Talk:Greek genocide/Archive 6

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Remove Neutrality Disputed Tag

Is there any point to this following the IAGS recognition of the massacres as genocide? Genocide denialists and kemalist apologists should not be on an equal footing to an international body of scholars dedicated to the subject. It is removed.

I also amended the first sentence to reflect the definition of genocide as set out in Britannica

"the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race." (Britannica, 2007 ed.)

http://genocidescholars.org/images/PRelease16Dec07IAGS_Officially_Recognizes_Assyrian_Greek_Genocides.pdf

Xenovatis (talk) 16:04, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Britannica may define genocide as that, but since there is a large amount of people that disagree with it being called a genocide, you cannot use the definition in such a manner. It has not been proven enough to these people that it was deliberate and systematic in Pontus, hence the controversy. You cannot say they are all Turks, and to call them all denialists is to paint with a broad brush. I should have restored the POV tag, but I didn't. Monsieurdl ^{mon talk-mon contribs} 18:36, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

• Please specify who you mean by "a large amount of people" do you imply laymen or scholars?
• If the relevant academic body has pronounced on the issue wouldn't that indicate that the scholars scholars most competent to do so have decided that it was in fact a genocide? One of the arguments previously leveled against use of the term was that of non-recognition, specifically by IAGS and the UN. The first is now moot while the second argument conflicts with counter-arguments regarding the use of US resolutions that recognize it as deriving from political as opposed to scholarly bodies.
• I will awai response before reverting. Thank you.

Xenovatis (talk) 21:39, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I imply both- hence why it is controversial, and so many nations have not made it an official genocide.

It is not proof by X scholarly body that is needed; it is evidence that directly names Pontic Greeks and those along the Black Sea as victims of genocide within the article. Greek genocide and Pontic genocide are two different subjects, hence this article being here.

I think it is perfectly clear as I have edited it that it is under debate, and a majority of people still do not recognize it as a genocide, be it scholarly or no. I am not the one to share the burden of proof in this case- it is up to you to prove that it is so by using balanced references rather than me prove it did not happen. I am not a Turk, a sympathizer, nor a denialist- I fully believe that facts taken in a neutral, scientific manner prevail over facts taken from a nationalist or emotional view point and skewed to a particular POV. To me, newspaper articles and scholars who get together for the sole purpose of labeling ganocides are NOT valid references- they have biases (i.e. sell newspapers or promote their genocide work) over being truly neutral. They can say they are neutral, but are they truly? I have seen so many times certain British authors be decried for their biases while others are quoted like gospel who have the same kinds of biases argued by others. I want the truth, not rhetoric. Monsieurdl ^{mon talk-mon contribs} 22:17, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

• "Greek genocide and Pontic genocide are two different subjects." Actually I kinda wondered about that one. I searched for "Greek genocide" in WP and there is no such article. While I am new to the discussion could someone enlighten me as to whether there were similar killings in other parts of modern Turkey and if so why use the adjective "Pontic" as opposed to talking about a "Greek" or "Hellenic" genocide?
• While I conced the possibility of bias in any source this begs the question of what it would take to decide the matter? If we can agree on that first then we can set about looking if such information exists or not. Otherwise people argue against inclusion due to non-recognition by IAGS and when that is forthcoming, other issues arise and we have wasted time discusiing it in the first place. From what I understand at any rate the bone of contention is not whether the massacres occured but whether they should be labelled genocide. Again I fail to see how the opinion of one historian (who is if anything more likely on an a-priori basis to be biased) convince those unmoved by that of a group of such. Perhaps we can attempt to discern the current opinion of the scientific community by listing those scholars of the period who do and those who don't recognize these massacres as genocide. Criteria of objectivity (e.g. not ethnically involved, no ethnic agendas, no political biases) could be discussed.I agree that WP should reflect as opposed to influence estavlished scientific opinion.

Xenovatis (talk) 09:49, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I have wondered myself why there was no such article, and yet this one exists. Of course the problem has always been the use of the term massacre versus the term genocide- I think what the problem rightly is is the automatic linking of the term genocide to what Hitler did, and that is what causes all of the vitriol.

As far as the sources, I have found it particularly difficult to find distinct references regarding Pontic genocide, but there are many more regarding Greek genocide subjects. If there was a proposal to delete and merge this article into Greek genocide then it would easily get my vote. By doing so, sourcing everything would really be simple. I would hope you'd agree by your comments above. Monsieurdl ^{mon talk-mon contribs}

• I agree that this is the reason behind the reaction, most people who object object on that term alone as opposed to the historicity of the facts presented. Again though genocide does not imply nazism, e.g. the genocides in Darfur and Rwanda which are called such without anyone linking their perpetrators with nazism.
• I agree with your proposal and support removing the adjective Pontic.
• My last proposal would be to try to list historical sources and establish whether the term genocide is widely accepted.

Xenovatis (talk) 19:39, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no NPOV tag in the Armenian Genocide article and there shouldn't be one here since the IAGS recognizes these events to be linked, including the Assyrian Genocide. I invite user Agarnet and other denialists to deceist from their revert war and discuss civily on the matter at hand.Xenovatis (talk) 16:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Many scholarly texts and articles can be cited for the Armenian genocide article, the same cannot be said for this. Do not call me or any other editor which calls for npov a denialist, that is a personal attack. For discussion on the pov title tag made by myself and others, see below. --A.Garnet (talk) 16:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

There is a large body of work on these events and there are many sources listed in this page that do. And of course there is the IAGS recognition which you don't mention. Calling you a genocide denialist is hardly a personal attack since this exactly what you are doing, denying a genocide has taken place. The discussion has called for an RfC which has, after close to two months, only yielded one comment and that not in support of inclusion. IAGS recognition, like in the Armenian and the Assyrian case means that the genocides are recognisable as such by the academic community. I don't see what else it would take to convince the resident genocide denialists.If the opinion of the competent body of scholars is not enough the opinion of any one of them will not make a difference. This invalidates the whole point of a discussion. The only question now is what sort of mediation would be best suited in this case.

Xenovatis (talk) 17:27, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Map of Ethnic Groups at beginning of 20th Century

I agree, that the map doesn't reflects real ethnic composition in Balkans around 1870-ies, in fact there are much larger areas inhabited by moslem in these areas. For example, all of Rhodope region is populated-and still is to a greater extend- with moslem (i.e pomaks and turks), not bulgarians, nor greek polulation. Map also presents wrong data about other parts of Bulgaria, this should be mentioned, that large proportion of northeastern Bulgaria was almost exclusively populated by muslims (turks), and half of central-northern Bulgaria too, so this map shows maybe the situation after the brutal ethnic cleansing campaign and genocide of turks in Bulgaria conducted by the russian army and local bulgarians. So, the situation is not significantly different for many parts of Macedonia (incl. present day Greek Macedonia), Western Serbia and Bosnia.--Leventcik (talk) 23:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC) The map by William R. Shepherd suggests that extent of the Albanian population extended across the majority of present-day southern Serbia up to the city-boundaries of Nis. The document is false (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Kosovo). Another source should be used for the map that is consistent with historical fact or the map should be removed altogether.

NPOV

I've read through the article, and feel that it is written in a Greek POV tone. I suggest the lead mention that the International Association of Genocide Scholars hasn't recognized it, and that Turkey refuses to call this "genocide", as those things are quite important, and having them near the top (as well as where they are) would reduce the bias towards the Greek end considerably. Also, should the title not be "Pontic Greek genocide", with "genocide" lowercased? · AndonicO ^Talk 17:16, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to add anything to the lead, feel free to, about the title that seems to be the general practice (Armenian Genocide, Assyrian Genocide, Rwandan Genocide, Bosnian Genocide...). Anything else?--Ploutarchos 17:25, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I thought I'd ask because there's an edit war going on though. · AndonicO ^Talk 17:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

It says that the International Association of Genocide Scholars, European Union, Council, and UN haven't made reference to the genocide, but that isn't sourced... I only added the Turkish Minister's view (since that did have a source). · AndonicO ^Talk 18:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand this is how this article works. Unless a source is found saying that they do recognize it this article shall write they do not (regardless of sources). Perhaps the title of this section should be renamed from "Greek POV" to "Yet more Turkish POV".--Ploutarchos 18:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Just commenting on this [1]. I find it very rich comming from the land where admitting that the Armenian Genocide took place is a criminal offence but denying that an Algerian Genocide took place is also to be a criminal offence [2]. Turkish Foreign Minister speaks of a "traditional Greek policy of distorting history" ... is the pot calling the kettle black?--Ploutarchos 18:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you like the title better? By the way, I'm not Turkish, I'm Greek, born in America. · AndonicO ^Talk 21:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I note that you self-declare as an "American" of "multiple ancestries" on your userpage. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 21:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, American (born), multiple ancestries (my family's never stayed in one place too long), and Greek (as far as I know, that's the origin of my family tree; my last name is also Greek). · AndonicO ^Talk 21:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Not quite the same as a "Greek, born in America", e.g. George Andreas Papandreou. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 22:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I doubt eating 500 gyros will convince you I'm Greek, so I'll stop trying. :-) · AndonicO ^Talk 22:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Your ancestry is irrelevant. I'm merely noting inconsistencies. By the way, proclaiming your "Greekness" doesn't legitimise anything, if that's what you thought. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 22:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Ploutarchos said I was Turkish, which I'm not, but rather (in this article at least) the opposite. I wasn't trying to legitimize, I just wanted to clarify (I'm not Turkish, I pointed this out, and you say it's irrelevant). And I'm not sure what "inconsistencies" you're refering to. · AndonicO ^Talk 22:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Um, I never said you were Turkish. In fact, I never said you were anything. All I was doing was bitching about Turkish Foreign Minister's hypocrisy and the Turkish POV standards which have overwhelmed this article. Could we please stop discussing Andonicos's ancestry; I'm sure it's a very interesting tale, most people have an interesting story behind them, but it makes this section confusing and hard to read.--Ploutarchos 22:26, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I misread your comment. And I would gladly stop discussing my ancestry. · AndonicO ^Talk 22:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the edit. I'd just remove "however", since it is argumentative. NikoSilver 23:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Already done. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 23:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, saw it. AndronicO, I don't want to be close when you burp! NikoSilver 23:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

;-) · AndonicO ^Talk 00:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The same sources youre using in the article says that there were organised atrocities between the years 1919-1922 on the part of greeks, what is has to do with "trivializing" the genocide? And the genocide nobody but greece recognize in the face of earth..Ah sorry ı forget to mention cyprus recognize it as well--laertes d 20:02, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

İm really bored with all these silly games of reverting articles, there are enough and credible sources quite clearly stating organized greek massacres in western anatolia during the greek occupation of it, and there is nothing wrong to say thhat massacres in the period 1919-1922 was mutual..--laertes d 22:30, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of of who commits massacres, they are regretable. However, there is a big difference between massacres that constitute a genocide and a few isolated massacres/atrocities. The Turkish victims numbered several thousand ( see Rummel's accounts), the Greek victims hundreds of thousands. The Turkish atrocities were premeditated and centrallly planned (see Akcam's accounts). The Greek atrocities were spontaneous, isolated individual or group acts of violence. There was no premeditated and/or central Greek plan. Please provide a third party source which states that there was a premeditated and centrally directed Greek plan. - Rizos01 16:53, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Rizos, both Arnold J. Toynbee and Taner akcam actually argues that Greek atrocities were organised in nature, they were not some isolated acts..And these opinions are shared by Inter allied commission reports and by the representative of red cross..--laertes d 10:07, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Please provide book titles and page numbers, as well as report titles, page numbers, and date of reports. Otherwise your arguments are not credible.--Rizos01 22:59, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Kekrops, do not change the content of citations the way you want please, ı merely quoted the authors. toynbee states in his book that "There were both spontaneous and organized atrocities on either side since the Greek occupation of Smyrna".. he doesnt say outside of Pontus, what he says includes Pontus as well..And that is also true for the citations taken from Akcam..--laertes d 10:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

İzmir

A millenium of Turkish inhabitance should be enough to secure the city's name as Izmir. I've deleted Smyrna in the parentheses. Anyone who wishes to find out the past names of the city can click its link. By the way, I didn't see Selanik in parentheses after Thessalonika...—Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.38.194.49 (talk • contribs)

What's the big deal? Izmir comes from the Greek name anyway; it's not as if it constitutes such a grand example of Turkish authenticity that it must be guarded so zealously against the hated gavurlar. Thessaloniki, on the other hand, does not derive from Selanik, but rather the contrary. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 16:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:BITE and lol for gavurlar. The argument wasn't about etymology, that's your argument. Should we write next to each word the word it derives from in parentheses? The argument was probably the Greek name vs Turkish name for a Turkish city. Turks might have taken the name from the Greeks, and changed it a little bit over years to make it easier pronounceable for a Turkish speaker, but so did Greeks changing the Hittite or Assyrian name or the name of the Amazonness queen into Greek. Also Turkish name of the city is İzmir (note the capital letter). Deniz^T_C , the infidel (infidelis) (writing the word it derives from)

It's not a question of Greek vs Turkish names, but a question of accurate chronology. The fact of the matter is that the names Smyrna (and Constantinople, for that matter) were in common usage and were the internationally recognized names of the cities during the time period. Ataturk changed the names in 1930. Hence we should write Smyrna, perhaps with "modern-day Izmir" in parentheses, for any reference to the city in question that is pre-1930, in order to be historically accurate. After-all, no one would think in antiquity of substituting Tunis for Carthage, etc. and the same principle applies here. Cheers, 74.134.238.58 23:21, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

"The Greek name vs Turkish name for a Turkish city" is not a serious argument, as the city has been Greek much longer than it's been Turkish. I was simply noting the absurdity of the seemingly pathological aversion of many Turkish editors to the original Greek names of places in modern Turkey. However, I agree with the second anonymous editor that it is a matter of accurate chronology, so İZMİR is fine when discussing the Turkish mayor's rather amusing spitting of the dummy, as it occurred in 2006. Finally, please note the city's name in English is Izmir without the dotted I; this is en.wikipedia.org, after all. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 00:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Pontus versus Smyrna

User:Laertes d has reverted my clarifications on the nature of the Genocide. He would like us to believe that the massacres in Pontus were somehow the direct result of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-22, which took place in western Anatolia, several hundred kilometres away. There were no Greek forces in Pontus at the time and hence no war there. It is essential to distinguish between these two discrete historical events. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 10:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Kekrops thats the problem they were not two discrete historical events, according to a multitude of historians, that includes Toynbee and Akcam as well, there wouldnt be such a thing as Turkish national Movement without Greeks occupying smyrna..There was a war between Greece and Turkey regardless of where the Greek army was..Btw, ı recently noticed that Rummel calls the masssacres greeks committed in western anatolia a "genocide" as he calls the Turkish massacres of greeks as such..--laertes d 10:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

You admit then that the Greeks were slaughtered in Pontus in retribution for the Hellenic Army's landing at Smyrna, at the other end of the Anatolian peninsula; they were not casualties of any fighting between Greece and Turkey as such. That is a crucial distinction to make. Your attempt to present the victims of the Genocide as mere casualties of war is historical revisionism and has no place on Wikipedia. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 10:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Historical revisionism? This article cannot find one monograph to its name, not one encylopedic article, nor one journal article. The title is unsourced, the only country to recognise a so called genocide is Greece, the editors who wrote this are Greeks, and the editors who blocked an arbitration to resolve the title are, again, Greeks. So I find it odd, actually laughable, when you get on your high horse and talk about "historical revisionism having no place on Wikipedia". Honestly, a joke! --A.Garnet 11:06, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The only joke here is your suggestion that Greeks are the problem. That's exactly what the perpetrators of this genocide thought. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 21:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC).

Spare us the melodrama and read what I said. --A.Garnet 10:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

You haven't said anything new that would warrant a serious response. Just the same old insecure Turkish denialism ("so-called") and blatant lies ("unsourced"). ·ΚέκρωΨ· 11:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Then Kekrops Turks who were slaughtered in occupied lands were also not the victims of casualties of war, they were also massacred in areas where there was not an organized Turkish unit..What distinction are you referring to? And you keep changing source content the way you want, toynbee doesnt say "outside of Pontus" but he says "There were both spontaneous and organized atrocities on either side since the Greek occupation of Smyrna"..what's the point of having citations if youre going to change them according to your personal ideas?

And im not representing them as causalities of war but ım simply citing reliable non-pro turkish sources which shows that there were massacres towards civilianss at both side..--laertes d 13:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

No, what you're really trying to say is that because Greeks killed Turks too in a different part of the country, Turks did not commit genocide against Greeks in Pontus. It's the same pathetic relativist argument used in the case of the Armenian Genocide and is equally unconvincing. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 21:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I do not think going until detail is really right, we should focus on the article it self instead of adding more controversial material. --Vonones 08:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Vonones what is that controversial material are you talking about? the article itself is controversial as Garnett said.Im making reference to absolutely non-pro turkish sources like Toynbee and Akcam, toynbee's book is perhaps the only book which is written exclusively about the atrocities of the greco-turkish war..Plus you are changing the source material to something the sources doesnt say..--laertes d 09:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

A Shameful Act

The references of shameful act are all fine except for this, this is really irrelevant this has nothing to do with the text in the book and in the article, and throughout 1920-23, the period of the Turkish War of Independence. --Vonones 00:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

how it is irrelevant can you explain it vonones? That is how it is written in the book and that is completely relevant with the article..The citations from Toynbee are also quite relevant..--laertes d 09:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you add "here were both spontaneous and organized atrocities on either side since the Greek occupation of Smyrna" than that sentence which is irrelevant you cannot speculate. --Vonones 19:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I still cant see how it is irrelevant, obviously you dont like the naming of turkish war of independence..--laertes d 07:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The "Turkish War of Independence" is the name given in hindsight in official Turkish nationalist discourse to a series of wars fought against a multitude of enemies on numerous fronts over several years. As your attempt to relativise the Genocide pertains specifically to the war between Greece and Turkey in western Anatolia, a link to Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) is more appropriate. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 20:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Middlesex (novel)

Scenes of the Pontic Greek Genocide are prominent in the initial chapters of Middlesex, the 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. Under which heading would this best be added to the page? As it's a work of fiction, Further reading seems inappropriate. For now I'll add a heading, In literature — though I'm unfamiliar with the WP Style Guide on this point. -- Thanks, Deborahjay 10:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Further to the above: other pages do use the heading Further reading; however the page is presently protected from editing. -- Deborahjay 11:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Deborah. No doubt the author's Greek surname will cause it to be deprecated by Turkish editors. See above. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 11:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Nationalist hate sites, again

"hellenicgenocide.org" and the likes of it are most emphatically not reliable sources by any standard. I will strongly object to the inclusion of just about anything sourced to nationalist hate sites like that. We've been through it before. These are completely unacceptable. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Those are the most reliable sources buddy: a recopilatory of everyting related. Or is it that microsoft.com cannot be taken as reference for Microsoft corporation because it tells things related to it? Stop your POV please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.219.85.234 (talk) 01:38, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Completely laughable

"British historian Arnold J. Toynbee wrote that it was the Greek landings that created the Turkish National Movement led by Mustafa Kemal and it is almost certain that if the Greeks had never landed at Smyrna, the consequent atrocities on the Turkish side would not have occurred." Well i guess Toynbee was either a fortune teller or a retarded man as i can't remember Armenian army landing in Turkey before the Armenian genocide and i can't remember Greek army landing in Asia Minor in 1915 when "Amele Tamburu" (=forced labour aka work till you die in Lake Van etc) where at their prime.All in all i can't see how a totally personal view based on someone's "good wi$$" (to say at least) can be presented as a fact here.Eagle of Pontus 11:25, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

"Both sides"

Kekrops enough is enough we have been over this before, and now you turned back to do the same kind of editing again without trying to initiate a discussion over it..These two sources are relevant to the article, Akcam`s work perhaps the newest book written on the subject, Toynbee was an eyewitness to the whole series of massacres committed by Greeks and Turks, citing them is completely relevant for this article..

And these info belong to the intro, as they summarize what happened, they are not about why it happened-that would suit to the background section- but what happened in this period..--laertes d 08:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Kekrops, youre just pushing me to create an article, which i thought should exist anyway, that of the massacre committed against Turks by greek army of invasion, naming it Greek atrocities in Anatolia(as it would be the translation of Turkish expression of the atrocities committed by greek army `anadoluda Yunan mezalimi`)..There are enough sources to do this..I already have two neutral sources to begin with which uses the word genocide in relation of what greeks had done..Rummel and Cedric James uses the word genocide in describing these acts..--laertes d 10:19, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Kekrops, i know that you noticed this section, but as always you are just pushing your POV without having a discussion over it, in other words you have nothing to say..Your remark is again ridiculous, im quoting you the expert historians about the issue, you`re naming it `relativising the genocide.`

I think you should have been banned beacause of your insistent edit warring in several articles with your deliberate tactic of running away from discussion and changing the topic when you stuck up.. However as none of this happens i get completely dissatisfied with how this place is being ruled.. You did the same thing in several articles and you have gone away with it..--laertes d 20:32, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

• Can you please justify what is the connection of the Pontic genocide (with anti-Christian measures being traced as back as 1915) with the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922 and in which way is justified the extermination of Greeks in Pontus with the Anatolian campaign in Smyrna several thousand miles away;Eagle of Pontus 21:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

You may read the talk page of the greco turkish war article for similar extending discussions, but just to summarize my point:

first i dont justify anything, massacre is a massacre and it has to be condemned..

2-There wasnt such a thing as a Turkish national movement before the Greeks invaded Anatolia, Greek invasion created it and thats why toynbee blames partly Venizelos and Llyod George for the atrocities committed by both sides during the conflict.. The Ottoman government in Istanbul was already under British control, and rulers of the previous regime had already fled as they were being sought as war criminals..

3-Greek army starting from the first day of the invasion had committed atrocities towards Turks in the occupied areas or forced expelled Turkish populations inhabiting those regions, dont you think it may somehow lead to unjustified acts of violence against greeks who are inhabiting elsewhere in Anatolia..

4-Greeks were not exterminated in Pontus, however there were massacres towards them thats something i dont dispute..Often they were forced to flee inwards Anatolia, however there were still about 200.000 greeks in the Pontus region at the time of the population exchange..

I can reverse your question, greek army had complete control over the areas it occupied, it also had nothing to do with the war between greece and turkey at the time, how do you justify then massacres committed by greek army in the regions it had complete control over, where there wasnt an actual war..

