The Deported | Hacker News Reader

The Deported

laphamsquarterly.org

158 points1sembiyan132 comments

  “I wish,” Talaat now said, “that you would get the American life-insurance companies to send us a complete list of their Armenian policy holders. They are practically all dead now and have left no heirs to collect the money. It of course all escheats to the state. The government is the beneficiary now. Will you do so?”

If anybody else is wondering what happened with some of those life insurance policies, The New York Life Insurance Company attempted to pay out 2,200 unclaimed policies in 2004[1]. That's only after avoiding it for almost a century, and it's still unclear how many were actually claimed in the end.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/12/us/insurer-to-pay-armenia...

Disturbing, isn't it? Turks might have collected their possessions and even went after the life insurances but Turks lost so much more.

The Armenians were part of the Ottoman society and their contributions were invaluable.

Today in Turkey, you can still see their legacy all over the place. The best neighbourhoods to live in Istanbul are those who used to have a large Armenian population. Neighbourhoods with concentration of cultural heritage that is still alive often have an Armenian church somewhere. A civilian building with a great architecture? It was probably built by Armenians or Greeks who were uprooted during the collapse of the Ottoman empire. You can see the pattern al over Istanbul and Turkey. When you visit Turkey, pay attention of the writings on old and beautiful apartments or houses and more often than not you will see that those writings are not in Turkish or Arabic but Armenian, Greek or Hebrew. In the context of the Ottoman Empire, Turks were the warriors and the rulers and the local minorities were the artisans, the scientists, businesspeople.

If Turkey managed to preserve its Armenian or Greek minorities, the country would have been much much nicer and sane place. I hope that one day the country will make peace with its past and have its minorities back again.

That's really something! I mean, the state already got all their possessions, that's par for the course, same as the Nazis did with the Jews, but I don't think the Nazis thought about also collecting the life insurance...

Archive link: https://archive.is/bJKvS

>We base our objections to the Armenians

Objection to an ethnicity. Key indicator of genocide for any action taken based on such an objection.

>on three distinct grounds. In the first place, they have enriched themselves at the expense of the Turks. In the second place, they are determined to domineer over us and to establish a separate state. In the third place, they have openly encouraged our enemies. They have assisted the Russians in the Caucasus, and our failure there is largely explained by their actions.

Reads almost verbatim just like Nazi Germany on Jews back then or Nazi Russia on Ukrainians today.

> We have therefore come to the irrevocable decision that we shall make them powerless before this war is ended.”

Again very similar to the perception of themselves as the master race (Nazi Germany) or the master nation (Nazi Russia) and thus perceiving themselves as having the right to act in such a way.

> so that I can explain our position on the whole Armenian subject.

Also very similar is the use of the phrase "the <ethnicity> subject|question|issue" to plant the seed in the mind of the listener that there is indeed a problem that needs to be "solved".

Nazi Russia? Not once, but twice?

Nazism = totalitarian fascist state plus political nationalism. Fascist Italy and Spain weren't nazist for example, while Germany was and Russia today is.

Informally that specific flavor of the Russian Nazi ideology is called "rashism".

History doesn't repeat but it echos.

I don't know if trying to brand what is happening in Russia today as Nazism is useful. It seems to me that trying to define Nazism while ignoring the cult of Hitler is fruitless.

Even during WW2 the closest clone-regimes of Nazi Germany (I'm thinking of maybe the Ustaše led Nezavisna Država Hrvatska) are generally classed as facist, [ultra]nationalist, racist and expansionist but not Nazi despite their similarities[1] - because the party itself wasn't called the Nazi party.

I think Russia falls into a similar space.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usta%C5%A1e

Pretty sure Mussolini was a political nationalist type of guy, as was the movement he founded. I mean his whole schtick was making the Mediterranean an Italian sea, the way it was in days of Rome.

The Francoist regime was generally much more oppressive towards internal opposition groups than modern Russia. And as fucked up as the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the number of civilian casualties there is unlikely to ever reach the number of people the Italians killed in Ethiopia (especially if we look at the proportion of total population). But I guess since they were the wrong skin color we can divide the number by 10 or so?

Russia is coincindentally heading right the way of Ottoman empire, seemingly step, by step.

Decades of futile attempts to retake Balkans after Greek revolt lit the fire in Europe, and caused a chain reaction of support for Ottoman dismantlement.

For Russia to survive as a state in coming decades, it will not need a "Russian Washington," but rather somebody more like a Russian Ataturk.

And yet again, the problem is that the dismantlement wasn't thorough enough.

> Nazi Russia

Be honest, you came here just to write this.

Sometimes analogies actually do apply.

And sometimes they’re completely nonsensical.

And other times - they're right on the money.

