A guest post by Serpentus:
The Armenian genocide (1914-1917) was the mass killing of Armenians by Turks in the days of the Ottoman Empire. Between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000 were killed.
It has been called the hidden holocaust because it seems to be almost forgotten. Armenians call it the Great Crime. It is the second-most studied genocide after the Holocaust. It is also considered the first modern genocide considering the organization, deportation, and efficient executions.
Prior to the actual genocide, the Muslim Turks committed two massacres against the Armenians, most of whom were Christian:
- Hamidian Massacres (1894-1896) – estimated deaths: 100,000-300,000
- Adana Massacre (1909) – estimated deaths: 15,000-30,000
eyewitness picture
Most Armenians say the genocide began on April 24th 1915 when approximately 250 Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul were rounded up by Turkish authorities and deported. The Turks began World War I by waging a disastrous campaign against the Russians in the Caucasus. They blamed the Armenians for defeat by conspiring against them.
Among other things, Turkish doctors injected morphine into Armenian children, learning that an overdose of morphine leads to death. Typhoid inoculation destroyed children’s health. Children were forced onto boats and thrown overboard into the Black Sea to drown. Armenians were marched from their homes and their lands were taken. Mass burnings of Armenian villages occurred. Mass deportations forced most Armenians out of the Ottoman Empire.
By 1917 the “Armenian Problem” had been resolved. Muslim families were brought in to occupy empty villages.
Today, only 3 million of the world’s 11 million Armenians live in Armenia. To add insult to injury, for the past 16 years Turkey has been enacting economic sanctions against Armenia, crippling its economy. Only 21 countries in the world recognize the genocide. The U.S. does not officially recognize it because it does not want to anger Turkey, a key ally in the war on terrorism and a strategic basing center for U.S. troops leftover from the Cold War.
Outside witnesses: Both Germans and Americans inside the Ottoman Empire witnessed the genocide. At the time Germany was a war ally and America was neutral. German officials who were able to visit Turkey, saw what happened and were able to document the atrocities; that is where some of the pictures come from. U.S. missionaries, who helped set up schools in Turkey for Armenians, were also witnesses to the genocide. Next to U.S. consuls, they became the second-most important group of witnesses of the Armenian Genocide.
Lessons learned: None – or none that were good. The Armenian genocide is one of the reasons for the Holocaust. Hitler picked up where the Turks left off. Hitler and the Nazis learned about using toxic gas to kill victims. The biological warfare that the Nazis enacted against the Jews can be thanked to the Turks for giving Hitler these crazy ideas.
Hitler thought that if the Turks could commit genocide and get away with it, so could he. Two years before the Holocaust he said:
Who after all speaks today of the of the annihilation of the Armenians?
See also:
- Serpentus: The Armenian Genocide: The Holocaust That Inspired Hitler – the original post, complete with pictures of the dead
- genocide
- Turkey
- Hitler
- Japanese American internment
- Cherokee Trail of Tears
Cool, thanks for letting me do a guest post! = )
Obama still fails to acknowledge the Armenian genocide while in office.
2006
““I criticized the secretary of state [Condoleezza Rice] for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Evans, after he properly used the term ‘genocide’ to describe Turkey’s slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1915.”
2009
“I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed.”
Redman1000
It’s not just Obama. It’s every single president since the genocide ended.
Hi, I’ve been creeping on this blog for a while but never bothered to comment. I’m turkish/american myself and I’m glad to see this post. All people’s instinct is to not believe that people like them could have committed such evil, and the Turkish government’s policy of denial and censorship has strengthened that natural reaction so much that most Turks I’ve met are certain that the whole story is just a smear campaign by the rest of the world to take their land and money.
You’re probably about to get attacked by a hundred nationalist Turks, who will use lots of poor grammar and caps lock to express their ignorance and hatred. Just to warn you…
Evil is real
Thank you for posting this Abagond, and thank you for posting on these kinds of topics. It’s important to keep discussing these events and connecting them to future and present actions. Entirely too many people look at genocide and other atrocities as events that occur in a vacuum and that could not happen in the present (certainly not in America and the rest of the “civilized” world :::rollseyes:::)
Great post, Serpentus! I’ll direct my Armenian friends to have a look at it.
Good post. I read from somewhere that most armenians perisehd in this genocide when they were driven to the deserts and left to die from hunger and thirst. A trick tha germans used at least twice in eastern front when they surrounded hunderds of thousands of enemies but never took them as prisoners. Just let them die there mostly.
I am wondering whether the Nazi considered the slaughter of the Armenians as the primary ‘template’ for their own genocidal projects in the latter part of WW2?
More than a century ago the European powers carved up Africa, and Germany took its chunks. But what happened when the Africans of Namibia wouldn’t give up their land and accept enslavement by the Germans? When the Germans (no Nazis at that time) had finished killing, historians estimate that by 1907, only around 15% of the Africans inhabiting that part of German-occupied Namibia were left alive.
That is not say Germans invented the concentration camp, although I am not sure if that they did not invent the death camp, they may well have. Nor was the killing of the Herero and Nama people the first or only genocide of the very early 20th century.
However the killing of these Africans involved organised and industrialized methods such as:
*the use of a rail transportation system to the place of death;
*the building and design of dedicated death camps;
*the use of medical science to experiment on, and justify the racial inferiority of “different races” (the Africans’ heads were severed and sent back to German universities for ‘study’ and classification);
*Eugen Fishcer, who proposed the theory and gave his name to eugenics, later taught medicine to Joseph Mengele, who, of course furthered these theories, and practices, during the Nazi period.
