All aboard the media short-bus...

[Hovik]

Heres one for us to try to explain. I keep reading media piece after media piece that calls the Armenian Genocide "alleged" etc. The most common one is "Armenians claim that Turkey orchestrated a "genocide", while Turks argue both sides lost innocents in WW1".

What is the criteria to be a writer for a paper these days? A pulse shouldn't be enough... How come these "professionals" don't have to go do any real research on this subject?

This is extremely troubling to me, so I decided to start this thread, this challenge...

Find me one media piece on the Armenian Genocide that contains any (let alone all) of the following information:

1. The fact that the word Genocide itself was coined with the Armenian Genocide as the primary example. The details of the Armenian Genocide are exactly what drove Raphael Lemkin to the decision that a word other than "massacre", "slaughter" or "ethnic cleansing" was needed to describe this SPECIFIC event.

2. The fact that it was a genocide is claimed not only by Armenians themselves but most historians, including the International Association of Genocide scholars...

3. The fact that it was a genocide is claimed not only by Armenians themselves but Turkeys WW1 ally Germany, and the group they duped into carrying out much of their genocidal plans - the Kurds.

4. The archives of the US, Austria, Germany, France and Britain all contain proof that the event was a centrally planned Genocide.

Why the hell isn't any of this mentioned in professional media? What the hell is wrong with these people. Who wants to take a stab?

[1.5 million]

here here - I second all the points you made. Its really disgusting and sad.

[Steph]

Hovik,
Best I can do I'm afraid, probably doesn't really qualify.....

We must never forget Turkey's 'first solution'


Jasper Gerard
Sunday January 21, 2007
The Observer


My wife is only alive because her great-grandmother hid in a laundry basket, peeking through slats as troops bayoneted the rest of her family to death. She is crying upstairs as I write because history stubbornly refuses to move on. A fellow Armenian, a newspaper editor, has been shot dead in Istanbul. His mistake? Reminding Turkey it still hasn't apologised for - or even admitted - the genocide of 1.2m Armenians under the cover of the First World War.
Hrant Dink had already been convicted of this 'crime', for which Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's greatest novelist, was also prosecuted. Just imagine if a British editor was gunned down and men in size 12s bundled off Martin Amis for, say, daring to mention Bloody Sunday. There would be riots in London Fields. But because it's in Turkey, a moderate Muslim state needed in the War on Terror, Brits who normally speak for the marginalised are watching Big Brother. They shrug: 'Let's fight the new war, not the old.' The problem is, it is the same war, and as Dink's bloodied body suggests, there has never really been a ceasefire.
To qualify, this is not all about religion, about Muslims (Turks) versus Christians (Armenians): nationalism as much as religion prevents Turkey uttering the fearful 'sorry'. But if Armenians weren't Christian, would Turkey have refused for so long? And would the West have been quite so squeamish about pressuring Ankara?

In extreme cases, Islamicists trade on Western self-abasement. So in Britain last week it was claimed a terrorist suspect took refuge in a mosque. Police refused to enter for 'cultural reasons'. Would they have been so polite if an IRA suspect had holed up in a Catholic church? Another man allegedly involved in a plot to bomb targets in London was said to have fled in a burka, knowing no policeman would dare frisk him.

Turkey still doesn't acknowledge Armenia. Its Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, condemns the murder, but it was he who outlawed so-called attacks on the state. He has also stepped up nationalistic and Islamic tub-thumping, so while his condolences seem sincere, they are about as valuable as a discourse on multiculturalism from Jade Goody. And this is the guy with whom Tony Blair wants to chew over European integration.

Istanbul dazzles. On frequent trips, I see the clash of civilisations fought, not in mosques but in Moschino: the devil might wear Prada, but so now do many of Allah's followers. Materialism, not spiritualism, will win this war. Mama might be shrouded in black, but her daughter might be a short-skirted babe hopping into her boyfriend's open-top Mini.

Most Turks want progress, and we should help them. America, with a Democrat Congress, should shortly join France in recognising the genocide.

Winston Churchill once called it a holocaust. What a paradox that just as Europe starts to consider outlawing Holocaust denial, Turkey outlaws holocaust admittance. Hitler famously reckoned he would get away with his Final Solution after studying Turkey's first solution. 'Who,' he asked 'remembers the Armenians?' The torchlit procession of all nationalities weaving tearfully through Istanbul suggests that, finally, the entire world remembers.

[Hovik]

Steph,

He hints at it near the end, problem is, he's a relative of an Armenian, he didn't need to do the research, he's married to our historical tragedy.

Find someone who is just simply supposed to be engaged in reporting a story (with no relation to it's subjects)...

The answer is -don't feel bad, but you can't - because our media is all aboard the short-bus, lost in their own ignorance and sorry excuse for professional journalism.

Hovik