It's also very similar to the sort of talk I hear about Muslim immigrants in the United States: "In the first place they take jobs from Americans, in the second they want to impose Sharia law, and in the third place they support terrorism." There's always an 'other' who will be blamed, and we have to guard our minds against plausible talk like this.

The Republicans are doing a perfectly good job imposing Sharia law themselves. No need to let anyone else steal their thunder.

Huh... Bing and DDG both seem to avoid autocomplete for "Armenian Genocide" - requiring one to type it out almost completely. Google suggests it early on, as one would expect.

DDG does bring the completion after typing "Armenian" for me, however Bing even after typing the whole phrase "Armenian Genocide" brings totally unrelated completions while also suggesting "armenian genocide museum dc" as No. 3. This is so strange!

These are NATO members.

As a Turk with very little interest to History, would like to share my guesses about viewpoints of these characters have.

First of all I am very impressed about how modern the ambassador is for 192X. He is Liberal exactly like someone from USA would be today.

Now! Liberalism is not a idea that is easily accessible back then. Let alone find a any group of people that will backup you in this way. Even in current Turkey's politics: only 2-3 parties are viable in election and they are all about deciding whether country should go Muslim-National (Auth-Right but Muslim Traders Only) or National-National (Auth-Left)

Considering that Ottoman Empire was multi-cultural gaint and considering that literacy of people of Ottoman Empire were about low as %10. People from same culture/race/religion lived near together and even tho there have been problems here and there, they were probably doing fine like humanity of today.

But when once-in-a-life-time event occurs and you find yourself survived a war but your old government is colepsed; and the New authority (politicly) doesn't look anything different from a group of revolters/rioters from at your standpoint. Who can you trust in the middle of all this chaos other than people of your race/culture/religion.

Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Muslims Cults/Sheiks, Old Ottoman Government's supporters, all rioted and tried to overthrown the new authority of TBMM (team Ataturk/Republic) within very near time spans.

At that point it must have been normal to react to these 'issues' with this much aggression.

Calling it 'Ptsd of an authority' would sum it maybe.

Still the whole event is presumably a overkill/genocide when we take a look at from the current perspective.

"Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Muslims Cults/Sheiks, Old Ottoman Government's supporters, all rioted and tried to overthrown the new authority of TBMM (team Ataturk/Republic) within very near time spans. At that point it must have been normal to react to these 'issues' with this much aggression."

Your timeline is off, The new parliament (TBMM) was established in 1920 and new republic in 1923. The events described in the article happened in 1915. Ambassador's letter was written in 1916.

> At that point it must have been normal to react to these 'issues' with this much aggression.

Not really, all empires were multicultural, e.g. russia, but while the Bolsheviks went to war, they did not genocide them. The modern state of turkey otoh is the result of 3-5 genocides, not one. Britain did not go on to genocide indians because it wanted their land

The modern Russian state is the product of several genocides too, so this particular example is probably not correct.

From 1915 to 1945, probably over one million Russian Germans perished from unnatural causes under three successive Russian governments—those of Tsar Nicholas II, Lenin, and Stalin—chiefly by means of mass executions, forced labor, deliberate starvation, and brutal deportations.

The Holodomor in the Ukraine took place in the 1930.

In addition there was large scale deportation of ethnic groups, which effectively also amounted to genocide due to harsh living conditions forced on the deported.

A similar case could be made against Britain, with the difference that they were (mostly) done with genociding by 1930.

you are right it s the worst example. Imagine if the british, french, spanish, portuguese went on genocides in order to keep their colonies, and we justified that 100 years later because "it's what they did at the time". The whole point of the nationalist movement was emancipation and the creation of new countries for former empire populations.

> The modern state of turkey otoh is the result of 3-5 genocides, not one.

Also the population exchanges, by 1923 over 10% of the Turkish population was Christian and most of them moved to Greece.

And if we’re talking about the USSR, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD seems awfully close to genocide

“In Leningrad, the NKVD reviewed local telephone books and arrested almost 7,000 citizens with Polish-sounding name with the vast majority of such nominal "suspects" were executed within 10 days of arrest”

Also the population exchanges, by 1923 over 10% of the Turkish population was Christian and most of them moved to Greece.

You forgot to mention the reciprocal, Turkish / Muslim population from Greece moved to Turkey at the same time.

> Talaat’s first objection was merely an admission that the Armenians were more industrious and more able than the dull-witted and lazy Turks

Right. I wonder, precisely how bias is this great ambassador against the Turks?

Do you know what the truth behind it all is? Nations are violent. They tend to overreact in terrible murderous ways. What’s worse, their will always be enough support in the hardliners in their population. Look at world history: the Americans committed genocide against the Natives with the support of the majority (heck more than half today pretend like nothing wrong happened). The British and French and Japanese committed genocide (all over the world) with the support of a population pretending like they are spreading civilization. The British were literally smuggling opium into China despite a ban by the Chinese. The Germans murdered millions in an attempt to ethnically cleanse with the support of their people. The Israelis are currently ethnically cleansing Palestine — and it is the Israeli people themselves who are doing this.