--laertes d 22:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

• I don't justify any massacre by the Greek army whatsoever.I am a Pontic Greek and my grand-parents fled to Russia and Greece because they saw their houses looted, their beloved ones either massacred or convicted (to death) in the "Labour battalions" near lake Van and all that justified in the name of being "infidels".They were expelled from a region they inhabited for several thousands years, and the remaining survivors had to try to rebuild everything from the scratch living the lives of refugees in a alien place (Makedonia) where the others saw them as aliens, just because the were an easy pray for the Turkish nationalists.Naming what the Greek army did in Smyrna (which i very much doubt if a Muslim in Pontus could learn taking into account the distance ) as an explanation is disorienting the reader.i must remind you that at the same time 500,000 Muslims lived in Macedonia(and they remained in tact during the war).How would you feel if Greeks started to massacre them as a retaliation for what was happening in Pontus;In your eyes ones explains the other;Just asking.Eagle of Pontus 10:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Eagle, my point here is that both Greek and Turkish nationalists tried to build homogeneus zones and they did so by either massacring or expelling the populations under their control..i dont think it is disorienting the reader but it explains what had happened in this period..

About the Muslims in Macedonia, youre right but there wasnt much a point of expelling or killing these people beacuse they were in the established Greek lands however that wasnt the case in much of the western anatolian coastlans, where there was a mixed population, and both sides were claiming it is their right to have their state upon that territory as they were constituting the majority..

Btw, Turkish nationalists used the excuse for forced marching Pontus people that Venizelos had already claimed right on black sea coastal areas in the Paris Peace conference and if Greeks would remain there, they would facilitate a possible greek invasion..I dont explain one massacre with another massacre, i am simply saying there were massacres committed against Turkish civilians by the greek army in that same period of time, and we need to mention of these acts in terms of some historical accuracy..--laertes d 11:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Laertes, basically your discussion has made it clear that you are attempting to justify the Turkish massacres of Greek civilians. AlexiusComnenus 09:49, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I ignore your comment, and i assume you either havent read what is written above or simply trying your best not to discuss the issue in hand..--laertes d 07:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Please stop your mindless reverting. The subject of this article is the Pontian Genocide; any complementary information on the casualties of the Greco-Turkish war in a geographically distant part of Anatolia belongs outside the lead. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 13:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Point you insist not understanding is, as usual, the lead is to give info about what happened in this period of time, you cant use it to present isolated segments of events, in which only the atrocities that Turks had committed would be shown, whereas the Greek atrocities moved elsewhere..

By simply following your `logic`, i now have to open an article called `Turkish Genocide in Asia Minor`, since there are enough sources about the atrocities performed by Greek troops and there are also sources who use the `Genocide` word..

Unfortenetly i agree with Garnett when he said: `Its like talking to a brick wall.`..Regards..--laertes d 10:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Laertes, there's a huge leap between the info being included below, and a separate article. We're not discussing whether the information should be included at all or not. We are discussing if it has such high relevance to the subject to warrant inclusion in the lead. And it hasn't. NikoSilver 12:23, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

And yet it has been there for over months, it gets truly pathetic of what you two have been doing in several articles..Youre supposed to make up your own minds, not to back each other in each and ever occasion no matter what the discussion topic is..

About your recent comments, it certainly has such a relevance to be included in the lead and thats obvious why it has, since both sides committed similar atrocities, singling out what one party had done is definitely not a neutral way of presenting what actuallly had happened at that period..

Alternative to it would be a separate article about isolated segments of events in which Greek atrocities against Turkisn civilıans would be mentioned, and perhaps with the genocide word in the title, as you Nıko like to use that word so often..--laertes d 12:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see you try. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 19:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Dont worry you`ll get what you want..--laertes d 22:24, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

How about some real argument why this background piece is worthy being included in the intro? I say it is undue in the intro, and irrelevant. It is the one who makes the claim who has to back it up, not the other way round, and you are not doing a good job at it. NikoSilver 22:33, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

It seemed to me quite relevant, we`re not talking about a background info, but about what happened in this period of time..i keep backing it up, as you may read from above, (Personal attack removed) ..thts quite simple, the Turks being systematically massacred, just in the same period of time, is not a background info but the info itself..

Most ridiculously, after waiting for so long you showed up with your discussion offer just when i revert the article back into its old format, and when i said that i`m going to open a separate Greek atrocities article if that normal format would be continued to (Personal attack removed)

laertes d 23:06, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but the point is that these things that happened (if they happened), it was during the retreat of the Greek armies, which was preceded many years by the events on the Pontic Greeks and not "in the same period of time". So, this is the definition of "background information" (or better it could be in the aftermath section, but since bits of the Smyrna catastrophe are mentioned here, then it is complete "background"). Oh, and watch your language too, please. NikoSilver 20:07, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Im really sick and tired of such an attitude persistently repeated by you two, these events had not taken place during the Greek retreat, but started to occur by the time greek army had set its food in Anatolian soil..All the citations that ım quoting are demonstrating this fact and youre still talking about the retreat of the Greek army as if you have not noticed the citations from Akcam and Toynbee, and yet you expect calmness and call people for a "debate"..You dont debate anythıng just delibaretly turn a blınd eye to the sources cited..

Akcam and Toynbee clearly states that there were organized Greek atrocıtıes throughout the period of Greco Turkish war, which retreat are you talking about?--laertes d 13:00, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

The genocide of Christians in eastern Anatolia began years before the Greek army set foot in western Asia Minor. They simply aren't directly related. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 15:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

And thats your own private point of view that you keep repeating, which is unsupported by sources..You just keep repeat the same things, and call it a debate? In any case, there had been organised Greek atrocities in the same period of time(1919-1922), Toynbee and Akcam and several other sources make ıt quıte clear, what is your aim then Kekrops other than pushing your POV? --laertes d 19:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Ummm, calm down Laertes please. 1919 is three years after 1916. NikoSilver 20:20, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

So? What despises me the most with your behavior is that youre acting like you dont understand, these specific citations are about the atrocities of the Greco-Turkish war, and that happened during the period of 1919-1922..

Article already mentions about the atrocities that took place before that time, so again what is your point other than pushing your POV relentlessly without saying one single word worthy of consideration?..--laertes d 21:43, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Two words: Causality and excuse. You make it sound like the cause for PGG was the Greek atrocities by including it in the info. Well, no. It is the other way round. Also, this info in the intro serves you as an "excuse" or as a "hell, both of them did ugly things there", while it is not so. So you are committing WP:OR by elevating this paragraph to that status. No scholar ever equated the two issues, no scholar ever linked causality to one another, and therefore WP will not mention a background info in the intro to serve your purpose of excusing the inexcusable. And for the millionth time, watch your language. NikoSilver 21:56, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

My point is, and has been that Greek army, according to non-pro Turkish historians had committed severe atrocities towards the Turkish population in the invaded lands. And obvioulsy someone called Arnold J. Toynbee, a well known, respectable historian, who happened to be an eyewitness to the massacres committed by both sides durign the war, had actually equated thse massacres..

But that is not my purpose, im not trying to produce excuses but im trying to make this article reflect what happened durign this time period, not to let this article be the show case of ugly nationalist rhetoric..Check your talk page top see what some scoholars had actually said..--laertes d 22:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm wondering about another thing: "undue weight", how many Turks were killed by Greeks, do you have a number? I think this is relevant when we talk about hundereds of thousands of Greeks killed (I'm pretty sure that a Jew killed a German at some point in time, is that relevant in the discusion of Holocaust? OK, this is an exageration, but you see my point) -- AdrianTM 22:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Check line 382 in this table and line 473 in that one vs line 428 in the first. The source is Rummel, so 15,000 Turkish civilians as a low estimate should be considered "exaggerated". NikoSilver 22:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Again that is the same problem, these are you private opinions, i am showing you reliable, non-pro Turkish historians who claim that there were organised atrocities -massacres and expulsion numbering some not so important thousands of causalties- since the time Greek army invaded anatolia.. We`re not talking here about the Jews but the organised units of an established state in the areas it has complete control..--laertes d 22:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I understand that, but it would be nice if we could find a number, that would make things more clear for all the parts interested in the issue. -- AdrianTM 22:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Niko, I didn't see your response when I replied. -- AdrianTM 22:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh common, Rummel mostly relies on George Horton and Marjori Housepian Dobkin, at the other opposite end, Justin A. McCarthy would say the Turkish civilian deaths were either the same or more..Plus that list also ignore the forced expellings..But the issue i think a serious discussion has to focus on should the intent on the part of Turkish and Greek national movements, not how many could have they managed to kill..--laertes d 22:42, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Where he relies is here. NikoSilver 22:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

i meant for the numbers, he relies the `estimates` of this horton guy for the numbers..

Anyway, i think there is enough source that the Greek army had tried to build up homogenous or majority greek populations in western anatolia by expelling or massacring the Turkish civilian population there, as the Turkish forces were doing it elsewhere in the exact same period of time, so these informations has to be included in the intro of this article..There is nothing wrong with having cited neutral, respectable historians

Add this source to Toynbee and akcam, note that he uses that word genocide in relation with what the Greek army had done in the occupied zones:

`The short-sightedness of both Lloyd George and President Wilson seems incredible, explicable only in terms of the magic of Venizelos and an emotional, perhaps religious, aversion to the Turks. For Greek claims were at best debatable, perhaps a bare majority, more likely a large minority in the Smyrna Vilayet, which lay in an overwhelmingly Turkish Anatolia. The result was an attempt to alter the imbalance of populations by genocide, and the counter determination of Nationalists to erase the Greeks, a feeling which produced bitter warfare in Asia Minor for the next two years until the Kemalists took Smyrna in 1922 and settled the problem by burning down the Greek quater..` [3] By C. J. Lowe, M. L Dockrill Published 2002 Routledge ISBN 0415265975--laertes d 23:04, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Niko if you dont want to discuss and reply to the comments made in this article, then why are you so fanatically revert the article? I happen to wait for an answer from you..--laertes d 10:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Note the word "attempted" you quoted, which is very different from the words "perpetrated", "committed" etc that apply to the Turkish atrocities. Also note the numbers above for comparison (15 vs 350 thousand). Finally, Rummel relies on two methods for his estimations: First, he adds up all the documented massacres as they appear in academic sources, and second, he calculates the population deficit of the remaining Greeks versus the Greeks that existed before. The numbers absolutely coincide. NikoSilver 17:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Note also (for the other related articles) that the "Turks burnt down Smyrna" and the "determination of Nationalists to erase the Greeks". NikoSilver 17:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Finally, you are not welcome to discuss public edit disputes privately in my talkpage, especially with your continuing insulting tone. NikoSilver 17:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Sigh.., as i keep saying i already quoted you enough sources, please stop your immature behavior of changing the sourced content to something that the sources actually dont say..Believe me I really dont want to waste more time in here, make sure you just dont change the sources the way you want..--laertes d 10:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Added OR tag

Can editors tell me whether Tatz, Rummel, or Jacob specifically use the term "Pontic Greek Genocide" since they are being used to source this as a verifiable term? I know for a fact Rummel does not use term. If it is a case of these authors saying there was a "greek genocide" or "genocide of greeks" it still does not source the title of this article which the sources are apparently being used for. To me this is only one example of the OR running through this article. Other sections such as "Reasons for limited recognition" are purely original research, using a mish mash of sources to prove an editors own position. This is a problem I've highlighted from the very beginning, and something obvious to any editor with a basic knowledge of wiki policy. --A.Garnet 10:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't be ridiculous. The term is used specifically in relation to the subject of this article; the notion that it means anything else is your original research. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 10:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I point you to a discussion we had on this preivously. To quote Fut. "The wording of the lead sentence is very specifically about the question to what extent people use that "controversial term" for it. So, if it is indeed the case that those particular authors don't use it (as Domitius seems to agree), then those refs shouldn't be at that place. I'm sure the positions of those authors can be adequately covered elsewhere.".

So according to your position Kekrops, I can create an article called "Turkish genocide of Asia Minor" and cite Rummel who uses the term "Greek genocide" for the conduct of Greek soldiers. That is A + B = C = Original reserach. If the present title is academically verifiable and part of the mainstream literature, then there should be no problem finding a source that does spefically use that term right? --A.Garnet 11:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Tatz refers very specifically to Turkey's "genocide of the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontian Greeks", Rummel refers to a democide or genocide against the Greeks, and Jacobs includes the fate of the Pontians in a comparative study of genocide. If you have a suggestion for the name of the article that better sums up the subject they are referring to, you're more than welcome to make it. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 11:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

We shouldnt have to sum up or interpret anything. Those lead references are being specifically used to prove the common usage of the term "Pontic Gree Genocide", therefore those sources should be explicit in their use of this term to prove it is a commonly held academic position. If this were the case then you would have no such problem doing this. For example go to amazon.com and type "Armenian Genocide", that gives you 951 book results which prove the term is verifiable among literature. Now type "Pontic Greek Genocide", result: "Your search ""Pontian Greek Genocide"" did not match any products".

It is has always been very clear that the current title is not in common usage, that is why no sources can be found explicitingly supporting this articles thesis. That is why it rests on interpretation and original research. Also, about Rummel, if you look at the table where he uses the term genocide for Greeks, most references are for the West of Turkey in Marmara and Smyrna etc. The only reference to Black Sea is for those who were deported, there is no mention of Black Sea Greeks being killed as part of his use for that term, so this proves how original research is being used to reach conclusions not supported by those authors. --A.Garnet 11:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Your arguments are getting increasingly desperate; they all refer to a genocide committed by the Turks against the Greeks. Would you prefer Tatz's Genocide of the Pontian Greeks? That's fine, too. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 12:46, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I think my arguments are quite clear and logical, it is your reasoning to ignore them that is getting more desparate. Those opening references are there specifically to prove common usage of that term, therefore is it asking too much that those sources refer explicitly to that term alone? I mean if I was an editor on the Armenian genocide article (of which your fond of claiming similarities), then I'd have no problem sourcing that title, heck I'd have 950 books at my disposal which use that term explicitly. As for your suggestion, no, we dont base articles on scraps of sentences which say what we want to hear. We base them on a large body of academic work - monographs, journals, encylopedias etc - which confirm a common position.

Face it, this article is a good candidate for deletion. It violates Undue weight, npov, original research and personal synthesis. There is not even an article to be found here, where is narrative for the events? There is a background and a casualty count and nothing in between. The whole thing is an exercise in pov pushing, from top to bottom. I'm not saying there isnt an article to be made on what the Pontians experienced, just not in this ugly form. If you want my suggestion it is this, rename the article to something general such as Pontian casualties of World War I, or Deportation of Pontians in the Ottoman Empire or Expulsion of Pontians from the Black Sea that way you do not restrict yourself to pushing one pov (a genocide one) throughout the article, but can actually focus on what happened to the Pontians --A.Garnet 13:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Face it, your burning desire to uphold the sanctity of Article 301 will remain a mere fantasy, because we have enough sources that use the term genocide in reference to the plight of the Pontians to justify the article's current title. Your "argument" that we cannot call it that because the words in the sources cited are not used in that exact sequence - but refer to the exact same thing - is a rather pathetic attempt at sophistry, frankly. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 13:52, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Its like talking to a brick wall. If your going to source a TERM "Pontian Greek Genocide" (with a capital G no less), then those sources should refer to PGG...That is not sophistry, its simply wiki policy. --A.Garnet 14:36, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Let me get this straight, once and for all. In your opinion, does Tatz's "genocide... of the Pontian Greeks" have a different meaning from Pontic Greek Genocide? ·ΚέκρωΨ· 14:43, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Let me ask you, does "the Turks did not seek to exterminate the Greeks, as the previous regime had done to the Armenians" (Valentino) and "Under these conditions, genocide of the Ottoman Greeks was simply not a viable option" (Midlarsky) or "these deportations were on a relatively small scale and do not appear to have been designed to end in their victims' deaths" (Mazower) mean Pontic Greek Genocide? There is clearly no academic consensus for the use of this title. --A.Garnet 14:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

What utter hypocrisy. You denounce the sources you dislike for not referring verbatim to a Pontic Greek Genocide, but happily parrot passages that don't refer specifically to the Pontians at all. I've had enough for one evening. Cheers. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 15:03, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually Midlarsky later writes:

p.342

Here, a strong disjunction between intention and action is found. According to the Austrian consul at Arnisos, Kwiatkowski, in his November 30, 1916, report to the foreign minister Baron Bunan: on 26 November Rafet Bey told me: ‘we must finish off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians ... ‘on 28 November Rafet Bey told me: today I sent squads to the interior to kill every Greek on sight.’ I fear for the elimination of the entire Greek population and a repeat of what occurred last year.”

And later still

p.343

Whatever was done to the Armenians is being repeated with the Greeks. Massacres most likely did take place at Amisos and other villages in the Pontus. Yet given the large numbers of surviving Greeks, especially relative to the small number of Armenian survivors, the massacres were apparently restricted to the Pontus, Smyrna, and selected other "sensitive regions"

So he specifically ascribes genocidal intent on the Turkish state, explicitly terms the events massacres and equates them to the Armenian Genocide but localized to Pontus, Smyrna and some other regions (I am guessing he is reffering to the Kydonies and other Anatolian massacres here). Xenovatis (talk) 12:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Latest changes

1. (No Nikosilver, youre not entitled to change the sourced content the way you want, neither Toynbee nor Akcam use the word `limited`.)

   Rummel uses that word, and it is "limited" by all means of reason when you compare numbers like 15,000 vs 350,000. I had added Rummel as a source right next to it, if you noticed. NikoSilver 12:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

He might have used that word but definitely that word isnt used by Toynbee and Akcam, even more definitely it wasnt used by that quotation i presented above which claims Greece attemted to make a `genocide`..Several sources say that there is nothing limited about it..I dont use Justin Mccarhty in the armenian genocide article, nor even in that article, so you rather refrain from using rummel as an ultimate source..--laertes d 12:36, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

1. (Background - Again, do not add something that the authors do not use..)

   Same here. NikoSilver 12:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

2. (→Academic views - im still not sure about the accuracy of the quote, as it was added by Alexiuscomnenus at the time, but at least say who made such a claim..)

   Sorry, but this attempt for remedy, actually puts all the following words in Ferguson's mouth, which isn't so. I choose to mention who said what only below in the refs, and I apply this to everyone. The other solution would be to add all the names of all the authors next to each word, but I'm afraid that it would really be unreadable. Feel free to try this. NikoSilver 12:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I will, i think that is the correct way doing it, many of these citations are not reliable..--laertes d 12:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

1. (lets make it sure that who says what, instead of presenting them as a majority point of view..Still thats is a hell of a confusion, who says what for which exactperiod isunclear):

   This adds more to the confusion. If your concern is the majority vs minority point of view, then please add sources to enhance what now appears to you as a majority view presented like a minority one. There sure isn't any intent to do so. "Primary sources" is an accurate description, and I would argue that it helps the Turkish position more than a mere reference to their names (which says less if the reader doesn't know them in my view). NikoSilver 12:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

If primay source is cming someone like George Horton, surely we have to mention qho is saying it..--laertes d 12:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

How many do you think know him by name? Indeed "primary sources" is a much better description for your purpose I believe. NikoSilver 13:17, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

A final comment: I am really tired with your repeated insults ( [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] ), and I am seeking the foreseen remedies. NikoSilver 12:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

i cant see any insult at all, if somebody just bother to read what you have been doing in several articles for a long period of time..And believe i am tired of people like you, and i still dont get how such a blatant, ugly nationalist POV pushing rhetoric demonstrated by you for such long period of time can still be tolerated...--laertes d 12:36, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The exact problem with your behavior is that you can't see the insults. NikoSilver 13:17, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

niko, just stick to the dispue in hand, and if you have anything relevant to say, say it, or do not revert the article, or do not put your own ideas in it..Clear?--laertes d 13:20, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The relevant stuff is right above, along with a response to your latest aphorism. Your incivility is a separate issue. NikoSilver 13:41, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I have again placed the distinct events of western Anatolia outside the lead and reworded the text to avoid some of Laertes's more inane repetition regarding the atrocities. As for the word "limited", my inclination is to avoid it if it isn't used in the source. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 14:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

There has to be a quantitative comparison of the number of Turks killed in atrocities vs that of Greeks. If "limited" is not the word to describe a difference of 1/23d (i.e. about 4%), then I can accept any kind of rewording that does so, but I will not accept equal terms for things that are simply unequal. NikoSilver 20:18, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Kekrops says see the talk page, but I can't seem to find the rationale for his edit. It might be time to archive. Also to avoid WP:SYN, Niko, we should maybe split that sentence, if you do not want to insist on violating WP:SYN and WP:NPOV Deniz^T_C 02:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

No problem with that, but I think it would give even more emphasis. I am open to suggestions. NikoSilver 13:02, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Attribution tag

An attribution tag was requested on the "reasons of limited recognition" section. In my view, the attribution is right below, in the whole section. It is attributed to Constantine Fotiades, and one of the "excuses" he uses concurs with a (very descriptive IMO) comment by Levene. Denizz, can you please explain if there is an additional reason why the tag is needed? NikoSilver 13:09, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Hannibal Travis block quote

Why is the following passage being used in this article?:

The Turks extended their policy of exterminating the Christians of the [Ottoman Empire] to the Armenians, Greeks, Syrians, and Lebanese.... According to an Associated Press report, of 500,000 Greeks deported from Thrace, in Asia Minor, an estimated 250,000, or half, died of disease and torture. Starting in 1910, the Ottoman Turks made about one million Greeks homeless and deported hundreds of thousands; as many as 300,000 Greeks died of hunger, disease, and the cold as a result. In the 1920s, the Turkish nationalists massacred about 200,000 more Christians, mostly Greeks, in cities such as Smyrna. Greek men became victims of murder, torture, and starvation; Greek women suffered all this and also became slaves in Muslim households; Greek children wandered the streets as orphans ‘‘half-naked and begging for bread’’; and millions of dollars’ worth of Greek property passed into Muslim hands

Can anyone tell me where it a)mentions Pontians or Pontus or b)a genocide of Pontian Greeks? Are we going to paste is any large passages which allude to a massacre of Greeks, even if they dont refer to Pontians? Just in case you forgot what the intro of the article says, it states "Pontic Greek Genocide[2][3][4][5][6][7] is a controversial term used to refer to the fate of Pontic Greeks during and in the aftermath of World War I." Can anyone give a justification for it? --A.Garnet 12:40, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

