DanceTherapist Loc: NYC, now Oakland, Ca

The Pope angered Turkey in a speach by calling what the Turks did to the Armenian people (k*****g over one and a half million Armenians) a "genocide", which it certainly was. Even our President will not call it genocide. I believe a German official also pronounced it genocide. The Turks marched many Armenians with no food, on foot, to Syria. If one fell, h/she was murdered. First they raped all women. They crusified many. There were mass graves of hundreds. There also was an enormous Diaspora - Armenians living in India, Russia, Brazil, China, making their communities, able to worship as Christians, keeping their language alive, treasuring the important rituals, as they were done over the thousands of years they existed as a sovereign country. I think the reason that Mr. Obama will not call this a genocide is that the U.S. needs Turkey, as they are stragically placed, and Turkey wants into the EU. Principles over personalities??!!
I begin to feel shame that perhaps some of my Turk ancestors took place in this slaughter, but there is no one left to ask, and as I don't know the last names, there is no way for me to search. I just feel so sad and angry, as well. :cry: :-( :| :hunf: :?: :?: Dance Therapist would like some discussion. Thank you.

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

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Firstly, welcome to the site! I have been very active in the past but Administration has my settings locked therefore am not notified when postings or responses are made; ergo, I miss a lot. Admin told me to quit bothering them. But I found your comment and just had to jump in here.

Each of us has to live with our history, and many have had bad histories within his family, his race, his g****r, etc. We, none of us, should feel we are personally responsible because the fact is that we are NOT responsible for others' acts.

What actually drew me to your post was the word "Armenian". I feel fortunate in that there probably many people who have never met an Armenian, but I was blessed. In the mid '60's I took a nursing job at an Armenian nursing home - all were survivors in one fashion or another of the massacre. I fell in love with them, and I do believe the feeling was mutual. Every patient was an Armenian, the Administrator was an Armenian, and as far as I know, the board of directors had no one on it but Armenians and I think all of that was as it should be. I ate with them in the home's nursing home and we always sang the Lord's Prayer before lunch IN the ARMENIAN language. One of the men had been a professor in his homeland, and he was determined I would learn the song in Armenian. To his credit, he DID teach me to sing it and it make me feel so very good. They had church services every week, I can't remember the day, but it was regular. They were like every other group of people I have met. We had no issues with each other and all of us seemed to bond. When I have been with b****s, we have bonded.
When I have been with homosexuals (I am straight), we have bonded. When I have been with Mexicans we have bonded. When I have been with Jews, we have bonded. Because we did not take issues with each other. I feel should I land amidst a bunch of people from Turkey we would bond, from Russia we would bond, from Iceland we would bond, from China we would bond.

I don't believe it is individuals who create all the chaos throughout the world. It is GOVERNments who create all the chaos and all the wars, and all the pain and suffering - and I think the entire world would be better off if NO GOVERNMENT EXISTED ANYWHERE ON EARTH. People who choose to get along together CAN, but when those who want to control step into the picture, everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Without GOVERNments, we citizens could run all the trouble makers away and continue with our wonderful lives.!!

pafret Loc: Northeast

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You need a very broad perspective to understand the motivation the Turks in 1915 and to get it you need to beck in history to the time of the attack on the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Byzantine Empire, Constantinople. This attack interestingly enough was made by the Roman Catholic Churches Crusaders who were supposed to going to the holy land to combat Moslems about 1200 AD.

Much bloodshed, followed years later by the Black Plague, left the Byzantine Empire an empty shell which was subsequently attacked and conquered by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II around 1450. Constantinople became Istanbul and commenced the start of the Ottoman Turkish Empire expansion.

Warfare between Christians and Moslems had not ceased since Mohammed's successors took control. First the Holy Land, sweeping across Africa and up into Spain to be stopped by Charles Martel, founder of the Carolingian dynasty, at the battle of Tours in 732 AD. The Moslems fought on holding sometimes more, sometimes less, of Spain, as the fortunes of war ebbed or waxed. Moslem Africans (Moors) were imported and invaded on their own allying with or attacking the resident Moslems, according to who back-stabbed better, Catholics or Moslems. This continued until Ferdinand and Isabella unified Spain and ousted the remnant of the Moslems.

The inhabitants of Spanish territory were forcibly converted to Catholicism, from Islam and Judaism. Of course, such conversions were a matter of expediency, hence, Tomas De Torquemada commenced putting heretics to the test and burning them at the stake.
Vlad Dracul commonly known as Vlad the impaler was also using stakes to impale invading Moslems at this time in T***sylvania or Wallachia, (north of present day Bucharest), in the Balkans around 1450, 1460. Those old boys were extremely fond of stakes.

This was incredibly cruel, akin to Moslems dismembering, murdering raping and enslaving those members of other religions that they conquered. These were evil nasty times with all parties slaying one another in the name of their God. Sound familiar?

While the East was occupied in stemming Moslem invasion the western Balkans were succumbing to other Moslem forces. The area known as Yugoslavia was penetrated between 790 and 900. The modern Bosnnians being Moslem. Serbs are Orthodox Christians whose religion keept their national identity alive during four centuries of Ottoman Turkish occupation. The Croats were Catholics. Good match no?

Enter Hitler. The N**is coerced the Croats into the same country with the Bosnians, resume genocidal slaughter, Bosnians (Ottoman Turks) on Croats. End war, C*******m emerges under Marshal Broz Tito. The warring factions were held under the iron fist, pause hostilities. With the death of Tito the country went out of control and ancient animosities between Serbs Croats and Bosnians re-emerged and manifested ultimately as the Bosnian Genocide.

Back up a bit, in the early 1800’s the Ottoman empire began to break up with many subjugated nations recovering their Christian identities. The Ottoman Empire went from being multi-religious to a virtually Muslim empire (except for the Armenians, Assyrians, Syrians, Caldeans and Greeks). Armenia was one of these and part of the “Orient question”. (A question was a euphemism for “we are going to mug you”, Hitler was quite fond of questions, he never invaded without one) In Armenia’s case, the Armenians demanded fair treatment in face of the corrupt Ottoman misrule that prevailed in the empire. The Armenians demanded, among other things, guarantees for their lives and property from attacks by Kurdish tribes.

“The genocide of the Armenians began long before 1915. During the years 1894-1896 massacres approximately 150,000 Armenians were murdered and a further 100,000 Armenians were forced to leave their homes. More than 2,500 communities were emptied completely on their Armenian inhabitants and about 500,000 Armenians were impoverished totally when the Turks and Kurds confiscated their property. The massacres ended only when the pressure from the European powers increased and they threatened to military intervene in the same way they had done in the Christian Balkan countries.

However, the main massacres would wait until 1915, when the new Young Turk government had come to power after a c**p in 1908. The cover of the ongoing world war in Europe was the perfect opportunity to solve the Armenian issue for good.”

“The Young Turks is really the Western denomination for the Turkish party "Committee of Union and Progress" (Ittihad ve terakki). This committee consisted mainly of officers, military doctors and nationalist politicians and administrators who were opposed to the contemporary autocrat, Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The party eventually came to be led by an extremely small circle consisting mainly of Talaat Pasha (Minister of Interior and Grand Vizier), Enver Pasha (Minister of War), Djemal Pasha (Marine Minister and Governor of Syria), Dr. N**im and Dr. Shakir (two of the party's main ideologues). This closed group saw to it that they removed all opposition, both within and outside the party, something that could almost be compared to how the N**is came to power in Germany. By brutally eliminating all liberal parties the Ottoman Parliament came to simply consist only of their own party members. Meanwhile disobedient elements were purged. The rulers handpicked key personnel in the police and army corps and made sure to build a network of people who were extremely loyal to the leadership and always obeyed orders.”

