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Germany officially recognizes Armenian genocide, Turkey pulls ambassador

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Madness

Member
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...sh-as-it-votes-to-recognise-armenian-genocide

Turkey has recalled its ambassador from Berlin after German MPs approved a motion describing the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces a century ago as genocide – a decision that the Turkish president said would “seriously affect” relations between the two countries.

The five-page paper, co-written by parliamentarians from the Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Green party, calls for a “commemoration of the genocide of Armenian and other Christian minorities in the years 1915 and 1916”. It passed with support from all the parties in parliament. In a show of hands, there was one abstention and one vote against.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had voted in favour of the resolution during a test vote at a party meeting on Tuesday, but was absent from the actual vote on Thursday, as were the deputy chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, and the minister for foreign affairs, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Gregor Gysi of the Left party described Merkel’s absence as “not very brave”.

_89862316_gerarmeniansturksap.jpg


Pretty brave of Germany especially as they have one of the largest Turkish populations in Europe as well. President Obama called out George W Bush for not calling it a genocide but in his 8 years of office he also abstained from calling it a genocide. Sad that Angela Merkel voted for it in a test vote but when it came time to actually voting her and her deputy chancellor and minister for foreign affairs were too afraid to actually vote. Hopefully the Turks and Erdogan actually reflect on their history more and stop opposing other people rightfully calling a genocide a genocide. But it is crazy how many Turks protested in Berlin against it. These people so ultranationalistic they want to deny their ancestors killed millions of Armenians.
 
It's a lot more difficult for foreign policy representatives, including the Chancellor and foreign ministers, to take a stand because maintaining positive relations with the Turks really is quite important to a lot of foreign policy goals of the EU/NATO/UNSC. Regular lawmakers don't have to care, really.

It's why Obama refuses despite almost certainly agreeing that the genocide should be officially recognized by the U.S., or the Israeli government not formally recognizing the genocide despite several overtures from public figures acknowledging it. It's messed up but it's part of the political game you play if your aim is smoother relations with a tremendously important regional ally.
 

nin1000

Banned
Very glad that it recognized. Sad that Merkel did not show up but in the other hand i did not expect her to door say anything in that regard.
 

TyrantII

Member
Turkey is quickly turning into an asshole of Nations, huh?

I feel bad for their rational citizens. Hopefully the US steers clear of the same political iceberg this Nov.
 

DrArchon

Member
Why is everyone afraid to label it a genocide? What threat does Turkey pose?

There's not many regional allies for Europe and the West in general in the middle east. They're all shitty in their own unique ways so the West takes what it can get.

I still appreciate this move on Germany's part though. Turkey can't just brush history aside and pretend it didn't happen.
 
Long overdue. Denying stuff like that is stupid there is no shame in admitting history, my country started WW1 and gave birth to Hitler. The latter of which we sadly like to pose a victim of instead of an accomplice to.
 

Volimar

Member
I wonder if Merkel's support was due to the recent criticisms she's faced regarding Edrogan. I'd hope not. Still, good for them.
 
Why is it so hard for Turkey to admit the crimes of a former government? What's their motivation for denying it?

For many of the same reasons lots of modern goverments - even relatively liberal, stable ones - are skittish about recognizing the crimes of their past. Nationalism and the sense that recognition would indict the culture rather than just the former government has a lot to do with it. There's also still a huge amount of cultural mistrust (and hatred) for the Armenians. The ongoing conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh with the Azeris, who are Turkic and have tight cultural ties to Turkey, also plays a role, as does the current situation with the Kurds.
 

Jasper

Member
A lot of counties have formally recognized the Armenian genocide (France, Canada, Switzerland, Russia etc.) but what makes this recognition from Germany so damn powerful, is that they have also apologized for their own complacency as they knew exactly what was going on in 1915 (Germany of course being an ally of the Ottoman Empire during WW1).

In fact a lot of the torture tactics and ways to kill a mass number of Armenians in the fastest way - were taught to the Germans by the Turks (who ultimately used those same tactics to commit ethnic cleansing against the jews and other minorities).

