Ottoman Genocides Against Christians

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An estimated 2.5 million - 3 million Christians were killed under the Ottoman Empire from the years of 1915-1922 in four separate genocides (Armenian, Assyrian, Greek, and Maronite). Why are the events almost completely forgotten and rarely taught? Is it because it’s an example of Islamic aggression towards another religion?
 
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It’s still a hotly contested item.

I personally believe it was genocide, as does the Holy Father. 47 US States individually accept that it was a genocide — however, the Governments of the UK, the US (at the Federal level), and Israel have not officially accepted that it was a genocide - IMO, mostly out of political expediency and not wanting to rock the boat with Turkey, which is a key nation in the Middle East, and it is very strategically important for the West.

Pope Francis described it as the “First genocide of the XX century”, causing a diplomatic row with Turkey. The bishop of Rome defended his pronouncement by saying it was his duty to honour the memory of the innocent men, women and children who were “senselessly” murdered by Ottoman Turks 100 years before he became Pontiff. He also called on all heads of state and international organizations to recognize “the truth of what transpired and oppose such crimes without ceding to ambiguity or compromise.”[210] In a resolution, the European Parliament commended the statement pronounced by the Pope and encouraged Turkey to recognise the genocide and so pave the way for a “genuine reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian peoples”.[211]
 
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I don’t think the current cant on “Islam being a religion of peace” has anything at all to do with it. I believe it has more to do with historic myopia of western society where things that happened in the Middle East, Asia, Africa were simply not terribly important to anyone except the locals. The British, Americans, French et al., simply haven’t cared.

With the internet and globalization these and other atrocities in 3rd world and non-“western” areas have become better and more widely known. Complicate it with Turkey now being an important ally and a member of NATO - as well as the distance of time - and there is political fallout from reminding folks of such things.

That’s my opinion…
 
Not challenging your assertion, but what events are you thinking of? I’m curious.
 
thephilosopher6 said:
An estimated 2.5 million - 3 million Christians were killed under the Ottoman Empire from the years of 1915-1922 in four separate genocides (Armenian, Assyrian, Greek, and Maronite). Why are the events almost completely forgotten and rarely taught? Is it because it’s an example of Islamic aggression towards another religion?
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@thephilosopher6 Barev!

The genocide didn’t stop in 1922, it continued into the 1930’s during the Kemalist leadership in Turkey. There were plenty of eyewitness, including photos and documentation to prove that the Ottoman Empire where guilty of genocide, this occurred in Operation Nemesis. They were trailed and found guilty of mass massacres, war crimes how ever this was silenced in 1918 when the nationalist seized power.

I understand that the Armenian Genocide is being taught in some states in the USA. Remember thought that the Jewish genocide was largely ignored by global communities. Today, with some counties ot is more around taking economic value over moral values.
 
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My mother and grandparents survived the genocide, they fled from Smyrna (now called Izmir in Turkey) when it was burnt to the ground. They were refugees for almost twenty years, then came to Britain during WW2.
 
In the United States, that entire era of history including the whole history of the Ottoman Empire is rarely taught. The US tends to teach history from the perspective of US involvement, so the event taught for that era, to the extent it’s taught at all, is the US involvement in World War I. But let’s just say that if I had to rely on US schools for my knowledge of history in general, especially any world history outside the USA, I would know very little. I don’t think it’s a conscious effort to cover up so much as it is incompetence in teaching history in general. I’m quite sure most students could not even find Turkey on a map, much less know it once had an empire.

Having said that, I think most educated Americans are aware of the Armenian genocide and possibly that there was a Greek genocide also. There are many emigrants to USA who passed along knowledge of this, and a few fiction and non-fiction bestsellers that discussed it.
 
Part of the reason why Turkey strongly resists the formal adoption of the term “genocide” in connection with those massacres is its fear that, under international law, it might be required to pay compensation to the victims’ present-day descendants.
 
There’s a lot of awareness of the Armenian Genocide, largely because of the American heavy metal band System of a Down, which is made up of people of Armenian descent. Keep in mind, that during the Armenian Genocide, that it wasn’t just Armenian Apostolic Christians that were killed, there are also many Catholic Christians that belonged to the Armenian Catholic Church that were killed. I find it really interesting, that there are a lot of Armenian Catholics in Lebanon. This is largely where they fled to. As for the other groups, I’m not sure why not much is taught about it. Greeks were killed, Assyrians were killed, and Armenians too. The Turkish government admits something happened, however, they will claim it’s completely justifiable, and they won’t call it genocide.
 
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BartholomewB said:
Part of the reason why Turkey strongly resists the formal adoption of the term “genocide” in connection with those massacres is its fear that, under international law, it might be required to pay compensation to the victims’ present-day descendants.
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Is there any country that steps up to the plate and says “Yeah, we committed a genocide there, sorry about that”?
 
The Germans after ww2, the Americans to a lesser extent concerning the Japanese internment camps…
 
adamhovey1988 said:
There’s a lot of awareness of the Armenian Genocide, largely because of the American heavy metal band System of a Down, which is made up of people of Armenian descent.
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Prior to System of a Down, people had awareness through the works of the Armenian-American author William Saroyan and the Armenian-American artist Arshile Gorky, as well as Kurt Vonnegut’s book Bluebeard and Elia Kazan’s Oscar-winning film America, America (which also had the Greek genocide as a theme). All of these people were hugely influential in their fields.
 
The reason the Armenian Genocide isn’t discussed much is because Turkey is the successor of the country that committed the genocide and the Turkish Government is unwilling to admit to past mistakes. Because Turkey is an important political ally (their proximity to the Middle East means their support is invaluable for our wars there), Presidents don’t call it a genocide. When Barack Obama was a senator he called it a Genocide, but after he became president all he would say is “I already made my stance on it clear”.

The irony is that by denying the deeds of their ancestors the Turks actually make their country look worse. If they admitted and apologized for their acts like Germany then they’d look better in the eyes of the world.
 
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You know what? I totally agree. It’s not like it isn’t common knowledge by this point.
 
Maximilian75 said:
the Americans to a lesser extent concerning the Japanese internment camps…
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We didn’t really commit a “genocide” there, although we did harm people and violate their rights. The goal wasn’t to kill them off.

However, we probably committed “genocide” on some of the Native American tribes.
 
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The Ottoman Genocides were perpetrated by the Ottoman political party “The Committee of Union and Progress”, which was the de facto governing body until the Kemalists took power.

The rational for the genocides was that the Armenians would ally themselves with the Russians and destabilize the regime.

The CUP leadership were tried in abstentia and sentenced to death by the Kemalists after the war. None was ever arrested.

Stuart
 
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