“The so-called triumvirate consisted of Ottoman Interior Minister Talaat Pasha, Minister of War Enver Pasha and Minister for the Marine and also the Governor of Syria and Palestine, Djemal Pasha. These three, together with some few other Turkish leaders formed the inner circle of the Young Turk regime and were ultimately responsible for the planning and the execution of the genocide in the Ottoman Empire. These were members of the Committee of Union and Progress (Turkish Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti) who in the 1908 revolution and later in a c**p in 1913 took power in Turkey and ruled the empire with a rod of iron. They purged the military and police forces from all disloyal individuals and manned these positions with their own loyal people, while eliminating all the liberal opposition parties and rivals within the Committee of Union and Progress. Thus, in 1914 they had full control over the events within the empire and could orchestrate a genocide.”

So you see that the same diseased mentality that Hitler and the N**i’s showed was not new. It was predestinerd by this and other examples of a limited number of idealogues grasping totalitarian power and using it in isanely, obscenely, inhuman ways. Giving lip service to a religion, which provided a framework to persuade others an exercising brutal police power against their own people, this limited cabal led Turkey into the Genocide of 1915.

Were your ancestors responsible? Unless they were one of the ringleaders, no. They were led, persuaded by religion, coerced by force, to do despicable things. Very few have the guts to stand up to such a regime, at least not for long. Like all citizens of every nation their leaders treat them like mushrooms, keep them in the dark and feed them a lot of horsemanure.

pafret Loc: Northeast

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Double post, this answer is a little amplified

History

You need a very broad perspective to understand the motivation the Turks in 1915 and to get it you need to look back in history to the time of the attack on the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Byzantine Empire, Constantinople. This attack, interestingly enough, was made by Crusaders of the Roman Catholic Church, who were supposed to going to the holy land to combat Moslems about 1200 AD. Instead they attacked the other Catholics, easier pickings and l**t is l**t.

Much bloodshed, followed years later by the Black Plague, left the Byzantine Empire an empty shell which was subsequently attacked and conquered by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II around 1450. Constantinople became Istanbul and commenced the start of the Ottoman Turkish Empire expansion.

Timur-i Lang (Tamerlane) a Muslim conqueror of Mongol descent, was born in 1337. He conquered a huge territory in the middle east and Asia. Some think his feats rival Alexander the Great. 17 million people die from his conquests.

1346 The Bubonic plague starts in China and moves westward aided by the ease of travel in the Mongol empire. The Mongols laid siege to the port of Kaffa on the Crimean peninsula and catapulted plague corpses into the besieged city. The Mongol army withdraws, but has succeeded in bringing the plague to Europe. Turks are said to be the most western of the Mongols. This definitely did not endear Moslems to Europeans.

1348 The Black Plague (aka Bubonic Plague) in Europe k**ls about 75 million. Contemporary accounts place the death toll at one third of inhabitants. Vast social changes result. Workers become a scarce commodity, increasing their bargaining power with employers and ending the feudal serf system, of workers being property, tied to land. Farm land reverts back to forests as the number of farmers decrease.

Warfare between Christians and Moslems had not ceased since Mohammed's successors took control. First the Holy Land, sweeping across Africa and up into Spain to be stopped by Charles Martel, founder of the Carolingian dynasty, at the battle of Tours in 732 AD. The Moslems fought on, holding sometimes more, sometimes less, of Spain, as the fortunes of war ebbed or waxed. Moslem Africans (Moors) were imported to Spain and/or invaded on their own, allying with or attacking the resident Moslems, according to who back-stabbed better, Catholics or Moslems. This continued until Ferdinand and Isabella unified Spain and ousted the remnant of the Moslems in 1502.

The inhabitants of Spanish territory were forcibly converted to Catholicism, from Islam and Judaism. Of course, such conversions were a matter of expediency, hence, Tomas De Torquemada commenced putting heretics to the test and burning them at the stake in the Auto Da Fe ceremony.

Vlad Dracul commonly known as Vlad the impaler was also using stakes to impale invading Moslems at this time in T***sylvania or Wallachia, (north of present day Bucharest), in the Balkans around 1450, 1460. Those old boys were extremely fond of stakes.

This was incredibly cruel, akin to Moslems dismembering, murdering raping and enslaving those members of other religions that they conquered. These were evil nasty times with all parties slaying one another in the name of their God. Sound familiar?

