International Turkey is Angry that the Massacre of 1,500,000 Armenians is Finally Being Recognized a "Genocide"

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

Angry? Why would I be angry? I'm just calling out your stupidity. Are you still going with the "you're Armenian" angle?

And I think your argument is stupid.

If you're 15 ear old Armenian born and raised in the states should you hate your classmate in high school cause he's Turkish.

Get over this

 

[Orgasmo]

And I think your argument is stupid.

If you're 15 ear old Armenian born and raised in the states should you hate your classmate in high school cause he's Turkish.

Get over this

I'm not sure if you're that retarded or purposely trying to misrepresent the issue.

You're equating the dislike of Turkish government over its refusal to apologize for Armenian Genocide to "hating Turks". It's the same way retards equate criticizing Israeli government to being anti-Semitic. My advice is that you first get over the required number of brain cells needed for a debate.

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

I'm not sure if you're that retarded or purposely trying to misrepresent the issue.

You're equating the dislike of Turkish government over its refusal to apologize for Armenian Genocide to "hating Turks". It's the same way retards equate criticizing Israeli government to being anti-Semitic. My advice is that you first get over the required number of brain cells needed for a debate.

Dude you're getting carried away. At no time did I say not to recgonize what happened but there are young Armenians who grew up in the states, fully integrated, who hate Turks because they spent their childhood having grandma telling them too.

Italian families which I'm from have similar types of things the old folks hated about other Italians thst go back centuries. Why should I have to partake in any of that.

Knowing full well the Turks are not gonna apologize why should a fully integrated western born child carry a life long chip on his shoulder over this?

You have still not answered that question.

 

[ehtheist]

Well, it's not like they got them all... It's at most attempted genocide. They probably wanted to keep a few around for brute labor, so it's really not a genocide at all.

 

[JDragon]

Fun fact 1: The Turks argue it cannot be genocide because the legal term was not codified until 1948.

Fun fact 2: Germany used the same reasoning until recently in order to avoid calling what we did to the Herero genocide. Mainly due to fear of reparation payments.

 

[LionExMachina]

Seriously, I don't get that mentality either.

1) It was a hundred years ago.
2) It was carried out by a different government.

It has nothing to do with the any of the modern-day citizens of Turkey personally, but by saying that 1.5 Millions of Armenians just disappeared into thin air after they got rounded up by the Ottoman authorities, today's Turks are essentially making themself complicit to the killing by actively covering it up.

No modern-day Americans would deny that the Natives got butchered like animals back in the days, I don't know why modern-day Turks are still trying to deny something that the entire world knew the Ottoman Empire did.



Japan's whitewashing their World War II atrocities is just about the only thing I despise about Japan.

They should be working with South Korea to deter China's aggression, yet they can't even admit something as simple as the thousands upon thousands of Korean women who were rounded up and forced into sexual services with the Imperial army, one Japanese soldier after another, days after days, are literally sex slaves.

It makes sense in the context of an honor-based world-view. Turkey and Japan are different worlds in many ways but both societies (imo) seem to have a concept of honor that is different from the average westerner.

Honor and common-sense are rarely shoulder to shoulder. The denial of the Armenian genocide and the drama with Yasukuni shrine seems pretty stupid, but it all comes from a stupid premise: Honor.

 

[LionExMachina]

They all need to get over it. A 19 year has no reason to be angry.

Considering the world they are inheriting, I'd say a 19yr old has plenty to be pissed about.

 

[Arkain2K]

It makes sense in the context of an honor-based world-view. Turkey and Japan are different worlds in many ways but both societies (imo) seem to have a concept of honor that is different from the average westerner.

Honor and common-sense are rarely shoulder to shoulder. The denial of the Armenian genocide and the drama with Yasukuni shrine seems pretty stupid, but it all comes from a stupid premise: Honor.

Honor Gang Raping.

Honor Killings.

Honor War Criminals Worshipping.

Honor Genocide Denying.

The stone-age interpretations of "Honor" in these situations are so twisted, they should be called something else entirely. There's asolutely NOTHING honorable about any of those disgusting things.

"Cave men's pride" would be a more accurate description for such lunacy.

 

[godking]

It makes sense in the context of an honor-based world-view. Turkey and Japan are different worlds in many ways but both societies (imo) seem to have a concept of honor that is different from the average westerner.