My interpretation would be that those that "started in 1910" would be the Pontic Greeks in question. For the rest, I think it gives a pretty good idea of the background. I mean, if we're gonna list the estimate of 15,000 Turkish civilian casualties as background info, then the info on the Thracian, and Smyrnan Greeks is much more relative. NikoSilver 13:58, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Well the beauty of mainstream academic positions is that interpretation is not necessary. An abundance of sources should allow you to pick the most explicit sources which support your position. In this case, Travis could be referring to the Aegean Greeks who were deported in the run up, and after, the Balkan wars of 1912. For the sake of this vague sentence, I dont think the block quote provides any additional value to the article, it should be removed. --A.Garnet (talk) 19:15, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Aegean or whatever, they'd still be more relevant than the 15,000 Turks (you do not choose to argue about). And what's with the "just Pontians" argument again? Is this serious? NikoSilver 19:49, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so you agree it could basically mean anything. As for what you call "just Pontians" argument, that is not my argument my friend, it is the thesis of this article, that what Pontians endured is recognised as a genocide (the intro again: "a controversial term used to refer to the fate of Pontic Greeks during and in the aftermath of World War I") except the majority of quotes refer haphazardly to Smyrnans, Aegeans and Thracian Greeks, there is scant mention here for Pontian Greeks. If you cannot find sources which specifically refer to Pontians in the context of a genocide, not what you think constitues genocide (that would be OR), then do not put it in. It violates, WP:OR, WP:SYN and so forth. Once again, this block quote should be deleted, it is irrelevant. With regards to the sentence about Turks, I agree, it is OR, but no less than rest of the statements being made in this article, when you realise this you will realise the article needs to be blanked and start from scratch. But I doubt that day will come soon, unless of course you want to seriously discuss resolving this dispute... --A.Garnet (talk) 21:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Also why was Levene reinserted as an intro reference, didnt we agree he was not explicit enough? --A.Garnet 12:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes. We are not adding this as an explicit or non-explicit justification. We are adding it as a reference which very much relates with that term. The reader will judge how explicit or non explicit that is, if they want to read more. I presume you agree that the number of references next to a term is not an index for veracity. It always depends on their actual content, its interpretation, and its reliability. My view is that Levene's most successful comment is the one about "historians, perhaps concerned not to magnify the events in comparison to those of 1915". NikoSilver 13:58, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Look, read the large arguments above with Kekrops. If your going to source the term "Pontian Greek Genocide", and state that it is a TERM used to refer to Pontians, then at lest used academics who explicility use that term. Levene does not, he does not even use the term genocide. Myself, Fut. and Francis all argued for this and since it was added without discussion I'm going to revert it. --A.Garnet (talk) 19:15, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I said, I am not "sourcing" the term "Pontian Greek Genocide" with it. Levene has done an excellent job in highlighting its use, or lack of it, and not including him next to the term is an omission IMO. NikoSilver 19:49, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Well then excuse my bluntess, but what the heck is it doing there then? Those references are specifically there to show use of the term, if there is no use of the term, then the reference should not be there. Since Levenes views which you consider essential are at the bottom, there is zilch reason for his reference in the intro. --A.Garnet (talk) 21:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• How many Pontic Greeks were accounted in Ottoman census of early 20th century;How many came to Greece through population exchange;What's the difference in numbers;That's the answer to all revisionists.Enough is enough.Ottomans did it to Armenians to Assyrians.Someone has to see what Kurds are going through the last 80 years to understand how credible is the ""virgin Mary" aka ultra-innocent picture of Turks you are trying to pass.You did it and the biggest proof is that you continue to do it as we speak. Eagle of Pontus (talk) 18:13, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

You should all hang your heads

I am astonished as to what is going on here- this is absolute editing chaos. You all need to calm down and get down off of your grandstands and stop this edit warring post haste. These are my points from what I have seen:

• This article ahould not be a candidate for deletion- there is enough verifiable information on this belief that it does deserve its own place here.
• The references presented are generally balanced and are not all that bad. I have no problem with the sources for the most part.
• Levene is a bad source because if you are going to link to it, it should be available to all and not by subscription only. I think he should be removed until you find a source that can be verified.
• This article, despite good sources, is full of POV problems, a lot of which can be solved if no more edit warring takes place. The article reads like a propaganda pamphlet, and that should not be so. We can do better.
• Take the attitudes and the personal enmity and get rid of them... these events happened, no matter what you call them, and the way they happened is merely interpretation- not by us, but by academics who are unbiased. Monsieurdl (talk) 19:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Monsieurdl, what I said was the article is a good candidate for deletion in its current state, which is why I said "I'm not saying there isn't an article to be made on what the Pontians experienced, just not in this ugly form." No one disagrees that events happened, no is trying to suppress or hide material - despite the frequent insults I receive of being a "Turkish denialist" and my "burning desire to uphold article 301" (I'm not a Turkish citizen btw). Where the disagreement lies is how to represent these events in the most encyclopedic fashion possible. The route taken by Greek editors is essentially to put whatever happened to the Pontians (and to be honest, from this article I still don't know what happened to them) on a par with the Armenian genocide. This position is recognized only by one country, Greece (the reference for Cyprus still hasn't been made clear), but most importantly lacks any coverage in mainstream academia. No journal articles, no monographs, no encyclopedic articles are dedicated to these events. You simply cannot equate the academic work behind the Armenian genocide article which lends credence to that thesis with this article.

To have one or two authors use the term genocide in a few sentences, or ethnic cleansing, or massacres or atrocities in relation to Greeks (of which few explicitly refer to Pontians) does not automatically mean that this is evidence of a large body of academic work in favour of calling these events a genocide or the Pontic Greek Genocide or whatever. Consider for example an eminent historian like Mazower in the London review of books who states the fate of the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire was not the same as the Armenians (i.e. no genocide). Now how are these views being accommodated under the current title and current article which simple states the position of the Greek government and few non-descript authors as fact? Articles should not be based on minority views, they should not give undue weight to these views and they should not synthesise varying sources into a new thesis. These are Wiki policies which i've tried to explain fail in this article. In return, I've witnessed the arrogance of editors who rely on reverting in groups to push their view and rather than counter the arguments I raise, instead label me a "denialist" and what not. I stand by my view, the title needs to change, the article needs to be rewritten, I've more than justified this position and would not support it unless I had good reason to do so. --A.Garnet (talk) 20:02, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I see your points, and I have stated how I feel after perusing the state of the article and the discussion. It doesn't help to go on in this manner by edit warring- taking a break and calling for help from others is the right thing to do. I can see this article badly needs more reviews from third parties, and I am here to help. The language is indeed a problem within the article, and like I said, we can do better. Calling each other names is unacceptable behavior in any case, and it is not our job to label others as deniers and such. We are not interpreters, we are supposed to be historians with high standards of performance. Monsieurdl (talk) 20:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I and User:Francis Tyers have the Levene text; if anyone is interested for verification, e-mail me. I think he is the best source in terms of content, and in terms of careful language. NikoSilver 22:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

My first edits: Rummel is not a source for Pontic Greek Genocide

R.J. Rummel does not mention Pontic Greeks in his calculation chart, and does not differentiate between them and the rest of the Anatolian Greeks. Any mention of Turkish massacres are not to go beyond the scope of the region of Pontus- anything beyond that makes this a general article on Anatolian Greek genocide, which it is not. Please stick with Pontus only references. Monsieurdl (talk) 20:49, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, Rummel does mention "Black Sea coast" deaths of 10,000, which would cover Pontus, but not all of it was Pontus. It says it here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Monsieurdl (talk • contribs) 20:54, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Use ref #19: Merrill D. Peterson, Starving Armenians: America and the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1930 and After. Or ref#20 G.K. Valavanis, "Contemporary General History of Pontos" 1925, 1st Edition. In general, I must note that most academics I've seen don't make a distinction between Pontic and non-Pontic Greeks, because they are both ...Greeks. (BTW, I find it very silly that the Greek government restricts the Greek deaths to just Pontians, when relatively few academics do so, and when the numbers are logically less). I think we should note in the article that most academics don't make such distinction (or would it be WP:OR?) NikoSilver 22:50, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Well if few academics refer to just Pontians, that that works against the case for even having the article separate. That's why it is vitally important that we find some that are specific to validate everything- even if it refers to the Black Sea, Trabzon, etc. Statistics don't have to be mentioned if they are not present- mere passages refering to it in a general sense would suffice. Monsieurdl (talk) 18:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Pontic Greek Genocide

If the term is controversial to begin with (as the first sentence suggests), then why is the controversial term used as the title, rather than as an alternative name? Why not change the title to something like:

"XXXXXX" [Whatever a more neutral name is that has been used in other sources] was a mass murder perpetrated against the Pontic Greeks by the Young Turk Administration during and immediately after World War I. Many historians[linked to sources for] in retrospect now refer to this event as the Pontic Greek Genocide; however, this term is still very controversial[linked to sources against]. The title "Pontic Greek Genocide" has no standing in any nation other than Greece and is not recognized by the United Nations, the UN Security Council, or the European Union. The Turkish government opposes the inclusion of the word "genocide" to describe the events that took place and has disagreed with the number of Pontic Greeks that died.

...Or something else that is more suitable. I think I made my point. The title itself shouldn't be controversial. Is this internationally recognized as a genocide like the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust? I do not believe it is. When I type Pontic Greek Genocide into google, I only get Greek websites. It appears the Greeks are clearly the ones with the bias in this article. - 68.43.58.42 01:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The term seems to be well sourced -- there are 6 (SIX) sources quoted there, that's what matters here on Wikipedia. "The Turkish government opposes the inclusion of the word "genocide" to describe the events that took place" that is quite irrelevant. Also, there's no need to start an argumentation about what the "truth" is, Wikipedia is not about truth, it's about providing referenced info from reliable sources, since the 6 sources seem to be reliable I don't see what you can do about it. Unless you can prove that the sources don't follow WP:RS policy and have them eliminated... or if you can bring more reliable sources (not T. government) that claim that "genocide" is not an appropriate term in this case. -- AdrianTM 06:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

No international body accepts the term, including the United Nations. I think that makes the term genocide POV. The only nation that recognizes it is Greece (and Cyprus). Several of the academics quoted are Greeks themselves (since the nation of Greece is the only nation that accepts the term, one has to question the partisanship of Greek scholars). The term is not found in any major encyclopedia... Wikipedia is INTENDED to be an encyclopedia, and therefore one has to question the validity of this article as a whole. Calling the Pontic Greek Genocide a Genocide is intended to evoke sympathy for Greeks, who were perpetrating War Crimes against the Turks themselves. No one calls the extermination of entire Turkish cities during the Greco-Turkish War to be "genocidal," even though it had the same effect as this event. It is a blatant POV term and would be similar to declaring the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Tokyo to be "genocides." We all know that that would be nonsense, even if 2-3 million people were displaced and at least half a million were killed in those 4 bombings alone. The fact that this source is missing from encyclopedias, from textbooks, it is not acknowledged by the international community, and it has almost no representation online other than through Greek websites, one really has to question whether or not this article can legitimately be called a genocide. An unencyclopedic term has no place in an online encyclopedia (wiki). -68.43.58.42 (talk) 21:17, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

If you feel that way, then bring this article to Articles for Deletion. Otherwise, the article is staying and being edited properly with good sources. That's how it has always been done here :) Monsieurdl (talk) 21:36, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see why Turks are so adamant against the word "genocide" but they gladly accept "massacre" (slaughter: the savage and excessive killing of many people), they probably think that massacre means less planning than genocide, and this for some strange reasons is "better". -- AdrianTM (talk) 22:22, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Funny, because I'm not Turkish? I acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. This article seems like a silly way to elevate what occurred to the Greeks to the level of what occurred to the Armenians and that's nonsense. If the term is not located in any encyclopedia, then it's an unecyclopedic term. If the "genocide" really occurred, why does not a single major international body on PLANET EARTH acknowledge it? Even the EU doesn't acknowledge it! This is blatant POV and Greek chauvinism. It would be equivalent to Turks creating an article on cities that the Greek forces exterminated during the Greco-Turkish Wars and label those are "Genocides." Elevating such events to the level of things like the Holocaust or Armenian genocide in which millions were killed systematically is nonsense. -68.43.58.42 (talk) 05:11, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I didn't know that there's a quantitative requirement... where do you draw the line? 1,000,000... 500,000... 300,000 deaths? Please provide a quote that 300,000 to 360,000 victims are not enough to qualify as "genocide". No source? please count, there are 6 (six) sources listed in the article that use that word. -- AdrianTM (talk) 07:40, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

More people died in the combined Tokyo, Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings. Was it genocidal? If something is not internationally recognized or included in any modern encyclopedia, then how can this possibly be encyclopedic? Finding sources is great, but you can't point to any international body or any encyclopedia that includes this, so the entire article is fundamentally questionable, hence why the it will never be neutral if a word like genocide is included. -68.43.58.42 (talk) 18:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not supposed to follow other encyclopedias or to follow official positions, the main issue is to present info from reliable sources and this seems to me is respected here, I'm not a main editor of this page, I think I just reverted some vandals this is how it came to be on my watch list but since I see 6 sources that support that I don't find this discussion very persuasive. Please raise the issue in other place, bring this article to Articles for Deletion -- somebody else gave you this advice before... -- AdrianTM (talk) 19:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

QUESTIONS re ARTICLE'S PREMISE & SOURCES

The entire premise of this article is suspect. However, before concluding either way, would one of the authors of this article please address the following questions.

1. Can someone please explain why the man who was Greece's Prime Minister during the events alleged nominated the President of the Republic of Turkey for the Nobel Peace prize some 10-15 years later? That would be like Israel's first President nominating Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize. This article's premise is inexplicably at odds with the actions undertaken by those who were officials of Greece's government during the period discussed and makes no sense whatsoever.

Some of the citations also raise questions:

2. This article cites Niall Ferguson for the assertion that "According to a German military attaché, the Ottoman Turkish minister of war Ismail Enver had declared in October 1915 that he wanted to 'solve the Greek problem during the war... in the same way he believe[d] he solved the Armenian problem.'" However, if one looks at this assertion in Ferguson's book, Ferguson makes this statement without citing anything. Ferguson then immediately states that the Greeks were more likely a 5th Column during WWI than Armenians, which argues against concluding a genocide occurred. The citation to this reference is misleading. Moreover, the accuracy of Ferguson's narration of history is suspect. Within the same chapter, Ferguson attributes the existence of the nationalist movement solely to the Greek invasion of Izmir. This is factually incorrect and counter to all archival documents from the time. Ferguson's bio at Wiki even writes that Ferguson's views are highly controversial and not universally accepted and that he is considered a "revisionist" historian. As I understand it, Wiki is not here to revise history. As such, this seems to be an inappropriate reference.

3. This article also cites Colin Tatz, who has degrees in political science and earned his Ph.D. from the Australian National University, for work on the policies and practices of Aboriginal administration in the Northern Territory and Queensland. The Tatz publication cited is an opinion piece, it is not a scholarly work resulting from historical research. Can someone explain why an opinion piece is an appropriate source of citation for this article?

4. RJ Rummel is also cited as a source, but he too is a political scientist, not a historian. He conducts demographic studies and admits that "There are therefore many items in my references that no self-respecting scholar would list normally. I include them because I use their estimates and not because I believe them objective or of high quality." This Wiki article is not about population studies. It is asserting a genocide was committed. Thus, this wiki article should reference scholarly works by historians that have concluded a genocide occurred based on archival research. This article should not be referencing political scientists, revisionist historians, or those conducting demographic studies who rely on references no "self-respecting scholar" would use.

5. This article also cites numerous legislative resolutions, e.g., items 34-39. Can someone explain why political activity is deemed reliable evidence of facts? We all know that legislative bodies in the American south passed Jim Crow laws (which are much more potent than resolutions) establishing that African Americans were inferior and not entitled to equal treatment, yet we now know that was wrong. We also know that politicians are motivated by constituencies and not historical accuracy, and that the Greek and Armenian constituencies in the U.S. are hugely larger than those of Turks. References to legislative resolutions like these smacks of bullying less populous ethnic groups by those that are more populous, as legislatures are swayed by votes, not facts. Hence, references like these to resolutions are point of view as they provide no evidence of historical accuracy.

6. What evidence from historical archives, or scholarly works that reference historical archives, has been cited to support the premise that there was a genocide committed against Greeks?

Thank you in advance for your responses. Pebblicious (talk) 21:44, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

• 1)Venizelos was a pragmatist politician and his move was like to solidify the peace between the countries.After all he agreed to population transfer just for the shake of realpolitic.Greeks from mainland who experienced the arrival of 1,5 million refugees after 1922 didn't see their struggle for recognition of the genocide other than an obstacle for good relations between the countries just after the Greek elit had doubled the size of the country(Balkan wars etc) and now wanted to harvest the goods.And yes there used to be great deal of hatred between refugees and mainlanders up until WW2.

• 6)According to Ottoman archives there were close to 700,000 Christian Rums(Greeks) in Pontus and less than half of that number made it to Greece after the population exchange.Just do the maths.Anyway there is a ton of memoirs from ambassadors Humanitarian volunteers in the region so on.

Eagle of Pontus (talk) 14:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

• 1 Your question has to do with political and legislative recognition which you claim to find irrelevant in No.5. In any event it was answered above.
• 2 Re Ferguson the fifth column comment, except from being faintly racist, only partains to the Turkish rational for orchestrating a genocide and not to whether the events happedned or fit the definition. He is a respected historian and while some of his views may be controversial you (1) didn't specify which of his views cause controversy, (2) didn't bring a scholar's refutation of said views.
• 3-4 Re Taz and Rummel are these the only objections you have to the sources cited or will more pop up, somehow, when these have been answered?
• 5 Political recognition is relevant particularly since the Turkish editors demand a whole section to explain Turkey's position on its denial. That is even more irrelevant. Let's deal with that first and then we tackle the others.
• 6 There is whole list of sources on a separate page. The bone of contention isn't whether these massacres took place but whether they fit the legal and academic definition of genocide.

Xenovatis (talk) 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The second image

The second image describing 800,000 Armenians being murdered by the Turks seems somewhat tangential to an article on this event. The Armenian Genocide, the Assyrian Genocide and this event are not universally acknowledged as pieces of one larger genocide. The image of Armenians being killed, however, reinforces that point of view. Shouldn't an image on Armenians being killed be kept in an article on the Armenian Genocide, not the Greek one? I thought I would come here before deleting anything. -Rosywounds (talk) 20:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

That image has been around for some time and the same question been in my mind since.--Doktor Gonzo 01:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

POV Tag

The POV tag was removed without discussion. I re-added it, since this dispute has obviously not been resolved (nor was the removal ever discussed) and the article is susceptible to POV pushing. Moreover, the title of the article immediately pushes for a specific POV (that the event is worthy of being called a "genocide"). If the article refers to the event throughout as a "genocide" even though the event is not officially recognized internationally, then the article is clearly pushing for that POV. The Greeks themselves did not even refer to this event as a genocide until the 1990s. Moreover, this is a sensitive topic and it should be known that this page is and has been susceptible to bias. I'd be willing to discuss this more thoroughly.-Rosywounds (talk) 06:27, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Why is the tag necessary? It is absent in both Armenian Genocide and Assyrian Genocide, despite those terms being equally controversial in Turkey. After the recognition of the genocide by the IAGS, the insistence on calling it a "controversial term" and retaining the tag is in itself POV. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 06:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Major works of history does not call the events as a genocide, thats the the basic point which separates it from the armenian genocide article.Thus tag is necessary.--88.242.196.76 (talk) 12:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

There was a short discussion above in #Remove Neutrality Disputed Tag, which was initiated right after the IAGS recognition. Obviously you are the banned User:Laertes d, as you admit in my talkpage,[22] so your edits and remarks are not welcome anymore. Nobody knows what are those "major works" you say are, and how they call the events. NikoSilver 13:13, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank heaven, i dont waste my time in here anymore-at least not so often-, people often refer to the works of Arnold J. Toynbee as major hisotrical works, and he is a respected historian of the region as he had been in Turkey throughut this period..Then Taner Akcam also is considered to be a major historian of the region, the book that he wrote is the most recent work about these events.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.242.196.76 (talk) 13:19, 4 January 2008 (UTC) Some many other historical works can be added to the list, like the book from `C.J. Lowe and M.L. Dockrill`..

But then i remembered what is the point of discussing these things with you niko, you seem to learn all your facts from your mom, of course you wont know what are those major works..--88.242.196.76 (talk) 13:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Whatever the case and no matter who you are, 88.242.196.76, you are being disruptive and deliberately provoking a fight here with your highly controversial edits, particularly the one saying that if the Greeks had never landed there would have been no atrocities. That alone is ludicrous and points directly to your attempt. I am in full support of any revisions to counter these actions, be it by admins or not. Monsieurdl ^{mon talk-mon contribs} 16:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok monsieur, you are probably right about being disruptive, however the source is legitimate, definitely not `highly controversial`..It basically says that there wasnt such a thing as `turkish national movement` following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire afterworld war I and the basic factor of its emergence was the Greek occupation of Smyrna..And actually it is not simpy the personal point of view of Toynbee, many other historians actually repeat the same thing..Plus, article for a very long time actually has been in this shape, just check the past records, only one day it occured to Niko to change it all of a sudden and rewrite it..--88.242.196.76 (talk) 19:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The IAGS is not the arbiter of this naming dispute, the decision to identify a correct name and remove the tag depends on consensus between the editors involved. Simply ignoring this on the basis of a resolution by the IAGS is not acceptable considering the amount of energy that has been put into the this dispute. With all due respect Monsieurdl, I am dissapointed that you stood by and allowed Xenovatis to remove the tag when you acknowledge you shouldnt have, this despite his bigoted comment of labelling all opposing editors as "genocide denialists and kemalist apologists". Nevertheless, Xenovatis himself made a point that criteria should be established for what constitutes a good source and then these should be listed. This is perhaps one way to have another try at a consensus. Until then, I'm going to replace the tag. --A.Garnet (talk) 17:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't commenting on the tag, but the edits which contain the objectionable material. As far as I am concerned, a tag is not the ultimate problem- it is the sourced material. I'm not going to get into the dispute over the tag unless things get really outrageous (and it is getting to be close), but I will object to any edits of material that intentionally provokes an open fight, regardless of side. Now maybe you'll be much less dissapointed...! Monsieurdl ^{mon talk-mon contribs} 18:32, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I thought by "I should have restored the POV tag, but I didn't." you were refering to the pov-title tag? --A.Garnet (talk) 20:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with this title. It's a perfectly valid title for a genocide. It has been recognized by scholars as the Pontic Greek Genocide. Stop trying to foment more controversy by adding POV tags. Adding a POV tag won't make it less of a genocide event in history. — EliasAlucard (Discussion · contribs) 17:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Your edit summary was uncalled for- POV tags have been requested for many different reasons, and you shouldn't take out problems on others who are trying to legitimately discuss things rationally. I'm almost ready to accept the tag if this continues- I don't want to, but the rancor in here is just intolerable. Monsieurdl ^{mon talk-mon contribs} 18:54, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Read wikipedia's file on POV tags/disputes. If the dispute has not been resolved between editors, then it is inappropriate to remove a POV tag. There was no thorough discussion in the talk page about this at the time of its removal (only two editors were involved, and one was a troll). That is a violation of wikipedia policy. Simply because one non-governmental organization recognizes this event does not mean this dispute was resolved between editors. Certainly there are scholars that recognize it, but there were scholars that recognized it before the POV tag had been added in the first place. Nikosilver, you do bring up a good point; this was discussed briefly. However, that discussion was initiated by a troll (Xenovatis) whose recent edits clearly show he is not editing in good-faith. The IAGS, as noble of an idea as it is, is a consensus studies organization akin to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. These organizations are notoriously politically correct and want to please everyone (e.g. Amnesty International is more critical of Israeli human rights or Guantanamo Bay than Saudi Arabian human rights). These organizations certainly deserve citation in this article in defense for the naming, but they are not the last word and they do not override Wikipedia consensus. The POV tag cannot be removed under such grounds, it is a violation of wikipedia policy. It should be included again. I do not oppose using the title, but unless this dispute is properly resolved, then the POV tag should also be included.-Rosywounds (talk) 19:08, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Tags are not intended for indefinite use. There will always be those opposed to the very existence of this article, not just its title. But at the moment we have more editors opposed to the tag than in favour. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 19:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The current sample of editors would not be enough to come to a logical decision on the POV tag (which I am more than willing to discuss). Three of the users that have posted in this thread are trolls/ bad faith editors (EliasAlucard, Xenovatis, 88.242.196.76). -Rosywounds (talk) 19:25, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's avoid the slurs, shall we? ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 19:29, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy. How many are for and against is irrelevant, only that consensus be achieved is the most important thing. And yes, tags are indeed not meant for indefinite use, but that did not stop the same editors here applying it indefinitely to all the TRNC articles. Only when a compromise was struck over the title did those pov-title tags go. --A.Garnet (talk) 20:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I had to request an RfC- this has gotten to be far too much. Monsieurdl ^{mon talk-mon contribs} 21:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Well I don't see how a consensus can be reached when one side is defended by genocide denialists. I agree with mediation and second the RfC. ASAP.

