Armenian Genocide

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School

Arizona State University *

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343

Subject

Religion

Date

Oct 30, 2023

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docx

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Uploaded by jefffunes

In my opinion, the genocide of Armenians was not necessarily due to the role of religion. Although an underlying factor for the mass execution and conversion of many children and women to Islam, I believe they posed a threat to what the Turkish ruling class to achieve, the Turkification of all of Turkey. These areas included parts of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and some of the Russian Caucasus, including present-day Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Throughout the history of the Ottoman Empire, there were many different cultures, languages, religions, and nationalities in the empire and the Ottomans allowed these ethnoreligious and ethnonational communities to exist and considered them loyal. For years, they lived in relative harmony as most regions agreed to the ruling of the Ottoman/Turkish elite ruling class with some of the Armenians part of it. As the Ottoman Empire started to crumble before World War I, a group of new reformers called the Young Turks entered the political arena. The Young Turks wanted Turkification of the Ottoman Empire and the Armenians were a threat and seen as separatists. At this point, Armenians were very successful in business and highly educated. The Armenian Genocide started with the intellectuals and ended with ordinary men, women, and children shattering and killing up to a million lives. The tragedy committed by the Young Turks and the crumbling Ottoman Empire can certainly be classified by the UN definition of genocide. It can also be classified by the broad strokes of Raphael Lemkin. Studying the assignment leads me to believe that religion was not a main factor in the genocide of the Armenians. It seemed to be a ‘matter-of-fact’ that they were also Christian. With the obvious destruction and shrinking of the Ottoman Empire and a World War looming, I believe the Turkish ruling elite made a decision based on strategic importance as they sided with the Germans and Austro-Hungarian Empire and

were afraid of the influence of Russia on the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. I also believe it was easier to frame the Armenians as non-believers so that the general population would understand why they must be deported, killed, and/or converted. Nevertheless, it was a genocide based on both Lemkin and the UN definitions, but religion was more of a secondary or even tertiary reason for the genocide.

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