The Van Der Galiën Gazette, Netherlands
Oct 14 2007
The Armenian Genocide: an Ongoing Debate
Oct 14th, 2007 by Michael van der Galiën
A lot has been written on this blog lately about what some refer to
as the `Armenian genocide.’ Most posts were, obviously, inspired by
the resolution approved by the House panel recently that labels the
killing of many Armenian Christians during World War I by the
Ottomans genocide. Not only that, the resolution also makes the
Turkish government – which didn’t exist during the period the alleged
genocide took place – partially responsible for what happened by
expanding the range of the killing from between 1914-1915, perhaps
1918, to 1923 when the Turkish Republic was established. Every
co-author of this blog who weighed in condemned the resolution for a
variety of reasons, most of them political: the US can’t afford to
alienate Turkey right now, because Turkey is an important ally to
America and the West in general. There are however, also other
grounds on which the text of the resolution can be criticized.
Let me start with the number of casualties. It has become fashionable
these days, to charge that 1.5 million Armenians living in the
Ottoman Empire – Anatolia to be precise – were killed. However,
although the genocide crowd would want you to believe differently,
there’s a lot of debate about this number. A significant amount of
scholars charge that the most likely numbers is somewhere between
800,000 and 1,000,000. Yes, that’s an incredibly high amount, but
it’s no 1.5 million. If you want to talk about a subject as serious
as this, exaggerating the casualties won’t help your case.
Furthermore, some of those who criticized me and other co-bloggers
argued that we are no better than holocaust deniers. This even though
none of us argue that there was no genocide – it seems to me that
most think there was, I’m the most crititical one and I don’t even
dismiss it, I only say that more research is needed – as such and,
even though, the two are complete incomparable. The Armenians
organized themselves in militias. They killed thousands, tens of
thousands and possibly even hundreds of thousands of Turkish Muslims
in their attempt to become independent and to help the Christian
Russian forces beat the Muslim Ottoman Empire.
Furthermore, Jews were rounded up and killed in concentration camps
on the order of the Nazi rulers. With the Ottomans there’s no
bulletproof evidence that the Ottoman rulers ordered the killings of
the Armenians. Yes, they ordered the deportation of the Armenian
Christians because they had rebelled against them, but that’s not the
same as ordering them to be killed. Now, some here seem to assume
that many Armenians being killed means that there was a genocide.
That’s not true. If we use the definition of genocide we are used to
use we need an order from the Ottoman government. Instead, Andrew
Mango writes in his autobiography of Atatürk that the Ottoman rulers
(and Atatürk and his followers) were disgusted by what some people,
Enver Pasja among others, had done.
Admitting that hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed by the
Turks (directly and indirectly) but saying that there’s not proof
(enough) that what happened can rightfully be labeled `genocide’
isn’t equal to denying the holocaust. Instead, I and many others
agree that terrible things happened and that an enormous amount of
Armenians were killed. Not just those who fought against the Ottoman
Empire but also women and children were killed. Some of them died by
violence, others starved, again others died of one disease or
another. They suffered tremendously. I’m not denying that. I am
denying, however, that looking at the evidence we can conclude that
it was a genocide. To truly find out whether it was a genocide or not
more research is needed. The Turkish government invited the Armenian
government to do this research. However, those who are most
passionately calling what happened a genocide refuse to take the
Turks up on their offer. I can’t help but to get the feeling that
they refuse to do this research because they fear that research will
show that there was no determined attempt by the Ottoman government
to kill off the Armenian population of Anatolia.
Lastly, some like to refer to the Armenians who survived the
deportation as `proof’ that it was a genocide. These people went
through hell and so we should listen to what they have to say.
However, although they can tell what happened to them, they can’t say
whether it was genocide or not. They simply don’t know enough about
what went on in the higher ranks of the Ottoman government to say
anything about that.
For more information about the Armenian genocide I refer you to this
pdf containing letters to the editor of Commentary magazine in
response to an article written by Guenter Lewy on the subject. The
last letter is Lewy’s response.
e-armenian-genocide-an-ongoing-debate/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
