A great opinion piece on the topic of Turkey's denial of Armenian genocide back in 1915 & how Turkey is being derided for it all over the Western world, from Armenia to Britain to North America.
Yes, just like Germany embracing its past, Turkey should, too, but then all these other countries, who harp about such noble values as fairness, justice, equality etc should also embrace not only their pasts but also what are they doing right now?
Would Belgium embrace how it used & destroyed the country of Congo? or how about France occupying the North African & Middle Eastern regions & colluding with the great imperial power of the past, UK, to break up the whole region & install dictators? How about UK, itself, when it occupied lands, from east to west, & killed & oppressed millions of Natives in North America & Australia, & native populations of South Asia & several African countries?
That's where the hypocrisy of the Western world is apparent. Countries, like Germany, Japan, China & Russia are scorned for what they did in their past or current world but when somebody points Western countries their own faults, the answer is, "forget about the past, & let's look to the future."
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With the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide approaching (April 24), this seems to be open season on Turkey. This week, an angry Ankara summoned the Vatican ambassador & recalled its own to register its protest after Pope Francis uttered the ‘G’ word to describe the Armenian tragedy.
“The first genocide of the 20th century struck Armenian people,” said the pontiff during a mass in St Peter’s Basilica to mark the centenary of the tragedy in which a million Armenians are said to have perished at the hands of the Ottoman army of course.
Turkey, however, rejects the charge arguing that thousands of Turks died as well in civil strife when Armenians rose up against the Ottoman rulers & sided with the Russian & Western forces. Thousands of Muslim besides Armenians were killed in conflicts that engulfed the eastern Ottoman Empire during World War I.
Some 20 nations however recognise the 1915 killings as genocide. In 2008 Barack Obama condemned them as such ... .
... The two sides need to move on & it cannot happen without Turkey acknowledging its past. As independent accounts suggest, excesses may indeed have been committed by a dying empire, desperately trying to hold on to its fast slipping dominions. Confronted with the Russian aggression & combined onslaught of European powers, the Ottomans were fighting for their survival.
... it’s about time modern Turkey acknowledged them. There’s no point in living in denial.
But while what happened in Armenia was truly horrific, was it a coldblooded & calculated genocide along the lines of Jewish Holocaust at the hands of Nazis or the ethnic cleansing of Balkan Muslims in 1990s?
The Armenians may have borne the Ottoman wrath for siding with the invaders but were they picked & eliminated for what they were & believed in as had been the case with Jews & Muslims in the Balkans?
War crimes & crimes against humanity are among the gravest crimes in international law & they are to be dealt with as such no matter who the victims & their tormentors are. Martin Luther King rightly argued that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. More often than not though it’s not genuine humanitarian concerns but realpolitik & hypocrisy that dictate such denunciations. We are selective in our outrage & choosing our victims, as has been the case with the Armenian tragedy. It has become an annual ritual for Western politicians & media to beat Ankara with this big stick.
To be fair to Turkey, in the past few years it has gone out of its way to reach out to its neighbours, including Armenia & Greece, in an attempt to heal the past. Erdogan surprised everyone ... in 2009 when he acknowledged Turkey’s troubled past: “Those with different ethnic identities were expelled from our country. This indeed was the consequence of a fascist approach.”
On the other hand, those rushing to condemn & burn Turkey at the stake hardly come across smelling of roses. Who can feign ignorance of Europe’s own illustrious past? Almost every single European power once boasted & exploited vast, rich colonies in Africa, Asia & Americas. Besides denuding Africa of its fabled riches, they stole its most precious resource, enslaving millions of its people. How Americas were won for the West, nearly wiping out their indigenous populations, is hardly a secret. Thousands were hanged in India when it rose in revolt against the empire in 1857.
Millions died in the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam & Cambodia, as a result of colonial wars. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed & millions driven from their homes after their country was gifted away to European Jews.
We have seen more than a million perish in Iraq & Afghanistan in the last decade alone, not to mention the chaos unleashed across the region. Who will account for these crimes? How would the European Parliament describe what some of its member states visited on their former colonies?
The Pope is right in cautioning humanity against forgetting the ‘senseless slaughter’ of Armenians. But while doing so, let’s spare a thought for the victims of imperial wars too. Selective memory, like selective justice, does more harm than good. Without acknowledgement, there is no reconciliation.
