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The Armenian Genocide (1915-16): In Depth

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Re: The Armenian Genocide (1915-16): In Depth

#81

Post by lostlogin »

m00dy wrote: post #59
zero_deg_kevin wrote: post #55

The downvoting in this thread is insane. Do the mods have tools to determine if there are state actors trying to manipulate conversation on HN?

well, I'm not a state actor and I am a developer. So, I'm not working for state. I wouldn't come here to speculate if I were a state actor. I'm here to tell you my opinions as a Turk and my comments should be considered as a part of freedom expression which is one of the core values in western societies.

It’s the aggressive downvoting without correction, criticism or comment which is unusual.

What are your opinions on what occurred around WW1 with Armenians?

Re: The Armenian Genocide (1915-16): In Depth

#82

Post by alehander42 »

bayindirh wrote: post #67
andrewvc wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are clearly disingenuous comments from genocide denying trolls throughout this thread. I’m not surprised to see downvotes as well.

Hi, I'm one of these genocide denying troll s. Let me tell you a story. In 1915, my father's family was living in Erzurum. While the men of the house were leaving for the mosque after the law passed, they warned the woman at home about not opening the door for whatever reason. Their neighbors were Armenians for 40+ years and my father's family were their landlords. They never had anything unpleasant, but they wanted…

That's extremely sad and it is truth that we, people, are doing horrible things to each other for a long time. I hope you find comfort (and I hope God blesses us with the wisdom to fight against our own internal passions).

This shouldn't be about "this nation is bad, this nation is good". (saying it as a bulgarian, we also had complicated history with the Ottomans, but I think we can say we live peacefully with the ordinary turk people)

However, this doesn't mean we can't talk about genocides/massacres: germans can witness about many soviet atrocities, but they don't have the nerve to deny the Holocaust in the same time. We should seek the truth in both directions.

Re: The Armenian Genocide (1915-16): In Depth

#83

Post by hans1729 »

alehander42 wrote: post #79

why is this on 3rd page now

Without going into conspiracy-mode:

If you were a state and wanted to surpress certain narratives that negatively leverage your international standing, wouldn't you at the very least have google alerts regarding these topics? The non-techsavy public has learned how much impact relatively cheap bot-networks etc have in 2016. States do hire PR-agencies (also, read up on the direct relationship between "PR" and "Propaganda", they are the same thing), and PR agencies do this thing for a living, just usually its instagram, not HN.

Would be super interesting to know how HN tries to combat malicious voting though, especially since downvoting requires a karma-threshhold of 500 or something.

Re: The Armenian Genocide (1915-16): In Depth

#84

Post by pmoriarty »

HappyDreamer wrote: post #44

This hate is a bit present, still today. In Stockholm, Sweden, 5 years ago: "Death to the Armenian dogs", said B. Leylani, who was, back then, the vice president of the Turkish National Association of Sweden. The spectators (Turkish extremists?) were cheering. Later he had to resign (there are also, of course, kind and reasonable people in that organization, who don't want any more genocides, and I presume they didn'…

"Angry extremists are always few"

But they are often supported by large portions of the general population, such as widespread support of the Nazi regime among ordinary Germans, widespread support of the Soviet totalitarian regime by their citizens (millions of which were murdered by the same regime), widespread support of Mao's Cultural Revolution, of Pol Pot, of countless civil wars (and just plain wars) all over the globe and throughout time.

Humans have not proven to be a very peaceful species, and it doesn't take much for them to lunge for each other's throats.

Re: The Armenian Genocide (1915-16): In Depth

#86

Post by fakedang »

scythe wrote: post #70

It's interesting how some genocides become more politically charged than others. Japan has trouble acknowledging their genocides, but they rarely complain when other countries do. America is generally similar. Germany has conducted a massive campaign to root out genocidal sympathies. But it's particularly surprising with Turkey, because, unlike Japan or the US, the Republic of Turkey replaced the Ottoman Empire by a…

Your premise is incorrect though. The Ottoman Empire was not directly responsible for the genocide - the Sultan didn't give orders one fine day in WW1 to massacre all Armenians. But the Turkish military men who eventually went on to depose the powerless Sultan and form the modern-day Republic of Turkey were the ones who instigated the genocide, including Ataturk himself. So yeah, the modern Republic of Turkey has every reason to fight against all allegations of genocide, even though it was an integral element in its independence movement.

