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Post by oszkarthehun on May 5, 2010 18:29:35 GMT -5
On a converse, my closest Turkish friend believes wholeheartedly that a genocide did happen, in fact a few of them... and sad for the anti-genocide case, they are among the more free thinking and intelligent Turks I know. Many others who argue against them seem to do so from a "I dont really know but Ive been taught not to believe it so I don't"... which unfortunately they dont fare very well. Many people would simply be amongst the deniers because thats what they have been programmed to do, and many do so without question. Its the open minded and well educated people that have been able to look at the situation from a different perspective and then formulate their own oppinion rather than just simply continuing to repeat what there Uncles and etc relatives and Turkish authorities say.
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Post by oszkarthehun on May 5, 2010 19:14:19 GMT -5
Find any reasons or excuses for your denialist outlook that make you feel better but actually many of the varied peoples that gave witness accounts were not racicsts simply based on the fact that they witnessed something happening around them, there were accounts from Swedes and Germans as well as others, and now slowly Sweden has decided to acknowledge Arm genocide.
There is the famous quote you give repeatedly from an article that actually recognises an Armenian genocide also.
to a certain degree history is based on some degree of informed speculation.
I have said after Ottomans slaughtered between 200 to 300 thousand Armenians its not hard to believe there was feelings for retribution and vengeance and certainly there was sentiment to find liberation of Armenians from the same Ottoman authoirity who were involved such high level massacres, but as always please ignore such points as any kiillings or massacres of Armenians is of no interest for you.
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If you have read books such as Ackams Shamefuk Act and other comprehensive books on the subject you will see as I have said many writers who acknowlegde a genocide also recognse there were some Arm massacres of Musloim civillians, whats important here is context.
I dont think its this simple, Ottoman authorities had the oppurtunity to stay in good with Armenians and keep them as the loyal millet But they resented Armenians as the foreign representatives became involved after Ottomans ignored Armenians previous requestst for protection against Muslim raiders, and more rights as Christian subjects. Authorities actually wanted to empower Kurds and other Muslims around Arm areas and also to win the allegiance of Kurds fearing Kurds may otherwise ally with others. Its more complicated than picture you paint.
you choose to ignore aspects and realities of your countries hisory and behaviour and rather evade it by pointing to your wicked west.
aha.
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It is certain some of that community had moved there from the times of the Hamid masscares.
armed struggle was often an escalation from simple protests that had turned into attacks from the authorities or some Muslims and then there was some armed resistance in ceratin cases but not all situations were the same and should be analysed independantly.
I dont but all you do is try to excuse and or inadvertantly justify those who were involved in destruction of Anatollias historical Arm authorities from any guilt/blame.
many died from deathmarches and masscares , many died because authorities plucked them from their houses and villages and then later gave those houses and villages to other Muslims.
regarding Hamid Massacres there are several varying numbers from different international sources but all or most are higher than the 120 000 figure you have given for Muslims deathtoll.
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why not its a well used counter tactic by the deniers.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on May 6, 2010 3:08:06 GMT -5
Find any reasons or excuses for your denialist outlook that make you feel better but actually many of the varied peoples that gave witness accounts were not racicsts simply based on the fact that they witnessed something happening around them, there were accounts from Swedes and Germans as well as others, and now slowly Sweden has decided to acknowledge Arm genocide. I do not agree that " how I interpret the history of the country I live" could make me feel better or worse. History is compiled from set of events that is already past. How I understand the past events is of course a crucial process, but not for saving my day. That process is important for building a peaceful future for next generations succeeding mine. For example, I read the U. S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau's views on Turks, and I do not think that his views amonth to anything respectable now. I read Raphael Lemkin's views on Black Africans, and I must stress that do not appreciate him either. Perhaps you read those and you think that their accounts and views are valuable. Well, that is your choice, after all. However, do not forget the fact that " reading the Eurocentric accounts of the 19th and early 20th Centuries" is like reading Hitler's views on Jews for the most cases: not respectable anymore. Moreover, I do not mind how Sweden or any other Western/European nation interpret the Turkish History when those keep on denying the genocides that have been executing since the Modern Ages. Could Australia or the US a role model for