Turkey

[Smith]

The comparaison drawn by Alghaliboon between the Armenian genocide and the war between armenia, with all it's atricities, and it's neighbours choked me. But i will go straight to the point: my dear muslim friends don't deny that the muslim majority in the middle esat commited large scale massacres against the minorities in this region. Don't run from these facts by accusing the armenian of acting like israelis, like many muslims accused the maronites of doing so during the lebanese war, don't run by saying that turkey is now a beautiful democratic country, try to think how the turks managed to instigate large massacres against the christians in Damascus and mount-lebanon in 1860. Hezbollah is trying to convince many lebanese, and i'm with him on that, that the conflict between the arabs and Israel, altought he's 50 years old, is still affecting the lifes of millions of people, and that the arabs should not forget what the israelis did and are still doing and should fight untill justice is done. So why do you ask the armenians to forget and ignore what the turks did to them and to their homeland less that 100 year ago? Is it because the turks are muslims and that you are being sectrian about it?

[AlGhaliboon]

Originally Posted by Smith

The comparaison drawn by Alghaliboon between the Armenian genocide and the war between armenia, with all it's atricities, and it's neighbours choked me. But i will go straight to the point: my dear muslim friends don't deny that the muslim majority in the middle esat commited large scale massacres against the minorities in this region. Don't run from these facts by accusing the armenian of acting like israelis, like many muslims accused the maronites of doing so during the lebanese war, don't run by saying that turkey is now a beautiful democratic country, try to think how the turks managed to instigate large massacres against the christians in Damascus and mount-lebanon in 1860. Hezbollah is trying to convince many lebanese, and i'm with him on that, that the conflict between the arabs and Israel, altought he's 50 years old, is still affecting the lifes of millions of people, and that the arabs should not forget what the israelis did and are still doing and should fight untill justice is done. So why do you ask the armenians to forget and ignore what the turks did to them and to their homeland less that 100 year ago? Is it because the turks are muslims and that you are being sectrian about it?

Smith
I did not say any such thing. I did not draw comparisons between the genocide and the events of war. What you are saying is true, that some 'Muslims' did commit crimes against minorities , however, how does that change the fact that Armenians also committed crimes against Azerbaijanis (I'm not saying they killed Turks during genocide btw because I am now fully convinced that all those are myths spread by Turkey) ? You want me to acknowledge that Muslims have committed crimes in the past, well, that is all fine and well by me, but shouldn't the Armenians also do the same? Should the fact that they have been victims in the past excuse any crimes they might have committed or might commit in the future? Find yourself asking the same question with regards to the "Israelis" and the Holocaust. In fact this argument and attempt to silence those who point also to Armenian crimes (and unlike others I do not do it to delegitimize the fact that there was a genocide) is very similar to the argument used by "Israelis", that since they have been victims of genocide they can never do bad and evil things, that they have "purity of arms", etc.

Also where did you see me say Armenians should forget or ignore what Turkey did to them???!

[Smith]

Originally Posted by AlGhaliboon

Smith
I did not say any such thing. I did not draw comparisons between the genocide and the events of war. What you are saying is true, that some 'Muslims' did commit crimes against minorities , however, how does that change the fact that Armenians also committed crimes against Azerbaijanis (I'm not saying they killed Turks during genocide btw because I am now fully convinced that all those are myths spread by Turkey) ? You want me to acknowledge that Muslims have committed crimes in the past, well, that is all fine and well by me, but shouldn't the Armenians also do the same? Should the fact that they have been victims in the past excuse any crimes they might have committed or might commit in the future? Find yourself asking the same question with regards to the "Israelis" and the Holocaust. In fact this argument and attempt to silence those who point also to Armenian crimes (and unlike others I do not do it to delegitimize the fact that there was a genocide) is very similar to the argument used by "Israelis", that since they have been victims of genocide they can never do bad and evil things, that they have "purity of arms", etc.

