The Amermenian Genocide and Historical Revisionism

[Sethomas]

So, at Chicago one of my good friends was half-Armenian, and with his matrilineal half being Polish he decided he'd be big into his weird wishes-it-were-Greek heritage. Another friend and I would make fun of him by calling him a Turk, especially after he discovered that the Turkish Students Organization on campus existed, as he described, solely to deny the existence of the Armenian holocaust. My guess was that he'd read one article by some moron who happened to be in the Turkish circle-jerk, but years later on facebook I noticed something odd.

Then, I noticed that someone on campus had started a "campaign issue" called "Improve Turkish-American Relations, DON'T Recognize The Armenian 'Genocide'". Curious, I found that there are several groups and campaign issues on the global facebook level dedicated to and against the same thing. Naturally, every such thing had some indication that the administrators and/or members were mostly of Turkish origin.

Now, there is a great deal of argument in historical circles over how many people died of Turkish aggression against the Armenian people. These arguments DO NOT fall along the lines of "was it genocide?", but rather "was it only 500,000 or over a million people that died?" To deny that it actually happened and was worthy of the label "genocide" is just historical revisionism and very much on par with Holocaust denial.

I fail to see how recognizing the fact of the Armenian Genocide can in any way hurt Turkish-American relations. That's like saying that belief in the Jewish Holocaust is anti-German. I've seen a great deal of revisionism happen as of late, especially in regards to slandering religion with exaggerated claims of what the Crusades did and were. Such revisionism happens often when people take a very grey subject and turn it into a binary system of good and evil. That people can even attempt as much with the Armenian Genocide is just disgusting. Case in point, nobody is saying that Turkey should be sanctioned for what it did almost a century ago. What these revisionists are saying is that for some reason that doesn't seem to extend beyond egoism, the grey subject of "what happened to the Armenians in the early 20th Century?" should be answered with "Nothing, really".

[Zhukov]

OMG! Revisionists that deny the ukranian famine or the russian pogroms! You're a revisionist! No, you are! It's enough to drive you insane! If it wasn't so sad.

[Abcdxxxx]

this is actually a huge problem with turks, who truly and passionately believe the armenian genocide is all fiction meant to tarnish their rep for political means. there is a generation there who will argue this without any intention of revising history or denying it - but that's exactly what they're doing. they're not a bunch of geggy's either.

with darfur only now being considered seriously, i think it's pretty stupid to make light of how a "revitionism" climate can be an enabler. this is why it's books promoting this style of denial are deemed illegal in certain parts of the world.

[kahljorn]

I don't understand why people have to lie about the past-- especially one that doesn't even effect them anymore. Obviously they must have some personal, egoist correlation with their nationalism that causes them to be ashamed of it and try to justify it lest it weaken their sense of self.