Interesting Kurdish perspective

[bell-the-cat]

Have you read Vahakn Dadrian's book on the genocide? It is mentioned.

Not from cover to cover - but I get the impression from his writings and lectures that he is more interested in concentrating (i.e. blaming) Turks as a nation and ethnıc group, and explores little about the involvement of other ethnic groups such as Kurds, or Chechens, or possible religious motivations.

[bell-the-cat]

Hi Lal, it's nice to see you back.

I totally agree with your condemnation of religion in general and Wahabbi Islam in particular. But I've got doubts that that particular Islamic orthodoxy really had much to do with the Armenian Genocide.

After all, in 1915 the Ottoman Empire was the center of the Islamic world and the Sultan was the Caliph - the official head of Islam and all Muslims everywhere. The history of how his ancestors got hold of that position meant that I bet some Islamic groups at the time didn't give serious credence to the Sultan as the leader of Islam. But it would mean there was no place for an alternative Islamic imperialist ideology because there already was one completely in place - it was called the Caliphate and it was, in all but name, the Ottoman Empire. In a way it took the abolition of the Ottoman empire and the Sultan as Caliph to pave the way for these Wahhabi imperialists you write about. It's all yet another unexpected and unfortunate sıde effect of WW1 that is influencing events today. I think WW2 was historically trivial by comparison.

About your 'islamic mind never forgives' observation - it does agree with what someone once told me: Muslims don't feel any need to apologise for their past behaviour in general or for any particular crimes committed by their ancestors. So you may be right about the waiting forever for an apology.

hello bell,

well,obviously ı m not thinking scientificly.ı only write what ı feel. but you see, sunni, wahhabi islam is an imperialist ideology trying to expand islam all over the world . just like evangalist christianity. but wahhabi islam is far worse than christianity, because it also orders muslims to live socially as it is written in kuran for ever. women are inferiour in the kuran. you loose half of the population from the beginning.this is why you have culturally and economicly underdeveloped populations. which islam country is developed without oil? you also cant have democracy because you have to live according to the orders of allah. this is not suitable for different cultures to live together. so when ottomans were powerful enough , they just let the different ones survive by taking high taxes from them and using them in commerce, arts etc. but once they lost the power, they became good wahhabi muslims and destroyed the different ones.


like ı said before,greeks and armenians and turks think turks are a different race, originally from central asia,but in reality turks are racially very close to armenians and greeks. the reason why turks stayed as culturally much lower than them was only islams teachings. islam blocades the minds of humans.

even today and after the republics start,wahhabbi islams domination goes on.
islamic mind never forgives. so armenians can wait for ever for the apology.

ı repeat one more time. only and only if turkey can become a real secular democracy with no official support to wahhabi islam, only if some turks can openly start to call themselves atheists,alevis sufis, and agnostics in public. or if some can convert to christianity but dont become a greek or american,than the chance to face with the history can be possible. otherwise ı can bet on my life that turks can never ever accept the genocide till the end of humankind.

[chinchilla]

Not from cover to cover - but I get the impression from his writings and lectures that he is more interested in concentrating (i.e. blaming) Turks as a nation and ethnıc group, and explores little about the involvement of other ethnic groups such as Kurds, or Chechens, or possible religious motivations.

Islam as a whole can't and shouldn't be blamed, but I think Dadrian thinks it should.

I'm sure you know about Sharif Hussein bin Ali:

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/Affirmation.4/current_category.1/affirmation_detail.html

[lal]

Hi Lal, it's nice to see you back.

I totally agree with your condemnation of religion in general and Wahabbi Islam in particular. But I've got doubts that that particular Islamic orthodoxy really had much to do with the Armenian Genocide.

After all, in 1915 the Ottoman Empire was the center of the Islamic world and the Sultan was the Caliph - the official head of Islam and all Muslims everywhere. The history of how his ancestors got hold of that position meant that I bet some Islamic groups at the time didn't give serious credence to the Sultan as the leader of Islam. But it would mean there was no place for an alternative Islamic imperialist ideology because there already was one completely in place - it was called the Caliphate and it was, in all but name, the Ottoman Empire. In a way it took the abolition of the Ottoman empire and the Sultan as Caliph to pave the way for these Wahhabi imperialists you write about. It's all yet another unexpected and unfortunate sıde effect of WW1 that is influencing events today. I think WW2 was historically trivial by comparison.

About your 'islamic mind never forgives' observation - it does agree with what someone once told me: Muslims don't feel any need to apologise for their past behaviour in general or for any particular crimes committed by their ancestors. So you may be right about the waiting forever for an apology.

