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From quotes in the book 'Genocide and Human Rights, A Philosophical Guide' from 25 modern philosophers, we can surmise important results in terms of our European Union membership. All of the philosophers show that the Enlightenment stands behind the Jewish genocide. This makes it clear that the European identity based on Christian and Enlightenment values as Jack Delors said and the objections made against Turkey’s membership on that ground should be reassessed
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From quotes in the book “Genocide and Human Rights, A Philosophical Guide” from 25 modern philosophers, we can surmise important results in terms of our European Union membership.
All of the philosophers show that the Enlightenment stands behind the Jewish genocide. This makes it clear that the European identity based on Christian and Enlightenment values as Jack Delors said and the objections made against Turkey's membership on that ground should be reassessed.
All of the articles in the book analyze the Holocaust. In the light of the opinions expressed in the book, it becomes apparent that the Armenian incidents were not genocide. Despite this fact, the Armenian genocide was scattered here and there, as if it was done on request. The same attitude can be seen in acclaimed international jurist William Shabas' book, “Genocide in International Law.” However, Shabas' legal perspective makes it certain that the Armenian incidents do not amount to genocide.
The Armenian's better communicating their thesis than us has a part to play in the current state of affairs, but it is not sufficient to explain it. Apparently Muslims committing genocide against Christians is important to Western authors. This way they are able to repudiate the fact that “Western Europe and its white colonies around the world” are responsible for the Holocaust and all the other genocides in history. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropaedia, v.15., pages. 360-66, 1984).
While there is no direct relation between the Armenian genocide allegations and Turkey's EU membership, this will probably be a harder obstacle to overcome than all the others. The negative repercussions of this problem may not be limited to pressures coming from the European Parliament and member countries or the possibility of the rejection of our accession treaty in the French referendum if we continued denying the Armenian genocide. Due to the fact that the genocide allegations are part of the historical prejudices against Turkey, it may also have a multiplication effect on smaller or bigger difficulties we may come across in the course of negotiations or on criticism directed against Turkey regarding the Copenhagen political criteria.
Dehumanization of one group by another is the psychological mechanism behind genocide. This is no ordinary denigration. It is a complex feeling that the other embodies all the negative qualities such as laziness, stupidity, ugliness, weakness; that these traits are biological hence impossible to change and that the group with its “sub-human” features is harmful to the society it is living in, even to the world and consequently needs to be eradicated.
It is obvious that the Ottoman society had no such racial hatred towards the Armenians. However, it is no secret that the Armenian intellectuals of the time felt deep contempt for the Ottomans. The same contempt prevailed against the Ottomans during the independence wars of the Balkan Christians. These groups fully internalized anti-Turkish sentiment present in the West at the time. Maybe that's why the Turks who were massacred and expelled to Anatolia from the Balkans are so easily ignored. In this respect, one cannot assess the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire by Western Europe and the Christians groups it supported as merely a result of a politico-strategic struggle.
Turkey will join a group of countries that accuse her of having committed genocide. Almost all of these countries were involved at least in the gestation of the idea of Holocaust in the past two centuries. However, they put the blame on the Nazi regime. They believed that the Turks were racially inferior and were biologically unalterable as they crushed the Ottoman Empire.
Now these countries reversing this situation for their own internal psychological needs, say Turkey will not become an EU member if she does not recognize the Armenian genocide. As long as this attitude persists, it is very difficult for us to become an EU member.
On the other hand, a group of Turkish liberal intellectuals, just like the colonial intellectuals defined by Franz Fanon, accepts the allegation that we are guilty of committing genocide against the Armenians, in addition to every criticism voiced by the West. By accepting an incident that is not genocide, they do great disservice to humanity by confusing the concept of genocide.