States are violent. Savage. Terrible in their overreactions and they tend to overreact. If the Armenians did indeed sabotage the Turks during the war with Russia then they should have fled or taken up arms right against the Turks when their sabotage failed to lead to a complete defeat of the Turks. In any country west or east — rebelling against the government and aiding foreign adversaries is going to lead to violence and that violence is going to be supported by the people.

Terrible world we live in where those that rise to power are savage in their pursuit of increasing/maintaining power.

> If the Armenians did indeed sabotage the Turks during the war with Russia then they should have fled or taken up arms right against the Turks

You speak as if nations are some monolithic hive minds with a single will.. the reality is that most people who were murdered weren’t active combatants or were not even related to active combatants. Also many other Christian people were targeted like the Assyrians, Coptic Greeks etc..

What you are saying is true.

But the reality is: every community has leaders — business and political and intellectual — and sometimes those leaders pick sides and whether we like it or not their people will be judged.

We can still recognize that horrible injustices have been made and attempt to do better. Past injustices doesn't justify the ongoing ones in Yemen, Palestine, Ukraine, China (Uyghurs), etc.

Of course they don’t! I didn’t mean to slightly suggest anything like that is justified. My remarks were purely to point out a truth that this ambassador is not sincerely interested in the well being of the Armenians. He is using them just like the Russians were but in a different way.

> “You are making a terrible mistake,” I said, and I repeated the statement three times.

> “Yes, we may make mistakes,” he replied, “but”—and he firmly closed his lips and shook his head—“we never regret.”

And they never did. They don’t even acknowledge it. Interesting to contrast the response of the German state to its genocide and that of Turkey’s.

> We base our objections to the Armenians on three distinct grounds. In the first place, they have enriched themselves at the expense of the Turks.

Similar reasoning and calls for genocide are routine by the ideologues in power in Tamil Nadu, India: https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/national/south/dmk-spokespe... Thankfully no large scale violence so far though, they have just stuck to the rhetoric.

> Thankfully no large scale violence so far though, they have just stuck to the rhetoric.

This is exactly how it looked in Rwanda and other places before some spark lit large-scale violence.

Not that it's okay, but the Tamil Nadu situation seems (to an outsider) to be a class/caste based call to violence more than a racial genocide. Sort of like "eat the rich", where there's no specific call to ethnically cleanse anyone, "just" for class warfare.

Definitely possible I'm missing something, and it's a touchy subject, but one I'm increasingly interested in these times. So feel free to correct if I'm wrong, or just chime in.

In Tamil Nadu, there are racial overtones to this call for violence. It’s targeted specifically at Tamil Brahmins, regarded as “outsider Aryans”. There are other wealthy landed castes, but they are not the target of this rhetoric (and they are the ones in power). So it’s not just “eat the rich”.

Along side this, there’s actual physical violence between other caste groups. The ones targeting Brahmins is interesting because of the language used (example above) and how normative it has become (Tamil mainstream media will not call it out, pop culture acceptance and tropes), their complete lack of political power in the state and the absence of much physical violence. There’s some very fascinating history behind this. In case you are interested in how the current moment came about, two books:

1. The Emergence of Provincial Politics, DA Washbrook - https://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Provincial-Politics-Preside...

2. The politics of south India, CJ Baker - https://www.amazon.com/Politics-South-1920-1937-Cambridge-St...

I see this post has been downvoted, but I don’t know enough about the situation to know why. Is it factually wrong or do people oppose the politics?

the latter

Castes are largely endogamous, so eliminationist rhetoric directed against a particular caste is genocidal in character.

Caste, class, and ethnicity, are not tightly-defined concepts (with the exception of caste in India, I'm referring to extensions of the idea outside of its origin), the genocide of the Tutsi has aspects of all three.

Isn't that a common excuse for genocide though? just look at the talking points that are used to justify violence against jews.

And with all that genocide talk, Turkey is a NATO member and was(technically is?) an EU candidate. Moreover, rumors are, Finland and Sweden will submit to Turkish demands regarding Kurds. Turkey has also led a military campaign against Armenia together with their satellite just recently. Maybe it really doesn’t bother western liberal democracies whether genocide happened. And it’s only used as a tool.