I also remember hearing that scores of Armenians were transported to the desert and many died from the conditions of that environment. This is precisely how many of the Hereros of Namibia were destroyed – exposed to the elements, thirsted and starved to death, some executed and buried in mass graves in the sand. Could it be possible that the Ottomans ‘borrowed’ from the Germans – or also indeed followed the ways of other European powers in Africa at that time, who were also intent on reducing the number of Africans and ethnically cleansing them from desirable areas of land?
A disturbing device used by colonialists or seekers of ‘racial empires’ is the way that one poor, persecuted or dispossessed group can be pitted against another to gain advantages from those in power.
What was Western Armenian, is now Eastern Turkey. A large portion of the population in Eastern Turkey is Kurdish, and the Kurds have hardly had the easiest journey in Turkey.
Please, anyone, correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t it the Kurds who made up the numbers in the Ottoman army deployed in East and South East Turkey and were used to do killing of the Armenian and destroy their churches? And wasn’t it the the Kurdish mountain gangs who attacked the unarmed Armenians during their deportation, and isn’t it mostly the Kurds who now occupy the land and home of these dead Armenians?
Another thought.
The present leadership and government of Turkey is actually largely Kurdish in origin, and it looks very likely to stay that way for some time.
The Turkish Prime Minister, himself a Kurd, wants to remove most of the Armenians remaining in Turkey, which he says is his country, not theirs. Little is made of his own Kurdishness or explicitly Kurdish interest, in contrast, as the separateness of this identity is not politically expedient for the government, and the idea is to subsume it into Turkish nationhood, I would guess as Turkey is having elections soon.
To my eyes, the last 10 years in Turkey has not only become more directed towards the East and Islam (the government is Islamists), but increasingly anti-Christian. Christian Armenians are not really welcome in this scenario.
Although reported, the murders of Catholic priests by Islamic extremists throughout Turkey have not caused huge attention in a 99.8% muslim country. Is it possible the current attitude towards Armenians in Turkey is influenced by this turn in religious ideology?
It’d be useful to also bear in mind that any admission of culpability, amongst other things, would be EXPENSIVE to the Turkish state as reparations and the return of territory would be due. If Turkey really wants to assume the role of leadership in the Islamic world, flies in the ointment need to keep out, and the money from the oil-rich nations need to keep flowing in to the Turkish treasury.
It seems that the subject of Armenians is just too embarrassing for Turkey, and the idea is just to sweep the genocide under the carpet because Turkey has much bigger ambitions than dealing with that.
@Bulanikgirl
I agree with some of your points, like the fact that the Kurds’ own struggles led them to side against the Armenians. But where did you hear the PM is kurdish? He may very well be of Kurdish descent, like many people who identify themselves as Turkish. But that doesn’t give him any ties to the Kurdish community and their interests. Just type “Erdogan kurds” or something like that into any search engine and you can read pages of articles about the continuing problems between him and Kurdish groups.
And before you make this into an anti-Muslim thing, please remember that the Young Turks who led the genocide were secularists who would use religion to make the public angry, while many who tried to save Armenians were true devout Muslims. And even if the new government is more favorable to Islam, that hasn’t made Turks more anti-Armenian. In fact, more then in previous generations, some Turks today are starting to consider the truth of the genocide (far too slowly in my opinion).
Hello gozu_kara.
When I was last in Turkey my Kurdish friends I know there told me the PM was a Kurd. Of course that doesn’t mean he has or has ever had any particular or explicit interests in the Kurdish community.
“And before you make this anti-Muslim thing…”?
Hold up a moment, please.
*One can say the word ‘Islam’;
*One can discuss a political context and social climate, and one can even;
*QUESTION and BE CRITICAL about events involving an extremist or 2 —-
—- without –
A) being anti-Muslim, or,
B) “making” a thing anti-Muslim.
This is not only allowed, but necessary to discussion.
I have only started to read a tiny portion of what has been discussed in the Abagond blogs, and it seems to me that there is precedence, and permission, for contributors to CONSTRUCTIVELY comment and exchange ideas or observations about difference and experience without being ‘tied-off’ at the mere mention of an issue or a word.
My point was quite clear, and, the Vatican and other news sources have reported that Italian Catholic priests have been murdered by Islamic extremists in a country where the Christian minority is tiny and during a time when its government has become much more favourable to Islam.
Please note I said the government is ‘Islamist’, the murders done by ‘extremists’.
However, I have as yet found little detailed commentary or analysis about these events in Turkey or in the Turkish news. I think I have been looking in the wrong places, and my Turkish is very bad. I would like to learn more about this, if information is available?
What are we to make of these priest killings?
So, what would we make of present day killings of Imams or Muftis inside a country which more than 99% Christian with an unrecognized genocide of her neighbours that were mostly Muslim, in its not so distant past? Would it be a valid question?
Would we just tip-toe around the religion part, disregard reports, question nothing, fear its mention, because to mention it means we can not discriminate between acts that are good and acts that are not? Would it mean we are ANTI?
Not at all. It would indicate that we are thinking people. Should thought be silenced?
When I asked my Turkish and Kurdish friends and acquaintances about this they were pretty vague, and slightly skeptical that this sort of thing happened in Turkey.
Is this part of the culture of denial, is it indifference, or limited news coverage?
What is clear to me with this incomplete information, is that 1), that there were long-held reports about the many muslim Kurds who gave refuge to the Armenians during the time of the genocide, and did so at much personal cost to themselves. 2),The genocide against the Armenians was not – to the best of my knowledge – motivated or strictly organised around religious reasoning. And 3), this does not mean that the muslim Kurds who carried out the killings were pacifists either.