Re: The Armenian Genocide (1915-16): In Depth

#87

Post by yodafx »

People seem shocked when people deny genocides that happened more than 100 years ago when we have ongoing genocides in the very PRESENT that are being denied although we have undeniable evidence in high quality footage. It's also quite bizarre when some, rightly so, demand Turkey to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, but don't have much to say about Turkey's refusal (among other nations which somewhat economically depend on China) to acknowledge China's genocide of the Uyghurs or God forbid Israel's genocide of the Palestinians.

Anyone who denies one genocide loses any credibility and right to ask others to acknowledge their 'favorite' genocide they like to mention when it suits their interests.

Most of the time the defense will be based upon a false understanding of what really constitutes "genocide". "B-But the population numbers are increasing" - Which might or might not be true, but that's besides the point:

"Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups." - Lemkin

Re: The Armenian Genocide (1915-16): In Depth

#88

Post by ghostDancer »

alehander42 wrote: post #79

why is this on 3rd page now

That's how HN works, if something looks like is going to get a big non technical heated discussion and probably attract downvoting trolls and teams , it disappears from the first page to calm down the waters. That way it doesn't need too much moderation and is better to hide and HN can continue preoccupied by other things like taxes and some new technology that is going to revolutionize the web.

Re: The Armenian Genocide (1915-16): In Depth

#89

Post by alehander42 »

belatw wrote: post #54
Gimpei wrote: post #34

My family is Assyrian and was living in a region of Iran that was at the time still part of the Ottoman empire. During the genocide, the Kurdish proxies of the regime came into my grandmother's village, murdered all the men, and raped the women before deporting them. My grandmother walked 600 miles to the Persian gulf, during which time she had a miscarriage from the rape. About two-thirds of the Assyrian population…

During the population exchange My mother in law’s Turkish family were forced to walk to Istanbul from their village in Makedonya with nothing but the gold coins they had sewn into their blankets and hid into their shoes. 1/4 of them were killed by Greeks. The same story with my father in law coming from northern Bulgaria. Nobody brings this up, because it was Christians killing Muslims. Still the Armenians remained a…

Can you tell me more about macedonia/bulgarian turks stories: I am a bulgarian and I want to see how the truth, and to see how turkish history sees the events

Re: The Armenian Genocide (1915-16): In Depth

#90

Post by bayindirh »

alehander42 wrote: post #82
bayindirh wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I'm one of these genocide denying troll s. Let me tell you a story. In 1915, my father's family was living in Erzurum. While the men of the house were leaving for the mosque after the law passed, they warned the woman at home about not opening the door for whatever reason. Their neighbors were Armenians for 40+ years and my father's family were their landlords. They never had anything unpleasant, but they wanted…

That's extremely sad and it is truth that we, people, are doing horrible things to each other for a long time. I hope you find comfort (and I hope God blesses us with the wisdom to fight against our own internal passions). This shouldn't be about "this nation is bad, this nation is good". (saying it as a bulgarian, we also had complicated history with the Ottomans, but I think we can say we live peacefully with the o…

First of all, thank you. Hi Bulgarian friend!

The thing is, there were many nations at play at that time. I have some documents in an archaic CD-ROM about the issue.

I don't want to name names, but the number of rifles collected from Armenians during that time is enough to form a small, unorganized army at the area. I don't know if I can dig the images but, they were a lot.

Turks and Armenians didn't hate each other, ever. This hate was seeded during the war somehow. To prevent worse things from happening, rulers of that time decided to remove Armenians from that area to somewhere south (IIRC the path), but bad things have happened. During this movement, other bad things have happened to Turks (like to my family).

The sad thing is, Turks don't hate Armenians, even today. We don't hate, our family, friends have no negative emotions about them, but when hate is projected from other side, you mirror it somehow to protect yourself. Having a chat with old Armenian friends were always hard. The emotions were very asymmetric. When a dear friend gives a suspicious look, wondering whether you're planning to hurt him/her is hurting.

The heart breaking thing is, my story is always listened as I'm making this up, but I'm not. I have no reason to. We're border neighbors and this shall end. It's tiring and doesn't have any productive outcome.

I don't tell that Armenians have not died. I do say bad things have happened to everyone, but labeling this as a planned and deliberate act is highly wounding. And dismissing what happened to Turks at that area adds insult to the injury.

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