> Turkey has also led a military campaign against Armenia together with their satellite just recently

That is not true, in 2020 Azerbaijan successfully liberated a region that was under Armenian occupation since 1994. I say liberated because that land was and is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Also, Azerbaijan suffered atrocities conducted by the Armenians, for example the Khojaly massacre[0]. Yes Turkey helped Azerbaijan, Russia helped Armenia. It was the first showcase of the Turkish drone technology in a war between regular armies but the Turkish help was not only in providing weapons, it was much deeper.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khojaly_massacre

When it comes to the Kurds, IMHO the Turks deserve most of the blame for the feud BUT what Turkey demands has nothing to do with Kurds but with internationally recognized terrorist organisations that operate in Turkey.

Think of it like this, if you are sympathetic of the people of Iraq for the horrible things that the USA did there would you also support ISIS? If your answer is NO then you don't have a case for supporting PKK against Turkey because PKK is a terrorist organisation that blows up public buses or kills teachers. If you are not familiar with their activities, there's ample amount of information online.

What happened in 2020 is that Turkey and Azerbaijan with the direct political support from Israel and UK attacked a small Armenian population on a disputed land, whereas the rest of the world was just silently watching because most of the western politicians were simply bribed by Azerbaijanis government. There are numerous fact about the story, just google it.

Strong words about bribed western politicians, considering that the land was owned by Azerbaijan up until Armenia occupied those lands in 1990s.

Yes, the lands were disputed and the dispute was resolved by Azerbaijan winning the lands back after 16 years of occupation.

Strong words about Azerbaijan winning back the land. ~150K Armenians leave in Artsakh today and btw have you heard of 2K Russian troops defending Armenians in Artsakh?

Of course a lot of Armenians live there.

But a lot of Turks live in Bulgaria(%10 of the population), a lot of Russians live in Ukraine and the baltic states, a lot of Azeri live in Iran. On each and every case, they are concentrated in some specific regions.

Do you think that Turkey should invade Bulgaria, Russia rightfully invaded Ukraine and has the right to invade Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and many others. Do you think that Azerbaijan should invade Iran?

Artsakh was Armenian land for centuries, thats the point your are missing.

Russia says the same thing for Ukraine and other parts of the Europe.

Let's agree to disagree on this one.

This is an nonsensical comparison. As absurd as Putins claim is historically it has more ground to stand on , at least historically both Russia and Ukraine are (kind of) successors to the original Rus state centered around Kiev. Whereas Azerbaijan’s claim is basically based on the fact that they invaded the region and murdered or drove off the Armenians living there.

Obviously what happened hundreds of years ago should be irrelevant since the people currently living there had nothing to do with it. But also I don’t think we should deny the right of self determination to the people living there just because Stalin drew some line on a map close to century ago.

Unfortunately when more than one group of people claim rights over a territory the only fair outcome is the one that comes after one of the groups compels the others to comply, usually though killing citizens capable to fight. The rights of the current occupants is always expected to be respected, i.e. when Armenia occupies part of Azerbaijan and vice versa it is expected that the locals keep their belongings. When this is not respected, we talk about war crimes and atrocities.

In the case of Armenia vs Azerbaijan, this time around the Azerbaijan came victorious. On the previous war it was the Armenia.

Anyway, I agree that people should have a right for self determination but unfortunately in the age of countries they will need to fight and win. Unfortunately, with the war technology we have this means huge tragedies.

Oh and the comparison with Ukraine is not nonsensical at all, the regions under Russian invasion are Russian-dominated places that declared independence from Ukraine almost a decade ago. The only new development is that those people finally have a state actor on their side. Why wouldn't you say that the Russians in Ukraine have the exact same self determination rights as the Armenians in Azerbaijan?

So Crimea had every right to declare independence from Ukraine?

Except, it didn't. The 'referendum' was a farce.

What gets me is that people always talk about the land and not people who live there. As if they don’t matter at all.

Do you need that piece of land that bad so that Armenians living there have to abandon their homes?

> That is not true, in 2020 Azerbaijan successfully liberated a region that was under Armenian occupation since 1994.

What I’ve been hearing from my well-educated colleagues from February was “No matter the reason, I’m against war, war is always bad, mmmkay?” But they turned a blind eye when it came to Artsakh.

Anyway, no matter the reason, people were dying where they haven’t been for a long time(at least not in high numbers). Would you say national pride justifies the means?

> That is not true

What you just said does not dispute the fact that turkey led the campaign against Armenia alongside Azerbaijan

You are giving context, which I guess is welcome, but that's not a refutation, because a refutation is not possible given that indeed Turkey fought against Armenia alongside Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan is not Turkey's satellite state and Turkey did not start the war to liberate Azerbaijans internationally recognized territories[0].

Azerbaijan is a sovereign country which was a communist one from 1920 to 1991[1], Turkey did not exist in 1920[2].

Turkey did assist Azerbaijan's war. Together with Israel, Turkey was among the primary supporters of Azerbaijan and the cooperation went very deep indeed.[3]

I also concur on the importance of Googling things.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan_Soviet_Socialist_Re...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_war

mrtksn stop spamming and spreading miss-information, people on HN are reasonable enough to check the facts properly. Thus is not your FB or insta jazz.

