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From: david@randvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: the Holocaust (Armenians)
Message-ID: <1786@randvax.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 8-May-84 13:59:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: randvax.1786
Posted: Tue May  8 13:59:50 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 12-May-84 08:38:24 EDT
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Organization: Rand Corp., Santa Monica
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---

    There are a variety of reasons why the "Armenian genocide" is overlooked
    by many today.  I can think of two principal reasons why this "event" is
    overshadowed by the Holocaust:

	o  The sheer numbers involved.  Most estimates of the two phenomena
	   indicate at least an order of magnitude difference in the number
	   of murders.  In addition, the Holocaust is emotionally, chroni-
	   logically, and causally tied in with both the overall Nazi plan
	   for subjugation and elimination of all "inferior races" and
	   with the most traumatic event in most living people's memories,
	   World War Two.  This gives it much more immediacy and impact.

	o  Despite what Armenian nationalists argue, there is in fact signi-
	   ficant doubt among historians as to whether the Turkish slaughter
	   of Armenians ever really took place.  There is no such doubt
	   vis a vis the Holocaust (in spite of Reichsfuhrer Butz and his
	   cronies infantile prattle).

    Now, as to martillo@ihuxt.UUCP's point:

    > Nowadays no one talks much about the massacre of Armenians because they
    > were massacred by third-world Muslims who as a group are popular with
    > Western leftist intellectuals.

    > The massacre of Armenians is further evidence that the existence of
    > independent Muslim states in the 20th century is a regressive develop-
    > ment in the history of humanity.

    > If leftist intellectuals were truly interested in human rights or human
    > progress, they would call for the anihilation and colonization of states
    > like Libya, Iran or Syria.  Sympathy for Arab and Islamic nationalism
    > is evidence of Western self-hate or leftist mindlessness and sometimes
    > leftist antisemitism.

    First, no one has EVER "talk(ed) much" about the "massacre of Armenians"
    regardless of intellectual fashions.  So, to blame contemporary lack
    of interest in the issue on a conspiracy of silence on the part of
    Wog-loving pinkos is, at best, a red herring.

    Whether or not "the existence of independent Muslim states in the 20th
    century is a regressive devlopment in the history of humanity" is an
    open question, I suppose.  I imagine, however, that the same statement
    could be made regarding capitalist, socialist, or what-have-you states,
    as well as the Vatican, Armenians, Toyotas, and Wendy's Old Fashioned
    Hamburgers.  Where, indeed, is the beef?

    As for the need for "anihilation (sic) and colonization" of Islamic
    states, this argument sounds remarkably Hitlerian.  Or, more to the
    point, I can just imagine some Ottoman prince in the early twentieth
    century saying, "The continued existence of these Armenian rabble is
    truly a regression in the ongoing course of Turkish progress.  Let's
    annihilate them for the good of humanity!"  Keep in mind that the
    identities of supermen and inferior races tend to vary depending upon
    who's pinning labels on whom.

					--- das

					"Reading the net is rather unpleasant-
					 ly like being drunk."
					"What's so unpleasant about being
					 drunk?"
					"Ask a glass of water."