The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Re: On Genocide Claims

Re: On Genocide Claims
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Friday, September 24 2010, 14:51:00 (UTC)
from *** - *** - Windows NT - Internet Explorer
Website:
Website title:

Tiglath wrote:
>I agree that the definition of genocide may not be ideal but it was defined by Lapinski after WW2.

...yes, and not in 1918...in 1918 no one thought of genocide because what happened in Turkey could be described by any number of words or phrases in existence...what the Nazis did required an entirely new word...and to go back in history when something didnīt apply and had even ben thought of, and use a word from the future from a time when it was invented, is poor form if nothing else....it shows too much zeal and not any sort of desire to be "correct".

...one of the things glaringly absent from any of your posts, or any of the genocide-claimer sites is an honest account of the numbers of innocent Muslims killed by Aremnian gangs prior to the war and all through it...this data is conspicuously lacking from your side so that if you want us to believe that it is shock and awe at ANY mass murder of the innocent, you should not emulate our assyrians who never want to talk about those Christians killed by Christians , or those Muslims killed by Christians but ONLY about Christians killed by Muslims...is your interest in justice and fair play or condemning one side only?
>
>The roots of genocide in my opinion ar a result of the industrial revolution and the wave of nationalism and later imperialism it unleashed originaly in Europe and later in the Middle East.

...that may well be the root cause of the industrialized scale and efficiency of this particular pogrom, so awful it deserved its own name...but the root cause of any and all pogroms was Christian hatred of Jews stoked by 1500 years of church teaching and preaching...had the First Crusaders the macinery and trains and chemical engineers to implement the Final Solution 1000 years ago, instead of swords and ropes, I have no doubt they would have used every gas chamber and oven at their disposal...what makes the Holocaust THE Holocaust and what gave birth to the term genocide is NOT the hunting down and killing of Jews....it was the advanced MACHINERY and technology that made this particular pogrom so devastating and unprecedented and whatīs more, it was the government-directed and implemnted and STATED INTENT to do away with an entire group that was also somehting new...past poigroms, and riots among Muslims and Christians, had been mob violence getting out of hand, most often condemned by officials...but this was not the case in Germany...there the government stated this objective well before there was any war...the exact OPPOSITE conditions existed in the Ottoma Empire...something you have still not addressed.
>
>This was not because Christians were bad and Muslism are good. The entire world order was changing. The industrial nationalised Empires of Europe went up against the Feudalistic "millet" pre-industrial Ottoman empire.

...yes but Turks had no reason to turn on their own citizens of a different faith and ethnicity when they had done so for hundreds of years but had, by contrast defended and protected their rights to their own identity...what changed all that was NOT mere industrialism, the Turks in 1918 were hardly an industrialized country or in any way part of the Industrial Revolution...it wasnīt industry that changed things for the Turks..it was indeed the growth of industry that caused the Euros to want oil...steam would no longer do and electricity was far off...you can say the industrial imperative forced the Euros to want Turkish oil fields...but that did not brging about a Holocaust or even genocide..it brought war and internal treason which led to defense and retaliation...as it would have in ANY country on earth.
>
>And in their transition from feudalistic Ottomans to nationalistic Young Turks they were forced to follow the homogenised one nation, one culture and one religion practised by the Europeans like their German ally who provided them with advice on propaganda.

...that still leaves us with the conclusion that it was Christian nations who "forced" the Turkīs hand...and forced it in such a way as ANY nation would have reacted to a fifth column. Had the Christians not forcedthe Turks to "adapt" to the mechanization and inductrialization that Euros were forcing on their own people, the Turks would have gone on blissfully un-industrialized and able to afford to leave their minorities to govern themselves and keep their identities...

...you are in the position of explaining, and thereby defending, the man who says he was forced to rape a woman... "forced" either by her short dress or by his genetic structure, or by the industrialzation of society and the proximity of petroleum to her genitals, and also the death of feudalism etc...I am trying to explain that if the woman did scratch his eyes out, even though she was raped in the end anyway, that she should not be charged with "genocide" for fighting back...however much we may decry the gouging out of eyes, and despite the fact that gouging out eyes is an internationally recognized Crime Against Humanity's eyeballs.
>
>This forced them to purify their empire by the deportation and massacre of its non Turkish and non Christian citizens.

...they did not ever try to "purify their empire"...they hardly had control of any but the central homeland and even there we hear of no pogroms or forced marches or camps in the major cities.
>
>The process began with th Assyrians, Armenians, Greeks and continued with the Yezidi, Shabaks, Maronites and even Jews who were victims of deportation and in some cases massacres.

...evidence please...you present enough of it when any of it exists but get sloppy and imprecise where it doesnīt, though you present both cases as if there was evidence for every claim you make.
>
>After WW1 it continued with other minorities such as the Kurds who continue to struggle for recognition right up to this very day.

...as did African Americans in America and still do to this day....as do the Basques in Spain and the Irish Catholics in Ireland...and your point is what? That people all over the world are struggling? How does this prove a genocide? Genocide is a specific act and must remain so or else it means nothing...
>
>Here's a famous poem from Khalil Gibran writing about Lebanon during the Turlish blockade and massacres that took place:

,,,whoa there. As Dr Joseph points pout so eloquently...what assyrians complain of as being hatred of their religion by Muslims was in reality the effect of feudalism which ALL Turks of the lower classes had to contend with...the effendis and beys of which Gibrancompolained were equally as nasty to their Muslim subjects. This is the result of feudalism and not hatred of Christianity.
>
>
>
>Dead Are My People
>
>BY Khalil Gibran
>
>
>Dead are my people, gone are my people, but I exist yet, lamenting them in my solitude. Dead are my friends, and in their death my life is naught but great disaster. The knolls of my country are submerged by tears and blood, for my people and my beloved are gone, and I am here living as I did when my people and my beloved were enjoying life and the bounty of life, and when the hills of my country were blessed and engulfed by the light of the sun.
>
>My people died from hunger, and he who did not perish from starvation was butchered with the sword; and I am here in this distant land, roaming amongst a joyful people who sleep upon soft beds, and smile at the days while the days smile upon them.
>
>My people died a painful and shameful death, and here am I living in plenty and in peace. This is deep tragedy ever enacted upon the stage of my heart; few would care to witness this drama, for my people are as birds with broken wings, left behind the flock.
>
>If I were hungry and living amid my famished people, and persecuted among my oppressed countrymen, the burden of the black days would be lighter upon my restless dreams, and the obscurity of the night would be less dark before my hollow eyes and my crying heart and my wounded soul. For he who shares with his people their sorrow and agony will feel a supreme comfort created only by suffering in sacrifice. And he will be at peace with himself when he dies innocent with his fellow innocents.
>
>But I am not living with my hungry and persecuted people who are walking in the procession of death toward martyrdom. I am here beyond the broad seas living in the shadow of tranquillity, and in the sunshine of peace. I am afar from the pitiful arena and the distressed, and cannot be proud of ought, not even of my own tears.
>
>What can an exiled son do for his starving people, and of what value unto them is the lamentation of an absent poet?
>
>Were I an ear of corn grown in the earth of my country, the hungry child would pluck me and remove with my kernels the hand of Death form his soul. Were I a ripe fruit in the gardens of my country, the starving women would gather me and sustain life. Were I a bird flying the sky of my country, my hungry brother would hunt me and remove with the flesh of my body the shadow of the grave from his body. But, alas! I am not an ear of corn grown in the plains of Syria, nor a ripe fruit in the valleys of Lebanon; this is my disaster, and this is my mute calamity which brings humiliation before my soul and before the phantoms of the night. This is the painful tragedy which tightens my tongue and pinions my arms and arrests me usurped of power and of will and of action. This is the curse burned upon my forehead before God and man.
>
>And oftentimes they say unto me, the disaster of your country is but naught to calamity of the world, and the tears and blood shed by your people are as nothing to the rivers of blood and tears pouring each day and night in the valleys and plains of the earth."
>
>Yes, but the death of my people is a silent accusation; it is a crime conceived by the heads of the unseen serpents. it is a sceneless tragedy. And if my people had attacked the despots and oppressors and died rebels, I would have said, "Dying for freedom is nobler than living in the shadow of weak submission, for he who embraces death with the sword of Truth in his hand will eternalize with the Eternity of Truth, for Life is weaker than Death and Death is weaker than Truth.
>
>If my nation had partaken in the war of all nations and had died in the field of battle, I would say that the raging tempest had broken with its might the green branches; and strong death under the canopy of the tempest is nobler than slow perishment in the arms of senility. But there was no rescue from the closing jaws. My people dropped and wept with the crying angels.
>
>If an earthquake had torn my country asunder and the earth had engulfed my people into its bosom, I would have said, "A great and mysterious law has been moved by the will of divine force, and it would be pure madness if we frail mortals endeavoured to probe its deep secrets." But my people did not die as rebels; they were not killed in the field of battle; nor did the earthquake shatter my country and subdue them. Death was their only rescuer, and starvation their only spoils.
>
>My people died on the cross. They died while their hands stretched toward the East and West, while the remnants of their eyes stared at the blackness of the firmament. They died silently, for humanity had closed its ears to their cry. They died because they did not befriend their enemy. They died because they loved their neighbours. They died because they placed trust in all humanity. They died because they did not oppress the oppressors. They died because they were the crushed flowers, and not the crushing feet. They died because they were peace makers. They perished from hunger in a land rich with milk and honey. They died because monsters of hell arose and destroyed all that their fields grew, and devoured the last provisions in their bins. They died because the vipers and sons of vipers spat out poison into the space where the Holy Cedars and the roses and the jasmine breathe their fragrance.
>
>My people and your people, my Syrian Brothers, are dead. What can be done for those who are dying? Our lamentations will not satisfy their hunger, and our tears will not quench their thirst; what can we do to save them between the iron paws of hunger? My brother, the kindness which compels you to give a part of your life to any human who is in the shadow of losing his life is the only virtue which makes you worthy of the light of day and the peace of the night. Remember, my brother, that the coin which you drop into the withered hand stretching toward you is the only golden chain that binds your rich heart to the loving heart of God.


