Everything related to the Armenian Cause and the Recognition of the Armenian Genocide

[Armenian]

Originally Posted by sailormoon

Not only 1,5 M Armenians were massacred but also 750,000 Assyro-Chaldeans, Syriacs and 200,000 Greeks. To be more accurate we should call it the Genocide of the Christians minorities in Turkey rather than "Armenian Genocide" since it was obviously a calculated plan by the Ottoman autorities to erase Turkey from its Christian presence. If the west calls it "Armenian Genocide" it s because that appellation hides the sectarian nature of the massacre, which will contradicts the propaganda that we hear in Europe saying that Turks and Arabs were tolerant with the other religions etc...
At the end Armenians were not slaughtered just because they re Armenians but because of their faith , the 1914-1922 massacres are an episode from a long phenomena wich began in the 6 th century and consists in Islamizing the east and erase its Christian presence/roots. A phenomena which continues in our modern times with the Lebanese civil war, the intimidation and marginalisation of the Copts, the massacres against the Christians in Iraq during the 20 s and their actual persecution, current massacres in Darfur etc...

Originally Posted by Saladin

I'm not quite familiar with Armenian dispute with Turkey over the recognition of the massacres, and I'm not willing to dwell in it. However your post holds fallacies and Ignorance that I shall not allow to pass.

Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and the Muslims from the 6th century down to our current time have never used the sword or any form of ethnic cleansing as a mean for spreading Islam. Sure history has witnessed wars between Muslims and Christians during the past 14 centuries, however none of them witnessed Muslims forcing Christians to convert to Islam or even to leave the Middle East, and Saladins' Liberation of Jerusalem and the way he treated the Christians after his prevalence is one proof of that. And the recent examples you've mentioned are mostly due to political reasons and purposes.

Islam is a religion of peace and acceptance. And if there is any reason for one to believe otherwise, it is merely due to his complete ignorance of this divine message.

The Armenian Genocide was not driven by the religious causes rather than an act against minorities in the Ottoman empire...

Let me tell you briefly what really happened...

Beginning of 20th century Turkey had a big problem... How to restore the Turkish indentity, and they came out with the best idea( for them): Turkification, and in order to do that they used state terrorism, racism and hate propaganda.

Let's state everything that happened that proves that my arguments is correct:

1915 --> Armenian Genocide (1.5 Million Killed)

1923 --> Expulsion of 1.5 Million Greeks from Anatolia

1927 --> 120 000 Jews Deported from Istanbul

1933 --> KristallNacht in Turkey

1940 --> Special Tax on Minorities

1955 --> Istanbul Pogrom

1964 --> Forced Deportation of Greeks


YEAR % Of Non-Muslim Minorities

1914 ---------- 20 %
1918 ---------- 2.5 %
1935 ---------- 1.98 %
1945 ---------- 1.56 %
1955 ---------- 1.08 %
1980 ---------- 0.1 %

But this is not over, after the non Muslim minorities it was the turn of the muslim minorities... Kurds ( after 1980)

All these facts and numbers are taken from Turkish books. I can tell you about each fact for hours, so if anyone wants to know anything about the facts i stated, please ask and i'll explain briefly...

Thank you!!

[Saladin]

Originally Posted by Armenian

The Armenian Genocide was not driven by the religious causes rather than an act against minorities in the Ottoman empire...

Let me tell you briefly what really happened...

Beginning of 20th century Turkey had a big problem... How to restore the Turkish indentity, and they came out with the best idea( for them): Turkification, and in order to do that they used state terrorism, racism and hate propaganda.

Let's state everything that happened that proves that my arguments is correct:

1915 --> Armenian Genocide (1.5 Million Killed)

1923 --> Expulsion of 1.5 Million Greeks from Anatolia

1927 --> 120 000 Jews Deported from Istanbul

1933 --> KristallNacht in Turkey

1940 --> Special Tax on Minorities

1955 --> Istanbul Pogrom

1964 --> Forced Deportation of Greeks


YEAR % Of Non-Muslim Minorities

1914 ---------- 20 %
1918 ---------- 2.5 %
1935 ---------- 1.98 %
1945 ---------- 1.56 %
1955 ---------- 1.08 %
1980 ---------- 0.1 %

But this is not over, after the non Muslim minorities it was the turn of the muslim minorities... Kurds ( after 1980)

All these facts and numbers are taken from Turkish books. I can tell you about each fact for hours, so if anyone wants to know anything about the facts i stated, please ask and i'll explain briefly...

Thank you!!

Let me add that in the beginning of the 20th century, Arabs, to a lesser extent than the Armenians, were also victims of this 'Turkification' attempt. They were treated as second class citizens and the ottomans tried to replace the Arabic identity with the Turkish one by several means. I dont see how one would consider such acts an attempt to Islamize the middle east.

[Observer]

Originally Posted by Saladin

Let me add that in the beginning of the 20th century, Arabs, to a lesser extent than the Armenians, were also victims of this 'Turkification' attempt. They were treated as second class citizens and the ottomans tried to replace the Arabic identity with the Turkish one by several means. I dont see how one would consider such acts an attempt to Islamize the middle east.

