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The First World War (1914-1918).
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#1515376
Swedish Archives Confirm: It was a genocide!

A recently conducted study at the Uppsala University has revealed highly interesting information in the Swedish Archives, which once again confirm the researchers' view of the events in the Ottoman Turkey during the First World War: the Christian minorities, the Armenians in particular, were subjected to genocide.

The massacres in Ottoman Turkey during the First World War claimed the lives of approximately 1.5 million out of a world population of four million Armenians, while over 250,000 Assyrians/Chadeans and equal number of Pontic Greeks. In 1923, for the first time in over 2,500 years, Armenians no longer lived on 85 % of their fatherland. Thus, the Armenian genocide was, in a sense, a successful genocide, acquiring the perpetrators an Armenia without Armenians.

The conducted survey covers the period between 1915 and 1923 and includes, among others, reports which the Swedish Ambassador, Cosswa Anckarsvärd, and the Swedish Military Attaché, Einar af Wirsén, both stationed in Constantinople, sent to the Foreign Department (found in the National Archive) and the General Staff Headquarters (found in the War Archive) in Stockholm, respectively. In total, about eighty documents were found with direct relevance to the so-called Armenian Question, of which some are over-explicit in their message: the Turkish Government conducted a systematic extermination of the Armenian Nation.

On July 6, 1915, Ambassador Anckarsvärd, writing to the Swedish Foreign Minister, Knut Wallenberg, concludes: "Mr. Minister, The persecutions of the Armenians have reached hair-raising proportions and all points to the fact that the Young Turks want to seize the opportunity, since due to different reasons there are no effective external pressure to be feared, to once and for all put an end to the Armenian question. The means for this are quite simple and consist of the extermination [utrotandet] of the Armenian nation [emphasis added]." Anckarsvärd's reports until 1920 persisted in the same insight. At several occasions, the Ambassador points out that "It is obvious that the Turks are taking the opportunity to, now during the war, annihilate [utplÃ¥na] the Armenian nation [emphasis added] so that when the peace comes no Armenian question longer exists." In a later report (1917) he underlines that the massacres are not clashes between the Muslim and the Armenian populations, but "that the persecutions of Armenians have been done at the instigation of the Turkish Government [emphasis added]..." As an explanation to the prevailing famine in Turkey during 1917, the Embassy Envoy Alhgren mentions the shortage of workers, which is claimed partly to be a result of "the extermination of the Armenian race [utrotandet af den armeniska rasen] [emphasis added]". Major Wirsén's reports to the General Staff concur with Anckarsvärd's analysis. In 1942 Wirsén published his memoirs, entitled Minnen frÃ¥n fred och krig ("Memories from Peace and War"), reflecting upon his time as Swedish Military Attaché in the Balkans and Turkey. In a chapter entitled Mordet pÃ¥ en nation ("The Murder of a Nation"), Wirsén renders his observations of the Armenian massacres: "Officially, these [deportations] had the goal to move the entire Armenian population to the steppe regions of Northern Mesopotamia and Syria, but in reality they aimed to exterminate [utrota] the Armenians [emphasis added], whereby the pure Turkish element in Asia Minor would achieve a dominating position." In the conclusion of this chapter he recalls his conversation with the Turkish Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha and notes: "The annihilation of the Armenian nation [emphasis added] in Asia Minor must revolt all human feelings…The way the Armenian problem was solved was hair-raising. I still can see in front of me Talaat's cynical expression, when he emphasized that the Armenian Question was solved."

The mentioned quotations are a fraction of the information presented in the study. In addition to the mentioned archives of the Foreign Ministry and the General Staff, the reports from the Swedish missionaries and the Swedish newspapers were also included in the study and concur with the same view. The surveyed documents are mainly in regard to the Armenian Question, but the data bed indicates that other Christian groups, such as Greeks and Syriacs, were affected by the same fate.