It is not my observation or belief that Turks or Kurds are currently or especially anti-Armenian, but it has been reported that the PM does not want the majority of Armenians to remain in his country. It has also been reported that 100s of 1000s of Armenians were slaughtered Turks and Kurds in the early 20th century.
That does say something.
@bulanikgirl: Well, the present PM of Turkey might be kurdish decent OR the people who do not like him call him a kurd. Kurds have not had it too well in Turkey, not since Atatürk at least, and particulary since they announced their will for independent Kurdistan.
The kurds are a minority in Turkey, they are no allowed to use their language freely, they are not allowed to have disticnt cultural identity nor their own history, they are hard pressed economically etc. They certainly do not belong to the elite of Turkey but are very much excluded from it. Only couple of years ago the turkish army launched new attacks on “kurdish terrorists”, meaning military operations in south east Turkey and beyond.
Because neither Turkey, Iran, Irak or Syria wants it, the independent Kurdistan remains a distant thing. And, by the way, it was the kurdish rebels who assisted the US troops in northern Irak and fought against the muslim extremists who tried to make that area as their base.
Iran has killed thousands of kurds after the islamist revolution there, present president of Iran was very active on wiping out kurdish oppostion back in 70′s, so I would not be that keen to emply that islamists and kurds are somehow in cahoots against christians in Turkey today.
Kurds have christians, muslims, atheists and some even venerate their own old religion as a matter of a national pride. They fell very little common with Istanbul or any other city outside Kurdistan, their spiritual homecountry.
The Kurds are one minority in Turkey that has been opressed and supressed by the goverment for a long time and they have been killed by thousands by the same goverment. I would be wary of anyone who claims that the kurds are somehow particulary anti-christian and/or determing the policies of Turkey vis a vis christians.
And on that note, the Vatican is hardly a new source in any way, shape or form. It is the seat of the biggest christian religion. News from there are as reliable as news from Mecca or Teheran.
My source on this? The kurdish refugees living in Finland today.
PS. According some historians, the greatest muslim leader of the crusade times Saladdin was very likely a kurd himself. So they keep popping up here and there in history. But does this mean they rule Turkey and are extremely hostile to christians or armenians or others? No.
@bulanikgirl: you find some stuff from wikipedia too. This article says that during the same time of armenian genocide kurds were getting it too. Some 150 000 “perished” during “forced” moving out. They were considered as “unreliable”.
From the pictures of the article you see kurdish jews etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_people
Thanks, Sam.
What you are saying is correct.
Kurdish men were killed just last year in Bulanik for demonstrating. (The same Bulanik as in Bulanikgirl).
Sam.
You could check whether random news sources, such as the BBC, CNN or Reuters have reported killings of Catholic priests Turkey during the last while?
You might find that there is some consistency in the report that Catholic priests have been killed in Turkey by extremists.
Who would trust everything issued by the Vatican? I wouldn’t! What I wanted to know was what the Turkish press and Turkish political commentators had to say about it.
It is news to me that Kurmanji speaking Turkish Kurds have now become Turkey’s “elite”, because they so aren’t.
Even when one was observing this year’s celebration of Newroz in Diyarkabir and Mus, it is obvious for anyone with eyes to see that growth has been deliberately stunted – to say the least – for generations in the regions where many Turkish Kurds have traditionally lived.
If you had read what I said previously, isn’t it clear that the Kurdish people in Turkey have hardly had privileges, and the PM shows no favours?
Nor did I say that historically the Kurds ever had or have some kind of unique and general hostility towards their Armenians neighbours, especially since, to paraphrase myself “many gave refuge to the Armenians during the genocide and did so at much personal cost to themselves”? No?
And, did you notice the part where I said it is NOT my belief or my observation that Kurds are currently or especially anti-Armenian? No? Yet, that is my ‘implication’ you say?
Isn’t Saladdin one of the greatest Kurds that live? I thought that was well known – even as a school child I remember it being taught that he was the most chivalrous figure of the age, the exemplar of honourable leadership and Islamic manhood – but I am not sure what this historical figure has to do with the Armenian genocide?
Is it not possible that an oppressed and stateless people with a noble history CANNOT have episodes, in the past, when a portion of its population (please note “a portion”) does something that isn’t worthy of credit?
It seems to me that it’s going to be very hard to talk about this subject, ask questions about this subject, share thoughts or obtain information about this subject because of the “ANTI” this and the “ANTI” that, that is close at hand to close it down again. There was a genocide? It happened? People died? Others killed them? Others did not?
Is this a subject we can discuss, or are we just going to break our hearts with the eggshells we are walking on?
It is not clear to me what the Turkish PM has in mind for the Armenians, or what his reasons are for expressing that he wants 100,000 Armenians to leave his country, but that is what he said. What are we to make of this?
My Kurdish family and friends simply told me Mr Erdogan is a Kurd. Some of them spoke to me about old memories and stories from the time of the genocide, a long time ago. They and their fellow countrymen express no particular dislike for anyone.
The facts still remain: There was an Armenian genocide. Others killed them. Others did not.
Many Kurds were killed at this time, and after, but are we not allowed to say who did some of the killing of the Armenians?
Maybe the BBC, CNN, Reuters and others are also unreliable and also LYING about the murders of the Catholic priests, but, what if they aren’t, and what if the ‘reports’ are true – what are we to make of them?