• 1 A large number of scholarly references have been presented that explicitly characterize the genocide as such.
• 2 The most competent scholarly body on the issue has pronounced judgement, namely the IAGS. I remind that this was used in the past as the major argument against removing the tag.
• 3 It is internally inconsistent in terms of Wikipedia as well, as the Armenian Genocide doesn't have a Tag, so neither should this, the events are clearly labeled as part of the same series of attrocities by the Young Turks by the IAGS.

Xenovatis (talk) 16:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It's been a month and a half and the RfC has only yielded one comment and that is against the genocide denialist position. There can be no further rationale for the inclusion of the tag. Xenovatis (talk) 17:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

• "It's been a month and a half and the RfC has only yielded one comment and that is against the genocide denialist position. There can be no further rationale for the inclusion of the tag." - Xenovatis, if you wish to repeatedly make uncivil attacks on other users (both on the talk page and in your edit summaries), then perhaps you shouldn't edit here. You clearly aren't mature enough. One comment isn't a good way to build consensus, and that post said the genocide title ought to be discussed more thoroughly within the article.
• "It is internally inconsistent in terms of Wikipedia as well, as the Armenian Genocide doesn't have a Tag, so neither should this, the events are clearly labeled as part of the same series of attrocities by the Young Turks by the IAGS." - The Armenian Genocide has no bearing on this article; indeed, you have attempted to use the recognition of the Armenian Genocide to lend weight to this article (which isn't nearly as well recognized and significantly more obscure) -- that simply isn't how Wikipedia works. If we were to look at consistency, perhaps we should look at articles such as Srebrenica Massacre, which are not titled solely as a genocide, even though internationalist organizations like the IAGS and International Court of Justice have branded them as such. Moreover, your statement is a logical fallacy.
• "A large number of scholarly references have been presented that explicitly characterize the genocide as such." - A Garnet has listed some of the most esteemed scholars on both Greece and Turkey, and has had his comments simply ignored. If I may be frank, A Garnet has actually listed scholars with more recognition than anyone else referenced here.
• "The most competent scholarly body on the issue has pronounced judgement, namely the IAGS." - Says Xenovatis? These organizations do not reflect all scholars; in fact, most of the members of the IAGS are Holocaust scholars that have little to no expertise on Turkey, Greece, the Ottoman Empire, or the Young Turks. -Rosywounds (talk) 19:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Look Rosywouds this is getting silly. Please state clearly what if anything will it take to convince you. You have been shown a large number of refs that clearly label it as genocide. You have the opinion of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that calls it a genocide and I point out that this was previously used as the main argument against the use of the word. Please state clearly what exactly it will take to convince you.Xenovatis (talk) 19:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I left a comment on my talk page, since you had presented a statement there. -Rosywounds (talk) 19:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

RfC: Is POV tag necessary for this article?

Is the POV tag necessary for this article based upon its content and history?

• Uninvolved. According to the article

Turkey maintains that the incidents referred to cannot be considered to be of a genocidal nature

I would therefore expect that a NPOV article which is nevertheless titled Genocide would give more weight to this view including expanding on it in the article introduction. Aatomic1 (talk) 13:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Time to include Mazower, Midlarsky and Valentino view also

To recap:

Mark Mazower (eminent historian on Greece): "It [the Ottoman leadership] had already deported Greek civilians from the Anatolian shoreline into the interior (the Russians were doing much the same with Russian Jews in Tsarist Poland, the Habsburgs with their border Serbs). But these deportations were on a relatively small scale and do not appear to have been designed to end in their victims' deaths. What was to happen with the Armenians was of a different order." (Mark Mazower, The G-Word, London Review of Books, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n03/mazo01_.html)."

Midlarsky: Midlarskys argues while there may have been statements made towards massacre of the Greeks (he uses the alleged statement of Rafet Bey) "there is a strong disjunction between intentions and actions" and that "Under these conditions, genocide of the Ottoman Greeks was simply not a viable option." (Midlarsky, Killing Trap, p.342).

Valentino: "Although many thousands died during the expulsions, particularly in years before the deportations came under international supervision, the Turks did not seek to exterminate the Greeks, as the previous regime had done to the Armenians. See Marrus, The Uwanted, pp 96-106." (B.A. Valentino, 2005. Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century., p.296)."

Peter Balakian (on the IAGS resolution): "The current resolution strikes me is an oversimplified statement that does not have the support of major scholars in our organization. It would seem to follow that IAGS would not want to put its name to such a statement and compromise its reputation and integrity."

Taner Akcam (again, on the Pontian resolution): "There is almost no single scholarly work done on the treatment of Greeks during the First World War. I worked extensively on this topic and collected an amount of Ottoman, German and American archival materials on this topic and haven’t published yet. My knowledge at this stage, based on the material that I have read from these three archival sources, what happened to the Greeks during the First World War cannot be correctly termed genocide."

Eric Weitz: By my reading, Pontic Greeks were subject to a forced deportation, which was, inevitably, accompanied by a large number of deaths and other atrocities. But it was not a genocide because the Young Turk regime was not intent on killing “in whole or in part” Pontic Greeks. It wanted them removed."

Three scholarly, western and reliable authors, where should their views be included? --A.Garnet (talk) 00:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Added statements by Balakian, Akcam and Weitz on the resolution, they are all taken from their respective blogs on the IAGS website. On the issue of using blogs, WP:V states they are acceptable "when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article". --A.Garnet (talk) 22:54, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Why only quote the minority view? In other words, the IAGS members that did not support the resolution. The resolution passed overwelmingly with 83% of the IAGS members voting in favor. Why not quote the members that voted in favor, as well. It is important to note here again that none of the individuals quoted above appears to have done any systematic or in depth research on the Pontic Greek Genocide. - Rizos01 (talk) 05:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Then tell me, which of the sources cited in this article has conducted systematic or indepth reseach? --A.Garnet (talk) 17:10, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps to clear up the neutrality dispute, we could include a section on "Naming dispute" and include reasons for and against there? As of right now, the only portion that is represented is the pro-"genocide" title (the recognition section, for example). The article says that the name is controversial, but it never elaborates on why. It simply insinuates that Turkey is alone in that position like it is on the Armenian Genocide, which is not true at all with the Pontic Greek situation. Even under places like "Reasons for limited recognition," it still has a sympathetic tone towards why the Greeks themselves did not acknowledge this as a "genocide" until the 1990s. I wouldn't recommend placing it under "academic views of the genocide," since that entire page is based on synthesized information and should, if anything, be nominated for deletion (as should the the page with the laundry list of New York Times articles on this event) -Rosywounds (talk) 00:26, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The IAGS is a consensus organization; I think I already gave a similar analogy with organizations like Amnesty International. Consensus organizations are not necessarily as reliable as using direct quotes from direct scholars. It should be noted that the scholars A Garnet have provided are superior to any of the sources in favor the wording. Mazower, in particular, is considered among one of the global leaders in Greek history. Lewis is a global leader in study of the Ottoman Empire and Islam; and, he is frequently consulted by the current United States administration. You are attempting to marginalize two giants of scholarship in this area. There are no scholars devoted entirely to the Pontic Greek Genocide; if there were, then this information would be included in university textbooks and explicitly mentioned as a genocide. But guess what, it isn't. -Rosywounds (talk) 21:16, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Your logic is faulty. Consensus means a lot of scholars. So consensus reached by a lot of scholars is better than consensus reached by a minority within the same organisation. There is nothing wrong with consensus. It simply means that the majority of scholars within IAGS reached the conclusion that this was a genocide. Your highlight of the dissident minority is tantamount to trying to second guess the majority because of the lack of unanimity. This is really unproductive and unduly marginalises the majority of the IAGS scholars. The reasons why Greece delayed recognition of the genocide are explained in the article. Delaying recognition of the genocide is not proof it did not happen. Dr.K. (talk) 23:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

According to the IAGS's own report [here], there "has been little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides [whatever that means] against the other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire" in comparison to the Armenian genocide. In other words, almost no scholars outside of this organization acknowledges it and almost no literature has ever been generated on this topic that characterizes the events as a genocide - and they even admit that they are voting against what is commonly held. The current president of IAGS (Gregory Stanton) was loony enough to refer to the current Iraq War as bordering on genocide. This is why organizations like this do not represent the last word; organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are more critical of Israel and Guantanamo Bay than they are of human rights violations in countries like China and Saudi Arabia. FYI, consensus does not mean a lot of scholars. Consensus means scholars within this circle are in agreement. -Rosywounds (talk) 05:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the information on what consensus means. I thought it was implied in the sentence: Consensus means a lot of scholars I should have added ((the majority) within IAGS agree on this particular point). I guess you must think that I don't have a dictionary at hand. But that's what you get when you are in a hurry and you don't meticulously finish all your sentences off, especially if you are not in the friendliest or most informal of environments. But let's not unduly dwell on this minor yet telling point. I don't have to make many more points if you are willing to ignore the majority of scholars of IAGS and you call their president loony while at the same time tending to magnify the position of the minority. In the face of such bias what can I add to change anything? Realistically nothing. So I will not add too much other than observe that these people (IAGS) are respectable and intelligent scholars. Political entities and non scholars will eventually catch up to them. As far as Amnesty, Israel, China etc. we have a difficult problem at hand as it is; putting more players in will make it even murkier. Not very advisable. Dr.K. (talk) 06:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Last two sentences in the lead were deleted

The first sentence (the quote from the Turkish government) I deleted because it is already quoted verbatim in the Turkish stance on recognition; we don't need to be redundant. The second sentence was about Turkey's stance on the Assyrian and Armenian genocides, which is irrelevant to this article and pushes the POV that Turkey's denial of this event is genocide denial (which, thus, reinforces the stance that the term "genocide" is appropriate for this article). This event is much more debatable than the Armenian Genocide is, but the last sentence was using Turkey's denial of the Armenian genocide as a cheap way to try and invalidate the Turkish position on this event. Unnecessary and irrelevant. The Greek position and Turkish positions are (and should remain) further down in the article; the lead already provides a sufficient hint to an existing dispute or controversy over the name. I still think this dispute deserves its own section in the article (right now it is brushed off in the recognition section, and the rest of the article below that is synthesized original research). How would others feel about adding a section discussing the name's controversy on its own? That seems like the easiest way to get settle this dispute. -Rosywounds (talk) 01:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

How is it irrelevant to this article? The very statement by the IAGS on the recognition of the genocide places it in the larger context of the fate of Anatolia's Christians. It is no coincidence that the Greek and Assyrian genocides were recognized simultaneously. Furthermore, the Turkish denial of the other genocides is the result of precisely the same policy. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 12:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure these two sentences are redundant. They underscore the fact that Turkey insists on not recognizing all the genocides during the beginning of the 20th century for which it has been accused (which is fact and NPOV). Furthermore, these genocides are interconnected. They all occurred in close geographical areas (Anatolia), close time periods and they all targeted Christian populations. And after they took place, they were treated by the official Turkish state in the same way: as if they never occurred. Thus, they constitute indeed a part of a broader context. These are facts a reader not familiar with the issue should know.--Yannismarou (talk) 14:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Both sentences (the Turkish government stance and the IAGS position) are included under "recognition" (one of them is mentioned almost verbatim). The first sentence especially, because it's just a repeat of the same quote. You do bring up a point about how the second sentence gives one a picture of the "fate of Anatolia's Christians," but these genocides are interconnected according to the Greek POV. A Garnet already furnished sources by Mark Mazower that argue they were "of a different order." Bernard Lewis, another eminent scholar, actually has even stronger opinions. Considering that Lewis is an eminent scholar on the Ottoman Empire and Mazower is an eminent scholar on Greece and the Balkans, that position shouldn't be overshadowed. Insinuating that the events are all interconnected or a part of the same policy would thus be pushing for one POV over another in a lead paragraph. Moreover, by synthesizing the Armenian Genocide and the Pontic Greek Genocide together, you are trying to lend the academic verifiability of the Armenian genocide to the not-so-verifiable Pontic Greek Genocide. It's an insinuation and it's a synthesis of data (see here). Synthesis has been a repeated villain in these Pontic Greek articles, and it needs to be tackled now.

Editors sometimes make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research. - Wikipedia's policies on OR/Synthesis

-Rosywounds (talk) 20:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

That isn't a problem here, as the subject is already adequately sourced in its own right. If published sources treat them together, then we cannot silence that view. On the other hand, no one is stopping you or Garnet from adding the views of Mazower and Lewis. Anyway, I don't think anyone is disputing the fact that the Armenian and Pontian genocides were "of a different order". Of course they were; a million more Armenians died. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 02:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

It is important to note here that neither Toynbee, nor Mazower, Midrasky, Akcam or Lewis had or have sufficient knowledge or done any in depth research on the Pontic Greek experience. What they offer and express is simply their opinion on these events based on what they have read in the course of studying Greece, Turkey, the First World War, etc. One would consider Toynbee and Akcam as the only ones that could come close to have some weight in this matter. However, Toynbee's travels in Turkey, were limited to the west coast of Anatolia. He never set foot on the Pontus region before, during, or after the subject events. The Turkish regime's efforts to keep reports about these events from reaching other areas of Anatolia and the West are known and were quite effective. Similarly, Taner Akcam's research is limited to the Armenian Genocide in 1915-1916. He has not done any research on the Pontian Greek Genocide. This is obvious in his comments to the IAGS (see IAGS Blog). Therefore, none of the above mentioned sources should be considered authoritative or the last word on the Pontic Greek Genocide issue. - Rizos01 (talk) 22:17, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

IAGS report condemns Turkey to pay off

Someone please be so kind to add all the references and all the text from this recognized internationall institution supported by the United Nations: http://www.genocidetext.net/iags_resolution_supporting_documentation.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.38.72.32 (talk) 16:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

article protected

Hi, I noticed there is an edit war here, so I have protected the article. Discuss, find consensus and ask an admin to either unprotect, or make agreed upon changes. Cheers, John Vandenberg (talk) 14:17, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The status of this article and its future (and the tag).

As editors involved in this long running dispute will know, there is disagreement regarding both the title of this article and the manner in which the events are explained. Before I go over mine and others rationale for this dispute, any editor removing tags and making unilateral changes should know that I am not the only person disputing this article, others to voice their concerns include User:Rosywounds, User:Monsieurdl, User:Wandalstouring, User:Baristarim, User:Future Perfect at Sunrise among others. Firstly, just from the above list it is obvious those questioning this article are not simply "Genocide denialists and kemalist apologists " and if User:Xenovatis uses such language again I will report him to an administrator. Secondly, looking back from the talk page and comments made by myself and others it is obvious there is steady, long running and unresolved dispute, and as such unilateral attempts to remove the pov-title tag without a solution is unnaceptable.

As to the dispute itself my reasoning is as follows. Firstly the title "Pontic Greek Genocide" was based on resolutions passed by the Greek government and scraps of sentences found in various works which made various reference to a "genocide of Greeks", though not making in clear if in Pontus or Asia Minor, or "massacres" or "ethnic cleansing" etc. The article lacked even one major scholarly source which could be attributed to this event, it has zero coverage in journals, zero coverage in mainstream encylopedias, zero coverage in mainstream media i.e. BBC, Economist, TIME etc. Put simply, the whole categorisation of these events from top to bottom as a genocide is a pov and the efforts to maintain it is pov pushing.

Now the IAGS (association of genocide scholars) passed a resolution some months ago recognising these events as genocide, the same editors have taken this as confirming the "truth" and attempted to remove the tag. This despite me providing sources with eminent members of the IAGS opposing the resolution e.g. Peter Balakian states "The current resolution strikes me is an oversimplified statement that does not have the support of major scholars in our organization. It would seem to follow that IAGS would not want to put its name to such a statement and compromise its reputation and integrity" or Taner Akcam "There is almost no single scholarly work done on the treatment of Greeks during the First World War [funnily enough an argument I have made for over a year]...what happened to the Greeks during the First World War cannot be correctly termed genocide". These are just two major scholars who made clear their opposition to the resolution (more can be found on the IAGS blog). So it is clear from this even that the current position of the article lacks academic consensus, the most basic principle of establishing pov as fact.

Now add to this the complete absence from this article of scholars such as Mazower, Midlarsky and Valention who are explicit in saying Greeks did not suffer a genocide and you understand that this article is an exercise in pov pushing from top to bottom. There is almost no explanation of what the Pontians actually endured, instead most of the article is devoted to explaining why Greece is right to call it a genocide, why there are "reasons for limited recognition" of this alleged genocide, why it is similar to the Armenian Genocide, the only academic quotes provided are those which use the term genocide etc etc. Furthermore, consider the creation of three more articles, Academic quotes on the Pontic Greek Genocide, List of press headlines relevant to the Pontic Greek Genocide and List of eyewitness accounts related to the Pontic Greek Genocide, each one created to further a pov based without the existence of one single piece of scholarly research in its favour. This is frankly quite an incredible situation and the fact that it has existed for so long is a testament to efforts by almost exclusively Greek editors to force their view through reverts, meaningless straw polls, obstructing arbitration attempts and so forth.

Therefore, I will continue to oppose the state of this article, the manner in which it is portrayed and its title, not because I am Turkish or I have a grudge against Greeks, but because it so obviously and shamelessly violates basic Wiki policies. I accept there is a legitimate article to be made, just not in this way. In the coming days I will make a proposition on what I think is npov and I what I would accept without any problem. Thanks, --A.Garnet (talk) 13:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Rather than edit, I chose to watch this article to see if anyone would bother to answer the legitimate questions I ask above. I now reiterate my post above regarding the premise of this article and the sources cited, many of which are acknowledged original and revisionist works. I listed six questions above and no one has as of yet provided a substantive response to any of the issues raised in those questions. I therefore also oppose the state of this article, its premise and the sources on which it is based. Pebblicious (talk) 13:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I had seen your questions on 9 December 07 and user Eagle of Pontus' reply on the 16 of December. Since you hadn't bothered to return a comment I assumed you were no longer interested. Please discuss in the relevant section.Thanks.Xenovatis (talk) 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

For the record, those articles should be deleted per WP:SYN. Not a single New York Times article, for example, ever mentioned genocide. The word genocide was coined in the 1940s. -Rosywounds (talk) 17:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I think this line of argumentation has been dealt with. By the same reasoning the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust should not be labelled as genocides since they took place before the term was defined legallya nd academicaly in response to the Holocaust. Further reference or not of an event or fact in the NYT is not really a criterion for inclusion in an encyclopedia, there are articles about numerous things, events, places, etc never once mentioned in the NYT. If your point is that it was not perceived as a genocide at the time that may be true but again that is more a historical fact itself, which could be mentioned to highlight the world's callous reaction rather than something that bears on the events' historicity or whether they fulfill the definition of genocide. Xenovatis (talk) 17:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• 1 Wrt to the adjective Pontic I agree that it can be seen as superflous since the genocide was not limited to the Pontus region. Further many sources refer to Greek genocide and Greek massacres so I agree with AGarnet that it be dropped and it be reffered as Greek Genocide instead.
• 2 As to the subject of sources sufficient have been presented, a whole page of them was created, that label it as genocide or the at the time equivalent term massacre.
• 3 Wrt to the IAGS recognition I find it peculiar that user AGarnet insists it is not valid using as an argument the fact that a few of the body's members rejected the application of the term when the vast majority endorsed it.
• 4 However since there are serious and scholarly dissenting views I agree that they should be mentioned, possibly including a mention in the lead.
• 5 Wrt to the separate articles I have discussed with Rosywounds and he would agree to a merger between the Quotes article and the relevant section of the main. The quotes article itself could equally well be housed in wikisource. The same can be agreed for the other three. I do not know what the situation is wrt to the other genocides and if they also have separate articles for quotes, accounts etc. That should decide the matter.
• 6 I find the accusations of ethnic bias faintly ridiculous coming from someone who has far baser motives than those he alleges of others.
• 7 I would propose that thrid party members like Monsieur and others be more heavily involved and empowered to act as arbiters.
• 8

I will continue to oppose the state of this article,

That kind of attitude is why I think arbitration is needed. User AGarnet does not show himself a good faith discussant that will revise his opinions in the light of evidence. 17:12, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe there is an article parallel to any of those articles mentioned by A.Garnet; Holocaust covers the events sufficiently (e.g. there is no "Articles relevant to the Holocaust" article). Moreover, the term genocide was coined immediately after the Holocaust, and was intended to refer to the event specifically. It has been applied retrospectively to the Armenian genocide, and more recently it has gained more popular usage with this event and the Assyrian genocide. However, clipping newspaper articles and posting them all into one article seems like a pointish attempt to silence those that are opposed to the current state of this article, hence why they ought to be considered for deletion. A.Garnet has stated, rather bluntly, that he is not opposed to the creation of this article, but rather, the state of the article is what concerns him. I don't see why we need to assume bad faith.

