I went to the Armenian Genocide memorial service at a church yesterday. The scale and organization of the killing set me thinking how racism can be deadly.
May the Lord bless the living Armenian families with peace and love to forgive and heal them of the pain they suffered in the past. Amen.
With a vague understanding of the Armenian Genocide after the service I’ve decided to do some research on the killing.
Here is some abstract information of the Genocide.
“The slaughter and fatal deportation of hundreds of thousands to over a million Armenians as well as intentional and irreversible ruination of their economic and cultural life environments during the government of the Young Turks from 1915 to 1917 in the Ottoman Empire.
The first true genocide in the 20th Century in human history and the second-most studied case of genocide. Twenty-one countries have officially recognized it as genocide while the Turkish government on the other side currently rejects the applicability of the concept of the state organized genocide.”
Do you know the scale of this genocide? How well organized and well planned by the Ottoman Empire?
People involved:
Mastermind: Ottoman Empire
Five years before World War I, the Ottoman Empire came under the control of the secular Young Turks. In an effort for constitutional reform, Abdul Hamid II was deposed and his younger brother Mehmed V was installed as a figurehead ruler. At first, some Armenian political organizations supported the Young Turks, in hopes that there would be a significant change for the better. Some Armenians were elected to the newly restored Ottoman Parliament, including Gabriel Noradoungian, who was elected by parliamentary members to briefly serve as the country’s foreign minister.
However, from 1910-1912 the leadership of the Young Turks split into several parts lead by two main factions: one faction, known as the Liberal Union, remained committed to liberalizing the country and establishing equal status amongst all minorities and; the second faction, the Committee of Union and Progress, was more radical and racist in its views and was headed by a triumvirate: Ismail Enver, Mehmed Talat Pasha and Ahmed Djemal. The CUP rejected the Liberal Union’s ideals and assumed full leadership of the country after assassinating the Minister of War, Nazim Pasha, a Union member in January 1913.
Hired Murderer: “Butchers of the human species.”
The government released majority of prisoners who mostly committed murders to form a special organization which was in-charged of the deportation and killings of the Armenian. Prisoners released were selected based on their ruthlessness to form the special organization. These people who escorted the Armenians participated in robbery, rape and murder during the deportation instead of providing for their well-being.
Victims: Armenians
Armenians who were Catholic Christians in the 19th Century were recognized non-Muslims, along with Greeks, Jews and other ethnic and religious groups. They were subjected to separate laws from those that applied to Muslims in the Ottomans Empire. Armenians were exempt from serving in the military and were instead forced to pay an exemption tax, they were not allowed to bear arms, they were heavily taxed, and they were treated overall as second-class subjects, although they were one of the largest minorities in the Ottoman Empire.
Claimed motives:
In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers when Ottoman gunboats attacked Russian naval bases and shipping in the Black Sea. In November 1914, Enver, now the Minister of War, launched a disastrous military campaign against Russian forces in the Caucasus in hopes of capturing Baku. Nearly 90% of the Ottoman IIIrd Army was destroyed by Russian forces in the Battle of Sarikamis and many more froze to death after Enver issued a retreat order in January 1915. Returning to Istanbul, Enver largely blamed the Armenians living in the region for actively siding with the Russians.
“In order to justify this enormous crime [of the Armenian Genocide] the requisite propaganda material was thoroughly prepared in Istanbul. [It included such statements as] “the Armenians are in league with the enemy. They will launch an uprising in Istanbul, kill off the Ittihadist leaders and will succeed in opening the straits [of the Dardanelles].” These vile and malicious incitements [were such, however, that they] could persuade only people who were not even able to feel the pangs of their own hunger.”
True motives:
In order for the immigrating Armenians not to re-constitute dens of conspiracy, the Supreme Military Command communicated a letter dated 26 May 1915 to the Ministry of Interior, considering the following aspects:
1. The population of the Armenians in the locations they newly immigrated to should not be in excess of 10% of the population of the existing tribes and Moslems.
2. The villages the Armenians to be re-established should not be bigger than fifty houses each.
3. The Armenian immigrant families should not change houses either for the purposes of travel or transfer.
These Armenians were then killed to create the “new population” according to the “ideal” mix of different ethnic groups.
Results:
Estimates vary between 300,000 (the Turkish claim) and 1.5 million (the Armenian claim) Armenians were killed. The lack of a public prosecution of the organizers behind Armenian Genocide by the Allied powers was said to have largely influenced Nazi Germany’s fascist leader Adolf Hitler on the Jewish Holocaust.
All information presented here was abstracted with minimum editing done from:-
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide
2) http://www.armenian-genocide-lie.com/reasons-behind-armenian-relocation.html
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