How to help Turks listen to you and try to understand your issues?!

[loveataturk]

I have come across some reamrks that the aggression during the relocations were many times perpetrated by Kurds of the Eastern anatolia. How come? I am not judging, just curious, and want to read about this, if any forum guest can give me a link. Believe me, national pride or whatever, we are not deaf or blind, thus willing to check out your remarks...(it would be pig-headedness if we did not listen to any armenian comments, because even falsity is never 100%, and honestly I am not sure 100% of turkish claims, nor 100% sure of armenian claims...)

[Կարմիր Բ]

I have come across some reamrks that the aggression during the relocations were many times perpetrated by Kurds of the Eastern anatolia. How come? I am not judging, just curious, and want to read about this, if any forum guest can give me a link. Believe me, national pride or whatever, we are not deaf or blind, thus willing to check out your remarks...(it would be pig-headedness if we did not listen to any armenian comments, because even falsity is never 100%, and honestly I am not sure 100% of turkish claims, nor 100% sure of armenian claims...)

As far as i know they released the prisoners out from the prisons and assigned to the bandints ,mainly kurdish, to do the ''dirty job''.So while they were ''relocating'' them from the mountainous and deserted areas,the bandits , who were informed by the Turks which will be the routes of the ''relocation'',would come and kill the relocated one's.

Anyway releasing prisoners in times of war to do the dirty job is something very common today as well.I don't understand why are you so ''surprised'' by this phenomenon.

[winoman]

I have come across some reamrks that the aggression during the relocations were many times perpetrated by Kurds of the Eastern anatolia. How come? I am not judging, just curious, and want to read about this, if any forum guest can give me a link. Believe me, national pride or whatever, we are not deaf or blind, thus willing to check out your remarks...(it would be pig-headedness if we did not listen to any armenian comments, because even falsity is never 100%, and honestly I am not sure 100% of turkish claims, nor 100% sure of armenian claims...)

Do a search on Hamadian regiments to start with. Also find an anthropology textbook or an Anthropologists and ask about relations between nomadic - raiding peoples and sedentary ones and do some reading of historical material on this relationship between Armenians and Kurds. However to think that the use of these people/forces by the Ottoman Empire to do (much of) their dirty work somehow lets them off the hook for planning and enacting a genocide of their own citizens is like saying that Archduke Ferdinand wasn't assasinated by Princip but the blame rests entirely with the revolver he used...

[bell-the-cat]

Also find an anthropology textbook or an Anthropologists and ask about relations between nomadic - raiding peoples and sedentary ones

Typical pro-Kurd stuff. The "they were just like children and it was in their nature" excuse. Maybe it is in their nature - but that is not an excuse for it.

In most historical scenarios it is the sedentary population that eliminates the nomadic one - not the other way around - and it has been that way since mankind first decided to stop being a hunter-gatherer and started to plant crops and herd livestock. It took many hundreds of years of decay under Turkish/Muslim rule for society in Eastern Turkey to get to a condition where the reverse of normal human development was able to take place.

[loveataturk]

You simply cannot call the "Turkish Rule" as "decay of society". The Ottoman was, and their inheriters, The current Republic of Turkey is, a fully developed power, ruled by a secular democracy. Year is 2005. When you look at the current status of democracy or civilization in Armenia, do you also come up with the rationale that Armenians are improper race with shortage of intelligence or civilization skills???
I do not know your answer, but I would personally say "NO". Racist generalizations are not going to take us anywhere.

[bell-the-cat]

You simply cannot call the "Turkish Rule" as "decay of society". The Ottoman was, and their inheriters, The current Republic of Turkey is, a fully developed power, ruled by a secular democracy. Year is 2005. When you look at the current status of democracy or civilization in Armenia, do you also come up with the rationale that Armenians are improper race with shortage of intelligence or civilization skills???
I do not know your answer, but I would personally say "NO". Racist generalizations are not going to take us anywhere.

There is no doubt that, by any methods of assessment, the Turkish Muslim entrance into what is now Turkey was a disaster for settled life in Eastern Anatolia (and for that matter, the whole of Anatolia and Rumelia and the Balkans). It took centuries to reach the stage where the events of 1915 took place, and there were periods of recovery and even advancement, but the overal trend was one of century after century of decline. It was the recognition of precisely that fact that initiated the internal reforms and policies of Kemalist Turkey.

You are the one that is going to have to face up to the explanation of why this decline happened - whatever explanation proper investigation reveals it to be: Islamic backwardness and inflexibility, the Turkish psyche, natural decline of empires built on the exploitation of others, or something else. You investigate and choose; and chose honestly, because you are the one that is going to have to deal with that truth - not me. There are many more skeletons in the Turkish wardrobe than just the Armenian Genocide, and a mature society (since that is what you claim Turkey to be) is going to have to face up to them sometime if it is really mature.

[loveataturk]

There is no "nation" that does not have skeletons. The very "NOTION OF NATION" is, by assumption, based on keeping a lock on resources (food, land, water etc.) for a selcet number of people, and just like "ANIMALS" , the preservation of territory and resoources within that territory.
IT has nothing whatsoever to do with Turks, or Turkic nations. USA, UK, Armenia, Switzerland, IReland, Zimbabwe.......all have skeletons...because what they call "their land and nation" was always, without any exception, ACQUIRED THROUGH WAR.

Thus, you have to question the very notion of NATION as the true culprit.

As per your remarks on Islamic backwardness........I wrote before that I disdain the notion of religion alltogether anyway, but if you are looking for a truly and very truly BACKWARD belief system, go check out the laughable CHRISTIANITY Truly crazy people who honestly think the creator would have a human son !! Outrageously funny, is it not? All religions are man-made. Do not even bother to compare them.

[bell-the-cat]

As per your remarks on Islamic backwardness........I wrote before that I disdain the notion of religion alltogether anyway, but if you are looking for a truly and very truly BACKWARD belief system, go check out the laughable CHRISTIANITY Truly crazy people who honestly think the creator would have a human son !! Outrageously funny, is it not? All religions are man-made. Do not even bother to compare them.

And what has the man-made religion in your part of the world done for the world in general? Scarce a single positive thing has come out of Islam or Islamic culture for 1000 years. That is what I mean by stagnation. In fact, Islam, by nature, is a stagnant religion. Christianity, in general, seeks to go forward, to seek out something not yet realised - Islam always seeks to go back, to regain some ideal perfection it thinks it once had.

[Thai-Samurai]

They did bring back international interest into the ancient Greek philosophers. And invented zero. But that was the Arabs, not necesarrily Muslims. They also have a wicked cool clothing line.

[loveataturk]

It is tough to comment on Islamic-Christian contributions to society and mankind. Take the example of Mimar Sinan!!! He is the most renowned Ottoman, and Muslim architect, but in fact, he was an ARMENIAN!! The greatest architect of Islam, also of OTtomans, who built the most beautiful mosques was...a brilliant Armenian (turned muslim later, who can say willingly?) architect!