As for the IAGS; I think I had clarified this before. Many of the members of the IAGS are not scholars on Turkey, Greece, the Ottoman empire, or the Young Turks, which is why using their "consensus scholarship" as the end-all be-all is troubling. Many of the members of the IAGS; indeed, probably a majority, are Holocaust scholars that have no expertise in this area. The current president of IAGS, for example, is actually a lawyer who spent most of his career dedicated to studying mass murders in Cambodia (which he labeled as "genocide"). If he were used individually, he would not even constitute a reliable source for this type of article. -Rosywounds (talk) 18:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect dismissing the IAGS scholars this way, in such a wholesale fashion, without respecting their status, integrity and intelligence as scholars and acting as a defacto judge of their credentials is WP:OR, followed by WP:POV as well as being distinctly cavalier. Dr.K. (talk) 19:05, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• (1) In that case they should be merged into the main as far as possible and all the rest in wikisource if appropriate.
• (2) I mentioned that myself just to show that it has been used retroactively with which you seem to agree
• (3) Could you elaborate on the newspaper reference?
• (4) Agarnet's objection isn't with the state of the article but to my understanding at leaast with the use of the word genocide.
• (5) WRT to the IAGS members competence it is precisely that they are genocide scholars that is important. Since the historicity of the massacres themselves is not disputed what needs verification is whether they fit the academic definition of genocide and it was on that issue that their opinion was requested, not on the fact of the massacres themselves.
• (6) Again the question is (a) what will it take to convince you to accept the term, i.e. what further sources do you need (b) I thought you said yesterday that you agreed there were already enough sources?Xenovatis (talk) 19:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I dont plan to get drawn into a long debate before I make suggestions to npov'ise this article, but I will address some of the accusations being made since Xenovatis is (deliberately imo) choosing to distort what I am saying. Firstly, I am not against the use of the word genocide as there are sources, including the IAGS and other less noteworthy authors who make use of that word. BUT and this is the big but, the article must be created in a way in which it accomodates

• a)The complete absence of this event from mainstream academic literature e.g. journals, encylopedias, monographs etc.
• b)The complete absence of dedicated reasearch to this event which frames the events as genocide. e.g. compare the texts on Armenian Genocide and Pontic Greek Genocide on Amazon, the former will return hundreds, the latter 0.
• c)Scholars such as Mazower, Midlarsky and Valentino who explicitly states the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire did not suffer a genocide.
• d)Eminent scholars of the IAGS, Balakian, Akcam, Melson etc (look on their blog for a full list) who not only state they do not think it was not a genocide, but think the resolution brought the organisation into disrepute.

Now in its current form the article cannot accomodate these views since from the title its obvious Greek editors (who created and for the most part maintain this article) are framing the article on paltry few references which refer to the event as genocide and ommiting the larger issues which I raised above. For the above points to be integrated the whole article has to be changed, that means the title, content and structure. Ignoring my arguments, which are rational and in line with Wiki policies, by attacking my character, calling me a nationalist, denialist, apologist or that I am acting in bad faith carries no currency here. These points HAVE to be addressed and if your incapable of this then you have no grounds to oppose my argument. --A.Garnet (talk) 12:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

• a) Three encyclopedia references and one journal article have been provided that explicitly label the Genocide as such.
• b) There is (1) a dedicated Research unit at the University of New South Whales in Australia, (2) dedicated book dealing with teaching the Genocide. Your argument about books dealing with the events specifically does not impinge on their notoriety which has been established with numerous references. These are in and of themselves sufficient per WP policy to allow the article to be created in the first place.
• c)

• Contrary to what you misquote Midlarsky does not deny the Genocide was such bur contrarily compares it to what happened to the Armenians, which was genocide. In his quote he limits it in space to Pontus, Smyrna and some other regions.
• Valentino you quote “the Turks did not seek to exterminate the Greeks, as the previous regime had done to the Armenians". In fact this is a note to a phrase in page 154 which reads. “Nevertheless, the fact that Turkish and Rwandan Hutu leaders had experimented with less violent domestic solutions before resorting to mass killing suggests that they might have sanctioned the deportation of their ethnic enemies to more distant locations if other states were willing to accept them. Indeed, in 19Z3 the new Turkish regime under Mustafa Kemal agreed to the internationally negotiated deportation of Turkey’s Greek minority to Greece.”181 “Although many thousands died during the expulsions, particularly in years before the deportation came under international supervision, the Turks did nor seek to exterminate the Greeks, as the previous regime had done to the Armenians.” It is clear that he is referring to the period post the Young Turks. But the persecution of the Greeks had already began by 1914, before the Armenian Genocide was put into effect by the Young Turks. So Valentino is referring to the later stages as orchestrated by Kemal but doesn’t mention the earlier ones.
• Mazower again refers only to the period between 1914 and 1915, i.e. before the Armenian Genocide (what was to happen to the Armenians…) So again he doesn’t address the whole period but rather a portion of it. And also further qualified since he himself says “do not appear to” as opposed to emphatically denying it. Taken together the Valentino and Mazower comments make up one complete refutation, but not separately and not two. So if they are to be used and certainly Mazower’s opinion is important they should be properly qualified.
• You also mentioned Taner Akcam but (1) Akcam too seems to consider the fate of the Greeks at least grave since he mentions in his interview that he considers the Greek’s fate part of a wider demographic policy aimed against the Greeks Assyrians and Armenians. So he considers the events at least tantamount to ethnic cleansing if not exactly genocide. Again Akcam is a serious scholar who has risked a lot to say his opinion so it should be heard. However it should also be qualified by his own statement that he hasn’t worked on it specifically and further that it is only at his knowledge at this particular state, which he felt he had to qualify himself.

http://www.lawandpolitics.com/minnesota/Is-It-Still-Genocide-if-Your-Allies-Did-It/cef7381e-fe46-102a-aeb9-000e0c6dcf76.html Taner Akcam interview My central argument in A Shameful Act was that the Armenian Genocide was not an isolated act against Armenians but a part of a demographic policy enacted during World War I. It had two main components. One was against the Muslim non-Turkish population, who were redistributed, relocated and resettled among the Turkish population with the aim of assimilation. The second was against the Christian population, the Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians. The goal was to get the Christians out of Anatolia, what we now know as Turkey-to forcibly move them to Greece or Iran. Or, in the case of the Armenians, to eliminate them altogether.

• d) Please provide a link to the Balakian etc statements in the IAGS “blog” as you say. I am very skeptical that Balakian's statements, read in context, actually project the meaning you ascribe to them. It is much more likely you would be referring to IAGS adopting recognition resolutions in the first place, whether they be factually correct or not. The reason I am saying this is because he has written the following on this books:

• Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris, quoting the New York Times, September 14, 1915.

"Turks admit that the Armenian persecution is the first step in a plan to get rid of Christians, and that Greeks would come next. ... Turkey henceforth is to be for Turks alone."

• Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris, p. 285-286.

"While the death toll in the trenches of Western Europe were close to 2 million by the summer of 1915, the extermination of innocent civilians in Turkey (the Armenians, but also Syrian and Assyrian Christians and large portions of the Greek population, especially the Greeks of Pontos, or Black Sea region) was reaching 1 million."

• e) You NEED to respond to the extra sources presented that describe the events as genocide / massacres / holocaust / ethnic cleansing. Both to the fact of their large number and to the fact of their explicit description of these events. Together they make a very compeling case for the notoriety and acceptance of the issue by the academic community.

Xenovatis (talk) 20:47, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

IAGS resolution

Tasoskessaris, I have not said all of the scholars within the IAGS are not credible. Nothing I have done constitutes OR; in fact, this seems like somewhat of an attack on your part. Would you use a lawyer whose life was dedicated to Cambodia as a reliable source for Greek studies? You are simply splitting hairs here. The fact is, many (most) scholars in the IAGS are not scholars on specifically Greece, the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks, or Turkey. This is a fact. Scholarship is not done by consensus. This is also a fact. Whether or not it is appealing to your POV, you have to admit that when we look at these scholars individually, many of them have no expertise in this area (thus, they would not pass WP:RS if taken individually). While the IAGS vote should be mentioned here, this still does not change the fact that the majority of the scholars within the realm of Greece and Turkey do not acknowledge this as genocidal (including those that were and are members of the IAGS), hence why it is appropriate to include their analysis of the situation also, since they are actually specialized in this. I don't oppose titling the article as a genocide, but the term is clearly under much more dispute then what the article in its current state suggests. I simply feel the other side is not being given its due weight. -Rosywounds (talk) 18:03, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

How do scholars become scholars? Are these people incapable of evaluating information like your so-called experts? What do the so-called experts have that the other scholars don't? Do they possess secret information? More papers? Are the "inexpert scholars" incapable of analyzing the papers that the "expert scholars" have? Are they not intelligent enough for such task? Talking about splitting hairs!

Quote form your comments: in fact, this seems like somewhat of an attack on your part Please give me a break. Even though I appreciate your cautious phraseology seems like somewhat of an attack, calling this WP:OR is just meant to show that our business here is not to arbitrarily evaluate scholars and pick and choose the ones who fit our arbitrary criteria. Your method of disqualifying scholars one by one is completely groundless and amounts to a backdoor attempt to disqualify IAGS as a whole. What is this newfangled idea of expertise in only one genocide? Are genocide scholars incapable of handling two or more genocides? This is like calling an electrical engineer an expert only on low pass filters and denying his expertise in high pass filters. That's unacceptable. Scholars have books. Scholars have papers. Scholars have intellect and research abilities and can communicate with other scholars for more input. Don't tell me that your preferred scholars never had a discussion with the other fellow scholars within IAGS to try to persuade them to change their mind by providing info to them. But somehow they did not persuade them, otherwise the IAGS vote result would be different. And please don't be so sensitive seeing personal attacks where none exist. I wanted to make the point that dismissing other scholars' expertise is arbitrary and illogical and creating facts to prove so is WP:OR and WP:POV. That's called opinion and it is not an attack of any kind because it is actually a compliment since in order to be able to do original research you have to have an analytical mind. Similarly POV is simply your point of view. Where exactly is the attack in this? Except if that's your way of instituting what seems to be a somewhat personal attack on me? (Please don't take this rhetorical question too seriously). Dr.K. (talk) 19:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

1. You have completely misrepresented my statements. Firstly, I never said the IAGS as a whole should be disqualified; in fact, I said clearly (and in bold) that they should be mentioned.

2. Wikipedia does have criteria for reliable sources; we do not simply pick someone because they have a degree. If their degree is irrelevant to this subject, does that make them a scholar here? A scholar on Ancient China is no more of a scholar on Ancient Greece than a U.S. lawyer is of the Young Turks. This is not my opinion; this is common sense.

3. The IAGS as an entity does have a vote that is worthy of mention; scholars on this topic, however, have produced almost no literature that suggests that this is a genocide. Moreover, scholars within the IAGS that are actually specialized in this area have spoken out against IAGS's politicized decision. This is something that is not addressed in this article. Is this position not worthy of mention? Is the fact that no major encyclopedia and no major scholarly work on the Young Turks or Ottoman empire ever addresses the Anatolian Catastrophe as such? Whether or not these facts are appealing to your POV does not change the fact that they exist. Had scholars considered this event to be genocidal in nature, then they would have characterized it as such a long time ago (the Armenian genocide has been recognized for years by scholars). The IAGS is a collection of scholars that all have a peripheral relationship to one another, but, as I had said, the organization is not the end-all be-all.

4. I have not produced original research; selecting reliable sources is something that all Wikipedians must be able to do. Wikipedia has its own criteria to do so, and it even has a RS board if there are instances in which people are not seen as credible sources. Please read Wikipedia's WP:OR before you accuse me of violating it. Also see WP:RS. It's also funny that people from the other POV would accuse me of OR, considering the shape of this, this, and this. -Rosywounds (talk) 20:21, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid this is going nowhere. What kind of example is this: A scholar on Ancient China is no more of a scholar on Ancient Greece etc. etc.?

Here we are not talking about a vast field of study like Ancient China or Ancient Greece. Please do not exaggerate so that you can build your strawmen. Here we are tallking about documents establishing a genocide. Don't tell me they are as voluminous as Ancient Greek literature studies. They are a rather small amount of literature compared to Chinese history or Greek history. You read them as a scholar and you appraise them. That's it. Also what do you have against lawyers? These lawyer scholars are trained to analyze evidence in many crimes. Crimes against humanity such as this badly need the expert analysis of a fine legal mind.

Finally you seem to have some problem with the concept of original research. Original research is not bad, therefore you cannot be accused with it. You simply cannot use it without first submitting it to peer review and then publishing it in a reputable scientific publication. That's all. Where's the problem about accusations etc.? If you write a paper that only the Greece related scholars are qualified to utter an opinion on the Greek genocide and it gets published and accepted I will be the first one to congratulate you and quote you, but not before then. Dr.K. (talk) 21:25, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

According to WP:RS:

• Material that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable; this means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals.
• Items that are recommended in scholarly bibliographies are welcomed.

I don't think I am necessarily in the wrong here, and the reason this is going no where is because you haven't properly addressed the points that I have brought up. The IAGS members, for the most part, only have peripheral knowledge on this subject. Lawyers on human rights are not "human rights scholars." That would be like saying ambulance chasers are medical doctors simply because they are familiarized with some medical terminology. -Rosywounds (talk) 22:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

From lawyer scholars to ambulance chasers? That's some fall and then some. I think this is indicative of how far our perspectives are. Fine. At least you have a sense of humour. I still don't agree with your evaluation that: The IAGS members, for the most part, only have peripheral knowledge on this subject How can anyone know that? Did these scholars take a knowledge exam on the Pontian genocide and failed it? How can anyone label them as insufficient scholars if they belong as accredited members to a scholarly organisation such as IAGS? In any case if they were so dumb why didn't your preferred scholars quit IAGS as soon as it voted to recognise the Pontian genocide? That's what I would do if I were in their place. I would say to myself: "Look at these upstarts! Not even remotely versed in Pontian matters like me and they vote against my expert opinion". Then I would say to my other dissenting friends: "Let's get out of here". But this didn't happen. They stayed. They stayed because even though they did not agree with the majority, they respected them as scholars and they recognised that this matter is not the domain of a privileged minority only. Anyway let's just agree to disagree. As far as your other points I agree with you that the dissenting scholarly views should be included in the article in some suitable section. We are not here to hide any good faith academic views. Dr.K. (talk) 23:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Rosywounds the IAGS scholars knowledge of the specifics of the genocide is not the issues since these are not in question, i.e. close to 400 thousand Greeks did in fact die in the period from 1915-1923. What is in question is whether these facts fit in the academic community's definition of genocide, i.e. whether these killings constitute genocide. And in that question they are not only competent but expert. By all means include the opinions of serioius people like Mazower and Akcam though. Cartainly after what the Turkish state has put Akcam through for his recognition of the Armenian Genocide no-one can accuse him of bias.

Xenovatis (talk) 09:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Some more quotes on the Genocide (Academic Books)

• The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians: Donald Bloxham p.150

The loss of the unwieldy Arab lands was not only accepted by the Kemalists hut perhaps even welcomed as Islamism receded further with the advance of a secular Turkic nationalism. The loss of parts of Anatolia and the rest of Thrace was an entirely different matter. The two present threats to Turkish territorial integrity—by the Greeks and the French—and the one potential threat—an Armenian state—reproduced the proximate CUP ‘rationale’ for the 1915—16 genocide, and the forthcoming violence was sometimes of the same order

• Death by Government, Rudolph J. Rummel p.229

As mentioned, the Young Turks also committed genocide against the Greek in Turkey, but for fear of Greece they did so with much more restraint than they showed the Armenians.

• The Spectre of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective By Robert Gellately. p.30

The Armenian genocide, which coincided with Turkish massacres of Greeks, can be portrayed in part as an attempt to eliminate Christian non-Turks from a newly defined Turkish Muslim nation, but the racial element is significant.

• Genocide, W. D. Rubinstein p.42

After the Armenians it was the turn of the Greeks to be the victims of ‘ethnic cleansing’.

• Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East, Joel Beinin p.47

From 1840 on, the relatively tolerant pattern of inter-communal relations was disrupted with increasingly violent consequences, reaching a crescendo with the ethnic cleansing of Armenians and Greeks from Anatolia in 1915—23.

• The Killing Trap: Genocide in the Twentieth Century, By Manus I. Midlarsky p.343

Whatever was done to the Armenians is being repeated with the Greeks. Massacres most likely did take place at Amisos and other villages in the Pontus. Yet given the large numbers of surviving Greeks, especially relative to the small number of Armenian survivors, the massacres were apparently restricted to the Pontus, Smyrna, and selected other "sensitive regions"

• Encyclopaedia of World Cultures - Page 141, David Levinson - Ethnology – 1996 p.141

In the genocide of various minority nationalities that followed, the Turks massacred over 350000 Greeks.

• Encyclopaedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, Dinah Shelton p.303

At the end of the Greco-Turkish War of 1921-1922, Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) at the head of the infant Turkish Republic engaged in an ethnic cleansing campaign against the country’s Greeks. The Lausanne Treaty of 1923 completed the process of the forcible transfer of the Greeks.

• Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany By Isabel V. Hull p.263

That was the CUP’s goal—to build a nation-state around a homogenous Turkic-Islamic population, stripped of its Christians (Armenians, Greeks, Nestorians and some Syrians) and Jews. p.271 The Turkish interpretation of the treacherous Armenians and Greeks and of the requirements of “military necessity” became for many German officers simply facts that formed the basis of their own reckoning. p.276 The other three documented examples we have of German officers advising deportation all occurred after the genocide was well underway. Bronsart ordered Armenian males working in forced labour brigades to be removed on 25 July ii and he advised Liman (who refused) to deport Greeks from the coast in August 1916.

• Human Rights - International Law - and the Armenian Genocide, Alfred de Zayas, JD, PhD (Secretary-General, PEN International, Centre Suisse romande)

Thus the Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire, who had suffered persecution and massacres in the nineteenth century, were subjected to genocide under the cover of the First World War, culminating in the murder of some 1.5 million Armenians , and the ethnic cleansing of the Greek and Assyrian communities of Anatolia....The Genocide Convention of 1948 and other United Nations Conventions strengthen the claims of genocide victims, including the Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians of Asia Minor,

Outsiders: A History of European Minorities, Panikos Panayi p.111 The Turkish state which emerged at the collapse of the Ottoman Empire contained several minorities within its interior, in an attempt to move towards a homogeneous population the Turkish state, which has passed through varying phases of dictatorship and democracy, has used any means possible, including genocide and deportation, to eliminate the Armenians, Greeks and Kurds remaining within Anatolia.

• The Clash of Ideologies, David J. Jonsson p.248

The Genocide of the Eastern Christians of Smyrna (1922) Turkish army entered Smyrna on September 9. 1922 and soon thereafter the city went up in flames. A fire razed most of the Armenian quarter. It is estimated that 50,000 Christians were killed in the city during this period. No indigenous Christians remained in Smyrna after this holocaust that had deeply stained relations between the two peoples. p.249 The burning of Smyrna and the massacring and scattering of its 300,000 Christian inhabitants is one of the greatest crimes of all times.

• The Paths of History, Igor M. Diakonoff p.276 (footnotes)

60. Most of the Armenians had already been massacred during the reign of the Sultan, in 1915—1916; Kemal attempted to continue the genocide of Armenians in Transcaucasia, and of Greeks on the coast of the Aegean. Especially heartrending and horribly bloody was the genocide of the Greeks in Smyrna (Turkish Izmir) where they had lived since the tenth century BC.

• Negotiating the Sacred: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society, Elizabeth Burns Coleman, Kevin White p.82

The French classical scholar, Pierre Vidal-Naguet, labelled denialists the assassins of memory’. In the case of the Jews, the denialists are not always the genocidaires. In the case of the Armenians, however, they are. Turkish denialism of the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians is official, riven, driven, constant, rampant and increasing each year since the events of 1915 to 1922. It is state-funded, with special departments and units in overseas missions whose sole purpose is to dilute, counter, minimise, trivialise and relativise every reference to the events which encompassed a genocide of Armenians, Pontian Greeks and Assyrian Christians in Asia Minor.

• The Sage Handbook of Nations And Nationalism. Gerard Delanty, Krishan Kumar p.325

The term ‘auto-genocide’ (self- genocide) has hence been used to distinguish the extreme distortion of nationhood by dictators such as Pol Pot and Ataturk through a deep-reaching subversion of history. Exterminating one’s own people and culture apparently does not contrast with the restoration of ancient monuments like Angkor Vat (the largest temple in the world). The most problematic case was, of course, that of Kemal Atatürk (Mustafa Kemal Pasha), who could only conceive development as utter, remorseless and complete Westernization (Atahaki and Zürcher 2004). This led him to the extreme paroxysm of banning key elements of popular Turkish culture, such as the fez or tarboosh, a hat common to most Ottoman Mediterranean lands, which he replaced with Western, particularly British, hats and suits — to the great benefit of Western textile industries.’ Rummel (1997: 233—6) calculates that 264,000 Greeks, 440,000 Armenians, as well as other minorities and countless Turks perished under his “reign of terror”

*Reigns of Terror, Patricia Marchak p.31

One of the objections to including political victims in the definition for genocide was that every state has political opponents, some of whom are armed subversives. Assuming it is legitimate to attempt to capture and disarm such persons, any definition that treats all political acts as genocide would not be accepted even by the most liberal democratic states. However, liberal democratic states are obliged to bring such individuals to trial and to produce evidence of illegal acts; a definition of poliricide that clearly states the absence of such protections would he necessary.

Politicide includes what might otherwise he categorized as “class crimes or crimes committed against individuals because they are, or are perceived to he, members of a class. A class would consist of families who share a position in the economic and social spectrum of the society. The measurements of positions are generally rather crude, such as owning/not owning land or industrial and commercial establishments; living in rural or urban regions; or being employed in manual versus non-manual labour. Because ethnic groups are often discriminated against and ranked within multi-ethnic societies, persons who fall into crude class categories may also share ethnic origins. Armenians and Greeks in the Ottoman Empire, Indians in Uganda, and Jews in much of Europe were disproportionately engaged in commerce: their ethnicity and occupational niches were so intertwined that crimes against the ethnic group and class were one and the same.

