Stephen Kinzer
Stephen Kinzer 
| |
|---|---|
| Languages | English |
| Ethnicities | American |
Unabashed denier of the Armenian Genocide.
For those not familiar with Kinzer, the following are excerpts regarding Armenians:
“In the spring of 1915, Armenians in this region made common cause with their Orthodox cousins in Russia, who hoped to seize eastern Anatolia and turn it into a Russian-Armenian province. The Ottoman authorities, understandably alarmed, ordered the deportation of populations suspected of being guilty of treason or espionage."
"Armenians may bear some blame for the tragedy [Emphasis mine] of 1915, and some undoubtedly killed Turks during that tragic year.”
"Successive Turkish governments have resisted the campaign aimed at forcing them to acknowledge Ottoman atrocities against Armenians, which is waged not from Armenia itself but from Armenian communities abroad. In Armenia I have found that most ordinary people want to rebuild their country's relationship with Turkey, which is fated to be their neighbor forever, and look toward a better future for both peoples. In the Armenian disapora, however, anti-Turkish feeling burns with passionate intensity. Some leaders of Armenian communities in the United States and elsewhere have become more nationalistic than most Armenians in Armenia. More than a few are driven by a desire not to shed light on the truth of 1915 but bring modern Turkey to its knees as a form of long-delayed revenge. Once Turkey is forced to acknowledge the slaughter of 1915, these radicals say, Armenians must demand compensation for their losses and, ultimately, return of their lands and all eastern Anatolia to Armenian rule.”
Kinzer's thoughts regarding the Turkish MFA and Armenian terrorists:
"even now, decades later, the foreign ministry [of Turkey], which might otherwise be supporting overtures toward Armenia, remains deeply scarred by the trauma. Its anger is understandable, as its frustration over the efforts of some Armenians, mostly in the diaspora, to take the events of 1915 out of their historical context and portray them as no more than unprovoked genocide."
"Despite what both Turks and Armenians say, much of what happened in 1915 is unclear."
Regarding an Armenian Genocide Museum in DC.:
“Washington already has one major institution, the United States Holocaust Museum, that documents an effort to destroy an entire people,” Mr. Kinzer wrote. “The story it presents is beyond dispute. But the events of 1915 are still a matter of intense debate.”
Kinzer's negative spin on the concept of never forget:
SURVIVING MEMORY; Armenia Never Forgets. Maybe It Should
The New York Times. (Oct. 4, 1998):
"Few peoples in the world have had as turbulent a past, or are as passionately attached to it, as the Armenians. Many of them believe they are alive today only because of their ancestors' near-fanatical insistence on preserving the ideas of the Armenian nation, church and language."
"The same ethnocentric nationalism that has allowed their nation to survive so long and triumph against such powerful odds is now out of fashion in the world. By clinging to it, the Armenians set themselves apart from the Europe they so much want to join."
"Memory of past outrages, especially the massacres perpetrated by Ottoman troops in 1915 as they chased Armenians out of ancestral homelands in eastern Anatolia, forms a prism through which many Armenians view the modern world."
"One such issue is the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which the world recognizes as part of neighboring Azerbaijan but which has been in the hands of its ethnic Armenian residents since 1994. Foreign diplomats assigned to help resolve the conflict want the enclave back under Azerbaijani control with as much autonomy as possible."
"Countries that dream of joining the European Union are supposed to renounce the idea of ethnic homelands and forego claims on land where their brethren live."
External links
- http://radiotransmittinginasnowstorm.blogspot.com/2015/02/on-meline-toumanis-book-part-1-stephen.html
- Genocide vote harms US-Turkey ties Was the 1915 killing of Armenians genocide? The question is debatable, but it's not for the US Congress to decide