Countering The Turkish Government, Pros & Cons of Accepting Opposing Views

Armenians want to teach people that only the Turkish government is denying the genocide, and that many Turks even believe in the Armenian genocide---this is completely false, and based off of Taner Akcam, a Turkish sociologist who escaped a Turkish prison and has been writing anti-Turkish-government (usually about the Armenian genocide--trying to tie it to the current Turkish government) material for decades.

Currently a majority of the Turkish people oppose the current Turkish government on almost every issue except the Armenian genocide view. People of Turkey do not agree with the Armenian genocide view, because contrary to popularized Armenian belief that Turks do not read history---Turks are very interested in history and have done a lot of objective research into the Ottoman history of 1915 and before.

So why do even the most liberal, educated, open-minded, and democratic scholars, historians, and academics disagree with the Armenian genocide label? Let's review some motives:

Armenians want to promote the genocide for recognition of their victimization, sympathy, and most importantly, the eventual demand (already demanded by some) for reparations and land. Since Armenia and Armenians do not recognize the current Turkish borders under the Lausanne Treaty, since they say they didn't sign it. (Soviet's signed for them)

Turks don't want to recognize the genocide because they have the archives, which they can read and interpret accurately, and they have not seen any solid evidence for a planned genocide.

Armenians don't want to accept the Turkish idea of massacres being true but that it wasn't a planned genocide, because that would mean all the work they've done for decades convincing people, spending money on scholars/historians (bribery), and uniting Armenians under one cause, would be gone. The sympathy for them would be gone if average people knew the horrors that the Armenian Revolutionary Federation committed in the early 1900s and late 1800s. Their societal hate against Turks would also die down (since it is already dying as more educated Armenians learn not to hate), the genocide label is their form of promoting "justified prejudice" against Turks, if you ask them why they hate Turks, they will reply "Well if they killed your grandparents wouldn't you hate them?", even if their grandparents weren't really killed by Turks, perhaps they were killed by Kurds or Arabs (in World War I) or they are just making it up.

Turks are trying to be open--people discuss the Armenian genocide and how correct or how wrong it is, all over Turkey today. Researchers have a wide variety of ideas on the issue, some take positions that Armenians are wrong about mostly everything, others find some things the Armenians have researched to be true, but doesn't mean it was a planned genocide. The Turkish government has been open enough to open up it's archives, which Armenia has not yet done so---because they are hiding the atrocities they committed and perhaps better solid evidence disproving the Armenian genocide (Turks already have powerful evidence; anymore will make it worse for Armenia). While the Armenian government is closed on the issue, and not willing to communicate and talk about it openly. Armenian history is riddled with heroic stories of Armenian rebels and atrocities against the "Terrible Turk", as well as sad survivor stories of Armenian suffering at the hands of the Kurds which they claim were under the leadership of the Turks.

Pros/Cons if the Turks accept the Armenian genocide label (The Armenians want this):
PRO: If Turks admit there was an Armenian genocide, regardless of how different the evidence concludes, there would be very few consequences. Turkish people around the world already face criticism and prejudice about Armenian massacres, and even more so because Armenians accuse the Turkish people of "denying" evidence, being a "revisionist", or "sending people to court for accepting the Armenian genocide"--all of which is untrue and exaggerated.

PRO: Turkish people across the world face LESS racism/prejudice/hate because they have accepted the Armenian views on the issue and in other words bowed down to their propaganda and version of history. Turks would be like the Germans today, regarded as simply "humans", that weren't alive during 1915, hence are not guilty of anything.

CON: There would be many cases of reparation demands by Armenian citizens across the world. History books all over the world would be promoting the recognition of the genocide (currently 90% of Armenian genocide books are paid for by Armenian organizations or Armenian authors/editors).

PRO: There would be calls/demands for Turkey to give back Armenian lands liberated in the Turkish Independence War. There would be demands for organized reparations. However, these reparations and demands could be simply ignored. The Turkish military is too powerful in the region to be threatened by any foreign intervention. It would be very impossible for any political organization or power to demand for Turkey to give up anything for an event 92 years ago.

PRO: Since the perpetrators of genocide as accused by Armenians are actually the Ottoman Empire, and their leaders are deceased or assassinated, the basis for demands would be ZERO. In fact, Turkey can simply say "It was the Ottomans, not us, so there is nothing to ask of the Turkish government".

CON: The evidence and history of the Ottomans during 1915, would be defenseless, and history would be lost forever under a label that is based on forged evidence and circumstantial argumentation. History would suffer a loss to propaganda.

Pros/Cons if Armenians accept that Armenian deaths are a result of Massacres but not planned genocide (The Turks want this):

PRO: They would still receive the global sympathy for being killed by locals that were in the majority of the region Armenians lived in. Organizations would still be sympathetic as well as the Turks for the hundreds of thousands of Armenians that died and suffered.

PRO: The issue would still be taught in history classes and books, without disagreements, and people would understand the affects of rioting, massacres, and relocations.

PRO: Armenians and Turks would reconcile more easily, and they would mourn together for Armenian and Turkish deaths under the problems of World War I. These two similar cultures would work together for a bigger cause, a cause for peace.

PRO: Many people around the world wouldn't have reason to hate the Turks and would more readily accept them into societies.

PRO: History would be more accurate and specific and not blanketed and hidden under a word like genocide.

CON: Armenians would not be as united and organized together as they are today. They will be able to see themselves as equals to other citizens of the world, and not as superior, victims of genocide. Their Nationalistic ideology would suffer greatly.

CON: The Armenians would not be able to demand reparations or land.

CON: Armenians would not be able to justifiably create an Anti-Turkish prejudice around the world.

CON: Europe and Western powers would not be able to use the Armenian genocide as leverage or excuse to exclude and condemn the Turkish government (that has made almost no mistakes and is on the way to becoming a world power).

This means that many of the penalties for accepting Armenian massacres but not accepting the genocide label, are almost nonexistent and unimportant. They are important enough for Armenians and people who promote Anti-Turkist or Anti-Islamic ideas. The positive outcome of Armenians withdrawing the genocide label, is peace, reconciliation, and historical accuracy.

This also means that there are virtually NO penalties for Turks accepting the genocide, except the penalty of learning and communicating about an inaccurate interpretation of history and the ignorance of evidence. The positive outcome of this is virtually nothing important, accept the satisfaction of Armenians and their respective government.

We hope this article will clear misconceptions about what Turks think, what the Turkish government thinks, what Armenians think, and what Armenian organizations and their government thinks. Most Armenians believe that one day the Turkish government will accept their version of history and pay them reparations and land, because they themselves believe in their own forged evidence and faulty logic on the history of 1915, because many of them do not research the facts (This is a generalization, and by no means applies to every Armenian, it is based on discussions with thousands of Armenians on the issue).