...nice poem. But what does it have to do with the central theme of this entire discussion? In the first place Gibran wrote this poem after the 17th century (and after the unprovoked attack by a coalition of Christian nations) when the first incursions by Christian armies began...a time when local Chriustians first began their history of treason on behalf of invading Christian armies which they continue to this day, that is 300 years of treasonous actitivity well-documented and STILL they have churches in those countries and Christians continue to live in peace...I marvel that this doesnīt arous in you the same condemnation and acceptance of the consequences that would happen if Iraq attacked Auatralia, starved its children to death through illegal sanctions and war and Australia had to endure rebellion by its Iraqi citizens who joined forces and actively fought alongside thier attacking Iraqi brothers and sister....do you mean to tell me you would condemn Australia for retaliating against its traitorous suibjects? Would we ever be having this discussion in the first place if Muslim countries had made a habit of attacking Christian nations and encouraging the Muslims citizens of those nations to rise up and defeat the followers of the DEVIL Jesus?

Letīs stick to the point...there are Muslim poems and prayers of sorrow and desolation too.

The point is; was what Turkey did, actually did as can be proven by fact, a genocide by the BEST definition of that word? I say the best defintion because it is in everybodyīs interest to keep that wordīs origibal meaning so that we donīt have to invent an entirely new one some day when Christians have invented something even worse..letīs keep genocide meaning what it did when it was coined which was not JUST "doing bad thing to people"...but doing very bad, unheard of things by a GOVERNMENT as part of its INTENT and STATED purpose. Thatīs the heart and soul of genocide...thatīs what we have to keep clear in front of us...we have plenty of words to describe "horrible things"...but done by government against minorities to the extent the very advanced and civilized Germans did? No.

Another point to remember, if all you say of the Turks is true...if theyw were as bloody and savage etc. then, for one, we would have expected the term genocide to have been invented to describe their actions...also, we would not, and should not be so "shocked" that they did such a terrible thing...after all "what ELSE would you expect" etc. But...that highly civilized Germans,the people of Goethe and Beethoven and on and on should have been the ones to invent this practise, is very definitely shocking...in the extreme. So letīs keep an extreme word exclusively for an extreme act by an equally extrememly UNLIKELY entity....so we can have it around to describe only such similar acts, by those we NEVER suspect would do such a thing.



---------------------


The full topic:



***



Powered by RedKernel V.S. Forum 1.2.b9