What Greek propaganda?

Submitted by Andreas (United States), Jan 21, 2014 at 17:12

Dear John

First of all, the "evil" megalo idea is spelled megali idea. It has been almost 100 years and the Turks still have not learned how to spell it. If you are a Turk posting under a Greek name, shame on you. If you are a Greek who has divorced with his own language, shame on you twice. That is besides the point however.

I am writing this not to defend Ianus, trust me he can do this much better himself, but because I am NAUSEATED (feel free to focus just on this single word and play the "sentimentalism" card just as you did with him) by people like you (lack of historic knowledge, reproduction of Turkish historical revisionism, faux arguments and logical fallacies)

A) Ianus is one of the very few armchair generals of this website that presents sources and evidence for every single one of his claims. Browse the website for his posts and notice his sources. These sources and evidence, who are independent for the most part, do not matter to you apparently and you focus only on the cosmetic adjectives that he uses to criticize the Turks and their ideology (hence the sentiment based criticism). Now tell me, who is using factual history and who is using sentiment, you or him? And explain to us please how exactly is "Greek propaganda" what Ianus is writing when he presents you INDEPENDENT sources that confirm his claims.

B) In case you have not noticed, you are committing an unorthodox tu quoque (in a funny way because Ianus is Polish) fallacy: When Ianus criticizes, instead of countering his arguments, you just say "but look what the armenians, greeks etc did too" (By the way we are still waiting for evidence of your claims if you want to be taken seriously and to be held at the same standard) as if that can somehow magically negate the evidence he provided. By the way please let us know if the genocides of the non muslim populations of Asia Minor were actually counter genocides in your opinion and knowledge (where they justified or do you think they did not happen?)

C) The old tactic of equalizing atrocities "they slaughtered us but we slaughtered them too" is immoral and unfair. If you indeed want to put on a balance (it is immoral to think this way) all the crimes committed by the entire non muslim population (Dhimmis, 11th class citizens) on one side and the crimes committed by the muslim (ruling) population of the Ottoman empire and modern Turkey, you know damn well that this balance will not only tip towards the muslim side but it will go through the floor and pierce the earth itself. Same concept of equalizing Islam's 1400 years of Jihad with Christianity's crusades or the thousand terrorists attacks since 9/11 with Brevik's psychopathic outbreak. The difference friend is that in Greece, just like in most Western countries, mainstream ideology is neither that atrocities are something to be proud of (and celebrated in anniversaries) nor something that is justified; it is something to be abhorred and condemned. On the other hand go to Turkey (not only the western coast) and ask whether they believe it was good/justifiable to purge Asia Minor from the non muslim (and later non Turkish) elements or not. For your information they view it as purification of their lands. Turkey has not condemned anything and has gone one step ahead by even denying that anything shameful ever happened. In addition you will even go to jail or even murdered for saying otherwise. Not only that, they use this bloody past as an example of what they can achieve since it has worked so well for them so far. In Western Thrace and half the Aegean, the want to do exactly what they did in Cyprus (Davutoglu's strategic depth).

D) Nobody said that evil is owned by the Turks only but there are not a lot of modern counties that have been founded on genocide and forceful assimilation (and boast about it too). Turkey has set very high standards on this practice that are very difficult to meet. Stating this does not make you non objective or a bigot and it does not require to list every single instance of violence from the other side in order to white wash the history.

E) "the evil megalo (sic) idea akritas plan". It seems as if you are quoting verbatim a Turkish school history text along. Explain to us please why the megali idea was evil in your opinion. Wanting to reclaim the lands (Ionian coast and Pontus) that have been Greek for thousands of years and were taken by Jihad and forming a non theocratic state where there will be no 1st and 2nd class citizens is evil? Knowing that if you do not take them, all non Muslims will be killed, driven away, persecuted and forcefully assimilated (as it actually happened) is evil? The akritas plan was not part of the megali idea and if you know your history well, early on Turkey had given up any claims on Cyprus and it could have united with Greece without bloodshed but political factors, the cold war and the interests of other countries besides Greece and Turkey created a cluster frak. On that matter read what Davutoglu says in his book "the strategic depth": (paraphrasing) even if not a single Turk was on Cyprus it was in our interests to take over the island one way or the other by constructing (out of thin air) muslim minorities and use them as a pretext/means for invasion/annexation (same thing that he aspires to do in Western Thrace and half the Aegean).

At this point tell us please if you agree with the Turkish mainstream history, that the Greek nation (ethnos) is a made up nation (do a research on what other countries claim this for your own amusement), there have not been any Greeks since the Roman empire, and as such modern Greeks have no rights to the lands that they are in (since prehistoric time) and as such the Turks should be the rightful masters of the whole Balkan area. Moreover, Turks do not even call "Greek" the Greeks Cypriots. They deny them even their ethnicity. They call them Rum which describes religion (orthodox Christian) just to show you with what (Islamic) standards they view people and history.
By the way in case you did not know, Greece is not claiming anything from Turkey today. After all the Hellenism of Anatolia has been utterly destroyed by the policies/actions of the Ottoman empire and modern Turkey. It is Turkey that claims half the Aegean, the whole Cyprus and Western Thrace.

Please follow your own advice and read some history. I recommend to you Neoklis Sarris' "osmaniki pragmatikotita" (Osmanic reality) to understand the historic and cultural background of the Ottoman Empire and its subjects and if your heart can take it, Davutoglu's "strategic depth" which is basically the mein kempf of neo Ottomanism.

Pardon the length and mediocre eloquence.

Regards

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