Talk:Armenian genocide

Denialists?

Shrigley said: Denialist is a fairly well-established term, firmly in line with the consensus among genocide scholars that it did exist, whereas this attempt at a descriptive title is confusing and leads credence to fringe views.

Genocide scholars? You mean Armenian historians, Taner Akcam? I wonder why one side considered better than the other - why would we listen Armenian historians and completely discard what Turkish historians have to say? Seems very biased! After all there are many historians who are not Turkish and write very objective books. But because the Armenian lobby and nationalists don't like this, they are called denialists. This is where Wikipedia becomes a very handy tool for spreading propaganda. And it does.

They don't deny the Armenian Genocide because they ignore evidence, they deny it because of the lack of evidence for it. As any scientist would reject a hypothesis without any supporting evidence. http://www.armeniangenocidedebate.com/what-do-real-historians-and-experts-say

And this: http://www.armeniangenocidedebate.com/turkish-denial

Thats right, a word deny means they are ignorant and don't want to see evidence what was presented to them. In reality, those historians give arguments why they think events were not genocide. They don't DENY, they DİSAGREE - and it's not the same thing. --Ankara Kedisi 10:05, 11 January 2013 (UTC)Ankarakedileri — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ankarakediler (talk • contribs)

Two quotes from Ankarakediler:

1. "They don't deny the Armenian Genocide because they ignore evidence, they deny it because of the lack of evidence for it." Question: What kind of evidence do they lack?

2. "They don't DENY, they DİSAGREE". Question: Which is it, version 1. or version 2. ?

Diranakir (talk) 02:37, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Malizengin (talk) 21:16, 22 May 2013 (UTC) This article has full of 3rd party eyewitnesses to incidents which can be taken as proof to the Armenian genocide (i.e. a report on US newspaper which was reported by a reporter who didn't witness anything but heard the stories from someone) and books with reference to the documents prepared by the states such as UK, France, Russia or Ottoman Empire is taken as genocide denial. Who decides what is denial who is denier and why only reports/rumours supporting genocide claim is taken as facts but not the official documents.

Bodil Biørn

Bodil Biørn has her own page, but is generally unknown. I suggest expanding

> the missionary nurse Bodil Biørn

to

> the Norwegian missionary nurse Bodil Biørn

84.210.46.118 (talk) 13:44, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

What is the genocide ?

How can we describe the genocide ? What is the differences between genocide and massacre ? If the essential criteria is number, USA killed 200.000 people in Japan with atom bomb. Millions people have killed with plane attack which bombed the civilians and military bases without chose the targets by the end WW II in Japan and Berlin. Was it massacre or genocide ? Or just war ? So which situation is different in Armenian case ? The genocide was applied by Hitler and drawn the genocide parameter by it. In history, only one genocide was attempted by Nazis and that's it. If the numbers would significant, history will turn to garbage of genocides. You can not ignore the methodology in history. 1915 case is exactly massacre(even that carried out by Armenians before 1915 in Turkish villages) but don't forget, millions of Armenians send to Egypt by Ottoman and it cant be a method for doing genocide. This case is relatively connected with current political interests and history can not be determined with it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.182.66.250 (talk) 11:43, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Yet again, a contributor has abused the heading feature of this talk page for purely rhetorical purposes. This has made it necessary to present key material which the contributor could have found on his own if he had a genuine interest in the truth.

Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• (a) Killing members of the group;

• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

• (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

• (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Excerpt from an open letter from the International Association of Genocide Scholars to Prime Minister Erdogan, Nov. 3, 2009

We are sending you this amended version of the Open Letter we wrote you in June 2005 to reiterate our objection to your insistence that there be a historical commission, in which Turkey would be involved. Because Turkey has denied the Armenian Genocide for the past nine decades, and currently under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, public affirmation of the genocide is a crime, it would seem impossible for Turkey to be part of a process that would assess whether or not Turkey committed a genocide against the Armenians in 1915.

