A NEW INTERPRETATION OF THE ARMENIAN DEPORTATIONS IN WORLD WAR I
By Eberhard Demm

Hurriyet Daily News
w-interpretation-of-the-armenian-deportations-in-w orld-war-i-2009-11-30
Nov 30 2009
Turkey

During World War II, some 5 to 6 million Jews were murdered to destroy
them as an ethnic group – the paradigm case of genocide. Now imagine
for a moment that the Nazis had spared three categories of people:
Jews willing to be baptized, pretty women in order to marry them and
children to be brought up as "Aryans" in German families.

Would you still define this as genocide? Certainly not. Yet the German
diplomats who compiled the most trustworthy and comprehensive documents
about the Armenian deportations mentioned many such cases.

First of all, they reported that not only Armenians, but also members
of other Christian groups – Nestorians, Jacobites, Chaldees, Catholic
Syrians and Protestants, though no Orthodox – were deported as well.

They also observed that during the deportations, "women disappeared
in harems and children would grow up as Muslims." In several places,
Armenians could avoid deportation and probable death if they converted
to Islam. Sometimes they were even forced to do so.

For instance, in Gemerek, near Sivas, 30 of the prettiest girls were
rounded up and told: "Either you become Muslims or you die!" Although
they refused to convert, the governor ordered that they be integrated
into Turkish families. Such attitudes cannot be compared with the Shoah
genocide, but are reminiscent more of medieval Christian crusades,
when, for instance, in 1147, the abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, later
sanctified by the Catholic Church, proclaimed for the war against
the pagan Slavs "death or baptism."

To avoid any misunderstanding: I do not deny nor excuse the tragedy
that several hundreds of thousands of Armenians either died from
starvation or were massacred during the deportations, mostly by Kurdish
and Cherkess bandits and by the death squadrons of TeÅ~_kilat-ı
Mahsusa, the secret police at the time, whose ranks were recruited from
released convicts. I also do not deny that some of the more radical
Young Turks intended an ethnic cleansing. But most of the murderers
had different reasons: Apart from pure lust for slaughter and booty,
they were motivated by a profound hate of Christians, reinforced by
the first proclamation of modern jihad in November 1914 by Sultan
Mehmed V and Essad Effendi, Sheikh-ul-Islam. To be sure, this had
never been practiced in medieval jihad and traditional Islam, which
tolerated Jews and Christians. Only the modern jihad has degenerated
into indiscriminate killings of Christians and Muslims alike.

We must also not forget the political reason for the deportations. In
spring 1915, the Ottoman Empire was in the deadly grip of a double
menace – the Allied operation against the Dardanelles and the
Russian invasion of eastern Anatolia – while German and Austrian
support for Turkey was still blocked by neutral countries in the
Balkans. At the same time, the threat of an Armenian "Fifth Column"
seemed very real: A few isolated Armenian revolts had broken out, and
tens of thousands of Turkish Armenians, led by the former Armenian
deputy of the Ottoman parliament, Armen Karo, fought as traitors in
the Russian army against their own country, with the special task to
stir up revolts in eastern Anatolia.

Approximately one year ago, 200 Turkish intellectuals started the
"özurdiliyoruz" Internet campaign apologizing for the Armenian
massacres, and more than 30,000 people have signed this declaration
since. In spring 2006, I had in vain, through Turkish diplomatic
channels, suggested such a step to the Turkish authorities, in order to
ward off the forthcoming Armenian resolution by the German Bundestag,
but the time was not yet ripe. However, I wonder now if the Armenian
diaspora would be ready to offer an apology as well, because their
people were not totally innocent either.

During the Russian offensive against Van, Armenians also committed
atrocities in some Turkish villages, although on a much smaller scale.

In the 1920s, they executed several Young Turks held responsible for
the massacres, amongst them Ahmed Cemal Pasha, who, as governor of
Syria, had been opposed to the deportations and had saved hundreds of
thousands of Armenians in order to resettle them in Syria. In the 1970s
and 1980s, they assassinated approximately 80 people and wounded 400,
most of them innocent Turkish diplomats.

The international repercussions of the whole problem are sometimes
underrated in Turkey. Most French politicians, partly under Armenian
influence, are determined to block full Turkish membership in the
European Union. In 2006, the French parliament even passed a law
against the denial of an Armenian genocide. In light of a petition
of protest signed by 800 historians from around the world, amongst
them myself, harsh sanctions such as prison time were waived, but
the law itself was not abrogated.

I sincerely hope that the new commission, set up according to the
recent treaty between Turkey and Armenia, will reach an internationally
acknowledged agreement on this hotly disputed question and pave the
way for a definite reconciliation of Turks and Armenians.

* Eberhard Demm is a retired history professor based in Germany. The
views expressed here are the author’s own.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress