Turk

Armenian story has another side

By Norman Stone, a historian and the author of "World War I: A Short History"
October 16, 2007


All the world knows what the end of an empire looks like: hundreds of thousands of people fleeing down dusty paths, taking what was left of their possessions; crammed refugee trains puffing their way across arid plains; and many, many people dying. For the Ottoman Empire that process began in the Balkans, the Crimea and the Caucasus as Russia and her satellites expanded. Seven million people -- we would now call them Turks -- had to settle in Anatolia, the territory of modern Turkey.

In 1914, when World War I began in earnest, Armenians living in what is now Turkey attempted to set up a national state. Armenians revolted against the Ottoman government, began what we would now call "ethnic cleansing" of the local Turks. Their effort failed and caused the government to deport most Armenians from the area of the revolt for security reasons. Their sufferings en route are well-known.

Today, Armenian interests in America and abroad are well-organized. What keeps them united is the collective memory of their historic grievance. What happened was not in any way their fault, they believe. If the drive to carve out an ethnically pure Armenian state was a failure, they reason, it was only because the Turks exterminated them....


Here is the whole article:


http://www.chicagotribune.com/servic...,2073252.story

reflexblue

In the early ninties I was in Pittsburgh going to a small specialized school. The same time that the Serbs, were "ethnically cleansing" Croatia. There were a couple of people in this school that were friends. One was Serbeian,the other a Croat (their families place of oragin).They used to joke around, play practical jokes on each other etc. Then it really started to turn ugly in the balkins. Theses two started arguing and fighting over what was going on to the point of out right hatred towards each other, just like what was going on in the balkins at the time. So please this is the U.S. leave your hatred in the OLD world don't be bringing it here to the NEW world we have enough crap going on as it is. To be arguing over what happened 100 years ago.

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Turk

That is the point exactly, RB.

This is the issue that our Congress has taken on and maybe you should be telling them what you told me in the above post or to the other posters supporting this move by our congress. This move by the way, has ramifications way beyond what is on the news today on MSM for our country today and in the future.

By the way, I do not believe that any of my posts contain any messages of hate. Quite to the contrary, I am a proponent of research and understanding of what happened in those days, by experts and scholars and I believe if there will ever be a healing process, it needs to be initiated by those two countries and their people and certainly not by our congress slamming an ally because of the political clout of an ethnic lobby.