It was not just the Turks at fault here but almost everyone; during that period of history?

I mean, how many Turkish soldiers wounded at Gallipoli, made it to allied prison camps?

The world at large was a bloodbath and whole nations, ethnic communities were basically murdered by the new technologies, and generals who thought they could win by just throwing more troops at the enemy than the enemy could afford to match/sacrifice; in full frontal assaults, that was their sole strategy.

A. B. Facey, Author of a fortunate life and who served at Gallipoli as a machine gunner, described it as murder bloody murder; as his gun scythed through hundreds of Turks.

Nor are we able to condemn an entire nation for the decisions of a few!

Or the minority that carried out official if officially denied, orders. [Apparently the Nuremberg defense was okay for our Breaker Morant?]

Nor can we any of us apportion any blame for previous atrocities on current citizens; none of who were alive when those monstrosities occurred!

Be they the highland clearances, the virtual genocide committed by the black and tans against the Irish.

The taming of the American west, and the elimination of entire races, none more so than the Mahicans?

And we decimated Tasmania, and parts of the mainland, some of it with musket and sabre and some with introduced diseases for which there was no local immunity.

And lets not forget the numbers we slaughtered as transportees.

Some captains seem to report arriving with one third of your original human cargo, as some sort of success?

Should we take current Australians to task for any of that history; as Robertson seems to want to do with today's Turkey and our WW11 ally?

Not all of Germany was Nazi, nor was the average Russian complicit in the Stalinist pogroms/disappearances; of around 25 million or more Russians, more than died in WW11; or the brutalities of successive USSR dictators; or the Nipponese!

And lest we forget, we're talking about a time when the Ottoman empire was virtually collapsing before its very eyes?
Rhrosty.

Nobody can blame the present Turkish people for the Armenian genocide. However, the Turkish government should acknowledge the acts of previous Turkish governments rather than continue to deny the Armenian genocide. The German government of Konrad Adenauer admitted German responsibility for the Holocaust and paid reparations to the German victims even though Adenauer himself was not a Nazi and was not complicit in the Nazi acts.

The current Turkish government continues making denials of acts of the past governments.

Kevin Rudd apologised for acts done to Aborigines in the past. He personally had done nothing wrong in that area, but as head of a successor government to the government committing the wrongs he apologised for acts of the past government.

There is no excuse for genocide. It cannot be undone, but it can be acknowledged by those whose predecessors committed the act.

As an Australian I live on land taken from the Aborigines. I belong to ANTaR (Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation). Although I came here as an immigrant I recognise what my government has done in the past. A similar recognition from the Turkish government would be reasonable.

It's my understanding that the Australian Government does not acknowledge that the Armenian genocide. took place.

Rhosty,

I may be only nit picking but you do somewhat exaggerate at times,

"Or the minority that carried out official if officially denied, orders. [Apparently the Nuremberg defense was okay for our Breaker Morant?]"
No, it wasn't, he was found guilty and executed.

"Be they the highland clearances, the virtual genocide committed by the black and tans against the Irish."
The numbers killed by the Black and Tans in Ireland hardly made a dent in the population and their crimes were on the far end of the scale from that of genocide.

My Irish ancestors would dispute the claim that the invasion and dispossession by the black and tans wasn't genocide?

There was no revealing before and after census, but such Church records as can be found, appear very revealing; as did shipping manifestos.

If all that kept a family alive was removed to pay an illegal tithe or British imposed rent, then many would and did starve to death.

I don't know what you'd call that, but for mine, murder or genocide by another name, as was the highland clearances, which saw people evicted with what they stood in; in the dead of winter, as their humble hovels were burnt to the ground; which wiped out whole villages. And given population percentages, genocide on a massive per capita scale!

As did transportation with its up to two thirds death toll.

And given one could be transported for stealing a loaf or as in the case of a forbear, a pair of shoes?

Hardly just, even if you actually survived the ordeal or a later even more infamous for an almost 100% death toll, Sarah Island.
Not all genocide occurred at the business end of a barrel!

Lest we forget, at the start of WW11, the Brits controlled an enormous empire, upon which the sun never set; and little of it willingly handed over by awestruck natives, from who their natural wealth was plundered.

Why, even all our gold mined while were were still an official colony, found its way to England.

Around a hundred years after the Boer war, a party of Australian historians tried to have the (colonial cannon fodder) breaker Morant conviction overturned; on the grounds he was just obeying orders/a scapegoat? And his Australasian war department approved legal defense at the time.

Others who did the same escaped the firing squad!

Why? I say old boy, British soldiers don't shoot civilian prisoners.

And all that proves is the British colonial public service brought with them a superior sense of common decency, fair play and impartial British jurisprudence, than that routinely dispensed to alleged "British" citizens!
Rhrosty.

‘morning Rhrosty,

This response to one of your posts is a first for me. Mostly because you seem to be all over the place on a variety of topics. You seem to count being a “first responder” as significant?