Also where did you see me say Armenians should forget or ignore what Turkey did to them???!

Dear Alghaliboon,
maybe i'm getting you wrong, but i'm still convinced that you are, indirectly making comparaisons. What turks did was a large scale well planned genocide. What the armenians did was maybe terrorism, maybe massacres, maybe crimes. They didn't wipe out a people and a land, like turks and israelis did. Palestinians are killing israelis in horrible ways (suicide attacks), should they apologize today or anytime in the future: my answer is no. The israelis should apologize for what they did and what they are still doing, same goes for turkey. Palestinians did horrible things in Lebanon: should we every time they talk about their cause reminde them of what they did in Damour, in Beyrouth, in Fath land, etc: No. As you noticed if we want to draw a comparaison let's do it between Turkey and Israel, armenians and palestinians. Armenians waged a war i don't know when, but now they aren't, they did some terrorist acts, but it has been a long time since i heard something related to armenian terrorism. But untill now Israel is killing, invading, turkey is denying that it killed armenians stoled their land, armenians are still being killed in turkish cities, etc.

[AlGhaliboon]

What turks did was a large scale well planned genocide. What the armenians did was maybe terrorism, maybe massacres, maybe crimes. They didn't wipe out a people and a land, like turks and israelis did.

I never said Armenians committed genocide. However, are there any Azerbaijanis in Nagorny-Karabakh today? Were there Armenians before the war in Nagorny-Karabakh? And are there any Azerbaijanis in the lands occupied by Armenians OUTSIDE of Nagorny-Karabakh? How do you define ethnic cleansing?

You will notice that my reaction was only a response to the Armenians who came here and started talking about genocide, and even brought in Azerbaijan and Shusha.......... what does this have to do with Turkey? Or for that matter, this thread???

**

If we are not to bring up the issue of what the Palestinians did in Lebanon every time, then the Armenians should not do the same to Turks, and also to Azerbaijanis (this aside from admitting that they committed ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis from the parts of Azerbaijan proper - outside N-K - that they occupied).

**

Don't get me wrong, I already mentioned (not that I need to repeat it) that I am strongly against Turkey's history and denial of the Armenian genocide (how does this translate to sectarianism??), and I respect the Armenian people (from what I know of them, i.e. the Lebanese Armenians / Lebanese of Armenian descent). They are very nice, friendly, hardworking people. But should this make me turn a blind eye to some of the racist things they might say? Should I turn a blind eye to something bad someone does in the name of Islam, just because I am Muslim?

[jiugiusti]

Originally Posted by GeaGea SkyWalkeR

Have you been to Turky ? I have and i can sure tell you that 6 out of 10 people i seen look very European, White skin, green or blue eyes, light hair or black hair, The turks with Mongol ancestry stand out they have slightly slanty eyes and are usally shorter and darker.

The Turkish people are amongst the nicest people i have ever met, A country of gentlemen , They are becoming a modern successful state and once again i salute them for it. They have really turned there country around from the days of the past,


Your posts regarding turkey are becoming irrelevant. You have a standard ''i hate so you shall all hate'' message that people are getting fed up with,

(1) Since when the color of the skin decides the 'nature, social and political orientations' of people... They can be white, blond, blue eyes, but still Europe has certain standars/principles to live accordingly if they (anyone) want to live or be part of Europe.

(2) How long did you stay/live in Turkey? I visited france twice for 15 days; I saw that french are very nice, open, and friendly.. Then, I lived 6 years in france and I can assure that my opinion about them has changed drastically.

(3) Is turky geographicall in Europe? if yes, than they should join europe and try to get closer to european standards, principles... If no, they should stay out.

On a different note, Turkey should aknowledge the massacres they did to armenians; they should modify a lot of rules which are very islamic (when it comes to marriage, women, rights, etc.)