• Genocide in International Law: The Crimes of Crimes, William Schabas p.22

However, the Treaty of Sevres was never ratified, As Kay Holloway wrote, the failure of the signatories to bring the treaty into force ‘resulted in the abandonment of thousands of defenceless peoples Armenians and Greeks — to the fury of their persecutors, by engendering subsequent holocausts in which the few survivors of the 1915 Armenian massacres perished.” The Treaty of Sevres was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne of 24 July 1 Q23 that included a ‘Declaration of Amnesty’ for all offence’s commited between 1 August 1914 and 20 November 1922.

• Looking Backward, Moving Forward: Confronting the Armenian Genocide. Richard G. Hovannisian p.35

The Armenians and Greeks were not the only non-Turkish minority to suffer during World War 1 and their fates may not be divorced from the broader context. Assyrian (especially Nestorian) Christians in western Persia. Diarbekir, Van, and Bidis provinces (particularly in their strongholds in the Hakkiari highlands) were massacred alongside Armenians in 1915 although they were not subject to the same systematic destruction as the Armenian communities.

• America's Ethnic Politics, Joseph Slabey Roucek, Bernard Eisenberg p.41

“To our amazement”, said the Orthodox Observer, the civilized world…looks on with indifference as the genocide of the Greeks in Turkey continues according to the preplanned schedule”.

• Genocide against the Bulgarian, Greek, Armenian, Cypriot and Kurdish people, Stamatov Vurban, Bulgaria, Sofia Press Pug House

• Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans: Nationalism and the Destruction of Tradition, Cathie Carmichael

p.2

The extermination of over 90 per cent of Poland’s Jews in early 1944, the Highland clearances in Scotland in the eighteenth century; the expulsion of ethnic Germans from post-war Czechoslovakia; the transportation of he Crimean Tartan in 1941; the slaughter of lzmir’s Greeks and Armenians in the early 1920s; and the exodus of Muslims from the Balkans after the mid-nineteenth century are only a few of the numerous instances of this kind of violence. Ethnic cleansing has become a broad term which covers all forms of ethnically inspired violence from murder, rape and torture to forceful removal of population.

• Athenian Adventure: With Alarums & Excursions, Clarence Pendleton Lee p.110

“…had been its Greek populace, the Turks massacred as many Greeks there as possible, to so1ve that ethnological problem by genocide, a term a later and more delicate…”

These three don't explicitly mention genocide or ethnic cleansing but rather identify the fate of the Greeks with that of the Armenians, i.e. genocide.

• Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World: The Roots of Sectarianism, Bruce Alan Masters p.8

The principal ideological outcome was the emergence of ethnically based nationalisms among the empire’s diverse peoples with calamitous results the fate of the Armenians and Greeks of Anatolia

• The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam. From Jihad to Dhimmitude. Seventh-Twentieth Century, Bat Yeor p.468

In a letter to the president of the AIU, Nahum Effendi. Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire, explains that his attitude, described anti-Zionist “saved the Jews of Turkey and Palestine from the fate of the Armenians and Greeks See Esther Benbassa, Un Grand Rabbine Sepharade en politique 1892-1923 (Paris 1990), 234

• The State: Critical Concepts, John A. Hall p.356

Even among contestants geographically interspersed there must he some sense of community or some even balance of forces that makes wholesale expulsion or genocide impossible. The Turks are beginning to develop a set of democratic practices among themselves, but fifty years ago they did not deal democratically with Armenians or Greeks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xenovatis (talk • contribs) 17:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

These four however also explicitly call the Greek Genocide as such.

• Prof. Israel Charney, President of the IAGS

"It is believed that in Turkey between 1913 and 1922, under the successive regimes of the Young Turks and of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), more than 3.5 million Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Christians were massacred in a state-organized and state-sponsored campaign of destruction and genocide, aiming at wiping out from the emerging Turkish Republic its native Christian populations. This Christian Holocaust is viewed as the precursor to the Jewish Holocaust in WWII. To this day, the Turkish government ostensibly denies having committed this genocide."

• Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris, quoting the New York Times, September 14, 1915.

"Turks admit that the Armenian persecution is the first step in a plan to get rid of Christians, and that Greeks would come next. ... Turkey henceforth is to be for Turks alone."

• Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris, p. 285-286

"While the death toll in the trenches of Western Europe were close to 2 million by the summer of 1915, the extermination of innocent civilians in Turkey (the Armenians, but also Syrian and Assyrian Christians and large portions of the Greek population, especially the Greeks of Pontos, or Black Sea region) was reaching 1 million."

• "Genocide Under the Law of Nations," New York Times, January 5, 1947

"If members of the United Nations pass appropriate legislation such incidents such as pogroms of Czarist Russian and the massacres of Armenians and Greeks by Turkey would be punishable as genocide."

• Johan M.G. van der Dennen, THE ‘EVIL’ MIND: PT. 1: GENOCIDE AND MASS KILLINGS p.13

It was only in the nineteenth century that the complete destruction of an ethnic group manifested itself as the goal of a state, when Turkey began directing cleansing efforts against Greeks and Armenians.

I didn't see these in the quotes article so I thought we should discuss them here before inclusion. Additionaly there is a research unit dedicated to the study of the Pontic Greek Genocide in the University of New South Wales' Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. http://www.aihgs.com/pontintr.htm

Finally here is a teaching unit on the Pontic Greek Genocide. http://www.xeniteas.net/history/PontianGenocide.pdf

Xenovatis (talk) 21:54, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Comments on above sources (split)

Xenovatis (talk) 14:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The sheer volume of these new and reliable scholarly sources is overwhelming and the message is completely clear. That the Pontian genocide has not been recognised by more political entities is a matter of political expediency and more time is needed for this crime to diffuse into the consciousness of humankind and the politicians. Just look at how long it took for the Armenian genocide to be officially recognised. In any case political recognition is a matter of politics and not in any way related to the validation of the actual event as a genocide. Political validation of this event as a genocide is not a pre-requisite of acknowledging it as such. Academic validation speaks for itself. Excellent work, by the way, in researching these new academic sources. Dr.K. (talk) 16:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The message is not clear. The article attempts to portray a genocide of Pontians as a unanimous academic positition, yet the mish mash of sources above refer to different locations (Izmir, Asia Minor), time frames (World War I or the Nationalist movement) and apply differing descriptions (ethnic cleansing, massacre, forcible transfer, deportation etc). Of the 3 sources which refer directly to Pontians, two of those (Balakian and Midlarsky) have been shown to be clear in their objection of the use of the term genocide. Sure, there is information here which is of value, but there is no indication of an academic consensus. The fact a single monograph or article on the event is yet to be published is a testament to this fact. In fact, to quote Balakian on the recent Pontian resolution, "Some have noted that to claim that the moral nature of a historical event can be supported by quoting scattered passages from books reveals a lack of understanding of the scholarly process". I think this point is especially relavant. --A.Garnet (talk) 18:29, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

To A.Garnet: I disagree with all your points but especially the last, so I will address the last point only for now. Quote: "Some have noted that to claim that the moral nature of a historical event can be supported by quoting scattered passages from books reveals a lack of understanding of the scholarly process". Assuming Balakian said this, since I haven't seen this quote anywhere, he must have been referring to something else, not the classification of the event as a genocide. Classifying the event as genocide has nothing to do with the moral nature of the event, which is reprehensible in any case. The term Genocide is a classification of a deliberate political act by a government. Politics, especially geopolitics and genocide politics, has nothing to do with morality as its objectives are by definition amoral. Dr.K. (talk) 20:53, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Where do you get the idea that "The term Genocide is a classification of a deliberate political act by a government"? It may be, but that is not a definition because there are cases where genocide is committed without "a deliberate political act by a government", See for example the Brazilian court decision that the Helmet Massacre of the Tikuna people was a genocide. For more case see Genocides in history#Brazil. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak for Dr.K, but According to R. J. Rummel, genocide has 3 different meanings. The ordinary meaning is murder by government of people due to their national, ethnic, racial, or religious group membership. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide Sounds rather deliberate and political to my ears. Kansas Bear (talk) 14:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Kansas Bear for your valuable input. Dr.K. (talk) 14:16, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

So Rummel uses that as one of his three meanings for genocide, but international law and most of the scholars quoted in genocide definitions do not restrict it in that way. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The sources either term it genocide, or ethnic cleansing or nothing but liken it to the fate of the Armenians which was genocide hence genocide. What you mention about "forcible transfer" comes from a quote that immediately previously labeis it ethnic cleansing and the one you mention about deportation from one that immediately previously labels it genocide. Wrt to Midlarsky I have answered above in a point by point refutation of your arguments. Wrt Balakian you still haven't provided a source for your quote or at least a link but I found it and it seems that he has problems with the wording and procedure followed rather than the term itself.

Balakian response to Greek/Assyrian resolution

Although I was receptive to the resolution from the start, as serious perspectives were offered by the major scholars in this field, I began to reconsider various aspects of the text.

....

The following points also have been made: such a resolution needs to distinguish between what happened to the Assyrians and Pontic Greeks and what happened to the Greeks of western Turkey, where the role of the Greek state was present; such a resolution should clarify more carefully how in the final solution for the Armenians, other groups were dragged along into various forms of human rights atrocities.

Also please see my response to your comments on section above

Xenovatis (talk) 15:12, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Some more quotes on the Genocide (Academic Journals)

Just now, March 2008, 2 articles were published on the prestigious Journal of Genocide Research that focus exclusively on the Greek (one on the Assyrian as wall) Genocide. This are highly relevant sources that should be looked at with care and attention. The first refers only to the 1914 ethnic cleansing phase and the second to the Genocide in its entirety.

• Bjørnlund, Matthias (2008) 'The 1914 cleansing of Aegean Greeks as a case of violent Turkification', Journal of Genocide Research, 10:1, 41 -58

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623520701850286

p.42 The tendency to treat as separate phenomena various aspects of CUP policies of what I would dub “violent Turkification”—interconnected policies of, for example, ethnic cleansing and genocide aimed at the homogenization of the Ottoman Empire—is not new, nor can it merely be seen in the writings of Greek and Armenian scholars….According to Taner Akcam, the CUP had prior to WWI “formulated a policy that they began to execute in the Aegean region against the Greeks and, during the war years, expanded to include the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the Syrians, and especially the Armenians, a policy that eventually became genocidal. [. . .]

p.42 Seen from the vantage point of observers in the major harbour city of Smyrna (Izmir), and in Constantinople (Istanbul), the Ottoman capital, CUP policies of group persecution began in earnest with the attempted ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Greeks living along the Aegean littoral.13 Attempts at removing non-Turkish influences from the economy had been initiated by the CUP after a radical faction of the Committee had gained power in 1913, and this policy was supplemented with the cleansing of more than 100,000 Greeks from the Aegean and Thrace in the spring and summer of 1914.14

p.43 But the islands dispute and security concerns were apparently not the only reasons, as economic, political, and ethno-religious concerns seem to have made the cleansing policy part of a larger project of Turkification.

p.45 The nation, beginning with the areas of trade and language, was to be cleansed from “foreign elements” in order to establish a national culture and economy…. As noted, the 1914 cleansing was initially attempted through a severe economic boycott and by other intimidating measures.

p.51 To the CUP, one of the major advantages of Turkification was that the European Powers would be presented with a fait accompli. The Christians would be gone who had served as an excuse for interference with what the CUP regarded as the internal matters of the empire. The 1914 cleansing policy therefore points toward the WWI policies of extermination, if not in the sense that these policies were planned to be parts of a “grand scheme” of what have been called partial and total genocides, then in the sense that they were connected in profound ways.

p.53 13 For uses of the phrase “ethnic cleansing” to describe these events, see Roger W. Smith, “Introduction,” in: Morgenthau, 2003, p xxxiv, and Halil Berktay, “A genocide, three constituencies, thoughts for the future (part I),” Armenian Weekly, Vol 73, No 16, 21 April 2007, available at http://www.hairenik.com/armenianweekly/ gin042107_03.htm (accessed August 2007). According to Smith, 1973, p 31, the 1914 events were “not a ‘massacre’ in the sense of the Armenian or Bulgarian massacres, though numerous incidents of murder, destruction and rape took place. It was what the Greeks call a diogmos—persecution.”

p.53 98 On “partial” and “total” genocide: Mark Levene, “Creating a modern ‘zone of genocide’: the impact of nation and state-formation on Eastern Anatolia, 1878–1923,” Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Vol 12, No 3, 1998, pp 395–401, makes the argument that although the Armenian genocide like the Holocaust was a rare instance of total genocide (basically meaning that the scope, scale, and intensity of the killing is, if not unlimited, then with few limitations and exceptions), other aspects of the CUP homogenization campaign can be characterized as partial genocide. See also Robert F. Melson, Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp 2–4, 247–257.

• Schaller, Dominik J. and Zimmerer, Jürgen (2008) 'Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies - introduction', Journal of Genocide Research, 10:1, 7 - 14

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623520801950820

p.10 The one-sided association of the Armenian genocide with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire is a relatively new phenomenon. In the postwar period, Western observers were well aware that the Young Turks’ policy of extermination was multifaceted. Henry Morgenthau, who served as US ambassador in Constantinople until 1916, for example, stated in his memoirs: “The Armenians are not the only subject people in Turkey which have suffered from this policy of making Turkey exclusively the country of the Turks. The story which I have told about the Armenians I could also tell with certain modifications about the Greeks and the Syrians. Indeed, the Greeks were the first victims of this nationalizing idea.”21 Morgenthau was right when he emphasized that the Young Turks leaders’ systematic policy of violent turkification was first targeted against the Greeks.

p.11 The genocidal quality of the murderous campaigns against Greeks and Assyrians is obvious. Historians who realize that the Young Turks’ population and extermination policies have to be analysed together and understood as an entity are therefore often tempted to speak of a “Christian genocide.” This approach, however, is insofar inadequate as it ignores the Young Turks’ massive violence against non-Christians.

p.11 The Young Turks’ overall aim was a demographic reorganization of the Ottoman Empire. All deportations were planned and supervised by the “Directorate for the Settlement of Tribes and Immigrants” that belonged to the Ottoman Ministry of the Interior. A relatively small number of government administrators were thus chiefly involved in the coordination of the murder and expulsion of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and other minority groups.29 Therefore, the isolated study and emphasis of a single group’s victimhood during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire fails to really understand Young Turks’ motives and aims or its grand design.

Additionaly I found mention of the Greek Genocide, described as such in several other academic Journals which are presented below.

• Mark Levene, Creating a Modern "Zone of Genocide": The Impact of Nation- and State-Formation on Eastern Anatolia, 1878–1923, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1998 12(3):393-433

http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/12/3/393

Abstract The persistence of genocide or near-genocidal incidents from the 1890s through the 1990s, committed by Ottoman and successor Turkish and Iraqi states against Armenian, Kurdish, Assyrian, and Pontic Greek communities in Eastern Anatolia, is striking.

• A Xanthopoulou-Kyriakou - Journal of Refugee Studies, 2004 - Oxford Univ Press Journal of Refugee Studies 1991 4(4):357-363; doi:10.1093/jrs/4.4.357

First of all, the Ottoman Empire itself, now ruled by the nationalist Young Turks Committee, began to implement a deadly policy, which aimed at wiping out the non-Turkish elements in the Empire and culminated in the genocide of the Armenians and Greeks, particularly those living in the Pontos region.

• The Holocaust in Comparative and Historical Perspective, R. J. Rummel, 1998, Idea a Journal of Social Issues Vol.3, no.2

These genocides not only involved the Holocaust and the killing of the Armenians, the best known of this century's genocides, but also the lesser known genocide of Gypsies by the Nazis and of Greeks by the Turks.

• Nelly Psarrou PhD, The Greek Diaspora in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, Europäisches Migrationszentrum

http://www.emz-berlin.de/projekte_e/pj41_pdf/psarrou.pdf

p.1-2 Since 1945 two main Greek Diaspora groups have existed in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union: the Pontian Greeks and Greek political refugees. The Pontians are Greek descendants who, during ancient times, created colonies on the coasts of Euxinous Pontos. After the genocide carried out by the Turks in 1918–22 and the Soviet government’s persecution which began in 1939, the Pontians found themselves in exile in Central Asia. p.5 During 1918 and 1920, the Turks implemented a genocide plan against the Greek populations on Turkish territory: 350,000 were executed, and the rest abandoned their goods and properties to save their lives. Some of them went to Greece, Persia, Europe or America, but the majority fled to the Soviet Union

• E. G. Vallianatos - The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul (review) - Mediterranean Quarterly 17:1 (2006) 133-140

The Turks had used genocide against the Greeks and Armenians but did not have enough time to finish them off completely. The Kurds revolted in 1925, demanding independence or autonomy.

• Alfred de Zayas, The Istanbul Pogrom of 6–7 September 1955 in the Light of International Law, Journal: Genocide Studies and Prevention, Volume 2, Number 2 / August 2007 , 137-154

http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/865v4835x83m3757/

Abstract In the historical context of a religion-driven eliminationist process accompanied by many pogroms before, during, and after World War I within the territories of the Ottoman Empire, including the destruction of the Greek communities of Pontos and Asia Minor and the atrocities against the Greeks of Smyrna in September 1922, the genocidal character of the Istanbul pogrom becomes apparent.

• MA Mcdonnell, AD Moses, Raphael Lemkin as historian of genocide in the Americas, Journal of Genocide Research, Volume 7, Issue 4 December 2005 , pages 501 - 529

http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/research_projects/nationempireglobe/research/McDonnellMosesFINAL.pdf p.502 Then, in a “Report on the preparation of a volume on genocide,” dated March–May 1948, a less ambitious project comprising ten chapters, two of which covered extra-European colonial cases: “2.The Indians in Latin America” and “10. The Indians in North America (in part).” The Holocaust, a term Lemkin never used, was not included, although the Armenians and Greeks in Turkey were, as well as the Early Christians, and the Jews of the Middle Ages and Tsarist Russia.14 To continue to deny, as many “founders of genocide studies” deny, that he regarded colonialism as an integral part of a world history of genocide is to ignore the written record.

I will be adding parts of these in the Academic quotes page. Also note that Raphael Lemkin termed the Greek Genocide as such, as seen in the last quote. Given his standing in the field this shouls be prominently mentioned.

Xenovatis (talk) 23:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Genocide in the title

The title of this article needs to be reviewed in the light of the ICJ court ruling last year. See Bosnian Genocide#European Court of Human Rights.

The lead of this article states that "It [the title] is used to refer to the determined persecutions, massacres, expulsions, and death marches of Pontian Greek populations in the historical region of Pontus, the southeastern Black Sea provinces of the Ottoman Empire, during the early 20th century by the Young Turk administration."

Under the Rome Statute that set up the International Criminal Court "Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender" is a crime against humanity not genocide.

The ICJ specifically, in line with the majority of legal scholars, ruled out persecutions, massacres, expulsions, as acts of genocide unless there was an intent to kill a significant portion of the group and that a biological destruction took place. (ECHR Jorgic v. Germany Judgment, July 12 2007. §45 citing Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro ("Case concerning the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide") the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found under the heading of "intent and 'ethnic cleansing'" § 190)

In the case of Prosecutor v. Krstic (2 August 2001), the ICTY ruled "customary international law limits the definition of genocide to those acts seeking the physical or biological destruction of all or part of the group. Hence, an enterprise attacking only the cultural or sociological characteristics of a human group in order to annihilate these elements which give to that group its own identity distinct from the rest of the community would not fall under the definition of genocide." and the ICTY ruled "On 14 January 2000, the ICTY ruled in the Prosecutor v. Kupreškić and Others case that the Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing campaign in order to expel the Bosnian Muslim population from the region was persecution, not genocide per se" (ECHR Jorgic v. Germany Judgment, July 12 2007. § 44 citing Prosecutor v. Kupreskic and Others (IT-95-16-T, judgment of 14 January 2000), § 751)

However there is a minority of legal scholars who (before the ICTY and ICJ rulings) supported the wider definition that the German judiciary upheld, that the ethnic cleansing carried out by Jorgić was a genocide because it was an intent to destroy the group as a social unit,(^ ECHR Jorgic v. Germany Judgment, July 12 2007. § 36 but also §§ 18,47,99,103,108) so this is not a clear cut issue. Also there are other none legal definitions of genocide which might be sited by scholars.

Given the Wikipedia policy of a neutral point of view, one has to question if the current title allows for a balanced article to be written given that the title asserts it was a genocide, despite evidence that the modern legal usage of the word might not support that description. It might be a good idea to move the article to a blander name to allow a more balanced article to be written. For example persecution of the Pontic Greeks or Pontus atrocities or human rights in Pontus or some similar descriptive name. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

On what do you base your assumption of lack of intent? A significant portion of the group was killed, not merely persecuted, expelled or ethnically cleansed. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 15:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It is intent to kill a significant proportion of the protected group. SeeBosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro (Judgment of 26 February 2007): The question of intent to commit genocide § 186-189 --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 15:19, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

And I reiterate my question: On what basis do you assume that there was no such intent, when a substantial body of evidence suggests otherwise? ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 15:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know whether there was or was not intent. I am not saying there was, or there was not, that is not what I am debating. What I am debating is the name of the article and I pointed out that the wording of the article that defines genocide as "It [name of the article] is used to refer to the determined persecutions, massacres, expulsions, and death marches of Pontian Greek populations in the historical region of Pontus, the southeastern Black Sea provinces of the Ottoman Empire, during the early 20th century by the Young Turk administration." while the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines it very differently "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

And you had to do all that instead of telling us directly "hence we have to change the introductory sentence to highlight that intent"? NikoSilver 20:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)Pardon me, I don't mean to show disrespect to such a detailed post, but:

• The post above takes for granted the premise that these actions were NOT "seeking the physical or biological destruction of all or part of the group". The latter premise is not true, as intent is evident from the sources in the article.

Not at all I am not taking that for granted, I am saying that if there is any doubt and it has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt, then this may not be a WP:NPOV title.--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 15:19, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• All of the above is an elaborate interpretation of what the PGG should be (if the premise was true), and that from one aspect only: the legal one. We have academics who do that for us, and call it as they see fit. They call it a genocide. We are not here to make ICJ's court ruling, we just call it as they scholars do.

