Sins of Our Fathers

a very cheap and shallow piece , the author appears to be jewish or christian,may be her grandmother was armenian,armenian genocie is as big a lie as jewish genocide

Bhatti, holocaust is defined as the genocide of European Jews and others by Nazis. The next is the genocide of Cambodians; the next is Rwandan, followed by what is going on in Darfur. The term Holocaust should be used with caution. What is going on in Iraq is neither a Genocide nor a Holocaust. There is no systematic killing going on in Iraq. People slipping on banana peels is not genocide.

#17

[Bhatti, holocaust in Iraq?? What have you been smoking?]

Kulharee, so how you define holocauste..........

Nembus, as usual it wasn’t addressed to you.

kunkil,

as usual you are missing the point.

Re: # 17

kulharee,

... the jewish holocaust was sanctioned by mo of mecca at khandaq - that's why muslims fail to condemn it .....

Take your head out of sand and arbi backsides, no one is denying anything about the Armenian genocide, but its not the same as the Jewish holocaust, 20 million Russians also died during the WW2, about same number of Chinese, but those were not Russian or Chinese Holocausts either. There is a big difference. What’s funny is that only 300 were whacked and a new frigging religion was started and people thump their chests to keep the memories of just 300 alive that died some 1400 year ago.

It’s comical that Muslims who are always declaring victim-hood would try to belittle suffering of the Jews. Shame on them. Just as some Pakis are building monuments to Alexander in Punjab where his army defeated “Hindu” king. Get a friggin life.

Bhatti, holocaust in Iraq?? What have you been smoking?

"Etymology and use of the term
Main article: Names of the Holocaust
The term holocaust originally derived from the Greek word holókauston, meaning a "completely (holos) burnt (kaustos)" sacrificial offering to a god. Since the late 19th century, it has been used primarily to refer to disasters or catastrophes.

The biblical word Shoa (שואה) (also spelled Shoah and Sho'ah), meaning "calamity," became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the 1940s.[8] Shoa is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of "holocaust."


Definition
The word "holocaust" has been widely used since the 17th century to refer to the violent deaths of a large number of people. Winston Churchill, for example, used it before World War II, and others use it to describe the Armenian Genocide of World War I. [5] Since the 1950s its use has been increasingly restricted, and it is now mainly used to describe the Nazi Holocaust, spelled with a capital H. The word was adopted as a translation of "Shoah," which appeared for the first time in 1940 in Jerusalem in a booklet called Sho'at Yehudei Polin (The Holocaust of the Jews of Poland). In the spring of 1942, the Jerusalem historian BenZion Dinur (Dinaburg) used the term "Shoah" to describe the extermination of Europe's Jews, calling it a "catastrophe" that symbolized the unique situation of the Jewish people.[9][10] By the 1950s, its translation, "Holocaust," had come routinely to refer to the genocide of the European Jews.[8]

The usual German term for the extermination of the Jews during the Nazi period was Endlösung der Judenfrage (the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question"). In both English and German, "Final Solution" is widely used as an alternative to the Holocaust.[11]

The word "Holocaust" is also used in a wider sense to describe other actions of the Nazi regime. These include the killing of around half a million Roma and Sinti, the deaths of several million Soviet prisoners of war, along with slave laborers, gay men, Jehovah's Witnesses, the disabled, and political opponents. The use of the word in this wider sense is objected to by many Jewish organizations, particularly those established to commemorate the Jewish Holocaust. Jewish organizations say that the word in its current sense was originally coined to describe the extermination of the Jews, and that the Jewish Holocaust was a crime on such a scale, and of such specificity, as the culmination of the long history of European antisemitism, that it should not be subsumed into a general category with the other crimes of the Nazis.

Even more hotly disputed is the extension of the word to describe events that have no connection with World War II. It is used by Armenians to describe the Armenian genocide of World War I. The terms "Rwandan Holocaust" and "Cambodian Holocaust" are used to refer to the Rwanda genocide of 1994 and the mass killings of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia respectively, and "African Holocaust" is used to describe the slave trade and the colonization of Africa, also known as the Maafa."

