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Armenian genocide: To continue to deny the truth of this mass human
cruelty is close to a criminal lie
Robert Fisk
Sunday 19 April 2015
I dug the bones and skulls of massacred Armenians out of the Syrian
desert with my own hands in 1992
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their forebears were killed in a
1915-16 genocide by Turkey's former Ottoman Empire; Turkey has the
figure at 500,000 (AFP/Getty)
AFP/Getty
At seven o'clock on Thursday evening, a group of very brave men and
women will gather in Taksim Square, in the centre of Istanbul, to
stage an unprecedented and moving commemoration. The men and women
will be both Turkish and Armenian, and they will be gathering together
to remember the 1.5 million Christian Armenian men, women and children
slaughtered by the Ottoman Turks in the 1915 genocide. That Armenian
Holocaust - the direct precursor of the Jewish Holocaust - began 100
years ago this Thursday, only half a mile from Taksim, when the
government of the time rounded up hundreds of Armenian intellectuals
and writers from their homes and prepared them for death and the
annihilation of their people.
The Pope has already annoyed the Turks by calling this wicked act -
the most terrible massacre of the First World War - a genocide, which
it was: the deliberate and planned attempt to liquidate a race of
people. The Turkish government - but, thank God, not all the Turkish
people - have maintained their petulant and childish denial of this
fact of history on the grounds that the Armenians were not killed
according to a plan (the old "chaos of war" nonsense), and that the
word "genocide" was anyway coined only after the Second World War and
thus cannot apply to them. On that basis, the First World War wasn't
the First World War because it wasn't called the First World War at
the time!
Two thoughts come to mind, then, on this centenary of the butchery,
mass rape and child killing of 1915. The first is that for a powerful
government of a strong - and courageous - European and Nato nation
such as Turkey to continue to deny the truth of this mass human
cruelty is close to a criminal lie. More than 100,000 Turks have
discovered that they have Armenian grandmothers or great-grandmothers
- the very women kidnapped, enslaved, raped or converted on the death
marches from Anatolia into the northern Syrian desert - and Turkish
historians themselves (alas, not enough of them) are now producing the
most detailed documentary evidence of the sinister Talat Pasha's
extermination orders issued from what was then Constantinople.
Yet anyone who opposes the government's denial of genocide is still
vilified. For almost a quarter of a century, I have been receiving
mail from Turks about my own writing on the genocide. It started when
I dug the bones and skulls of massacred Armenians out of the Syrian
desert with my own hands in 1992. A few correspondents wanted to
express their support. Most letters were little short of pernicious.
And I rather fear that the continued denial by the Turkish government
could be as dangerous to Turkey as it is outrageous for the Armenian
descendants of the dead. I remember an elderly Armenian lady
describing to me how she saw Turkish militiamen piling living babies
on top of each other and setting fire to them. Her mother told her
that their cries were the sound of their souls going up to heaven.
Isn't this - and the enslavement of women - exactly what Isis is
perpetrating against its ethnic enemies just across the Turkish border
today? Denial is fraught with peril.
And let's ask ourselves what would happen if the present German
government was to claim that any demand to recognise the "events" of
1939-1945 - in which six million Jews were murdered - as a genocide
was "Jewish propaganda" and "mutilating history and law". Yet that was
pretty much what the Turkish government said when the EU last week
asked it to recognise the Armenian genocide. The EU, the foreign
ministry said in Ankara, had succumbed to "Armenian propaganda" about
the "events" of 1915, and was "mutilating history and law". If Germany
had adopted such unforgivable words about the Jewish Holocaust, you
would not have been able to see through the Berlin exhaust fumes as
the world's ambassadors headed for the airport.
Yet the very day after the brave little commemoration scheduled for
Taksim Square this week, the great and the good of the Western world
will be gathering with Turkish leaders a few miles to the west of
Istanbul to honour the dead of Gallipoli, Mustafa Kemal's
extraordinary - and brilliant - 1915 victory over the Allies in the
First World War. How many of them will remember that among the Turkish
heroes fighting for Turkey at Gallipoli was a certain Armenian Captain
Torossian - whose own sister would soon die in the genocide?
I plan to report on the commemoration next week in the company of
Turkish friends. But the second thought that comes to mind - and
Armenian friends must forgive me - is that I'm not terribly interested
in what the Armenians say and do on this 100th anniversary. I want to
know what they plan to do on the day after the day of the 100th
anniversary. The Armenian survivors - those who could remember - are
now all dead. In about 30 years, Jews around the world will suffer the
same deep sadness as their own last survivors disappear from the world
of living testimony. But the dead live on, especially when their
victimhood is denied - a curse that forces them to die again and
again.
Armenians must surely now compile a list of the brave Turks who saved
their lives during their people's persecution. There is at least one
provincial governor, and individual named Turkish soldiers and
policemen, who risked their own lives to save Armenians at this
gruesome moment in Turkish history. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's
triumphalist prime minister, has spoken of his sorrow for the
Armenians, while continuing to deny the genocide. Would he dare to
refuse to sign an Armenian genocide book of commemoration listing the
brave Turks who tried to save their nation's honour at its darkest
hour?
I've been banging on about this idea to Armenians for years. I said
the same to Armenians in Detroit last week. Honour the good Turks.
