And then there's that little think that hapened in Ankara 92 years ago...
Sorry, Turkish friends and acquaintances, but this is really important to me:
Robert Fisk has this to say about the US response to being asked to recognize the Armenian holocaust. And yes, you read that right, holocaust- the mass massacres, deportations and slaughter of the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey which set the stage for the other such horrific events of the 20th century:
The Armenians did not die in a "civil war"- Turkish documents of the time bear this out, Turkish publications handed out by the embassies bear this out. While Turks today bear no direct responsibility for what was done under the Ottomans- "The Armenian solution" was still less than 100 years ago. Who do they think carried this out?
Robert Fisk has this to say about the US response to being asked to recognize the Armenian holocaust. And yes, you read that right, holocaust- the mass massacres, deportations and slaughter of the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey which set the stage for the other such horrific events of the 20th century:
The "story so far" is familiar enough. In 1915, the Ottoman Turkish authorities carried out the systematic genocide of one and a half million Christian Armenians. There are photographs, diplomatic reports, original Ottoman documentation, the process of an entire post-First World War Ottoman trial, Winston Churchill and Lloyd George and a massive report by the British Foreign Office in 1915 and 1916 to prove that it is all true. Even movie film is now emerging – real archive footage taken by Western military cameramen in the First World War – to show that the first Holocaust of the 20th century, perpetrated in front of German officers who would later perfect its methods in their extermination of six million Jews, was as real as its pitifully few Armenian survivors still claim.
But the Turks won't let us say this. They have blackmailed the Western powers – including our own British Government, and now even the US – to kowtow to their shameless denials. These (and I weary that we must repeat them, because every news agency and government does just that through fear of Ankara's fury) include the canard that the Armenians died in a "civil war", that they were anyway collaborating with Turkey's Russian enemies, that fewer Armenians were killed than have been claimed, that as many Turkish Muslims were murdered as Armenians.
The Armenians did not die in a "civil war"- Turkish documents of the time bear this out, Turkish publications handed out by the embassies bear this out. While Turks today bear no direct responsibility for what was done under the Ottomans- "The Armenian solution" was still less than 100 years ago. Who do they think carried this out?
Labels: Armenia, Holocaust, Turkey
Happy Diwali!
or
Deepawali if you prefer,
to our friends, colleagues and loved ones-
Chatnya and Neal at ALI,
Amit V., (update your blog...;->),
Mahendra,
Amit and Mukul K.,
those fabulous subversives over at Sepia Mutiny
and the way cool crew over at Artwallah
+ a shout out to Cheb i Sabbah who's been mixing some cool beats again.
(off to set things up and hopefully not burn down the house)
Labels: Artwallah, Cheb i sabbah, Desi, Diwali, festivals, film blogs