Please list the inaccuracies of my comments together with the sources and I will fix it.

I'm sorry to disturb your narrative but I am not spamming.

Nice, you're comparing the PKK to ISIS!

The PKK aren't great (as a Kurd, I hate them), but to compare them to ISIS is just the Turkish narrative. It can be argued that Turkey as a state is way worse than the PKK. But of course, international politics always sides with governments.

I assume you mean those same teachers that were telling Kurdish kids: "Kurdish is bad", "Do not speak Kurdish", "Ne mutlu Türküm diyene!" (English: "How happy is the one who says I am a Turk!"). (PS. I still think it is wrong to kill teachers, no matter how hateful and racist they may be).

The PKK exists because of Turkish actions against the Kurds. Period.

Turks would say: "Nah, that was in the past, we love Kurds, I have Kurdish friends", but it is mostly lies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhXCNuXiJZU (some Turks might do of course, but in general, Turks hate Kurds)

Don't get me wrong. A Kurd can be happy in Turkey. If he basically acts Turkish, lets go of his Kurdish culture and customs, and loves Ataturk (who forced Turkish surnames on all citizens of the "modern Turkey" and changed the names of thousands of Kurdish towns and villages from Kurdish to Turkish).

There are many Kurds in Turkey that are happy. However, these don't speak Kurdish. They speak Turkish in the family, they speak Turkish with their kids. To other Kurds, they are basically Turk.

In my opinion, one reason Turkey is invading North Syria (the Kurdish region - aka Rojava) is because the Kurds in North Syria are Kurmancî speakers. This is the same dialect of Kurdish that is spoken by the Kurds in Turkey.

Kurds in North Syria speak Kurdish at home, they watch Kurdish TV, they go about their daily lives in Kurdish. They watch Kurdish plays and listen to Kurdish music and since The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) has been a thing, the Kurds in Syria are studying Kurdish from year one all the way to college. This revival in Kurdish literature is really scary to Turkey because it lights a fire in the Kurmancî speakers in its territory. It shows the Kurds in Turkey that being a Kurd isn't bad, it shows them that Kurds are a people with a rich culture and it is a shame to let that go.

Turks would argue that no, we invade the Kurdish regions in Syria (see Efrîn/Afrin) because the people of The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) are the other side of the coin of PKK. Personally, I think that is bullshit. Turkey moved 1000s of ISIS members through its borders and helped them attack the Kurds when the Kurds were fighting ISIS.

Plus, now that Turkey is in control of Efrîn/Afrin, 1000s of Kurds were forced to flee, their homes and belongings have been given to former ISIS members (they no longer call themselves ISIS of course: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/how-...). Efrîn/Afrin is/was a Kurdish majority region (https://www.ceasefire.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CFR_Syr...), yet the new schools that are opened by Turkey in Efrîn/Afrin don't teach Kurdish. Only Arabic and Turkish.

Basically, Turkey has and is making a demographic change in Efrîn/Afrin, they are driving Kurds away and putting Arabs there. Then they'll say "come and look, there are hardly any Kurds here". They now want to do the same to the rest of North Syria.

Nothing scares Turkey more than Kurdish nationalism, which only gets stronger by Turkish aggression. You'd think they'd learn this by now, but no.

If in Turkey, Kurds are allowed to study from nursery to university in Kurdish, and if they truly get considered as Kurdish citizens of Turkey with no racism or oppression, then Kurdish national sentiment would die out.

It's not the Turkish narrative, they are recognized terrorist organisation with a large number attacks on civilians.

I do accept the existence of the Turkish oppression on Kurds and I do blame the existence of PKK on the unjust treatment of Kurds by the Turkish state and I hope that the Kurds in Turkey will eventually obtain their rights and receive apology and compensation for the atrocities of the Turkish state.

It's just that I do not accept terrorism as a fair device of resistance and it is completely in Turkey's rights to push for elimination of grooming and funding of those organisations.

You're quite wrong:

What was held by the Karabakh Armenians until last year was a region consisting of two parts. The former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and a region which is de jure part of Azerbaijan.

While the remainder of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast is indeed internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, it is not in fact part of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan seceded from the Soviet Union in accordance with the Soviet secession law. This law can be found on the homepage of Michigan State University, here:https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1991-2/shevarnadze-resigns/she...

The law is from April 3, 1990 and the relevant part is article 3 which reads as follows:

``Article 3. In a Union republic which includes within its structure autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts, or autonomous okrugs, the referendum is held separately for each autonomous formation. The people of autonomous republics and autonomous formations retain the right to decide independently the question of remaining within the USSR or within the seceding Union republic, and also to raise the question of their own state-legal status.´´

That is, for the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast to secede with Azerbaijan there'd have to be a vote in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and the 'join the Azerbaijani SSR in seceding' option would have to win. Otherwise the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast would remain in the Soviet Union, or raise the question of its own secession.