Alas, everyone claps. And does nothing.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/armenian-genocide-to-continue-to-deny-the-truth-of-this-mass-human-cruelty-is-close-to-a-criminal-lie-10188119.html
From: Baghdasarian
cruelty is close to a criminal lie
Robert Fisk
Sunday 19 April 2015
I dug the bones and skulls of massacred Armenians out of the Syrian
desert with my own hands in 1992
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their forebears were killed in a
1915-16 genocide by Turkey's former Ottoman Empire; Turkey has the
figure at 500,000 (AFP/Getty)
AFP/Getty
At seven o'clock on Thursday evening, a group of very brave men and
women will gather in Taksim Square, in the centre of Istanbul, to
stage an unprecedented and moving commemoration. The men and women
will be both Turkish and Armenian, and they will be gathering together
to remember the 1.5 million Christian Armenian men, women and children
slaughtered by the Ottoman Turks in the 1915 genocide. That Armenian
Holocaust - the direct precursor of the Jewish Holocaust - began 100
years ago this Thursday, only half a mile from Taksim, when the
government of the time rounded up hundreds of Armenian intellectuals
and writers from their homes and prepared them for death and the
annihilation of their people.
The Pope has already annoyed the Turks by calling this wicked act -
the most terrible massacre of the First World War - a genocide, which
it was: the deliberate and planned attempt to liquidate a race of
people. The Turkish government - but, thank God, not all the Turkish
people - have maintained their petulant and childish denial of this
fact of history on the grounds that the Armenians were not killed
according to a plan (the old "chaos of war" nonsense), and that the
word "genocide" was anyway coined only after the Second World War and
thus cannot apply to them. On that basis, the First World War wasn't
the First World War because it wasn't called the First World War at
the time!
Two thoughts come to mind, then, on this centenary of the butchery,
mass rape and child killing of 1915. The first is that for a powerful
government of a strong - and courageous - European and Nato nation
such as Turkey to continue to deny the truth of this mass human
cruelty is close to a criminal lie. More than 100,000 Turks have
discovered that they have Armenian grandmothers or great-grandmothers
- the very women kidnapped, enslaved, raped or converted on the death
marches from Anatolia into the northern Syrian desert - and Turkish
historians themselves (alas, not enough of them) are now producing the
most detailed documentary evidence of the sinister Talat Pasha's
extermination orders issued from what was then Constantinople.
Yet anyone who opposes the government's denial of genocide is still
vilified. For almost a quarter of a century, I have been receiving
mail from Turks about my own writing on the genocide. It started when
I dug the bones and skulls of massacred Armenians out of the Syrian
desert with my own hands in 1992. A few correspondents wanted to
express their support. Most letters were little short of pernicious.
And I rather fear that the continued denial by the Turkish government
could be as dangerous to Turkey as it is outrageous for the Armenian
descendants of the dead. I remember an elderly Armenian lady
describing to me how she saw Turkish militiamen piling living babies
on top of each other and setting fire to them. Her mother told her
that their cries were the sound of their souls going up to heaven.
Isn't this - and the enslavement of women - exactly what Isis is
perpetrating against its ethnic enemies just across the Turkish border
today? Denial is fraught with peril.
And let's ask ourselves what would happen if the present German
government was to claim that any demand to recognise the "events" of
1939-1945 - in which six million Jews were murdered - as a genocide
was "Jewish propaganda" and "mutilating history and law". Yet that was
pretty much what the Turkish government said when the EU last week
asked it to recognise the Armenian genocide. The EU, the foreign
ministry said in Ankara, had succumbed to "Armenian propaganda" about
the "events" of 1915, and was "mutilating history and law". If Germany
had adopted such unforgivable words about the Jewish Holocaust, you
would not have been able to see through the Berlin exhaust fumes as
the world's ambassadors headed for the airport.
Yet the very day after the brave little commemoration scheduled for
Taksim Square this week, the great and the good of the Western world
will be gathering with Turkish leaders a few miles to the west of
Istanbul to honour the dead of Gallipoli, Mustafa Kemal's
extraordinary - and brilliant - 1915 victory over the Allies in the
First World War. How many of them will remember that among the Turkish
heroes fighting for Turkey at Gallipoli was a certain Armenian Captain
Torossian - whose own sister would soon die in the genocide?
I plan to report on the commemoration next week in the company of
Turkish friends. But the second thought that comes to mind - and
Armenian friends must forgive me - is that I'm not terribly interested
in what the Armenians say and do on this 100th anniversary. I want to
know what they plan to do on the day after the day of the 100th
anniversary. The Armenian survivors - those who could remember - are
now all dead. In about 30 years, Jews around the world will suffer the
same deep sadness as their own last survivors disappear from the world
of living testimony. But the dead live on, especially when their
victimhood is denied - a curse that forces them to die again and
again.
Armenians must surely now compile a list of the brave Turks who saved
their lives during their people's persecution. There is at least one
provincial governor, and individual named Turkish soldiers and
policemen, who risked their own lives to save Armenians at this
gruesome moment in Turkish history. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's
triumphalist prime minister, has spoken of his sorrow for the
Armenians, while continuing to deny the genocide. Would he dare to
refuse to sign an Armenian genocide book of commemoration listing the
brave Turks who tried to save their nation's honour at its darkest
hour?
I've been banging on about this idea to Armenians for years. I said
the same to Armenians in Detroit last week. Honour the good Turks.
Alas, everyone claps. And does nothing.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/armenian-genocide-to-continue-to-deny-the-truth-of-this-mass-human-cruelty-is-close-to-a-criminal-lie-10188119.html
From: Baghdasarian