NationStates Jolt Archive

Just curious to see what people think.

I am sorry to say that I have never heard of an Armenian genocide. Please inform me.

First one in! And I was THIS CLOSE to saying Myrth did it too.

Seriously though, the Armenian Genocide was a tragedy. Having several Turkish friends, I've asked their take on the issue.

They told me that on no uncertain terms the whole thing was blown out of proportion. That the government's position was so extreme because stuff DID happen, but that its been exaggerated by anti-Turkish influences.

I was fascinated by this response. Anyone else encounter/believe this as well?

Er...Second one in. I voted first though, I swear! ;)

It was a tragedy, yes

From what I've heard, it was quite bad.

i dont blame the turks for denying it. it was a terrible thing that, if it were me, id much rather deny than admit. they may be worried about sanctions even though it happened......100 years ago now?

It happened. It was a horrible crime. My grandparents are Armenian.

As a German, I strongly dissapprove of denying past crimes of ones country. Another problem is that the Turks are still quite cruel in how they treat ethnic minorities, such as the Kurds. But they have made progress. I think its a necessary step for the Turks to accept responsibility for what has been done and that they are capable of it.

I don't know too much about it. I hadn't even heard of it before I got interested in System of a Down...
It seems pretty shitty... well, any genocide or attempted genocide is shitty.

Yes it's unfortunate how obscure the genocide of a million Armenians in 1915 is.

I am sorry to say that I have never heard of an Armenian genocide. Please inform me.
Armenians were a separate ethnic group that was almost exclusively christian and lived within the ottoman empire. The Turkish ottoman muslims decided that the Armenians had acted badly in asking for Great Britain to help negotiate better treatment (christians faced discriminatory treatment under muslim rule). So the Turkish response was to slaughter about a million Armenians, and ship many (mostly women and children) to the middle east to be sold as slaves.

Armenians were a separate ethnic group that was almost exclusively christian and lived within the ottoman empire. The Turkish ottoman muslims decided that the Armenians had acted badly in asking for Great Britain to help negotiate better treatment (christians faced discriminatory treatment under muslim rule). So the Turkish response was to slaughter about a million Armenians, and ship many (mostly women and children) to the middle east to be sold as slaves.
Something that I definitely am not proud of.

It was horrible and never should have happened. If you want to see even more Turkish brutality, watch "Midnight Express", a true story about a man who was arrested for smuggling drugs in Istanbul. The treatment he received was horrifying...

I had a teacher whose grandmother(or was it an aunt?) who escaped it.

In this one instance, if the Turks found things of value on you, they tossed you in a truck, took you out in the desert and killed you. Somebody tipped her off and she tossed stuff over a fence. They searched her and threw her and her kids in a truck. She said she thought they were going to kill them but they drove them to the docks and tossed them on a ship......

I'm from Fresno CA and it has a very large Armenian population. CSU Fresno puts on an Armenian genocide display every year and it is largely ignored by the student population. The problem is it is put on every year, the same photos, the same speeches, nobody listens when you have nothing new to say.
The tragedy of something is largely lost because we hear it time and time again.

My great-grandfather escaped the Turkish massacre to end up in the US. No one knows about this stuff because it's not in any history books. It's a shame that more Armenians were killed in the massacre than Jews during the Holocaust. But nobody knows that, do they?

My great grandparents escaped it and pretended to be Turks. They give birth to my grandmother who gave birth to my mother who gave birth to me. I don't have any family on that side anymore though. All died from natural causes save my mother who died of other causes.

My great-grandfather escaped the Turkish massacre to end up in the US. No one knows about this stuff because it's not in any history books. It's a shame that more Armenians were killed in the massacre than Jews during the Holocaust. But nobody knows that, do they?
It might not be true... What figures are you going by?

It happened. It was a horrible crime. My grandparents are Armenian.
My grandfather is Turkish. ^_^ hopefully my family did no wrong.

