Turkey should be added?

[Bastian-Bux]

Oh Spearthrower, sorry again: in german we distinguish between "Konzentraionslager" and "Vernichtungslager. The latter means "Annihilationcamp" or "death camp" as they are more often called in english. Those can be considered a subgroup of the concentration camps, but I'd even call them different due to the more barbaric intention.

"Vernichtungslager" had the sole purpose to kill. While this wasn't the intention of the early british and american concentration camps, I'd call a death toll of 26.000 of 120.000, so more then 20% for the boers concentration camps rather a lot as well. Same goes for the "death marsh" of the trail of tears (4.000 of the 10.000 native americans died).

Lets say it this way: from the beginning, and independent of the nation, those erecting concentration camps did accept, that a significant percentage of those concentrated would not survive the time there. The german KZs did take this a step further by deliberately increasing the lethality through "death by overwork". Plus a special subgroup of the german KZs developed into something even more terrible: the death camps.

Hope this clarifies my position.

 

[Ancyrean]

knigh+, the denial of the armenian genocide is the (legal) reason why Turkey wont make it into the EU. Oh and btw. : its just a question of time till other countries follow France's lead in outlawing public denial of the armenian genocide.

Contrary to your implication, the Armenian issue is not part of the Turkish accesion process to the EU. It is not counted among the criteria to open the negotiations and it is not put forth as one after the start of the membership negotiations.

Also for your information, the French parliament adopted a few years ago a law saying that they recognise the events of 1915 as genocide. This was a political statement. More recently, the same parliament adopted another law making "denial" of the "genocide" a crime. That law is not in effect yet, sitting on the lap of the office of the French president. I'm not counting on Sarkozy though, as his chief advisor, Devejiyan, is an Armenian himself.

For this question it is unimportant if 300.000 or 2.000.000 armenians died. The question is: can the current turkish gouvernment accept the fact that their predecessors wanted to see the armenians dead, and acted accordingly, or not. If the current gouvernment can say: "Yes, this happened, and we will try our best to let something like that not happen again", fine, they are welcome in this snobistic democratic club. If they say: "nah, it was accidents and, you know, wartime and everything and ... they have been armenians only anyway, not proper turkish humans, so lets forget it" well then it gets a bit more tricky.

To forget means to repeat. To accept the faults of your (great-great-grand)fathers and to try to avoid them, means to better yourself.

Your oversimplification might be the result of the misconception that, in general, the Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire were living obediently and peacefully, going around their productive economic business in 1915 when a bloodthirsty campaign of hatred hit them all of a sudden out of no reason other than they were Armenians.

That is an outrageous distortion of the events of 1915, a gross overlooking of the general Armenaian nationalist yearning for an independent motherland in Eastern Turkey, and the armed movements that had been working on it for decades. Accordingly, things like Russians organising Armenian regiments to let loose in the region of course didnn't happen, they along with the general atrocities committed by Armenian nationalists on the Turkish populace are nothing but delusionary mass-imaginations of the Turks living in the region today .

I'm really amazed that how some people can go "Turks? Genocide!!1! Not in Europe!1!!" by a mere mention of the name Turkey, as if they have this in their chest for a while somehow...

 

[tomaalimosh]

PS: I am against Turkey's EU membership.


So, does anybody want to say something about the actual topic, so that we can get the discussion back from the hijackers?

Hey ... you should really try posting something like this on Wiki.... so ppl will see both sides of the coin. But without all this "All the world is against us" approach.

It's not my fault I accidently found an article on wikipedia while searching some WWI facts.
And I know it's not a reliable source of historicle info, but more often than not I got some very accurate facts from there. and it's very accessible.

So I'm not trying to persecute turks... or anything. I think you are a very nice, proud nation, and I also think joining the EU would do you more harm than good. But you have to stop defending yourselves with such violence... it kinda gets people thinking you have something to hide.

So just write a turkish side to the article on wikipedia, in the same objective and calm way that the other one is written. I mean... the "conspiracy against Turkey" issue, even if it were true, it makes you sound less credible.

Again... sorry for posting without enough research


And on topic. I think the name could stay as it is, but we could get Atatürk as a leader .

 

[knigh+]

Hey ... you should really try posting something like this on Wiki.... so ppl will see both sides of the coin. But without all this "All the world is against us" approach.

It's not my fault I accidently found an article on wikipedia while searching some WWI facts.
And I know it's not a reliable source of historicle info, but more often than not I got some very accurate facts from there. and it's very accessible.

So I'm not trying to persecute turks... or anything. I think you are a very nice, proud nation, and I also think joining the EU would do you more harm than good. But you have to stop defending yourselves with such violence... it kinda gets people thinking you have something to hide.