The study clearly emphasises the concept of "bystander". While the word itself implies that the bystanders do not participate in the genocide, some contend that they are far from just a neutral viewer to the tragedy, but passive participators in the annihilation. The British statesman and political thinker Edmund Burke's statement captures the essence of the bystanders to genocide: "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." The documents clearly indicate that the Swedish Government was well informed about the state-orchestrated extermination of the Armenians. They also disclose that the Government, fully in accordance with the policy of a small state, consciously chose not to intervene in the matter, neither during the massacres nor after when the League of Nations suggested Sweden as a mandate power in Armenia. While resorting to isolationism during the period of the implementation of the genocide, Sweden followed the general stream, in particular that of
the Major Power's, during the post-war period when the question of securing the future of the Armenian Nation was discussed. Sweden, as all other states, chose to secure its national interests rather than standing out from the rest by advocating Armenia's right and the question of punishing the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. The present-day Swedish Government does not seem to be willing to become involved in the question either. Just last fall, the Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, during an interpellation in the Swedish Parliament, refrained from officially recognising the 1915 genocide, partly by referring to "the need of additional research about what really transpired in the Ottoman Empire." The surveyed documents should at least quench that need; the official reports from the Swedish Ambassador and the Swedish Military Attaché in Constantinople are unambiguous: Armenians were subjected to genocide.

The study in its whole is included in a master thesis paper which will be presented in the Higher Seminar at the Uppsala University's Department of History. It will also be available at http://www.armenica.org
By Paretist
#1515696
Are you preparing your dissertation? :)
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By pikachu
#1515757
Swedish Archives Confirm: It was a genocide!

Perhaps Swedes are interested in pissing off the Turks lately.

Who decides what is moral for me?

Who decides what is my rights?

The Collective.
By armenica
#1515878
:) I've applied for a Ph.D. poistion, so lets see if I go through the admission. ;)

As long as it goes for the moral issue in the modern world, here is an extract from my paper which I will soon put online:

Morgenthau and Thompson assert that the shift towards the democratic elected governments, answering to the general public, which replaced those consisting of aristocrats, often answering to one single monarch, also moved to destroy the international morality. According to Morgenthau and Thompson, the rules of morality require the involvement of the individual conscience, persons who can be held responsible for their actions. But when the power of government is distributed among a large group of individuals with a wide range of perceptions (or no perception at all) about wrong and right in international relations, the focus will instead be concentrated on national interests. The American legal scholar and educator Dean Roscoe Pound confirmed this in 1923 by saying: “It might be maintained plausibly, that a moral…order among states, was nearer attainment in the middle of the eighteenth century than it is today.” Andrew Hurrell concurs to this view:
"John Rowl’s famous claim that ‘Justice is the first virtue of social institutions’ has, when applied to international relations, faced the perennial realist rejoinder that international life has never had very much to do with the pursuit of virtue or justice. As Gilpin puts it, ‘Anarchy is the rule, order, justice, and morality are the exceptions.’"
By Paretist
#1516758
pikachu wrote:The Collective


The collective regarding the whole world, or just a nation, or just some other intra-nation region?

armenica wrote:But when the power of government is distributed among a large group of individuals with a wide range of perceptions(or no perception at all) about wrong and right in international relation, the focus will instead be concentrated on national interests.


You mean the national interests as perceived by respective nations?

Why do nations exist?

armenica wrote:The American legal schola and educator Dean Roscoe Pound confirmed this in 1923 by saying:"It might be maintained plausibly, that a moral...order among states, was nearer attainment in the middle of the eighteenth century than it is today."


Do you agree with him on that?
By armenica
#1516844
First of all: How do you quote people's post in this forum?!

Anywho...