Again, sorry if my post may sound as dismissive, that is not my intent. Your work is really impressive. Perhaps we could include a section about the legal aspects, but that would probably fall under WP:OR, since there's no legal case running (moreover no legal ruling for that matter). NikoSilver 15:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It is not OR I am not suggesting adding anything to the article, I am suggesting that the name of the article may not meet WP:NPOV policy with reasons that is not OR. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 15:19, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

As WP:SYN explains, calling Smith a plagiarist because his actions would fall within the definition of plagiarism, is original research. The post above is trying to call this a non-genocide, by explaining what the legal aspect is. We don't care about that, as long as the scholars do it for us by themselves, and call it a genocide. Even more, that would apply if we came to prove also that there was no intent, while in the article there are sources claiming such intent. NikoSilver 15:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Your reasons would have to account for the sources that do explicitly ascribe intent to "kill a significant portion of the group". As for the fact of the actual biological destruction taking place that has already been agreed upon, again see sources on actual number 300-360 thousand.

Schaller, Dominik J. and Zimmerer, Jürgen (2008) 'Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies - introduction', Journal of Genocide Research, 10:1, 7 - 14

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623520801950820

p.11

The genocidal quality of the murderous campaigns against Greeks and Assyrians is obvious. Historians who realize that the Young Turks’ population and extermination policies have to be analysed together and understood as an entity are therefore often tempted to speak of a “Christian genocide.” This approach, however, is insofar inadequate as it ignores the Young Turks’ massive violence against non-Christians.

Then there is also the question of partial versus total genocide. While the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide are clear examples of the former the Greek genocide, in its later phases and particularly the events of Pontus, could be seen an example of the latter.

Bjørnlund, Matthias (2008) 'The 1914 cleansing of Aegean Greeks as a case of violent Turkification', Journal of Genocide Research, 10:1, 41 -58

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623520701850286

p.53

98 On “partial” and “total” genocide: Mark Levene, “Creating a modern ‘zone of genocide’: the impact of nation and state-formation on Eastern Anatolia, 1878–1923,” Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Vol 12, No 3, 1998, pp 395–401, makes the argument that although the Armenian genocide like the Holocaust was a rare instance of total genocide (basically meaning that the scope, scale, and intensity of the killing is, if not unlimited, then with few limitations and exceptions), other aspects of the CUP homogenization campaign can be characterized as partial genocide. See also Robert F. Melson, Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp 2–4, 247–257.

I am not making the argument that the Greek genocide was of the same scale as the Holocaust or the Armenian one, but rather that it was (1) part of the same policy of extermination as the Armenian and Assyrian genocides and (2) intended to destroy in whole or in part the Greek Orthodox population of the Empire.

Your argument hasn't addressed the sources that do explicitly label it a genocide and those that compare it with the Armenian one. While there was no court ruling many academics including Lemkin thought it was a genocide and to contemporarires it was part and parcel of the Armenian events which are better understood as a policy against ethnic minorities (Christians first and then the Kurds) that were deemed dangerous to the state.

Schaller, Dominik J. and Zimmerer, Jürgen

p.10

In the postwar period, Western observers were well aware that the Young Turks’ policy of extermination was multifaceted. Henry Morgenthau, who served as US ambassador in Constantinople until 1916, for example, stated in his memoirs: “The Armenians are not the only subject people in Turkey which have suffered from this policy of making Turkey exclusively the country of the Turks. The story which I have told about the Armenians I could also tell with certain modifications about the Greeks and the Syrians. Indeed, the Greeks were the first victims of this nationalizing idea.”21

Xenovatis (talk) 15:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment Trying to pass judgment on a historical genocide based on ICJ's judgements on recent genocides is at best WP:SYN, WP:OR and an anachronism. First the judgments of ICJ were strictly applicable to the cases under review, i.e. the recent genocides. These criteria cannot be applied to any other genocide, except if examined by IGS as a separate case, with all the evidence pro and con submitted in the court and heard according to proper judicial rules, not by assertions on talk pages. Trying to link the recent decisions to pass judgement on far earlier events is, therefore, a useless exercise. Further to pass such judgment based on the assumption that the actions were not targeting the biological existence of the group and were not homicidal in nature, despite the direct evidence submitted by scholars and without a proper judicial hearing by the legal scholars of ICJ, is a prime example of WP:POV. Dr.K. (talk) 18:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you all are missing the point, it is not whether some (or even most) scholars think it was a genocide, no one but a fool would deny that. But the word genocide has several different scholarly meanings and that is not addressed in this article or in the citations given above. Until recently even the legal definition had two meanings, until the ICJ clarification, legal scholars were split over its interpretation. For example do the people just quoted mean a genocide as defined by the ICJ or a genocide as defined by the German courts, or some other meaning? Neither the citations given above or the citations in the article explain what they mean by the word "genocide".

The name "Pontic Greek Genocide" implies that it is a proper noun like The Holocaust, and that there is no doubt at all that it was a genocide and it is generally known by that title. but a search of Google scholar returns just two articles with that string one of those just happens to have the string in it and the other "Nation, narrative and commemoration: political ritual in divided Cyprus" by Yiannis Papadakis is not enough to show that the name is in common use. If the article was a descriptive name then it should be "Pontic Greek genocide" and not be bolded at the start of the article (See WP:MOS#First sentences). But "Pontic Greek genocide" is not a NPOV name for the events that took place. It is an assertion that a genocide took place -- and that genocide has a specific meaning -- It is far better that the article name is a neutral on and that the debate over what happened is presented with a neutral point of view. See for example the history wars and the redirect Australian genocide debate. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Tripping all over ourselves trying to find under what definitions (German, ICJ, etc. etc.) the scholars called it a genocide is an exercise in anachronism. The verdict of the scholars is clear: They called it a genocide. Trying to post-facto analyze their decision based on up to the minute definitions by ICJ is arbitrary and useless. On top of that trying to use semantic arguments on the string Pontic Greek Genocide based on its recognition by the Google search engine to prove that the three terms are not present in the titles of distinct academic papers is yet another arbitrary criterion. The genocide may not exist as distinct academic papers but its existence is recognised and accepted beyond doubt. I simply quote the passage from above: it is not whether some (or even most) scholars think it was a genocide, no one but a fool would deny that. I couldn't have said it better myself. Dr.K. (talk) 19:19, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

(1) If scholars do not mean genocide as defined under international law then why does the first mention of Genocide link to the genocide article and not to genocide definitions? Further what definition for genocide are scholars using and are they all agreed on one definition? --Personally I think Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn (1990) is quite a elegant one, but that is besides the point -- The thing is that definitions for genocide change over time, and anyone in the late 90s who used the German courts broad definition would have been justified in not qualifying it as it was the latest legal definition, but now 10 years on the international legal definition had narrowed so a paper or book written in the last century needs qualifying as to which definition of genocide they are using.

For someone who is reading this as their first introduction to the subject of genocide -- not an unreasonable assumption as this is an encyclopaedia -- it is only fair to explain which definition of genocide is being used as the reader is unlikely to know that there are several different definitions and that if the legal interpretation is being used that it has been refined and its meaning narrowed through case law over the last 20 years.

(2) If the name is not a title then why does the word "genocide" appear in caps? If it is a title then where does it come from. Further why not use a name that does not have such an explicit POV as it does not seem to be a common use in reliable sources? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 20:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• (1) Since WP is not a legal or politicla journal it should use a historical perspective when discussing historical events. So the definition best suited is the 1948 def that we can assume most authors are using unless stated otherwise. The alternative is to go around and ask them all. Obviously when Lemkin and Charny who both recognized the events as genocide did so they can be assumed to have been using their own definitions, both mentioned in the WP page you linked to. When Schaller and Zimmerer state that the exact legal and political definition is irrelevant from a historians perspective.

The discussion of the question whether the deportation and forced assimilation of Kurds by the Young Turks has to be labelled as genocide or ethnocide is, at least from a historian’s perspective, irrelevant since a clarification of this particularly legal and political issue depends on the definition of genocide one resorts to.

The 1948 definition is exactly the one that the ICJ used in its ruling. As the ECHR says a majority of legal scholars have rejected "deportation and forced assimilation" as genocide per say there has also to be significant biological destruction of a group and a proven intent that genocide was intended. Did S&Z write their piece before or after the ICJ ruling? If they were writing it in the 1990 then they would have been supported by a minority of legal scholars. The events can still be (and probably were a crime against humanity which is a crime of similar proportions, but genocide has a specific legal meaning.--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

But that's the point. No one is suggesting that the 1914 events alone (ethnic cleansing) constitute genocide. Rather the physical destruction that followed in later years does. And I have shown that there was genocidal intent. S&Z was published in 2008, I provided a link with the original quotations which you can check. As for the legal scholars, WP is not a court of law or a legal journal. As an encyclopedia it should adopt a historians perspective not a lawyer's or a politicians. Apologies if I am repeating myself nut it is only because you haven't answered this point previously.Xenovatis (talk) 12:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a clue if it was a genocide or not. But if an historian calls it a genocide, for it to be a meaning full observation, then the definition the scholar is using needs to be included, otherwise it is open to misunderstanding as there is more than one meaning of the word, and different scholars use genocide to mean different things. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

• (2) Since the phrase "Greek genocide" is the most prevalent in google search with 13,000 hits (excluding WP) while "Greek massacres" has 405 and "Greek ethnic cleansing" 900 it should be used both as a descriptive term and as widely occuring once we are agreed that it was in fact a genocide since i assume we are agreed that whatever it was it happened on Greeks. So the real question is "Was it, from a historian's perspective, as opposed to a lawyer's or politician's, genocide?"

See below not when using scholar and books and we have to rely on reliable sources not the counting of blog pages. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The WP article on title naming specificaly mentions google search first and google book/journal last on its list of checks.Xenovatis (talk) 12:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

If I were looking for the nick name of the French Rugby team I would not use Google scholar. But for an academic subject like this one. Books and scholar is a far better place to look for common names among reliable sources. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

• (3) Anyone who does look for the article will look for it as "greek genocide" or "pontic/pontian/pontus greek genocide" they will not look for it under "greek massacres/ethnic cleansing/fate of populaion during the dissolution of the OE". That it is not widely known does not mean it is unknown and crucially does not mean that it is known with more widely with another name. This last is very important.

Xenovatis (talk) 21:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Redirects can take care of other names and the text will still return any text searches so that is not a reason to have a POV name. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Please see belowXenovatis (talk) 12:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

1. The Genocide article has all the information about what constitutes genocide including reference to definitions. That's a point which can be clarified further, I have no objection to that.
2. I don't object if we have to lower the capitalisation. So we agree on that too. But I find the point: Further why not use a name that does not have such an explicit POV as it does not seem to be a common use in reliable sources? bizarre. What is exactly the POV and the lack of common use in reliable sources? This section alone is chock-full of top of the line scholarly sources calling it genocide and we just finished the section above acknowledging that the majority of scholars call it a genocide. Therefore this last statement is out of order a non sequitur. Dr.K. (talk) 21:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think out of order is a bit harsh. More somehow contradictory. I apologize if that was your meaning to begin with. But I would be in agreemen on decapping and possibly debolding as well as well as including a section on definitions and legal stuff if Philipp would still be interested to write one.Xenovatis (talk) 22:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but with all of this legal stuff, I used legal terminology as if we were in court. I should have phrased it a bit more delicately (which I just did). Anyway I agree with your proposals. Dr.K. (talk) 22:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The "legal stuff" is not necessary in the article, besides it would probably be a breach of WP:SYN. I included it here to demonstrate to the people who read this talk page that the word genocide does not have one definition and that even the understand of the fixed legal definition is developing as more cases are heard. Now that I have done so I hope that other editors will be aware that there is no one clear meaning to genocide, something that is implicit in the wording of the article, because unless one defines what the historians mean by genocide, it is reasonable to assume they are using the most recent international definition. Any scholar who calls an event a genocide without describing what they mean by genocide is not a very good scholar. For example Rummel (who I do not think is a particularly notable scholar) does the courtesy of defining three meanings for genocide in his works.[23]

Dr.K. I am not sure where you are getting your "common use in reliable sources" from Google scholar returns "8 for "Greek genocide"" while Google books returns "6 on "Greek genocide"" This is not a common expression -- in comparison "Armenian genocide" returns 2,370 and 805. So we are not bound by common usage for the name of the article and ought to choose a name that has a neutral point of view (WP:NPOV "NPOV is absolute and non-negotiable.". Do you still want to use a non neutral name even after I have demonstrated that it is not in common usage? If so why? Would it not be better to use a more neutral name along the lines I have suggested above?

Quote: I am not sure where you are getting your "common use in reliable sources" from Google scholar returns "8 for "Greek genocide"" while Google books returns "6 on "Greek genocide"" This is not a common expression--- Philip, I'm afraid this must be a misunderstanding. I never made these claims. These are not my comments. Somebody else perhaps made these, not me. Dr.K. (talk) 11:09, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Dr.K. See See this edit (Revision as of 21:54, 7 March 2008). "What is exactly the POV and the lack of common use in reliable sources? This section alone is chock-full of top of the line scholarly sources calling it genocide and we just finished the section above acknowledging that the majority of scholars call it a genocide." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:58, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes I do see it. But it does not speak about: returns "8 for "Greek genocide"" while Google books returns "6 on "Greek genocide"" This is not a common expression'', so you have not answered my question. I did not state the italicised sentence as you suggested in your original question. Dr.K. (talk) 17:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

My quoting you was for "common use in reliable sources". I thought it obvious from the context that "8 for "Greek genocide"" is me quoting Google scholar see from Google scholar returns "8 for "Greek genocide"". I never claimed that you wrote "8 for "Greek genocide"" or that "6 on "Greek genocide"" as the context was while Google books returns "6 on "Greek genocide"". So now that is out of the way would you like to explain you claim that "What is exactly the POV and the lack of common use in reliable sources? This section alone is chock-full of top of the line scholarly sources calling it genocide and we just finished the section above acknowledging that the majority of scholars call it a genocide."[24] given the returns of Google Books and Scholar. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Dr.K. As to your point "This section alone is chock-full of top of the line scholarly sources calling it genocide and we just finished the section above acknowledging that the majority of scholars call it a genocide." We are not talking whether the event was a genocide -- that is something to be presented in the content of the article as described in WP:NPOV including its warnings on undue weight to fringe views -- we are discussing the name of the article. BTW even if you think "the majority of scholars call it a genocide" please do not include it in the article unless you have a source for that (Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Claims of consensus) -- the ECHR provides the source for majority (narrow view) and the minority (broad view) of legal scholars that I stated above. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Quote again: BTW even if you think "the majority of scholars call it a genocide" please do not include it in the article unless you have a source for that. ---Again, I'm afraid, the source is you as per your quote: it is not whether some (or even most) scholars think it was a genocide, no one but a fool would deny that. Dr.K. (talk) 11:09, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Dr.K. See See this edit (Revision as of 21:54, 7 March 2008). Now that we have that out of the way, please could you answer: Do you still want to use a non neutral name even after I have demonstrated that it is not in common usage? If so why? Would it not be better to use a more neutral name along the lines I have suggested above? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:58, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

(unident)(bold so I can see my comments in this ocean of a discussion)Ok. Philip. Here we have a classic case of misunderstanding due to differing perspectives. You say that the term is not in common usage. Yet all the sources here refer to it as genocide. Maybe not Pontic genocide but the genocide of Pontus or similar to the armenian genocide etc. The google search engine is too dumb to pick up these nuances. That's why as humans we must do the rest of the job and connect the dots and not allow this job to be done by dumb Google robots. You also call the title non neutral or POV. I completely disagree with you. It is not non neutral and not POV. It is the verdict of the scholars based on research and intellect and the verdict of history based on historical facts. We cannot sanitize either the scholars or history. Dr.K. (talk) 17:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I think there is a serious misunderstanding as to what "top of line scholarly sources" really means. The whole concept of a genocide of Pontian Greeks simply lacks one serious scholarly source to its name, that is the problem. By serious scholarly source, I'm referring to a piece of academic work dedicated specifically to this event. Such a serious shortcoming has been highlighted by Peter Balakian and Taner Akcam on the IAGS blog who opposed the resolution citing the lack of any scholarly research. Flooding the article with scraps of statements referring confusingly to Aegean Greeks, Izmir Greeks or simply a "Greek genocide" (which, ironically, not even the Greece recognises) will not produce a verifiable and neutral account of this event.

As Phillip has mentioned, the title of the article has to be toned down to reflect the lack of academic recognition, the lack of political recognition (I dont consider this as important as academic work, but it gives an indication of notability nontheless), the lack of coverage in mainstream sources (media, encylopedias, journals) and those reputable scholars who have stated the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire did not suffer a genocide (Mazower, Valention, Midlarsky) or those who opposed the IAGS resolution (Stephen Feinstein, Eric Weitz, Taner Akçam, Richard Hovanissian, Robert Melson and Balakian)[25]. If we dont reflect this situation in the aritlce and title then there is a serious violation of NPOV. --A.Garnet (talk) 11:22, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

A.Garnet on Midlarsky and Mazower I have answered allready yet you persist even though you didn't bother to reply. Mid compares the events to the Armenian genocide just localized and Mazower is only refering to the 1914 ethnic cleanisngs. I will reply to the rest of your comments if and when you show me the courtesy of replying to mine. Thanks.Xenovatis (talk) 12:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This whole debate is clearly in contravention of WP:TITLE and WP:NCON since (1) the name is stable and has stayed that way for years (2) the sole purpose of the discussion is changing the name (3) this was the name the articles creator gave it (4) the purpose of the article's title can only be fullfiled by a name that includes genocide since those that do reference the events and those that do know of them know and reference them as such.

Controversial names See also: Wikipedia:naming conflict The purpose of an article's title is to enable that article to be found by interested readers, and nothing more. In particular, the current title of a page does not imply either a preference for that name, or that any alternative name is discouraged in the text of articles. Generally, an article's title should not be used as a precedent for the naming of any other articles. Editors are strongly discouraged from editing for the sole purpose of changing one controversial name to another. If an article name has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should remain. Especially when there is no other basis for a decision, the name given the article by its creator should prevail. Any proposal to change between names should be examined on a case-by-case basis, and discussed on talk pages before a name is changed. However, debating controversial names is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia.

Xenovatis (talk) 12:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Please note the differences between Wikipedia guidelines and policies (guidelines are subservient to policies). There has not been any evidence presented that suggest that the current name is one that is used in reliable sources -- Xenovatis, I assumed that you acknowledged that when you wrote "But I would be in agreemen on decapping and possibly debolding" -- and note the section in WP:NCON called Descriptive names.

Seriously this is a clear case of mutatis nomine de fabula naratur. The whole discussion is on the title itself. I don't disagree on the name itself not having been used and that is why i agreed on debolding since like you said unlike the Holocaust or the AG it is not used as such. But what you haven't addressed is that it's not named in any other way either. This was in one of my previous comments. Also you haven't answered my points. The naming conflict section clearly describes what is going on in this discussion and is directly applicable.Xenovatis (talk) 13:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I have addressed the naming issue, it should be a descriptive name with a neutral point of view (eg Australian genocide debate). What are you other points that you wish me to address? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 23:16, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed except greek genocide is descriptive and neutral. Since the majority of scholars consider it genocide I don't see what else it could be named as without compromising WP:UNDUE by giving undue weight to minority opinionis. The IAGS resolution passed with 86% in favor and 13% against. Hence the points I made (1) to (4) above still need to be addressed. Xenovatis (talk) 07:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps an example will help understanding. There was a page called Soviet genocide created in September 2002 it was moved in March 2006 to Soviet persecutions (because not all persecutions were genocides) it was moved again in August 2006 to its current title Human rights in the Soviet Union. The information about genocides is still in the article but the article name does not carry the implicit POV that the older title had, and the new name has allowed for a far more comprehensive and balanced article to be written. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 23:24, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

It is not really analogous because the OE lasted for several centuries yet the events descibed took place in less than a decade while it was being disolved. So you can't call it "Human rights in the Ottoman empire" it wouldn't make sense since for the most part the Ottomans were carefull not to wantonly kill their wealth producing Christian subjects and the concept of genocide was a modern nationalist introduction of the Young Turks. Additionaly calling it a debate would be a violation of WP:UNDUE since it would give equal weight to the minority opinion. The Armenian Genocide is also contested by a minority why not call that a debate as well?Xenovatis (talk) 07:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not suggesting any particular name just a name that allows an article to be constructed with a WP:NPOV I am confused how you can say "Additionaly calling it a debate would be a violation of WP:UNDUE since it would give equal weight to the minority opinion." Given that the state of Turkey does not consider it to be a genocide, I fail to see why you think it would be giving undue weight to say it is a debate as a states opinion (and presumably most of its population given how states influence schooling) is not a fringe view. There are definitely at least two points of view (and probably more) as I doubt that all scholars agree on all the details of the events, and as seems to be the case there is not even one definition of genocide in use. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:17, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Yet you are suggesting a particular name be avoided which immediately begs the question how exactly it should be called. The names you suggested previously rate around zero google hits as opposed to the Greek genocide's 13,000. As regards WP:UNDUE I am happy to consider the opinions of scholars but that of Turkey is worthless since no one expects it to admit anyway. It hasn't admitted to the Armenian Genocide and it never will so by the same logic the AG article should also be renamed into a debate. Similarly most of Turkey's citizens untill the 60's used to think that all ancient civilizations were Turkish in origin (the Sun Language Theory) I hope you are not suggesting that this would have been a reason to tag all articles for failing to mention the Turkish opinion on the matter.

As far as the details go unless you bring another reliable source saying otherwise I suggest we stick to the ones present and not your suppositions. As for the defs of genocide this is true on references to all genoides and unless this is a legal journal irrelevant. We are not here to address whether it was or not ourselves but to asses scholarly opinions on that. And so far we have been the only ones presenting academic sources, if this debate is to continue and avoid degenerating into a WP:GAME gaming the system situation some more academic sources need to be brought forward that support the opposing POV. Additionaly the title should be descriptive, relevant to the users and widely used. These points too need to be addressed and they haven't been yet.

Also the small matter of 90% of discussions on this talk page being about the title suggests to me that indeed we have a breach of WP:NCON and mediation is in order. I have already wasted alot of my time digging up sources that label it as genocide and which no one bothered to read before pushing their POV and I don't propose to waste any more on fruitless gaming attempts and going in circles. I want this to end, one way or another, as soon as possible. I would be happy to hear your suggestions on how this may be effected.

