Your Greek Friends Stand Beside You!

[Panos26]

To claim the burning of Smyrna was the work of the Greeks is very ignorant. You might like to start reading Turkish works by Turkish professors, Turkish eyewitnesses and Turkish academics on the burning of Smyrna. If you like I can suggest some titles? The Greek army left Smyrna on the 8th. The Turks entered on the 9th and the fire was set on the 13th. Don't distort history.

The Greek government and their foreign policy has no connection with whether events constitute genocide or not.

I would suggest you look at archival material.

You talk about statistics: Go look at Turkish statistics for the Greek population in Asia Minor prior to the population exchange and then look at Turkish statistics for the numbers transfered in the population exchange of 1923. You will see well over a million Greeks have literally disappeared according to Turkish statistics.

Educate yourself or if you chose to continue with this nonsensical distortion of history then provide sources to validate your ridiculous claims!

Academically there is a 50%-50% responsibility on the burning of Smyrna.The rest is propaganda from both sides.
You hate against Turkey must not blind you about the facts connected to the Greeks.
While we did live close together the past century,we have also been extremely hardcore to the Turks.Cyprus is the perfect example of our wish never to allow full practise of human rights to the Turks,by taking advantage our overwhelming majority of population on the Island.

[Steph]

That is ignorant.Greece is in a very good position,the best in regards the neighbouring Balkan countries and by far better than Armenia.There is no level of comparison between Greece and Armenia.Military wise,economically wise.Those are just arbitrary conclutions on why Greece hasnt raised a genocide issue just to ''excuse'' Greece.
The reality is always in the middle.And Greece at the time did monsterous attrocities to Turkish people as well.
Our hardcore stance is evident in Cyprus,where to date we have not even given them equal rights.

I suppose from that statement you consider turkey to not be a Balkan state?

[Steph]

That's fine. My reference to the book also includes your emphasized "at least".

Moreover, this goes on to prove my previous point about lose usage of the term "deportation". Here, deportation is used as the act of forcefully moving an Armenian population southwards in order to facilitate their destruction. You said that the book was about "population deportations". It is not about such deportations. It claims to be about a population exchange/transfer which the author defines as ethnic engineering. My point was that you shouldn't confuse a population exchange with the common usage and understanding of the term "deportation", especially in reference to the late Ottoman Empire.

The book covers the deportations/expulsions/forced population exchanges between Greece and turkey in 1923, only ! The peoples involved include Greek-speaking muslims, turkish-speaking Christians, Pontic Greeks, Greeks, turks and others. It does not cover the Armenian or Assyrian Genocides.

Population exchanges can be described as deportations, how else would you describe them? Extended vacations?

[Steph]

IBased on that paragraph I'd have doubts about the accuracy of the whole book and its author's motives and ability to tackle the subject.

Bell, this author touches upon the Armenian Genocide merely as an adjacent event to his main subject, it doesn't claim to be a reference work on the Armenian Genocide but more an essay on the deportations between Greece and turkey and the consequences for the ordinary people involved, on both sides.

[notjustarmenian]

The book covers the deportations/expulsions/forced population exchanges between Greece and turkey in 1923, only ! The peoples involved include Greek-speaking muslims, turkish-speaking Christians, Pontic Greeks, Greeks, turks and others. It does not cover the Armenian or Assyrian Genocides.

Population exchanges can be described as deportations, how else would you describe them? Extended vacations?

That's what it claims but in fact a lot of the testimonies are from far earlier on and are used very selectively. Indeed, population exchanges can be described as deportations but I was warning you about using that term in the context of an era and region where "deportations" are understood to be the forcible uprooting of Christian populations into the Anatolian Interior in order to facilitate their destruction as part of a genocidal campaign.

[notjustarmenian]

Bell, this author touches upon the Armenian Genocide merely as an adjacent event to his main subject, it doesn't claim to be a reference work on the Armenian Genocide but more an essay on the deportations between Greece and turkey and the consequences for the ordinary people involved, on both sides.

No one has claimed that Bruce Clark's central theme is the Armenian Genocide but the fact that he refers to the Armenian Genocide as a "mutual slaughter" sufficiently highlights his unprofessional approach to scholarship.

[notjustarmenian]

Academically there is a 50%-50% responsibility on the burning of Smyrna.The rest is propaganda from both sides.

50-50 according to who? British, American, Italian, French and even Japanese archives all systematically document Turkish responsibility for the fire. Moreover, there are numerous books published in Turkey by Turkish publishers and written by Turkish academics containing Turkish eyewitness accounts on the burning of Smyrna.

You hate against Turkey must not blind you about the facts connected to the Greeks.

I do not hate Turkey; I love Turkey. I have no hate for Turkey or the Turks. I disapprove of genocide revisionists and condemn governments guilty of perpetrating genocide.

While we did live close together the past century,we have also been extremely hardcore to the Turks.Cyprus is the perfect example of our wish never to allow full practise of human rights to the Turks,by taking advantage our overwhelming majority of population on the Island.

Events in Cyprus have nothing to with events that occurred decades earlier in the Ottoman Empire. Each have to be evaluated separately unless they are somehow intertwined. In this case they are not.

[Steph]

I was warning you about using that term in the context of an era and region

You know, Notjustarmenian, I really get ripped off when people warn me, advise me if you wish, cajole me when it pleases you, laugh at me all times, but warn me?.....p**s off.
Understood?

[Steph]

No one has claimed that Bruce Clark's central theme is the Armenian Genocide but the fact that he refers to the Armenian Genocide as a "mutual slaughter" sufficiently highlights his unprofessional approach to scholarship.

Can you quote chapter and verse of his references please?

[Steph]

That's what it claims but in fact a lot of the testimonies are from far earlier on and are used very selectively.

What evidence do you have of "earlier testimonies", earlier than interviews in the 2004/05 years and descriptions of events in 1923......were these earlier testaments made by time-travellers?