I’m sorry bulanikgirl. I over-reacted to your statements and it was rude of me. I didn’t mean to shut you down, I was responding to what I believed was anti-islam in what you said, which I’m touchy about because I hear it a lot from some of my own family and friends. Please understand where I’m coming from: many Turks I meet, especially the elite around the Western parts of Turkiye, are unfairly anti-religious. They use acts like the murders of the priests to support their political opinions. I don’t have much trust in the current government — but I don’t see a reason to say it’s any more oppressive to religious groups then all the secularist governments who ran Turkiye since it was founded.
But you said exactly what I feel! You can love and be proud of your people AND still need to admit and atone for the worst things that you’ve done. Ultra-nationalism, believing that “our people” are always right and can do no wrong (and if they have done wrong it must be hushed up) is what led to things like the Armenian genocide (and what allows Kurds and others to be oppressed in Turkiye today). Soon it will have been a century since the genocide, and the government has still not recognized it. The longer they wait, the more likely it is that they will never have to atone for what happened.
Feeling like you need to cover up for “your own people” is the attitude that Abagond has discussed in blog posts on white Americans and slavery. But at least the US recognizes that slavery, the Native American genocide etc. happened. Unlike Turkey.
The priest killings definitely did happen, and it seemed clear they were religiously motivated. They were documented, the killers were tried and convicted, and I remember Erdogan the PM made an apology for at least one of them. But I’d guess that these murders were under-reported because the media is too censored, and unwilling to show Turkish things in a bad light, ever.
The big Turkish newspapers do have English-language websites. There’s Zaman, which is pro-AKP government. There’s Hurriyet, which is secular-Kemalist.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/
http://www.todayszaman.com/mainAction.action
To be honest, other country’s news may have more information on controversial things (like the genocide) then Turkish media. But of course they have the drawback of being biased towards their own interests, and probably not being as aware of the intricacies of Turkish society and politics as a Turkish source. All sources have pros and cons. To be honest I just hear about things either from the Turkish news online, or from friends and relatives who are politically active there.
Erdogan claimed if Armenians didn’t stop complaining (I’m paraphrasing) he would deport all of the 100000 guest worker Armenians who live in Turkey but aren’t citizens. Here’s an op-ed in English from Hurriyet about it: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=unveiling-erdogan8217s-real-face-2010-03-19
I think it was just a threat — I hope so — but it was very disturbing when you consider the government’s past actions.
Armenian genocide???? Shoot, what about the genocide that’s going one in AFRICA too? Its awful and it needs to stop.
Hello again, gozu_kara.
Thank you/Tesekkur ederim for thinking through what it was I was trying to say and also for providing Turkish news sources to look up.
Human inhumanity to others – crime, shame, guilt – and then talking about it, is a minefield.
I remember once living in Germany for a short time during a period in Germany I can only describe as a ‘national convulsion’, when German thinkers (I mean, a lot of people) struggled to purge and re-invent German thinking habits and language to talk about the Nazis and the Holocaust.
I have not drawn conclusions yet about the Turkish PM, et al, because I need more and better information to understand his motives and effects.
What does stand out about his speech re the Armenians, is that he is GENERALLY starting to seem a bit irritated with those who don’t show him proper gratitude for what he has done for them, for Turkey. He seems more like he’s saying “I’m Daddy, do as I say, I’m gonna be around for L-o-N-G time!”
I get the feeling that a lot of people not only don’t want to speak up for the reasons you mention, but do not want to be SEEN as speaking up. I realize that this is not necessarily a new thing in Turkiye.
In my opinon, Turkey has changed more than we realize in the West. I think the priests’ deaths were not so much an outgrowth of oppression toward Turkey’s religious minorities as such, but rather, more a shift in the social climate.
A social climate can cultivate an outlook: like forget this, focus on that, foreground A, to totally downplay B…like in Abagond’s commentary about racist denial: that was a long time ago, ignore the nagging guilt, move on, shut up already…
I really don’t think there is any passionate interest in other religions in Turkey or minority groups, because Turkish-ness reigns supreme. It might even be construed even as ‘un-Turkish’ to admit to the genocide. There must be no show of doubt or accountability.
How much energy does that take?
What psychology does it form – sidestepping the elephant dung in the room?
I am interested to know what books or films, speeches or art exist that have dealt with the denial of the genocide? It cannot just be a blanket of defensiveness? Thunderous silence? Has there ever been a crisis of conscience?
Keekee,
Which one in Africa?
Abagond:
You mentioned that Turkey is an ally against radical islam. That may have been true in the past, but, the european/arabic nation has become less secular in recent years, thanks in large part to the rise of more conservative muslim groups and political parties. During the 2008 campaign, Obama spoke about the genocide in Armenia, and at the time, signaled that he would bring the genocide out of the shadows, instead, he’s recently stated that he would not make a big fuss about the issue with Turkey going forward. It’s just one example of Obama flip-flopping on issues that he pledged to support in 2008, Not Shocked Anymore!
Tyrone
@tyrone: You go and tell some turk, secular or religious, that you are an arab, and they will tell you in not so kind words that they are not arabs. Some turks actually hate arabs much more than many so-called western guys.
I guess any country where islam is major religion looks arabic for US born guys but Turkey is not an arabic country and it’s population is not arabs. The Turks have their very own and very rich history, documented from the Byzanthian times onwards at least, so back to school on this one!
Sam,
I had no idea some Turks hated Arabs so much more than other guys. Could you tell us more about that hate? What are your own thoughts?
The last time I was in Senegal – where Islam is the major religion – it did not look very Arab. Could you tell us more about that? What are your own thoughts?
Do you also have a theory about WHY it is that US born guys could make the error to think that if a religion is founded in Arabia by an Arab, is spoken in Arabic, and so on, that the countries in parts of Asia where it is also a major religion could be mistaken for Arab? Could you tell us more about that? What are your own thoughts?