Honor and common-sense are rarely shoulder to shoulder. The denial of the Armenian genocide and the drama with Yasukuni shrine seems pretty stupid, but it all comes from a stupid premise: Honor.

Not as much honor as it is pride. The honorable thing is to aknowledge your errors learn from them and work to prevent them in the future. The prideful thing is to deny any wrongdoing and lie and intimidate so that you never have admit that you where wrong.

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

Considering the world they are inheriting, I'd say a 19yr old has plenty to be pissed about.

That's a much broader topic you're bringing up.

 

[Ice That Jaw]

Turkey could have swept this under the rug decades ago. The Genocide happened a century ago, 100 damn years. Plenty of time to own up.

 

[Liquid Smoke]

Aren't both side being kind of stupid for geeking out over a label?

 

[Arkain2K]

Death threats amid Germany-Turkey 'genocide' row
6 June 2016

Green MP Cem Ozdemir is now a hate figure for Turkish nationalists ​

A German MP of Turkish origin, Cem Ozdemir, says he has received death threats over Germany's recognition of the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan castigated German MPs for the vote. He scorned the 11 MPs of Turkish origin, saying, "What sort of Turks are they?"

"Their blood must be tested in a lab," he said.

Ankara's mayor showed the 11 in a tweet saying they "stabbed us in the back".

Turkey recalled its ambassador from Berlin in fury after the German parliament on Thursday voted overwhelmingly for the Armenian "genocide" resolution.

President Erdogan questioned the Turkishness of the 11 Turkish-origin German MPs ​

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their people died in the atrocities of 1915, during the Ottoman Empire's collapse in World War One. Turkey says the toll was much lower and rejects the term "genocide".

Security issue

Mr Ozdemir, co-leader of the German Greens, was one of the initiators of the resolution. Police have now beefed up his personal security.

Commenting on the death threats he had received, he said: "Unfortunately there is a Turkish Pegida too" - referring to the German nationalist movement that has staged anti-immigration and "anti-Islamisation" rallies.

His assistant Marc Berthold said "we're well used to abuse and insults, but we've never experienced so many death threats before".

A fellow German Green MP of Turkish origin, Ozcan Mutlu, deplored the tweet from Ankara Mayor Ibrahim Melih Gokcek. According to German media, it was retweeted by many Turkish nationalists, some of whom made death threats.

Mr Mutlu told German ARD television he was worried that "some utterly crazy people might take note of this and think the command has come from on-high".

Turkish nationalists who rallied against the German MPs' vote made the sign of the Grey Wolves, a nationalist group that has murdered leftists and liberals in the past.

Turkish nationalist protesters in Istanbul made the Grey Wolves sign outside the German consulate​

At the weekend Mr Erdogan also accused the Turkish-origin German MPs of acting on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is banned in Turkey and fighting government forces in the Kurdish-majority south-east of the country.

"They are the German extension of the separatist terrorist organisation," he alleged.

Lashing out at the German parliament in general, Mr Erdogan said Germany "should be the last country to vote on a so-called 'genocide' by Turkey".

"First, you have to account for the Holocaust and how you massacred more than 100,000 Namibians," he said, referring to Nazi Germany's extermination of Jews and the earlier German slaughter of Hereros in former South-West Africa.

Separately, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said he had also received many death threats from German far-right extremists.


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36458506

 

[Arkain2K]

Berlin rebuffs Turkey in Armenian genocide row after Green MP receives death threats
Amid the ongoing row over Germany's decision to refer to the Armenian massacre as "genocide," Berlin has hit back at Ankara. German MPs with Turkish roots have called for action from Merkel after receiving death threats.

​

Steffen Seibert, spokesman to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said on Monday that the Bundestag - Germany's lower house of parliament - "had reached a sovereign decision."

"That must be respected," he added.

The comments from Berlin on Monday came in light of Turkey's reaction last week to Germany's decision to pass a resolution which refers to the mass deaths of 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire as "genocide."

As the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey officially denies that the events that started in 1915 amounted to genocide. Ankara's official line is that ethnic Armenians represented a fifth column backed by Russia during World War I, and that the mass deportation and accompanying Armenian deaths were not premeditated or intentional - a key requirement in the legal definition of genocide.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned the 11 German MPs with Turkish roots who backed the resolution​

Following the Bundestag's "overwhelming" vote in favor of the "genocide" resolution, Ankara recalled its ambassador from Berlin, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowing to "never accept the accusations of genocide."