Turkey or Turkish people? I have doubts about that. Let me explain my view on this once again by giving an example. France, the British Empire and Russia jointly issued a warning to Turkey back in 1915 for some " crimes". What crime stated in the original document? " Crimes against Christianity", which appeared in the original, later on changed into " crimes against humanity" as if those two could be equated. One can surely has his/her own comment on certain era in history, but can not speculate on uncertainities to justfy his/her reasons. Between 1894 and 1896 over 100,000 inhabitants of Armenian villages were slaughtered during widespread pogroms conducted by the Sultan’s special regiments.www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/armenian_genocide.htmAs many would agree, 200-300 thousand peoples are some numbers usually used by the Armenian souces. However as you could notice from the link, even the Armenian ones could give 100.000 figure. Of course, what is not noted is the fact that Armenians also massacred Muslim civilians, particularly in the areas they revolted. Unfortunately, this aspect is mostly missing in Western oriented historical texts, not only in the case of the Turks, but also in the case of the losses of others, such as millions of Native Australians exterminated by the state you live in. I read Akcam books. I am sorry to say, but he sounds as if he is on Armenian pay roll. In one of his books, he even claimed that hanging all criminal administrators during the WWI was to cover up crimes against Armenians. In most of his books, he talks about the Circassian bandits as if the Circassians immigrated to Anatolia to masssacre Armenians for some money. He also claims that Ottoman losses happened in Balkans and Caucasus are inflated whilst he keeps on ignoring the presence of 150.000-200.000 armed Armenians fighting in the side of the allied powers during the WWI. There are more balanced views in Turkey even though some of those suggest existence of*genocide, such as the views of scholars like Baskin Onan or Halil Berktay. Sadly, CUP leaders wanted to get rid off the Armenian problem by deporting them to the areas that they no longer care to possess after the WWI. For them, holding possession of Eastern Anatolia was vital for the survival of the new nation state envisaged. Of course, those leaders were the byproduct of the Western way of conquering the world. After all, most of them were deportees survived from the massacres happened in the Balkans prior to 1915. You keep on lecturing on humanity whilst your culture lacks such concepts tremendously. In my humble opinion, you can not accuse anyone as denier whilst sitting on the skulls of hundreds of millions. On the one hand, you live on wealth raised from the genocides of native Australians, and on the other, you visit this Turkish forum almost everyday, and talk about Armenian Genocide. This is of course, kind of contradiction. Throughout 19th Century, Armenians kept on emigrating from the shrinking territories of Ottoman Empire to the newly annexed lands of the Russian Empire. This was due to incentives given by the Russians, which included " free land to settle" after the Muslim inhabitants were massacred or deported. Armed struggle was initated as Russia and Ottoman Empire declared war on each other. On top of almost 155.000 Armenians fighting for Russian and French armies, tens of thousands Armenian militias also began their planned activities in Ottoman lands behind the front lines. I do not justify any crimes, I categorize them after evaluating the historical context. After all, I am the byproduct of deliberate massacres and long lasted forced emigration process that the Muslim communitites had been experiencing since 1783. For this reason, I think, I am entitled to have my own views. Many died due to sicknesses that also affected millions of people in Anatolia including Muslims. Some other Armenians were also killed by bandits that were quite active in Anatolia thgroughout the WW1. However, it should be noted that those bandits also attacked Muslims and killed them for their possessions. I disagree. Evan many of the Western sources state a number around 100.000. Usually, Armenian sources inflate it up to 200.000-300.000 level to build the preconditions for their genocide claims. Perhaps you should ask this question to the people you seek answers. I gave you my reason, whether you like it or not, is upto you. ;D
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Post by oszkarthehun on May 6, 2010 18:43:14 GMT -5
I see so Westerners views dont hold any value for you, ok then so what about some of your fellow Turks and Muslims that recognise an Armenian genocide .
I didnt know we were talking about rolemodels. In Australia maybe officially there isnt use of this word genocide and I am not sure that there is any formal request by any group to have an official recognisation of events as genocide. What can be said is that Australian Government in a sense does pay repatriations to the Aboriginal peoples and community that it has historically oppressed. These repatriations come in way of many monetary benefits and discounts. Maybe now you will make small of this but I would then ask you what has Turkey done if anything for any of its aboriginal historical peoples/minorities that it has oppressed and damaged.
look at the population of Christians in Ottoman empire before WW1 and look at it now. Here must also be remembered that CUP had a nationalist and also pro Muslim agenda, which in fact was mostly achieved at the expense of majority of Anatollias former Christian community's.