The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast became independent only with the final dissolution of the USSR. Azerbaijan's invasion of the NKAO was at first the invasion of the Soviet Union and then later on, an invasion of the now unrecognized successor state-ification of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. In their attack on the Soviet NKAO and later the statified, independent NKAO Azerbaijan then lost, to the degree that parts that are de jure part of Azerbaijan were occupied the Karabakh Armenians. These parts were indeed retaken by Azerbaijan, but parts of the NKAO were also taken, and Azerbaijan's claim to these is invalid.

Furthermore, with regard to the Wikipedia article you link, it contains the line:

en "a large column of residents, accompanied by a few dozen retreating fighters, fled the city as it fell to Armenian forces. It is reported that as they approached the border with Azerbaijan, they came across an Armenian military post and were cruelly fired upon".

Such an attack, as described-- i.e. firing on a mixed column advancing on an outpost is permissible according to the laws of war. Thus the so-called Khojaly Massacre, while regrettable, was perfectly legal. This is presumably why Azerbaijan has not pursued the Khojaly Massacre as a war crime in international courts, despite its important role in its internal historiography. Indeed,

> Thus the so-called Khojaly Massacre, while regrettable, was perfectly legal

Wow, just wow. Defending the killing of civilians, including women and children and labelling it as "so-called massacre" doesn't deserve an answer.

It was, as I described, perfectly in accordance with the laws of war.

Furthermore, there's a special reason why it's not correct to classify it as a massacre: namely, those who deviated from the advance on the Armenian outpost were not killed. Some apparently froze to death in the mountains, but those who were captured were returned to Azerbaijan unharmed.

If it were only the burden of acknowledging the past, I might disagree with you. The survivors are long gone, and while their descendants deserve closure, and some compensation, I wouldn't hold the whole nation hostage to this debt.

Turkey continues to treat the Kurds awfully, and in recent times. Allowing Turkey into the EU without this ending completely would be an insult to the ideals of that organization.

>Turkey continues to treat the Kurds awfully, and in recent times.

Care to elaborate?

alright, experienced Turk here. I have been living abroad almost 8 years already... Ask me anything...

What does "Experienced Turk" mean?

It's a joke. They mean they have experience in dealing with shit Turks have to deal all the time having to live in a Turkish society. The implication is that the experience that is naturally gained just by being in such society is intangible and is worth something. TBH, the joke is narcissist and it sucks.

Why do you think that the genocide is so heavily denied by modern Turkey ( Attaturk and onwards)? Is it only due do reparations or is there lingering ethnic... "superiority" remaining? Because at first glance, modern Turkey fought long and hard to distance itself from the Ottoman Empire, and make it well known they aren't a successor state. Why not pin all the blame for the genocide on the decadent Ottomans and be done with it?

After almost a century of doubling down too much for too long it has become a societal character issue that can not even be questioned, let alone admitted. From Turk's point of view, Armenians asked for it when they worked together with foreign forces and rebelled, and all Turks did was to relocate them to safer locations so they don't get killed. If some Armenians ended up dead then it's because of problems related to transportation, lack of resources, etc, but definitely not a genocide, and even it if was, it's not intentional.

You can see the narcissist's prayer somewhere in there and it is sad that it has become (long ago) an easily noticeable character trait of average Mehmet. You can only move on as a society/nation if you looked back in your past and learned from your mistakes. Turks have been denied of this opportunity by a century of identity politics and now sadly it's too late.

[flagged]

The Turks fight like real men when they're up against women and children, old people and unarmed civilians. Like lions they fight then! What bravery, what heroism!

When they're fighting someone like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodoros_Kolokotronis

They turn tail and run screaming for mommy.

"Real men"...

Is this the same guy the sacked Nafplion because he didn’t like who his son’s widow took up with, leaving Tripolitsa aside?

I'm sorry but I have no idea what episode you're referring to. Kolokotronis liberated Tripolitsa, then marched on Nafplio and ran over the force of Dramali pasha at Dervenakia.

See page 204, Mazower, The Greek Revolution, 1821 and the making of modern Europe. Panos Kolokotronis’ widow took up with Grivas which (among other things) set off fighting with the Rumeliotes (which the book details in other places, not sparing Grivas either)

NB: I didn't mean that he turned aside from Tripolitsa, I meant I was leaving the subject aside.

You'll have to forgive me, but I don't have Mazower at hand. In any case, I don't know the episode you're referring to but the constant strife in the Greek ranks during the Revolution is well known. It doesn't change the fact that Kolokotronis dealt a serious blow to the might of the Empire at Dervenakia.

