Recently, Congress passed a decree recognizing the Armenian Genocide. In response to this, President Erdogan of Turkey has declared that he may pass a resolution recognizing the massacres of the native Indians in the US according to a report:
However, with the bill now passed, Mr Erdogan has threatened to respond by recognising US killings of Native Americans – saying the deaths of millions of indigenous people at the hands of European settlers should also be viewed as a genocide.
Speaking on the pro-government A Haber news channel, he said: “We should oppose [the US] by reciprocating such decisions in parliament. And that is what we will do.
“Can we speak about America without mentioning [Native Americans]? It is a shameful moment in US history” (source)
Now this does seem to be part of a strategy of tension aimed at generating the public appearance of animosity between the two nations, and will likely be used as part of some political manipulation.
To Erdogan’s credit, it is certainly interesting and noteworthy of him to attempt to copy the US by using the ‘commemoration’ and ‘recognition’ of historical events for political reasons, just like how Turkey copied the German “manufacture-and-export” model to build up her economy. Her intentions are clear that she wants to become a world power, and she want to all that she can to realize this, and that even though it was the US who build her up with Germany as part of the Gladio and stay-behind operations of the Cold War, that one can only wonder how long Turkey will remain willing to take direction from the US, even by way of political acting. If history is any guide, there is a strong possibility that Turkey will follow the lead of Germany, given the historical relationship between the two nations.
However, it is ironic that Erdogan has chosen this particular historical event to speak about because it is not a secret.
The power of the US claims against Turkey lay in that Turkey refuses to admit the genocide happened in spite of all of the evidence that shows it did. Just like the Japanese and their war crimes, or the infamous Yaksuzuni Shrine where said criminals are worshiped as gods in the Japanese national religion, there is no way to cover up what happened because there is too much evidence.
The Americans did commit massacres of the native Indians. However, this is not a secret in the US. There are many textbook passages, lessons, movies, videos, produced in the US by Americans and non-indians that discuss the good, bad, and ugly of what happened. In fact, it is arguable that there is more “pro-indian” material that shows the natives as disproportionately innocent and the victims instead of the opposite, especially in modern times.
There are many issues today with US policy towards the Native American Tribes that are serious and should not be ignored, for as I have stated before, the Indian Reservations were the first “concentration camps” and in a sense, they still are, but perhaps better named “ghettos” as poverty, misery, alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual abuse, and other horrible things happen at disproportionately high rates. However, nobody can say that the average American is not aware of what happened with the native Indians, that a lot were wrongly massacred, and that most people in the country think this was wrong.
The same cannot be said about Turkey. It has been over a century since the genocide, and Turkey consistently refuses to acknowledge that it happened. It is likely that a lot of this is tied to legal issues surrounding the potential acknowledgment of the incident. However, this is only speculation. The fact is that the evidence is very well documented, and it is sad but took place.
Erdogan can angrily respond however he wants, and he can make “declarations”, but they are without force because the actions have been acknowledged. It would be like somebody trying to accuse Germany of denying her crimes in the Second World War, because she has admitted to them already, and thus while it is good to remember the past so to build a better future, it would be just acknowledging a fact that she already accepts as opposed to something new.
It is a good attempt at playing geopolitical games, but Turkey still has a long way to go before she is at the level of either the US or Russia. However, the fact that she is so willing to do these things is a sign that she is already thinking in an “imperial” mode, that she wants to return to her former state of being in the Middle East, and she is attempting to model herself in the way that she needs to in order to realize her Ottoman dream again.
However, Erdogan may not have too much to worry about, as Trump just declared, in direct contradiction to Congress, that it was NOT a genocide that took place, but a “massacre”.
So much for all of those who said that Trump was going to “defend Christians” or “support Christianity”. If a man’s actions are evidenced by his deeds, and given the fact that the Armenian Genocide is better described as a Christian genocide because the Armenian, Assyria, Pontic Greek, Georgian, and other peoples targeted were mostly Christians, Trump’s refusal to support Congress in recognizing the horror of what happened to them in its totality tells one what he really things of Christians- that they are a useful voting bloc, and he will say what he has to say to seduce them to vote for him, but he doesn’t care about them at all, and he will immediately throw them “under the bus” if it is politically expedient later. If given a choice between supporting a foreign nation (Israel) and his Christian-and-boomer base, he will support Israel every time, even to the detriment of said Christians.
Truly, Trump really does support the Sultan.