So just write a turkish side to the article on wikipedia, in the same objective and calm way that the other one is written. I mean... the "conspiracy against Turkey" issue, even if it were true, it makes you sound less credible.

Again... sorry for posting without enough research


And on topic. I think the name could stay as it is, but we could get Atatürk as a leader .

Sorry for my assault-ish attitude in this discussion. In my days in this forum (and everywhere else) I have seen some people who relentlessly start Turkey-bashing at the mere mention of country, regardless of how unrelated the subject may be. And this issue has a Pandora's Box effect on any discussion about Turkey. So I reflexively raised my guard.

Unfortunately, Wiki is a publicity contest between opinions. And there are a lot more Armenians all over the world then there are Turks. Most people have heard the Armenian side of the story before the Turks so many times that they take it as the undoubtable fact. Then the slightest opinion from a Turk is countered by cries of "boo genocide denying monster".
Plus Armenian diaspora terrorists have killed a lot of Turks within this discussion. There's the shadow of that over any chance of discussing the issue freely.

I am sorry, I don't believe in conspiracies. I lived outside Turkey for 8 years, and these are my observations and facts.

Ok, that's it from me as well. My apologies for hijacking the thread too.

 

[Spearthrower]

I love Turkey and Turkish people and I am considering moving there next.... but I still hold that there is far too much evidence of the systematic slaughtering of the Armenian populace between 1914 and 1923.

I accept that I may have mostly been fed biased reports, but it has to be said that as much as you may claim that Armenia has presented a biased side to world press, Turkey's aggressive denial is also cause for great suspicion.

The fact that any question of this is generally met as if it is a grave national insult and the general hysteria surrounding any inquest into it does not bode well with educated people around the world, who may well be ready to give the benefit of the doubt if records would be transparent and questions could be asked.

I hope that doesn't upset you, but it needs to be said. Not all who question are intent on bashing you and your people. I want the truth, whichever way the factual coin lands.

 

[knigh+]

I love Turkey and Turkish people and I am considering moving there next.... but I still hold that there is far too much evidence of the systematic slaughtering of the Armenian populace between 1914 and 1923.

And I still hold that there is far too much evidence of the systematic slaughtering of the Turkish populace by Armenians during and before that period. This puts it into the context of a brutal civil war, not genocide.

I accept that I may have mostly been fed biased reports, but it has to be said that as much as you may claim that Armenia has presented a biased side to world press, Turkey's aggressive denial is also cause for great suspicion.

Well, being a nation that had to defend against 11 years of invasions from all sides during which it lost millions of people and was repeatedly subjected to ethnic cleansing in its homeland, Turks are a little touchy when their suffering in that period is ignored in favor of another nation that inflicted most of the said suffering. We showed the maturity of not teaching our children to hate our neighbors, unfortunately those neighbors based their natural identity on hating us.

Past is past, war is bad, every nation's people slaughtered each other nation's people at some point in the past. These are the facts of the world, these are the lessons of history. If we dwell on who killed who in the past, we and up ethnic demonization, which leads to racism, which leads to war without care for civilian life. A recent and relevant example for this is Armenia's attack on Azerbaijan 15 years ago. As they have been brought up with hatred of Turks, they happily invaded 16% of their neighbor, killed thousands of civilians, turned a million into refugees (who still live in junkyards of Baku), and they got away with it. Before that, in the 70s, Armenian terrorists killed Turks all over the world as a revenge for the "genocide". In comparison, Turks, who are at peace with their history, have no problem with Armenians. Turkey has tens of thousands of citizens of Armenian ancestry (and they aren't hiding it with their obvious surnames ending in -ian), most of whom have higher-than-average incomes, prosperous lives, and various freedoms a modern democracy like Turkey provides (in comparison to zero Turks in Armenia).

Of course Turks get annoyed when, despite all these, the world declares Armenians are innocent angels and Turks are bloodthirsty massmurderers. Turkish history has black spots as well as white spots, like any other country. We have no problem accepting the black spots. But of course we defend in the face of injustice due to subjctivity.

The fact that any question of this is generally met as if it is a grave national insult and the general hysteria surrounding any inquest into it does not bode well with educated people around the world, who may well be ready to give the benefit of the doubt if records would be transparent and questions could be asked.

I suppose we live on a different planet then.
Records are open and transparent. Questions can be asked in Turkey much easier than many countries in Europe, whose laws declare that even voicing the Turkish side of the story is cause for prosecution. (These countries also have large Armenien minorities, i.e. voters, in comparison to Turks)

I hope that doesn't upset you, but it needs to be said. Not all who question are intent on bashing you and your people. I want the truth, whichever way the factual coin lands.