My grandfather is Turkish. ^_^ hopefully my family did no wrong.
I never met anyone on my Armenian side. I just know my father and his side (Syrian).

I don't know heaps about it, but I know that all the members of SOAD are of Armenian descent, and wrote a song in memory of it. (http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/SYSTEM-OF-A-DOWN/P-L-U-C-K.html)

1.5 million people died, and I didn't even know about it until I heard that SOAD song. I feel so un-informed.

Myrth. How could you? :p

The genocide on the Armenians is not only denied by the government of Turkey, but that position is also held by several other countries, for different reasons:

- by Germany because there are circa 3 million Turkish living in Germany (which are loyal supporters of the ruling government coalition - note that this very ironical considering Germany was the country which started the holocaust on the Jews)
- by Israel (because Turkey is an important ally of israel, and because the Turks are also accepting Jews in Turkey as a minority - also very ironical considering the Jews were the victims of the holocaust)
- by the US (because Turkey is an important NATO partner in the region)

You see, all these countries regard their own benefits as more important than acknowledging that the genocide happened. And if you ask me, that stinks! :mad:

Armenians were a separate ethnic group that was almost exclusively christian and lived within the ottoman empire. The Turkish ottoman muslims decided that the Armenians had acted badly in asking for Great Britain to help negotiate better treatment (christians faced discriminatory treatment under muslim rule). So the Turkish response was to slaughter about a million Armenians, and ship many (mostly women and children) to the middle east to be sold as slaves.Untrue. The Armenians were killed because the Sultan feared they would support Tsarist Russia and start a guerrilla inside Ottoman Turkish territory. One million Armenian people were slaughtered, to prevent them from allying themselves with Russia. Christians were treated with almost absolute equality in Ottoman Turkey and the patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox church dined with the Sultan every week. Talk about intolerance.

Untrue. The Armenians were killed because the Sultan feared they would support Tsarist Russia and start a guerrilla inside Ottoman Turkish territory. One million Armenian people were slaughtered, to prevent them from allying themselves with Russia. Christians were treated with almost absolute equality in Ottoman Turkey and the patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox church dined with the Sultan every week. Talk about intolerance.
The account I read said that the Armenians were slaughtered because they sought outside help primarily from England to get better treatment by the ottoman muslims. That doesn't rule out the possibility that they reached out to Russia too.

If Christians got such swell treatment in the Ottoman empire, why was the destruction of the Armenian population conducted exclusively by muslim elements in the Ottoman military, even though there had been christian elements present within the empire's army? Why were some armenians spared death if they converted to Islam? Why were christian priests tortured and killed? Why were churches converted to mosques? It clearly was a genocide based as much on religion as ethnicity.

Christians in the ottoman empire were treated as second class citizens. There were exceptions, like the patriarch, but they were based on political necessity.

I took a class on World War I in college and this is where I first heard about it. The way I heard it was that the Turks would line up Armenians in the street and shoot them, going from town to town and doing so. There were records of this extermination, thus proving that the deniers of this genocide were lying. It's less well-known because it happened in less of a focal point of the war in a less decisive war; it also happened largely before the media became such a heavy influence.

(...)Would you, as a Christian, murder your Christian brothers? I doubt it. I'm not an expert, it's just what I've read on the subject.

Would you, as a Christian, murder your Christian brothers? I doubt it. I'm not an expert, it's just what I've read on the subject.
If it wasn't a religious matter, purely an issue of disloyalty to the government it wouldn't make a difference. The fact that they had to use muslim troops to do it points to the fact that it was as much a religious decision to exterminate the Armenians as a political one.

Untrue. The Armenians were killed because the Sultan feared they would support Tsarist Russia and start a guerrilla inside Ottoman Turkish territory. One million Armenian people were slaughtered, to prevent them from allying themselves with Russia. Christians were treated with almost absolute equality in Ottoman Turkey and the patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox church dined with the Sultan every week. Talk about intolerance.
Unlikely. The Russians also massacered several hundreds of thousands of Armenians.