I think Germany's recognition (as well as Austria's & Bulgaria's recognition last year) makes Turkey's blood boil more than other countries who have recognized the genocide, because Germany, Austria and Bulgaria have been Turkey's bitches regarding this topic for so long, and now all three former WW1 allies (who were fucking there at the time and saw exactly what was happening with their own eyes) are shouting it out at the rooftops that their indeed was a genocide.

Oh and this...

quote-our-strength-lies-in-our-intensive-attacks-and-our-barbarity-after-all-who-today-remembers-adolf-hitler-91-31-79.jpg
 

jelly

Member
Nice one Germany, can't wait for the response beyond recalling the ambassador. Hope it snowballs into something bigger.
 

Arksy

Member
I still don't understand why Turkey cares so much, it's not like they're going to have to cede territory to the Armenians or pay reparations.
 

Jasper

Member
Oh, grow up Turkey, it's not even you, it's Ottoman Empire.

Yes, but it was Turkey that financially profited from the Armenian Genocide.

The Armenians lost all their wealth and property and received neither compensation nor reparations. Businesses and farms were lost, and all schools, churches, hospitals, orphanages, monasteries, and graveyards were confiscated and became Turkish state property.

There was also a government order that all financial institutions must turn over all Armenian assets to the government (about 6 million Turkish gold pounds were seized along with real property, cash, bank deposits, and jewelry).

But here's where it gets absolutely sickening....

The Turkish Presidential Palace which until recently President Erdogan lived in (as did all past presidents) was owned by the Kassabian family (an Armenian family that were deported/exterminated).

There are more examples including...

* Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport is built on land owned by the Sarian family.

* The Diyarbakir Airport is built on land owned by the Sudjian family.

* The US Air Base is located on land owned by several Armenian families.

That's what makes the Armenian Genocide even more twisted, that the birth of Turkey was partly financially funded through their act of genocide and that there are chunks of land all across Turkey that was stolen by the government (and the Turkish government refuses to turn over stolen land to the ancestors of the victims of the Armenian Genocide - let alone reimburse the money/gold/other assets they pocketed from the Armenians).
 
Some turkish people I talked to are really blind to this topic. They're saying it is all false represented and a huge conspiracy, that is was a normal war.

Good on Germany, finally.
 

Jasper

Member
For those unaware...

The Armenian Genocide was the Ottoman Empire's (now Turkey) government's systematic extermination of its minority Armenian population from the Armenian's historical homeland in the territory that is present day Turkey.

It took place during World War I and was comprised of the killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and forced labor, and the deportation of women, children, the elderly and disabled on death marches to the Syrian Desert.

The total number of Armenians killed as a result of the Armenian Genocide has been estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million.

It is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides, as scholars point to the organized manner in which the killings were carried out to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust. The word "genocide" was created by Raphael Lemkin in order to describe what had happened to the Armenians.

The starting date of the genocide is held to be April 24, 1915, the day when Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles towards extermination camps, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse commonplace.

Examples of forms of torture and murder included mass burnings, mass drownings, mass death marches, and use of poison/drug overdoses for in particular children including morphine overdose, toxic gas, and typhoid inoculation.

Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, denies the word genocide is an accurate description of the events. In recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as genocide. To date, twenty countries including France, Canada, Russia & Switzerland have officially recognized the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars and historians accept that it was indeed a genocide.

You will find below photos of the events of the Armenian Genocide. You may find some photos DISTURBING, but what I have posted below is in fact extremely tame compared to other photos which show Armenians during the genocide being crucified to crosses, beheaded, and babies being dismembered using contraptions to cut them in half.

Note that torture against the Armenians by the Turks during the genocide was prevalent & encouraged by the Ottoman government.

