Well, of course, Ken, "the" Germans didn't and don't all admit what was
done by a large and dominant minority in rheir name (a girlfriend's
father was in the Waffen-SS in the East and claimed he had seen no
atrocities at all, Holocaust denial is rife in the former GDR), but
certainly one cannot imagine a EU with a German state refusing to
acknowledge what was done in the name of Germans and tolerated, perhaps
even approved of, by the majority under Nazi rule - this is practically
what the Turkish state proposes, however, with the enthusiastic support
of G.W.Bush and Tony Blair. Quite a few Turks do now accept the reality
of what happened, but to say it in Turkey is to court assassination or
prosecution - see the present invidious position of Orhan Pamuk:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,380858,00.html
It's interesting though that Armenians living in Turkey are very annoyed
by the fuss made by exile Armenians, since their great hope is that
Turkey will join and their already improved status will get even better.
I cannot help feeling deeply enraged by all such denials. I still go and
have a döner kebab at the local Turkish kiosk when I'm in Frankfurt,
however.
Best
Martin
Ken Wolman wrote:
> I can understand the rage Armenians go into over the Turkish
> still-unadmitted genocide. The Germans at least had the decency to
> acknowledge that they'd done. I met a woman in an Armenian church in
> my area and when I told her about Nazim Hikmet, she was flabbergasted
> that a Turk would own what his countrymen had done. Poets perhaps
> belong to their own race?
>
> Ken
>
--
M.J.Walker - no blog - no webpage - no idea
Nous ne faisons que nous entregloser. - Montaigne
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