Whilst I don’t dispute your Irish Ancestry, I am entitled to dispute your interpretation of Irish history, which seems more focused on mythology rather than fact. Nothing new of course as Irish history is riddled with “inexactitudes”, just like Islam, British Colonial, Israeli and American history.

What concerns me, indeed offends me, is that you seek to offer a jaundiced interpretation as fact. Perhaps the most telling historical analysis of conflict in Britain, from as early as the Roman invasion, is a book called the “Tribes of Britain”.

Academic Research over the past 2,000 years shows a very different picture to the one you paint based on “popular myths”.

From the period of 1640 and the Civil Wars to Charles Trevelyan in the 1800’s, there is little distinction between any of the civil conflicts. In fact we can go back as far as Edward I and his conflicts with the Welsh, the Scottish and the Irish to confirm that life in those days it was all about the horrors of regional conflict.

What matters is the “perceptions” of history and the realities of history as the foundation for what we today call terrorism.

The Irish were victims of their own Irish Lords and Barons, not the English. The potato famine was caused by Irish farmers who insisted on continuing to store potatoes under a thatch of hay during the winter months, whilst the rest of Europe opted for “dry storage”. Hence the Irish created “potato blight” that not one other European nation experienced.

As a result the Irish suffered famine on a huge scale.

This lead to a perception that someone else was to blame for the “Irish Problem”, Just like the “Islamic problem”.

Cont’d

Cont’d

That “blame” manifested in horrific carnage by the IRA against innocent civilians. I know because on several occasions, I and my family came very close to extinction at the hands of the IRA.

It came close to home when the IRA converted Lord Mountbatten and two of his grandchildren to “flying mince” in Ireland.

I had seven AK47 bullet holes in my car after a short trip down the Falls Road in Belfast. I left the Golden Egg Restaurant on Oxford Street, London, with my wife and daughter only minutes before an IRA bomb killed six and horrifically maimed twelve beautiful children.

We were also visiting the Tower of London as tourists when a bomb made from high explosives and nails exploded in the Armory. Protected by a concrete pillar we sustained only temporary percussion injuries. The vision of children, parents and teachers being “shredded” by the explosion has scared us all for life.

Don’t tell me about your distorted version of history as mitigation for something you never experienced but instead rely on as fact rather than folk lore. When you have held all that is left of someone’s beautiful child in your arms as life ebbs away and their eyes ask you the question, then you can “whine” about how badly history treated you.

After 40 plus years my wife and family live with the reality that people like you seek to pervert as ideology in some sort of justification. I still wake at night with the face of a small child in my hands, so damaged and unable to speak but with pleading eyes, I cry a lot, I look at my own grandchildren and cannot avoid relating to similar tragedies.

Cont’

Cont’d

You Rhrosty, need to hold someone’s baby in your arms, as their life drains over your hands whilst their dying parents look on. Then perhaps, you will stop playing the “Irish” victim and recognize that life is all about perspectives, right or wrong, it is your responsibility to balance reality with fiction.

Why not, countless children have made that sacrifice for you. Isn’t it time you recognized the contribution that the children of others have made for your freedom?

I do hope you have children or even grandchildren, I hope you look into their perfect eyes and kiss them good night, I also hope you ask yourself the question, “who made this possible for me?”

Lots of love and heartbreak,

Spindoc,

Like Rhosty you are just a wee bit on the side of erroneous, particularly with your observation on potato blight.
The blight struck Europe, the Scottish highlands and Ireland.

See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Potato_Failure

Rhosty,

The Black and Tans were in Ireland for two years, from 1920 to 1922 and though their crimes were many they definitely never attempted genocide and at the most murdered less than 200 civilians.
Tis said that they were not the worst of a bad bunch, the real criminals were safe at Westminster doing their parliamentary duties.

See:http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/patrickroberts/black-and-tans-were-not-so-bad-says-new-book-savagery-in-irish-war-of-independence-on-all-sides-128656678-238100801.html

I too am of Irish descent and can trace my ancestry in that country back to Brian Boru and further, through his mother, into the great family of the O'Flaithbheartaigh and thence into legend.

Spindoc,

"It came close to home when the IRA converted Lord Mountbatten and two of his grandchildren to “flying mince” in Ireland."

Which grandchildren?

‘morning Is Mise,

Sometimes one has to wonder at the ignorance, lack of information and willingness to research facts within the OLO community.

You my dear person (more on this later), exhibit some of the most profound social disorders ever displayed on OLO. You could have done your own research, you could have validated the facts I presented, and you could have avoided the embarrassment of being wrong, but no, you chose to challenge them at great expense to your personal credibility.

You choose, out of pure, unmitigated ignorance, to ignore the vast preponderance of evidence, to pick on a minor challenge by asking the question, “Which grandchildren”?