Bosnians,serbs and croatians were all the same race.What made them different people is religon. can you imagine,many many bosnians think that they are racially and culturally turks .ı claim that it was the same thing for anatolian people .we were living together for 100s of yaers,we were neighbours everywhere,we were getting along very well for so long. So it is the same story.we are not different people.all the armenians and greeks converted to islam was saved. if it was a racial turk-armenian war ,howcome when you convert to islam you are saved and become so easily a turk?

although ı completely accept the genocide reality,feel respect to the armenian's fight for justice woleheartedly, ı do not feel sympathy to people who only think one sided and dont condemn other cases and only consider turks as evil ,primitive creatures to be damaged today as if they are the only ones committed this kind of crime. ı want to see people who can be objective in all cases.

for example armenia s karabağ position must be criticized by armenians. but they cant do it. ı am a turk but, ı can criticize turkeys position in cyprus. it is true that all the greeks must question themselves why turkey invaded cyprus. but also turks must question themselves why turkish army is still there. karabağ was legally an azeri land.but now it is armenia. no matter what the reasons are,if you change the borders by force than you wiill have to face the consequinces. and this is something ı dont like. ı dont want wars ,struggles and wasting time,waisting energy for nothing.

for example everybody know that france is a real dirty country who caused many problems in africa. lets leave aside the things they did in algeria,but can we forget 800 thousand massacre of tutsies in ruanda in 1990. and 200 thousand of murders are done with the help of french soldiers to hutus. france never accepts any of her guilts of the past but jails anybody who rejects armenian genocide in her country . is this normal?

in 1994, dutch soldiers also caused the death of 8000 bosnian men by refusing to take them to their UN base. and holland never apoligises for that crime.

so ı am not together with armenians who only fight for their cause and try only to harm turkey. ı am together with all world people who fight against all the crimes done in the world. armenian genocide is one of the biggest crime of history. but was done by my grandfathers grandfather. how come a french or a dutch dont accept her crime done in 1990 s. are 800 thousand people were not humans because they were all black tutsies?

ı can walk and protest hrants murder in a fanatic muslim country calling myself an armenian in the streets of istanbul. can you do that for the murdered tutsies by france? or france is okay as a country as long as they are the enemy of turks? or islam is okay as long as iran is friend of armenia and lebenon accapts armenian genocide?

lets be honest if we can.

[bell-the-cat]

Bosnians,serbs and croatians were all the same race.What made them different people is religon. can you imagine,many many bosnians think that they are racially and culturally turks .ı claim that it was the same thing for anatolian people .we were living together for 100s of yaers,we were neighbours everywhere,we were getting along very well for so long. So it is the same story.we are not different people.all the armenians and greeks converted to islam was saved. if it was a racial turk-armenian war ,howcome when you convert to islam you are saved and become so easily a turk?

although ı completely accept the genocide reality,feel respect to the armenian's fight for justice woleheartedly, ı do not feel sympathy to people who only think one sided and dont condemn other cases and only consider turks as evil ,primitive creatures to be damaged today as if they are the only ones committed this kind of crime. ı want to see people who can be objective in all cases.

for example armenia s karabağ position must be criticized by armenians. but they cant do it. ı am a turk but, ı can criticize turkeys position in cyprus. it is true that all the greeks must question themselves why turkey invaded cyprus. but also turks must question themselves why turkish army is still there. karabağ was legally an azeri land.but now it is armenia. no matter what the reasons are,if you change the borders by force than you wiill have to face the consequinces. and this is something ı dont like. ı dont want wars ,struggles and wasting time,waisting energy for nothing.

for example everybody know that france is a real dirty country who caused many problems in africa. lets leave aside the things they did in algeria,but can we forget 800 thousand massacre of tutsies in ruanda in 1990. and 200 thousand of murders are done with the help of french soldiers to hutus. france never accepts any of her guilts of the past but jails anybody who rejects armenian genocide in her country . is this normal?

in 1994, dutch soldiers also caused the death of 8000 bosnian men by refusing to take them to their UN base. and holland never apoligises for that crime.

so ı am not together with armenians who only fight for their cause and try only to harm turkey. ı am together with all world people who fight against all the crimes done in the world. armenian genocide is one of the biggest crime of history. but was done by my grandfathers grandfather. how come a french or a dutch dont accept her crime done in 1990 s. are 800 thousand people were not humans because they were all black tutsies?

ı can walk and protest hrants murder in a fanatic muslim country calling myself an armenian in the streets of istanbul. can you do that for the murdered tutsies by france? or france is okay as a country as long as they are the enemy of turks? or islam is okay as long as iran is friend of armenia and lebenon accapts armenian genocide?

lets be honest if we can.