[Smith]

Originally Posted by AlGhaliboon

I never said Armenians committed genocide. However, are there any Azerbaijanis in Nagorny-Karabakh today? Were there Armenians before the war in Nagorny-Karabakh? And are there any Azerbaijanis in the lands occupied by Armenians OUTSIDE of Nagorny-Karabakh? How do you define ethnic cleansing?

You will notice that my reaction was only a response to the Armenians who came here and started talking about genocide, and even brought in Azerbaijan and Shusha.......... what does this have to do with Turkey? Or for that matter, this thread???

**

If we are not to bring up the issue of what the Palestinians did in Lebanon every time, then the Armenians should not do the same to Turks, and also to Azerbaijanis (this aside from admitting that they committed ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis from the parts of Azerbaijan proper - outside N-K - that they occupied).

**

Don't get me wrong, I already mentioned (not that I need to repeat it) that I am strongly against Turkey's history and denial of the Armenian genocide (how does this translate to sectarianism??), and I respect the Armenian people (from what I know of them, i.e. the Lebanese Armenians / Lebanese of Armenian descent). They are very nice, friendly, hardworking people. But should this make me turn a blind eye to some of the racist things they might say? Should I turn a blind eye to something bad someone does in the name of Islam, just because I am Muslim?

you are still comparing what happened with the armenians in turkey with what they did in a dispute over a territory, that's my main concern. I repeat you connot compare what Israel is doing with what the palestinians are doing.

in the two cases you have a big big "Mazloumiah" caused by turkey and by Israel. We can't compare it to what the armenians did in Nagorni, neither to the suicide attacks and rockets palestinians are throing on Israel. The armenians don't have to apologize to anybody neither the palestinians.

[AlGhaliboon]

Smith
Where do you see a comparison?

If there is any comparison, it was done by some Armenians here, who insisted that what the Turks did to them is the same as what the Azerbaijanis tried to do (but failed).... So why is it not comparison when the Armenians do it with regards to Azerbaijani intentions, but comparison when I do it with regards to Armenian intentions and actions?? Please adopt one standard, or do not adopt any standard at all (i.e. do not judge or accuse I am comparing).

This is like the "Israelis" saying that what the Palestinians are trying to do (but failing) is equal to what the Nazis did to them!!! (they do say this ,btw!!)

[Story]

Originally Posted by jiugiusti

(when it comes to marriage, women, rights, etc.)

Marriage?

Turkish Law recognizes women, men as 100% equals, gives women equal rights in divorce and property ownership etc.

This doesn't mean all the problems have been solved but Turkey is moving in the right direction. Reforms are going on.

[AlGhaliboon]

Btw ya Smith, I have a problem when people try to turn their opposition to ideologies and fascism, into racism and stereotyping of an entire people. Just like it'd be wrong of me and anyone else for that matter to be anti-Semitic just because we have a bone to pick with "Israel"...

__

This is an excerpt from a longer piece by Taner Akçam and Belinda Cooper, Turks, Armenians, and the "G-Word".