Here was how I could reasonably set up my own understanding of truth ("the other side was evil so they suddenly went berserk on us" does not constitute a reasonable truth for me) as of last year, although I would probably rephrase various parts if I were to rewrite it now. It is a long read, and solely my (possibly biased) opinion of how things might have actually happened.

-----------------

Allright, back to topic. How can this game not have a leader who said:

"There is only one civilization, and that is humanity" - Ataturk

 

[Spearthrower]

With respect Knigh+ all you have done is once again present a totally biased and nationalist account without presenting any facts. That's the problem I have, all the facts that I have ever seen present something that could be called a civil war (I agree) but that ended with one side being the target of genocide.

The links you have provided has no primary sources whatsoever. Quoting people on civ fanatics forums, or yourself... does not conclude a debate.

Can any of the posters here put up their primary sources please? With 21 countries officially recognising the Armenian genocide, the burden of proof lies with Turkey - so there must be plenty of evidence for you guys to present?

Please one thing - do not characterise me as a "Turkey-basher" I have absolutely no national affiliations... personally I think all nations and nationalism is just collective madness. I couldn't hate a few lines on a map even if I wanted to. I completely agree with Ataturk's quote.

However, I do love history, so please.... give me the facts and I will read them all.

 

[Peng Qi]

Nah. Turkey just isn't important enough.

 

[knigh+]

With respect Knigh+ all you have done is once again present a totally biased and nationalist account without presenting any facts. That's the problem I have, all the facts that I have ever seen present something that could be called a civil war (I agree) but that ended with one side being the target of genocide.

Nope, both sides.

The links you have provided has no primary sources whatsoever. Quoting people on civ fanatics forums, or yourself... does not conclude a debate.

I never claimed to provide a link to a reference. I only provided a list of references (which you obviously missed, please follow what the other is saying if you want to hold a debate). And yes, it does conclude the debate, because I wrote or quoted everything I had to say.

Can any of the posters here put up their primary sources please? With 21 countries officially recognising the Armenian genocide, the burden of proof lies with Turkey - so there must be plenty of evidence for you guys to present?

So you agree that history is a popularity contest, and that a bunch of politicians trying to get their Armenian minority votes while not even knowing where Armenia is on a map know better than historians with relevant expertise.

Please one thing - do not characterise me as a "Turkey-basher" I have absolutely no national affiliations... personally I think all nations and nationalism is just collective madness. I couldn't hate a few lines on a map even if I wanted to. I completely agree with Ataturk's quote.

However, I do love history, so please.... give me the facts and I will read them all.

I never characterized you as such. I just said there are some such people in the forum and the world, which results in Turks reflexively taking a defensive stance in such matters.

As apparent from your comments above you missed my post #99. That was where I gave a list of references. If you don't bother to look for these in a library - which is understandable as you are from far far away and the subject might not interest you that much - then it may be difficult to sort through all the junk put on the web by Armenians, some of which are true but one-sided, and some fabricated. In that case I suggest as a starting point, ATAA which was where I got the article from in the first place. Lower parts of the first page has some good references.

 

[Spearthrower]

I never claimed to provide a link to a reference. I only provided a list of references (which you obviously missed, please follow what the other is saying if you want to hold a debate). And yes, it does conclude the debate, because I wrote or quoted everything I had to say.

No I really don't want to read a lot of ranting from two sides on this forum, I want to read some facts... some primary sources.

All the primary sources I have read make it unequivocally clear that genocide was enacted on the Armenian people.

You claim that this is not true, so I am assuming that you have primary sources to back this up, rather than your opinions... as in, you based your opinions on primary sources.... I would be very grateful if you were to post those for me to read myself, rather than have you summarise them for me.

So you agree that history is a popularity contest, and that a bunch of politicians trying to get their Armenian minority votes while not even knowing where Armenia is on a map know better than historians with relevant expertise.

Where did I say that?? I am a historian to BA level, I am asking for the chance to look into it myself. I don't have any of the facts to hand and I am asking you politely to provide them.

I never characterized you as such. I just said there are some such people in the forum and the world, which results in Turks reflexively taking a defensive stance in such matters.

Yes, I was warning in advance, because my goal is just to read this from both sides of the coin. I actively WANT to read the Turkish side - that means facts, evidence, primary sources.... not just people's opinions on what happened.

As apparent from your comments above you missed my post #99. That was where I gave a list of references. If you don't bother to look for these in a library - which is understandable as you are from far far away and the subject might not interest you that much - then it may be difficult to sort through all the junk put on the web by Armenians, some of which are true but one-sided, and some fabricated. In that case I suggest as a starting point, ATAA which was where I got the article from in the first place. Lower parts of the first page has some good references.