In a New York Times communiqué filed on November 12, 1916, the German Consul at Mosul “had in many places seen such quantities of chopped-off hands of little children that the streets might have been paved with them.” Armenians “had their eyebrows plucked out, their breasts cut off, their nails torn off; their torturers hew off their feet or else hammer nails into them just as they do in shoeing horses.” Citing a witness, Samuel Bartlett of Toronto, the New York Times continued, “the Turks also took all the babies in the town and threw them into the river until it overflowed its banks. They let out the priests, put red-hot iron shoes on their feet, tied them to wagons and forced them to walk long distances.” Summarizing the execution plan of the genocide, Colonel Hawker (New York Times, June 7, 1919) states: “The Turkish plan was to take all the able-bodied men from the community and tie them up. Then they would torture them by cutting their flesh and burning their wounds. Finally, they would cut off their heads in the presence of the wives and children of the victims. The old men, women and children were [then] herded together and driven from place to place.” Ambassador Morgenthau reflects on the perpetrator psychology behind these atrocities that “the basic fact underlying the Turkish mentality is its utter contempt for all other races … [There is] a total disregard for human life and an intense delight in inflicting physical suffering.” Morgenthau concludes soberly that a “fairly insane pride is the element that largely explains [this behavior].

After a review of thousands of pages of accounts, five characteristics of the Armenian genocide stand out:

- Sexual atrocities and bodily mutilation were integral to the genocidal process.

- Turks competed with pride to develop the most diabolical methods of torture (i.e., horseshoeing men; mutilation of ear, nose and eyes; women’s severed breasts and nipples collected for display; stuffing steel wool up a man’s anus and into his penis; progressive dismemberment of victim limbs).

- Intimate tortures and prolonged deaths were the preferred approach.

- Family members were, wherever possible, required to witness atrocities.

Methods of degradation were, wherever possible, designed to maximize perpetrator amusement.


There have been many documentaries and films about the Armenian Genocide, including a PBS documentary narrated by Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom, Jared Leto, and Julianna Margulies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF71ruYqJxM).

crucified-armenian-women-1.jpg


"“Crucified Armenian women in the region of the Der-es-Zor - picture taken by Arab Bedouins who took them back down from the cross”

108.jpg
109.jpg


08.jpg


march.jpg


5a.jpg


10.jpg


img190.jpg



04.jpg


phoca_thumb_l_erzerum%20armenian%20highlands%20in%20eastern%20anatolia.%20burial%20of%20the%20victims%20of%20the%20october%2030%201895%20massacres%20of%20the%20armenians%20during%20the%20region%20of%20sultan%20abdul%20hamid%20ii.jpg


Armenia-genocide-hanging.gif
 
Good! It baffles my mind that some countries still feel like there's any benefit of denying genocide. Most of people who committed it are dead, just own up to it, so there's at least some closure.
 

Machina

Banned
The whole world should publicly do the same. We'll see how long Turkey keep up this moderate Islam charade after that.
 
I still don't understand why Turkey cares so much, it's not like they're going to have to cede territory to the Armenians or pay reparations.

Actually I'm not sure if that isn't exactly what they're afraid of. Suppose the whole thing gets recognized by everyone but Turkey, then what? It's not like statue of limitations applies...
 

Bento

Member
It will be interesting to see how this impacts the EU-Turkey migration deal. Things are already pretty tense and this surely won't help, maybe a few refugees will squeak through the Aegan sea in the upcoming days as a reminder to the EU :p

Good on Germany though for doing this.
 
Yes, but it was Turkey that financially profited from the Armenian Genocide.

The Armenians lost all their wealth and property and received neither compensation nor reparations. Businesses and farms were lost, and all schools, churches, hospitals, orphanages, monasteries, and graveyards were confiscated and became Turkish state property.

There was also a government order that all financial institutions must turn over all Armenian assets to the government (about 6 million Turkish gold pounds were seized along with real property, cash, bank deposits, and jewelry).

But here's where it gets absolutely sickening....

The Turkish Presidential Palace which until recently President Erdogan lived in (as did all past presidents) was owned by the Kassabian family (an Armenian family that were deported/exterminated).

There are more examples including...

* Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport is built on land owned by the Sarian family.

* The Diyarbakir Airport is built on land owned by the Sudjian family.

* The US Air Base is located on land owned by several Armenian families.

That's what makes the Armenian Genocide even more twisted, that the birth of Turkey was partly financially funded through their act of genocide and that there are chunks of land all across Turkey that was stolen by the government (and the Turkish government refuses to turn over stolen land to the ancestors of the victims of the Armenian Genocide - let alone reimburse the money/gold/other assets they pocketed from the Armenians).