Taner Akçam The G-Word The term "genocide" was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin, a Jew born in Poland, who as a law student in his native country was struck by a paradox on reading about the trial of Talaat Pasha's killer in Berlin. "It is a crime for Tehlirian to kill a man, but it is not a crime for his oppressor to kill more than a million men?" Lemkin is said to have asked at the time. Although the word itself did not exist in 1915, most qualified historians today agree that the events of 1915-20 constituted genocide. In 2003, the International Center for Transitional Justice, a nongovernmental human rights organization headquartered in New York, commissioned a legal opinion that concluded that the killing of Armenians did fit the accepted legal definition of the term.1 As defined in a United Nations convention, "genocide" connotes an intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part. It does not presuppose the murder of an entire people, nor even murder; the operative language refers to the intentional attempt to destroy a collective identity.2 Although the Holocaust remains the most notorious example, after a century of genocides or near-genocides-in Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, and Rwanda-we are sadly aware that the crime can take many forms. Nevertheless, Turkey emphatically denies that the killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire were an intentional attempt to destroy a people. It maintains that the Armenians attempted to subvert the empire in wartime and themselves massacred countless Turks, and that Ottoman authorities simply wished to relocate Armenians from a vulnerable border with Russia. Somewhat contradictorily, the Turkish version argues both that many deaths occurred on both sides in this "civil war," and that the relocation involved little loss of life. This view is not confined to government officials. Decades of silence, limited access to historical material, and more recently, active propaganda campaigns have persuaded much of the Turkish public of the truth of the official view. The government's ability to frame the opposing campaign as an attack by foreign enemies on Turkish honor and national existence has given its interpretation broad popular resonance. For Armenians, meanwhile, the word "genocide" has acquired an almost sacrosanct aura. Thus the struggle over use of the "g-word" today frequently has little to do with historical debate, but rather resembles a symbolic struggle over mutually exclusive collective identities that can deteriorate into political one-upmanship. Willingness or unwillingness to employ the term has for many become a litmus test, with Armenians taking the view that Turks must explicitly admit that the Ottoman Empire committed genocide before further discussion is possible, while Turks discount the credibility of anyone who employs the term. The Burdens of the Past Despite its suppression of the Ottoman historical legacy, the newborn Turkish Republic inherited the authoritarian mantle of the empire's military and bureaucracy. The Ottoman experience with the Western powers had left Turkey's leaders with a paranoid fear of internal and external "enemies." Turkey's multiethnic population was viewed as abetting those threats and as an obstacle to the creation of a homogenous Turkish identity. The government in effect declared various social and ethnic groups nonexistent. It was made illegal, for example, to claim the existence of Kurdish ethnicity or to talk about class struggle, and the assertion of Islamic values was prohibited. While no law specifically forbade mention of the Armenian genocide, this taboo was particularly pervasive. Over the years, Turkish security forces fought leftist groups, Islamic fundamentalists, and Kurdish separatists. In each case, conflict ultimately led to the lifting of taboos. Today, a moderate Islamic party heads the government, Kurds may engage in their own cultural practices, and leftist parties contribute to the political debate. Only the Armenian genocide taboo remains. There are a number of reasons for the taboo's persistence, some of which can be ascribed to the historically determined psychology of Turkish society.3 Many Turks see the accusations of genocide as a continuation of the historical tendency of the Christian West to denigrate Turks as barbaric. This contemptuous view of Turks (and Muslims) extends back to the Renaissance and continued through the First World War, when British prime minister David Lloyd George described the Ottoman Turks as "a cancer on humanity, a wound that has worked its way into the flesh of the earth that it has misruled." Ottoman Turks and later Atatiirk himself took this view very seriously and were determined to combat it. But Turks still feel misunderstood and misrepresented, and believe that Westerners in particular despise them. Thus they reject the accusation of genocide as a slanderous attempt to equate Turkey with Nazi Germany. Moreover, Armenians serve as a persistent symbolic reminder of the most traumatic event in Turkish history: the collapse of the empire and the loss of most of its territory. The final Ottoman century was dominated by constant fear of obliteration and dismemberment by European powers. This fear of annihilation runs deep, evoking memories that Turks prefer to forget. Speaking metaphorically, the Turkish Republic conceives of itself as a phoenix rising from the ashes of the failed Ottoman Empire, and the Armenians are