"First you need to answer for the Holocaust, then for the murder of 100,000 people in Namibia," Erdogan said.

The Turkish president also accused 11 German MPs with Turkish roots who backed the resolution of supporting "terrorism" by the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), and demanded "blood tests" to see "what kind of Turks they are."

Ankara's mayor, Ibrahim Melih Gökcek, later tweeted a collage of the 11 politicians, with the hastag #TheTraitorsMustLoseTheirCitizenship, claiming that they had "stabbed us [Turkey] in the back."



In response to the allegations, Seibert said on Monday that while Berlin also considers the PKK a terrorist group, "to associate individual members of parliament with terrorism is utterly incomprehensible to us."

Death threats

Among the 11 MPs was Green party co-leader, Cem Özedemir, who also instigated the vote on the resolution. The politician has since been placed under police protection after receiving anonymous death threats. The 50-year-old from Bad Urach in western Germany is the son of Turkish immigrants.

Speaking on Monday, Özdemir said that he wouldn't let himself be intimidated by Erdogan's verbal attacks.

"The votes in the German Bundestag aren't made depending on which authoritarian leaders are happy and which ones aren't," he said.

'This has gone too far'

During an interview with German news program "Tagesschau" on Monday, fellow Green politicians Özcan Mutlu said he had received "hundreds if not thousands of emails with messages of hate or death threats."

"As an MP, insults and threats have started to become normal," he said. "But this takes things to a new level."

Mutlu, who also appeared on the tweet posted by Ankara's mayor, called on the German chancellor to take a stand against Erdogan and "make it clear that this has gone too far."

Merkel's diplomatic relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come under increasing scrutiny in recent months, with critics accusing her of ignoring Turkey's human rights record and worsening press freedom in order to win Ankara's cooperation in the implementation of the EU refugee deal.

Social Democrat (SPD) and Integration Minister Aydan Özoguz also condemned the threats on Monday.

"The death threats against us MPs are absolutely unacceptable and shock me deeply," he said.

"I expect parliament to clearly show its solidarity with us and to not leave us here alone," Özoguz added.

Solidarity from Bundestag and Turkish community

Seemingly in response to the calls for support, Christian Democrat (CDU) and Bundestag President Norbert Lammert said on Monday that he wanted to "reitterate the lower house of parliament's solidarity with the threatened colleagues."

Despite broadly opposing the "genocide" vote, Germany's Turkish community has also criticized Ankara and Erdogan's supporters for the pressure which has been placed on German lawmakers of Turkish origin.

"We find death threats and demands for blood tests abhorrent," said chairman of Germany's Association for the Turkish Community, Gokay Sofuoglu.

"I think the era when people were defined by their blood ended in 1945. This is absolutely out of place," he added.

http://www.dw.com/en/berlin-rebuffs...er-green-mp-receives-death-threats/a-19310281

 

[Zankou]

"As the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey officially denies that the events that started in 1915 amounted to genocide. Ankara's official line is that ethnic Armenians represented a fifth column backed by Russia during World War I, and that the mass deportation and accompanying Armenian deaths were not premeditated or intentional - a key requirement in the legal definition of genocide."

That doesn't make sense. Either they were a fifth column or they weren't.

For what it's worth, I do agree the Armenians were conspiring with the Russians against the Turks. But then the Turks just straight-up genocided the Armenian populace in response to the threat. There's really not a lot of subtlety to it. Turks are going to Turk. Even now, Erdogan longs to genocide the Kurds, but knows he can't get away with it.

 

[Rod1]

Honor Gang Raping.

Honor Killings.

Honor War Criminals Worshipping.

Honor Genocide Denying.

The stone-age interpretations of "Honor" in these situations are so twisted, they should be called something else entirely. There's asolutely NOTHING honorable about any of those disgusting things.

"Cave men's pride" would be a more accurate description for such lunacy.

Honor and pride go hand to hand.

 

[Arkain2K]

Honor and pride go hand to hand.

Some folks seems to take pride on being dishonorable.

 

[Rod1]

Some folks seems to take pride on being dishonorable.

I think the word honor is not the correct one when talking about the mentality of these country, a more proper word would be respect. And respect can be achieved through pretty dishonorable means.

 

[Francis Rossi]

Erdogan must need it explaining that those German MPs aren't actually Turkish. Being born and raised in Germany makes you German.

