A (good) philosopher ought to tell the truth, a (good) politician, how to sell it. Maybe Obama is acting behind the scene to persuade Turkey to recognize the Armenian Genocide (hope springs, eternal!) The Wall Street Journal talked only of “Armenian Slaughter” (not “Genocide”) on its front page’s cover story with a picture of the French and Russian presidents, commemorating the Holocaust in Armenia. The New York Times, apparently friendlier to mass-murder, completely ignored the Armenian Genocide. Not just that, but the Times’ front page article, instead, celebrated the success of Obama’s drone campaign. Eerie. I guess the meta-idea is that it’s OK to kill civilians when pursuing a higher purpose.
So Times says: holocausts not important, while assassination by CIA drones works splendidly. That is emotionally clear.
[Cilicia used to be known as “Little Armenia”. Historically, the ancient Armenian empire joined both Cilicia and Armenia proper in one ensemble.]
As long as it does not recognize what happened, Turkey is a genocidal country. This means that today’s Turkish state is an accomplice of its direct predecessor of 1915. At the very least, Turkish gendarmes cordoned off Armenians in 1915, so that they could be massacred in peace.
Turkey is still engaging in genocidal policies, and not just against the Kurds. Turkey has been facilitating Daesh (“Islamist State”) and other Islamists.
The dismantlement of Turkey had been decided by the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920). That was one of the treaties to dismantle the Central Fascist Empires which had attacked the entire world in 1914. In a similar vein, in 2014, Daesh, the “Islamist State”, declared war against the entire world and its inheritance.
Turkey got only partly dismantled: the “Young Turks’”army resisted the Franco-Greco-Armenian military assault. It helped that Armenia had been so enormously genocidized before (one cannot have an army when one’s population has been halved, or more).
Genocides Amplify, and Propagate:
Within three months of the Armenian Genocide, German Consuls in Turkey had unanimously officially declared to their government that the government of Turkey had decided the total eradication of Armenian population in Turkey.
Joachim Gauk, the German president just admitted, not just that there was a genocide, but that German officers took part in planning and executing the Holocaust (confirming what I wrote in a simultaneous essay; the next day, overwhelmingly, the German Parliament recognized the Armenian Genocide). Clearly, as I said, for years, World War One was the inception of Nazism. That’s when Hitler and company learned their ethics. The ethics of genocide.
If enough countries recognize the Armenian Genocide, it will have consequences for Turkey. This is why Obama’s cowardly behavior is unforgivable. Humanity has to learn to look at genocides, past and future, in the eye.
Personally, I am for the partial dismantlement of Turkey. Without calling for the full restitution of historical Armenian, part of it ought to be returned. I have met young “Turks” who were livid that their children had to convert to Islam, and deny their cultural heritage. (They are now living in the USA, driving taxis, wondering how to handle their Islamized children.)
Another piece of Turkey ought to go to the Kurds. There are precedent: Singapore separating from Malaysia, Timor from Indonesia, South Sudan from North Sudan.
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Charles The Evil Ruler:
Prince Charles and one of his sons went to pay their respect to Erdogan, the ruler of Turkey, on the very same day as the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Holocaust was commemorated. There they were, saluting crisply Erdogan. One must admit that the evil Charles and his evil son wear grand uniforms.
But why the official denial that the Armenian genocide happened?
Everybody knows that Erdogan moved the Gallipoli victory celebration to the same day, as the beginning of the Armenian genocide.
Gallipoli was also a defeat of France, Britain, Australia and New Zealand against the evil regime in Ankara allied to the evil, world war mongering regime in Berlin.
Are the evil Charles and his evil son going to put grand uniforms next and briskly salute the commemoration of the defeat of the British Army at Toulon in 1793, at the hands of Napoleon? Hey, that was another bloody defeat! (Which launched Napoleon’s ill-fated career.)
The behaviors of the leaders of Great Britain and the USA shows that they value their power over the present Turkish government, more than the empire of goodness. Not by coincidence, the USA has been the greatest obstacle to fixing the CO2 problem. Not by coincidence, the USA was built on genocides and related cover-ups, as I related in Quake In Nepal, Or Why Exploitation Does Not Help Natives.
However, for goodness to rule, it has to be coherent. If one ignores Turkey for a holocaust, one may as well ignore North Korea, say, for planned nuclear blackmail, the threat of a nuclear holocaust. And this is exactly what is happening.
Patrice Ayme