Lots of points there, lal. However you are missing the big point. What are all these "apologies" for. It has to be from an understanding of an event within history.

So I think points about Dutch not protecting people in Bosnia is not much of an issue. It's trivia. Anyway, from a Dutch point of view, would the loss of one Dutch life be worth the life of a hundred Bosniacs? Ore one French life worth a 100,000 Tutsis?
I think it ironic that those politicians who advocate sending their citizens on humanitarian or peace keeping missions (or alleged ones like Iraq and Afghanistan) never seem to put their own immediate family is such positions of danger. Was the life of a single British soldier worth the protection of Armenians in 1918? Probably not. And that was ultimately the decision of the British government of the time. (Though quite a large number of British soldiers did die in that mission, with zero gratitude or even remembrance from today's Armenia.)

Regarding Karabagh - Armenians have wasted 10 years and gained absolutely nothing. That's where the crıiticism should be directed.
However, the current situation is clear. Anyone who advocates the return of Karabagh to Azeri control is advocating genocide. It's that simple - because it will mean the extermination of 100% of the Armenian population there (either by them being killed, or enough of them being killed to drive out the rest through terror - either way it still legally amounts to genocide). For that reason no one should any longer talk about "legally part of Azerbaijan" as a basis for negotiation. It is no longer applicable in the current situation: one does not have a legal rıght to commit genocide.

[bell-the-cat]

Islam as a whole can't and shouldn't be blamed, but I think Dadrian thinks it should.

I thought he thought the exact opposite.

[phantom]

Welcome back LAL. I agree with a great deal of what you have written. I do not, however, agree with your position on Karabagh.

The Armenians of Karabagh did not start the physical aggression towards Azerbaijan, unless you call initiating and voting on a referendum to secede from the USSR physical aggression. The response to their peaceful and democtratic process was pogroms and massacres against Armenians in Sumgait, Baku and other cities in Azerbaijan, followed by bombs and missiles aimed at the capital of Karabagh. So, what do you think the Armenians should have done given the Azeri response to this referendum? Sit back and allow themselves to be murdered, like in 1915? Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were roughly 400,000 Armenians living in Baku, and today there are none. If Azerbaijan takes over Karabagh, then the 150,000 Armenians living there will either be killed or deported. The Azeris do not deserve to rule over any Armenian after the way they have treated their Armenian citizens. They have lost that privilege, and will never gain it back.

[chinchilla]

I thought he thought the exact opposite.

Chapter 1: Islamic Sacred Law as a Matrix of Ottoman Legal Order and Nationality Conflicts

[chinchilla]

Regarding Karabakh, I recently read some of Thomas Goltz's "diary" on the conflict. I think he would be an advocate of a second genocide (though he wouldn't call it that). Reading through the diary, you definitely get the feeling that he believes that the pogroms against Armenians throughout Azerbaijan were permissible (and of course, engineered by the Soviet government and -- Armenians!). He also quotes Azeris insulting Persian Armenians during a visit to Iran. Oh, and he denies the genocide.

Anyway, why not try to structure Karabakh like Lebanon? An independent republic with an Armenian president and Azeri prime minister? Do they really need to live under either Armenia and Azerbaijan? Both countries have shown that they cannot absorb or take care of the refugees.

[imported_crusader1492]

Regarding Karabakh, I recently read some of Thomas Goltz's "diary" on the conflict. I think he would be an advocate of a second genocide (though he wouldn't call it that). Reading through the diary, you definitely get the feeling that he believes that the pogroms against Armenians throughout Azerbaijan were permissible (and of course, engineered by the Soviet government and -- Armenians!). He also quotes Azeris insulting Persian Armenians during a visit to Iran. Oh, and he denies the genocide.

Anyway, why not try to structure Karabakh like Lebanon? An independent republic with an Armenian president and Azeri prime minister? Do they really need to live under either Armenia and Azerbaijan? Both countries have shown that they cannot absorb or take care of the refugees.

That is probably the dumbest idea I've ever heard concerning conflict resolution. How is taking a failed model (Lebanon of all places, always on the verge of Civil war) and applying it to Artsakh?
Regardless of that, Lebabon's situation and Artsakh's stuation are entirely different.
The botom line is that if Azeris are ever allowed to return to Artsakh, they will immediately work on driving Armenians out, through outright genocide and/or over-breeding.

Armenians will never be safe among Azeris unless they cease their rabid anti-Armenian propaganda, war rhetoric and military build up.