Korean Job Discussion Forums

mithridates · Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 6:02 am Post subject:

I suppose it has a lot to do with the fact that Armenia is an actual country next to Turkey that is capable of making demands and everything else sovereign countries do, while Native Americans are much more fragmented and so it's pretty easy to just feel sorry while not having to do much about it. Armenia and Azerbaijan (pretty much Turkey's cousin) have the Nagorno-Karabakh problem for example where Armenia moved in in the 90s and now it's one of those unrecognized but de facto republics locked in a frozen conflict.

So I suppose a good analogy might be Noriega and Panama, except pretend that Noriega was the leader of an independent country populated with Native Americans that moved in to take a piece of allied Panama.

caniff · Joined: 03 Feb 2004 Location: All over the map

Rteacher · Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA

It was definitely a genocide - my grandmother was forced to march in the desert and two of her young kids starved to death. She and her surviving son were taken in (at the risk of being severely prosecuted for sheltering Armenians) by a sympathetic Muslim family in Istanbul.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/centers/armenian/source109.html
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/research.html

Some Jews - with a lot more media and political clout in the U.S. - seem to resent it when other ethnic groups claim to also be victims of genocide.

The specifically American tension between the Holocaust as unique to Jews or universal to human suffering became even clearer in 1989, whenAmerican Jews Elie Wiesel, Alan Dershowitz, and Arthur Hertzberg withdrew from a Tel Aviv conference on genocide because the organizers refused to remove a session dealing with the Armenian Case of 1915. Commenting in a letter in The Washington Jewish Week, December 7, 1989, Mark Epstein reflected the views of many others when he wrote that comparing the mass killings in Armenia in 1915 to the Nazi genocide of the Jews threatens to subvert the distinctiveness (he does not say uniqueness) of the Holocaust. While there may have been good reasons to contest the inclusion of the Armenian Case, I think given Epstein's explanation (I do not know whether Wiesel, Dershowitz, and Hertzberg agreed) we can once again see the dilemma of American Jewry's desire to attest to the universalization (and thus the Americanization) of the Holocaust while at the same time wanting to maintain exclusive rights to it as a particular, and exclusive, Jewish tragedy
http://www.jewcy.com/post/american_holocaust_and_american_jewish_dilemma

bucheon bum · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

NovaKart · Joined: 18 Nov 2009 Location: Iraq

Someone on my facebook page posted a video about the Azeri children killed by Armenians during the 1992 war with Azerbaijan. It's from an ultra-nationalist facebook page. It opens with a picture of Ataturk and the Turkish flag (not the Azerbaijani flag) and then plays a song about Azerbaijan while showing pictures of dead kids. The title of the video says "Hepimiz Ermeniyiz diyenler, hepiniz serefsizsiniz" - They say we're all Armenians, you're all without honor - if my translation is correct.

The page it comes from is mostly full of videos about how the Turkish flag is the most beautiful and about martyrs and it has tons of photos of Ataturk and the Turkish flag with slogans about martyrs (soldiers killed by the PKK).

It has another video about the Khojaly Massacre that occurred during the conflict over Karabakh and it says "Bir gun Ermeniler de hesap verecek" - One day the Armenians will be given the bill back.

I hope this just stays confined to Facebook bravado but I think this might increase.

mithridates · Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 10:22 am Post subject:

Rteacher · Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA

These facebook photos are truly shocking (and include some of my relatives...)

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=feed&story_fbid=341704918615&id=743273615#!/group.php?v=photos&ref=nf&gid=2228667310

bucheon bum · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Rteacher · Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA

Well, I try not to overly identify with my material designations, and I think that most young people in the U.S. (and Canada) are more concerned with Keeping Up With the Kardashians than they are with any resolution about the apparent genocide that occurred way before their parents were born.

nautilus · Joined: 26 Nov 2005 Location: Je jump, Tu jump, oui jump!

NovaKart · Joined: 18 Nov 2009 Location: Iraq

I just came across another facebook page, this one is a campaign against having facebook in Kurdish. It's a response to a petition by Kurds using facebook to have facebook in Kurdish. It's by the MHP , Turkey's nationalist party. They have lots of slogans and videos like - ya Turkce konus ya da sus - speak Turkish or be silent. And - Bu vatan bizim - this homeland is ours.

It also has a banner of the Bozkurt - Grey Wolves - a fascist party. The whole thing is blatantly racist. Fortunately it only has about 300 members.

The big difference between the Armenian situation in Turkey and Native Americans is that you can hardly mention Native Americans in America without white Americans acting apologetic about it. It's completely different in Turkey.

bucheon bum · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

caniff · Joined: 03 Feb 2004 Location: All over the map

For whatever it's worth I see your point, BB.

edit: about the apparent Turkish lack of remorse.

mises · Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Location: retired

Captain Crazy is the only one making any sense, yet again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEzHXWAKjUk

Yes. The Ottoman Empire committed genocide. The US Congress passing a talking point about it doesn't help anyone. The Turks and Armenians have to find their own way forward.

Hey, fun story. Dennis Hastert tabled a bill about this in the 90's. That was before he took bags full of money in bribes from the Turks (which the FBI confirmed and even secretly monitored the transaction).

bucheon bum · Joined: 16 Jan 2003