The ottomans had nothing to do with it. It was those filthy secular turks who committed all those atrocities and the turkification by force. Ataturk, the filthy scum of earth.

[Observer]

يا صلاح الدين

لقد تمت تشويه صورة العثمانيين بطريقة بشعة بدعم من المستشرقين وللاسف الشديد وقع فيها الكثير من العرب. لم يكن العثمانيون بلا اخطاء لكن تشويه السمعة كان كبيرا.

لقد قام العثمانيون برفع شأن العرب وكبار العلماء المقربون من الحكم كانوا عربا بل ان مفتي الجيش لم يكن يعينه العثمانيون الا عربيا و قد كانت اعلى واقوى سلطة قضائية هي مفتي الجيش وبكلمة منه كان يستطيع قلب الجيش والحكم بسبب نفوذه. البياضي الحنفي كان احد هؤلاء وكان له نفوذ قوي جدا داخل الجيش.

عليكم ان تقراوا التاريخ جيدا لتتعلموا منه وربما تستفيقون من هذا السبات

[Saladin]

Originally Posted by Observer

يا صلاح الدين

لقد تمت تشويه صورة العثمانيين بطريقة بشعة بدعم من المستشرقين وللاسف الشديد وقع فيها الكثير من العرب. لم يكن العثمانيون بلا اخطاء لكن تشويه السمعة كان كبيرا.

لقد قام العثمانيون برفع شأن العرب وكبار العلماء المقربون من الحكم كانوا عربا بل ان مفتي الجيش لم يكن يعينه العثمانيون الا عربيا و قد كانت اعلى واقوى سلطة قضائية هي مفتي الجيش وبكلمة منه كان يستطيع قلب الجيش والحكم بسبب نفوذه. البياضي الحنفي كان احد هؤلاء وكان له نفوذ قوي جدا داخل الجيش.

عليكم ان تقراوا التاريخ جيدا لتتعلموا منه وربما تستفيقون من هذا السبات

Yes I'm familiar with the ottoman empires' history and achievements and I'm proud of our history with them. And to be honest if I were given a choice I would rather have the ottomans rule this region again than living in this miserable situation.

However, If you read my post carefully, you would notice that I was only referring to acts done in the beginning of the 20th century, I was attacking the acts done by some Turks during this time which was witnessing the end of the ottoman empire. And my point was that what happened to the armenians wasnt an attempt to Islamize the area for the Arabs were victims as well.

[Danny Z]

Originally Posted by Saladin

Yes I'm familiar with the ottoman empires' history and achievements and I'm proud of our history with them. And to be honest if I were given a choice I would rather have the ottomans rule this region again than living in this miserable situation.

Anybody but the Lebanese ruling themselves, 3afek!

Originally Posted by Saladin

However, If you read my post carefully, you would notice that I was only referring to acts done in the beginning of the 20th century, I was attacking the acts done by some Turks during this time which was witnessing the end of the ottoman empire. And my point was that what happened to the armenians wasnt an attempt to Islamize the area for the Arabs were victims as well.

And the Hagia Sophia? it was also Ataturk? Wake up already

[Saladin]

Originally Posted by Danny Z

Anybody but the Lebanese ruling themselves, 3afek!




And the Hagia Sophia? it was also Ataturk? Wake up already

As you could notice I was referring to the entire middle east not just lebanon. And to be frank with you if I were given a choice I would choose the Califet rule over the current segregated political scene in the middle east. And before you start accusing me of attempting to islamize lebanon or the rest of the **** u usually throw, I would like to note that this is merely a dream nothing more nothing less. No one is working on such project (unlike the fakih state).

[Armenian]

Originally Posted by Observer

The ottomans had nothing to do with it. It was those filthy secular turks who committed all those atrocities and the turkification by force. Ataturk, the filthy scum of earth.

Originally Posted by Observer

يا صلاح الدين

لقد تمت تشويه صورة العثمانيين بطريقة بشعة بدعم من المستشرقين وللاسف الشديد وقع فيها الكثير من العرب. لم يكن العثمانيون بلا اخطاء لكن تشويه السمعة كان كبيرا.

لقد قام العثمانيون برفع شأن العرب وكبار العلماء المقربون من الحكم كانوا عربا بل ان مفتي الجيش لم يكن يعينه العثمانيون الا عربيا و قد كانت اعلى واقوى سلطة قضائية هي مفتي الجيش وبكلمة منه كان يستطيع قلب الجيش والحكم بسبب نفوذه. البياضي الحنفي كان احد هؤلاء وكان له نفوذ قوي جدا داخل الجيش.

عليكم ان تقراوا التاريخ جيدا لتتعلموا منه وربما تستفيقون من هذا السبات

With all due respect to you I will disagree with you on this one...