 

[Arkain2K]

I wonder what that smug arrogant cunt Cenk over at the Young Turks has to say about this.

Evidently he refuses to talk about the issue any longer. Stating that he doesn't know what happened because he's not a historian.

Cenk Uygur Still Won’t Acknowledge The Armenian Genocide
Stephen Knight - April 24, 2016

Cenk Uygur is the co-founder and main host of the left-leaning online media outlet ‘The Young Turks’. Over recent years, he’s faced increasing pressure to address his past claims that the Armenian genocide didn’t actually happen.

As well as denial of the atrocity, he’s also accused of naming his show, ‘The Young Turks’ after the perpetrators of the genocide. He’s been willing to deny the latter, but has been consistent in his avoidance of the former.

After years of silence and public avoidance when challenged on this issue, Cenk finally released a statement on April 22nd. It is reproduced in its entirety below:

Today, I rescind the statements I made in my Daily Pennsylvanian article from 1991 entitled, “Historical Fact of Falsehood? When I wrote that piece, I was a 21 year-old kid, who had a lot of opinions that I have since changed. Back then I had many political positions that were not well researched. For example, back in those days I held a pro-war rally for the Persian Gulf War. Anyone who knows me now knows that I am a very different person today.

I also rescind the statements I made in a letter to the editor I wrote in 1999 on the same issue. Back then I had a very different perspective and there were many things that I did not give due weight. On this issue, I should have been far, far more respectful of so many people who had lost family members. Their pain is heart-wrenching and should be acknowledged by all.

My mistake at the time was confusing myself for a scholar of history, which I most certainly am not. I don’t want to make the same mistake again, so I am going to refrain from commenting on the topic of the Armenian Genocide, which I do not know nearly enough about.

Thank you for being patient with me on this issue, though I might not have always merited it.​

I find this statement lacking. Cenk has had 25 years to get his facts straight on this topic, yet he still avoids confirming whether this atrocity actually took place. Merely rescinding a statement is not the same as conceding that it is untrue.

Were it the case that I wanted people to be certain that I wasn’t denying a historically established genocide, I’d be sure to confirm my acknowledgement of said atrocity in a released statement intended to put the matter to bed. Something like: ‘Of course I now accept the Armenian genocide happened’ would do it for instance.

The above simply reads as someone who just doesn’t want to talk about it and is hoping it will all go away, rather than someone who wishes to set the record straight.

But unfortunately, Cenk can only manage to concede he was mistaken for ‘confusing’ himself for a ‘scholar of history’ rather than being mistaken about historical fact.

Also, ‘I don’t know enough about this, I’m not a scholar’ is an odd defence to take for a talk show host. Cenk is not a ‘scholar’ on any topic as far as I’m aware.

Will Cenk refrain from being opinionated on topics he is not a scholar on from now on? Surely he would need to find a new job then. Or does this credential humility only apply where inconvenient topics such as the Armenian genocide are concerned?

http://www.gspellchecker.com/2016/04/cenk-uygur-still-wont-acknowledge-the-armenian-genocide/

----

After years of denying the Armenian genocide, Cenk Uygur now says he doesn’t know enough about it to say anything

Every open-minded person who has looked at the evidence agrees that this genocide happened—except for Turks. (To start reading about the evidence, go here, here, here, here, here, or look at the references in the Wikipedia article.) The notion that their country could commit such unspeakable crimes is completely unpalatable to them, and many (but not all!) Turks simply deny that the genocide happened. I’ve encountered this denial several times when visiting Turkey, and believe me, you don’t want to talk about the issue if you don’t know whom you’re talking to. The attitude of many Turks is the equivalent of those who deny the Nazi Holocaust despite insuperable evidence.

