Customer Reviews

Armenia: Portraits of Survival and Hope

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The first 20th century holocaust was against the thousands of innocent Armenians massacred by Turkish troops in the First World War. No soon as that war was over than most Armenians, if they were not forced under Turkish rule, became Soviet citizens. Then when they finally got their independence back after the end of the USSR, they found themselves involved in a bloody war with Azerbaijan. Few peoples have suffered as much as the Armenians in the past 20 years and a book like this is absolutely essential reading if we are to understand the people of the oldest continually Christian country in the world. Buy this book and then give all your friends this book as a present for Christmas. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003)

To the Turkish "review"ers:

This is the case always when any is published about any subject that bears the name Armenia. Armenia is "fake, bandit, criminal, murderous, genocidal" and the list goes on and on... I again ask objectively and scholarly as to where, when, how, who, why are these people charged with these heavy charges, when it was the OTTOMAN EMPIRE which ruled for over 630 years, over the known Christian world, from the doors of Vienna to the shores of Yemen, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black sea shores and Persia. During that period how many millions of Christians were forcefully converted to Islam, tortured, massacred, brutalized, their properties, wives and daughters confiscated and dishonored, and also how many wars did it have against even Muslim powers like the Persian Kingdom, the Berbers, the Albanians, the Kurds and Arabs?

Sure, it is easy to yeal "WE DIDN'T DO IT!" in regards to the Armenian Genocide.. Oh but hold it! Don't the Neo-Nazis say the same about the Holocaust? Don't the Khmer militia say the same about Cambodia? Don't SOME Hutus say the same about the Tutsis? DOES THE GOVERNMENT OF SUDAN OR DOES YOUR GOVERNMENT IN TURKEY OR AZERBAIJAN say there is a Genocide going on in SUDAN? (I know exactly why can't you say it). Sudan would tell you to "look into a mirror..."

Do you want just one example of Genocide commited not only against the Armenians, but against every Christian minority for 630 years? WHERE DID YOU RECRUIT THE JANISSARIES FROM...? Being christian children forcefully taken as tax from their parents and grown as turks to massacre christians is or isn't a classical, methodological, systematic way to shrink or eliminate a race? What about the 300,000 Armenians massacred by the Hamidiye forces between 1894-1896? What about the 30,000 plus Armenians butchered in Adana in 1909? What about the 1,500,000 Armenians, and more than 400,000 Greeks, 250,000 Assyrians, and thousands of other non-turkic minorities between 1915 and 1923...? Some Turkish diplomats were shot during the Cold War by Armenian activists? What a pity... 30 plus diplomats for you weigh more than millions upon millions of other people... Elif Shafak the daughter of one of those diplomats shot, is more couragous than anyone to objectively examine for the truth and getting convinced that Turkey did commit the ultimate crime against humanity, that these Armenians acted for the recognition of the Genocide (even though the ways were extreme and sometimes unjustified.) Wasn't it the interior minister of Azerbaijan who in 2005 said that "Armenia would not exist in 30 years from now..? Any better words for Genocide?

Let the honest, unbiased, historically sound minded person objectively examine the events, and come to the conclusions. Conclusions that are nowadays reached by Turkish intellectuals (Akcam, Berktay, Muge, Ertem, Zarakoglu, Shafak, and many more) who recognize and condemn the first Genocide of the 20th Century.

"NOW GO AND LOOK INTO A MIRROR..."

The books doesn't worst buying. It is poorly written, and is more about the "brainwashing" than presenting and objectively analysing the facts about Armenia ...

This book is another cheap-shot in the decades-long propaganda war between Armenian and Turkish and Azerbaijani nationalists. Not only the author tells only one-side of the story, but the book is completely based on fiction and non-facts. It has nothing to say about the massacre of Turks, Kurds, Jews and Azerbaijanis in 1890-1924 by the hands of Armenian gangs and military forces, ethnic cleansing and mass killings conducted from 1988 to present by Armenian forces in Karabakh and other areas of Azerbaijan, and brutal terrorist campaign by Armenian ASALA and other terror groups against Turkish and Azerbaijani diplomats and other civilians throughout 20th century. The author tries to reverse the facts, portray the aggressor (Armenian Republic and its militant gangs in Karabakh) as the victim, and uses religion as a tool to galvanize Christian readers against Muslim victims of Armeinian war crimes. While the conflict is a classic case of territorial dispute and ethnic hatred, the book tries to present the events as a result of a religious war, which is non-sense considering the overwhelming secular character of populations of all sides involved (Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan). The only way I would recommend this book - is as an example of the product of typical biased propaganda campaign.