Should Turkey compensate-your thoughts?

[TomServo]

Even if we're never compensated, it's a relief to see how Turks are represented in history books. And I mean the non-Armenian, non-Turkish, non-historian-funded-by-Turkey kind.

[winoman]

this entire thread is somewhat (quite) lacking in reality

[TomServo]

Like totally.

[TUR-Friend]

Exactly.

[winoman]

Exactly.

Well - I do think that most of the positions taken by all in this thread are rather silly and have little bearing on reality (or even potential reality) - but it was your posts in particular that directly inspired my thought to exclaim such...

Again the Jews were better off, more integrated and accepted, and had much less of a history of persecution in Germany as opposed to any other European nation....yet...hm why dat one may ask....(can we blame the Jews themselves? Well let me leave with with some quotes from Robert Melson - Holocaust survivor and current head of the Association of Genocide and Holocaust scholars who has done some very worthwhile comparative research regarding this question:

"...it is seldom the..wretched (who) suffer massacre. To the contrary, it is when they become upwardly mobile , begin to improve their economic, social, cultural, and political situations that they are most likely to be the subjects of massacre. Negros were most likely to be lynched after, not before, reconstruction, Pogroms in the Russian pale coincided with Jewish advance and increase....as Jews began to leave the ghettos in increasing numbers" "It is striking that the Armenian massacres of 1894-96 occured not when Armenian peasents lived out an isolated, backward, and obscure existence in the Eastern vilayets but when they experienced a renaissance."

"The alteration of perceptions on the part of the Porte (from loyal millyet to potential threat) need not have had anything to do with the intentions or even the actions of the Armenians."

"Jews and Armenians experienced rapid economic progress and social mobilization in the 19th century. Such changes were not welcomed by large sections of the larger societies."

ANd for instance traveller George Hughs Hepworth in his Through Armenia by Horseback (1898) writes: "It would be more correct to say that the presence of the revolutionists gave occasion and excuse for the massacres. That the Turks were looking for an excuse no one can doubt..."

[bell-the-cat]

I'm aiming for a trip to the Moon next weekend. I will not get into the why and the how I'm going to do it. And my total lack of any scientific training will not discourage me.

Siamanto, here is how I got to the Moon last weekend,

So will you now enlighten me on the why and the how you are going to go about the reconquering your ancestral lands.

[TurKOnE]

bell the cat great pic dude.

how lovely...

[Otto]

Turkey should apologize and monetary compensation is a must..... but the following idea carved to our head and protected with stone skull..here it comes.... " Lands should change hands only by fighting..."
so it is truly acceptable by Turks that Armenians request their previous home land..but the unnacceptable thing is we give it back nicely and quietly....

you know what...if you say " Hey Turk give us back the land you stole " you will get answers like "NO" and variants..

But if you say...look at his rubbish land and what you are going through to keep those...then Turk will sigh and say " wish we had given here to Armenians ,i dont even like the weather"

to prove my point i will talk about cyprus... most of us Turks think that we must get rid of it because we are spending hell of a money to keep those ungreatfull Cyprus Turk monkeys comfortable and they also hate us because they cannot go to england anymore and they cannot earn much money...

Greek - Give us back our island
Turk - no way

it should be like this instead

Greek - Cyprus is a pain in the Azz we are giving it to you...
Turk - err..no thanx.. let them unite or you can take it all we dont need it much...

[winoman]

In addition - modern Turkish national identity is pathologically based upon the idea of the geographic homland of the Turks being Anatolia that was (in the minds of Turks) rightly fought for and won against the machinations of the western Imperialist aggressors (and of course those land grabbing Christian minorities). This is why any hint of the Armenian Genocide issie imediatly brings a response that has to do with Armenians wishing for "Turkish territory". So in this sense it is entirely counterproductive to suggest such and only makes this Turkish mindset kick on and leads to immeditate impass. Of course the Turks have other pathologies at work regarding recognition of Genocide having to do with them seeing themselves as the eternal victims and that all are against them and they see the entire Genocide issue as something that was impossed on them by Imperialist powers using the Christian minorites to force Turkish hands. Regardless of the lack of validity of these views (as excuse for Genocide) this is the mindset of the Turkish elites (that those/most Turks who adopt this thinking parrot) and this is a good deal why Genocide recognition is so difficult.

[Otto]

it is rightly fought for..we fought and took it from byzantine didnt we? everywhere we go we rightly fight for it....and when we loose it in a battle we dont fuss about it much...we are not making any noise just because we lost Mekka or somewhere else... we failed to protect those places and now they are rightly fought and lost...

it is not that complicated..it is like playing "king of the hill"....