Just in case you still don’t get the message, those murdered by the IRA in this instance were Lord Mountbatten, the Queens Cousin and the One of the earl's twin grandsons, Nicholas, 14, and Paul Maxwell, 15, a local employed as a boat boy, also died in the explosion”

You have become without doubt, one of the best examples of the inhibitors of social progress in this country, not because you are ignorant of historical facts, not because you are unwilling to check for yourself, not because you refuse to embrace reality and not because you are blinded by your ideology, but because you can never accept, in spite of overwhelming contrary evidence, that you might just be wrong!

Suck it up Princess!

The expression “Princess” is entirely dependent upon your own pre-disposition to embrace a non sexist imprimatur that implies a feminist alter ego based upon the premise that some might conclude an inference to a non gender specific status that is contradicted by the perspective created as an actual gender specific personification?

Which in my book has you as a fully qualified AC/DC exhibit. You could prove me wrong?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/27/newsid_2511000/2511545.stm

Spindoc,

Only one of the children was a grandchild of Lord Louis, was the other lad, the commoner not worth mentioning in your earlier post?

The tragedies over the centuries in Ireland could have been avoided had not the Norman-English initiated the trouble in the first place.
Had my ancestor Henry II not accepted the invitation of another ancestor Dairmid Mac Murrough to come to Ireland and assist him then there may have been peace (Daimid is known in Ireland as 'The First Traitor').
In more modern days England could have insisted on British Democracy being practiced in the Occupied Territory known as Northern Ireland, instead Britain allowed the dictatorship of the Orange Order, allowed bigotry to rule.
We all know the consequences.

Spindoc,

"I had seven AK47 bullet holes in my car after a short trip down the Falls Road in Belfast.... "

Are you blaming the IRA for those?
The Falls was solid Orange territory, maybe someone mistook you for a Catholic.

Just as an interesting aside, have a look at:
http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Arsenal-8216-IRA-8217-firearms-8211-including-AK/story-26075910-detail/story.html
it was a queer lot of 'fish'!

Is Mise

The Falls Road is solidly Catholic. Shankill Road was the Orange heartland. The two were divided by a “peace wall”.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-11/barbara-miller-on-peace-walls/4745202

Spindoc

You do seem to have been particularly unfortunate in your exposure to the troubles, with three separate incidents. I lived in London in the 1980s and travelled to Belfast occasionally for work, but was never directly affected, apart from the odd bomb scare.

Rhian,

My blunder! Good job my old mates of Sinn Féin can't see that!!

Might have been a British Army/RUC patrol having a shot at him, I can't imagine the IRA firing at a car in the Falls.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/27/1265498/-The-slaves-that-time-forgot?detail=email contains info about English attitudes toward and treatment of the Irish. Neither were good.

Davidf,

An interesting read and thank you for bringing it up.

I first became aware of the Irish slaves in the West Indies back around 1958.
I was having a yarn to John Pollock, the then Secretary of the Irish National Association,in his office at the INA building in Devonshire St, Sydney.
He got a phone call from a ship's captain; he had just docked and a few of his crew were Irishmen and could the INA give them a bit of a welcome.
There was nothing social on for a few days till the Saturday night dance but John said to send them up to see him and he'd see them right as they only had a couple of days in port.
I stayed to do a bit of reading in the fine library that they then had and about half an hour later John called me to come and meet the Irish lads.
Imagine my surprise when I saw three young West Africans, tall good looking young men and as Irish as any of us as they were all Irish citizens by Birthright and had Irish passports.
I forget their names but they were fairly common Irish ones, we made them welcome and I took them to the nearest "Irish" pub and introduced them around and they made a hit with the lads.

Dear Is Mise,

I saw a movie a few years ago about a young Chinese boy. He wanted to leave China but hadn't decided where to go. He whirled a globe around and stuck a pin in it. It picked out Ireland. He studied Gaelic and flew to Ireland. In Dublin people looked blank when he tried to talk to them in Gaelic. He went into a bar and met an old man who could talk to him. One bartender said to the other, "I didn't know Murphy could talk Chinese." Anyhow Murphy told the young man that many in Galway speak Gaelic. The movie ends with the Chinese boy happily tending bar in Galway.

There have been many genocides. "Blood and Soil" by Ben Kiernan recounts a 2,400 year history of genocide. The English genocide of the Irish is included.

david f,

Do you remember the name of the film?

Way back in the 1980s my eldest son came back to Australia for a long visit and he needed a job.
The first interview that he got was with an obviously German gent (blond, German name), and to my son's surprise he spoke to him in Irish (son's surname was a giveaway).

My son had gone to Ireland as a small child and became a fluent Gaelic speaker; so he replied in kind and the whole interview was conducted in Irish.
He got the job.
The boss had studied Irish Gaelic at University in Germany and as part of his studies had spent 6 months in a Gaelic speaking area in Ireland, west of Galway, and they actually had mutual acquaintances.