The Armenian Genocide

Armenian Genocide Andy Leeds Ms. Bullis English 1 April 24 Armenians are a Christian nation, and when they were a country, they were the first to proclaim Christianity as the state religion.

The Ottoman Empire took control of Armenia during the 15th century, and they were mistreated for quite a while due to religious differences (Christians vs. Muslims), and this mistreatment culminated and peaked during 1915-1918.During World War I, the Ottoman Empire took the opportunity among a world of chaos to exterminate its Christian population, after years of hate propaganda sponsored by the government, they struck, and the Ottoman Empire’s successor denies it to this day. The Ottoman Empire divided its people decades before the genocide; the Ottomans classified its population into two groups, the Muslim Ottomans and the Christian Armenians. “And because the Russians did have Armenians serving as soldiers, the Ottoman Government was concerned that Ottoman Armenians might commit traitorous acts. ” (Cohan).

By giving a supposedly legitimate reason for the genocide that was to come, it gave the individual killers a reason to do it. By legitimizing the genocide, the killers could commit their crimes without feeling guilty. Each murderer was massacring not for the sake of it, but to defend their families, who they believed were in danger. By dividing the people through classification, they successfully sowed the seeds of hatred, preparing the people for genocide.

By making the Armenians seem less human to the general population, and by dehumanizing the Armenians, it made it seem as if they were nothing of consequence, or importance. For instance, when it severely citied the Armenians in the caucus for attacking, looting, and destroying Muslim villages. ”(Unal) This made the Armenians the enemy, and by making them the enemy, the Ottomans also stripped from them some of their humanity. When the Armenians lost the ability to be seen as humans, they lost their rights, and also the pity of the people. When the government dehumanized the Armenians, the government gained more power over them, making it more just to kill them en masse.The organization that committed the genocide was the current leading party of the Ottoman government, and took over the country during a coup d’etat.

“In 1914, when the war broke out, Talaat was Minister of the Interior and the most influential leader in the Committee of Union and Progress, the secret organization which controlled the Turkish Empire” (Morganthau) Mehmed Tallat effectively controlled the Ottomans, and organized the Armenians death. He was the man that ordered the arrest of the Armenians cultural leaders. He was the man that started the genocide. He was the man who killed 100,000 Armenians. "To-day arbitrary government has disappeared.

We are all brothers. There are no longer in Turkey Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbians, Rumanians, Mussulmans, and Jews. Under the same blue sky we are all proud to be Ottomans. " That statement represented the Young Turk ideal for the new Turkish state.

”(Morganthau) Young Turks is another name for the Committee of Union and Progress, and that statement is a paradox to what crimes they committed to the Armenians. While neither Armenian nor Christian is included, it is implied that they are all one people, but the actions of the Young Turks contradict their words.The CUP controlled the Ottoman government when the Armenians were being exterminated, and thus they are guilty of the crime. The Ottoman Government, and thus CUP, spread propaganda against the Armenians, to polarize the population, causing the Ottomans to hate them, and even fear them.

“For years it had been the Turkish policy to provoke to Christian population into committing overt acts, then seizing such misbehavior as an excuse for massacres. ”(Morganthau) By having the Armenians commit crimes, they created a unique form of propaganda, showing actual damaging crimes.At first, this may not seem like propaganda, but by having real life, instead of severely distorted lies, the Ottomans managed to turn those who knew the truth, but the other side of the truth (that the Armenians are not demons, but kind humans) towards believing that Armenians are evil. Simultaneously, the Ottomans managed to eliminate the more dangerous Armenians, as the ones that are truly violent and hateful were massacred in these miniature killings. “commisioned write articles for publication in the Sura- yi Ummet, demonstrating that Britain was no longer ursuing friendly policies as she had done in the past, in particular, in the 1830’s and 1840’s.

