The Amenian Genocide breaks the usual script.

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Joe Biden made news recently by announcing that the Armenian Genocide was real. Over a million Armenians were killed. I think Joe Biden probably did the right thing (in spite of possible geo-political cosequences).

What struck me as odd about this is that Armenians are White Christians. White Christians are usually cast as the villains. "White" is a weird category, but when you meet Armenians in the US they are "White"; indistiguishable from any other White American.

This is a genocide where White Christians, as the racial minority, were the victim, and Turkish people were the perpetrators.

The point is that when it comes to judging history, race doesn't matter. This is an interesting counter-point to the current racial narrative in the US.

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Type: Question • Score: 1 • Views: 534 • Replies: 20

@maxdancona,

I'm glad you raised this topic although the issue I have with it is different. What I want to know is why, a hundred years after the mass killings, the government of modern Turkey is so adamant in its denial that the tragedy ever occurred. Someone might want to explain to the ruling autocrat, Erdoğan, that the nation he rules is not the Ottoman Empire, his government had nothing to do with the event, and no living Turk participated in it. FFS, grow a thicker skin.

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@hightor,

As you well know, a political narrative is a powerful thing.

The history between White Christian Europe and the Islamic world is a complex one. The white Christian world is now dominant. I think it is difficult to argue that moral virtue had anything to do with this result.

The facts seem pretty clear that there was a genocide against the Armenian people. However, given the broader historical context I can see why this narrative is a problematic one for people of Turkish descent.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

However, given the broader historical context I can see why this narrative is a problematic one for people of Turkish descent.

Besides that that people of Turkish descent are as white as people from any other (European) Mediterranean region, there are many Christians of Turkish origin who fled Turkey and got asylum
More than 100,000 "Suryoye" fled Turkey to Germany and got asylum here in the late 1960's/early 1970's. (Many live here where I live - the Patriarchal-Vicar for Germany of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch has his seat in a neighbouring town.)

They have the German nationality, but are of Turkish descent (and the older generation still prefers to speak Turkish at home)

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@Walter Hinteler,

Whiteness is a social construct. I am speaking as a North American. Most Americans wouldn't think twice about someone of Turkish descent referring to themselves as a person of color, and many people from Turkey would be judged by American on appearance as "brown".

I can only speak from an American cultural context.

However, there is a violent, often brutal, history between White European Christians and the Muslim world. I don't think you can make an argument that the White Christians are morally superior in any absolute sense.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I don't think you can make an argument that the White Christians are morally superior in any absolute sense.

The first Christians weren't "white" in the sense you use.
And the oldest (still existing) Christian denomination aren't "white" either.

maxdancona wrote:

many people from Turkey would be judged by American on appearance as "brown".

Well, I also have a "southern" complexion, "brown" as you said.

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@Walter Hinteler,

There is a big difference between White Christianity and the original Christianity. Europe took over and subverted Christianity, the Christianity we know today was invented by White Europeans. They took a religion for Jewish shepherds and fishermen that preached peace and humility and turned it into a religion for conquest and national glory.

1. It was White Christians from Europe that killed women and children during the Crusades.

2. It was White Christians from Europe that colonized and divided up the Middle East and drew the borders that are still causing so much violence.

3. It was White Christians from Europe that colonized the Americas, wiped out existing cultures and instituted slavery,

I am talking specifically about White Christians. I don't exactly understand your point. Maybe we agree.

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@maxdancona,

The question was why the Turkish people are fighting the idea that Armenians were killed in a genocide. I am trying to suggest a way to understand this.

Given the bloody history between the Turkish people and White Christian Europe, I kind of understand why the narrative of Turks slaughtering White Christians might be difficult to accept, even if it actually happened. The remnants of the Ottoman emptire was often at the receiving end of barbaric acts at the hands of White Christians... this doesn't excuse anything, but highlighting this one act could lead to resentment.

I am simply asking you to try to see this from another perspective.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Distribution of European racial types, from Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race (1916). Mediterranean race is shown in yellow; green indicates the Alpine race; bright red is the Nordic race. (via Wikipedia)

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@Walter Hinteler,

I truly have no idea why you are posting that map. Madison Grant was a racist... this map is part of his explanation for why the "Nordic" races were superior. I assume that you don't agree with the White Supremacist argument made in The Passing of the Great Race that you cited (the title itself suggests what it is).

What exactly is your point?

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@maxdancona,

Well, I think "whiteness (as a social construct) and especially the term "White Christians" to be racist.