Outside of your government, there is no doubt about the facts of the Armenian Genocide, therefore our concern is that your demand for a historical commission is political sleight of hand designed to deny those facts. Turkey has, in fact, shown no willingness to accept impartial judgments made by outside commissions. Five years ago, the Turkish members of the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission pulled out of the commission after the arbitrator, the International Center for Transitional Justice, rendered an assessment that the events of 1915 were genocide. Diranakir (talk) 13:05, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Study of the Armenian Genocide section

One paragraph is on a completely different issue. Suggest it be deleted, since it says nothing about the genocide, or whether/how it happened, or the "study of" - it says nothing about any of these, but only about whether the aspirations were "legitimate" and whether these politicadl aspirations might (in the authors views) have done injustice to others in Turkey, etc. This paragraph: "British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, whose 1917 report remains a critical primary source, changed his evaluation later in life, concluding, "These ... Armenian political aspirations had not been legitimate ... Their aspirations did not merely threaten to break up the Turkish Empire; they could not be fulfilled without doing grave injustice to the Turkish people itself".[117]" As noted, this says nothing about the genocide, only about what the author's views are about the "political aspirations" - hence the paragraph should be deleted - at least, deleted from this section on "Study of the..Genocide" Harel (talk) 03:41, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Off-topic thread
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
What is the duties of politicians ? Write History ? Armenian Lobbies are pushing for want to see Turkey on gallows and this process is implementing with politics. Can we sure that we have enough source that Turkey had a genocide crime ? Who decide it ? This is historians duty but please, how many people is working in Turkey to prove it ? What is methodology to prove it ? Turkish historians called a lot of time for a common commission in order to seek it. Anything in history, must be seek in where the case had been occurred with serious arguments. Judgement can not do with superficial assertions. The deportation decide and formal correspondences were published, it isn't look like deportation of Jewish to exterminate camps and correspondences were not about "genocide". Did Ottoman apply the theory of genocide over Armenians ? Where were the ovens, formal decides ? In the middle age, Ottoman killed many of Alawi Turks, give their child to others and deported-separated them because they were rebels. Not just Ottoman, many imperial, state, tribes did it. The genocide theory was developed by Hitler and applied by Nazis. So, the parameters of genocide was determined there, it was the first and only one(for me). Can we say that "USA did genocide in Japan". Three acts committed exactly; a,b and c. We may say Soviets did genocide in Berlin, soviets soldiers killed many German and rape million of German women. I thought, many tribe in history acted those five criteria exactly, they killed, took child... Is there any historical document which was wrote by Ottoman's officials about consume the "Armenian Race". Did they know the what is mean "genocide" ? This must be seek by historians, with a serious methodology in "where the case occurred". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.182.64.133 (talk) 20:04, 1 April 2013 (UTC) This is not a forum for discussing such things; it is a talk page for discussing matters explicitly related to developing and maintaining the associated article. If you have specific suggestions for improving the article, that's fine. Please see Wikipedia's talk page guidelines, as well as this policy, for more information. Rivertorch (talk) 21:34, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Too many red links

Now there are far too many red links in this article, compared to its importance and classification. Can somebody neutral remove them or create articles? Bearian (talk) 14:20, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

This article is a pretty big one, and besides, it only has 15 or so redlinks (which is a small number in proportion). Red links may become blue links in the future, anyway, so I'd suggest leaving them as is. Epicgenius^{(talk to me • see my contributions)} 12:13, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Consensus about article

From my experience in last 3 days, current practice about editing this article is Nothing goes to this article unless it supports Armenian Genocide

This article is about controversial historical topic. But current article on wikipedia only contains historical view in support of Armenian Genocide, and any reference to any official document, to any book is removed by act of vandalism by different users. For example,

1. I have entered an excerpt from a official British document written in 1860 written by British consul to Ottoman Empire. That was removed by Chauahuasachca, Epicgenius, Proudbolsahye with different reasons, some of the reasons given is

• Horrible English: Interesting that British consul's report has horrible English, therefore this is just mere excuse to remove.
• Excessive material : this is very vague reason. What we are talking about here is an official document of British Empire of that time and related to article.

