Are Europeans Stupid? (Or did Armenain genocide existed ?)

A chorus of condemnation of Europe and the West in general, has become something of good taste on these days. However, emotions of Azerbaijanis and Turks are understood by them. In Europe and the United States they do not understand them. Rather, the understanding looks like this: of course, you cannot be responsible for the actions of the Ottoman Empire, it was 100 years ago, the state no longer exists, just people died, many innocent people, but we cannot ignore it.

A similar line of reasoning is usually fit into the life of the civilized world – they do not turn a blind eye to injustice and protect the weak and defenseless.

I remember a group trip of our journalists to Yerevan in 1998. One evening chatting with a group of Armenian colleagues, we touched on the subject of genocide. I asked this question to our interlocutors: let the genocide really have taken place, then explain why the Turks wanted to kill their own citizens? To this the head of the local press club replied that they wanted to seize the property of citizens. The Turks knew that the Armenians were very rich and used the situation to enrich themselves, he said.

Assume that it was so, I said, - the Turks decided to destroy the Armenians and assign their property. But did the Armenians themselves not give any reason for such events against them?

On hearing this question, the Armenian counterpart could not conceal a fierce facial expression, categorically stating that whatever the Armenians did, it was unacceptable to kill them.

                                                       What did the Armenians do?

What should the Armenians have done that hundreds of thousands of people became refugees, were interned and as a result, there were thousands of victims?

My Armenian interlocutors did not want to admit that the cause of the acute reaction of the Turks was the massive betrayal of the Armenians, or rather their leaders and intellectuals in the first place. It happened when Armenian soldiers began to desert en masse and move to the side of Russian troops and fight against their own country, when they began to kill and expel the local Turkish and Kurdish population from territories where Armenians decided to create their own state. That's how their national heroes - Andranik, Njdeh, Dro and many others behaved, although, some of them were Turkish citizens and served in the Turkish army before.

Of course, the Armenians for no reason at all would not dare to do such mad things. They were pushed to that by the allied countries, and then by Russia.

If the aim of the Entente was to destroy the Ottoman Empire, to expel the Turks from the Balkans and the Middle East and take control of these regions, the goals of Russia were more modest, but of a similar nature - to seize the eastern regions of modern Turkey, adjacent to the South Caucasus.

Who could play the role of the fifth column and help to achieve this? It is not hard to guess, as well as the consequences.

I agree with the opinion that the Armenians are not stupid - they are just the victims. However, erroneous decisions of politicians uniformed in patriotism may have much more serious consequences than just common stupidity.

Manifestation of the highest organization and responsibility is the analysis and recognition of errors. It cannot be done by all. The Germans have filed such an example, recognizing the Holocaust and paying compensation to the victims.

I am far from thinking that the Turks will do the same and admit that the 1915 actions against Armenian separatism were excessive. The question is that the Armenians do not recognize just a little - that they themselves and their actions gave rise to reprisals.

Would such events have occurred in 1915, if the Armenians together with the Turks came to the defense of their country and shed blood against those who coveted their country? But for the Armenians in those years Turkey was not their country, but just a territory that they also wanted to seize (in Armenian version - "liberate their homeland"). And invaders are always destroyed.

Actions of the Armenian troops against the Turkish government are described by many historians and I will not repeat them. Just remind one case. In 1896, thirty Armenian militants with arms seized Istanbul Bank, demanding the authorities to fulfill their obligations to the Armenians and to reform the places where they were concentrated. With great difficulty they managed to persuade them to come out of the bank and go abroad. That is what happened. This event took place 19 years before the events of 1915 and showed the behavior of the Armenians.

                                                    The specificity of the Armenian character

Very interesting is the approach of the Armenians to those events. In their interpretation, there was a wanton destruction of 1.5 million civilians - women, children and elderly. And where were the men, why did they not fight and did not protect their people? These questions are diligently bypassed by the Armenians.

People, who talk about the quest for freedom and independence, glorify and emphasize their struggle. Armenians do not, because in this case, they must recognize that they fought with arms against their government, that is, raised an armed rebellion. And in this case, it is no longer necessary to talk about the unreasonable and inexplicable brutality and bloodlust of the Turks.

  A known European political scientist Jonathan Cohen at a conference in London said a famous phrase: “The Karabakh conflict solution is prevented by the painful psychology of the Armenian people.” It's hard not to agree with him. The extent of the disease - if it is almost the entire nation - says it is incurable.

