Von: Jens Lippert

Jens Lippert — Wed, 14 May 2014 17:56:43 +0000

Adam, thanks a lot for your comment! Those details have to be told if we try to find a way to explain the evolution of genocide on a background named Armenia. There are many undiscussed issues of stupidity and blood, guilt and sacrifice. The evolution of media, that connects the whole world in seconds, could be a way out.

Von: adam

adam — Wed, 14 May 2014 14:10:47 +0000

I fully appreciate your laudable and admirable entry, but the ambitious effort to account for the entire decline and collapse of the late Ottoman Empire, leaves important details of the Genocide itself left unsaid. First of all, only “Pontic” Greeks, those of east Anatolia, fell under as targets of the extermination campaign of young Turks. Considered ethnically distinct from other Greeks by many scholars, they like the Armenians and Assyrians constituted historically Christian peoples, that in the Ottoman Millet system, fused religion with nationality and ultimately racially motivated aggression. Unique among the three, Armenians had enjoyed some form of self-government (1 kingdom in the classical period and 3 in the medieval period). The 6 eastern vilayets (or provinces) of the Ottoman Anatolia were considered unofficially Armenia, as they lay on the grounds of the aforementioned Armenian kingdoms. Thus not only did the genocide occur on the historic homeland of Armenian, it has been followed by an ongoing second crime, the attempt to erase this history from the map and record of the earth. This has been further followed up by a geopolitical context that has seen Turkish support military engagements that continue to target Armenian civilians, whether on the Azeri border or in Kassan in Syria. Finally the issue of German co-responsibility (mit-schuld) for the Genocide is no longer debated in the abstract but rather as to its extent and dimension. After the train used to deport those Armenians who could pay, the Berlin-Bagdhad railway, was financed by Deutsche Bank and supervised by German engineers. Though many Germans protested, even prevented deportations, as in the case of General Liman von Sanders in Smyrna, no other country had the power to stop the genocide and no other power provided asylum to the perpetrators after the genocide, but Germany. Furthermore, as Germany has the largest population from Turkey outside of Turkey, for whom integration, development and democratization into German civil society has proved schleppend, to state it diplomatically, one may hope that education, discussion and awareness prevention on the Armenian Genocide should hold a key place in furthering the advancement and progress of both German and Turkish civil society.

Kommentare zu: Eine unverarbeitete Geschichte

Von: Jens Lippert

Von: adam