Yes, just like Germany embracing its past, Turkey should, too, but then all these other countries, who harp about such noble values as fairness, justice, equality etc should also embrace not only their pasts but also what are they doing right now?
Would Belgium embrace how it used & destroyed the country of Congo? or how about France occupying the North African & Middle Eastern regions & colluding with the great imperial power of the past, UK, to break up the whole region & install dictators? How about UK, itself, when it occupied lands, from east to west, & killed & oppressed millions of Natives in North America & Australia, & native populations of South Asia & several African countries?
That's where the hypocrisy of the Western world is apparent. Countries, like Germany, Japan, China & Russia are scorned for what they did in their past or current world but when somebody points Western countries their own faults, the answer is, "forget about the past, & let's look to the future."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide approaching (April 24), this seems to be open season on Turkey. This week, an angry Ankara summoned the Vatican ambassador & recalled its own to register its protest after Pope Francis uttered the ‘G’ word to describe the Armenian tragedy.
“The first genocide of the 20th century struck Armenian people,” said the pontiff during a mass in St Peter’s Basilica to mark the centenary of the tragedy in which a million Armenians are said to have perished at the hands of the Ottoman army of course.
Turkey, however, rejects the charge arguing that thousands of Turks died as well in civil strife when Armenians rose up against the Ottoman rulers & sided with the Russian & Western forces. Thousands of Muslim besides Armenians were killed in conflicts that engulfed the eastern Ottoman Empire during World War I.
Some 20 nations however recognise the 1915 killings as genocide. In 2008 Barack Obama condemned them as such ... .
... The two sides need to move on & it cannot happen without Turkey acknowledging its past. As independent accounts suggest, excesses may indeed have been committed by a dying empire, desperately trying to hold on to its fast slipping dominions. Confronted with the Russian aggression & combined onslaught of European powers, the Ottomans were fighting for their survival.
... it’s about time modern Turkey acknowledged them. There’s no point in living in denial.
But while what happened in Armenia was truly horrific, was it a coldblooded & calculated genocide along the lines of Jewish Holocaust at the hands of Nazis or the ethnic cleansing of Balkan Muslims in 1990s?
The Armenians may have borne the Ottoman wrath for siding with the invaders but were they picked & eliminated for what they were & believed in as had been the case with Jews & Muslims in the Balkans?
War crimes & crimes against humanity are among the gravest crimes in international law & they are to be dealt with as such no matter who the victims & their tormentors are. Martin Luther King rightly argued that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. More often than not though it’s not genuine humanitarian concerns but realpolitik & hypocrisy that dictate such denunciations. We are selective in our outrage & choosing our victims, as has been the case with the Armenian tragedy. It has become an annual ritual for Western politicians & media to beat Ankara with this big stick.
To be fair to Turkey, in the past few years it has gone out of its way to reach out to its neighbours, including Armenia & Greece, in an attempt to heal the past. Erdogan surprised everyone ... in 2009 when he acknowledged Turkey’s troubled past: “Those with different ethnic identities were expelled from our country. This indeed was the consequence of a fascist approach.”
On the other hand, those rushing to condemn & burn Turkey at the stake hardly come across smelling of roses. Who can feign ignorance of Europe’s own illustrious past? Almost every single European power once boasted & exploited vast, rich colonies in Africa, Asia & Americas. Besides denuding Africa of its fabled riches, they stole its most precious resource, enslaving millions of its people. How Americas were won for the West, nearly wiping out their indigenous populations, is hardly a secret. Thousands were hanged in India when it rose in revolt against the empire in 1857.
Millions died in the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam & Cambodia, as a result of colonial wars. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed & millions driven from their homes after their country was gifted away to European Jews.
We have seen more than a million perish in Iraq & Afghanistan in the last decade alone, not to mention the chaos unleashed across the region. Who will account for these crimes? How would the European Parliament describe what some of its member states visited on their former colonies?
The Pope is right in cautioning humanity against forgetting the ‘senseless slaughter’ of Armenians. But while doing so, let’s spare a thought for the victims of imperial wars too. Selective memory, like selective justice, does more harm than good. Without acknowledgement, there is no reconciliation.
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