Popes laddress the Genocide of Armenians by the Ottomans! Shouldn't we follow suit?

[Asher Kelman]

Modern Turkey is a land hospitable to everyone. There is no part of Turkey where one will not find ordinary folk and policemen eager to give a welcoming smile, friendly help. This openness is genuine. Even in poor villages, you might be invited home for a welcome and coffee or tea.

BBC Picture: The Pope Marks the 100th Anniversary of the First Genocide of the 20th Century

BBC Picture: The Popes guests - Armenian Orthodox Apostolic Church Prelates and Leaders​

Still, in the world stage, there's one one singular word that triggers statesmanship to crumble when the government hears world leaders or assemblies declare empathy and remembrance of the tragic Armenian "Genocide" at the hands of the Ottoman Empire under Talaat Pasha starting in about April 1915 with orders sent to "Appointed Secretaries" to set in motion the extermination of their Armenian Christian population.

See the video here!​

100 years ago, the lights went out in the Ottoman Empire once Turkey joined Germany in World war one and shelled Russian ports with rebadged German warships. They now could have a "Final Solution" to the Armenian Problem". Armenians, the first Christian community in history, were successful. They were the translators, engineers, architects, businessmen and farmers that held in their reins a lot of the posterity and vibrancy of the Ottoman Empire. However, they were Christian and separate from their Muslim neighbors. Worse, they were magnets to draw in competing Catholic and Protestant churches, intent at first on converting Muslims and later on seducing Armenian Orthodox Christians to their own version of celebrating Jesus as "The Christ". They built hospitals and schools and massive walled colleges for Armenians. Meanwhile, resentment against Christians grew and the government set in motion a plan to extinguish the Armenian presence in the Ottoman Empire by a grand plan of mass deportation, exhaustion, humiliation and cruel butchery. The facts are clear, over 1.25 million Armenian Christians were forced out of their villages under guard by Turkish solders and set of treks that led to their death.

The Pope is commended for his outspokenness!

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

On the way, Turk officers took the best property from their overloaded carts and chose the prettiest young girls for themselves.

Then the desperate masses of displaced Armenian, men, women and children were under the supervision of "Gendarmes", many of them especially released convicts, an mostly from minorities of the Ottoman Empire. The defenseless folk were chopped to pieces, drowned in wells, capsized in rivers from rafts over fast water, packed into churches surrounded by straw and burnt alive.

Some Turks rescued Armenians, but the sad facts are that the Armenians who survived immediate massacres were led to the Syrian deserts to die of dehydration. At times hundreds of women were sold off as sex slaves. Children were taken to be converted, if fortunate. On occasion, clothes of the victims were burnt to recover gold coins sown into seams.

The Kurds in the Dersim in the north helped hundreds, perhaps up to thousands of young girls and women to escape across the Euphrates, at first for a fee and then for free. Meanwhile, Kurrds around the center of Turkey were meeting out violence against their Christian countrymen.

The killings were organized by a system of "Appointed Secretaries" with telegraph communication installed by German officers who pretty well directed the Ottoman armies. Germans were not directly involved, AFAIK, in any of the horrible genocidal activities of the Ottoman allies.

Henry Morgenthau, the US Ambassador to the Grand Porte, Arab scholars and foreign consuls all wrote and collected eye witness accounts.

Kemal Ataturk, an amazing army officer and eventually head of state, brought post war Turkey out of the moral morass and established a civil government accountable to a democratic parliament and built the foundations for the modern Turkish state. He instituted an accountable government with a much greater respect and protection for minorities, regardless of religion. He is recognized as the "Father" of modern Turkey and separated religion from government. That has in the most part, endured. Recently it has come under pressure and that principal has suffered erosion. Nevertheless, Christian can worship freely in Turkey and a number of major churches have been restored.

Still, today, when the Pope conducted a memorial service for the folk systematically butchered and uttered the word, "Genocide", the Turkish government was so offended that it called in the Vatican representative for protest, re-education, rebuke.

The facts speak for themselves - planned systematic forced emptying of Armenian villages and massacres were the result of documented government planning by the party of the Young Turks and the government of the Talaat Pasha. It was not the happenstance casualties of a civil war! This was mass murder and likely as not gave the green light for subsequent genocides of the 20th century.

I'm impressed by the scene of the Pope memorializing the victims of the massacres and calling it, as it was, "The First Genocide of the 20th Century."

Asher

 

[Michael Nagel]

I'm impressed by the scene of the Pope memorializing the victims of the massacres and calling it, as it was, "The First Genocide of the 20th Century."

Asher,

He was citing a declaration made by Pope John Paul II to the Armenian patriarch in 2000.
It was not less spectacular 15 years ago...

It needed to be said and repeated.

Best regards,
Michael

 

[Asher Kelman]

Commentary: on remembering!

Modern Turks stand amongst the finest people on the planet. They bear no responsibility for the events under the rule of the Ottoman empire.

Nevertheless, "Genocide" denial, does not allow us to address the evil of racial and ethnic hatred and it's inevitable consequence.

Germany, admitting the horrors of the Third Reich was able to do much to make amends and build a better social structure and contract with its divers population. Other European countries, are still in denial for their collaborations and are way behind modern Germany in dealing with race hatred.

By admitting and addressing our past errors we have some hope of not repeating them. Unfortunately, history in school, with rote learning of lists of presidents misses the point of history lessons in the first place. History should be a lesson and if our histories are not told, how can anyone learn?

Children today know about the powers and skills of superheroes and heroes of every sports team and their scores, but have no clue as to what's happening in Nineveh!