a reminder of the ashes. Turkish culture also often shows a predilection to a fatalism rooted in the folk Islam of Anatolia. More importantly, questioning the official version of the Armenian genocide risks opening an entire corpus of official history to scrutiny. Since the republic was erected on a deliberately distorted version of the past, this would mean calling into question the very foundations of modern Turkey. The mere acknowledgment that some of the founders of the republic, heretofore glorified as heroes, were involved in genocide could threaten the legitimacy of the state-just as the awareness, for example, that America's founders were slaveholders, and that revered historical figures sanctioned the genocide of Native Americans, inevitably challenges our view of our own national identity. For a nation like Turkey, so unused to self-questioning, this could be seriously unsettling. Many Turks regard discussion of historical injustice as a Pandora's box. "Where will it end?" they ask. Armenians are not the only aggrieved group, after all; the history of mass violence in Ottoman Turkey was a long one, and modern Turkey, too, has its dark spots. A freer historical debate on the Armenians could lead to a broader reconsideration of the repression not only of other non-Muslim populations in the empire but of Kurds, Greeks, and Alevites in the republic, and it could open up debate over more recent clashes between fascist nationalists and leftists, over disappearances, death squads, and torture. For a society structured along authoritarian lines, such a wide-ranging debate raises fears of potentially destabilizing consequences. A more concrete reason for the taboo's persistence-on occasion articulated by Turkish political leaders-is the fear that acknowledgment of the genocide would prompt Armenian territorial demands and calls for restitution of property confiscated a century ago. Yet Turkish society has undergone rapid change in recent years. The end of the Cold War lessened Western willingness to indulge Turkish authoritarianism, and Turkey's desire to enter the European Union has encouraged a new openness to a more democratic culture. These changes have prompted the rise of an active civil society, encompassing business associations and foundations, newspapers, trade unions, and human rights organizations. In this regard, Turkey has come to resemble a typical European state. Until recently, state and society in Turkey had increasingly diverged, in a schizophrenic process similar to that seen in the later stages of East European communism. As a survival strategy, citizens publicly embraced the official version of Turkish history, but increasingly questioned it in private. Concerning the Armenian genocide, Turkey's regional and ethnic subgroups have passed down oral narratives that diverge from the government line; thus residents of Anatolia speak openly in private about their former Armenian neighbors and their fate. In the more relaxed current atmosphere, the coexisting official and private historical versions are beginning to confront one another. In the process, what Turkish scholars have called the "curtain of silence" surrounding the Armenian genocide has become more permeable, and discussion of the genocide has become possible. Nevertheless, the Turkish government wishes to ensure that its view of the Armenian killings remains dominant. In response to rising demands from without for acknowledgment of the genocide, and the beginning of questioning from within, official silence has given way to open denial. Where schools previously provided no information on Armenians, in 2002 the Ministry of Education mandated a grade-school curriculum that actively denied the genocide, calling Armenian claims "baseless" and emphasizing Armenian separatism and the massacre of Turks under the Ottoman Empire. A 2003 directive encouraged student participation in essay contests on the "Armenian Rebellion during the First World War." Teachers were required to attend seminars on the "Fight Against Baseless Claims of Genocide." At one seminar, a teacher who questioned this formulation was briefly jailed and suspended. This occurred despite Ankara's promises to revise its textbooks to eliminate bias, in accord with EU regulations. Mention of the Armenian genocide had not traditionally been criminalized-the taboo was more psychological than legal, enforced by social pressures-but here, too, the government seems to be digging in its heels. In 2004, the EU criticized Article 305 of the revised Turkish criminal code, which prohibited "acts against fundamental national interests" by which a person "directly or indirectly [receives] benefits from foreign persons or institutions." In the official explanation of the law, the acts covered included "spreading propaganda to the press or publications which purport to claim that Armenians were subject to genocide." After heavy domestic and international criticism, the passage was removed from the published version of the law. Thus it is not yet clear how the law will be applied in such cases, though it will certainly have a chilling effect. The first formal charge was brought against an Ankara lawyer for decrying the Ottoman "massacres of Armenians," under a different section of the code prohibiting instigation of ethnic hatred (an offense contained in many European criminal codes). Previously, this provision had been used primarily against dissidents who referred to a "multicultural" Turkey. Most significantly, Turkey's