TURKEY’S CRIMINAL PAST
Sarajevo Portal
March 18 2010
Bosnia and Herzegovina
The United States is responsible for many crimes against the native
populous, the Native American people. Genocide was committed in the
name of a "civilized" and "Christian" world. Native Americans were thus
expelled from their land and were relocated many times, they were also
conned and forced into selling their land, and were eventually killed
off; a small population remains from what were once millions. The
barbaric treatment of the Natives amounted to forced relocations such
as the Trail of Tears, and the racist program enacted by the American
government "Kill the Indian Save the Man" whose aim was to culturally
destroy the Natives by kidnapping their children and sending them to
boarding schools, where they would learn to become culturally White.
The American government has since admitted to its genocidal role. They
have passed numerous bills, especially during the Bill Clinton
Administration, which funded the revitalization of Native languages
and financial aid in all forms of economic life to Native Americans.
The government is even planning a formal apology known as the "Native
American Apology Resolution" which seeks to formally have the U.S.
Government apologize for its crimes against the Native people.
Nazi Germany was a nation like no other. It sought to rule Europe under
its racist policies against Jews and non-Europeans. Germany, under
the supreme command of chancellor Adolf Hitler, catapulted Europe,
and then the world, into a devastating World War. Millions died. The
damage was unprecedented and country after country fell to the Nazi
War Machine. Genocidal programs, legalized in the name of "pure
blood", ended the lives of millions upon millions. Yes, this indeed
was genocide at its finest, and much like the genocide of the Native
Americans, Jews and others saw their numbers fall. Even Europeans
who were against the Nazi regime perished, along with their families,
in a raging – racial war that wiped out over 60 million people.
Today, Germany has moved away from its past. It has sought to right
its wrongs by paying reparations to every nation Nazism had affected.
Today there is even a certain percent that is deducted from every
Euro in Germany, as reparation to the holocaust, which goes directly
to Israel. Paintings, gold, and other valuable items looted during
the Adolf Hitler era have mostly been returned. Memorials have been
dedicated in the name of victims, and Jews in Germany are even exempt
from having to serve in the military. Of course, the reparations can
never bring back those who perished, but the fact that Germany has
acknowledged its past is a major step toward regaining respect that
Germany lost because of Adolf Hitler. Today Germany is a major player
in humanitarian aid around the world, and donates more money than
any other European country to other, less fortunate nations. Indeed,
we must commend Germany for its attempts to erase the burden of their
past and to be remembered as a positive nation.
England, like the two nations mentioned above, was not always a
"freedom loving" country. Instead, it had colonies, slavery, and
a ruthless military that conducted genocide after genocide, took
territory after territory in the name of England and the Queen. The
aboriginals in Australia suffered a fate similar to the Jews in Nazi
Germany, or the Native’s in the U.S., and England even expanded
its greedy empirical hands towards Asia – prompting an Opium war
that caused tragic losses. But England also expanded towards Africa
and participated in savage diamond trades that left thousands upon
thousands of native-Africans dead.
Today, England has given up most of its colonies. It has acknowledged,
for the most part, its bloody past filled with oppressing smaller
nations and the theft of valuables. England could do better, however.
In having acknowledged its role as an aggressor, it has not stepped
up, like Germany for example, in paying reparations to the victims.
But acknowledging is better than ignoring, which brings us to the
fourth, most uncaring perpetrator of terror in history – the Ottoman
Empire.
Modern Turkey is no doubt the successor of the Ottoman Empire. Much
like the Federal Republic of Germany is to Nazi Germany, or modern
England to colonial England, so too is Turkey to the Ottoman Empire.
The problem stems from Turkey’s brutal past, which has never been
acknowledged by the Turks, and crimes perpetuated by the Ottoman
Empire continues to be rejected by the modern country. The genocide
of Armenians, for example, is something in stark similarity to
the holocaust committed by Adolf Hitler’s regime, and the Ottoman
Empire’s culturecide inflicted on those in Bosnia is similar to the
United States program, known as "Save the Indian, Kill the Man." The
Ottomans, likewise, kidnapped Bosnian children and sent them to
Turkey for re-education and Islamization, in order for them to become
Janissaries – or infantry units of the Empire loyal to the sultan.
Turkey, the successor of the brutal regime, has never made attempts
to repay the people of Bosnia or Armenia, its victims, or for that
matter to issue an apology, since the Turks adamantly reject that
this has ever happened. Similarly, Turkey has never stepped up to pay
Bosnia and Herzegovina reparations for having occupied the country
and its populous, and having destroyed the local customs and culture
of the people by replacing it with Turkish culture, under a brutal
dictatorship enforced through blackmailing.
Armenia and Bosnia have suffered the most under the Ottoman Empire,
but others deserve reparations as well: the entire Balkan region –
from Greece to Serbia, both which were victims in their own right.
Serbs paid through sacrifices, sending their men to fight the Turks in
hopes of gaining freedom from the tyrannical, religious Empire. The
Serbs lost numerous battles and uprisings, but all in the name of
freedom. Sadly, Turks have never made an apology to either country,
but have instead suggested that the Ottoman Empire be reintroduced
in those regions (how outrageous). This was not condemned by the
world, but it is similar to if Germany stated that Nazism should be
reintroduced. I am positive that the world would not let so much as a
blink go by before pounding on the table and reprimanding the Germans.
The Turks have gone long enough without a confrontation, and I think
that it is time that the Armenians, Bosnians, Serbs and Greeks stand
up to the bullies and that they demand an apology on an international
platform. Perhaps monetary reparations should be forced out of them
if they refuse to pay on their own, since their tyrannical past is
still affecting the people of the Balkans to this very day. Turkey’s
EU negotiation talks should be immediately halted until they come to
terms with their genocidal, tyrannical past.
-Criminal-Past
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