While the East was occupied in stemming Moslem invasion the western Balkans were succumbing to other Moslem forces. The area known as Yugoslavia was penetrated between 790 and 900. The modern Bosnnians being Moslem. Serbs are Orthodox Christians whose religion keept their national identity alive during four centuries of Ottoman Turkish occupation. The Croats were Catholics. Good match no?

Enter Hitler. The N**is coerced the Croats into the same country with the Bosnians, resume genocidal slaughter, Bosnians (Ottoman Turks) on Croats. End war, C*******m emerges under Marshal Broz Tito. The warring factions were held under the iron fist, pause hostilities. With the death of Tito the country went out of control and ancient animosities between Serbs Croats and Bosnians re-emerged and manifested ultimately as the Bosnian Genocide.

Back up a bit, in the early 1800’s the Ottoman empire began to break up with many subjugated nations recovering their Christian identities. The Ottoman Empire went from being multi-religious to a virtually Muslim empire (except for the Armenians, Assyrians, Syrians, Caldeans and Greeks). Armenia was one of these and part of the “Orient question”. (A question was a euphemism for “we are going to mug you”, Hitler was quite fond of questions, he never invaded without one) In Armenia’s case, the Armenians demanded fair treatment in face of the corrupt Ottoman misrule that prevailed in the empire. The Armenians demanded, among other things, guarantees for their lives and property from attacks by Kurdish tribes.

“The genocide of the Armenians began long before 1915. During the massacres of 1894-1896 approximately 150,000 Armenians were murdered and a further 100,000 Armenians were forced to leave their homes. More than 2,500 communities were emptied completely of their Armenian inhabitants and about 500,000 Armenians were impoverished totally when the Turks and Kurds confiscated their property. The massacres ended only when the pressure from the European powers increased and they threatened to military intervene in the same way they had done in the Christian Balkan countries.

However, the main massacres would wait until 1915, when the new Young Turk government had come to power after a c**p in 1908. The cover of the ongoing world war in Europe was the perfect opportunity to solve the Armenian issue for good.”

“The Young Turks is really the Western denomination for the Turkish party "Committee of Union and Progress" (Ittihad ve terakki). This committee consisted mainly of officers, military doctors and nationalist politicians and administrators who were opposed to the contemporary autocrat, Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The party eventually came to be led by an extremely small circle consisting mainly of Talaat Pasha (Minister of Interior and Grand Vizier), Enver Pasha (Minister of War), Djemal Pasha (Marine Minister and Governor of Syria), Dr. N**im and Dr. Shakir (two of the party's main ideologues). This closed group saw to it that they removed all opposition, both within and outside the party, something that could almost be compared to how the N**is came to power in Germany. By brutally eliminating all liberal parties the Ottoman Parliament came to simply consist only of their own party members. Meanwhile disobedient elements were purged. The rulers handpicked key personnel in the police and army corps and made sure to build a network of people who were extremely loyal to the leadership and always obeyed orders.”

“The so-called triumvirate consisted of Ottoman Interior Minister Talaat Pasha, Minister of War Enver Pasha and Minister for the Marine and also the Governor of Syria and Palestine, Djemal Pasha. These three, together with some few other Turkish leaders formed the inner circle of the Young Turk regime and were ultimately responsible for the planning and the execution of the genocide in the Ottoman Empire. These were members of the Committee of Union and Progress (Turkish Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti) who in the 1908 revolution and later in a c**p in 1913 took power in Turkey and ruled the empire with a rod of iron. They purged the military and police forces from all disloyal individuals and manned these positions with their own loyal people, while eliminating all the liberal opposition parties and rivals within the Committee of Union and Progress. Thus, in 1914 they had full control over the events within the empire and could orchestrate a genocide.”

So you see that the same diseased mentality that Hitler and the N**i’s showed was not new. It was predestined by this and other examples of a limited number of ideologues grasping totalitarian power and using it in insanely, obscenely, inhuman ways. Giving lip service to a religion, which provided a framework, to persuade some and exercising brutal police power against their own people, this limited cabal led Turkey into the Genocide of 1915.

