RISE OF TURK PARTY The Armenian Genocide was the deadliest genocide, resulting in approximately 1.5 million Armenian lives lost. The Young Turks were the perpetrators that orchestrated the removal of Armenians. This group was formed because of the Sultan Abdul-Hamid and his power (Adalian 2017). Due to the lack of progression and change in the Ottoman Empire, a group of military officers took it upon themselves to try and make a change to this empire that had become stale (Adalian 2017). With careful planning and waiting, The Young Turkish successfully overturn Sultan Abdul-Hamid and his power (Adalian 2017). This overturn was successful due to the public support they received, but most importantly they …show more content…
received support from the Ottoman armies in European Turkey (Adalian 2017). Aside from this young military group forming, they also had the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) (Adalian 2017). The CUP was formed during 1895, and its main goals were to dismantle the formation of “multi-ethnic and multi-religious group” (Adalian 2017). It’s powerful values and aggressive tactics eventually lead to them to having Parliament under their power (Adalian 2017). The purpose of them having Parliament under them, was to begin changing the policies already in place (Adalian 2017). When they were settled into their new power, they immediately started to create a plan to abolish the Armenian people (Adalian 2017). The main purpose of this newly reinstated regime was to establish a modern and constitutional government (Cohan 2005) The Armenian population were viewed as unfit to the new type of environment that The Young Turkish were trying to create. According to the Turkish government, Armenians were seen as a “vulnerable population straddling an area of major strategic value” (2017). Due to the Turkish trying to revamp their empire, they wanted to expand the empire into “Turanian lands,” which majority of the Armenian population resided in (Adalian 2017). The Armenian population began to feel discriminations and the marginalization.
1909 MASSACRES IN ADANA The start of the plans to exterminate Armenians rose when there was the 1914 worldwide crisis that serves as a leeway for them to cover up their plans for extermination. The Young Turks intended to use radical measures and violence in order to abolish this population of individuals. Prior to the start of the genocide, during 1909, there were the massacres of Armenians in the city of Adana (Adalian 2017). This massacre took place as a result of the ongoing battle with the Young Turk Revolution. The Adana Massacre included about 4,437 deaths, Armenians were torched and tortured. The killings did not stop there, as they kept spreading throughout the neighboring cities and about 30,000 Armenians ended up killed. Those highly populated cities were occupied by Armenians, making it easier for them to have them all in one section. This massacre served as a “rehearsal for gauging the depth of Turkish animosity,” this event did not amount the plans that The Young Turks had developed for further extermination of the Armenian population (Adalian 2017).
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IMPLEMATION On April 24, 1915, also known as, Red Sunday, the plan to abolish the Armenian population started (Dadrian 2003). The Turks began by abolishing intellectuals including “politicians, writers, educators, lawyers, etc.” (Hovannisian 1967). They targeted 235 leaders as a way for the Armenian population to stop from rebelling or trying to fight the changes that were inevitable. Those intellectuals that were taken, were either hung, tortured or burned, they were never seen after they were taken (Téson 2013). As the weeks went by the body count of Armenians individuals were only increasing with having about 2,345 leaders executed and charged with crimes (Dadrian 1997). Armenians began to be taken out of their homes and go on “death marches” through the Mesopotamia desert without water or food (Tusan 2014). Not only were individuals forced to go on the death marches, but they were also being tortured and executed (Akcam 2015). Within these marches, they were forced to walk and not fall or else they would be killed, those killed would be throw into the Euphrates River and Black Sea (Akcam 2015). These violent and malicious acts ended about half of the Armenian population when the genocide was over (Akcam 2015). The victims of the genocide, did not receive the proper care after the events despite the violence they had endured.
TURKISH MILITARY TRIBUNAL The Turkish Military Tribunal was a case that was brought to court in order for the Turkish leaders to be convicted for their role in the genocide (Kazarian 1971). Leaders Ismail Enver, Mehmed Talaat Pasha and Doctor Nazim were all sentenced to death in absentia (Kazarian 1971). Talaat Pasha, the main supported of the Turkification, was assassinated by an Armenian man when Talaat was leaving his home in Hardenbergstrasse, Charlottenburg (Kazarian 1971).
SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACHES With all of the atrocities that the Young Turks planned against the Armenian population has served as a way for individuals to further analyze the important behind their decisions.
The act alone of exterminating the Armenians was an attempt at keeping the Turkish country pure. The Turkish wanted Islam to be the only religion and not Christianity, as Armenians practiced. The need and desire to create uniformity and social equilibrium is referred to as the functionalist perspective (Collins 1994). The Armenians did not want to stray away from their own values and culture that the Turks realized that they were going to be a problem with the uniformity they were trying to create. In order to abolish them they used genocide as a way to keep them from rebelling and keep power from the Young Turk. This conflict theory perspective, demonstrates how the Armenians had to fit into the standards even if that meant leaving their traditions and religious beliefs aside (Collins 1994). They did not have the opportunity to flee or try to reform themselves in order to try and save themselves. They were also grouped in parts of eastern Turkey making it simpler for the Turkish to execute their plan (Dadrian 2003). Furthermore, the actually mass killing of the Armenian population was a way of the Turkish to have an ultranationalist state in which their beliefs and core values were the ones that must be followed by anyone under their ruling (Dadrian 2003). This serves as an example of the symbolic interaction perspective, in which, humans function best in a practical and interactive way in accordance to their surroundings (Collins 1994). This demonstrates how the Young Turks were determined to create an improved environment and would justify their killings on these ideological concepts. They used violence and terror as a way to simplify the transition of power that they were trying to
reinstate.
CONCLUSION
Such theories provide with a better understanding of how all of the events that occurred throughout this time period were all calculated by those in power. The Turkish Rule was focused on trying to reform and start a revamped empire at the expense of millions of lives. The global issues surrounding this time period was a great distraction for what was occurring to the Armenians. This genocide provides the lesson of how even though a group of individuals are considered a minority does not mean that those issues are much smaller. Ignoring those issues from suffering groups leads to deadly events such as the genocide. The surrounding countries decided to ignore the events going on, when it could have been possible that there would be less causalities or perhaps none. The Armenian Genocide has casted a shadow into the events that followed in history like The Holocaust. Despite it being over one-hundred years of it happening, these events have continued to be spoken about due to the denial countries like Turkey express. With such a powerful event occurring, it has become crucial that despite the progression, that these past events continue to be taught to prevent any other mass genocides from occurring.