is welcome, but that's not a refutation, because a refutation is not possible given that indeed Turkey fought against Armenia alongside Azerbaijan
    - 4y ago
DSingularity 4y ago
> Talaat’s first objection was merely an admission that the Armenians were more industrious and more able than the dull-witted and lazy Turks Right. I wonder, precisely how bias is this great ambassador against the Turks? Do you know what the truth behind it all is? Nations are violent. They tend to overreact in terrible murderous ways. What’s worse, their will always be enough support in the hardliners in their population. Look at world history: the Americans committed genocide against the Natives with the support of the majority (heck more than half today pretend like nothing wrong happened). The British and French and Japanese committed genocide (all over the world) with the support of a population pretending like they are spreading civilization. The British were literally smuggling opium into China despite a ban by the Chinese. The Germans murdered millions in an attempt to ethnically cleanse with the support of their people. The Israelis are currently ethnically cleansing Palestine — and it is the Israeli people themselves who are doing this. States are violent. Savage. Terrible in their overreactions and they tend to overreact. If the Armenians did indeed sabotage the Turks during the war with Russia then they should have fled or taken up arms right against the Turks when their sabotage failed to lead to a complete defeat of the Turks. In any country west or east — rebelling against the government and aiding foreign adversaries is going to lead to violence and that violence is going to be supported by the people. Terrible world we live in where those that rise to power are savage in their pursuit of increasing/maintaining power.
- bjourne 4y ago
  We can still recognize that horrible injustices have been made and attempt to do better. Past injustices doesn't justify the ongoing ones in Yemen, Palestine, Ukraine, China (Uyghurs), etc.
  - DSingularity 4y ago
    Of course they don’t! I didn’t mean to slightly suggest anything like that is justified. My remarks were purely to point out a truth that this ambassador is not sincerely interested in the well being of the Armenians. He is using them just like the Russians were but in a different way.
- 4y ago
m00dy 4y ago
alright, experienced Turk here. I have been living abroad almost 8 years already... Ask me anything...
- sofixa 4y ago
  Why do you think that the genocide is so heavily denied by modern Turkey ( Attaturk and onwards)? Is it only due do reparations or is there lingering ethnic... "superiority" remaining? Because at first glance, modern Turkey fought long and hard to distance itself from the Ottoman Empire, and make it well known they aren't a successor state. Why not pin all the blame for the genocide on the decadent Ottomans and be done with it?
  - m00dy 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - tgv 4y ago
      > Because, we didn't do it. ... "but they had it coming anyway" Bizarre and amazing. Genocide denial, right there.
    - murat124 4y ago
      > Because, we didn't do it. It's not you, you know? Not even your parents were alive to do it. I hope one day you learn to see it this way so when you claim to be an experienced Turk, it actually doesn't sound like bullshit.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      > Generally speaking genocides or ethnic cleaning is definitely not in Turkish culture Go visit Batak or any other site of Ottoman atrocities and then try again. Brutal ethnic cleansing was very much an Ottoman thing throughout Ottoman history, and especially so in the last couple of centuries of decline. Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Armenians, etc. were brutally supressed and massacred many times. > well, I'm not sure about this but, If I were Ataturk, I would probably build a secular Ottoman state like Ottoman v2 Honestly, in the post-WWI landscape, who would have wanted that? Peoples wanted their own nation state, nobody was interested in living in a multi-ethnic empire where they have no voice. > they were the ones fought like a real men At Gallipoli, and fought like real... What's a stupid aggressive animal doing stupid mistakes and getting itself killed in droves? That one. The Ottoman war effort was a(n almost) total failure. The sheer incompetence of the Ottoman high command and generals is only matched by other bright minds like von Hotzendorf.
hoseja 4y ago
These are NATO members.

158 points by 1sembiyan 4y ago

>We base our objections to the Armenians Objection to an ethnicity. Key indicator of genocide for any action taken based on such an objection. >on three distinct grounds. In the first place, they have enriched themselves at the expense of the Turks. In the second place, they are determined to domineer over us and to establish a separate state. In the third place, they have openly encouraged our enemies. They have assisted the Russians in the Caucasus, and our failure there is largely explained by their actions. Reads almost verbatim just like Nazi Germany on Jews back then or Nazi Russia on Ukrainians today. > We have therefore come to the irrevocable decision that we shall make them powerless before this war is ended.” Again very similar to the perception of themselves as the master race (Nazi Germany) or the master nation (Nazi Russia) and thus perceiving themselves as having the right to act in such a way.