Yes, I mean the national interests as perceived by respective nations. And as for the "why do nations exist?", I'm guessing that it implies that nations are to safegaurd their national interests. True, BUT, this is where moral aspect kicks in. The moral values and the subsequent conventions on "Human Rights" and all they imply is due to the fact that the world community has discovered the horors of the 20th and 21st centuries; crimes which were unprecedented in the history or at least or not "becoming of the 20th century civilised world". Today we live in a world which in year 2008 speaks of (not an historic) but an onging genocide in Darfur!!! And what did the civilised world (if you wish read Europe and USA), champion of human rights and morality do? Nothing. We simply watched, confirmed that there is an ongoing (I just love this observation) genocide and simply chose to do nothing. If they had oil in Darfur, then I guess USA would rush to the aid and defence of the rights of Darfur people as they did for Kuwait against Iraq...

Do I agree with Roscoe? I'm not sure. But were the states more inclined to be adherent to moral values, at least in warfare? Yes. And furthermore, the international relations is not a pure political and diplomatic matter anymore. Companies and (international) economic playes' influence has been growing since the turn of the 20th century, heavily affecting the decisions which prior to that time were almost exclusive for the state.
By Paretist
#1518298
armenica wrote:True, BUT this is where moral aspect kicks in.


Who gets to decide what is moral?

armenica wrote:But were the states more inclined to be adherent to moral values, at least in warfare[in the middle of eighteenth century]? Yes.


Is that why Geneva Convention was instituted because the states had been more inclined to be adherent to moral values at least in warfare in the middle of eighteenth century than today?
By armenica
#1518756
Not slaughtering hundered thousands of women and children and elderly, raping the girls and women and burning them alive or trying to erase an entire population just becaue they belong to a certain race or faith is immoral.

No one decides what's moral for you if everyone is sane and adherent to common sense. But I guess that the human species has proven incapable of that part.

And since your questions are more of rhetorical nature, already anwering themselve, I content my answer to a simple "yes".
By Paretist
#1519250
armenica wrote:Not slaughtering hundred thousands of women and children and elderly, raping the girls and women and burning them alive or trying to erase an entire population just because they belong to a certain race or faith is immoral.


You meant, Slaughtering hundred thousands of women and children and elderly is immoral?

armenica wrote:...or trying to erase an entire population just because they belong to a certain race or faith is immoral.


Does this mean then you believe it might not be immoral to erase an entire population for reasons other than race or faith?

armenica wrote:But I guess the human species has proven incapable of that part[being sane and adherent to common sense].


Even in the middle of eighteenth century?
By Foolosophy
#1519391
armenica,

And seeing that you have studied this case in detail you would know who the "young turks" were that carried out these atrocities.

There is an international group on genocidal recognition that only just recently acknowledged the genocidal proportions of the crimes against humanity outlined by you in your post.

Why has it taken so long for this recognition to be made public?

Do you think that there was only ONE holocaust (holocaust is a greek word meaning the burning of everything and/or everyone)
By armenica
#1519479
:) I think that most of these questions would be answered if you read my paper, which is waiting for the last comments of my supervisors.

But to short answer your questions: it wasn't recognised simply beacause humanitarian and moral issues just fall short when they have to compete with economical and political gains. In an earlier paper I have shown that the Armenian genocide has been a fact by almost the entire world, but the question was and is whether "its recognition and punishment of the perpetrators is worth losing money in investments in Turkey?"

As for the second issue: no, there have been more than one genocide. Jews call it Holocaust or "Shoa", Armenians call theirs "Yeghern", Assyrians calls theirs for "Seyfo" etc. Some suggest that the term holocaust suits the Jewish case better while the Armenian case is a genocide in the term's true meaning. But was the Holocaust unique? Hardly... I could recommend S. Rosenbaum, Is the Holocaust unique? : perspectives on comparative genocide, Colorado, 1996
User avatar
By litwin
#1875087
But you know that Swedish centre - right government has backed up on this subject, they like Turkish liras more then justice, I guess.
Last edited by Siberian Fox on 18 Apr 2009 20:39, edited 1 time in total. Reason: Simple grammar added.
User avatar
By R_G
#1876473
I really want to see La Masseria Delle Allodole.

Suppose to be good.
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