# Armenian Genocide - what the hell is Turkey's problem? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 20, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331 "2012-03-20T17:11:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/61 "2012-03-22T17:13:53Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > To really recap, repeating an old list of scholars where most now are not willing to sign again is silly, repeating that and expecting a different result is also silly. > > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13930366&postcount=53](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13930366&postcount=53) > > In any case, a more recent petition was a good counter point to that out of date denialist petition from the 80’s. > > [http://www.chgs.umn.edu/histories/turkisharmenian/publicPetitions.html](http://www.chgs.umn.edu/histories/turkisharmenian/publicPetitions.html) I am not disputing the list but holy shit Ward Churchill? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/62 "2012-03-22T17:19:05Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I don’t know about Muslims, but Heath Lowry is certainly a hack for the Turkish government. He ghostwrote a Turkish ambassador’s protest letter. People who are considered “hacks” for foreign governments are not given chairs at Princeton and are not normally regarded as leading experts on the Ottoman Empire. Unfortunately, because of the controversy surrounding the Armenian tragedy, in the words of Charles Haberl, the Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers, most scholars don’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole because taking a position contrary to the standard Armenian position causes scholars to be bombarded with charges of being “denialists” “hacks”, being hauled into court in France, or, being the subject of terrorist attacks(which is what happened to Stanford Shaw of UCLA who had his house blown up). Unfortunately, because of this, most of the people best qualified to research the topic, for example being able to read and write Ottoman. > [@](#): > > Not sure how you define “dramatically worse”, but the Partition killings were happening on both sides. Well, for starters, ALL Hindus were expelled from Muslim areas, whereas around 100,000 or more Armenians in Istanbul weren’t. Also vastly more Muslims and Hindus were killed in India. Also, the claim that “the Partition killings were happening on both sides” is quite silly because the tragedy occurred after the Armenians had risen up and attempted to ethnically cleanse the Muslim majority from territory which they wanted for their own. In short, there were atrocities committed on both sides. Moreover, remember most of the Armenians who died, died of a famine or disease, at a time when massive numbers of Muslims throughout Anatolia were dying of famine. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/63 "2012-03-22T17:35:04Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > To really recap, repeating an old list of scholars where **most now are not willing to sign again is silly** , repeating that and expecting a different result is also silly. Can you please provide a link to show that most of the people who signed that list would not be willing to sign it now. For that matter, could you provide evidence that most Middle Eastern scholars, who’s specialty is the Ottoman Empire, disagree with the views of Bernard Lewis, Lowry, and others. > [@](#): > > In any case, a more recent petition was a good counter point to that out of date denialist petition from the 80’s. > [http://www.chgs.umn.edu/histories/tu...Petitions.html](http://www.chgs.umn.edu/histories/tu...Petitions.html) Ok, you think Ward Churchill is an expert on the Middle East? I’m sorry, but that is utterly moronic. Next time I’d recommend reading something before just posting it. Also, while the list does contain some well-known scholars, most notably Yehuda Bauer, Stephen Katz, and of course Elie Wiesel, I don’t think the list contains a single Middle Eastern scholar. Yes, they are all experts on the Shoah, but that doesn’t make them qualified to render expert opinions on something that’s not part of their field of study. In fact, I don’t think any of them are even able to read and write in Ottoman. That’s like providing a list of anthropologists who’ve signed a petition claiming global warming is a myth. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/64 "2012-03-22T17:48:39Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > Could you perhaps offer up a website or two, or a decent book on the topic? Something more neutral than Wikipedia? Especially if the book deals with ethnic expulsions/cleansing/genocide in the region in the late 19th to early 20th century (Greece to Armenia)? Certainly, I’d recommend \*The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide \*by Guenter Lewy. He’s not a Middle Eastern historian, but he’s a reputable scholar from the University of Massachusetts. [http://www.amazon.com/The-Armenian-Massacres-Ottoman-Turkey/dp/0874808901/ref=sr\_1\_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332437749&sr=8-1](http://www.amazon.com/The-Armenian-Massacres-Ottoman-Turkey/dp/0874808901/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332437749&sr=8-1) Also, while he doesn’t spend much time dealing with it, I’d recommend _The Emergence of Modern Turkey_, by Bernard Lewis and you’ll notice he’s extremely harsh on the way the Ottomans handled the situation. People familiar with him will also note that while being probably the most respected living scholar on the Ottoman Empire, he can hardly be considered an apologist for Muslim atrocities. However, as it was not really written for the general public, it’s not as readable as