Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

That's not a correct assertion. Genocide is a term to describe a specific type of crimes committed. There is no need for living defendants, as a judgment can be carried out without them if archived documents surrounding the case are enough to make a judgment. As such, one can say that the defendants (even if deceased) were guilty of genocide if such a judgment can be made based on the available documentation.

Genocide does NOT describe a type of crime. The label "crime" is a statement of opinion by a select group. Something that is a "crime" this year may not have been a "crime" the year before, and (if those that make laws have second thoughts) may not be a "crime" next year. Yet that "something" that was firstly not criminal, then criminal, and then decriminalised, will remain exactly the same act. Only the label has changed.

And, again, you are agreeing with the official Turkish viewpoint: "Genocide is a term to describe a specific type of crimes committed". What court has said that Turkey has committed this specific type of crime?

[levon]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

It seems that Jos agrees 100% with the official Turkish viewpoint, the one that says that the so-called "Armenian genocide" cannot possible be called a genocide because "genocide" is a legal term, and no court has ever convicted or even accused any person or any state of committing "genocide" against Armenians, and until an appropriate court does decide the term is valid, the word "genocide" cannot be used. And no court could make such a judgement since there are no living defendants, and because, if genocide is only a legal term, both "genocide" and the "Crime of Genocide" did not exist before 1948.

That's not a correct assertion. Genocide is a term to describe a specific type of crimes committed. There is no need for living defendants, as a judgment can be carried out without them if archived documents surrounding the case are enough to make a judgment. As such, one can say that the defendants (even if deceased) were guilty of genocide if such a judgment can be made based on the available documentation.

[Jos]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

It seems that Jos agrees 100% with the official Turkish viewpoint, the one that says that the so-called "Armenian genocide" cannot possible be called a genocide because "genocide" is a legal term, and no court has ever convicted or even accused any person or any state of committing "genocide" against Armenians, and until an appropriate court does decide the term is valid, the word "genocide" cannot be used. And no court could make such a judgement since there are no living defendants, and because, if genocide is only a legal term, both "genocide" and the "Crime of Genocide" did not exist before 1948.

Rather than browbeating and second guessing, why don't you just explain your assertion that "Genocide" is NOT a legal word" when it clearly is according to International conventions and treaties. As a minimum you should acknowledge that the word may be interpreted broadly, including both legal and non-legal sources.

[Eddo211]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

I am not sure how you conclude that i lack consciousness but i will tell you or anyone else that there are many more productive things you can be doing then trying to give a meaning to a phrase that obviously was not meant to express such a meaning. There is no dought about the illegal nature of the genocide but the phrase in question in no way deals with that aspect. The phrase is a discription of a unprecidentet so our people made up a name to describe it and they called it what they felt at the time. Sure there are plenty of legal implications to genocide but that is hardly what the people who coined the said phrase were thinking of, they just wanted to describe the undescribable and this is what they came up with. This phrase does indeed describe a terrible criminal act but that meaning is not inherent in the phrase itself.

Agreed.
To me "Medz Yeghern" comes across to me as an Armenian..........this one toped it all.

Londontsi: The cat is right....don't fall for the Turkish tricks.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

That's a ridiculous proposition. It's the equivalent of trying to convince people the word "gay" actually means "happy". Too bad but the word has been taken over by modern connotations whether you like or not. The same with the word "genocide". It doesn't matter if Lemkin coined the word for academic reasons. The fact is "genocide" is now a legal term by virtue of the international legal definition found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

It seems that Jos agrees 100% with the official Turkish viewpoint, the one that says that the so-called "Armenian genocide" cannot possible be called a genocide because "genocide" is a legal term, and no court has ever convicted or even accused any person or any state of committing "genocide" against Armenians, and until an appropriate court does decide the term is valid, the word "genocide" cannot be used. And no court could make such a judgement since there are no living defendants, and because, if genocide is only a legal term, both "genocide" and the "Crime of Genocide" did not exist before 1948.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

Professor Khatchatur I. Pilikian
FromStatement to UK Parliament 19 January 2010

The Armenian term Medz Yeghern=Big Crime . . . .

===================

CRIME, atrocity, outrage, evil act-- this is the core meaning of "yeghern",
things that should NEVER happen. Not earthquakes and floods and forest fires. The term is NOT morally neutral. Survivors of the Genocide like A. Aharonian knew very well what they meant when they called it "Medz Yeghern". They didn't mean, as Turkish propagandists like to say, that some bad things just sort of happened. That's the genius of the term they handed down: a moral indictment is built into it, unlike the pre-"genocide" terms used by many other groups. And some people want to emasculate it and cover it up and disown it. A very big pity.

I'm surprised a composer/poet could say such an unsophisticated thing. Didn't he realise that a far deeper meaning could have been got by explaining that "Medz Yeghern" arose from an event that was so horrible that there was no terminology capable of neatly labeling it, and it could only be named by its survivors in an abstract way.

I've got the full text somewhere, so maybe his whole statement is not quite that crude all the way through. And of course, although it claimed to be a "Statement to UK Parliament", it was actually another of those "by Armenians for Armenians" things, so it might be intentionally unsophisticated.

[Jos]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

"Genocide" is NOT a legal word - please stop spreading Turkish propaganda.

That's a ridiculous proposition. It's the equivalent of trying to convince people the word "gay" actually means "happy". Too bad but the word has been taken over by modern connotations whether you like or not. The same with the word "genocide". It doesn't matter if Lemkin coined the word for academic reasons. The fact is "genocide" is now a legal term by virtue of the international legal definition found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

[Diranakir]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

By Khatchig Mouradian

The Armenian Weekly
September 23, 2006


Survivors of the Armenian Genocide used a number of terms to refer to
the destruction of their people in the Ottoman Empire. In the
editorials under study, the term most commonly and consistently used
from the 1920s to the present is Yeghern (Crime/Catastrophe), or
variants like Medz Yeghern (Great Crime) and Abrilian Yeghern (the
April Crime).

===================

Professor Khatchatur I. Pilikian
FromStatement to UK Parliament 19 January 2010

The Armenian term Medz Yeghern=Big Crime . . . .

===================

CRIME, atrocity, outrage, evil act-- this is the core meaning of "yeghern",
things that should NEVER happen. Not earthquakes and floods and forest fires. The term is NOT morally neutral. Survivors of the Genocide like A. Aharonian knew very well what they meant when they called it "Medz Yeghern". They didn't mean, as Turkish propagandists like to say, that some bad things just sort of happened. That's the genius of the term they handed down: a moral indictment is built into it, unlike the pre-"genocide" terms used by many other groups. And some people want to emasculate it and cover it up and disown it. A very big pity.

[londontsi]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

It seems that Londontsi agrees 100% with the official Turkish viewpoint, the one that says that the so-called "Armenian genocide" cannot possible be called a genocide because "genocide" is strictly a legal term, no court has ever convicted or even accused anyone or any state of committing "genocide" against Armenians, and until an appropriate court does decide the term is valid, the word "genocide" cannot be used.

I was being too kind calling you a comedian.
I should have called you a moron.

Before you get upset re-read what you have written and try to see it has any simmilarity with what I wrote.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

I agree with you.
You are a good comedian

It seems that Londontsi agrees 100% with the official Turkish viewpoint, the one that says that the so-called "Armenian genocide" cannot possible be called a genocide because "genocide" is strictly a legal term, no court has ever convicted or even accused anyone or any state of committing "genocide" against Armenians, and until an appropriate court does decide the term is valid, the word "genocide" cannot be used.