Should Turkey compensate-your thoughts?

[nairi]

Winston, I will repeat Fr Mouradian's words only once more: "We have begged and requested in the 20th century. Now the time has come to demand." Yes, it is time to demand. We have already tried the ass-kissing, the pleading and the pleasing. No more of that. Too bad if those genocidal bastards feel that we are hurting their false egos. I don't care if they feel like their "Empire", which they colonized and invaded in the first place, subjecting the natives to second rate citizenship and slavery, fell. I'm damn happy it fell and I can't wait until so-called "Turkey" falls as well. The land is ours and we will get it back. I think we deserve it after 90 years of denial and destruction of our cultural heritage! Again, I refuse to play in the hands of Turkish denialists by kissing ass just so they can continue controlling us. That time is LONG gone for many Armenians. I can say the same about you: it's Armenians like you who are allowing Turks to continue controlling us. But I don't believe that. I'm just glad that there are still Armenians out there who are not falling for the dirty jokes that Turks keep playing on us. It's time we made that very clear to them.

[winoman]

Nairi - while I entirely sympathyze - and am as angry and upset as you are - what use is a demand without the ability to back it up?

I also copntradict that we have begged Turkey and such - we have doen adn are doing what we have always done - and there is nothing inherently wrong with voicing our anguish and our desires for recognition as we have - but we can see - and I felt -- or at least hoped I expalained somewhat - that in the current environment nothing will change - the Turks will not - perhaps even cannot see (the truth of) our claims - not with so much baggage. SO if we are truly interested in recognition and reconcilliation we must take a different tact - one that involves more listening and understanding from both sides - or we drop all pretense and back up our demands with force (of one kind or anohter)....I'd like to hope that some talk and understanding could (eventually) be had - and as hurt/pained as I am and as I know all other Armenians are - I'm not so sure we are ready to have such blood on our hands...well I'm not - and I am of the inclination to contemplate these things...

[bell-the-cat]

Nairi - I understand how you feel - but unfortunatly your approach will get us nowhere IMO. One reason that it is so easy for the Turkish government to convince its people that we are the aggressors - the terrible ones and that they are the victims is the attitudes and expresions of many Armenians (of the Diaspora). The Turks see this aggresive stance on the part of Armenians and immediatly recoil - and if you were in their shoes you would too.

I'm not saying that you and other Armenians are wrong and that Turks (Turkish Government in particular) are/is right - but its a matter of what is constructive and what will only lead to the predictable result - rejection. And I'm not necessarily saying that we Armenians have to care (about the Turks/what Turks think & feel) - but I am one who sees the Turks as victims too - in a very real sense - and not of Armenians (don't be absurd) - but of the circumstances surrounding the fall of their Empire and culture and the resultant wars and poverty that the Ottoman Empire and that its citizens (Turks, Armenians and others) were plunged into. And this is why they will continue to deny that they could have done such a wrong. ..... ....... .......
....

I don’t know what sorts of garbage you have to consume in order to dish up that amount of rot. OK, it's not all garbage - some of it sounds like the sort of hazy thinking a liberal Turk with good intentions, but little knowledge of the real situation might come up with. Have you found a new Turkish "daughter" perhaps?

Since it's you, I will respond to some of the points.

"Turks as victims"! Give us a break!! "Aggressive stance"!!! Woo wooo – I'm waving my little finger at you – do you think that gesture is an aggressive stance, Winston? Well, in the supposedly all-powerful Turkey it would be. There, a little waggle of a finger is threat to national security and integrity of the state if it is accompanied by the use of the "G" word. Let's not forget that in Turkey it is a criminal offence, punishable by a lengthy prison sentence, to even suggest that, even in some minimal way, there might have been a Genocide committed by Turks. And that the sentence is decreed to be double if the offence is committed by a Turkish citizen when abroad, or by a Turkish journalist!

Everyone here should realise that there is NOTHING that anyone, anywhere, could truthfully say about the Armenian Genocide that would not be considered to be an "aggressive stance" by Turkey. So I say, don't try to appease them – either ignore them when appropriate or oppose them when appropriate. And oppose them by using the methods that democratic countries would deem appropriate – since those are the very countries that Turkey wants to hide the truth from.

