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The Christian Genocide During the Ottoman Empire Sounds a Dark Warning for the Future
Fisk, Robert
http://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/26/the-christian-genocide-during-the-ottoman-empire-sounds-a-darDate Written: 2019-02-26 Publisher: Counterpunch Year Published: 2019 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX23504 Review and discussion of The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities 1894-1924 by Benny Morris and Dror Zeevi. Abstract: -- Excerpt: The mere title of the Morris-Zeevi book, The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities 1894-1924, is going to have the Turks enraged, from Erdogan down. The Armenians and other Christians will dispute his apparent claim that he has only just discovered that their slaughter lasted for 30 years - others have talked of the Armenian genocide of 1915 bookended by the late 19th-century massacres in Turkey and the post-1915 killing of surviving Armenians and Greeks, Assyrians and others. And the Arab world will challenge his view that the holocaust (my word) of Christians was more motivated by Islam than Turkish nationalism.... The authors briefly compare the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian genocide – I prefer the terms Jewish Holocaust and Armenian Holocaust – and there are some already published parallels. Armenians might be spared if they would convert to Islam or marry Muslim men. Jews could not save their lives by converting. The Turkish massacres were more sadistic. I rather think the German-inspired slaughter could be just as bad in the Second World War: witness the head-chopping at the Jasenovac camp on the Croatian-Bosnian border. Persecution of the Jews under the Nazis lasted at most 12 years, but persecution of Christians in Ottoman territories 30 years. Subject Headings |