Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

[Diranakir]

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.

The best that can be said for that comment is that it is perfect nonsense.

[Haykakan]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

The best that can be said for that comment is that it is perfect nonsense.

Its ok i kind of feel the same about your comments about this subject to.

[londontsi]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

Genocide is not a "legal word".

Genocide IS a legal word which describes a clearly defined crime and therefore the grounds to search for justice.

Ex presidents and a current a President have been accused of this crime.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

Genocide IS a legal word which describes a clearly defined crime and therefore the grounds to search for justice.

Ex presidents and a current a President have been accused of this crime.

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

[londontsi]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

" ..... please stop spreading Turkish propaganda.

I agree with you.
You are a good comedian

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Medz Yeghern: Great Crime vs. Great Calamity

You say "almost" certain for good reason.You must not have thoroughly read Khatchig Mouradian's article which you yourself posted! You should read it more carefully.

"Crime" in this case doesn't refer to garden variety legality in Ottoman Turkey, it refers to a profound violation of the universal moral code. I don't know how many Armenian dictionaries you have access to, but you should look in every one of them before you make your stand on "calamity". If you don't read Armenian, have someone do it for you. In fact, in a technical sense, the Ottomans violated their own established laws.

"Crime" in English means not only the violation of a law. It also means a serious wrongdoing or offense, an unjust act. That is the primary meaning of
"yeghern".

"A profound violation of the universal moral code"! You are attempting to impose your modern outlooks onto those who were alive 100 years ago in a society that was very different from the one you are living it. Many of the things they would have thought of as a "profound violation of the universal moral code" are today enshrined as basic human rights!

The genocide was rationalised and conceptualised in a religious way by many of those who went through it. It was not rationalised and conceptualised by making it into something as mundane and as secular as a "crime".

Rather than "calamity", maybe "catastrophe" would be a better rendition? And even if "crime" is a more correct rendition, it is not "crime" as you would want it to be, it will be more like the original concept of crime: an offense against God's laws and the natural (i.e. God-created) order of things. And there is also the fact that the genocide was understood by some (including manyArmenians, in particular the clergy, and also by non-participating Muslims) as some sort of divine punishment for sins that its victims had collectively done.

Really, an expert in the usage of Armenian language during this period is needed (fat chance of us finding one of them though).

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.