On the contrary, she was now inciting the Armenian, the Macedonians revolutionaries, and even the Arabs against Turkish rule” (Unal) To the Ottomans, Britain meant Christianity, so to hear that Britain didn’t want to be allies anymore meant that Christians didn’t want to be with the Ottomans either. That the Ottomans would connect the Easter Orthodox church of the Armenians with the Protestant Church of England, two very different sects of Christianity, is bizarre.This connection ultimately hurt the Armenians. “The CUP was always at pains to disguise its Turkish nationalist an, by implication, anti-Christian leanings particularly in its Ottoman-Turkish publications. ” (Morganthau) By hiding the fact that they are anti-Christian, the subliminal messages attacking the subconscious are much more effective than a conscious message.

The CUP was a very effective propaganda making machine, and very effectively caused Ottoman to be polarized into two groups, Muslim and Christian. To kill the Armenians successfully, the Ottoman Empire had to have been properly prepared. If this plan of murdering a race were to succeed, two preliminary steps must be taken: it would be necessary to render all Armenian soldiers powerless and deprive them of their arms the Armenians in and city and every town. Before Armenia could be slaughtered, Armenia must be made defenseless. ” (Morganthau) To completely render Armenia defenseless required enormous organization and planning, and to do so they had to not just command the Armenians to drop their weapons, but to become less important soldiers. “In the early part of 1915, the Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army were reduced to a new status.

Up to that time most of them had been combatants, but now they were all stripped of their arms and transformed into workmen. Instead of serving their country as artillerymen and cavalrymen, these former soldiers now discovered that they had been transformed into road laborers and pack animals. ” (Morganthau) By turning them into the work force of the Ottoman army, the Ottomans made the Armenians vulnerable to slaughter by deportation, as the Ottomans could command the Armenians to take something to the desert to kill them.Thus killing them simply and without blood, and this method could also appear to be accidental. The Ottomans were well prepared for the slaughter of the Armenians, rendering them defenseless. With the Ottoman Empire fully prepared, they began to exterminate the Armenians.

“Ottoman Government seized a group of some 250 Armenian cultural leaders. ”(Parini) This marks the beginning of the genocide, and it was the ultimate action to disable the Armenian people. By killing the cultural leaders, the Armenian nation was left without guidance, totally exposed to the whims of the Ottomans.Also, by killing the leaders, no one could protest that had any legal authority or power.

“My grandmother recounted the high pitched yells of Turks, who were often former neighbors and friends, as they brandished their scimitars and roared into Armenian homes, hunting their victims. ” (MacCurdy) The image of friends and neighbors coming to kill someone could bring tears to anyone’s eyes. The image of people holding scimitars, hunting not for animals, but for people, is a brutish image that shouldn’t ever happen in reality, but genocide is a cruel thing. People died en masse after this event.

Several hundred thousand Christians perished during the deportation of the Armenians from Anatolia to the Syrian Desert” (Levvy) this was when they died. This was the slaughter. This was what killed the Armenian people. Their death caused the entire Armenian people to be diasporised across the world. The Armenians were exterminated, a people were slaughtered. The Armenian genocide is the most denied Genocide is the world.

“The Turkish republic, founded in 1923, claims that less than 1m died and rejects the Armenian allegation that what occurred was genocide” (Politics: Massacre or genocide?A source of tension in Turkey's foreign relations). Denying the genocide has caused problems in modern day Turkey, they have been refused entrance into the EU because of the denial. Also, France has ended diplomatic relationships with Turkey due to the denial. “Insisting that Armenians were killed in civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. ”(Turks, Armenians exchange documents on alleged genocide) This is the Turkish explanation for the events, and they know it is wrong.

Overwhelming evidence, a portion present is the previous paragraphs, says that it was a planned and well executed genocide.By denying it they lose some international standing, it has seriously hurt them, and has had lots of unknown consequences. “Most of those who maintain that Armenian deaths were premeditated and so constitute genocide base their argument on three pillars: the actions of Turkish military courts of 1919-20, which convicted officials of the Young Turk government of organizing massacres of Armenians, the role of the so-called "Special Organization" accused of carrying out the massacres, and the Memoirs of Naim Bey, which contain alleged telegrams of Interior Minister Talat Pasha conveying the orders for the destruction of the Armenians.Yet when these events and the sources describing them are subjected to careful examination, they provide at most a shaky foundation from which to claim, let alone conclude, that the deaths of Armenians were premeditated.

