Genocide: - DIIS

The Turkish Media Debate on the Armenian Massacre
and concede that there was a feeling of panic among the Ottoman offi cials
and the Muslim population. Not only was this feeling due to the many
wars the Empire had been involved in since the wars with the Greeks in
the 1820s, but also due to the perception that some Armenian nationalists
were cooperating with Russia, which was apparently planning to invade
Eastern Anatolia. Akcam and Berktay argue that on the other hand these
circumstances did not justify the deportation of a whole population and
the committing of organized massacres against them. 18
The Turkish historian Taner Timur who takes a position between genocide
recognisers and the advocates of the “mutual killings” line argues against
the justifi cation of the deportation and the massacres with reference to the
collaboration of some Armenians with Russia against the Ottomans as follows:
That the Ottoman Armenians collaborated with the Russians was a fact Armenian
historians used to concede. The numbers of these Armenians were indeed
very low compared to Russian Armenians. However, as [the Armenian-American
historian] Hovannisian writes, they had played a very important role by acting
as ‘pathfi nders and agents’. Naturally this circumstance does not justify the total
deportation and local massacres of the Armenians. 19
Timur writes about the moral duty of modern Turks, and in this context
argues again against the usual attempts at justifi cation of the deportation
and massacres:
The task of Turks today is to concede that the Second Constitution Movement
(Ikinci Mesrutiyet) which started as a freedom movement in 1908 was transformed
to a counter revolution and to the political power of a bloody gang from
18 Akcam (1995); Akcam (2000a); Akcam (2000b); Akcam (2000c); Akcam (2000d), “Hainlere
ne yapmak lazim?“, Yeni Binyil, October 24. Akcam (2000e), “Diyalogdan baska caremiz
yok I”, Yeni Binyil, November 1; Akcam (2000f), “Diyalogdan baska caremiz yok II”, Yeni
Binyil, November 8.
19 Timur (2000), p. 44. Timur refers to Richard G. Hovannisian (1969), Armenia. On the road to
Independence. Los Angeles.
233