And, Sam, did you have a chance to check out whether those Catholics priests were really killed in Turkey? Or should I believe ANYTHING I read? Could you tell us more about that? What are your own thoughts in the context of the discussion?
Also, the Armenian Genocide? What are your own thoughts?
I can attest to several Turks I’ve met bending over backwards to deny that they’re arab at all. I hate it because 1) it’s often in a racist way and 2) it’s denying a huge part of the country’s identity. Turks in Anatolia were very intertwined with Arabs and Persians through the Ottoman empire — then Ataturk founded modern Turkey and needed to make a “purely Turkish” identity. That was also PART of the reasoning behind the genocide just years earlier, and for preventing Kurds from having their own culture and language. He changed our alphabet from Arabic, and purged the language of Arabic and Persian words. The language today is totally different from what it was before the 1920s.
I think this is another important factor in how we’ve been able to deny/ignore the genocide so long- the documents that still exist from 1915 are illegible to the 99.9% of Turks who aren’t experts in Ottoman Turkish.
Bulanikgirl, you ask about Turks who’ve recognized the genocide.
Taner Akcam was the first Turkish scholar to publish a book supporting that the genocide happened. It’s called “A Shameful Act” in English, and it’s very good, but dense. He knows what he’s saying and he’s brave enough to say it, which is why he’s considered a traitor, can’t return to Turkiye, and gets death threats on a regular basis.
But that was several years ago — more recently, Ece Temelkuran wrote a memoir called “Deep Mountain” about going to Armenia and the Armenian diaspora in the US. It doesn’t outright say the word “genocide”, and it’s a bit sugar-coated, and clearly written for Turks. But that’s the reason why it was probably the most-read book in Turkey that is supportive of the Armenian side of the story (aka the truth). It wasn’t the greatest book, but at least it’s sold in bookstores and being read in Turkey, which is progress.
There was a petition circulating last year by Turkish academics who want genocide recognition.
I’m sure there’s others, but these are the most memorable to me.
@bulanikgirl:
I think the turks just hate to be mistaken as arabs in general. They are pretty proud of their nation and history. It is a bit like somebody in Europe would call US citizens mexicans just because in both countries christianity is the main religion. I think few americans would be not so happy about that either.
I haven’t been in Senegal so I cant say much about that. There is a tendency to make the assumption that islam=arabic even though it is just a religion like any other. Not all christians are white or live in US either.
Why then someone makes the assumption that islamic countries are arabic? Mass media usually talks about islamic countries vis a vis arabic countries. It is the same thing as with palestinians. There is a christian palestinian segment but because Hamas and islamic subjects get the most media attention, people do not know that there are christian palestinians and very secular palestinians.
Armenian genocide is one of the major catastrophes of the 1900′s. Now, looking back, that whole century looks like one big chain of genocides after another. The Nazis, Stalins USSR, Maos Cultural Revolution and Great Leap, Pol Pot and Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda… Not to mention the wars: WW1, WW2, Mexcian Revolution, La Violencia in Colombia, Korean war, Vietnam war…
That is weird.
@Bulanikgirl
That’s just it… it’s to many of them. I think its happening ALL OVER AFRICA. From Libya to Egypt, From Egypt to Sudan, From Sudan to Tanzania, from there to Uganda, then Congo, Sierra Leone, Malawi, and on and on. It NEEDS TO STOP!! It all ova the whole damn Continient.
It boggles my mind to see how evil humanity can be at times. I understand conformity and group think, but I still don’t understand how hatred can go this far.
Sam, gozu_kara, Tyrone:
Gozu_kara – much appreciation for the insight and references! I really want to know more about this, and I hope to make the time to find the book and the memoir you recommend.
Yes, I know what both you and Sam mean about some Turks reacting angrily should they be mistaken for, or be called – Arabs. But, it’s slightly foolish because – as you so rightly point out gozu_kara – the Arabs had a big part in shaping Turkey, and there are certainly some, if not a great many Turks who have more than just a little ‘Arab blood’ coursing through their veins.
When Tyrone said ‘Arab’ I had to pause, and, I paused again when Sam mentioned the strong dislike that can be felt by some Turks about Arabs. I am not Turkish or Kurdish myself (family connections through marriage), but it seems modern Turkish identity is not particularly sensitive to racial taxonomy, because the approach to ‘ethnicity’ is not obviously racist in approach – not in the way we might understand the definitions, the machinery and the power of racism in the US to blight people’s lives, for example.
I generalize, of course, because there is probably a racist or 2 in Turkey! and, many people from identifiably ‘different’ minorities will have experienced discrimination, or be the object of ‘superstitious’ attention (pinched for good luck, that sort of thing), and/or exaggerated interest, at some time in a places or situation.
Outside of Turkey, in the English-speaking West many people don’t actually know where to ‘place’ Turks racially. It reminds me ( only a little) of the way East Indians are classified in the US, as a “stand alone” racial category, not quite this, but including and spanning the other… although I tend to think many light-skinned Turks are probably grouped under ‘white’, rather than Arab, and some actively pursue AND prefer this because ‘white’ is better placed than ‘Arab’?
I think there is even controversy amongst some Turkish people about who in fact, they are. So far as I know, the the Turkic-speaking peoples are originally from Mongolia, and over time through their migrations there was intermarriage with the peoples encountered in western Asia and the Balkans, ultimately producing a people that vary somewhat in appearance. So, some Turks look German, some look Eurasian, others look distinctly ‘Mediterranean’…
I have occasionally met Turks who tell me they are “white, white, white”, and many more who are bitterly hurt that anyone would describe them as such, rejecting ‘white-ness’ vehemently. I even had a conversation once with someone who considered himself to be a ‘true’ Turk, because he was of mixed Mongolian, Tartar and native Anatolian blood…?