Were your ancestors responsible? Unless they were one of the ringleaders, no. They were led, persuaded by religion, coerced by force, to do despicable things. Very few have the guts to stand up to such a regime, at least not for long. Like all citizens of every nation their leaders treat them like mushrooms, keep them in the dark and feed them a lot of horsemanure. Very few combatants in a war really know why they are attacking someone else’ country. They do it or die, the enemy is demonized to foment hatred, wrong religion, they did it to us, we were attacked etc. etc. Tommy Atkins never knows why he is fighting, all he knows is that it is his lot in life to fight his counties battles. The white man’s burden, civilizing the savages, Por le Roi, Por Le Bon Dieu, Pro Patria. Any rallying cry will do.

Did the Turks commit genocide? Of course they did. It has been done many, many times by diverse peoples. But this is history, what we do in the here and now is what we are responsible for. One cannot perpetually wear sackcloth and ashes and indulge in self-f**gellation for the atrocities committed by our ancestors.

c.murray132

Turkey is an ally of the U.S. in paper, not spirit.

DanceTherapist Loc: NYC, now Oakland, Ca

I know that if any of my ancestors took part in this particular genocide along with the Young Turks

c.murray132

I don't think I need a broad perspective, when the Tuks stood and watched civilians being slaughtered on their horse, that pretty much told me all I need to know.

pafret Loc: Northeast

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Yes , it does sum up the atrocity but Dance asked for discussion and enlightenment, not condemnation. Dance is already aware that this was an evil thing for the Turks to do.

DanceTherapist Loc: NYC, now Oakland, Ca

This is in response to parfet and to tasmine. NO, I do NOT feel any sort of "survivor guilt" because of the Young Turks. Nor do I feel any because my father's father was Mongolian. And yes, of course, all the atrocities you mentioned, I knew about. Countries are wily, very canny, in their wars. They and WE the country, wage war against allies, who in turn war against some other country. It's all a matter of convenience.

And, yes, the answer is always, god is on OUR side.

Appalling. What else is reprehensible:

My parents told me:

The Death Penalty is barbaric and criminal.

I needed to read about all the major and minor religions of the world. I did so at age 10. I developed a great deal of respect for Malcolm X - after his holy trip to Mecca, he came back with the revelation (which, of course, is what got him shot and k**led) that Muslims, at that time called Moslems, came in all colors.

That Dwight Eisenhour (sp?) was the one who put "god" in to the pledge of allegiance. And that I didn't need to stand with my hand over my heart. I did not stand from the time I was in 4th Grade.

That the Rosenbergs were murdered, and there was no other way to put it. And, later when I was older and knew about them and knew they had children, I was just crushed. Thinking of those kids. I have twin children, who are now 33, almost 34. I have a grandson who is 14 months old. I have a lot to live for.

My father loved me. He died at 58. My age now. He is gone and forever young. My mother absolutely h**ed me. She named me after her very beautiful mother, and, guess what? She wanted me to mother her. She told me when I was 2 years old, after we'd moved to NYC, to call her "Mother". My brother, her beloved son,
with whom she had an ambiguous incest relationship, could call her mom or ma. At my brother's age of 14, she was still scrubbing him in the shower. This is sick behavior.

So, I leave for L.A. on Tuesday, to see my father's younger and only brother who is 92 years old. It will be the last time I will see him. See you back here sometime in May. May 1 - Nationional Workers' Day.
It's not about the May F**gpole, and flowers.

My grandma, Nora Hope Tigerman, painted by one of her brothers.


My dad, around 22 years old. Not a great photograph. Godspeed, daddy.

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

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Ditto!! Exactly!!

DanceTherapist Loc: NYC, now Oakland, Ca

Thank you for your response to whomever that was. At times I just cannot believe someone can say such things. And what are tuks? Turks in a language of disgust?
And so it goes....as Kurt Vonnegut wrote often... :thumbup: to you

That would be me on the left, a few years ago with my very sweet son.


My son and daughter, twins, almost 4 years old. Whom I raised alone, and glad of it.

pafret Loc: Northeast

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A word of caution, there are some people on this post who seem to be mentally unstable, bordering on evil. It is not wise to share too much personal information. You have no idea who is reading this.