I know the Ottoman Empire history specially the one related to Armenians. I agree that the facts I stated in my previous post was mostly done by Turks after Ataturk coming to power, but please don't forget all the atrocities done by the Ottoman empire ( 3ousmaniyoun) themselves...

Maybe you should remember ( I'm sure you heard about it) about the Hamidian Massacres (1894-1896) where the empire massacred 300 000 Armenians...

Also you should remember closing the Armenian schools and putting Armenians as a 2nd class citizen in the empire and all of those happened before the Young Turks (1908) coming to power...

Thank you!!

[sev]

Israel’s New Ambassador to U.S. Calls Armenian Killings ‘Genocide’
Israel’s new Ambassador to the United States, Michael B. Oren, is a firm believer in the veracity of the Armenian Genocide, despite his government’s denialist position on this issue.

Prior to his ambassadorial appointment, Oren repeatedly confirmed the facts of the genocide in his writings. In the May 10, 2007 issue of the New York Review of Books, he wrote a highly positive review of Taner Akcam’s book A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility. The review was titled: “The Mass Murder They Still Deny.”

In his most recent book, Power, Faith and Fantasy, Oren made dozens of references to Armenia and Armenians, including lengthy heart-wrenching descriptions of the mass killings before and during the genocide. Here are some of the most striking quotations from his book:

“The buildup of Ottoman oppression and Armenian anger erupted finally in the spring of 1894, when Turkish troops set out to crush a local rebellion, but then went on to raze entire villages and slaughter all of their inhabitants… Some 200,000 Armenians died—20 percent of the population—and a million homes were ransacked. ‘Armenian holocaust,’ cried a New York Times headline in September 1895, employing the word that would later become synonymous with genocide.”

Oren then went on to establish that more than a century ago, similar to today’s acrimonious political tug-of-war over the genocide recognition issue, the Armenian atrocities seriously affected U.S.-Turkish relations. He wrote: “Maintaining amicability with Turkey would prove complicated, however, because ties between the United States and the Porte [Sultan] had long been frayed. The perennial source of friction was the oppression of Armenian Christians. Though a band of modernizing Young Turks, many of them graduates of Roberts College, had achieved power in Istanbul in 1908 and promised equal rights for all of the empire’s citizens, barely a year passed before the slaughter of Armenians resumed. Some thirty thousand of them were butchered by Turkish troops in south-central Anatolia.”

In a section titled, “The most horrible crime in human history,” Oren wrote: “The first reports, from December 1914, told of anti-Christian pogroms in Bitlis, in eastern Turkey, and the hanging of hundreds of Armenians in the streets of Erzerum. Armenian men between the ages of twenty and sixty were being conscripted into forced-labor battalions, building roads, and hauling supplies for the Turkish army. The following month, after their defeat by Russian forces in the Caucasus, Turkish troops salved their humiliation by pillaging Armenian towns and executing their Armenian laborers. In the early spring, Turkish soldiers laid siege to the Armenian city of Van in eastern Anatolia and began the first of innumerable mass deportations. The slaughter then raged westward to Istanbul, where, on April 24, security forces arrested and hanged some 250 Armenian leaders and torched Armenian neighborhoods. Interior Minister Talaat Pasha informed the Armenian Patriarch that ‘there was no room for Christians in Turkey’ and advised him and his parishioners ‘to clear out of the country.’”

Oren then exposed Turkey’s attempts to falsify history by pointing out that “Most contemporary observers agree that the massacres were scarcely connected to the war, but rather represented a systematically planned and executed program to eliminate an entire people. Indeed, foreshadowing the Nazi genocide of the xxxs twenty-five years later, Turkish soldiers herded entire Armenian villages into freezing rivers, incinerated them in burning churches, or simply marched them into the deserts and abandoned them to die of thirst… By the end of summer, an estimated 800,000 Armenians had been killed and countless others forcibly converted to Islam.”

After citing numerous eyewitness accounts of the mass killings, Oren concluded, “In all, as many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a genocide that the Turkish government would never acknowledge, much less regret.”

While it is true that Michael Oren published this book before his assignment as ambassador to Washington, his compelling position on the Armenian Genocide will hopefully make him refrain from following in the footsteps of his predecessors, who have shamefully lobbied against the Congressional resolution on this issue.

The appointment of a staunch supporter of the truth of the Armenian Genocide as Israel’s ambassador to Washington comes on the heels of a major rift between Turkey and Israel following the Gaza war earlier this year. On that occasion, there were major manifestations of anti-Semitic statements and acts throughout Turkey, including anti-Israeli remarks by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. His insulting words to Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos, Switzerland, antagonized Israelis and xxxs worldwide. Even though Israel downplayed Erdogan’s offensive words, they had a lasting damage to Israeli-Turkish relations.

The combination of an Israeli government that is less sympathetic of Turkey and the presence of an Israeli ambassador in Washington who is a firm believer in the facts of the Armenian Genocide may facilitate the passage of the pending Congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide.

Israel’s New Ambassador to U.S. Calls Armenian Killings ‘Genocide’ | Armenian Weekly