many of his later books. One book I would recommend though for anyone interested in the Middle East of that time period is David Fromkin’s _A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East_. He doesn’t spend much time on the tragedy itself and doesn’t do any original research, but while extremely harsh on the Ottoman government and a bit critical of Shaw, he makes a point of calling them “massacres” not “genocide”. [http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/B0006SHMRK/ref=sr\_1\_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332438243&sr=1-2](http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/B0006SHMRK/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332438243&sr=1-2) ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/65 "2012-03-22T17:58:00Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > What happened was a horrific ethnic cleansing, but as near as I can tell, the vast majority of Middle Eastern specialist dramatically disagree with the claims put forward by those who want to compare this to the Holocaust. Is that your main issue **Ibn Warraq**? That we are not allowed to use the term “genocide”, because it would detract from the Shoa? The word is only to be used with regards to the Holocaust? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/66 "2012-03-22T18:13:34Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Can you please provide a link to show that most of the people who signed that list would not be willing to sign it now. For that matter, could you provide evidence that most Middle Eastern scholars, who’s specialty is the Ottoman Empire, disagree with the views of Bernard Lewis, Lowry, and others. > > Ok, you think Ward Churchill is an expert on the Middle East? > > I’m sorry, but that is utterly moronic. > > Next time I’d recommend reading something before just posting it. > > Also, while the list does contain some well-known scholars, most notably Yehuda Bauer, Stephen Katz, and of course Elie Wiesel, I don’t think the list contains a single Middle Eastern scholar. > > Yes, they are all experts on the Shoah, but that doesn’t make them qualified to render expert opinions on something that’s not part of their field of study. > > In fact, I don’t think any of them are even able to read and write in Ottoman. > > That’s like providing a list of anthropologists who’ve signed a petition claiming global warming is a myth. And the point was really to remark that petitions are really a very silly way to find about what the consensus is. Once again the main point was that your list is silly for the same reasons, not all were experts on what you claimed them to be, the new list was mentioned just as a counter to the early one and the reason was to show that it is really silly to claim that there is a consensus denying the genocide, Ward Churchill will never be invited again BTW. What it counts was what it was found in the previous discussion, in academia the consensus is that there was a genocide. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/67 "2012-03-22T18:15:55Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Is that your main issue **Ibn Warraq**? > That we are not allowed to use the term “genocide”, because it would detract from the Shoa? The word is only to be used with regards to the Holocaust? No. What I believe in is being fair. Worst atrocities committed against Muslims in the Balkans generally aren’t classified as “genocide” so this one shouldn’t be. It was a brutal ethnic cleansing comparable to the Trail of Tears(which is usually not called a genocide), but people are trying to make it into something it’s not, and they’re doing this while ignoring worse atrocities committed against Muslims. Admittedly the Trail of Tears isn’t the best analogy since the US wasn’t in the middle of a war where it was getting pulverized by much more powerful countries and the Cherokee weren’t trying to exterminate and ethnically cleanse Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/68 "2012-03-22T18:21:53Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Once again the main point was that your list is silly for the same reasons, not all were experts on what you claimed them to be, Accusing a poster of lying is a serious charge. Please show me which of the men is “not an expert on what \* claimed them to be.” If you don’t believe me, check with Tamerlane. Sorry, but most Middle Eastern scholars who are qualified to render expert opinions on the subject don’t agree with the Armenian position. Now, if you want to prove me wrong, then list three prominent Ottomanists who agree with the Armenian position that 1.5 million Armenians were exterminated by genocidal Turks. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/69 "2012-03-22T18:27:31Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > So to recap, you’re dismissing the views of over 80 prominent Middle Eastern scholars from Princeton, Columbia, NYU, and similar schools because of a wikipedia page that has been put together almost entirely by activists with axes to grind? > > What’s next, saying “I don’t care what all those fancy scientists say, here’s a website called the [climatefraud.com](http://climatefraud.com) which claims they’re wrong.” No. What I actually said was “This website makes very specific claims; claims which are easy to objectively check – do you deny or reject these claims?”. It’s interesting that you won’t answer this. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/70 "2012-03-22T18:35:29Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Worst atrocities committed against Muslims in the Balkans generally aren’t classified as “genocide” so this one shouldn’t be. So, what’s the metric? At what number of dead can we use the word genocide? When is something just ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘horrific ethnic cleansing’, ‘attempted genocide’ or true genuine ‘genocide’? If it truly had been 1.5 million _then_ would it qualify as genocide? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/71 "2012-03-22T18:52:20Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Accusing a poster of lying is a serious charge. Please show me which of the men is “not an expert on what \* claimed them to be.” Not accusing you but the makers of the **lists** , if you had paid attention on the previous discussion you would had noticed why. BTW several have just the title of Historian, not specific for the matter at hand. > [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Sorry, but most Middle Eastern scholars who are qualified to render expert opinions on the subject don’t agree with the Armenian position. And you need a better cite than using a classic denialist tactic of consensus by petition. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/72 "2012-03-22T18:52:34Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > I think those laws are quite odious, but when the French prosecute the world’s most respected scholar on the Ottoman Empire for giving his professional opinion on the subject in an interview with Le Monde and when they push for laws making it illegal to “deny” that it was a genocide, they don’t have a leg to stand on. > > I think most French Ottomanists and other French Middle Eastern scholars are probably not all that happy about their government telling them what is the “proper” story and letting them know they’ll be prosecuted if they disagree with the official line and I suspect their Turkish counterparts feel the same. Can we prosecute, or pressure Turkey on its genocide of the Armenians without pointing out how bad others are? Let the French prosecute whoever they can get their hands on, I’m all for that. They can be eating kittens and stomping puppies at the same time, but their work would still be important. Afterwards, or during, someone can bring up similar charges to those guys and get them prosecuted as well We’re discussing Turkey and its denial of the Armenian genocide here. I think its a hijack to try to deflect attention to how bad everyone else is. Hell, America just had their little torture spree not more than 5 years ago! However, I’d still would be ok with American lawyers prosecuting torture in other parts of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/73 "2012-03-22T19:03:30Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > We’re discussing Turkey and its denial of the Armenian genocide here. Precisely. The Turks are in denial because they desperately want to present the image that everyone living in Anatolia is a ‘Happy Turk’. What does this “Oooh you used the ‘G-word’!” add to the discussion? ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/74 "2012-03-22T20:57:45Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Certainly, I’d recommend \*The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide \*by Guenter Lewy. He’s not a Middle Eastern historian, but he’s a reputable scholar from the University of Massachusetts. > [http://www.amazon.com/The-Armenian-Massacres-Ottoman-Turkey/dp/0874808901/ref=sr\_1\_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332437749&sr=8-1](http://www.amazon.com/The-Armenian-Massacres-Ottoman-Turkey/dp/0874808901/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332437749&sr=8-1) > > Also, while he doesn’t spend much time dealing with it, I’d recommend _The Emergence of Modern Turkey_, by Bernard Lewis and you’ll notice he’s extremely harsh on the way the Ottomans handled the situation. People familiar with him will also note that while being probably the most respected living scholar on the Ottoman Empire, he can hardly be considered an apologist for Muslim atrocities. > > However, as it was not really written for the general public, it’s not as readable as many of his later books. > > One book I would recommend though for anyone interested in the Middle East of that time period is David Fromkin’s _A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East_. He doesn’t spend much time on the tragedy itself and doesn’t do any original research, but while extremely harsh on the Ottoman government and a bit critical of Shaw, he makes a point of calling them “massacres” not “genocide”. > [http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/B0006SHMRK/ref=sr\_1\_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332438243&sr=1-2](http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/B0006SHMRK/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332438243&sr=1-2) I’ll take a look at these. I would probably continue to consider it a genocide because I view any government program to destroy, by whatever means, most of a particular ethnic group as genocide. Or possibly it is ethnic cleansing. Either way I was most curious about policies toward Muslims. Thanks a lot! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331/75 "2012-03-23T02:18:13Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > No. What I believe in is being fair. > > Worst atrocities committed against Muslims in the Balkans generally aren’t classified as “genocide” so this one shouldn’t be. Did you miss where I posted that the events in Armenia partly inspired the creation of the word _genocide_? Doing a search on “Guenter Lewy”, it seems he has made a habit of denying that any other attrocities constitute “genocide” (Hitler’s actions against non-Jews, such as Gypsies, for example). Doesn’t sound like a very non-biased source. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armenian-genocide-what-the-hell-is-turkeys-problem/616331.md?page=3)