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

This is 100 years gone by and it's neither sensible no dignified for us to continue to avoid describing the planned destruction of the Armenian Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire for what it is. Certainly, speaking for myself as a Jew, those who have suffered persecution and massacres in every generation must defy promised repercussions with modern democratic Turkey. No one is putting the sins of the Ottomans on the shoulders of the modern Turkish State!

Armenian woman in national costume; Artvin. Photograph taken between 1905 and 1915 by SergeĭMikhaĭlovich
Prokudin-Gorskiĭ. This photo was part of a series in which Prokudin-Gorskii, on the eve of both the first World War
and the Russian Revolution, travelled the Russian Empire to photograph the diverse populations living throughout.
Included in the collection are rare chromagraphic portraits of Armenian people in national and religious costume,
shortly before the Ottoman government’s systematic extermination of Armenians who were living in present-day
Turkey. The number of Armenians killed is estimated to be between 1 and 1.5 million.

(Sergei Mikhailovich-Prokudin-Gorskii Collection at the Library of Congress)​

I refer you to this article to gain insight into the continuous history of denial.

How can humanity progress when we do not even acknowledge our biggest errors. But right now, it's a continued insult to our claim of nobility above the beasts, if we do not, at the very least, empathize with the victims of violence, be they in Darfur, Palestine, Israel, Ukraine, Syria or all the provinces of the mighty Ottoman Empire.

Asher

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi Asher,

There is rarely any real profit to a precise mea culpa.

Those who are interested can readily find out what happened in this horrible historic event. How the present Turkish government prefers to describe it has no effect on what happened and little effect on most people's current grasp of it.

Many already realize that it was genocide (or will find out if they do any historical research). Many of the rest have no idea what "genocide" means anyway.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Asher,

There is rarely any real profit to a precise mea culpa.

Those who are interested can readily find out what happened in this horrible historic event. How the present Turkish government prefers to describe it has no effect on what happened and little effect on most people's current grasp of it.

Many already realize that it was genocide (or will find out if they do any historical research). Many of the rest have no idea what "genocide" means anyway.

What genocide means is the following. There's a purposeful directed causation of the mass elimination of a people, not through any fallout from some other directed purpose, but specifically for the intent of achieving that result.

So for example, driving thousands folk on rafts to be capsized in the swift flowing Euphrates river, or packing them into churches packed with straw and burning them alive are elements of a genocide when they are part of episodes repeated at the direction of a government and in defiance of all pleas from other nations pleas to cease that ongoing murder.

...and what use does it serve to admit the truth?

1. victimhood must be recognized to allowinq healing. The South African Nobel Laureate, Nelson Mandela demonstrated that amply with his Commissions on Truth and Reconciliation.

2. Billions of $ of property and insurance policies were confiscated by the Ottomans, with most often, detail inventories made at time of property transfer to the State. The return of that wealth would make a substantial difference to the families of the victims.​

Asher

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Asher,

Is the question posed in your initial caption whether we, in the OPF, when speaking of the killing by the Ottoman Empire of so many Armenians, should use the term "genocide"?

I think that here we rarely have occasion to speak of that matter. But if it comes up, perhaps in connection with some new lens, I will certainly speak of it as "genocide".

Or by "we" did you mean "Western society"? Or our society overall? Or "we", Turkey?

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi, Asher,

Is the question posed in your initial caption whether we, in the OPF, when speaking of the killing by the Ottoman Empire of so many Armenians, should use the term "genocide"?

I think that here we rarely have occasion to speak of that matter. But if it comes up, perhaps in connection with some new lens, I will certainly speak of it as "genocide".

Or by "we" did you mean "Western society"? Or our society overall? Or "we", Turkey?

Best regards,

Doug

My assumption would be that civilized persons would not be so flummoxed! For such a serious matter, would I be concerned about a new lens? There are times and subjects for our wit. The destruction of the oldest branch of Christendom is not one of them.

Asher

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Asher,

My assumption would be that civilized persons would not be so flummoxed! For such a serious matter, would I be concerned about a new lens? There are times and subjects for our wit. The destruction of the oldest branch of Christendom is not one of them.

Excuse the hell out of me.

Carry on - you're doing fine. More than fine.

Doug

 

[Asher Kelman]

I do hope to collect some photographs taken during this period when the lights went out on the Ottoman Empire and the party of Talaat Pasha set in progress the activation of "Appointed Secretaries", regional trusted party members, entrusted with emptying out villages and towns of Armenian Christians. The introduction of the telegraph helped facilitate this organization. Critical; was the order in which villages were emptied as the routes had to be kept Syrian desert had to be kept prevented from being totally blocked by too many at the same time.

Entire villages were, overnight converted from Christian to Kurd or whatever other non-Christian tribe could be moved in. I visited one such village that had the remnants of a very large Armenian church. It was now a Kurdish village and the villagers had no idea who happened to have left a church on their land! On a human level, the Kurds are wonderful people and one cannot help but relate to them. They have loving families, tend to crops and manage the best they can working hard. However, the place, to me echoes a lie. The Armenians didn't just "vanish". They were hacked to pieces, drowned in rivers or in wells, burnt to death, women raped and then had their bellies split open to get any swallowed jewelry ..............or just labored or starved to death in the deserts.

These were the people who were the producers of most of the food and meat that fed the large cities. These were the translators, architects, engineers , scholars and musicians.

Had we stopped that one disaster, then the dictators that slaughtered another 100 million in the 20th Century might have been given pause.

It's said that Hitler rebuffed a General's caution about the plan to slaughter Polish Jews with the off the cuff remark, "tell me, who remembers the Armenians?"

Asher