Wow. That is all kinds of screwed up.
 
For those interested in which countries recognise the genocide, here's a list: http://www.armenian-genocide.org/recognition_countries.html

1. Argentina
2. Austria
3. Belgium
4. Bolivia
5. Brazil
6. Bulgaria
7. Canada
8. Chile
9. Cyprus
10. France
11. Germany
12. Greece
13. Italy
14. Lebanon
15. Lithuania
16. Luxembourg
17. Netherlands
18. Paraguay
19. Poland
20. Russia
21. Slovakia
22. Sweden
23. Switzerland
24. United States
25. Uruguay
26. Vatican City
27. Venezuela
 

lawnchair

Banned
Actually I'm not sure if that isn't exactly what they're afraid of. Suppose the whole thing gets recognized by everyone but Turkey, then what? It's not like statue of limitations applies...

has any country in modern times ever had to pay out for some atrocity their ancestors commited 100+ years ago? honest question.
 

Jasper

Member
Those pics are horrific. Crucifixion pictures always get to me, awful way to go.

It's actually nothing compared to other photos online including those of Armenian babies being chopped in half (literally cut in half), photos of babies being ripped out of pregnant Armenian women's wombs, chopped off Armenian men's heads sitting on mantle pieces etc..

It was such a barbaric and sadistic genocide that it makes sense why Turks are so afraid to acknowledge what their own ancestors were capable of.
 

Arksy

Member
Maybe fear of reparations, maybe just ignorance.

The fear is unfounded as it's never going to happen. I can guarantee you barely any of the countries who recognise the genocide would actively push for reparations to be paid...even if they did, they'd never be able to actively achieve it outside invading Turkey or applying sanctions...which they won't do.
 
For those interested in which countries recognise the genocide, here's a list: http://www.armenian-genocide.org/recognition_countries.html

1. Argentina
2. Austria
3. Belgium
4. Bolivia
5. Brazil
6. Bulgaria
7. Canada
8. Chile
9. Cyprus
10. France
11. Germany
12. Greece
13. Italy
14. Lebanon
15. Lithuania
16. Luxembourg
17. Netherlands
18. Paraguay
19. Poland
20. Russia
21. Slovakia
22. Sweden
23. Switzerland
24. United States
25. Uruguay
26. Vatican City
27. Venezuela

bunk-the-wire.gif


Just know, when you are beaten, Turkey.

has any country in modern times ever had to pay out for some atrocity their ancestors commited 100+ years ago? honest question.

Austria is paying reparations for the shit we stole from the jews. It was a long process though, which is still not nearly finished.
 
What does Turkey think they are defending by continuing to deny it? They only look ridiculous.

Check out this reddit thread on /r/AskHistorians

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4g8blc/the_armenian_genocide_why_is_the_current/

Goes into a lot of the history surrounding the genocide, why some people argue it shouldn't be called a 'genocide' at all, how the people that committed it/signed off on it were important in the early Turkish Republic, etc.I learned a ton about this event I hadn't heard before.

If you're wondering why so many deleted posts, the sub-reddit in question is very stringent in having all posts and info being sourced with scholarly works. Anything that doesn't make the cut or can't be backed up is eventually deleted even if it is thorough.
 

Madness

Member
Some turkish people I talked to are really blind to this topic. They're saying it is all false represented and a huge conspiracy, that is was a normal war.

Good on Germany, finally.

This is the craziest thing to me. Turkish ultranationalism so strong that even the diaspora around the world want to deny in the face of all evidence that their Turkish/Ottoman ancestors committed these atrocities because it would make them seem less than superior or something.
 

KDR_11k

Member
I find it pathetic how much of a tantrum Turkey throws over this. If they're going to break off diplomatic ties over something like this then it's not worth having those ties with them to begin with.
 

Piecake

Member
I find it pathetic how much of a tantrum Turkey throws over this. If they're going to break off diplomatic ties over something like this then it's not worth having those ties with them to begin with.

What do you expect from a ruler who throws people in jail for hurting his feelings? The dude is pathetic, so it is not surprising at all he does these sorts of petty pathetic actions
 
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