NEWS: Hey Turkey, Go Fuck Yourself

While I don't think it was FTR's inention, I think the pic chosen for this article is unjust because it has it's main focus on Northern Turkey, or Pontos, yet no one has mentioned the Pontians.


I personally do not view the Armenian or Pontian Genocides as seperate being that they happend merely five or six years apart and were commited by the same people.

s5 were you born and raised in Greece? It's probably irrelevant for this discussion but I was just curious cause your profiel says your hometown is Athens. I totally agree with you on your stance of the relationship between the US and Turkey. However, I also assume that when you say "this is a slap in the face" for Turkey, you do not agree that this resolution should be passed. For me, this is not about strategic routes to Iraq or democrats. It's about culture. It's something that's documented "hey Armenians and Pontians, you will not be forgotten," as opposed to "we're going to deny that these events ever took place so that they will be forgotten over time."

Contrary to what most of you are posting, this has huge rammifications. A country has committed haneious crimes that have gone unrecognized and unpunished. Just because it happend a hundred years ago, does that mean it should be forgotten? While we all know what happened, it officially hasn't happened until Turkey says it has and anything we say is just an exaggeration or a myth. I'm sure my grandparents would have loved for everyone to not know what it was like waking up in the middle of the night and being forced to go live in another country.

Quite honestly, I don't see what negative impact it would have on Turkey if they did acknowledge these things. Does that mean that they are evil people? Does it mean that they can't get into the EU? I believe it would be stupid to think that they are evil and ridiculous to not let them in the EU if they acknowledge their past. I think every country has some sort of dark past.

A person's past shouldn't be who they become, but should be a bit of who they are...just my opinion though.

Agreed.

I would hope that Turkey acknowledging the fact that their nation's actions a hundered years ago were in fact a genocide will be a prerequesite for them to become a member of the EU, if that should ever happen (which I personally think would be a good idea).

They are doing themselves a great disservice.

Well to be precise its what the Ottomans did. A venal, corrupt, bankrupt and nasty pack of bastards that they were. The Turkish Republic and its founders came afterwards.

As far as most Turks are concerned the Armenians tried to rebel in the middle of a war and any losses they took are their own fault. That said the use of concentration camps (based on the British model from the Boer War) to hold Armenian civilians and the general bastardry of the ottoman army killed an awful lot of people unnecessarily.

It is believed, but there is no firm evidence, that the Ottoman government had given unofficial orders to exterminate the Armenians and if so they gave it a good try.

The Turks are being idiotic about this for reasons beknownst only unto themselves. If they just agreed and said the Ottoman's were bastards that's why we overthrew them it wouldn't be such as issue. However when was nationalism ever sensible?

In this case I think we have a lot of people editing wikipedia who have an ax to grind. The Armenian massacres all preceded the Young Turks and to compare them to any fascist group (let alone the nazi's) is factually wrong.

A lot of the Turks neighbours can't forgive them for the Ottoman Empire kicking twelve different kinds of shit ou of them of a 1000 years and wikipedia unfortunately can get hijacked by folk as an outlet for their bias.

Well the brits were trying to convene trials to deal with those responsible but as always with International law international politics got in the way. before anyone got nailed the brits decided they wanted to try and keep the ottoman's in power not undermine them and thus no one ever got nailed for the crimes.

The Young Turks simply didn't care, though a lot of those responsible got done over in the revolution it wasn't for any crimes committed against the Armenians

I think Zarth was referring to all the dead native Americans. And all the nice policies that were in place to get them off land that decent white folks could have it. We did exactly the same thing here in Oz.

If you start playing the genocide card then there are few western nations that don't have something to hide.

Germany: Jews/Anyone that freak Hitler didn't like
Italy: Ethiopia (not very successful, but then Mussolini was a fool)
Dutch: Indonesia (a number of cultural groups got the runner put through them)
France: Africa/Indochina
Britain: Australia/South Africa/Anywhere the natives got uppity
Belgium: Congo
Portugal: Souther American Indian
Spain: South and Central American Indians

Exterminating annoying natives was a way of life for any imperial government from any culture. Westerners have simply done more of it more recently because we've been on top.

Pointing fingers at the Turks is throwing a sop to an internal political constituency rather than any serious attempt to address historical issues.

My great-grandparents fled to the US in the 1890's after their respective families were slaughtered. Most of the Armenians I know place the start of the genocide at well before WWI.

You didn't say much, but I don't think I've ever been as confused to a response before. Would you mind explaining your thoughts on the issue a bit more? of course, you don't HAVE to...