THE TRUTH?
By Michael van der Galien
The Moderate Voice
e-truth/
Sept 4 2007
The more I read about what some call the Armenian genocide, the more
I understand how difficult and confusing the subject actually is.
There is a lot of material available for all on the web and in just
about every library. Some of the sources – many of them – indicate
that their was a genocide, others deny it, again others speak about
mass killings but not genocide as such. Today, the Jerusalem Post
published a good and interesting article by Lenny Ben-David about
this. Ben-David writes:
AS AN adviser for five years to the Turkish embassy in Washington,
until earlier this summer, I understood why the Turkish government and
people jump to deny claims that their ancestors committed a "genocide"
against Armenians some 90 years ago.
It occurred during a maelstrom of battles and massacres. It was
allegedly carried out by founding fathers who were bringing their
country into an enlightened 20th century. And it was waged against
an enemy guilty of the still unspoken crime of massacring hundreds
of thousands of Muslims and thousands of Jews.
Armenians and Turks see no shades of grey, and for now, at least,
demands are made only of Turkey to change its monochromatic narrative.
He then lists some of the autrocities committed by the Armenians
(who, no matter what source you read, were not exactly innocent
either). Some of the autrocities are: – There are accounts of Armenian
massacres, between 1914 and 1920, of 2.5 million of Armenia’s Muslim
population. From this source:
I killed Muslims by every means possible. Yet it is sometimes a pity
to waste bullets for this. The best way is to gather all of these dogs
and throw them into wells and then fill the wells with big and heavy
stones, as I did. I gathered all of the women, men and children, threw
big stones down on top of them. They must never live on this earth.
– Recently, Mountain Jews in Azerbaijan requested assistance in
building a monument to 3,000 Azeri Jews killed by Armenians in 1918
in a pogrom about which little is known.
– AND WITHIN our own lifetime – just some 15 years ago – Armenian
troops massacred hundreds of Azeri Muslims. In this regard, Ben-David
cites Newsweek from March 16, 1992:
"Azerbaijan was a charnel house again last week: a place of mourning
refugees and dozens of mangled corpses dragged to a makeshift morgue
behind the mosque. They were ordinary Azerbaijani men, women and
children of Khojaly, a small village in war-torn Nagorno-Karabakh
overrun by Armenian forces on Feb. 25-26. Many were killed at close
range while trying to flee; some had their faces mutilated, others
were scalped."
The author of the article concludes, and I fully agree with him:
Both Turks and Armenians have their grisly tales of persecution and
their vehement denials of genocidal designs. It is the task of the
Jewish community to express sympathy for all the victims and outrage
at all the perpetrators on both sides of the conflict. The US Congress
and the Jewish community should encourage historians on both sides
to objectively examine what took place.
Nations mature when they can look at themselves in the mirror and
see the grey, the wrinkles and the blemishes.
I would also like to point out that mass killings – yes even killings
on a grand scale – do not necessarily constitute genocide.
I agree with Ben-David: let everybody open up the archives, let
historians in and lets find out what exactly happened. For this to
happen, though, every country and people involved has to be willing to
live with the consequences. The attitude some have, which means that
the Armenians basically did nothing wrong and have nothing wrong but
that the Turks are ruthless killers and today’s generation dedicated
to cover-up the misdeeds of their ancestors, has to change.
Turks, on the other hand, have to stop automatically dismissing any
claims as well. Do the research, open up the archives, and lets see
what happens.