Again, apologies knigh+ but there are no list of references in there that I can see - I may be mistaken and if I am please can you simply list the primary sources you quoted in there for me again?

I am very happy to look these up in the library - my department backs onto the history library - the biggest one in Thailand.... and while it is not particularly wonderful for Western events (by this I mean, non-Eastern) I should still be able to find plenty of corroborative evidence if you can point the way.

ALL history interests me.... and Truth interests me even more!

Aside from that, thanks for the link - I will check it out.

 

[Bastian-Bux]

knigh+, I too can nowhere find any source you named. No reference, nothing. Just your word. And sorry, but thats worth ZERO. You couldn't even support a wikipedia article. While an (english) wikipedia article is a weak reference, it usualy contains a list of further references and sometimes even true sources.

Nope, everything you brought up yet is ... propaganda. Sorry, what you brought up is worth much less then wikipedia. In the opposite: unreferenced allegations will always be hold against the one making them.

I'm willing to believe that armenian troops have been participating in the turkish civil war. They might even have posed a threat to the young utrkish nation. But according to international law this does not allow the "enemy" to put civilians in such situation that they will surely die. And thats exactly what the turkish forces died: they willingly, and according to the UN "intentionally" (which makes it a genocide) drove armenian women and children as well as civilian men out of their homes. They did (disorganized mostly, mind you) kill them, or at least did their worst to make sure they'll die of hunger and cold.

This is a crime. Its even a major crime. The correct name for it, is a "crime vs. humanity" or "genocide". And again, its not possible to "wash over" that crimes by saying "it has been a civil war". There is a reason we have the genevian convention, which explicitely covers the question of civilian participation or involvement during war times.

A turkish officer leading the execution of a group of partisans/terrorists is one thing. But if the same officer orders to round up the inhabitants of an (armenian) village, and orders to drive the civilians out into the winter mountains, and burn the village to the ground. That officer is commiting a grave crime. And anyone trying to cover up for that officer is clearly lacking in the ethical department.

Turkey tries since 100 years to become a modern and democratic country. But this attempt will fail if you don't get the dead corpses out of your basement first.

It was one of the few mistakes of Atatürks gouvernment to call an amnesty to those convicted of war crimes in the trials of Istanbul, despite his own words that he despised those murderers.

Its understandable from the requirements of his time: he needed to unify his nation, to be able to stay neutral in WWII. But it's still a cover up for nationalistic crimes. If Turkey doesn't come to terms with those "dark spots" on their history, they are doomed to repeat them.

Now about the armenien genocide and the EU:

The european parliament declared with their decision from the 18the of june 1987 and the 15th of novembre 2001, that the acceptance of the armenian genocide is one of the requirements for Turkeys join of the EU. At the 28th of february 2002 Turkey was strongly "reminded" to keep that reprimand.

As long as Turkey denies the armenian genocide, they can't join the EU. Thats part of the treaties between the EU and Turkey.

 

[Spearthrower]

To be fair on one point there Bastian-Bux.... the Geneva Convention had many stages... and I believe that the specific clause about Protection of civilians wasn't until the 4th convention of 1949.... so while we do "now" have such protections, they didn't exist at the time.

Of course, they are retroactive too and I am not justifying anything, but just wanted to make it clear.

In the interests of a fair hearing, I have now got a list of books I will look into tomorrow, but it is not easy getting any facts from the Turkish side of things that disprove genocide. I can accept all things that have been said so far except for the purposeful killings of the women, children and elderly.... this is the information I will be specifically searching for.

 

[qwertt]

If you really want to learn something about Turkey
Visit Turkey, talk the people,
You will see more than written on the books
There are many books that is sponsored by anti-turks about Turkey.
See the reality yourself.

 

[Bastian-Bux]

I would be most interested to hear from your research. Because as it is now, I've got only the "official" sources as well as the word of two turkish friends. Who both could only confirm that the turkish position is: "it was civil war, and no genocide" but could not remember any true sources from their school time. Which honestly is a bit weak, compared with the sources indicating the existence of a genocide.

 

[Spearthrower]

If you really want to learn something about Turkey
Visit Turkey, talk the people,
You will see more than written on the books
There are many books that is sponsored by anti-turks about Turkey.
See the reality yourself.

I'm sorry qwertt but how would visiting today's Turkey tell me about what happened at a specific time in the past in pre-formation Turkey?

