I am not disputing the list but holy shit Ward Churchill?
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
And you need a better cite than using a classic denialist tactic of consensus by petition.
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.
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?
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!
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.