Randaly comments on Rationality Quotes May 2012 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 01 May 2012 11:37PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (696)
Tags: quotes

Comments (696)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Randaly 13 May 2012 10:05:42AM *  3 points [-]

To extent that this is a discussion of quality of life and attractiveness of a country, as opposed to what is strictly speaking necessary for development, it's worth remembering the Armenian genocide.

Comment author: Multiheaded 13 May 2012 10:44:02AM *  -2 points [-]

There's no evidence that Ataturk was more complicit in that than, say, many respected public servants in 50s-60s Germany were complicit in the Holocaust. Nations just go insane sometimes, and taboos break down, and all that. It takes a hero to resist.

Comment author: Randaly 13 May 2012 11:37:37AM 1 point [-]

I feel pretty confident that Niall Ferguson, in his The War of the World, claims that Ataturk directly oversaw at least one massacre; I don't have my copy on hand, however. Also, the Armenian National Institute claims that Ataturk was "the consummator of the Armenian Genocide."

Also, Israel Charney (the founder of the International Association of Genocide Scholars) says:

It is believed that in Turkey between 1913 and 1922, under the successive regimes of the Young Turks and of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), more than 3.5 million Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Christians were massacred in a state-organized and state-sponsored campaign of destruction and genocide, aiming at wiping out from the emerging Turkish Republic its native Christian populations.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit