Today in America, the "so called" genocide of the Armenians is included in the books that teach the Holocaust to schoolchildren. Through political influence and writers´ ignorance, it has been included as another example of inhumanity, a false example.

Through the ageney of Holocaust Studies, American children are learning what is usually the only thing they ever learn about Turks, and that is the so-called Armenian Genoeide. Most American school children see nothing else about Turks in their schoolbooks. They only see Turks in their study of what Turks supposedly did to .Armenians; and I might say, it is a completely one-sided description at that.

The feeling about Turks is so ingrained that it is impossible to have rational dialogue on the subject. But the question remains-where does all this come from? Why do the otherwise caring and liberal academics who write on the Holocaust feel it proper to vilify one people, the Turks, without considering any other side of a contested issue?

Having a school age child in America myself, I have not seen anything of the sort in any of the school books (thank God).  To be completely honest, they don´t talk about Turks at all.  If it were not for the fact that my son´s step father is Turkish, he would never know anything of Turkish culture.  So in that respect, people could say anything about Turks and with nothing to compare it to or refute it, people easily believe something they hear or read in the media.  I know that the American Turkish Association does a lot of outreach to inform and educate people about Turkish Culture.  In Houston, we have several Turkish events that are open to the public going on throughout the year. Turkish culture is quite accessible here.  It needs to be more accessible in other places so that when people hear about the Armenian issue, they will say, "you know, I met some Turkish people and they are not evil...maybe I need to find out what happened for myself."  Education is the key not anger.  

What happened in The Netherlands is not what is written in that piece quoted before. Those party members were not simply kicked out because they said "I don´t believe there was an Armenian genocide". It is a small part of a very big story, and they didn´t simply say "this is what I believe" but made a big fuss about it. A bit like sii

The problem with some of the statements made earlier is that people seem to think that the Armenian issue will cause people to see Turks today as killers. I don´t think Germans are bad people because of the Holocaust! And to be honest, I don´t know anybody who judges the Germans they meet today based on what happened during World War 2. And the Armenian issue even happened decades before that! What influences people´s view of Turks today much more than the Armenian issue is what they see on holiday, unintegrated people they see in big cities in their own countries, integrated people that they have direct contact with, and today´s Turkish politics.

I see you wat to make parallels between Turks and German!

Germans committed Genocide. There was enough evidence. They were found guilty in an international trial.

No internatioanal trial took place so far for 1915 events and probably never will. Because orthodox Western histories of the declining Ottoman Empire are biased, since they are based on the testimonies of biased observers: Christian missionaries, and officials of (Christian) nations who were at war with the Ottomans during World War I. So there is no sufficient evidence for such a trial.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

İf you don´t strongly deny something, people assume you are guilty.

Empires never lasts forever. But the real history tells the truth forever.

ACCORDING TO THE REAL HISTORY and TURKISH PUBLIC OPINION:

Ottoman Empire (1300-1922) ruled Eastern Europe, Balkans, Southern Africa, Anatolia, Western Asia and Middle East for 400-500 years very peacefully.There is no genocide in the Turkish Culture.

But during World War I, some western countries –Türkiye, Turkish Government, Turkish People  know these countries with a lot of sufficient evidences for  an international trial in the future one day-and others have provoked local nationalities and etnical groups - like Araps, Greeks, Bulgarians, Armanieans, etc - against Ottoman Empire in 1910-18.

In the World War I, Ottoman Empire and its allies Garmany, Austria and Hungary lost the war against other allies in 1918.

Then The Ottoman Empire collapsed.

And the Turks were forced to migrate to Türkiye  from the Balkans and Middle East.

This was a real humanity tragedy.A sad true story.

After World War I, The Otoman Empire People, Turkish People immigrated to Türkiye  like a migrant from the Ottoman Empires provinces to todays Türkiye.

The one of the Ottoman Empire provinces was Greece for 400 years.

This was a very dramatic and tragedic history for every Turkish family. Because of some western countries provoked some ethnical goups-like Greeks, Armenians,  Arabs, etc-  in Balkans, Middle East and Eastern Anatolia in 1915.