Oh, and the "racist Madison Grant" shows that Turkish people are of the same "race" as many other Europeans.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Madison Grant was an unabashed White Supremacist. I think he would have called himself a White Supremacist. His theories on race have been fully debunked.

If anyone is interested more, google "Nordic Race theory".

Let's drop this.

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@Walter Hinteler,

The point I am making is about European Colonialism. Our modern concept of "Whiteness" is based on European colonialism.

Fine I will drop the term "White Christian" and use the term "European Colonial" instead. Does that make it better? I would argue that Christianity is a core part of European colonialism, and that Christianity was used to justify barbaric acts. If this reality makes you uncomfortable because I am using the word "Christianity" I suppose I can just talk about colonization.

European Colonization was a part of the bloody conflict between Turkey and the Armenians. Now we have European former colonizers criticizing Turkey.

Can you understand this from the other perspective. Imagine that you weren't from a European former colonial power. Can you do that?

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Imagine that you weren't from a European former colonial power. Can you do that?

Well, I certainly can.

Ancient and medieval colonialism wasn't done exclusively in Europe and by Europeans by the way. And certainly Germany was acting very badly in its colonies, but wasn't really a "European former colonial power".
(Even today, the US continues to hold overseas territory. Besides Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and a handful of minor outlying islands, the US maintains roughly 800 overseas military bases around the world. More about the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States in Daniel Immerwahr's How to Hide an Empire: A Short History of the Greater United States)

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@Walter Hinteler,

The United States is a former European colony. Our culture is an extension of European colonial culture. Our behavior in maintaining territories and projecting military power is very much in line with our European cultural heritage.

I am not sure we are disagreeing. I am trying to get you to see a perspective from outside of the European colonial sphere.

The question is why people from Turkey are having so much trouble accepting the role of Turkey in the Armenian genocide. I am suggesting that in the greater context of European Colonial power and its brutal struggle against the Islamic world, it is at least understandable.

Are you disagreeing with anything specific in this?

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@Walter Hinteler,

It is my belief that in the Europe and the United states, we maintain a sense of cultural supremacy.

We are trying to separate this from our horrible history of racial supremacy. This is not as simple as people would like to pretend.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

The question is why people from Turkey are having so much trouble accepting the role of Turkey in the Armenian genocide. I am suggesting that in the greater context of European Colonial power and its brutal struggle against the Islamic world, it is at least understandable.

Are you disagreeing with anything specific in this?

Yes.
People tend (and like) to tell simplified versions of countries' history, with everything outside their "DNA" being just footnotes.

When you see Armenian Genocide "in the greater context of European Colonial power and its brutal struggle against the Islamic world" - there have been many massacres against Kurds, starting right after the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.
I think, Kurds and the Armenians share a kind of similar fate, although not in the form of such a genocide (and relocation of the survivors).

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@Walter Hinteler,

Yes, but you seem to be one-sided. In every example you bring up, the the villains are Muslim.

What you are failing to see is that Muslims have often been victims of barbaric actions from European (Christian) colonial powers. The Bosnian genocide (where Muslims were the targets of killings and rape) was not that long ago. There were other instances of genocide of Muslims going back before the Armenian genocide. Armenia itself was guilty of ethnic cleansing against Muslim Azerbijani residents as recently as 1991.

I am not denying the Armenian genocide. And I am not saying that you are wrong in your points (other than the racialist map you posted).

I am saying that your perspective is decidedly one-sided and ignores a great deal of history. That might be why you have trouble understanding why people in Turkey may have difficulty with your narrative.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I am saying that your perspective is decidedly one-sided and ignores a great deal of history. That might be why you have trouble understanding why people in Turkey may have difficulty with your narrative.

i don't think that a ignore a small or even a great deal of history.

It certainly is true that I'm not an expert in Turkish history (and in a lot of other national histories as well).
I will be pleased if you teach me those parts I've neither learnt nor studied. (Not knowing of something doesn't mean ignoring that in my opinion.)

I don't have trouble to understand why people in Turkey don't think it was a genocide - many if not most people here don't like to be reminded of the Herero and Nama genocide as well.

You are the first ever (as far as I remember) to call my perspective was decidedly one-sided - normally, I am accused of always wanting to understand everyone's action and to put it in the historical context. (As an excuse I just can say that's what I was taught at university - Historiography beyond historicism.)
But I certainly can be seen as you do it.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Other than the racialist map you posted (which in my opinion is factually useless).... what are you disagreeing with me about? Do you actually disagree with me about the role of Christianity in European colonization?

You seem to be arguing with me without making any points. What are you arguing?

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