-Wikipedia
Search term: The Holocaust

Elif Shafak, the Turkish writer, provides an overview of the range of Turkish perspectives on Turkish-Armenian history. Read the piece I posted in the first interact.

mzehra,

Conflict is part of human nature. Its hardwired in our genetic makeup. No matter how many Budhas, Gandhis and other saints have shown up, we will always have the tendency to indulge in mayhem and regretting it later. Just look at how hindus and muslims butchered each other in 1947, even though they had really nothing to fight over. Now when Indians and Pakistanis meet, especially Punjabis, they cant believe that their previous generation was so stupid and barbaric. They start giving each other jhappies/pappies and extend utmost hospitality to each other. Go figure!!

The only thing that can control this human tendency to indulge in butchery is economics. As they say - baap bada na bhaiyya, sabse bada rupaiya. Look at the Europeans today, behaving like one happy family. Who would believe that they loved to slaughter each other for millenia? Its all because of economics. They realized that it is more profitable to join hands than kill each other. Perhaps the same realization will sink in among other people in this planet, hopefully including Indians and Pakistanis as well.

A good article, especially with the point of view of spreading awareness. Further, I also agree with the author regarding the use of term for holocaust for all the acts in which humans are killed by other humans. So, the attila the hun, chengiz khan, and others are all responsible for holocaust in their own times.

The most current holocaust going on is in Iraq. When US could have easily dislodged Saddam in 1991, they chose to punish people of Iraq instead. Further, they attacked Iraq on false intelligence knowingly. The civilian death toll in Iraq is:

Since Invasion in 2003 to 2006 - 655,000

(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10 /10/AR2006101001442.html)

Due to sanctions on Iraq from
1991 till 2000 - 350,000

(http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011203/cortright)

Total - 1,005,000

These figures do not include period from 2000 till invasion. It also does not include figures for 2007.

Now, should we not call this holocaust. The author of the article rightly said that the purpose is to learn the lesson so that it does not happen again. Well; its happening again, and happening right under our nose...

Regards,

Khalid Bhatti

I propose that the term 'holocaust' not be exclusive to the Jews, it should be used for any mass killings of humans by humans. All other acts of mass killings should be given the same importance as the Jewish holocaust. This would include all similar events throughout history, not just the Armenian one, but i believe it is important to start somewhere.
If we do not concede to the mistakes of the past, then we are as worse as those perpetrating the crimes or standing by. I believe that is very important to ensure those events do not repeat themselves.
The comparison with the Jewish holocaust is drawn only in terms of the suffering meted out, not due to any similarities between the victims themselves.

Re: # 4

mzehra,

I agree with you on the basic principle but disagree with you on the linear approach to historical events. Life has very few linear relationships, most of the vents are random but what is consistent is human nature which has yet to change and has shown traces of barbarity unseen in other living beings in form of genocide.

We should highlight genocides but need to be fair in our approach so that we do not compartmentalize atrocities to a single entity or civilization. Mankind has a long history of crimes committed against humanity starting from Kane and Abel right down to the Rwandan massacre. During this long spell, we humans have the distinction of destroying each other and other living forms.

Re: # 9

I am not protecting anyone. If Turks did it then damn them, but before we damn them Americans must also take blame for the genocide of 1 million Iraqis; Russinas must take blame for the genocide of 1.6 Afghanis and so on and so forth. Who the guck are americans to be the chacha khamkha of the world. One day Turks will regret it, why didn't they rub it in Americans face when they could.

I was almost completely ignorant of this issue until recently when I read Robert Fisk's "War for Civilization". He provides graphic accounts of massacres, and is firmly convinced that was genocide, and should be acknowledged as such. I would love to read the Turkish point of view.

Kulharee of course is parroting the ADL line, that the Jewish people are khuda of suffering; even mentioning another people, let alone comparing their plight with the suffering of Jews is blasphemy. ADL types get particularly angry when the Armenian "genocide" is discussed with the Holocaust. Part of it is because they seem to covetiously guard the exclusiveness of their victim status; part of it is also because Israel has good ties with Turkey.

Urstruly is the other extreme, going off on a rant in favor of his Musalman bhai. Americans, by the way are firmly on the Turks' side on this. The resolution in the House of Representatives did not pass the Senate, thanks to vociferous protests by Turkish officials, tacitly backed by their Israeli friends in Washington.

Turks should have imposed absolute restriction upon US to use Turk air and land passage to Iraq and forced US legislature to pass a resolution that Armenian Holocaust is a lie and it never happened. That should have put the matter to rest for good. Now couple of years down the road a bug will again crawl up Americans'.....