Armenian Genocide denial
| Not just a river in Egypt |
| A dirty dozen gems |
- The death toll has been inflated;
- Ethnic violence killed Turks as well;
- Deportations and death marches were simply "temporarily relocation" of Armenians for "security reasons" (ie. the pesky Armenians were being overtly "rebellious," "hostile," or pro-Russian); and
- The Ottoman leadership didn't intend to exterminate the Armenians, so it can't be called a "genocide."[1]
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[edit] World War I and aftermath
As early as 1915, Britain, France, and Russia issued a statement that the Armenians were the victims of crimes against humanity and civilization (the term "genocide" didn't exist then).[2] The Treaty of Sevres signed in 1920 created an Armenian state. However, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first then-president of the Great National Assembly, refused to abide by the treaty and occupied the Armenian Republic by the Treaties of Kars and Moskova, signed with the Armenians and the Soviet Russians respectively. The Armenian Republic collapsed and was subsumed by Turkey and the Soviet Union by said treaties, with many more deportations of Armenians taking place in the process. Turkey escaped being held responsible by the international community.
[edit] Recognition
Recognition of the Armenian Genocide is a thorny issue since Turkey occupies a very strategic position in the world. Currently, 43 nations provide some level of recognition of the event. Historically, Turkey has leveraged its position as an important ally in the Middle East to keep the United States from recognizing the genocide. The United States has recently joined the group of nations that recognize what the Ottomans did. Another holdout is Israel, which has only tepidly recognized the genocide. This is largely because the Israelis are in-between a rock and a hard place; Turkey is one of the few predominantly Muslim nations in their region which maintains some level of diplomatic ties with them.
[edit] Within Turkey
The Turks are probably the most outspoken objecters to the term "genocide." In fact, a Turk, in Turkey, can even be arrested for acknowledging that one took place (a strange inversion of laws that criminalize Holocaust denial). This falls under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which makes it a crime to "insult Turkishness" (regardless of whether it's true).[3] Prosecutors brought such a case in 2005 against writer Orhan Pamuk.[4]
[edit] Anti-Semitic Inversion
Certain bigots have accused Jews of deliberately not giving the Armenian Genocide (as well as other genocides) enough attention in the media (as they supposedly run it) in order to focus solely on the Holocaust, conveniently overlooking the fact that unlike the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust had the benefit of the occupation of the Allies who made sure to scrupulously document, photograph, and film as much of it as they could, as well as put as many perpetrators as they could find on trial, thus creating a lot more historical material to study. But who needs things like logic when you can blame the Jews for everything?
[edit] External links
- Armenian Genocide on Wikipedia
- Armenian National Institute genocide research library
- United Human Rights Council on the Armenian Genocide
- State of Denial by Peter Balakian
- The Centennial of the Armenian Genocide