Remember The First Holocaust

[Joseph]

Exchange between a Turk and a Jewish Genocide Scholar

INITIAL EMAIL:

To a lay person such as*myself, I find mountains between the easily uttered words of "genocide" and "massacre"*in the diaspora.* We can easily put the blinders on and parse words backwards and forwards in a tunnel vision, either in a scholarly way, or otherwise, but I just cannot imagine how a Turk would, or could, have ever contemplate(d) *the annihilation of a race with whom he/she has had centuries of warm and close relationship even to the point of having trusted the highest positions in government to members of that race or ethnicity.* I hark back to my school days in Talas, Kayseri where I shared such wonderful times with my friends of different backgrounds.* I say we must converse, counsel, console and approach each other as we must not allow ourselves to be the pawns of wannabe power brokers.
*
XXXX


RESPONSE:

Dear XXXX:

No doubt, you will receive responses on this from a variety of directions and in a variety of emotional tenors.* I will suffice myself with one, an argument by analogy.**Before the rise of Hitler, German Jewry was arguably the most well-established and well-integrated Jewish community in the*world.**If*one was told*in, say 1910, that there was to be a massive program of extermination of Jews, Germany might well be the last place*you*would think it likely to happen (Russia, probably the first).**To take it from the other direction,*German Jewry*today is also doing particularly well and it is the only country in Europe with a growing Jewish population (largely because of immigration).**In contrast, I have been told (but have not confirmed), that*the largest number of emigres to Israel in recent years have been from France.**
*
To take my argument from*analogy to generalization,**even if I accepted for the sake of argument (and I do so only for the sake of argument) both components of your reasoning, it would tell us nothing about whether or not there was a genocide in 1915.* "Traditions" are not the basis of state-sponsored violence.* Politics is.
*
On a final point, I am absolutely baffled as to how my narrowly focused initial query sparked this particular diatribe.*
*
As always, with best wishes,

XXXX

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

Hello, I am new to this forum. I wanted to say that I acknowledge that there was an Armenian genocide, but I think it goes too far to say that it was a "Holocaust." I mean, if we call it a Holocaust, then isn't everything a "Holocaust?" The Holocaust was a systematic destruction of Jews based upon a widespread ideological racist theory about them. The genoicde against the Armenians had nothing like that kind of ideology, that widespread hate and propaganda, that kind of cold calculation, not even that kind of intent or efficacy.

So, if you call this a Holocaust, then everything is a Holocuast. The Killing Fields of Cambodia, the Great Leap Forward, the massacres of the Tutsi's, the slaughter of the Chechens, the massacres committed against the Chinese by the Japanese, the present massacres against the non-Muslim Sudanese. The list could go on longer than this I think. All of these would become "Holocausts" and the word will lose its meaning.

[1.5 million]

W E B - read Holocaust survivor Robert Melson's book - Revolution and Genocide - comparing the origins of the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide....then come back to this forum when you more know what you are talking about. Melson labled the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust as the only two incidents of total domenstic genocide in the modern world. Additionally WInston Churchill (accuratly) called the Armenian Genocide a Holocaust in a book he wrote in (I believe) 1917. Just curious if any of these facts might cause you to doubt your apparent hasty and ill-informed conclusions.

[Joseph]

Hello, I am new to this forum. I wanted to say that I acknowledge that there was an Armenian genocide, but I think it goes too far to say that it was a "Holocaust." I mean, if we call it a Holocaust, then isn't everything a "Holocaust?" The Holocaust was a systematic destruction of Jews based upon a widespread ideological racist theory about them. The genoicde against the Armenians had nothing like that kind of ideology, that widespread hate and propaganda, that kind of cold calculation, not even that kind of intent or efficacy.

So, if you call this a Holocaust, then everything is a Holocuast. The Killing Fields of Cambodia, the Great Leap Forward, the massacres of the Tutsi's, the slaughter of the Chechens, the massacres committed against the Chinese by the Japanese, the present massacres against the non-Muslim Sudanese. The list could go on longer than this I think. All of these would become "Holocausts" and the word will lose its meaning.

A. All genocides should be recognized. Comparing them is an insult to the victims.
B. Armenians refer to what happened to them as the Armenian Genocide, not the Holocaust. I have seen some writers use the term Armenian Holocaust but it is one that we do not employ.
C. The Armenian Genocide was actually very systematic although carried out in a rudimentary fashion.
D. As far as we can see, genocides have already lost their meaning because nations continue to carry them out.

[bell-the-cat]

Hello, I am new to this forum. I wanted to say that I acknowledge that there was an Armenian genocide, but I think it goes too far to say that it was a "Holocaust."

"Holocaust" (c)Jewish Lobby.

[bell-the-cat]

I hark back to my school days in Talas, Kayseri where I shared such wonderful times with my friends of different backgrounds.

Hmm, Talas. Reminds me of an occasion this year when I was walking through the formerly Armenian districts of Talas (whose population before the genocide was almost entirely Armenian and Greek). On a number of occasions when passing by groups of old women squating around the entrances to their houses, I'd hear them rudely muttering something with the word "foreigner" in it. After the third or fourth such occasion I snapped back at them - "it is you who are the foreigners here - your fathers and mothers came here and murdered the owners of these houses you now sit outside of!"

[phantom]

Hmm, Talas. Reminds me of an occasion this year when I was walking through the formerly Armenian districts of Talas (whose population before the genocide was almost entirely Armenian and Greek). On a number of occasions when passing by groups of old women squating around the entrances to their houses, I'd hear them rudely muttering something with the word "foreigner" in it. After the third or fourth such occasion I snapped back at them - "it is you who are the foreigners here - your fathers and mothers came here and murdered the owners of these houses you now sit outside of!"

You really said that? In Turkish? And they heard you?

[bell-the-cat]

You really said that? In Turkish? And they heard you?

The first part was in was Turkish. Alas, the second part was in English (my Turkish not being good enough for that task ). So they heard, but probably did not understand!

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

W E B - read Holocaust survivor Robert Melson's book - Revolution and Genocide - comparing the origins of the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide....then come back to this forum when you more know what you are talking about.

I'm sorry but mentioning some random books and talking out of your ass, will not lead me to believe that I don't know what I am talking about and that you are anymore more than a person who is not interested in the truth, but only in acting like a child.

Melson labled the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust as the only two incidents of total domenstic genocide in the modern world. Additionally WInston Churchill (accuratly) called the Armenian Genocide a Holocaust in a book he wrote in (I believe) 1917. Just curious if any of these facts might cause you to doubt your apparent hasty and ill-informed conclusions.

I don't care WHO labeled the Armenian Genocide what. Only a complete fool would let others do his thinking for them. Hasty and ill-informed my foot. You are just a person totally rapped up in emotion and lacking any ability to think.

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

A. All genocides should be recognized. Comparing them is an insult to the victims.

Then all those who call the Armenian Genocide the Holocuast must be insulting the dead, since they are comparing the AG with the Holocaust.

C. The Armenian Genocide was actually very systematic although carried out in a rudimentary fashion.

It sounds like you are comparing the Holocaust to the Armenian Genocide. Are you insulting the victims now?

I don't take such rhetorical nonsense seriously, so I will compare them for the sake of discussion. It seems to me that the Germans killed off the Jews they captured at a higher rate than did the Turks who captured and banised the Armenians. In other words, the Turkish Armenians were far more likely to survive than were German Jews.

D. As far as we can see, genocides have already lost their meaning because nations continue to carry them out.

Not at all. Genocides were hardly ever taken seriously in the past, so they can't lose something a meaning they never had.