http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/world/europe/05armenia.html?ref=global-home
The House of Foreign Affairs has recently passed a vote to condemn the genocide of Armenians under Turkish rule. For those of you not familiar with history, said genocide took place 95 years ago. Here's a wikipedia article on the genocide, in case you're interested in it. Basically, the Ottoman Empire, during World War I, began to massacre and deport Armenians, with a total death toll estimated between 300,000 and 1.5 million.
Reading the news article, I was a tad bit surprised by the fact that it took our government this long to acknowledge the genocide. It's not as though it was an event that had been covered up and was only recently being rediscovered; the Armenian Genocide had been common knowledge for nearly a century. What's even worse was the final vote: 22 Against, 23 For. The genocide was recognized for what it was by a single vote. There are some arguments against it being classified as genocide; it's unsure whether or not the massacre was a deliberate, planned action on the part of the government or just something that spiraled out of control, and the fact that the term "genocide" wasn't invented until 1943, but those are just based on semantics. One of the big reasons the vote was so close was because we didn't want to upset our good friend Turkey, who is understandably a little unhappy discussing the subject. To show their unhappiness, they've gone so far to recall their ambassador in Washington (overreaction much?)
The entire situation just seems silly to me. The Armenian Genocide happened; it's a known fact, with plenty of evidence and historical documentation. Whether or not calling it a "genocide" seems to be a moot point; systematic slaughter of an ethnic group is still systematic slaughter of an ethnic group, no matter how narrowly you define the word. I understand the reasoning behind not wanting to harm our relationship with Turkey, as they're kinda valuable for our operations in the Middle East, but really now, Turkey needs to grow up. The events happened nearly 100 years ago, under a completely different government with a completely different country name. If other countries can admit to their darker moments in history, there's no reason Turkey can't do the same as well.
Wow, that's only slightly depressing. I get the feeling the "defining genocide" argument is really just there so we can find a way to acknowledge all those deaths without...you know...acknowledging all those deaths? Basically it seems like if it "spiraled out of control" then the government isn't really at fault. I realize this is backwards caveman logic, but backwards caveman logic seems to work a lot in politics. I agree completely, its amazing that this is an issue on both our side and their side. Turkey also needs to get over it. Germany owned up to it, why not them?
ReplyDeletePlus, I find the range to be quite amusing. Between 300,000 and 1.5 million is a lot. About 1.2 million to be precise. Numbers imprecise because Turkey would rather not admit to it? I'm asking because I really don't know on that one, but my cynicism leads me to that conclusion.
800,000 was the official Ottoman count. The 300,000 comes from the various high ranking officials involved in the genocide. 1.5 million comes from German and Austrian counts (yes, the Ottoman's allies made the highest count.)
ReplyDeleteThen my bet's between 800,000 and 1.5 million.
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