JasonFruit 4y ago
It's also very similar to the sort of talk I hear about Muslim immigrants in the United States: "In the first place they take jobs from Americans, in the second they want to impose Sharia law, and in the third place they support terrorism." There's always an 'other' who will be blamed, and we have to guard our minds against plausible talk like this.
- p1necone 4y ago
  The Republicans are doing a perfectly good job imposing Sharia law themselves. No need to let anyone else steal their thunder.
jpmoral 4y ago
> so that I can explain our position on the whole Armenian subject. Also very similar is the use of the phrase "the <ethnicity> subject|question|issue" to plant the seed in the mind of the listener that there is indeed a problem that needs to be "solved".
baybal2 4y ago
Russia is coincindentally heading right the way of Ottoman empire, seemingly step, by step. Decades of futile attempts to retake Balkans after Greek revolt lit the fire in Europe, and caused a chain reaction of support for Ottoman dismantlement. For Russia to survive as a state in coming decades, it will not need a "Russian Washington," but rather somebody more like a Russian Ataturk.
- hoseja 4y ago
  And yet again, the problem is that the dismantlement wasn't thorough enough.
eggsbenedict 4y ago
Nazi Russia? Not once, but twice?
- trhway 4y ago
  Nazism = totalitarian fascist state plus political nationalism. Fascist Italy and Spain weren't nazist for example, while Germany was and Russia today is. Informally that specific flavor of the Russian Nazi ideology is called "rashism".
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - trhway 4y ago
      I'm a Russian, grew up in USSR and like for many others in USSR members of my family fought, died, got decorated fighting German Nazi in WWII. So I wonder what kind of disrespect you mean. >I know American use the term extremely casually like it meant nothing. Do you think genocide and ethnic cleansing that the Russia Nazism conducts now in Ukraine is "nothing"?
      - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
        It’s not disrespectful to Russia. It’s disrespectful to the actual victims of Nazism, the ideology of the NSDAP. Nazi is not a placeholder nor a meaningless adjective. Does Russia follows the ideology of the NSDAP?
        trhway 4y ago
        As i said i have members of the family who actually died in that fight, and i don't see anything disrespectful toward them in calling a nazist regime for what it is.
        4y ago
f6v 4y ago
> Nazi Russia Be honest, you came here just to write this.
- akhmatova 4y ago
  Sometimes analogies actually do apply.
  - f6v 4y ago
    And sometimes they’re completely nonsensical.
    - akhmatova 4y ago
      And other times - they're right on the money.

z3c0 4y ago

“I wish,” Talaat now said, “that you would get the American life-insurance companies to send us a complete list of their Armenian policy holders. They are practically all dead now and have left no heirs to collect the money. It of course all escheats to the state. The government is the beneficiary now. Will you do so?” If anybody else is wondering what happened with some of those life insurance policies, The New York Life Insurance Company attempted to pay out 2,200 unclaimed policies in 2004[1]. That's only after avoiding it for almost a century, and it's still unclear how many were actually claimed in the end. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/12/us/insurer-to-pay-armenian-massacre-claims.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/12/us/insurer-to-pay-armenia...

rob74 4y ago
That's really something! I mean, the state already got all their possessions, that's par for the course, same as the Nazis did with the Jews, but I don't think the Nazis thought about also collecting the life insurance...
toxicFork 4y ago
Archive link: https://archive.is/bJKvS https://archive.is/bJKvS
mrtksn 4y ago
Disturbing, isn't it? Turks might have collected their possessions and even went after the life insurances but Turks lost so much more. The Armenians were part of the Ottoman society and their contributions were invaluable. Today in Turkey, you can still see their legacy all over the place. The best neighbourhoods to live in Istanbul are those who used to have a large Armenian population. Neighbourhoods with concentration of cultural heritage that is still alive often have an Armenian church somewhere. A civilian building with a great architecture? It was probably built by Armenians or Greeks who were uprooted during the collapse of the Ottoman empire. You can see the pattern al over Istanbul and Turkey. When you visit Turkey, pay attention of the writings on old and beautiful apartments or houses and more often than not you will see that those writings are not in Turkish or Arabic but Armenian, Greek or Hebrew. In the context of the Ottoman Empire, Turks were the warriors and the rulers and the local minorities were the artisans, the scientists, businesspeople. If Turkey managed to preserve its Armenian or Greek minorities, the country would have been much much nicer and sane place. I hope that one day the country will make peace with its past and have its minorities back again.