The one of these immigrant  families was my ancestors.They immigrated to Türkiye like refugees from Greece and Crete Island.Can you imagine?They were Ottoman Empire Citizens.But they have lost their own lives, their own families, their own houses, their own homelands, their own friends, their own neighbours, their own memories and hopes unfortunately.It was a very sad and tragic story.

After these provocations, some ethnical groups murdered thousands of Turkish old people, Turkish children, Turkish pregnant women unfortunately.This was a humanity  crime.

Historical records, proofs, evidences, photos, historical documents  and Russian and Turkish diaries  tell the tragic truths in details in 1915.

And then these western countries and ethnical groups  wanted to invade Turkish motherland and Balkans and Middle East.

And finally, a new Turkish Government and its Army  won the National Independence War against these western countries and the new Turkish State founded in 1920-1923 instead of Ottoman Empire.

But Türkiye lost Balkans, Aegean Islands, Cyprus, Crete  and Middle East after World War I.

AND After World War II  NATO was founded and Türkiye  became an active member  of this organization.And Türkiye went to  the Korean war  with USA and other NATO allies in 1953.

History, proofs,evidences, photos, historical documents and diaries  tell the historical truths.

The World Historians - Like Justin McCarty, an American Historian, other  Russian and France historians- also   wrote  some books about war crimes. You can find and read their historical books for an international trail.

Ottoman Empire was multinational and multicultural  empire.USA used Ottoman Empire as a model.And Türkiye is also multinational and multicultural country like Ottoman Empire, USA and other countries.

As you know very well there is no pure ethnic country in the world.

And today, according to the Turkish Public Union and Turkish Media

some western countries are still provoking, organizing and financing  some  global and local illegal terrorist organizations and ethnical groups.

The Turkish Government is always complaining these facts for the World Public Union.

The Turkish Governments have also complained these illegalities to the USA - Obama and Hillary Clington - and other western countries with a lot of sufficient legal evidences and proofs for an international trial.

And Turkish Media has informed these news for the World Media and World Public Union for an international trial.

si++, I can´t not speak for all school districts in all states, however I can tell you that where my son goes to school this subject is not discussed. For the most part, World War 1 and the Turkish War of Independance is not even mentioned.  

I feel it is necessary to explain to you that states and school districts are free to teach with whatever text books are approved by individual school boards.  Education is not necessarily driven by the federal government, so if it is being taught in one district that does not mean it is being taught everywhere.  It is important to me personally that you don´t think we are all being indoctrinated to hates Turks.  If that is happening in indivual school districts than it needs to be addressed by parents directly to the school board.   

@yilgun-2010

I agree with every single word in your post, couldn´t express it better.

@barba_mama

Turks might seem to be a little over sensitive but they are not judged by the same standards as Christian Western countries are. Yes, Germany committed Genocide but they were still treated fairly by the Europeans. Out of the 4 occupants (US, UK, France & Russia), only Russia was unwilling to yield the occupied territories back to Germany despite the severe concerns of France, and even Russia finally yielded it back. In Turkey´s case, not only the whole country was occupied and tried to be colonised, but also the territories where the Turks were the majority or the greatest minority, they were forcibly occupied and exposed to ethnic cleansing. Many parts in Balkans, Caucasus (including the Azeri population), and the Northern Iraq (where the Turkmens were the majority). In short, the very existence of the country was in danger.

Also the recognition of a completely one-sided, manipulated and misintrepreted so called genocide is never going to be on the agenda of the heirs of an Empire, who, for the most part, lived peacefully with her subjects. Why not?

a) Confessing something that you never did just isn´t right no matter what the circumstances would be.

b) The main reason why Armenians are so obsessed about this (to the degree that they engaged in many horrible terrorist activities which simply overlooked by the Westerners, including the assassinations of many high level officials and even the Sultan!) is two folds:

i) To keep the Armenian diaspora united against a common Threat in a heroic & nationalistic fashion (so that the Armenian culture will be alive and refreshed).

ii) To get some territorial or more realistically financial compensation from the Turks just like the reparations the State of Israel got from Germany on behalf of the Holocaust survivors.

The major reasons why Europeans support it are,

i) To use it against Turkey for political advantage in Foreign Relations

ii) To use it as a political instrument in their domestic affairs

iii) To balance out the power of Turkey as a regional power hence several smaller and less powerful states are better than one large strong country. This is also the main reason behind the PKK support.

iv) To destabilize the newly emerging regional power both in economic and military terms.