But what made me smile, after I paused, when Tyrone, Sam, and gozu_kara mentioned Arab/Arabs are not Turks, was that I immediately thought of the African Turks, who are, or were, called ARAB (Araps?) in Turkey!
I don’t know how many Afro-Turks live in Turkey, or really what their lives are like as a VISIBLE racial minority, since I have only seen a few in Turkey (they were definitely Turkish citizens), but met and spoke who one who lived in London. I remember that he had green eyes, and he said that some of the ‘Arab’ Turks are descendants of slaves brought to over during Ottoman rule, from Kenya, Sudan, Egypt or Saudi Arabia, to work on the cotton and tobacco plantations, mostly. Some were soldiers in the Ottoman army. He told me heard that not all came to Turkey as slaves, and by and large consider themselves to be entirely Turkish.
When I asked him why he was called an Arab, he said that Turkish civilization had a strong influence from people that looked like him and brought his ancestors to Turkey, and then he asked me why did I think so many Turks were so dark and swarthy, and what reason did I think he was born with green eyes!?
This also led me to ponder on this question:
What is the reason that the name of al-Turki appears so regularly in Jordan and the Arabian Gulf? Turkish origins? I don’t mean it’s astounding that Turks travel and settle in other countries – I mean, perhaps the lines between what is an Arab and a Turk are not always as clean cut as what they might first appear to be.
I feel that gozu_kara is spot on about Ataturk pushing “purely Turkish” identity, and this having a PART in the Armenian genocide – it deletes points of difference, subordinates individuality, unifies the group.
Obviously nationalist racial unity has some plus points, but it has its concomitant dangers! I suspect Ataturk probably problematized (is that a word?) what he saw as his country’s over-Arabization?
Gozu_kara:
You hit the nail on the head about the way the language change from Arabic in Turkey ENABLED the Turkish psyche to deny and ignore the Armenian genocide.
If people can not read they can not know.
If we can not see a thing, then the thing can not exist.
Isn’t it amazing how the truth can be obscured.
I suppose this is not how history is made, it’s how history is UN-written. It’s like not knowing your parents’ signed the death warrant of a million and a half people because you are illiterate….Just bury the facts in a code that only the most foolhardy and obstinate with the luxury of time and dedicated learning can decipher.
The premeditated calculation of it is chilling.
Is this how a clean conscience is forged? How forgetting is manufactured?
Make a new country, throw off the old, and this is how sins are washed away because few really know ‘where the bodies are buried’?
The German colonists in Africa and the Nazis at least kept detailed records of precisely what they did and how, much of which survived – well, certainly in Europe.
No matter what many Germans feel personally about their history or Jews, many are aware of how much their language has been tainted by the Nazis and their industrialized killing. I suppose the idea goes like this:
…because we think a lot of the time in words, and words make actions…we have to turn the meanings and uses of our words inside out.
So, “poetry writing and poetic flourishes after Auschwitz is barbaric”, someone said.
I am trying to understand what it is to face and talk about genocide, after avoidance, and after shame. But I don’t mean to say that like self-appointed accuser, I mean if I learned that my parents and grandparents knew about it, if they were say, bystanders or perpetrators of a genocide.
Knowing about the atrocities of a genocide – personal to me – would probably make me think differently.I don’t just mean the guilt and shame of it. I think it would make me re-consider human realities, and what is ‘horror’.
@bulankigirl: All I know that turkish and finnish have some same words (the language), and I mean the same. This means that somewhere in the history these two peoples have been living either on the same region or have been in contact with one another somehow. That is very strange indeed.
I think the turks came from the east, from the Altain region, as one of the immigrating waves (alans, avars, the huns, mongols etc.). I might be wrong here.
Atatürk definetly built up nationalistic cult and idea of the race of turks but he did not take from out of nothing. The turks had a very clear idea who were turkish and who were not even during the multicultural/racial ottoman empire.
I suspect that those who wish to lump the turks and arabs together have some work to do, evidence wise, since the cultures are so different as is the language.
Sam, that’s so interesting.
I was speaking to a Finnish woman some while back and she said this to me:
“You do know how we Finns are different from the other Scandics? We are not all just European, we are part Asian. most of us have East Asian ancestors. The equivalent of one grandparent. It’s in the language as well, Finnish is nothing like Swedish or Norwegian or Danish.”
She was very blonde and very blue-eyed, but she pointed out to me that her features were rather ‘Mongoloid’ – which I didn’t understand, but was actually true when she asked me to look at her and try to see it … So you could be onto something.
No, Turkish culture is not Arab culture, Arabs are not Turks. The Semitic peoples are NOT Turkic, but there had to be overlap over the centuries with Islam, because Islam will always bring a degree of ‘Arabization’ with it, and the religion is powerfully influential – we should not under-estimate how much.
I suppose what the Turks and Arabs used to share most was a writing system, because I think Ottoman script LOOKS really similar to Arabic? But every time I am in Turkey I am struck at just how East Asian many people look, and the sound of the language just seems…East Asian. I can’t put my finger on it. It could be intonation, not sure at all.
Also we have to remember the influence Stalin’s Russian Empire had in making the Turkic peoples into ‘Central Asia’, and Soviet Union. I remember when I was little watching the Olympics and not understanding why so many ‘Chinese’-looking people were Russian! In my young mind, Russia was white European. This influence must have changed our focus and blurred the lines of where Turkey or, the Turkic peoples, began and where they (or it) ended.
