Monday, March 29, 2010

Poor choice of words... or tactics, maybe?

Two countries have strained diplomatic relations, and the strain gets worse and worse – while unfortunate, it wouldn’t be surprising that one of them takes it out on immigrants from the other country…

For example, let’s say France and Albania, or England and Russia, or Italy and Zaire, develop strained relations; it wouldn’t be surprising that the former of the countries put pressure on the latter. The United States, during WWII, placed thousands, actually, over one hundred thousand individuals of Japanese descent, in internment camps, purportedly for their own safety. Really, they were under lock and key out of fear, discrimination, and ignorance. If I remember my history correctly, over half of them were actual legal citizens, many of them were U.S. born, and a minority, if any, were illegal (if someone has any info on this, please feel free to add it in the comments).

But, really, Erdogan’s statements are a tad ridiculous. This is what it comes down to: present day Turkey is upset that there is pressure regarding Genocide recognition, a genocide which involved mass killings, rape, murder of women and children, and… deportation. And so, some countries and political entities start threatening to recognize, or recognize (with apologies might I add), the Armenian Genocide by Ottoman Turkey… And what does Turkey do? Threaten to deport Armenians! … Who in their government decided this was good diplomacy, or even, made any good sense?

The news reports and translations are that the words used in Turkish are “deportation” of Armenians, and that to date, Turkey has been “tolerating” Armenians. Isn’t there a better way to say that as a government, they will be more stringent regarding the legality and leniency of illegal immigrant from Armenia?

I will look more into the original language and translation – but if anyone sees them, or knows Turkish and reads the original statements, I would appreciate if you share what you have read, especially regarding whether these are the terms really being used by the government of Turkey.

Come on, … Tolerate? ... Deportation?...

1 comment:

Ankakh_Hayastan said...

The Armenian proverb that says that "A Turk remains a Turk no matter what" (the American version is "Even if you put a lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig") is quite true.

Stegh en asum vor turq@ mnum e turq@.