Talk:Armenian genocide denial

Turkish Nationalism and its consequences
The best evidence pointing to this catastrophe as being a genocide is without doubt the actions of the Ottomans and later the Turks towards other (usually non-Muslim but not always) minorities in what is now modern day Turkey. Turkey is a Nationalist state, Turkish Nationalism looks and awful lot like Zionism when you compare the two (with some big differences). The Greek-Turkish population exchange depopulated Ionia, Cappadocia and the Pontus. While Turks were expelled from Greece too there were far more Greeks in Turkey than there were Turks in Greece. Furthermore this turned into a religious issue because anyone who was Greek Orthodox was defined as being "Greek" even if they didn't see themselves as such, and any Muslim in Greece was defined as a "Turk" even if they didn't see themselves as such. A considerable number of Greeks remained in Turkey, primarily in Istanbul after the Greco-Turkish War. In 1955 that changed when there was a pogrom in Istanbul. Nowadays the Greek population is pathetically small. Does any of this anti-Greek sentiment make sense in Turkey? Of course not, the Turks are facing the nightmare scenario that they want have enough Orthodox Greeks in the country and therefore won't be able to find a Bishop suitable to become the Patriarch of Constantinople. Destroying the Patriarchate, which is what that appear to be trying to do is the single stupidest action the modern Turkish state could possible carry out and yet they are doing it anyway in the name of "nationalism" and "secularism". I digress back in the day (before World War I) in the days of the Ottoman Empire the Southeastern portion of what is now modern day Turkey was populated by Aramaic speaking Assyrians as well as Kurds. Hundred of thousands of them were massacred. Heaven must have been a busy place since at the exact time the Bolsheviks were killing Russian priests and Bishops the Turks and the Kurds were busy killing Assyrian priests and Bishops, though not even the Bolsheviks went so far as to actually kill the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Turks never felt constrained and killed Shimon XXI Benyamin. Ataturk denied that these catastrophes took place not because they were done by Muslims but because they were done by Turks in particular. The Turkish Republic as a state which advocated Nationalist policies they didn't take to kindly to people in the country who didn't identify as Turks. The Christian minorities were the easiest target and that is why they were destroyed first but they were by no means the only target. A considerable portion of Turkey's population is descended from Muhacirs- Muslims from territories in the Russian Empire and countries in the Balkans. They were not "Turkish" and they did not speak Turkish, they left because they were Muslims. The Ottoman Empire controlled the Balkans for half a millennium the reason why you only find Muslims in countries like Albania, and Bosnia is because they were the only ones who stayed behind (or weren't forced out a the point of a bayonet) when the Ottoman Empire cleared out. Were these instances of genocide? In the case of the Circassians, yes it was. The Russian Empire moved to destroy the Circassians as a people and nearly succeeded. When the Ottoman Empire began Massacring and deporting Armenians it was ethnic cleansing but it wasn't a genocide. However one could argue that they began to try and start a genocide particularly during the Caucasus Campaign when the Ottomans attempted to seize Yerevan but were defeated by an Armenian Army at the Battle of Sardarabad (which happened AFTER the collapse of the Russian Empire, and AFTER the signing of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk by the Ottoman Empire and the Central Powers). If there is any evidence that is more damning then the historical accounts of the what happened in Anatolia it is how the Turks treat minorities in Turkey decades after the conclusion of World War I. Linguists consider the Kurdish Language (technically languages) to be "Iranian" languages, in other words closely related to Persian. The modern Turkish state instead preferred to call the "Mountain Turks" and made every attempt to suppress them and every last part of their culture that could possibly support the narrative of Turkey being populated in part by people who aren't Turkish. What conclusions can be derived from these facts? Well for starters what happened in Anatolia, Ionia, Cappadocia, and the Pontus was ethnic cleansing. The Christian minorities WERE targeted for ethnic cleansing if only by virtue of the fact that they were the most vulnerable targets. In the very narrow definition of the word "Genocide" there wasn't an Armenian Genocide but in the broader sense of the word "Genocide" there was. If any Muslim refuses to call what happened in Anatolia during World War I a genocide ask them what they think of the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. Ask them what they think of Al-Nakhba. If he or she calls that a Genocide but not what happened to the Armenians a genocide than the person in question is a hypocrite.