It also doesn't change the ridiculousness of the expression "real men" used by the OP particularly in the context in which it was used.

Btw, "selimthegrim", hm? I guess we all have our national heroes... Too bad that they usually killed each other.

I'm not Turkish, but I should probably change that name if it makes people think I am.

Kolokotronis comes in for a bit more criticism on page 85 when a snotty remark about the Greek people is attributed to him, and later someone tells D. Ypsilantis to kill him, but he is nowhere near the worst figure in the book by a long shot.

Oh! Sorry for assuming. Nothing wrong with being Turkish, just to be clear.

I think Kolokotronis is the one figure from the Revolution that gives everyone the warm fuzzies in Greece. I've been to Nafplio as a child and shown the cell he was in, and told that a big hole in the wall was were he was digging himself out (probably apocryphal). To me he's dear because one of my ancestors was one of his chieftains (Giorgos Karachalios, executed by the Ottomans in the siege of Mega Spilaion, skinned alive according to family lore) and because I read his autobiography also as a kid.

Like I say, we all have our heroes...

> NB: I didn't mean that he turned aside from Tripolitsa, I meant I was leaving the subject aside.

And thanks for that, because that one really hurts.

> Because, we didn't do it.

It's not you, you know? Not even your parents were alive to do it. I hope one day you learn to see it this way so when you claim to be an experienced Turk, it actually doesn't sound like bullshit.

> Generally speaking genocides or ethnic cleaning is definitely not in Turkish culture

Go visit Batak or any other site of Ottoman atrocities and then try again. Brutal ethnic cleansing was very much an Ottoman thing throughout Ottoman history, and especially so in the last couple of centuries of decline. Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Armenians, etc. were brutally supressed and massacred many times.

> well, I'm not sure about this but, If I were Ataturk, I would probably build a secular Ottoman state like Ottoman v2

Honestly, in the post-WWI landscape, who would have wanted that? Peoples wanted their own nation state, nobody was interested in living in a multi-ethnic empire where they have no voice.

> they were the ones fought like a real men

At Gallipoli, and fought like real... What's a stupid aggressive animal doing stupid mistakes and getting itself killed in droves? That one. The Ottoman war effort was a(n almost) total failure. The sheer incompetence of the Ottoman high command and generals is only matched by other bright minds like von Hotzendorf.

>> Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Armenians, etc. were brutally supressed and massacred many times.

If we were that bad as you said in your comments, how would they preserve their language, religion and their identity ? I suggest you to take a deeper look at Ottoman's history and Turks. The way it works is that Ottomans used islam to convert non-muslim people.

The Ottoman Empire had a policy of religious tolerance, which was necessary because the ethnic Turks were a minority in the Empire and couldn't afford to cause widespread uprisings by denying people their religions, their customs, and maternal languages.

It doesn't change the fact that they still sent their troops (most of them not ethnic Turks, but Arabs, or children of the occupied people stolen and raised as faithful soldiers of the Empire) to drown entire cities and regions in blood as soon as they "raised their head" and demanded their independence.

For example:

The Constantinople massacre of 1821 was orchestrated by the authorities of the Ottoman Empire against the Greek community of Constantinople in retaliation for the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1830). As soon as the first news of the Greek uprising reached the Ottoman capital, there occurred mass executions, pogrom-type attacks,[1] destruction of churches, and looting of the properties of the city's Greek population.[2][3] The events culminated with the hanging of the Ecumenical Patriarch, Gregory V and the beheading of the Grand Dragoman, Konstantinos Mourouzis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_during_the_Greek_War...

The Chios massacre (in Greek: Η σφαγή της Χίου, Greek pronunciation: [i sfaˈʝi tis ˈçi.u]) was the killing of tens of thousands of Greeks on the island of Chios by Ottoman troops during the Greek War of Independence in 1822.[2] Greeks from neighboring islands had arrived on Chios and encouraged the Chiotes (the native inhabitants of the island) to join their revolt. In response, Ottoman troops landed on the island and killed thousands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chios_massacre

The Ottomans gave incentives to their enslaved people to convert to Islam and become Ottomanised. Those were peaceful incentives. But if the people did not take the opportunity offerred to them, then their lives were worth nothing and they were only fodder for the Ottomans' blades. That is what one sees if one takes a "deeper look".

so, do you think Ottomans should have waited and sit back ? As you said, It was not under normal conditions as Greeks tried to setup their own state. Blood was shed and they won.

The OP pointed out that "Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Armenians, etc. were brutally supressed and massacred many times."

Your comment implied this wasn't true: "If we were that bad as you said in your comments, how would they preserve their language, religion and their identity ?"

So then I pointed out that, yes, the Ottomans were "that bad" and they did routinely massacre Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Armenians, etc.