I am not denying Turkey is beautiful and the people are nice - I have long been considering moving from Bangkok to there - I have been here too long and my roots are going too deep... and the area of Turkey and its ancient history has always interested me.

Still, that has nothing to do with this point.

There are also plenty of pro-Turk books written by Turkish nationalists.

The historical reality is best achieved by looking at primary sources. People living in modern Turkey are, for the most part, not primary sources.

 

[Quildavyr]

If it was Genocide,why native Greeks have survived?We had to kill them too.

And why we buried them?It would be good,if we burned the corpses.Or turn into something useful.

It is no genocide...

 

[Bastian-Bux]

quertt, and that does help in what way?

Now, lets dig in the dark history of my own country. My fathers family was living not to far away from a "work camp", a place where people from the KZs where worked to death.

Now according to my grandmas words, the first time she ever got an idea what happend there, was when the russians drove their whole village over there, to see firsthand "what you have done". My grandma has never forgotten what she saw that day.

Did she know before? She probably heard about a prison, maybe even heard a rumor that living there would be bad. But I have no reason to disbelieve her words, that nobody in her village could imagine anything like what happend there. But, lets look at it the other way: would she have wanted to know? Wouldn't she have tried her best to NOT know?

OK, but you said: come to Turkey and see yourself.

So I ask you: if you would come to Germany, going for a beer, meeting nice people, what would it help YOU to find out if the words about the holocaust are true or not? I was born 30 years after the end of the war. My grandma died a few years ago. You'll hardly find anyone who experienced the horrors first hand.

How would going to Germany and finding out that germans are a decent people and not ravishing nazi monsters help you any?

Nobody is claiming that TODAYS turkish people are anything else then friendly. Nobody is claiming that they are killing armenians now. But some of their great great grandfathers did.

The only thing todays turkish people are to blaim for, is that they (read: a majority of them) intentionally and against all proof vehemently denies the fault of their ancestors.

To cover a murderer is a crime to. In my opinion this is the only crime I find todays turkish people to be guilty of: to not be willing to accept what happend.

My country, my family has payed dearly for allowing the holocaust to happen. And even today we young germans, born 1 or even 2 generations after the war, pay the price for what our grandparents or even great-grandparents did, or allowed to happen by not doing enough. Its so easy to get insulted as "dirty nazi" only for being born in Germany. But we can try to slowly work out of this, by accepting what happend, and try to make it impossible to happen again.

Turkey hasn't even started working at that. You don't have grandmas that tell you: I'll never forget what I saw that day. You are still lying to yourself "it was a civil war, and only terrorists/soldiers got killed".

Again: until you as a nation don't face that ugly part of your history, you can't grow out of it. And it will resurface, in politics, culture, and in some unimportant game forums.

 

[Spearthrower]

If it was Genocide,why native Greeks have survived?We had to kill them too.

And why we buried them?It would be good,if we burned the corpses.Or turn into something useful.

It is no genocide...

As you might well appreciate... that doesn't provide anything worthy of discussion nor does it support your case at all.

 

[aronnax]

Does anyone seem to notice how off topic you guys are? So judging by the rate... ... Bring on Hitler! King of the Holy Poland Empire.....

The Armenian Geocide is the most annoying thing i have come across in every forum on the internet. And i have come to this conclusion. The Armernians are exgarrating their figures, the Turks never get their side of the story and why on earth do people discuss about this geocide which has already happen debating about it pointlessly when there is a REAL Geocide happening in Darfur now! GOD! Now everyone! shut up about this stupid pointless thread and go back to the orginal topic!!!!! If you wanna talk about this crap of a topic, go to the god damn Off topic section and make your own god damn thread about the god damn Armenians and their god damn Genocide!

Moving on....

I dont think the Ottoman Empire should be replace with Turkey seeing that I dont want another group empire again like the Arabian empire. Also I think the Ottoman Empire should be considered a seperate empire from the other Turkic Empires because they are equal in greatness to the Roman or Chinese Empires and not some short lived nomadic dynasty

 

[Quildavyr]

As you might well appreciate... that doesn't provide anything worthy of discussion nor does it support your case at all.

Just a thing...
Turkish soldiers buried respectable enemies.Like Anzacs.If it was just hate and no fight there,the matter was only to kill Armenian,they wouldnt bury them.It will be wasted Time,for soldiers.
I said before,I wasnt there.I cant know,what happened there properly.But Genocide.And Turks made it,it is just unbelievable.
And i find all Discussions about it disgusting.No one wants respect for the dead Armenians,diaspora wants just money.
If all european countries thinks,that was a Genocide,why dont they do it like France?
A few months ago,a turkish historian invite Armenian side to a cooperation,but Armenian side didnt accept it.