I have asked you before to give information of Armenian massacres upon Muslims during this particuliar period of time and you responded by repeating your now famous Sandiego link, which was in fact several years after the Hamidian massacres.
In Turkey publically one must be very careful about how they express their views on the subject but in any case Halil Berktay and Baskin Onan and certain other Turkish scholars recognise an Armenian Genocide.
yes and this massive large scale removal of a historical community is genocidal behaviour. Moreover I dont think the only reasons were security issues as it was the case CUP had a pan Turkic and pan Islamist agenda so it suited them to do this on a super large scale level under the cover of war, after all even in villages where Armenians were not near Russians and where they had no security issues they were still targeted and removed.
well there forfathers had already stolen eastern Anatollia from the Armenians once before many years ago.
Turks had quite a well developed history as conquerors before they had anything to do with Westerners.
I am not lecturing, in fact I think I have not initiated even one thread about Armenian Genocide, I have simply in response to what others have said have given my oppinion.
excuse me I dont sit on anyones skulls and as for what happened to aboriginals here in Australia I dont deny it.
I doubt this country made its wealth from native Australians, as they had completly different lifestyle and culture but if you want to say British/Europeans took their lands then yes but please dont talk so loud about landtaking as Turks history was based on warfare and conquering and taking of other peoples lands. Even this militaristic culture tradition and outlook didnt change so much in Turkey even in modern times. Australia has made its wealth and built up its cities starting with the influx of new Australians after WW2.
the pattern has been for Turkey to stay mute and silent on this issue and what it did to its historical communities/minorities, generally I dont see your outlook being remarkedly different to the official one.
By in large Anatollias civillian Armenians were targeted and deported and also massacred there is no way round that. The Armenians of Anatollia lost 80% to 90% of their former population, besides this you have Aramaens,Assyrians, and Greeks claiming their own ethnic cleansings and genocides.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on May 7, 2010 4:03:12 GMT -5
I see so Westerners views dont hold any value for you, ok then so what about some of your fellow Turks and Muslims that recognise an Armenian genocide . Everyone is allowed to his/her opinion on historical matters. I know people who interpret the events of 1915 as a genocide. For such people, what happened in Iraq was also a genocide. Unfortunately, when genocide becomes a political matter in countries like the USA, France, Sweden, it is sham, particularly when those countries are the ones which have been evading to confront their own pasts. Australia deliberately evades to use of the term genocide in the case of destruction of Native Australians. In the USA, identical approach prevails. There is not a single resolution voted by both countries' parliaments, in relation to the destruction of their own native populations. Which reminds me one of your favorite quotations: " the last stage of genocide is denial". As the succeeding state of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey is full of descendants of emigrants (like my family) who found shelter in Anatolia. It is sad that this process also resulted in removal of Armenians and Greeks from Anatolia. However, do not forget that this process of ethnic cleansing was not initiated by Ottoman Turkey. Ottoman Turkey applied such horroble methods when there was no where else to retreat. In a way, CUP emerged from the ashes of Balkans, Caucasus, and Crimea. Nevertheless, minorities gradually experience some revival process at present. Kurds get better presentation in state and public affairs, and Turkey questions the damage inflicted on its minorities in the past. It is evident that Christian communities were cleansed off. As a result, Armenians mostly emigrated to the Western countries, Middle East and Russia whilst the Anatolian Rums were forced to emigrate to Greece. In a sense, this was the final step of demographic changes that was taking place in Balkans, Crimea and Caucasus (1783-1913). Even after 1923, more than 2 million people were forced to emigrate from Balkans, Crimea and Caucasus to Turkey, the last mass waves of emigration were from Bulgaria (1989), Bosnia (1990s), Kosova (1990s), Chechnya (1990s). Given the other estimates and the overall populations involved, I estimate that from 128,000 to 600,000 Moslem Turks and Kurds were killed. Since this was done by Armenian irregulars serving with Russian forces, I split responsibility for these deaths in Turkey between the Russians and Armenians, and show in Table 5.1A (line 255) the Armenian half--probably 75,000 murdered. www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP5.HTM#7Basically, everyone is free to have their opinions in Turkey on this subject. That is why, some people even organized a " Never Again" demonstration on 24th of April this year. Official position of Turkey does not change though. In my opinion, general CUP policy was to build a nation state. For this reason, it is evident that the Armenians and the Greek had to leave Anatolia. The Greek problem was relatively easy since there was Greece that the Rum populations could emigrate to. In the case of Armenian Problem, the Armenian