Clearly I have more reading to do, thank you for calling my knowledge and assumptions into question. If he was as outspoken against the Armenian genocide as you say then that already does a great deal to shift my perspective.
By benefiting from the genocide, I meant that his government benefited from the availability of valuable land that had been depopulated, and that it was easier to enforce cultural erasure and ethnic assimilation after the dirty work of mass slaughter had already been done. The “Citizen, speak Turkish” campaign in the 30’s certainly had the effect of strongly discouraging (and in some places punishing) ethnic minorities from speaking their native languages in public.
You also raise a good point that we shouldn’t conflate every act of the government with the views and policies of one man. Just like the President of the United States isn’t my entire government. I ought to examine this period of history much more critically.
By benefiting from the genocide, I meant that his government benefited from the availability of valuable land that had been depopulated, and that it was easier to enforce cultural erasure and ethnic assimilation after the dirty work of mass slaughter had already been done.
Oh, yes, certainly. If memory serves, Ataturk refused certain minorities expelled during the Ottoman Empire the right to return in some regions, on the account that, while what happened to them was horrible, it would be ‘dangerous’ for them to return amongst simple country folk who still bore those gruesome prejudices. Which is, of course, also horribly convenient for establishing those areas as Turkish-dominated going forward.
Clearly I have more reading to do, thank you for calling my knowledge and assumptions into question. If he was as outspoken against the Armenian genocide as you say then that already does a great deal to shift my perspective.
By benefiting from the genocide, I meant that his government benefited from the availability of valuable land that had been depopulated, and that it was easier to enforce cultural erasure and ethnic assimilation after the dirty work of mass slaughter had already been done. The “Citizen, speak Turkish” campaign in the 30’s certainly had the effect of strongly discouraging (and in some places punishing) ethnic minorities from speaking their native languages in public.
You also raise a good point that we shouldn’t conflate every act of the government with the views and policies of one man. Just like the President of the United States isn’t my entire government. I ought to examine this period of history much more critically.
Oh, yes, certainly. If memory serves, Ataturk refused certain minorities expelled during the Ottoman Empire the right to return in some regions, on the account that, while what happened to them was horrible, it would be ‘dangerous’ for them to return amongst simple country folk who still bore those gruesome prejudices. Which is, of course, also horribly convenient for establishing those areas as Turkish-dominated going forward.