What are we still disagreeing about? It's not clear to me.

There is a slight difference between normal conditions vs war conditions. I think in war conditions, both sides take risks and eventually one of them wins. That's how it works.

So we are in agreement that "Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Armenians, etc. were brutally supressed and massacred many times". Correct?

Not really. Under normal conditions, they were living in the empire peacefully as they were able to preserve their culture/language/identity.

And then they were brutally massacred, correct?

Your statement is as true as Ottomans were brutally massacred.

So it is true?

>>So it is true?

Asking the same thing again and again doesn't help here. Unfortunately binary statements would not be sufficient to cover all parameters in this context. I hope this helps.

I don't understand what is the problem with "binary statements". Either Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians, etc, were brutally massacred by the Ottomans, or they were not. It shouldn't be that hard to say either "yes" or "no".

If there are other issues to discuss, these can be addressed separately. But a simple true/false judgement should be very, very easy to decide given the wealth of historical information available.

According to the wealth of historical information available, I can find at least two turkish people that were brutally massacred by Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians etc. So yes, Ottomans were brutally massacred.

And Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians and others were also brutally massacred, correct?

Kardas, let me be frank: we can play this game forever and you're not going to convince anyone you're right, you'll just convince everyone you're dishonest.

>>And Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians and others were also brutally massacred, correct? Kardas, let me be frank: we can play this game forever and you're not going to convince anyone you're right, you'll just convince everyone you're dishonest.

well, I'm not trying to convince anyone as I'm trying to make it clear that It is not making sense to be accused of something that we have never ever committed.

Never ever, except for all the times that everybody knows about like Constantinople, Chios, Psarra, Crete, Armenia, Pontiac Greece, Smyrna and the rest of Asia Minor etc etc etc.

The Armenian genocide[a] was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through the mass murder of around one million Armenians during death marches to the Syrian Desert and the forced Islamization of Armenian women and children.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide

Other than that, never ever.

I disagree.

Of course you do.

That’s what I’m saying. It never happened

[flagged]

No, it did not.

How about all the historical evidence that it did, then?

I don't think any historical evidence exists. People are talking about millions of people but I'm not sure you have ever seen one million people at one place.

There's plenty of historical evidence, some of it described in the links I posted above.

Links were not invented during early 1900s. Show me some concentration camps, death camps etc. killing 1 million people is not easy and I'm almost sure that you have never seen 1 million people at any place at any time given. So, there is no evidence.

All you have to do to see evidence is to read the links I posted above.

Btw, the consistent denial of genoicde has now borne fruit and Turkiye is again accused of participating in a modern genocide, that of the Yazidi people:

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/jul/05/turkey-should-fa...

This is what happens when you deny history.

>>>All you have to do to see evidence is to read the links I posted above. Btw, the consistent denial of genoicde has now borne fruit and Turkiye is again accused of participating in a modern genocide, that of the Yazidi people: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/jul/05/turkey-should-fa... This is what happens when you deny history.

I disagree. I'm not sure you know how Wikipedia works. Unfortunately, it is not a reliable source.

The Armenian Genocide really happened and there is strong historical evidence for it. See the links I posted above.

I wonder for how long you are going to continue denying it. My guess is we'll be here for a few more months, or even years.

That should be really interesting to watch.

[flagged]

We've banned this account for taking HN threads into nationalistic flamewar as well as breaking the site guidelines badly in other ways (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32012266).

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

[flagged]

You also perpetuated a hellish nationalistic flamewar in this thread. I know how easy it is to get provoked by provocative comments, but it's totally unacceptable and against the site guidelines for people who disagree to keep going at each other like this—regardless of how wrong the other person is or you feel it is.

I'm not going to ban you because you don't have a history of doing this and you make good contributions in other areas. But for heaven's sake please don't do it again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

(In case anyone's worried about bias, the reason for banning one account and not another has nothing to do with which side of a flamewar they were on. It's because of the history of the two accounts, not just in this thread but in other threads, and previous warnings.)

I'm sorry, and I'm an idiot, and there is no excuse in being provoked. It's a personal failing. And I'm guilty of provoking the other poster also, it takes two to tango.

I want to make excuses now, but I won't. I'm an idiot. Sorry sorry sorry.

Wikipedia is not a reliable source for citations elsewhere on Wikipedia. As a user-generated source, it can be edited by anyone at any time, and any information it contains at a particular time could be vandalism, a work in progress, or simply incorrect.

> Because, we didn't do it. ... "but they had it coming anyway"

Bizarre and amazing. Genocide denial, right there.

A surprisingly disgusting thing to read on hn of all places.

"On every one of these points, I had plenty of arguments in rebuttal. Talaat’s first objection was merely an admission that the Armenians were more industrious and more able than the dull-witted and lazy Turks."

... something turntables ...

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