alliance with Russians must have affected CUP leaders' decision to take the revenge of Russia's previous crimes on Muslims. As I stressed previously, for the CUP leadership, holding possesion of Eastern Anatolia was vital. They believed that the new established country's should have borders with Central Asia and Caucasus. That is why, removal of Armenians from Eastern Anatolia became so important subject during the WWI. Even in 1918, when the British troops had been advancing in Palestine, Iraq and Syria, the CUP leadership was busy in staging military campaigns in Caucasus. That was of course to establish a border line with Azeris. Armenians did not only live in Eastern Anatolia. It was the Armenian peasants who used to live there. Most Armenians had the tradition of living in cities and used to enjoy the autonomy that the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires offered. Western way of conquering is different though. Turks used to settle and adapt the life styles of native inhabitants. For example, the Cumanians settled in Hungary were purely assimilated after a few centuries, so were the Balkan Bulgars, Pechenegs, or Avars. We can not say the same for the Europeans settled in Australia or America. Europeans kept on massacring natives as if they had been hunting wild animals, and eventually natives were exterminated in great degree. OK. Perhaps you are not individually, but Australia rests upon skulls as an entity. I do not have such doubts. Natives could have been rich without the presence of the Europeans, having considered the fact that the Australian Continent is indeed very rich in terms of natural resources. You can see everyhing as you wish, but the truth prevails. I do not think that they lost 80-90% of their population. Even Syria and Lebanon have more than 500.000 Armenians today. It should be noted that almost all of those Armenians are the descendants of Anatolian Armenians deported between 1915-1922. Thus, Iran, Georgia, Russia and Armenia, The US, Canada, France, Greece, Agrentine and former Soviet Republics have large Armenian populations emigrated from Turkey between 1915-1922. Of course, if you ignore the existence of some 11 million people, then you can claim some 80-90% destruction rate. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_diaspora
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Post by oszkarthehun on May 10, 2010 23:36:17 GMT -5
considering the high civillian deathtoll I would consider Iraq a genocide too. [/i] Situation certainly could be much better but as I have said Australia teaches openly about what happened to Aboriginals and does give repatriations, I think USA does somthing similiar. . If some guy in your neighbourhood commits a crime its not an excuse for you to copy him. Point here is responsibility, Turkey has taken no or very little official acknowledged responsibility regarding what happened to its historical Christian communities in WW1, it has for a long time chosen to sweep this under the carpet. yes this was not by accident this was rather deliberate and premeditated. the following excerpts are from the same author and article from your link above ... Nevertheless, I do not doubt that this genocide occurred. Extant communications from a variety of ambassadors and other officials, including those of Italy, the then neutral United States, and Turkey's closest ally Germany, verify and detail a genocide in process. Moreover, contemporary newsmen and correspondents documented aspects of the genocide. Then, two trials were held. One by the post-war government that replaced the Young Turks, which gathered available documentation and other evidence on the genocide and found the leaders guilty.2 The second trial was of the Armenian who assassinated the former Young Turk leader Talaat in Munich in 1920.3 Although the Germans were still friendly toward the Young Turks they had supported during the war, the evidence on the genocide presented at the trial convinced the court that the assassination was justified. Finally, Turkish government telegrams and minutes of meetings held by government leaders establish as well their intent to destroy all the Armenians in Turkey. In my related Death By Government4 I have quoted selections from this vast collection of documents and need not repeat them here.5 The sheer weight of all this material in English alone, in some ways as diverse and authoritative as that on the Holocaust, is such that the invalidity or falsification of some of it can hardly effect the overall conclusion that a genocide took place. and Next I independently check this consolidation against the sum (line 188) of those Armenians murdered during the deportations (line 123) and otherwise (line 148). As can be seen, the alternative totals (lines 187 and 188) are divergent, the mid-value alone being off by 808,000 dead. To compensate for this, I give the final genocide range (line 189) the lowest low and highest high of the two and average their mid-values. Thus, given all these estimates, the Turks murdered most likely 300,000 to 2,686,000 Armenians, probably 1,404,000 of them.The Young Turks did not confine their democide to Turkey. When they invaded Caucasia, their soldiers massacred Armenians and other Christians and also encouraged Kurds and Azerbaijanis to do so. Overall, Turks possibly killed (lines 212 to 220) 10,000 Christians, most of them probably Armenians--there were very few Greeks in Caucasia. (It is difficult to keep this number in perspective when other figures are in the tens and hundreds of thousands; but imagine the contemporary enraged and horrified outcry were the highest American, British, or