B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago

"On every one of these points, I had plenty of arguments in rebuttal. Talaat’s first objection was merely an admission that the Armenians were more industrious and more able than the dull-witted and lazy Turks." ... something turntables ...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

1sembiyan 4y ago

> “You are making a terrible mistake,” I said, and I repeated the statement three times. > “Yes, we may make mistakes,” he replied, “but”—and he firmly closed his lips and shook his head—“we never regret.” And they never did. They don’t even acknowledge it. Interesting to contrast the response of the German state to its genocide and that of Turkey’s. > We base our objections to the Armenians on three distinct grounds. In the first place, they have enriched themselves at the expense of the Turks. Similar reasoning and calls for genocide are routine by the ideologues in power in Tamil Nadu, India: https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/national/south/dmk-spokesperson-supports-periyar-s-call-for-killing-brahmins-subramanian-swamy-moves-ec-1116752.html https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/national/south/dmk-spokespe... Thankfully no large scale violence so far though, they have just stuck to the rhetoric.

cscurmudgeon 4y ago
> Thankfully no large scale violence so far though, they have just stuck to the rhetoric. This is exactly how it looked in Rwanda and other places before some spark lit large-scale violence.
WaxProlix 4y ago
Not that it's okay, but the Tamil Nadu situation seems (to an outsider) to be a class/caste based call to violence more than a racial genocide. Sort of like "eat the rich", where there's no specific call to ethnically cleanse anyone, "just" for class warfare. Definitely possible I'm missing something, and it's a touchy subject, but one I'm increasingly interested in these times. So feel free to correct if I'm wrong, or just chime in.
- 1sembiyan 4y ago
  In Tamil Nadu, there are racial overtones to this call for violence. It’s targeted specifically at Tamil Brahmins, regarded as “outsider Aryans”. There are other wealthy landed castes, but they are not the target of this rhetoric (and they are the ones in power). So it’s not just “eat the rich”. Along side this, there’s actual physical violence between other caste groups. The ones targeting Brahmins is interesting because of the language used (example above) and how normative it has become (Tamil mainstream media will not call it out, pop culture acceptance and tropes), their complete lack of political power in the state and the absence of much physical violence. There’s some very fascinating history behind this. In case you are interested in how the current moment came about, two books: 1. The Emergence of Provincial Politics, DA Washbrook - https://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Provincial-Politics-Presidency-1870-1920/dp/0521053455 https://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Provincial-Politics-Preside... 2. The politics of south India, CJ Baker - https://www.amazon.com/Politics-South-1920-1937-Cambridge-Studies/dp/0521052769 https://www.amazon.com/Politics-South-1920-1937-Cambridge-St...

_rgun 4y ago

As a Turk with very little interest to History, would like to share my guesses about viewpoints of these characters have. First of all I am very impressed about how modern the ambassador is for 192X. He is Liberal exactly like someone from USA would be today. Now! Liberalism is not a idea that is easily accessible back then. Let alone find a any group of people that will backup you in this way. Even in current Turkey's politics: only 2-3 parties are viable in election and they are all about deciding whether country should go Muslim-National (Auth-Right but Muslim Traders Only) or National-National (Auth-Left) Considering that Ottoman Empire was multi-cultural gaint and considering that literacy of people of Ottoman Empire were about low as %10. People from same culture/race/religion lived near together and even tho there have been problems here and there, they were probably doing fine like humanity of today. But when once-in-a-life-time event occurs and you find yourself survived a war but your old government is colepsed; and the New authority (politicly) doesn't look anything different from a group of revolters/rioters from at your standpoint. Who can you trust in the middle of all this chaos other than people of your race/culture/religion. Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Muslims Cults/Sheiks, Old Ottoman Government's supporters, all rioted and tried to overthrown the new authority of TBMM (team Ataturk/Republic) within very near time spans. At that point it must have been normal to react to these 'issues' with this much aggression. Calling it 'Ptsd of an authority' would sum it maybe. Still the whole event is presumably a overkill/genocide when we take a look at from the current perspective.

mda 4y ago
"Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Muslims Cults/Sheiks, Old Ottoman Government's supporters, all rioted and tried to overthrown the new authority of TBMM (team Ataturk/Republic) within very near time spans. At that point it must have been normal to react to these 'issues' with this much aggression." Your timeline is off, The new parliament (TBMM) was established in 1920 and new republic in 1923. The events described in the article happened in 1915. Ambassador's letter was written in 1916.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
4y ago

nostromo 4y ago

Huh... Bing and DDG both seem to avoid autocomplete for "Armenian Genocide" - requiring one to type it out almost completely. Google suggests it early on, as one would expect.

mojuba 4y ago
DDG does bring the completion after typing "Armenian" for me, however Bing even after typing the whole phrase "Armenian Genocide" brings totally unrelated completions while also suggesting "armenian genocide museum dc" as No. 3. This is so strange!

f6v 4y ago

And with all that genocide talk, Turkey is a NATO member and was(technically is?) an EU candidate. Moreover, rumors are, Finland and Sweden will submit to Turkish demands regarding Kurds. Turkey has also led a military campaign against Armenia together with their satellite just recently. Maybe it really doesn’t bother western liberal democracies whether genocide happened. And it’s only used as a tool.

