Email a copy of '‘The Ottoman Lieutenant’: Another Denialist ‘Water Diviner’' to a friend
Loading ...
Guest Contributor
Guest contributions to the Armenian Weekly are informative articles or press releases written and submitted by members of the community.
Well my friends since you know so much about the truth tell me why my great grandparents were forced to dig their graves and murdered in front of their 6 years old son (my grandfather) by the Armenian militia during the conflict.He used to cry in his sleep when he was 86.
My great aunt was dressed up as a boy so she will not be hurt by Armenian occupiers in the city of Trabzon. The caught up and raped her then murdered her. This happened in Turkish majority of Anatolia (Turkey) by the Minority Armenians.
If a minority uprises brutally against the majority the results would expect to be a disaster for them unless they win the conflict. This is what happened to Armenians and Greeks. Don’t bellyache it would happen anywhere even now. Yes it was a terrible war and they lost.
Wow..that is terrible and I feel very sorry for your family’s history.Sincerely. No one (at least not me) denies that atrocities happened,as it was an armed conflict.
However the minorities,as you so correctly said,were conquered,occupied people of different faith and ethnicity in their own native land, suffered discrimination for CENTURIES and had already by that point been the target of mulptiple pogroms, all organized and syntonized by the Ottoman Goverment. The interior changed in turkish society already were predicting that the incoming nationalistic uprising would target one way or another the minorities, since turchification was now a goal. So…it wasn’t these evil minorities just dying to be massacred in an unever conflict as you said.
Also,as I said,no one denies the atrocities the other side commited,but this was war. War crimes maybe,but war.Not systematic organized genocide by the government,with the militia’s help and foreign abetting death marchings,labour camps and mass executions. Since you so kindly brought up your personal family experience,how about I tell you about my gret-grandfather’s brothers, their heads cut off,blinded,impaled on a fence in their ruined village? How about the frantic dash out of burning Smyrna of my great-grandmother and her aunt? How about thousand of other deaths,and rapes,and torture and pillage,and the mass trauma of being forced to leave the place your people have lived and survived in for thousands of years?
I know your government refuses to acknowledge all of this,but you have no excuse. You have an Internet connection,read something,search for photos,anything. Hear a survivor talk. The least you can do is acknowledge it. We Greeks,Assyrians and Armenians have been deprived of even this small comfort for too long. Be human.
Don’t forget Australian missionaries took care of many Armenian orphans of which many went to Australia to live and today’s Australian Armenians are descendents of many of these orphans. Turkey cannot white wash the truth of what mostly non-Armenians have witnessed and recorded. Turkey can call Armenians “rebellious” and teach their students in school that Armenians deserved to be killed and were traitors helping Russia or whoever they claim but they have yet to address the mass killings and relocations of other indignant peoples the Assyrians and Greeks who need to start speaking up more.