French authorities to be responsible for the murder of 10,000 Moslem citizens--the responsible government would fall or be impeached.) For this genocide the table also lists some specific estimates (lines 224 to 227). These I consolidated (line 228) and then add (line 229) an assumed 4/5ths of the Christian dead determined above. The table then sums the two ranges (lines 228 and 229) to get the genocide (line 232). www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP5.HTM#7yes as I have said Ottomans on the one hand acted out of security issue but on other hand out of an agenda for pan Turkic Pan Islamic nation state and also with possible aims of unification with Turkic peoples of Cenbtral Asia so as I have said getting rid of Armenians was suitable. yes. Historically I think they mostly did and they also had some population in Cilica. Van was for example very old Armenian city going back few thousand years to the Nare people whom had a kingdom there , these people spoke an agglutinative language its thought they mixed with some Indo European speaking peoples and merged into what became the Armenians, So its thought that Eastern Anatollia is actually where Armenians originated. The first written reference to them as Armenains was in city of Van by Persians I believe. Even now Nare is a common Armenian girls name. . it probably suited those who were merchants or pursuing education, but I read somewhere they were encouraged to move around by Ottomans to break up concentration of them in Eastern Anatollia. Hungarians knew these people before they settled in Hungary and vice versa they were not strangers to each other, in many ways Hungarians had already earlier adapted certain influences from them especially in terms of military style and political organisation, eventually Hungary became Christian Kingdom and adapted to European political structure. This is not exactly the same as the example of Ottomans in the Balkans whom didnt change there religion or political structure to suit that of Europe. But in many ways I agree with you that they "the Ottomans"were more tolerant overall to the natives compoared to how American and Australian Europeans treated their natives. in the sense it stole anothers land and killed many people of that land yes. . yes but the inhabitatnts must be able to process or sell those resources this was not in culture of the natives they were hunters and gatherers not really traders or buisnismen. ] this is not necessarily reference to deathtoll, we are talking about the amount of Armenians that no longer live in Anatollia by percentage compared to previous Armenian historical community before deportations, massacres etc. Diaspora has been an ongoing entity, there were Armenians in Europe hundreds of years before WW1. Diaspora to Europe and Western countries occurs even now and has been ongoing occurance as Armenains move from Midde East, Iran, Russia or Armenia to Western countries.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on May 11, 2010 4:17:49 GMT -5
considering the high civillian deathtoll I would consider Iraq a genocide too. Since the UN Genocide Convention was in effect prior to the Invasion of Iraq, I have to agree with you on this. Australia does not teach any genocide to the Australian pupils, neither does the USA. None of those ever passed a genocide resolution acknowledging the genocide that took place in their backyard. They mention incidents involved massacres, but as you also state, massacre and genocide do not equal to each other. If some of your neighbors ally with the thiefs and the criminals against you, and if some innocent people die when you react to defend your self, your relatives and your home, then the crime you commit could not be deemed as identical to the crime commited by the thief and the thief allies. It was a mistake that Turkey did not want to remember what happened to Muslims in Balkans, Crimea, and Caucasus. That is why, the long term impact of these crimes on other Ottoman minorities (Such as Greeks Armenians, Assyrians) was never questioned properly. Some might say that. However, it is evident that there was no deportation prior to Russo-Armenian crimes in Eastern Anatolia. I read the link. The author also names the Russo-Armenian crimes as democide (genocide). However, such aspect is not usual amongst the Western academics. Perhaps they had some hidden agenda, perhaps they did not have any. We can not be sure of their intensions anymore. What we can be sure of, is quite simple. The European powers had been quite brutal in terms of cleansing off the Muslim populations of the annexed Ottoman territories (1783-1922). This placed severe impact on everyone, including Armenians eventually. OK. Armenians enjoyed great deal of tolerance by the Ottoman Administration in relation to various issues. Such tolerance was deterioated after the second half of the 19th Century in line with the institutional decline that became apparent. Yes, the Hungarian were similar to the Cumanians, but after all, Cumanian case is not isolate. The ones settled in Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Macedonia also got integrated into local culture rather than destroying them. Settled. True. Since they were destroyed in masses, we can not be sure of their actual development that might be applicable. I understand your view. Emigration from Ottoman Empire was popular amongst the Christian subjects, particular in the second half of the 19th Century. However, The mass exodus of Armenians was not between 1850s-1900s, but between 1915-1922 period. Thus, Armenians kept on emigrating until 1970s ude to various reasons.