mrtksn 4y ago
> Turkey has also led a military campaign against Armenia together with their satellite just recently That is not true, in 2020 Azerbaijan successfully liberated a region that was under Armenian occupation since 1994. I say liberated because that land was and is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Also, Azerbaijan suffered atrocities conducted by the Armenians, for example the Khojaly massacre[0]. Yes Turkey helped Azerbaijan, Russia helped Armenia. It was the first showcase of the Turkish drone technology in a war between regular armies but the Turkish help was not only in providing weapons, it was much deeper. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khojaly_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khojaly_massacre When it comes to the Kurds, IMHO the Turks deserve most of the blame for the feud BUT what Turkey demands has nothing to do with Kurds but with internationally recognized terrorist organisations that operate in Turkey. Think of it like this, if you are sympathetic of the people of Iraq for the horrible things that the USA did there would you also support ISIS? If your answer is NO then you don't have a case for supporting PKK against Turkey because PKK is a terrorist organisation that blows up public buses or kills teachers. If you are not familiar with their activities, there's ample amount of information online.
- CyanBird 4y ago
  > That is not true What you just said does not dispute the fact that turkey led the campaign against Armenia alongside Azerbaijan You are giving context, which I guess is welcome, but that's not a refutation, because a refutation is not possible given that indeed Turkey fought against Armenia alongside Azerbaijan
  - 4y ago

DSingularity 4y ago

> Talaat’s first objection was merely an admission that the Armenians were more industrious and more able than the dull-witted and lazy Turks Right. I wonder, precisely how bias is this great ambassador against the Turks? Do you know what the truth behind it all is? Nations are violent. They tend to overreact in terrible murderous ways. What’s worse, their will always be enough support in the hardliners in their population. Look at world history: the Americans committed genocide against the Natives with the support of the majority (heck more than half today pretend like nothing wrong happened). The British and French and Japanese committed genocide (all over the world) with the support of a population pretending like they are spreading civilization. The British were literally smuggling opium into China despite a ban by the Chinese. The Germans murdered millions in an attempt to ethnically cleanse with the support of their people. The Israelis are currently ethnically cleansing Palestine — and it is the Israeli people themselves who are doing this. States are violent. Savage. Terrible in their overreactions and they tend to overreact. If the Armenians did indeed sabotage the Turks during the war with Russia then they should have fled or taken up arms right against the Turks when their sabotage failed to lead to a complete defeat of the Turks. In any country west or east — rebelling against the government and aiding foreign adversaries is going to lead to violence and that violence is going to be supported by the people. Terrible world we live in where those that rise to power are savage in their pursuit of increasing/maintaining power.

bjourne 4y ago
We can still recognize that horrible injustices have been made and attempt to do better. Past injustices doesn't justify the ongoing ones in Yemen, Palestine, Ukraine, China (Uyghurs), etc.
- DSingularity 4y ago
  Of course they don’t! I didn’t mean to slightly suggest anything like that is justified. My remarks were purely to point out a truth that this ambassador is not sincerely interested in the well being of the Armenians. He is using them just like the Russians were but in a different way.
4y ago

m00dy 4y ago

alright, experienced Turk here. I have been living abroad almost 8 years already... Ask me anything...

sofixa 4y ago
Why do you think that the genocide is so heavily denied by modern Turkey ( Attaturk and onwards)? Is it only due do reparations or is there lingering ethnic... "superiority" remaining? Because at first glance, modern Turkey fought long and hard to distance itself from the Ottoman Empire, and make it well known they aren't a successor state. Why not pin all the blame for the genocide on the decadent Ottomans and be done with it?
- m00dy 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - tgv 4y ago
    > Because, we didn't do it. ... "but they had it coming anyway" Bizarre and amazing. Genocide denial, right there.
  - murat124 4y ago
    > Because, we didn't do it. It's not you, you know? Not even your parents were alive to do it. I hope one day you learn to see it this way so when you claim to be an experienced Turk, it actually doesn't sound like bullshit.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > Generally speaking genocides or ethnic cleaning is definitely not in Turkish culture Go visit Batak or any other site of Ottoman atrocities and then try again. Brutal ethnic cleansing was very much an Ottoman thing throughout Ottoman history, and especially so in the last couple of centuries of decline. Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Armenians, etc. were brutally supressed and massacred many times. > well, I'm not sure about this but, If I were Ataturk, I would probably build a secular Ottoman state like Ottoman v2 Honestly, in the post-WWI landscape, who would have wanted that? Peoples wanted their own nation state, nobody was interested in living in a multi-ethnic empire where they have no voice. > they were the ones fought like a real men At Gallipoli, and fought like real... What's a stupid aggressive animal doing stupid mistakes and getting itself killed in droves? That one. The Ottoman war effort was a(n almost) total failure. The sheer incompetence of the Ottoman high command and generals is only matched by other bright minds like von Hotzendorf.

hoseja 4y ago

These are NATO members.