Can you imagine if there had been no Soviet Union, and The Turkic peoples, all the way from Northern and Eastern Europe to Korea had formed some kind of unified cultural bloc based on common ancestry, closely-related linguistic ties and a long history of trade?
But, is it so bad being an Arab? Why the contempt?
If the Arabs are actually BLACK PEOPLE in Turkey, is this why some of the lighter-skinned Turks you and gozu_kara mention, bent over backwards, and reacting with anger and hatred at the thought – what INSULT and degradation – to be associated with THEM?
I have heard the term “sand-nigger” refer to Arabs used in USA. Not very ambiguous!
What a way definitions change. The erroneous belief is (just my POV, not tested) that Pakistanis, Indians, Persians, Turks – whatever – tend to get lumped together as Arab, or people of “middle eastern appearance” – y’know, because it’s a way of identifying Un-American, TERRORISTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is possible some people in the US make this mistake in the same way they might mistake, between Turk and Arab, say a Mexican with a Portuguese person? Or a Slovenian with Slovakian?
But when you think about it, if you look at the USA – it’s big and it’s EXTREMELY diverse…perhaps it’s even bigger and more diverse than Europe. How many people outside the USA, say in Europe (including Turkey) know where Nebraska is in relation to Kentucky, and know what a Cajun is next to a Yankee?
@bilanikgirl: Well, back in the days the swedish “scientists” tried to prove that we finns are kin to mongols as a way to demonstrate that the swedes were superior to us, but now we know that our genes are mainly so-called western. Our language and culture are however eastern and if you look where the so-called fenno-ugric people live, they live (apart Hungary, Estonia and Finland) all the way across the Siberia.
One old soviet scientist argued that the these fenno-ugric people are the remenants of those who lived on the edges of the continental ice cap during the last ice age and therefore the same cultural strands can be found in northern Eurasian landmass. That is that these people are the relatives of the mammoth hunters of that period. A theory I guess as any other.
Another one, also put forward by one russian scientist long ago, is that so called great russian people, the ones we now call russians, are actually mix between the slavs who moved up from the south (present day Ukraine, Belo Russia etc.) and the fenno-ugric peoples of the present day Russian territory. There still are some fenno-ugric people in Russian federation, the Mari nation being the biggest one.
Today many finnish scientists belive that there has been people living in todays Finland at least since the ice age and whom ever has moved in, has been adopting our language and culture. So the genes come from the west but the culture and the language from the east.
But how on earth finns and turks have same words?? That is intriguing.
@bulanikgirl: I think the contempt and suspicion on arabs and arab culture is very old. Now it is coming back because of the islamistic movement and terrorism, wars etc., but we have to remember that there has been wars between the arabs world and west at least since 700′s. So the memory of conflicts is very much alive in our world and arabic one.
As for the arabic culture. Very often in the west we forget that arabs preserved the majority of the old atique texts of Greece etc. They actually studied the greek philosophers and Pythagoras etc. much earlier than the majority in the west. The Granda area arabic states were the center of civilization for a while during middle ages. The norman kings of Sicily lived life much more like arabs rules than the christian ones and had arabic scientists at their court. One of them, al-Idris actually wrote about Finland and two cities here in 1100′s!!
The arabs knew the principles of photography in 800′s, they were way ahead in medicine in the medieval times, there was a free hospital in Bagdad in 700′s with 1000 beds for patients and almost as many doctors and it was for free. There was a post with branch offices as far as in China, banks with international branches etc.
But, the arabic civilization took a nose dive when the religious zelots took over. The same thing happened in the west with our own culture.
The major reason why so much of the wisdom, science and civilization of the antiques was lost is what the christian zelots did once they took over the Rome: destruction of Serapeium and its library in Alexandria, the destruction of the book collection of Pisistratus (some 200-300 000 original texts from the classical philosophers and scientist were burnt etc.).
In the arab world the same happened little later, from 1000′s on, but the results were the same: fourishing world of science and culture was almost destroyed and put down by handful of hard line religious leaders and war lords to whom knowledge and wisdom were blasphemy. We can still see the fault line in islamic world today: the talebans who hate music and blow up acient statues in the name of god and arabic scientists, trades men, bankers etc. who are part of the elites of the world.
Amazing, Sam.
On same words, don’t you think this could have something to do with the commonality of language among the Turkic peoples?
Keekee,
Been thinking about what you said and not knowing what to think.
For several reasons, like:
*There is that expression “World War Three”. Is it coming? Not yet arrived? Looming on the horizon? I think it’s already happened, and it’s happening – on the African Continent. It’s just that Africa IS the Unreported World. Was Rwanda just the tip of the iceberg?
*Next, I think there is a difference between casualties of war and revolutions, and genocide (e.g., soldiers who fight and die are not victims of genocide).
Some time back somebody said that even the definition of genocide varies under international law. It looks like the ‘study’ of genocide is still at an early stage – which is not the same as saying genocide isn’t happening.
Once I was reading a book that mentioned pogroms against Jews in Europe. I believe that a pogrom is probably a massacre or attack against a group perpetrated by mobs from another group but not one where the ruling state ‘organizes’ it, but just lets it happen.
*Then, Keekee, you asked: “Armenian genocide? Shoot, what about…Africa…?”
Somebody put me right if I’m wrong to say that the word ‘genocide’ was actually created by a Polish-Jewish lawyer to describe the mass killing of the Armenians? Some genocides before and after the Armenian one have been recognized, but this one is nearly a 100 years old and still being denied and hidden away.