”(Levvy) These three facts confirm that the massacre of the Armenians was indeed genocide. The only one of these “three pillars” that any doubt has been cast upon is the Memoirs of Naim Bey. This is because of the many “secret documents” contained within, which can be hard to impossible to prove fake or real.The denial of the genocide by the Armenians affects them to this day, affecting their standing in the world, and even what currency they use. The Ottomans almost destroyed Armenia, but Turkey denies it even today. Armenia was diasporized throughout the world, similar to what happened to the jews after the Holocaust.

The Ottoman took an opportunity during World War II to exterminate its Armenian population after years of propaganda. "A perfect injustice; genocide and theft of Armenian wealth. " Reference & Research Book News (2009). General OneFile. Web.

25 Mar. 010 "Armenians, Turks, and the Question of Genocide. " The Chronicle of Higher Education 55. 40 (2009).

General OneFile. Web. 25 Mar. 2010 "Politics: Massacre or genocide? A source of tension in Turkey's foreign relations. " Economist Intelligence Unit: Country Profile: Turkey. Economist Intelligence Unit N.

A. Incorporated, 2007. General OneFile. Web. 28 Mar.

2010 "Politics: Massacre or genocide? A source of tension in Turkey's foreign relations. " Economist Intelligence Unit: Country Profile: Turkey. Economist Intelligence Unit N. A.

Incorporated, 2007. General OneFile. Web. 28 Mar.

010 “Turks, Armenians exchange documents on alleged genocide. " Asia Africa Intelligence Wire 23 July 2004. General OneFile. Web. 7 Apr.

2010 Bardakci, Mehmet. "Decoding the rise of Euroskepticism in Turkey. (Report). " Insight Turkey 9. 4 (2007): 116+.

General OneFile. Web. 28 Mar. 2010.

Bronstad, "9th Circuit: Armenian Genocide Claims Pre-empted. " The Legal Intelligencer (2009). General OneFile. Web.

25 Mar. 2010 Cohan, Sara. "A brief history of the Armenian genocide. " Social Education 69.

6 (2005): 333+. General OneFile. Web. 26 Mar.

2010 Cooper, Belinda, and Taner Akcam. Turks, Armenians, and the 'G-Word'. " World Policy Journal 22. 3 (2005): 81+. General OneFile. Web.

26 Mar. 2010. Lewy, Guenter. "Revisiting the Armenian Genocide.

" Middle East Quarterly 12. 4 (2005): 3+. General OneFile. Web. 7 Apr. 2010 Melson, Robert, and Norman Stone.

"Genocide denial. " Spectator 29 May 2004: 29. General OneFile. Web.

28 Mar. 2010. Morganthau, Henry. Ambassador Morganthau’s Story. Doubleday, 1918. 140.

Print Morganthau, Henry. Ambassador Morganthau's Story. Doubleday, 1918. 149. Print.

Morganthue, Henry. Ambassador Morganthau's Story. Doubleday, 1918. 8.

Print Morganthue, Henry. Ambassador Morganthau's Story. Doubleday, 1918. 21. Print Morganthue, Henry.

Ambassador Morgenthau's Story. Doubleday, 1918. 121-166. Print.

Parini, Jay. "A Witness to Genocide. " The Chronicle of Higher Education 55. 37 (2009). General OneFile.

Web. 25 Mar. 2010. Tolson, Jay. "An Ugly Truth; The challenges of confronting the Armenian genocide.

" U. S. News & World Report 29 Oct. 2007: 35.

General OneFile. Web. 28 Mar. 2010. Unal, Hasan.

"Young Turk assessments of international politics, 1906-9. " Middle Eastern Studies 32. 2 (1996): 30+. General OneFile. Web. 7 Apr.

2010