On the Turkish Killings
I understand the desire to discuss Turkish-Armenian violence in the perspective of Armenian self-defense. However, the current phrasing of this seems to justify murdering Turkish children, because they would themselves become Islamist extremists. This logic is severely twisted, and should not be portrayed in a positive, or even sympathetic, light. This violence only further fostered anti-Armenian hate and violence, as Turks would view Armenians as baby-killers, and become even more devoted to slaughtering them. This passage has been deleted and reverted, and I'd like to suggest an edit to prevent this conflict. IveBeenFrank (talk)
 * Bullshit. The Turks were committing a genocide at the time and couldn't care less about the innocence of their victims. That's a bit like saying impeaching Trump caused him to be a worse president or resisting the Nazis caused them to increase their atrocities. Note, also, that the Islamic extremists of the 1910s grew up during the Hamidian massacres of the 1880s, and so that logic is correct. 13:52, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Pointing out that some Armenians were wrong to kill kids in no way justifies the genocide of the entire group. Of course the Turks were far worse than anything the Armenians could have done. However, by killing children who were at the time innocent, it is only natural that their parents and the ethnic group of the children would become more vicious in their killings of Armenians. Regardless of whether your logic is true, killing children (who I assume to be noncombatants) is wrong. The passage should reflect at least this. IveBeenFrank (talk)
 * Yeah, that bit was gross and it should stay gone. The article's argument is in no way weaker without it. 14:24, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * You are wrong in assuming they were noncombatants, as some of the citations and Mardiganian's book show. Give me a citation for how retaliating against genocidal maniacs makes them "more vicious". 14:26, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Those source state that there were child soldiers, not that nearly every child was a soldier to the point that killing would be somewhat justified (as Armenians could assume that the children were combatants). As for your request for citation, it's human nature. When a bully beats someone up, harming something important to them will only further enrage them, motivating that bully to pursue their victims with increased ruthlessness. IveBeenFrank (talk)
 * Still no citation. If your logic were accurate, we shouldn't arrest and punish criminals, just leave them alone so they don't become "more ruthless". 14:36, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * There's a difference between arresting known criminals and killing their children. One is already guilty. The other is being killed simply on a supposition that they could become killers in the future. Not to mention that your current suggestion argues that by killing Turkish children, Armenians could help Turks "see reason." Pretty sure people who've just had their kids murdered aren't going to behave calmly and rationally. IveBeenFrank (talk)
 * There's a broad difference between 'the Armenians did this bad thing for a strategic reason' versus 'killing kids was good actually because they'd have been butchers and you need to kill the loved ones'. 14:43, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * As I pointed out earlier, the butchers during the 1910s had been kids during the Hamidian massacres, so, yes, they would have been butchers. And given the circumstances (defending themselves from a genocide by a colonialist power), doing basically anything for a strategic reason would have been "good". Also, notice I used the word "justified" not "good", which has a totally different meaning. Need I mention that the Turks were killing people's loved ones and could have used a dose of their own medicine? 15:15, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Violence begets violence, not peace. By responding in kind, the Armenians solve nothing, and only sink to the level of the Turks. As to your mention of the Hamidian massacres, the actions you support create a self-fulfilling prophecy, and a never-ending, always-escalating cycle: Turks massacre Armenians, Armenians kill Turkish children, Turks become more hostile to Armenians and kill them in greater numbers when violence breaks out, and Armenians respond by killing ever more Turkish children. IveBeenFrank (talk)

You're lying and concern trolling again. In the Hamidian massacres, the Armenians didn't kill Turkish children, and the Turks took that as a licence to be even more violent. If your logic was true, Hitler could have been defeated by hugs, kisses, and the Jews, Roma, Slavs, French, Brits, etc.., peacefully submitting to being shot, starved, and gassed. 15:28, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Regrettably, violence is sometimes necessary. As such, it should only be directed against those posing a severe and immediate threat. Hitler falls under this category, declaring an open war against those ethnicities. But German children, like Turkish children, aren't an immediate threat. Mass murder of German children, or terrorist attacks targeting them wouldn't have stopped the Holocaust; if anything, it would have increased the rate at which Hitler perused his ethnic cleansing, out of a desire for revenge. Killing children is morally wrong, and a stupid strategy. I don't know why you're trying to make it seem perfectly justified, almost as if the Armenians should be complimented for it. IveBeenFrank (talk)
