Why does Turkey still deny the Armenian Genocide ?

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I am surprised that the UK doesn't still officially recognise the genocide and only this year the US officially recognised it for the first time. I don't know its because Turkey has generations that grown over more than 100 years unable to acknowledge it and come to terms with it and worried that its a stain on their pride as a country.

Probably because they're like the folks who believe in Q-Anon.

Facts staring them in the face will not sway them.

Because legally speaking, discussing the truth is considered 'insulting Turkishness'.

Nationalism.

The state mandates that you not criticize the actions of the Turkish state or its founders. Do not criticize Ataturk. Do not mention Turkish atrocities in their war of independence. Do not criticize Turkish state treatment of ethnic and religious minorities: Greeks, Armenians, and *especially* Kurds.

The ongoing situation in the present day with another ethnic minority, the Kurds, probably has something to do with it. If they fess up to wronging one group it would create a precedent for acknowleging wronging the other group.

I think it's a sort of national cognitive dissonance kind of thing, people have a really hard time acknowledging that they might be the bad guy, and the brain will perform some amazing mental gymnastics to avoid it.

^This

States built on genocide are going to be populated by people who either forget or rationalize that genocide.

Because... watch this and you’ll understand why, it has english subtitles.

Kinda like the USA, no?

Or Canada.

Or Australia

And let's not forget the countries currently committing ethnic cleansing while the so called "free world" looks the other way. Like China and Israel.

Both, IMO.

Exactly. I started listing examples but honestly the list started going on for too long, and I wouldn't want to exclude anyone lol.
USA, Canada, (almost any country in the Americas honestly), Russia, China, Japan, Serbia, the UK, France, Australia, New Zealand-- see what I mean?

I do think that telling people that the murder of millions of people is a myth and didn't happen, does appear insulting to the victims' families. I found out that not only is there denial surrounding the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, but there is even denial of other atrocities such as the Rwandan Genocide, the Bosnian and Serbian Genocides, and the Killing Fields in Cambodia. It does make me quite angry that some people even to this day can deny these terrible and unthinkable episodes in world history. I seem to feel like it would be just as insulting if someone denied that somebody was murdered in the house of a serial killer that was demolished.

They're a cyclical thing and likely to happen many more times through human history.

Supplies and/or growth come up short, the populace gets angry, the government has no answers, and then a bit of (René) Girardian magic happens - scapegoating - where the populace can ease their pain by expropriating what belongs to a politically weaker group who when faced with the populace coming after them can't defend themselves adequately. The technical term for it is 'transfer frontier'.

And obviously the same animalistic impulses that lead us down that road do whatever they can to paper it over and as said above - rationalize why it was either a moral or indifferent act.


That's one of the things that's been scary in the west right now - ie. the lack of growth, having idiots in power (R or D doesn't get you much of anything better), having social media's profit structure light a fire under this, here's hoping all of our entertainment, other things to do online, and soon to be legalized drugs can help vent the pressure.