renowned novelist Orhan Pamuk, whose works celebrate the richness of Ottoman history, was charged under yet another legal provision for "publicly denigrating Turkish identity" after he openly condemned the killings of Armenians and Kurds in a February 2005 interview with a Swiss newspaper. With EU accession now on the agenda and ethnic discrimination forbidden under EU human rights laws, these cases will be an important test for the Turkish judicial system. The Turkish government also subsidizes and promotes homegrown "scholars" to produce propaganda that accords with the official view. It views scholarship outside the official framework as subversive and threatening to the state. Scholars writing objectively on the genocide, or even on Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, are regularly accused of being in the pay of Armenians. Conversely, history written by officially approved historians, even if clearly propaganda, is touted as a legitimate source of information. As Turkish scholars themselves have begun to challenge official history, the government has gone on the defensive. This past summer, three leading Turkish universities organized a conference on Armenians in the Ottoman Empire that was to be attended solely by scholars of Turkish origin who dissented from the official historical line. At a special parliamentary sitting shortly before the conference was to begin, the minister of justice accused participants of "plunging a dagger into the nation's back," while deputies from the governing and opposition parties condemned them as "traitors to the nation." The organizers, concerned for the safety of the participants in this overheated climate, postponed the conference. In addition to stirring strong criticism abroad, the incident sparked an unusually broad debate within the country. Even newspapers and columnists that normally support the government's position on the Armenian question criticized its behavior as a violation of freedom of speech. Moreover, those parliamentarians and officials who had criticized the conference apparently did not speak for the entire government, reflecting internal dissension on the larger issue of EU membership. The conference was rescheduled for the fall, and other top Turkish politicians, including Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, gave it their support. Besides its campaign to radicalize domestic audiences through active propaganda disputing the "allegations of genocide," the Turkish government has also turned its activities outward. In April 2005, Turkey's national assembly, in a letter signed by both the current prime minister and the leader of the opposition, demanded that Great Britain apologize to Turkey for the "blue book" on Turkish crimes against Armenians commissioned by the British government during the First World War. Yet it soon became apparent that the blue book, although written for propaganda purposes, contained a great deal of truth.4 At the same time, the Turkish government recently proposed to the Armenian government that Armenia and Turkey set up a joint historians' commission to consider their common past. Given Ankara's otherwise increasingly aggressive posture and strident language on the issue, however, it is doubtful that the commission it envisions would meet the demands of those pushing for an honest reassessment of history. This is particularly unlikely given the fact that the government has in the past restricted scholarly access by denying the existence of certain documents or refusing permission to work in the Ottoman archives. Although conditions are reportedly improving, scholars tell of being expelled from the archives and of having their notebooks confiscated. Staff members have refused to produce specific documents and have frequently harassed and interrogated scholars, demanding to know why they were seeking information and for whom they were working. Broadly speaking, the Turkish government seems to view truth seeking as unproductive and even dangerous (a Turkish official told one of the authors that bringing up the Armenian genocide could anger the Turkish population and turn it against the Armenians). Yet it distinguishes between historical efforts and a more future-oriented "reconciliation" with the country of Armenia or members of the diaspora. Thus Ankara has tolerated or endorsed efforts at concrete cooperation with Armenia and diaspora Armenians on economic, educational, and cultural issues through organizations such as the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission and the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council. Meetings take place between professional groups from the two countries, and on occasion their foreign ministers meet to discuss bilateral relations. But, in general, Turkey has kept its relations with Armenia to a minimum.

Sorry, it seems the full text is available for all to see... Link

[Story]

Originally Posted by Smith

armenians are still being killed in turkish cities, etc.

I don't want to get involved but I guess you are talking about Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Hrant Dink's funeral was the most crowded funeral that Istanbul has ever seen. I'm telling for the one's knowing Istanbul/ Sisli Avenue, the crowd was from Pangalti to Sisli Mosque and most cross streets were also full. People were there to burry an honourable man.

I seriously cried for someone that I never meet in my lifetime.

You may not believe but these people were cordial.