It is sometimes hard to understand the "anti-Turk" sentiment in Europe. Whenever I asked this question to Europeans, they told me their side of the stories where Turks were the vicious occupiers, murderers, barbarians etc. The objective history does not concur with them. Germans or Russians or the French, for example, killed a lot more Europeans than the Ottomans. Serbians, for example, never were able to live peacefully with Bosnians, or Croatians, but instead preferred to kill them brutally. Those regions were relatively much more peaceful in the Ottoman Era.

However, this anti-Turk sentiment might partially be explained by Huntington"s Clash of the Civillizations theory, where Turks were simply aliens or outsiders. As one of my brilliant professors articulated rather crudely, regarding Stalin vs Hitler,

"Hitler was son of b****, he had to be eliminated, and yes Stalin was son of a b**** too, but he was OUR son of a b****."

Just like this, Germans or Russians or the French etc were responsible for the murders of possibly millions of Europeans and in this regard, they were all enemies, but they were enemies of "Europe´s own". Turks, on the ther hand, were not their s.o.b!

As one Western Historian says, "I´d prefer to be a Christian living under Moslem Rule rather than be a Moslem and live under Christian Rule".

thats an amazing paper. i hope the people you sent it to read that again and again and turned deep people in the process

The issue, as I see it, is one of Armenians wanting reparation, not simply recognition.IOW there are  monetary and territorial demands that go with recognition.

Armenian Genocide Reparations

I have not read the complete article referenced above...but it will give you an idea of why it´s such a sticky issue.

There is also the matter of "greater Armenia" ????

There is some discussion going on here recently. For those who have not noticed it, I´ll take the liberty to copy paste some of it here:

Mr.Thunder said:

Those numbers are not so important. Orhanis Pamukyan is not a historian either. He wants to become popular by creating a sensation in the media. His skills as a novelist are also very limited. They gave him that Nobel Prize for the political reasons only. He is full of hot air. There are serious charges of plagiarism against him. In fact they are proven by Historian Murat Bardakçı.

See his article about the plagiarist Orhanis Pamukyan Effendi

http://arama.hurriyet.com.tr/arsivnews.aspx?id=74394


The important point is what had really happened in 1915 and why they (the western powers) heat up this issue.

Armenians were not innocent they commited vile atrocities in Eastern Anatolia. Ethnic cleansing was their only method to become a majority in the East of Turkey in order to be able to establish their "Greater Armenia".

When the Russians invaded Eastern Anatolia in WW I the Armenian militia made ethnic cleansing of civilians. And even the Russian commander complained to his headquarters in Russia about the Armenian barbarism. I read the printed version of his reports taken from the Russian archives. (Russian original documents, with Turkish and english translations in one book published by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

See what a supporter of the Armenians against Turks and an eyewitness to the events wrote then in 1915 !!

click here for Bolhovitinov´s report.

And some excerpts from video from that link:

England intentionally incited Armenians to violence in eastern Anatolia to impede the formation of an alliance between Czarist Russia and the Ottomans that would create a new axis of power.

Russian Brgader General Bolhovitinov 1915

“Armenian volunteer regiments motivated by ethnic hatred vicously massacred Ottoman Muslims”

from Bolhovitinov’s Report

“Before the British induced conflict, Kurds, Turks and Armenians lived together in peace.”

from Bolhovitinov’s Report

“European diplomacy pushed the idea of the formation of an independent Armenia.”

from Bolhovitinov’s Report

“Europe supported rebellion and violence by Armenian guerillas and used Armenian intellectuals to influence public opinion in Europe.”

from Bolhovitinov’s Report

“The Muslim populace was attacked on every front using every means, both under cover of the staged ‘rebellion’ by Armenian guerilla bands and with propaganda.”

from Bolhovitinov’s Report

“Activity by the Armenian guerilla bands took the form of terrorism. This terror was not only directed at Muslims, but also against Armenians who did not support their cause.”

from Bolhovitinov’s Report

“Motivated by racism, Armenian guerilla bands massacred the Muslim population, without regard to age or gender, exterminating entire villages and pillaging all property.”

from Bolhovitinov’s Report