Posted on 09/27/2002 1:21:35 PM PDT by Destro
Why did Stalin need to wipe out the Ukranian farmers? They were disrupting the social order. No, not at all. He wanted a new social order, and the farmers represented the old one; he was the disrupting power. So were the Nazis. And the French revolutionaries before them. That's why there was all the mass bloodshed. Not every move foreward is progress.
Why did the Young Turks try to wipe out the Armenians back during WWI? They feared the Armenians would disrupt the social order. No, the Armenians bet on the advancing Russian army and switch allegiance to them. This is much like California and Texas switching allegiance to Mexico.
I am very much troubled by what has been done to Armenians, but to portray them as victims of religious persecution is not quite accurate.
Most certainly, they were not some progressive movement suppressed by the Turks, as you seem to present it. Any nation who holds to such ideas can never be in agreement with the West and liberty or freedom. You should speak for our country only. Where in the West have you seen liberty and freedom in the way we understand it? In Germany, where every citizen pays a Church tax, regardless of his beliefs? Or in Spain, where after the expulsion in 1492 there are no Jews (in contrast, Munich, the capital of the Nazi movement in the 1920s-1930s, even after the Holocaust has about 7,000 Jewish citizens).
Your (and mine) understanding of liberty is a uniquely American phenomenon (yes, it has originated with Germanic tribes; yes, it was preserved in England that has been concurred by them; yes, it was further strengthened through the Magna Carta of 1215 and the First Parliament of 1265; yet its full development this idea has reached here, in the New World). So, it may well be that when we judge countries like Turkey, we should compare them to, say, France or Germany, but not the United States. And you know, when measured by that yardstick, Turkey does not look bad.
BTW, young Cleburne, your comparison of Turkey with the USSR is a little like using a sledgehammer to kill a housefly, besides just being plain bloody-minded.
Don't you think that some of your rhetorical devices are mebbe just a little high falutin' ?
"I here declare my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule -- to all political, social and business connection with the Yankees and to the Yankee race. Would that I could impress these sentiments, in their full force, on every living Southerner and bequeath them to every one yet to be born! May such sentiments be held universally in the outraged and down-trodden South, though in silence and stillness, until the now far-distant day shall arrive for just retribution for Yankee usurpation, oppression and atrocious outrages, and for deliverance and vengeance for the now ruined, subjugated and enslaved Southern States!
...And now with my last writing and utterance, and with what will be near my last breath, I here repeat and would willingly proclaim my unmitigated hatred to yankee rule--to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, and the perfidious, malignant, and vile Yankee race."
By the time of their third expansion, the congregation numbered well over a thousand and every Sunday and Wednesday night was a parking nightmare for the poor lost souls who lived close by. Polite requests by the neighbors for some consideration as far as parking was concerned were returned with near manic exhortations to get saved and rebukes of the Evil One and his sinister minions.
Some kind of zoning laws concerning places of worship are obviously appropriate. I would certainly raise this issue up should any new church be built in my neighborhood.
I did not mean to imply that Stalin was equal to the Young Turks (and certainly not the modern Turkish government), but that their ideas were similar. It's not my theory really, comes from a comparative history study I'm reading, but it's implications make sense- to me anyway. There is a pattern to revolutionary, authoritarian governments in which minorities pose a problem- real or imagined- to the revolutionary government. Revolutionary in particular, as it is necessary to maintain a fairly homogeneous population, preferably a population composed of your supporters. It is in the autoritarian's best interest to eliminate ethnic groups, religous minorities, social classes, etc, that threaten (or at least he percieves them as a threat) his rule.
In modern-day Turkey there is not the added dimension of a revolutionary government, but it is still quite authoritarian- so I would say the patterns of other governments are applicable. Christian (or for that matter, Muslim) groups who are not members of the status quo pose a problem. Perhaps it is understandable, in light of Turkey's situation, but I certainly hope the US never adopts Turkey's solution.
This would explain why Armenians serving in the armed forces, fighting Russians, where taken off and slaughtered? Why were Armenians living in perfect peace hundreds and hundreds of miles from the nearest battlelines were rounded up and sent to the deserts? Also, the Young Turks desired a state composed of Turks. The Kurds and such were to be assigned their own regions, as they were after all Muslim. The largely Christian minority populations- Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians- did not fit into the Young Turk's scheme of things. They were irregularities in the landscape. I suppose I should have qualified social order- it is more of a case of the ruling group's perception of the social order, so on that point you have me. And you are correct that it was not so much religious as it was ethnic, though one cannot seperate the religious component- why were Armenian children kidnapped and placed in devout Muslim homes?
Most certainly, they were not some progressive movement suppressed by the Turks, as you seem to present it.
It was not my intention to present it thusly (nor did I wish to debate the "troubles" as we shall call them, but did anyway I suppose). But the Young Turks saw a threat in the Armenian population- that of progress and revolution. The other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire had revolted and held their own states, so what was keeping the Armenians from doing so? Certainly there were revolutionary movements in the population, and Armenians had climbed upwards economically all through the nineteenth century, but the movements were hardly widespread. Certainly most of the people who died had nothing to do with any movement, and would have remained perfect citizens.
I lived there, cully, and was paid in Turkish Lira by my Turkish boss. The country I lived in and the country you describe are two different places. The Turkish government, BTW, only recognizes civil marriage ceremonies. Ceremonies performed in houses of worship by clerics are not legally recognized. There is a complete separation of religion from public policy. Perhaps that is what confuses folks.
And no, I don't think a snake handler sect would be allowed to practice there. Thank God.
29 Armenians achieved the highest governmental rank of pasha,
22 Armenians became ministers, including Ministers of Foreign Affairs,
33 Armenians were elected to the Parliament,
7 Armenians were appointed as Ambassadors, 11 as Consul Generals,
11 Armenians served in universities as professors.
Why where were 803 Armenian schools employing 2088 teachers with over 80,000 pupils within the Ottoman Empire in 1901-2?
One would hardly allow such policies for a certain group if one's policy was the destruction of that group.
Now, let us come to the Young Turks, the perptrators of the genocide (or suppresors of the evil Armenian revolutionaries...). They come into power, what do they want? A state composed of Turks, for Turks. The Armenians are not Turks, what's worse they hold economic power, and are rising politically and culturally. Perhaps they posed a real threat to the Young Turk's dreams (though that hardly gives a good excuse), but probably not: for the reasons you cite- they were good citizens, and the Ottomans had treated them fairly well- why rebel? But authoritarians and their ilk are rarely masters of morals or reason.
Please understand I have nothing against the Turkish people. Indeed, they were often resitant to the perpetrations of their government, and Armenians found much better friends in Turks than Jews would in Germans. But why defend a government that so obviously commited awful acts?
You haven't spent any time there, have you?
What does a Turk look like? What are the defining "ethnic" features of "Turkishness," if you will? There is no such animal.
I have met Turks with blonde, brown, and black hair, white, yellow, brown, and black skin, blue, green, and brown eyes, asian, caucasian, and negro features, and everything else that reflects a language that spreads from Siberia to Greece, and a former empire, that... well, just look at some maps. Figure it out for yourself.
This Armenian Genocide stuff is a load of crap anyway. There's an Armenian cemetary in my old neighborhood in Istanbul, for instance. Had there been some sort of genocide, that, and all record of it, would have been erased years ago.
And you are right, I've never gotten to go to Turkey, but would love to some day. If you're really interested in my enlightenment, I'll give you my address and you can send funds for travel fare: )
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