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Comment by impossiblefork | Hacker News Reader

Very strange article, seeing as the Azeris are a Turkish people and this ancient hatred is in fact real.

The pogroms didn't start up in 1988 for no reason, but because there was in fact a racial hatred against Armenians among Azerbaijanis, and one which they probably won't ever let go of, so the hatred survived very intact through the entire Soviet era.

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The article doesn’t claim that the pogroms started in 1988 at all; it claims they aren’t ancient because they originated in the 20th century, and even softens that claim by saying

“To locate the origins of the current conflict in the 20th century is not to suggest that deeper histories do not matter.”

Yes, but that is not what I wrote. What I attempted to convey was that they re-started 'started up again' in 1988 because they had survived the entire Soviet era, and are in fact very ancient.

You can't just one day sit up and decide to hate Armenians or anybody else for that matter, as hard as the Azerbaijanis hate Armenians. This is why I have the remark that the Azeris are in fact a Turkish people-- i.e. the people which depopulated the entire region, where a tiny number of survivors happened to be able to hide away and eventually get a country.

>so the hatred survived very intact through the entire Soviet era.

where is your evidence that this hatred predates the Soviet era?

I live in ex-Yugoslavia where myths(perceived from outside) of "ancient ethnic hatred" are pervasive, while in reality they cannot be traced earlier then the 20th century.

The peoples here yearned for a united country of the south slavs (Jugoslavia) for centuries, then started killing each other within a few decades of forming that country for quite prosaic reasons mostly related to personal liberties and dividing state incomes and expenses

I doesn't take ancient ethnic hatred to start a war, scarce water or land resource will do it just as well, and it will create enough "new ethnic hatred" to last a century

Anti-christian pogroms, both against Armenians and Greeks are a major thing through the Ottoman empire. At least these (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamidian_massacres) are pre-1900.

However, there's certainly a more well-established hatred of Christians than a specific hatred of Armenians; and I think the Armenians were first hated because they were Christians, and then later on hated because they were Armenians.

> where is your evidence that this hatred predates the Soviet era?

Really? You actually have to ask that question when talking about the relations between Christians and Muslims in this region?

- Hamidian massacres (1894)

- Armenian–Tatar massacres (1905-1907)

- Adana massacre (1909)

- Armenian genocide (1914–1923)

- September Days (1918)

- Khaibalikend massacre (1919)

- Destruction of Armenian part of Shusha (1920)

Preceding that you also have the Russian conquests in the Caucasus during the first half of the 19th century. The Circassians (amongst other groups) who survived the genocide and settled in the Ottoman probably probably weren't particularly fond of Christians either.

Overall I agree with your points, but not specifics. Pan-slavic movement for south slavs was really a mid-19th century development as far as not being limited to singular figures and even then it is questionable how popular it was.

I also disagree with reasons given for killings in early 90s because it both trivialises the reasons for internal tensions and completely ignores the question why you had plenty of ethnic violence "already" in WW2.

First off, I do have family in the region.

Secondly, I completely agree with you that the article is a little strange. My first impression was that it doesn't really matter how 'ancient' the hatred is. The facts on the ground is that the hatred is very real today, and so embedded in the culture that it's not going anywhere.

I like academic arguments, but this one just doesn't seem to serve anyone. I admit that's possibly because I'm a bit biased to the situation.

I have nothing to do with the region myself, I'm a Swede, but even I know that places like this (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Ani_seen...) were once great cities and that they aren't depopulated for no reason-- and these places, it's a huge region in what is now Turkey.

Expansionism, while repulsive, is perhaps comprehensible as greed, but to then go after the remainder, those three million who have survived up in the mountains, that is not comprehensible.

Why it’s perfectly comprehensible when you have the special book and your neighbors do not. Then your atrocities are merely expressions of god’s will.

Always eye-rolling when those from the West - the same West that pillaged and depoulated entire continents argue that violence is an intrinsic characteristic of another group.

I read it as a generalization that included the west, the far east, pretty much anywhere our extended group of cousins has been able to survive. And we are all cousins. But apparently much like you shouldn't have a kid with your 1st cousin. It is for some reason very important to kill anyone further out than your 1000th or so. At least if they have something you want. Then our huge brains kick in and give us a good reason to do what we already wanted to. Often we write it in a book to make it more legitimate. Might be God told us, or we might come up with something scientific (interpreting data with a motive is super flexible) if we aren't feeling particularly religious.

always eye-rolling when people degrade discussion by throwing people into few simplistic categories which don't represent reality (ie there are tons of western countries these days, only few participated in colonization, slavery etc. and muslim ones participated during that time too)

These are the only Western European countries which didn't participated in colonization/empire building:

  Vatican* (questionable)
  Malta (but not Sovereign Military Order of Malta)
  Monaco
  San Marino
  Andorra
  Liechtenstein
  Luxembourg
  Switzerland
  Ireland** (only after independence from UK)

Under some classifications Scandinavia is also counts as Western Europe, and even there Denmark-Norway colonized Iceland and Greenland, and Sweden expanded its empire into Finland, Baltics and Northern Russia.

A lot of the west’s most atrocious actions were also validated by their special books.

It’s a good thing that as the west developed god-like military/industrial power, it also went through some serious reformations in its belief systems.

Odd how God's will always turns out to be human greed or human lust for power in the end. I think the original thesis stands.

It is much mure than that. Greed and lust for power are only motivators as long as it is profitable. Ideology goes way beyond and can motivate extreme hatred. Because ideology can turn a non-issue or a minor issue into an existential threat in the mind of the believers.

Yeah don’t worry, I don’t think this is the actual desire of any actual god. But that doesn’t mean religion is irrelevant to how you get so many people with very little to gain to sacrifice their lives and/or humanity for someone else’s greed/lust for power.

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