A bit more than 4 weeks have gone since Armenians and supporters all over the world remembered the 90-year-anniversary of the
Genocide on the Armenians. As some of my readers know, I'm studying history and turcology at the
University of Hamburg, and there I still have to deliver an essay on this case, so from a scientific point of view it might be a bit untimely to write about it in the blog before considering all the potential literature. My presentation about "the Armenian question" has happened a bit ago and I'm not on top of the historic discussion. This as a preface - I'll appreciate if you comment this and quote me a very recent book I overlooked, but I'll do my own research pretty much later this year, so I'm pretty sure that I'm not on the top end of the discussion.
But a lot was published and is still published in the German press during the last month, and I think that a lot of congresses, hearings and speeches are still to come this year. One meeting should have begun in Turkey on May 25th - and it didn't. Because of the Turkish government. I don't think they could have hit themselves harder than by this, members of the US congress reacted quickly with a statement. And I read one of the best essays about the topic in Germany's left wing (or should I say: former left wing?)Tageszeitung. Summary: How could they stop a historic, scientifical conference on that? How stupid can the Turkish government be at the moment? Well, not exactly in this words ;-)
Four weeks ago I already collected some links concerning the 90th rememberance, another interesting article was published in Der Spiegel. Basically Der Spiegel is asking, why and how the Turkish government over the years stepped back behind Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Atatürk himself successfully kept Talaat, Cemal and Enver Pascha out of his new national movement and criticised them for their piece of barbarianism. Atatürk guessed a body count of 800,000 dead Armenians - if you would operate with this numbers in the public media of nowadays Turkey you would risk to be on top of the watch list.
A mixture between nonsense and proven crap was the essay of Gunnar Heinsohn in
Netzzeitung. Look at Goodwins Law, where a discussion should end...
Some of his worst assumptions:
- Hitler took the "solution of the Armenian question" as an example
- well, yes, Hitler knew about the Armenians. But, first of all, it was a German court in the 1920th who freed an Armenian who had murdered the Turkish ambassador in Berlin and what first revealed the facts of the Armenian genocide to the public. So this little hint in "Mein Kampf" is no prove for the model role.
- "a reconciliation wanted by the Armenians as well"
- the German parliament should not talk about dead or killed Armenians but has to use the term "Genocide" for a wanted and planned racist deletion of the whole people
Despite the fact that Heinsohn does not quote, where he found the evidence who did what and when, he tries to punish the Turkish with the biggest possible term the United Nations and the Geneva Convention provide. Well, if it helps the survivers and if it helps the people of middle asia to live in peace nowadays and in future...
... of course it doesn't. One of the reasons the line in the opinion of Turkish officials hardened over the years is the number of pressure groups in the United States, their demands and their countless means of information, like the
Armeniapedia or more pathetic
The Forgotten. Especially in the nineties when the big processes against Germany were won by Jewish victims' organisations the fear in back then nearly bankrupt Turkey rised, they could be the next on the paylist. This fear was backed by turcologists and historians like
Bernard Lewis who were beyond the few selected to did ever enter the archives and "found no evidence that there was a genocide" (no worries, opposite to Heinsohn I'm delivering the original resource of the quote sooner or later). And even though my favourite musician Serj Tankian is raving against the Turkish gov at the moment on
the wrong ankle - except some delicate experts like Lewis no one has ever seen the early archives of the young turks and it is desperately time for a deep research project. And the western world should rather back the current prime minister with his project to win a few years, calm down the public discussion and have a more detailed view in a few years. 'Nuff for now, for sure more later this year.
Thankfully the German parliament stayed reasonable, even the conservative CDU. To finally complete it: The press release of The Greens, the reply of the Turkish ambassador in Berlin and some quotes of Armenians in Germany here.