I believe users here should agree on basic principles such as references to real documents (no matter what your personal view is on the subject.) As long as a document gives some more information on the article, even if the content of the document doesn't support your personal view on the subject.

Currently, there are references to websites which express personal views with no reference to books/documents. On the other hand, references to real documents are removed constantly only because it doesn't reflect the personal views of some users.

I would suggest that users not to remove references to the documents/books without prior discussion on talk page.

and would appreciate comments of Chauahuasachca, Epicgenius, and Proudbolsahye on the subject. Malizengin (talk) 05:35, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

From my point of view I think that the article should contain only information related to the Armenian Genocide, whether it is supportive of the genocide or not. The article shouldn't be biased anyway, it needs to have a neutral point of view. Epicgenius^{(talk to me • see my contributions)} 12:07, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

• Yes the article does present information on the Armenian Genocide and only the Armenian Genocide. This article presents the Genocide as a fact and not a debate which needs to incorporate various different POV's. Denialist literature and POV's can all go to the Armenian Genocide denial page and add their additions there (although there are limitations to that as well). Trying to incorporate every view point, whether it be Kurdish, Turkish, Russian, and etc. will make this article utterly confusing and unnecessarily large, let alone the fact that it is not considered a debate in observance of the general consensus of Wikipedia regarding the subject. Hence, it is for this reason there are two articles.

When it comes to these additions, I have already mentioned on my TP that the section describing the lives of Armenians throughout the Ottoman Empire is reserved for only the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. This does not mean that their lives should be comparatively analyzed with their Muslim neighbors and etc. Basically, the section must remain WP:RELEVANT. These additions are far from that. One source, which is nothing but a speech of a Senator from a British Parliamentary debate in the House of Commons, does not even mention a word of Armenians and thus describes the rights of all Christians in comparison to Muslims in a rather broad tone, which is a far cry from the mere intent of the section as describing solely lives of Armenians. The information within the Austin Henry Layard addition Malizengin tried to add is something that is already discussed with detail and examples in the preceding paragraph: "With the exception of the empire's urban centers and the extremely wealthy, Constantinople-based Amira class, a social elite whose members included the Duzians (Directors of the Imperial Mint), the Balyans (Chief Imperial Architects) and the Dadians (Superintendent of the Gunpowder Mills and manager of industrial factories), most Armenians..."

Malizengin has tried to pinpoint that the sentence "There, the Armenians were subject to the whims of their Turkish and Kurdish neighbors, who would regularly overtax them..." is also a comparative statement on my TP. This is far from the case. This statement describes what Armenians were subjected to. It does not mention in anyway that Armenians were worse or better than the Turks or Kurds in that regard. Proudbolsahye (talk) 17:45, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Why is there no mention of Kemal Ataturk?

I find it highly distressing that no mention is made of Kemal Ataturk's part leading the Turkish forces during the genocide. http://www.armenian-genocide.org/kemal.htmlTerabiel (talk) 08:37, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Harper's statistical gazetteer

This is irrelevant, also the statistic does not include all Turkish Armenia and furthermore the population provided include the whole population not only Armenians: including a great variety of tribes & races. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JediXmaster (talk • contribs) 05:26, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Remove Bodil Biørn section?

I don't understand why Bodil Biørn stands out above the rest of the witnesses to the Armenian Genocide. I think its misleading to have just one of these witnesses talked about. I propose removing the section or make a new section which highlights many different witnesses and their rules in the Genocide. Proudbolsahye (talk) 08:50, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Racial Vilification

Most European governments are more than happy to demonize the Turkish people and this publication is proof of that.

To publish something as though it were fact with references to just one side of the story is completely biased.