 * But they didn't have to be an immediate threat. The Turks had been at the genocide business for thirty years, and it was reasonable of the Armenians to assume they would be at it thirty years later, when those children would have already reached middle age. With regards to Hitler, he would have perhaps wanted to increase the pace of the Holocaust, but would inevitably been forced to slow the pace to deal with the threat to his children. 17:25, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * So it's perfectly good to kill an innocent on a presumption on future guilt? You're fine with condemning to death thousands of children, even the few (or many, you really don't know) on a hunch? If anything, Armenians would prove some of Turkish lies part true: that they are bloodthirsty and violent. And in regards to Hitler, no way! Since the oppressed groups (Yugoslavs, Roma, Jews, Slavs, etc.) killed German people, Hitler would have the perfect propaganda tool. He could now kill those groups at an even faster rate, as no German would object. Furthermore, he could entice German citizens into forming their own roaming bands of murderers. Targeting innocents always makes the enemy more ruthless. If you can find a counterexample to this, I'd be happy to hear it. IveBeenFrank (talk) 17:37, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * A counterexample is WW2, where after the Rape of Berlin the Germans basically didn't resist soviet domination until after 1985, or Rwanda, where now the Hutu militants are quite quiet. 17:46, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * So the widespread fleeing of the country and espionage don't count in Germany's case? On the Rwandan case, I can't find any reference to counter-genocide by the Tutsis. And even then, the current success of Rwanda isn't due to a mass slaughter of Hutus, but through a comprehensive peace process designed to unite the country and encourage love for one's countrymen. (Turns out you can defeat genocide through hugs and kisses). I'll leave you with another example that proves my case: Germany's eastern front during WWII. The Soviet Union was widely hated by occupied Ukrainian and Slavic peoples; in fact, there were several partisan uprisings against them. If the Germans were to befriend these ethnicities, they could have utterly destroyed the Soviet Union with ease. However, by killing their children and burning their crops, they made fierce enemies out of the now fully-radicalized partisans, and the Soviet Union received unity the likes of which it never obtained before or since. Now that I've addressed the tactical uselessness of this total-war-esque doctrine, you still haven't discussed its moral implications. Are you a "end justifies the means" person, or a relativist, perhaps? Because I see no way to morally justify this. IveBeenFrank (talk) 18:25, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The edit in question is gross and bloodthirsty, and I will take this to a mob vote before I allow it to go back into the article. Saying that kids would 'grow up to be butchers' and that 'slaughtering loved ones' is a legitimate tactic is frankly disturbing. 18:31, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * You are correct in doing so. I will certainly not edit this page for a week or so and allow other people to sort this out. 18:47, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Silver
Incredibly missional, and decent article. I'd say this is a coinflip, but I'm leaning towards Silver... 02:44, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Somebody needs to comb through and make sure there isn’t any more “kill all Turks” rhetoric from Summa left in here. 03:25, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Committed by secular Turks ?
"The article also claims that the genocide, which was committed by the secular Young Turks, actually had been done out of Islamism." The Turks had engaged in mass rape of women of Christian ethnicities, while kidnapping children and forcibly converting them to Islam. How can this be motivated by "secular" turks ? Indianfreethinker (talk) 17:56, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Forced conversions are usually about religion, but in Turkey's case they were about the elimination of foreign peoples. It'd be like someone banning Islam, *cough*China*cough*, even if the Muslims didn't have to convert to your specific religion. CorSock (talk) 18:30, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Very bad take. Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians had been living in Anatolia for far longer than the Turks. Calling them ¨foreign¨ gives the opposite impression. 15:25, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Insulting Turkishness
Article 301 was amended in 2008 to say "the Turkish nation" instead of "Turkishness" and now explicit permission from the Ministry is required to invoke it. (See the Wikipedia page.) Reference 11 points to a 2004 version of the law. So yeah. at least we have that going Bilge Adam Reis (talk) 20:57, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Memri.org as a source
MEMRI is known to deliberately mistranslate or badly translate Arab and Persian news programs (because it's an Israeli propaganda mill, but that's besides the point). Should we really be using them as a source? Vee (talk) 10:28, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Go ahead an swap em out. 12:35, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm just gonna remove the sentence entirely. If someone else can be bothered to find a better source, go ahead and re-add it. Vee (talk) 12:38, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * My reasoning being given that the source is MEMRI, I find the entire sentence to be a questionable inclusion into the article. Vee (talk) 12:40, 12 November 2022 (UTC)