Armenia is so important because its genocide is one side of the polarity which you see:
–some European countries who put a BAN on DENYING the Jewish Holocaust, and, on the other end,
–Turkey, where it is ILLEGAL to even refer to the mass killings of the Armenians as ‘genocide’.
The mental block I am having about what is happening in Africa is that how can people control what is going on in other countries? Don’t sovereign nations have the right to govern themselves? Especially those countries that have had a history of ‘white people’ thinking they know better about Africa and Africans?
First we have to identify if a genocide could happen, to stop it in the first place – is that even possible even if the conditions are reported to the foreign media? Africa has dozens of countries, with so many differing foreign interests that have a stake in doing nothing to help the Africans, because the lives of Africans – or other Africans – does not concern them.
Then, if a genocide is proved, there has to be a paper trail or chain of accountability by the killers, and the ones who gave the kill orders.
But, how can we stop it? The conditions that exist BEFORE a genocide happens have to be identified, I suppose. How?
I think some countries have cultures which do NOT put a value on human life. Africa has through a history of hell, many people are fighting for survival – life expectancy is low in many African countries, and life is cheap.
How can genocide be stopped before it happens? Are there tell tale signs?
I think there are places were some people are more human than others. Superior and inferior. Then that has to be COMBINED (because being inferior won’t be ‘enough’ to make genocide happen) with a government power that is well organized, that has a high percentage of pathological PSYCHO-types in its ranks. Yes psychopaths are essential – not reasonable, ‘thinker’ softies.
After that, there has to be propaganda to make people angry and make it a popular idea to cut the inferior non-humans down.
I think what I’m trying to say is that genocide is predictable but not impossible to stop. The problem is practical politics.
Do the powers that be have THE WILL to intervene? Could the West for example, have stopped say, ‘hate speech’ in Dafur? What stops the UN from imposing arms embargoes against African armies or militias intent on using rape and guns to terrorize and exterminate another group?
Sam.
What you’ve said is bothersome, because our thinking about Arabs is conflated with Islam, and what is culturally believed to be done, and can be done, in the name of Islam.
It’s this that makes it easy to forget what Arab culture and civilization has done for the West in the past. It makes it easy to downgrade the humanity of other people.
This is because of image that lives in our minds.
There are some negative stereotypes circulating.
These ugly cultural beliefs and stereotypes make it easy to demonize Arabs. The modern stereotypes that seems to circulate about Arabs reminds me of this: … money-grabbing cartoon figures who want to dominate the world, worship another God, kill innocent people and lust after blonde virgins…. that was what Nazis hate propaganda you sto say about Jewish people, and look where that led us.
The other thing is because there is next to no focus on poor or oppressed Arabs – as Arabs – in places like Iran for example to balance out this portrayal.
For me, the most disturbing is the image portrayed in Arabia is of RICH ARABS. So often the portrayal of ‘Arabs’ is the Arab sheik, so wealthy. It makes me wonder where the truth starts and Western media imagery ends, because it is said there is usually a grain of truth, however misguided, in stereotypes.
Let me play Devil’s Advocate for now and ask this: my POV is this, the rich Arab leaders strike me as the probably the most – more complacent than any other leadership in the world. I mean complacent, not crazy. Why?
Where is self-criticism in the rich Arab world?
Where is productivity in the rich Arab world?
The rich Arabs don’t have to ask themselves anything because:
- they have oil
- they have land
- they have slaves (!)
- they have education
- they have brilliant minds
So where are all the Arab-founded, Arab-led manufacturing concerns bustling with activity around the clock in the Arab world?
What is this but complacency and laziness?
End of Devil’s advocacy episode.
Then, the common negative stereotype
Abagond:
I was channel-surfing the other night, and stopped on a documentary that was airing on Current TV. The name of the documentary is Vanguard: From Russia With Hate. It talked about the rise of neo-nazis and skinheads in Russia, as it relates to the increased immigration of those from countries such as Armenia, Georgia, and other asian countries in the region. You should check it out.
WTF…
What world do you all live in?
@Serji Amirok
Which world do you live in?
What a load of crap your site is, the Young “Turks” were run by and mostly MASONIC JEWS! And Hitler never gassed anyone And if anyone anything from this bunch of murdering Jews it was that other bunch of murdering Jews in Russia! They taught it to the other bunch of murdering Jews in Israel!
Funny how some people are just blinded by their own opinions and perspectives. May we all be forgiven and live as a reconciled world. (Only through His Blood)
1- What about over a hundred million Native Americans killed by the Western Europeans?
2- What about atomic, and napalm bombs dropped on hundreds of thousands of innocent people?
3- What about cultural genocide all across the Africa, and Oceania?
4- What about colonization of many poor countries by the Western Europeans, and they still go through famine?
5- What about the killings, in last decade, of millions of people just in Iraq, and Afghanistan where angelic Westerners brought democracy?
The answer is simple: Psychopathic Westerners have orgasm seeing other poor third world countries fight with each other, including miserable Turks, and Armenians. As a Turk, I and my family have many Armenian friends here, and they’re incredibly intelligent, warm, friendly, and we quite love one another. Anyway we had lived in peace for hundreds of years in Anatolia, it’s just Western capitalism which made us apart. Long live imperialism.. in hell.
Nothing to add to the excellent post and commentary from observers. I just wanted to say that I read about the Armenian genocide in a YA novel called Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian. The prologue even has the Hitler quote. The novel is the genocide seen through the eyes of a young boy, who watches his family murdered. He escapes just by wits and luck to Constantinople and I think he reunites with his sister.
It’s a perfect example of being not too gruesome in detail but at the same time not pulling any punches or sugarcoating the situation, just because it’s a young adult novel.