The fact that European governments often demonize the Turkish people makes Turkey an "easy target". The Turkish people will never agree to false hypothesis and unproven hypothesis, and nor should they. To make a substantial claim you need substantial proof. The fact that many people died, including Turkish people, is not proof of genocide. Genocide is about "intent", it is about a planned murder of an ethnic group. When the Ottomans marched the Armenians out of Turkey it was not their intent for people to die. The genocide of the Jewish people is an example of intent. The Jewish people were put to death for no other reason than their ethnicity and their is plenty of evidence to support this.

The Armenians were not put to death with any form of intent based on ethnicity. Turkish historians show that massacres were perpetrated by Turkish Armenian terrorists against Turkish villages that did not contain Turkish Armenians; and that the Ottomans responded in kind; and of course they would. Would any state today not respond to terrorists?

So why is the Turkish historical view of these sad and tragic events being ignored?

If other governments want Turkey to acknowledge the so-called Armenian genocide then let them show "intent" and let them provide the evidence.

The idea that the Turks are evil and woke up one morning and decided to turn against one of its own ethnic groups after living peacefully for a 1,000 years is ludicrous. Why would they? Ottoman rule has always been secular and protective of ethnic groups, there is plenty of evidence of this.

And when we say "Ottomans" and "Turks", who do we really mean? When the Ottoman empire was established 1,000 years ago ALL ethnic groups became "Ottoman". And the Turkish language became the national language and the traditional language. The so-called original Ottoman tribes were themselves a mixture of ethnic groups from the many Turkic countries. When they arrived in Anatolia they mixed with all the other Anatolian ethnic groups. So there is absolutely no such thing as a "pure Turk" or a "pure Ottoman". Any DNA analysis will show the people of Turkey have mixed DNA, that is mostly Eastern European.

So the Turkish Armenians were and are as Turkish as anyone else in Turkey and always have been. And although the national language is Turkish, all in Turkey have mixed DNA, just like all human beings have mixed DNA. And science has proved there is no such thing as a "pure race". We all belong to the homo sapiens species, we all descended from an Ape, and we all have mixed DNA. So get over it. All Turks originate from different ethnic groups and contain mixed DNA, because they are part of the human species.

Now because the Turkish people are formed from many ethnic groups, just like any other "country" in the world, everyone in Turkey is as Turkish as anyone else. In fact, you could say the Turkish Armenian and Turkish Kurds are natives of Turkey in that they have lived in Anatolia longer than any other Turkish ethnic groups.

So why the hell would the Ottomans of the day turn against their own people; albeit a particular Turkish ethnic group?

It would be better to ask why a Turkish ethnic group would turn against their own people? Enter religion and sub cultures. Enter self determination. Enter separatism. Enter racism.

If a "state" or "country" is composed by many ethnic groups, you choose to be either a nationalist, in which case ethnicity does not matter (and it should not matter), or you choose to be a separatist based on your ethnicity. The latter is trouble, because no state or country wants to weaken its economy by subdividing into separate countries based on ethnicity. If this becomes the norm many big countries would become unsustainable smaller counties in an economic context.

The point here is that all countries have to deal with ethnic groups and separatist desires. Most modern countries today support multiculturalism and this works very well. The Ottomans supported a very basic form multiculturalism through their legal system, though it was far from perfect.

So until other governments stop vilifying Turkey, the so-called genocide of the Armenian people will never be proved true or false.

As we all, in theory, should only settle for the truth, whether we like it or not, the good people of Armenia should work with the good people of Turkey to determine and agree the facts.

There is no denying many people died, including non Armenian Turks. No one would deny that. No one would deny the Ottomans were at war and being invaded by Russia, the expansionist Empire of the time. Many, many Turks died in history defending their land.

You cannot force Turkey to accept something where its own historians cannot see the facts. It is time for the people of Turkey and Armenia to work together and see what facts can be agreed. We will only have progress when the facts are mutually agreed by both sides. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Howartthou (talk • contribs) 00:58, 23 July 2013 (UTC)