But the "them" are not all Turks, nor is it even the Turkish State. The "them" are those Turks in Turkey and abroad who have a vested interest in continuing the founding myths of the Turkish State, and the myths of Turkish identity. Myths exist to control peoples thoughts and actions. So in some way the average Turk is a victim – though this is an entirely different thing to what you wrote. It is not some long-dead blood-soaked Ottoman Turk who is the "victim" – it is the current population of Turkey who are victims - often willing victims of their own delusions, fantasies, cowardice, ignorance, pomposity, paranoia, self-preservation, and indifference. Indifference is actually the main one – the problem is not that the average Turk thinks the Armenian Genocide issue is an important issue – the problem is that they don't realise how important it should be to them.

Other points:

There was no widespread expulsion of ethnic Turks from SE Europe – the large Muslim minority in Bosnia is proof alone of that. Most of those Turks who left were members of the ruling elite who knew that they had no place in countries in which they had oppressed the populations for centuries. The Turkish army committed a series of hideous massacres in Bulgaria in the 1870s, that in a way foreshadowed the Armenian massacres of the 1890s. Yet there was no wholesale expulsion of Turkish peasants even from newly independent Bulgaria.

WW1 was not a "big colonial land grab at the expense of the Ottoman Empire". It might have escaped Winston’s monumental lack of insight, but the Ottoman Empire willingly CHOSE to enter the war, and chose to enter it on the side of Germany. So it is a bit thick for Turks, or for him, to complain of this resulting in Turkey having Britain, France, and Russia as enemies! And rather than "The Powers" trying to destroy the Ottoman Empire, actually they had been engaged on patching that decayed empire together for the last 60 years of its life.

The Genocide had nothing to do with the military or political aims of wartime Turkey, or of the opinions of Turks during that war regarding the cause of Turkish defeats. The Genocide started in April 1915: this was a mere 6 months after Turkey entered that war and before any substantial territory had been lost. Wartime conditions were merely the cloak that allowed certain Turks to do what they had wanted to do (and planned to do) for many years.

[winoman]

I don't discount what you say concerning Turkish official policy and sensitivity concerning the (any mention of the) genocide - however I still stand by my critique of the failed Armenain approach toward recognition - it fails to appreciate all the reasons for Turkish sensitivity - thus there can be no lines of communication - and without such no progress - on the other hand its all bark and no bite. We are stuck in the middle somewhere and all that has done is maintain the status quo. There may be some cause for hope that more Turkish scholars (mostly outside of Turkey) and others are questioning the offical line - and more Turks are being exposed to sources of information other then their restricted media - but likewise the Turks are becomming more media savy and obstructionist. So while there is hope - it is perhaps hope that people will learn and perhaps eventually force the issue - but in the meanwhile unless the Tukish government itself is legitimatly threatened they will have no incentive to change their stance (and they will continue to perpetuate their myths as you reference). I agree with your portryal of (the dimensions of) Turkish ignorance BTW.

I am familiar with the Bulgarian massacres and the ouster of the landed elite Turks from the Balkans - still they suffered retribution and returned to Anatolia with a great distrust and hatred and want of reventge against Orthodox Christians - and they could see the same Europeanization developing among the Armenains as occured with Greeks and others. Most of the masses of Turkicj/Muslim refugees were from Russia/Ukraine and the Caucuses and these people did suffer. Likewise the Turks of Anatolia suffered from the economic and social collapse of the fallen Ottoman Empire and further from the policies - including - most certainly aggressively joining the war when the Ottoman Empire was already bankrupt and suffering from a century of wars (most all lost). And it is still legitimate to reference WWI as a European land grab of Ottoman Territories - Britain and France had very specific plans for diving the Middle East and there was manuvering by all parties. For instance France, Italy and Greece all coveted parts of Anatolia proper. perhaps this developed after the war had commenced -- but it was (became) a very real factor (and I am very familiar with the competing interests of the powers over the preceeding century - I have read Fromkin for instance [and quite a bit more then you likely realise] - I am not entirely ignorant).

And I understand the context of the Genocide and why it occured - don't think to lecture me on this. I also understand how Armenians were scapegoated and blamed for war losses and such - though this was only just another means to motivate the people to violence against them and to deflect critisisms from the CUP for various failures. etc - I fully understand the war as a cloak to what had been previoulsy planned - or at least seriously contemplated (depending on how far back one goes - from contemplation of such to actually planning such) - and while April 1915 was the official start of the "deportations" - right after the round up of Armenian leadership in Constantinople nad other urban centers - there was actually massacre and supression preceeding this date by many many months - in the context of searching for arms and routing out the (percieved as) rival (to the CUP) Armenian revolutionary parties and their various military cells - even if such concerns were trumped up and used as a pretext for general disarmament of Armenians in areas where there had been prior Armenian resistance (in the 1890s and such).