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Post by oszkarthehun on May 12, 2010 2:49:53 GMT -5
There was already large scale massacres upon Armenians though.
European interference probably had not helped the Armenians but only the Ottomans can be responsible for their own actions and own agendas. What happened in the Balkans could not fairly be blamed upon Armenians or other Christian groups in Anatollia whom were all historical peoples of that region.
Reading a book about Van at the moment here are some points from book
the population of the walled city increased in the 18th and 19th century, under Ottoman rule the administritive boundaries were frequently altered, the Kurdish element was encouraged to settle in Armenian strongholds, beset by armed tribesmen many Armenian peasants either fell into a servile status to Kurdish chieftans or became witness to extortion and plunder of their native villages. Some Armenians left the region especially for Constantinople and other large coastal cities where they engaged in menial labour such as that of a porter (hamal) and became the panduht - homesick exile so poignantly described in the Armenian literature of the 19th century. Armenian Van / Vaspurakan.
Im not sure they "Hungarians" were similiar to Cumans/Kun, the Turkic tribes that Hungarians probably had interacted mostly with prior to settling in Hungary were probably Bulgars and Khazars, the Turkic words that exist in Hungarian language as I understand are mostly thought to be of Khazar and Bulgar origin with most of them from Bulgar I believe, also at least 3 of the tibes that joined Hungarians in settling in Hungary were Kabars. It is thought Cumans had strong population in Romania and had even intermixed with Vlachs/Romanians there. Cumans and the Iranic people the Jasz came to Hungary few hundred years after Magyars settled there but its likely Hungarians already knew both groups. Many of the Avars whom supposedly occupied Panonia for up to 200 years prior to Hungarians arrrival had already mixed in with the southern Slavs once Avar empire crumbled.
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Possibly but we can say their culture was quite different to the European and also even other eastern cultures of the 18th century when British landed in Australia.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on May 13, 2010 6:42:24 GMT -5
There was already large scale massacres upon Armenians though. Yes there was. In the second half of the 19th Century, right to have private property (land) is granted. This created competition between Kurds and Armenians. Rise of nationalism, Second Industrial Revolution, and institutional decline of the Ottoman State placed severe impact on citizens of the empire in general. The CUP leadership consisted of irresponsible people. They entered WWI with the hope of defeating Russia and the British Empire. That was a big mistake. When things started to get complicated, they executed policies resulted great ordeal for the citizens of the empire in general, but the Armenians, Assyrians in particular. Perhaps, Anatolian Greeks did not suffer losses during the WWI, but between 1918-1922, they also experienced great difficulties. Russian Empire was quite active in Caucasus, Crimea and Eastern Anatolia after the collapse of the Crimean Khanate. In a sense, the Ottoman policy was to counter the Russian one, which embodied encouraging settlement of the pro-Ottoman enthicities instead of the pro-Russian ones. Cumans after all, were similar to the Bulgars and Khazars. That is right. We can say that, but we can not conclude that the European Settlement was overall beneficial for the Native Australians.
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Post by oszkarthehun on May 13, 2010 18:25:36 GMT -5
Yes , I mostly agree with your points here.
European settlement certainly was definitly not beneficial for them,
not only was the treatment mostly bad, but in time even now it created a huge culture shock that the aboriginal communiy is still affected by, introducing things such as alcohol and sugar etc things that aboriginals bodies cannot handle eg alcoholism, diabetes etc.
Aboriginal people were hunters and gatheres with a deep connection to nature and the land they had no concept of western materialistic culture it had no value for them and mostly doesnt hence many of them are now in a state of cultural limbo/confusion many having lost connection with their own culture and traditions and then not having much identification with western culture.
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