Curiously, one of the Armenian Genocide deniers has been Cenk Uygur. It may be relevant that he was born in Turkey, though his family moved to America when he was young. In 1991, while at the University of Pennsylvania, Uygur wrote an article for The Daily Pennsylvanian (the student newspaper) called “Historical Fact or Falsehood“, which is straight-out genocide denialism, imputing false claims of genocide to Armenian demands for land and money. An excerpt:

Hence, once you really examine the history of the time it becomes apparent that the allegations of an Armenian Genocide are unfounded. So the question arises of why the Armenians would bother to conjure up such stories, and even go as far as, committing approximately 200 acts of terrorism since 1973 to further their cause, resulting in countless deaths and injuries to government officials and civilians. The answer is that they want their demands met. Their demands are that they receive close to one-half of the land of the Republic of Turkey for a new Greater Armenia, and that every Armenian claiming to be injured by the alleged genocide be compensated with cash reparations. That is why every year they push the U.S. Congress to pass a bill declaring the Armenian Genocide a historical fact. Fortunately, every year it is defeated because of the courage of people such as the 69 professors who wrote in to explain the truth of the matter.​

In a letter to Salon in 1999, he again argued that there was no evidence for that genocide:

. . . every non-Armenian scholar in the field believes it is an open question whether this event was a genocide. Is it the claim of the article that all of these people are tainted by the tentacles of the Turkish government? If not, then why is it not pointed out that no one outside of the “Armenian position” believes it is a genocide? Why is it assumed that the “Turkish studies side” has the burden of proof in overturning the verdict of Turkish guilt? It is because of the underlying assumption that despite what these people in “Turkish studies” say, there must have been a genocide.​

This is an embarrassing position for someone to take who’s an American progressive, and over the years Uygur has taken a lot of flak for it. When an ethnic minority is “cleansed”, and you’re supposed to be supportive of minorities, it doesn’t look good for you, or your online news show, to ignore one of the greatest massacres of the 20th century. Yet ignore it Uygur did, refusing to mention it on the 100th anniversary of Bloody Sunday last year, ignoring it this year, and ignoring the questions about it he was asked in a reddit “Ask me Anything” interview. Apparently “Anything” doesn’t include genocide.

It got so bad that Uguyr’s cohost Ana Kasparian, of Armenian descent, put up her own video about the genocide on its anniversary in 2015, making no bones about its reality. Of course she didn’t get to mention it on TYT. Here it is:



I suppose the pressure on Uygur got so bad, and its potential effects on his reputation and show so damaging, that he finally said something about the genocide. Did he admit it happened? No—he simply said that he didn’t know the facts well enough to pass judgment on it. Have a look at the most disingenuous notapology ever, “Rescinding the statements in my Daily Pennsylvanian article“, published four days ago on the TYT site (the genocide was, by the way, committed by the government instituted by reformers called “The Young Turks”). Here’s Uygur’s “retraction” in its entirety:

Today, I rescind the statements I made in my Daily Pennsylvanian article from 1991 entitled, “Historical Fact of Falsehood? When I wrote that piece, I was a 21 year-old kid, who had a lot of opinions that I have since changed. Back then I had many political positions that were not well researched. For example, back in those days I held a pro-war rally for the Persian Gulf War. Anyone who knows me now knows that I am a very different person today.


I also rescind the statements I made in a letter to the editor I wrote in 1999 on the same issue. Back then I had a very different perspective and there were many things that I did not give due weight. On this issue, I should have been far, far more respectful of so many people who had lost family members. Their pain is heart-wrenching and should be acknowledged by all.

My mistake at the time was confusing myself for a scholar of history, which I most certainly am not. I don’t want to make the same mistake again, so I am going to refrain from commenting on the topic of the Armenian Genocide, which I do not know nearly enough about.

Thank you for being patient with me on this issue, though I might not have always merited it.​

One might think that, after 25 years, it was finally time for Uygur to admit the existence of that genocide. Did he do that? Not that I can see. All he says is that he’s a “very different person,” doesn’t stand by his denialism of the past, and henceforth is going to shut up about the issue. After all, he was not a “scholar of history”. (If he used that excuse all the time, he couldn’t say anything about history.)

Well, imagine if he showed similar behavior with respect to the Nazi Holocaust and, after denying it for a quarter of a century, issued something like the statement above: “I am not a scholar of history and so can’t determine whether the Nazis killed six million Jews and another six million non-Jews. I do respect the pain of those who may have lost family members in this claimed Holocaust. But since I don’t know all the facts (and can’t be arsed to look them up), I’ll just refrain from mentioning the Holocaust again.”

This is reprehensible. In 25 years Uygur could have acquainted himself with the facts, for crying out loud! It’s not that they’re hard to find, and although a few denialists still exist—just as there are Holocaust denialists—the consensus of scholars and historians is that yes, the Armenians were exterminated en masse by the Turks.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpres...-doesnt-know-enough-about-it-to-say-anything/