[Siamanto]

Is it unrealistic to expect Turkey to compensate? They won't give us our lands back, that's for sure; however I think they should be made to compensate monetary losses to genocide descendants which should be used to improve Armenia.
On one side we have Dashnaktsutyun wanting material compensation, on the other we have the president, Robert Kocharyan only wanting moral compensation. What are your thoughts?

Moral compensation? What's in it for us? I view the recognition of the Genocide as a step that leads to restitution!

All living organisms are created from - and thanks to - Mother Earth.? My genes have taken thousands of years to be codified: a code that has traces of those Lands and reflects the essence of those Lands.
Somehow, we belong to those Lands and those Lands belong to us.


Monetary compensation means nothing to me: it's about our Lands that have nurtured and gave birth to our Culture, our Heritage, our Soul.


Of course, the naive adept of a trend called "Realpolitik" would label me as a dreamer. Unfortunately, the narrowness of their scope disallow them to realize that beyond the over simplified refrain that they have learned to repeatedly recite, there's something called History and it's surprises.
"Unrealistic" has a meaning only within a limited scope of time.

I'll have a glass of Cointreau in Western Armenia! Anybody cares to join me?

[Siamanto]

Winston, I will repeat...

Just curious! Is this the same Winston that used to "hang out" with the ThornyRose posse?

[bell-the-cat]

however I still stand by my critique of the failed Armenain approach toward recognition - it fails to appreciate all the reasons for Turkish sensitivity - thus there can be no lines of communication - and without such no progress - on the other hand its all bark and no bite.

That the Armenian approach toward recognition has failed in relation to Turkey is true, but it is also unimportant, since what is the good of communication if there are subjects that can never even be brought up. Let the Turks stew in their self-inflicted "sensitivity" if they want to, let them be laughed at.

The failed Armenian approach toward recognition regarding other countries is a different matter, and a different problem. Most of what I see is the constant barking out of a sound-byte version of history that is full of over simplifications, fabrications, fake quotes by Hitler and others, and so on. Bite comes from having facts correct, and having them correctly presented, and from having some moral integrity behind them.

Maybe the fact that it is an "Armenian approach" is at the heart of the problem. Most of the understanding about the Armenian Genocide that I have did not come from Armenians.

[bell-the-cat]

Maybe the fact that it is an "Armenian approach" is at the heart of the problem. Most of the understanding about the Armenian Genocide that I have did not come from Armenians.

Everyone now knows that material produced by diaspora ethnic groups is intrinsically untrustworthy. Because, whether it be from Albanians terrorists in Kossovo, or from quizling Iraqi political groups in America, or from individual rent-a-mouth "experts" from exiled ethnic minorities everywhere, the world has been badly affected by their propaganda in recent decades.

[CatWoman]

Everyone here should realise that there is NOTHING that anyone, anywhere, could truthfully say about the Armenian Genocide that would not be considered to be an "aggressive stance" by Turkey. So I say, don't try to appease them – either ignore them when appropriate or oppose them when appropriate. And oppose them by using the methods that democratic countries would deem appropriate – since those are the very countries that Turkey wants to hide the truth from.

Exactly my point. Anything concerning the genocide is considered offensive by Turks, so we might as well do it right and claim it all… Specially now that we have more support from other countries than ever before and Turkey is under pressure. Only asking for moral compensation is the biggest mistake Armenia can make. The plan is to make it look like we are after their money/lands, so we’ll disregard our rights to prove them wrong, then they’ll recognize the Genocide and join the EU, without ever repaying anything.

Bell, If it wasn’t for Diaspora Armenians, the Genocide would have never received the recognition it has. It was the Diaspora who got it recognized in Canada, France, etc. You've mentioned this before too, so what is it about the Diaspora that you don‘t like, and I’m not asking for Albanians or Iraqis living abroad… Armenians specifically?

[CatWoman]

I'll have a glass of Cointreau in Western Armenia! Anybody cares to join me?

You mean you're gonna be alive when that happens? You sure plan to live long.

I don't think they'll ever return our lands, the only way we can ever have our lands back is by military force (which won't be in near future), just like we did with Karabagh...