« Irony
The Truth?
The more I read about what some call the Armenian genocide, the more I understand how difficult and confusing the subject actually is. There is a lot of material available for free on the web and in just about every library. Some of the sources – many of them – indicate that their was a genocide, others deny it, again others speak about mass killings but not genocide as such. Today, the Jerusalem Post published a good and interesting article by Lenny Ben-David about this. Ben-David writes:
AS AN adviser for five years to the Turkish embassy in Washington, until earlier this summer, I understood why the Turkish government and people jump to deny claims that their ancestors committed a “genocide” against Armenians some 90 years ago.
It occurred during a maelstrom of battles and massacres. It was allegedly carried out by founding fathers who were bringing their country into an enlightened 20th century. And it was waged against an enemy guilty of the still unspoken crime of massacring hundreds of thousands of Muslims and thousands of Jews.
Armenians and Turks see no shades of grey, and for now, at least, demands are made only of Turkey to change its monochromatic narrative.
He then lists some of the autrocities committed by the Armenians (who, no matter what source you read, were not exactly innocent either). Some of the atrocities are:
- There are accounts of Armenian massacres, between 1914 and 1920, of 2.5 million of Armenia’s Muslim population. From this source:
I killed Muslims by every means possible. Yet it is sometimes a pity to waste bullets for this. The best way is to gather all of these dogs and throw them into wells and then fill the wells with big and heavy stones, as I did. I gathered all of the women, men and children, threw big stones down on top of them. They must never live on this earth.
- Recently, Mountain Jews in Azerbaijan requested assistance in building a monument to 3,000 Azeri Jews killed by Armenians in 1918 in a pogrom about which little is known.
- AND WITHIN our own lifetime – just some 15 years ago – Armenian troops massacred hundreds of Azeri Muslims. In this regard, Ben-David cites Newsweek from March 16, 1992:
“Azerbaijan was a charnel house again last week: a place of mourning refugees and dozens of mangled corpses dragged to a makeshift morgue behind the mosque. They were ordinary Azerbaijani men, women and children of Khojaly, a small village in war-torn Nagorno-Karabakh overrun by Armenian forces on Feb. 25-26. Many were killed at close range while trying to flee; some had their faces mutilated, others were scalped.”
The author of the article concludes, and I fully agree with him:
Both Turks and Armenians have their grisly tales of persecution and their vehement denials of genocidal designs. It is the task of the Jewish community to express sympathy for all the victims and outrage at all the perpetrators on both sides of the conflict. The US Congress and the Jewish community should encourage historians on both sides to objectively examine what took place.
Nations mature when they can look at themselves in the mirror and see the grey, the wrinkles and the blemishes.
I would also like to point out that mass killings – yes even killings on a grand scale – do not necessarily constitute genocide.
I agree with Ben-David: let everybody open up the archives, let historians in and let’s find out what exactly happened. For this to happen, though, every country and people involved has to be willing to live with the consequences. The attitude some have, which means that the Armenians basically did nothing wrong and have done nothing wrong but that the Turks are ruthless killers and today’s generation is dedicated to covering-up the misdeeds of their ancestors, has to change. Turks, on the other hand, have to stop automatically dismissing any claims as well. Do the research, open up the archives, and let’s see what happens.
6 Responses to “The Truth?”
Michael – I generally agree with your position that all sides and all countries should open their archives for everyone to see – the good, bad and ugly. National narratives should be constructed on the truth – not myths.
One side comment when I read Ben-David’s article. He could not resist the obligatory slam against the Palestinians so that the Jerusalem Post would print his article. As an additional point, Israel still has a LONG way to go in examining the truths behind it’s founding narrative. When Israel fully reveals the atrocities committed by Irgun, Stern Gang et al then I will agree with Ben-David. From my Grandfathers stories to the Irgun reunion I attended in 1956 there is a LOT yet to be revealed.
Opening up the archives is always good. I just wanted to add that massacring civilians is bad even when many of the civilians are bad. When the Hutu were slaughtering Tutsis by the tens of thousands in Rwanda a decade ago, it would not have been okay for the Tutsis to turn around and do the same against Hutu.
John – every country in the world should fess up to its autrocities. The Netherlands is not exactly innocent either. We misbehaved tremendously in Indonesia during the so-called “politionele acties.” In short, we killed a tremendous amount of Indos, men, women, and children. One of the Dutch greatest military leaders has been quoted as saying “chop their heads off boys!”
Serious.
The sad thing? Once we admitted to this, now reports appear that say that the Dutch government has cut these pages out of history books in schools. When asked about it, the government explained that this does not fit into what they want to teach, which is children to be proud of our nation. I am all for the latter, but I do not quite see how denying the past accomplishes that in the long run, and it is completely dishonest. Being proud of your nation doesn’tmean you cannot admit the nation did some horrible things, it’s believing that your country is great despite those things.
There must be a full moon out tonight, because I find I’m in complete agreement with MVDG
This is a simmering problem in the US, as well. There are powerful groups who oppose any negative narratives in school boolks and consider it ‘anti-Ameircan’ to bring up incidents like the forced march of the Navajos ordered by our hero Kit Carson.
While I think it’s important to not get stuck in guilt and shame for past events, I think it’s a bad mistake to keep the past hidden. Sooner or later, these things come out, and they seem even worse if they come as a surprise. Secrecy leads to suspicions, and suspicions lead to imagining even worse things than the reality of it.
Are you listening, Mr. Bush?
Michael, Mr. Ben-David’s article which you call “good and interesting”, is nothing but a political statement by a Deputy Chief of Mission of the Israeli Embassy. It is a political statement in its content and spirit designed to achieve an end. He conveniently choses so-called sources, which can only be qualified as dubious at best, to distort history. The shallowest research would reveal the bankruptcy of Mr. Ben-Davids ideas. To name a few: All of a sudden we are hearing about “thousands of Jews” who have been supposedly massacred by Armenians. Wouldn’t you think that if such were the case the State of Israel would have already erected a monument or a memorial for such victims or the Jewish historians would have at least talked about it? If the Armenians had committed atrocities on such a scale that the Turkish government tries to equate the losses on both sides, wouldn’t you think that Turkey herself would have built a memorial long time ago in central Ankara or Istanbul? Instead what we have is a hurriedly built monument in a tiny border town of Igdir a few years ago to show that they too have been the victims of genocide…by Armenians, after a ninety year’s delay.
And finally, to “justify” that genocide could not have happened against the Armenians Ben-David talks about the recent conflict with Azerbaijan as if the issues are at all related. Forgetting that it was Azerbaijan who started the violent conflict in the first place, and this, Michael, you can check easily because it wasn’t long ago that major American newsmedia was reporting the mass expulsion of Armenians from then Soviet Azerbaijan, Mr. Ben-David presents Armenians as aggressors.
What nation wouldn’t defend her sons and daughters from open aggression demonstrated by Soviet and later independent Azerbaijan?Would he equally present Israel as the aggressor in its fight against Hamas or Hizbollah? Furthermore, we witnessed last year the deaths of over a thousand Lebanese as a result of the Israeli military operations, would he endorse someone who uses that tragedy to counter argue the reality of the Holocaust? No.
So, Michael, Ben-Davids “good” article is not worth the paper he wrote on and therefore it is garbage not worth quoting.
PianoMan…
[...] Good piano performance. Thanks heaps for this!… if anyone else has anything it would be much appreciated. Great website http://www.en.Grand-Pianos.org Enjoy!…