The result of 1915 was that the Armenians live with a single idea - to take revenge on the Turks, always and everywhere and by any means. Mythologizing their own history, including the latest one, they very soon created a Reader in educating the young generation about the events of 1915. Refusal to accept their own responsibility in these events nourishes the view that the Turks decided to settle accounts with the Armenians to seize their property. And this is despite the fact that Armenians held senior government positions at the Turkish sultans, were members of parliament, served on numerous government positions, and possessed huge property throughout Turkey. It turns out the Turks fed and nurtured Armenians for hundreds of years to slaughter just in one day?

To all these questions Armenians usually answer: if there was no genocide, why are Armenians scattered around the world?

It is interesting logic. Anyway, it is enough to raise their children in hatred of everything Turkish and to grow up descendants that created ASALA in wealthier countries after World War II (ASALA is a terrorist organization to kill the Turks all over the world and avenge the genocide). Dozens of terrorist attacks against Turkish diplomats and representatives around the world in 1970-80 could not fail to attract the attention of the world community. Condemning these attacks, they "humanly" understood Armenians, dozens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of who told horror stories about their trouble in France, the US and other countries.

Europe and Russia, who used the Armenians in their own interests, understood and morally justified the story, in which they - the Europeans and the Russians – are to blame not less than the Turks and the blood on their conscience is not less, if not more.

In fairness it must be said that many Armenians are aware of all this and even condemn this. But today there is a historical stage, when common sense and sober mind are simply powerless in the face of the global Armenian machine fueled by the same Europeans, Americans and Russians.

Sympathy and moral support of the civilized world is not just a quixotic, but human dignity, which can be cleverly exploited.

In addition, the game of sympathy is also a "normal" business for politicians. Money can do at all. Even a Jew can do business on anti-Semitism, as Zhirinovsky does. But apart from hardened and cynical politicians and intellectuals there are just decent people who firmly believe in the Armenian idea. These people are a layer, which considers a moral duty to recognize the genocide at the legislative level in their countries and even to accept the bill penalizing the denial of it.

With one of these people I have encountered recently and was surprised.

My friend, a representative of a respected international organization told me that the law on genocide denial is bad and unjust, and freedom of expression should be above all else. However, the Armenian genocide happened, she did not doubt, and no one can deny it.

I asked her a few questions - why do they in France and in other countries talk only about two genocides - Jewish and Armenian? Genocide also took place against the peoples of the North Caucasus, where during the Second World War Stalin deported hundreds of thousands of Chechens, Karachais, Ingushs, Balkars, and Circassians. In addition repressed and deported were Meskhetian Turks, Kumyks, and Volga Germans before them – several million people. Many of them did not survive in Siberia and the steppes of Kazakhstan. The scale of this genocide was so great that Khrushchev passed a special law on the repressed peoples.

In World War II, Americans interned and deported thousands of Japanese in the United States. Then there was the genocide of Algerians, Cambodians, Rwandans and others.

So, why in the West are there no laws on condemnation of these genocides? On this they can answer: French law condemns any denial of genocides. But then why should this regard only Jews and Armenians? Maybe they are special and they are closer to Europeans? These arguments did not change the position of my friend, who just snapped that she did not deny that her position was pro-Armenian and she did not care what they would think about that in my country.

You can draw a simple conclusion: the Europeans are fools. And you can make another: if a normal person thinks like that, it is a result of certain work and effort.

If the whole nation cries and calls for sympathy for 100 years, there will appear those who would believe that. But we must make sure that the Europeans learn a different view and understand that they are wrong.

To make this happen and to cause them to believe us it is necessary not to publish books about Heydar Aliyev in the West, but to publish books about Karabakh, about what happened at the beginning of the last century in the South Caucasus and even earlier - during the colonization of the region by Russia. It is necessary to write about how Azerbaijanis were destroyed and slaughtered in the Erivan province, Zanghezur and other regions in 1918-20.

However, promotion of this level requires good education and knowledge, ability and patriotism, and not only at those who deal with that, but also at those who give orders.

Arranging family exhibitions in Paris is, of course, important to maintain a sense of self-importance, but their subjects should be diversified at least occasionally.

Since I mentioned Heydar Aliyev, I want to remind two cases associated with him.

The first one was described by Heydar Aliyev himself, when commenting on the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the French Parliament in 2001.

Referring to the words of the then French President Jacques Chirac, Aliyev said that the Armenian Diaspora in this country is very active - they filed lots of appeals to the Deputies and the French government. However, the Turkish Diaspora, which is not inferior to the number of Armenians, did virtually nothing and acted very passively.

The second incident occurred in the United States a few years ago. Then one well-known historian was commissioned a book on the history of Azerbaijan. When the book was finished, they refused to pay this Professor. The reason was that the book did not quite nicely reflect the role of Heydar Aliyev ....

And such examples are numerous.

Shahin Hajiyev

(The article was written in 2012 in connection with the adoption of the French law on the denial of the Armenian Genocide. It is published with minor changes).