Xenovatis (talk) 17:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Quote: I fail to see why you think it would be giving undue weight to say it is a debate as a states opinion (and presumably most of its population given how states influence schooling) is not a fringe view. Well, so this is another dubious proposal on top of the concept of applying anachronistic definitions of genocide. If that assertion were true we have to rename the article on the "United States of America" to "United States of America naming debate" because Cuba and its population, after years of Marxist education, might propose a different name. And, of course, we haven't yet polled Iran, Venezuela, North Korea etc. for any suggested names. This discussion should now move to "Engineering" because it has reached the level of pure invention and is conducted by engineering dubious new concepts. Dr.K. (talk) 21:37, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Xenovatis what POV do you think others are pushing? It would seem to me that "I have already wasted a lot of my time digging up sources that label it as genocide" is an indication of POV pushing as a disinterested editor would usually wish to dig up sources that give a balanced overview to the events (to comply with WP:NPOV and writing for the "enemy". --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Philip, please don't distort my words. I meant that almost all the sources so far do in fact present it as genocide and if you take a moment to read through the sources I presented they don't all conform to one POV. I wasn't referring to you in any case. Now if you would be so kind please answer the rest of my points, if you want, so we can move this discussion forward. Thanks.Xenovatis (talk) 18:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Dr.K.:I fail to see how pointing out the legal arguments in the judgements of latest international courts to try people and states for genocide can be considered "applying anachronistic definitions of genocide". I have only suggested that if a historian calls an event a genocide then the definition that the historian is using ought to be explained. Why are you so wedded to the word genocide in a descriptive name? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe because of all the evidence presented so far, including but not limited to the IAGS, the premier genocide scholars on the planet? Nice try though. Using verbs like wedded to insinuate that I am attached unreasonably to some crazy concept. I am no more wedded to the truth than all the scholarly research and IAGS which has rendered its verdict and the verdict is: Genocide. Look, let's stop this pointless exercise. There is a valid definition of genocide proposed by the United Nations in 1946. These genocide scholars knew it and acted accordingly defining this as genocide. Trying to second guess them by analyzing definitions etc. amounts to trying to overrule the IAGS resolution and similar literature by engineering new semantic inventions. But even these new semantic inventions are not sufficient to deny that genocide has happened. Because if you must apply them you have to go through due process and present the evidence in a court of law which you have not. If you did the verdict would be clear. Like I said before these arguments have degenerated to a pointless repetition of the same themes. So, please, if you have nothing new to say I would have preferred if we just stopped this fruitless back and forth. It's useless and an abject waste of time. Dr.K. (talk) 14:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

A modest proposal

Given that:

1. The discussion above has reached saturation levels
2. All the points of the discussion participants have been reiterated multiple times
3. The discussion is unlikely to go much further because the participants are unlikely to move farther from their currently stated positions

I propose the following modest compromise as discussed above: That the term genocide be unbolded and lowercased and new sections added to explain contentious points as per discussions above. If this compromise is not accepted I retire from this debate as I am not likely to agree to further downgrade or remove the term genocide from the name of the article. Dr.K. (talk) 18:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

1. I agree with 1 and I think it is a clear case of what WP:NCON warns against. This is becoming a huge waste of my time. I am happy to take the time to look up academic references but if they will just be discarded and no one will take them into consideration what is the point?
2. Agreed. From some point on this becomes a case of gaming the system WP:GAME, trying to overturn the status quo and scholar consensus on. misrepresentation of, WP technicalities.
3. I am willing to listen to arguments and compromise on my position and I have done so allready. I have agreed to include dissenting opinions in the lead, Turkey's opinion in the lead, debold and decapitalize etc. It would sure be nice to see some willingness for compromise from the other side as well.
4. I second Dr.K's compromise proposal.

Xenovatis (talk) 07:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The press release and text of the IAGS Resolution

I put here the IAGS resolution so that we can study it and refer to it as needed:

Press Release* GENOCIDE SCHOLARS ASSOCIATION OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZES ASSYRIAN, GREEK GENOCIDES Issuing Organization: International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) Date: December 16, 2007 The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) has voted overwhelmingly to recognize the genocides inflicted on Assyrian and Greek populations of the Ottoman Empire between 1914 and 1923. The resolution passed with the support of over eighty percent of IAGS members who voted. The resolution (full text below) declares that "it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks." It "calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution." "This resolution," stated IAGS President Gregory Stanton. "is one more repudiation by the world's leading genocide scholars of the Turkish government's ninety year denial of the Ottoman Empire's genocides against its Christian populations, including Assyrians, Greeks, and Armenians.

The history of these genocides is clear, and there is no more excuse for the current Turkish government, which did not itself commit the crimes, to deny the facts. The current German government has forthrightly ackowledged the facts of the Holocaust. The Turkish government should learn from the German government's exemplary acknowledgment of Germany's past, so that Turkey can move forward to reconciliation with its neighbors." The resolution noted that while activist and scholarly efforts have resulted in widespread acceptance of the Armenian genocide, there has been "little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire." Assyrians, along with Pontian and Anatolian Greeks, were killed on a scale equivalent in per capita terms to the catastrophe inflicted on the Armenian population of the empire -- and by much the same methods, including mass executions, death marches, and starvation. In 1997, the IAGS officially recognized the Armenian genocide. IAGS member Adam Jones drafted the resolution, and lobbied for it along with fellow member Thea Halo, whose mother Sano survived the Pontian Greek genocide. In an address to the membership at the IAGS conference in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in July 2007, Jones paid tribute to the efforts of "representatives of the Greek and Assyrian communities ... to publicize and call on the present Turkish government to acknowledge the genocides inflicted on their populations." "The overwhelming backing given to this resolution by the world's leading genocide scholars organization will help to raise consciousness about the Assyrian and Greek genocides," Jones said on December 10. "It will also act as a powerful counter to those, especially in present-day Turkey, who still ignore or deny the genocides of the Ottoman Christian minorities." The resolution stated that "the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides." The Assyrian population of Iraq, for example, remains highly vulnerable to genocidal attack. Since 2003, Iraqi Assyrians have been exposed to severe persecution and "ethnic cleansing"; it is believed that up to half the Assyrian population has fled the country. Extensive supporting documentation for the Assyrian and Greek genocides was circulated to IAGS members ahead of the vote, and is available at http://www.genocidetext.net/iags_resolution_supporting_documentation.htm.

For further information, please contact: Gregory Stanton, IAGS President (iagspresident@aol.com) Adam Jones, IAGS Resolutions Committee (adam.jones@ubc.ca)

FULL TEXT OF THE IAGS RESOLUTION: WHEREAS the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides; WHEREAS the Ottoman genocide against minority populations during and following the First World War is usually depicted as a genocide against Armenians alone, with little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire; BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Association calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution. - end - —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tasoskessaris (talk • contribs) 00:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC) Dr.K. (talk) 00:36, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

• Title: Persecution of Pontians
• Rationale: Title should be descriptive, not prescreptive. Pontian Greek Genocide is not a verfiable term like say the Armenian Genocide or Srebrenica Massacre is. Therefore it cannot be invoked on the ground of common usage. In addition, with a lowercase 'g' in genocide, it violates NPOV based on the lack of scholarly research which frames these events as such. By lack of scholarly work, I mean the complete absence of published material dedicated to this event. A search on Google books returns nothing, a search on Amazon returns nothing, a search on journals returns nothing, therefore we have to take this into account. We have authors who have used the term genocide in relation to this event, as Xenovatis as shownn (albeit very few which refer specifically to Pontians), but not large body of visible scholarly work which can be taken as a consensus. The open dissent of respected members of the IAGS against the Pontian resolution demonstrates this. At the very least we have to take this visible oppostion, along with Turkey's and other sources cited into account.

• Introduction: The intro can run something like this:

The Persecution of Pontians refers to the determined persecutions, massacres, expulsions, and death marches of Pontian Greek populations in the historical region of Pontus, the southeastern Black Sea provinces of the Ottoman Empire, during the early 20th century by the Young Turk administration....

...In 1994 the Greek parliament passed a resolution recognising the events as genocide, as did the International Association of Genocide Scholars in 2007. The event is a matter of controversy between Greece and Turkey.

Structure:

• Intro - as above
• Background
  • Ottoman entry into WW1 and disintegration
• Deportation and Expulsion of Pontians
  • Section to deal with actual deportations, something the current article lacks completely.
• Genocide controversy
  • Refer to Greek and IAGS resolution and Turkey's view, as well as those scholars in support or disagreement to use of the term.

That is my proposal, no view is forced on the reader, the situation regarding academic and international recognition is taken into account and the reader may actually learn what happened to the Pontians. Thanks, --A.Garnet (talk) 10:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Comments

A problem with the word "Persecution" is that it has a specific meaning under international law. Basically it is another word for crimes against humanity however it is a far better description for the events that took place because as the commentary on the Rome Statute makes clear, unlike genocide there has to be neither intent, or the biological destruction of a substantial part of the targeted group for persecution of a group to have taken place. Until fairly recently crimes against humanity were considered to be a matter for international law if they occurred during an armed conflict ("And at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the tribunals rebuffed several efforts by the prosecution to bring such "domestic" atrocities within the scope of international law as "crimes against humanity".[26]) But we can easily side step the legal definition by putting in a note next to the name explaining that Persecution here is defined by the OED as "A particular course or period of systematic violent oppression, esp. one directed against the members of a particular religious or political group, race, etc." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

How about the Pontian Adventure, unless that too has a specific meaning under international law. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 13:22, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

That's already been covered by Xenophon --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I consider this proposal quite serious in resolving this dispute, so I'd appreciate some more comments. --A.Garnet (talk) 17:31, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you'll find that your proposed terminology suffers from a much greater lack of sources than that which you claim vis-à-vis genocide. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 17:33, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The previous proposal was considered quite serious as well yet you didn't deign to comment on it nor answered yet to my replies to some of your fallacies which you repeat. Nonetheless I will comment on your suggestion to say that I feel it is too limiting in its scope since the article should not be about the Pontian Greeks alone. Additionaly what Kekrops said viz the title you chose is true. Greek genocide googles 11,000 hits w/out WP ones. That makes it a much more recognizable term. Let me reiterate too my obserbation after reading WP:NCON that this whole talk page and the three ones before it are a glowing example of exactly what it discourages in quite strong terms. Tha majority of academics call it genocide, there are articles specifically devoted to it (i posted two), books written about it (albeit in Greek for now) lecture courses and research departments devoted to its study in western universities, the IAGS resolution, it is a stable title for two years, this is the most recognizable and widespread term for it as per both google and book searches (in the sense that no other title, term is used more frequently) and that is how thw original author called it. All the checks in WP:Title suggest that this should also be the articles name. Xenovatis (talk) 18:07, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I dont have much access to the internet, so used what time I could to write this proposal, regarding Tassos's proposal, it doesnt address the title dispute or the structural problem with the article (the fact a title with genocide in the description forces to article to push that pov). Regarding Kekrops statement, the title is descriptive to accomodate all views, not unreasonable considering the lack of any published material covering this event. Basing articles on Google searchs isnt wise either, how many of those 11,000 hits come from Greek websites, forums or nationalist websites?

Also, your point that this limits the articles scope is quite wrong, what I'm actually doing is widening its scope away from the restrictive genocide definition. For example, this title would also allow a section to be created on the experience of Pontians in the Soviet Union and their deportation there also. Until tommorow, --A.Garnet (talk) 18:09, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It does in fact address the title dispute and promotes a compromise where both sides take a step back. There is nothing POV about calling it genocide for the reasons listed above. See WP:UNDUE. The title cannot be descriptive unless it contains these two words "genocide" and "greeks". There is sufficient published material covering the event and most of it has been posted here. Since the search was in english I fail to see what the sites' being Greek or not has to do with it. The restrictive part applied to the adjective Pontians which restricts the scope of the article to the experience of the Pontian greeks whereas the events in other parts of Anatolia are part of the same overall design on the part of the Young Turks. To be honest I have despaired at reaching a consensus and would be willing to consider mediation. Opinions anyone? Have a good night.Xenovatis (talk) 18:25, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent) I don't think anything resembling a consensus can be reached at this stage. Everyone is firing from all sides and in all directions. For instance what A. Garnet proposes is a general article about Pontian history in Turkey and the Soviet Union. This article is, however, about the Pontian genocide and not about the Russian expulsions. On the other hand we have the Anatolian genocide which can be included in a broader Greek genocide article. Therefore the renaming of the article could go toward Greek Genocide from the present Pontic Greek Genocide. Judging from the limited number of participants of this debate and the fact that the topic has stalled between a few well entrenched viewpoints I think mediation could be an option. How viable mediation would be in resolving this is another question. Dr.K. (talk) 18:47, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Incredible. I've made a proposal which would rectify this long standing dispute over the title and article, but both of you would rather discuss pushing a new pov that ALL the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire suffered a genocide and accuse me of breaking WP:UNDUE! If this is the case, go on Google Books, find me ONE book dedicated to such an event, maybe then you will be entitled to a few sentences in a general article attributing such a view. What you will in fact find is 6 results, 2 accusing Greece of a genocide, 2 from Rummel in a book on democide (whose reliability as a source has been constantly in question - see talk history) and 2 from Hovannisian who is more concerned with the internet usage of the term (compare this to 788 results for Armenian Genocide, or 162 for "Native American Genocide" which does not even have its own article). Does this represent a large body of scholarly work to you? To again quote Taner Akcam, "There is almost no single scholarly work done on the treatment of Greeks during the First World War", do you see why I find it incredible you accuse me of WP:UNDUE?

If you want to try mediation or RfC go ahead, but I'll warn you now, unless you grasp what NPOV is and what scholarly consensus really means, then you will be wasting all our time. --A.Garnet (talk) 09:11, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The fact that only a few scholars make mention of the events in the first place has nothing to do with the fact that most of those who DO refer to them label them as a genocide. Your observation has to do with the events' notability and whether they merit an entry in the first place not whether the article should be titled genocide or not. Notability is indeed lower than that of the Armenian genocide but is sufficiently high for it to merit its own article. By all means however go ahead and create and article on the native american genocide if you feel one is missing. As for Akcam and other serious scholars who have a different opinion I am happy for that to be included. Note however that in Akcam's case it is not an opposing opinion since he believes more research is needed rather than denying the events outright, neither are most of the other scholars' you cited objections a denial since they rather suggest that it is not the IAGS' role to pronounce on past events in the first place rather than disagreeing with the validity of that particular pronouncement. So there isn't really a dedicated opposing view in the way the Armenian genocide is denied by people like MacCarthy, Lewy and Lewis. Definately a minority view then and to call it a debate simply on the Turkish states' objection is violating WP:UNDUE.

As I said earlier this whole carwreck of a discussion is in breach of WP:NCON and I don't propose to waste any more of my time in such a fruitless pursuit as trying to convince people who have no inclination to debate based on academic sources. I suggest mediation as the RfC has already been in effect for over three months and produced nothing.

Xenovatis (talk) 11:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Xenovatis you have been mislead by Google. If you put in a search for ["Greek Genocide"] Google returns "about 19,300 English pages for "Greek Genocide" " but it one then adds -wikipedia to the search Google returns " about 9,730 English pages for "Greek Genocide" -wikipedia." It should flag a warning when Google is reporting that nearly ten thousand of the pages have the word wikipedia in it! If on the 19,300 search one goes to page 40 then one sees that the numbers change to "396 of 396 English pages for "Greek Genocide"" with the comment "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 396 already displayed." Similarly go to page 37 of the 9,730 search the numbers change to "361 of 361 English pages for "Greek Genocide" -wikipedia. " a difference of 30 odd pages with the word Wikipedia on them is a far more credible number than one with around 10,000.

When a Wikipedia mention makes up 10% of the pages returned by a Google search on a subject, (and that is before one removes blog pages and advocacy pages) it becomes doubtful if the term is in common use. A Google search on the the domains edu and ac.uk returns "about 33 English pages for "Greek Genocide" -wikipedia site:edu OR site:ac.uk.". Google Books "6 on "Greek Genocide"" Google Scholar "8 for "Greek Genocide"" So "Greek genocide" is not a common term in academia. If we go with a descriptive term we do not have to use a common term and as such "Persecution of Pontians" of "Pontian persecutions" is just as descriptive as "Greek genocide" and does not have the problems of an embedded point of view.--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

If you check my links above you will see that the number 11,000 I quoted is with the -wikipedia tag included so there was no attempt on my part to inflate numbers or to mislead. Additionaly I have quoted all reference I found on the events not just those that label it explicitly as genocide. As you say without the -wikipedia the number is much higher. I don't dispute that it is not a common name but rather that any other name is more common. The same arguments can (and eventually will and by the same groups) be levelled against the use of the term persecution, eg what is the definition each applies, it wasn't really ethnic cleanisng etc. I personally don't see this ending without recourse to mediation which is why I suggested it. Additionaly the term poontians leaves out the contemporaneous (1914) ethnic cleanisng of the Greeks in the Agean as well as other events that heppened elsewhere in Anatolia in the years 1914-1923.Xenovatis (talk) 12:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I did not think for one minute you were trying to deceive anyone, the problem is that Google is not as accurate as it could be -- as you can see the number of pages is not in the thousands but around 350 that mention "Greek genocide". I think the reason why the name "Pontians" was suggested is because the current name is "Pontic Greek Genocide" so such a name change would not alter the focus of the article. The disadvantage of persecution is that it does have a legal meaning, but it also has a common meaning as described by the OED. This can be footnoted in the introduction. The advantage of such an name alows for the construction of an introduction that is more balanced:

Pontic Greek population of the Ottoman Empire suffered persecution during and in the aftermath of World War I.^[1] The number of deaths that occurred during the persecutions, massacres, expulsions, and death marches according to various sources ranges from 300,000 to 360,000 Anatolian Greeks. The survivors and the expelled took refuge mostly in the nearby Russian Empire (later, Soviet Union). The few Pontic Greeks who had remained in Pontus until the end of the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) were exchanged in the frame of the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations in 1922–1923.

The Turkish Government maintains that there was a legal large scale pacification campaign carried out in the region because the Greek population was seen as sympathetic to the enemies of the Turkish state and a potential fifth column. The Allies at the time took a different view condemning the Ottoman governments actions against their minorities as crimes against humanity. More recently the International Association of Genocide Scholars have passed resolution that Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire, including the Pontian Greeks, was a genocide. Some other organisations have also passed resolutions recognising the campaign as a genocide including both the parliament of Greece and that of Cyprus.

or something similar: I have cut and pasted some of the text from the article and it needs polishing and the ordering of the Turkish government explanation could be placed after the genocide accusations or the numbers and what happened to the survivors could be placed in a paragraph after the genocide accusations. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, excellent, I really cannot see why anyone would object to this. Would other editors care to comment? --A.Garnet (talk) 09:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

It still violates WP:UNDUE. The only objection to labeling the events genocide comes from the Turkish state which as shown above is discredited by pushing various ridiculous theories in the past. The historians Mazower and Midlarsky cited as objecting do nothing of the sort, in fact Midlarsky terms it "the same as the Armenian case" while Akcam calls for more research before he can make up his (he doesn't say it wasn't) and Balakian et. al. are opposed to the IAGS adopting such resolutions in the first place not this particular result. In contrast there over twenty academic references calling it genocide. Wrt to the adjective Pontian I didn't object to it being used instead of Pontic but to it being used at all as it narrows the scope of the article to only one area (the Black Sea) while facets of the same policy were being implemented elsewhere in Anatolia as well.Xenovatis (talk) 15:41, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

How is it a violation of WP:UNDUE because "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents" as is done when mentioning the Turkish Government's view. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

It is not the mention of the minority viewpoint that is contentested but it's elevation to an equal footing with the rest.

Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views

and later

Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements.

The reasonable thing would be to create a separate page where the Turkish govt's POV is expanded like the case is with the page Denial of the Armenian Genocide.

Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it must make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view.

Again the view does merit a mentnion in the main article but should not influence the title. This particular discussion is not within the context of Turkey alone, that would have given added weight to that particular government's position but in an international forum like WP. The counterexample to your point would be the article for the Armenian genocide which is labelled as such even though the Turkish government strenuously denies that as well, i.e. Turkish government denial alone is not sufficient reason to call it a debate.

Xenovatis (talk) 16:57, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

No it is not a good idea to create a page like Denial of the Armenian Genocide for two reasons. The first is it is a pov fork and secondly it predisposes that a genocide took place which is a violation of WP:NPOV. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:59, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

The genocide did took place, and the denial as well(The genocide of the jews as well and its denial as well).The fact that its not politically correct should not effect the articles.Megistias (talk) 17:02, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Megistias, you think it was a genocide but a substantial group of people disagree with you. As to the Holocaust, I happen to think that the mass killing of both Jews and Gipsies was a genocide (because it can be shown to meet the requirements of the Genocide Convention. However the article is under the name The Holocaust which happens to be convenient because one does not immediately have to state if it was a genocide or a crime against humanity. In point of fact because the genocide convention had not come into existence, those who stood trial were tried for crimes like murder and crimes against humanity. And note that in the first paragraph of the Holocaust article the word genocide is not used. When writing article like this one, one should heed the advice of "|et the facts speak for themselves." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed on POV forking but it still doesn't answer the question of whether the Turkish government's contrary opinion is sufficient reason to call the use of the g word a NPOV violation. If it were a necessary and sufficient condition per WP guidelines then the g word wouldn't have been used in the WP article on the AG either since Turkey objects to that as well.Xenovatis (talk) 17:16, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Clear list of reasons

I think this discussion can only continue if the initial point of contention is clarified. I propose that this is the use of the word genocide in the title. So could users please list, preferably enumerated, their reasons for disagreeing with the use of the word. Also the basis on which these reasons are grounded i.e. either it was not in fact genocide or it is not perceived as such by academics. Thanks.Xenovatis (talk) 15:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

As you seem to have read all the papers on this genocide, please explain what genocide definitions the different academics are using when they state it was a genocide. Or am I making a silly assumption here that a scholar would call an event a genocide without defining the term? If they are using the Genocide Convention then which interpretation of that definition are they using "broad" (destruction of a group as a social entity is genocide), or "narrow" (biological destruction of a group is genocide). What is the definition they are using for "in part" what is the evidence that individual scholars present (or cite) for the genocide qualification "intent to destroy". --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Before answering your question as best I can may I ask if this is in response to my request for a list of points and if not could we move this to another section? I remember answering a similar question before as well. I will try to find it in this talk page. Also the Late Ottoman genocides article by Shcaller and Zimmerer is available online for anyone to read in the link I gave above. Xenovatis (talk) 17:09, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Copying from the previous time this was discussed:

(1) Since WP is not a legal or politicla journal it should use a historical perspective when discussing historical events. So the definition best suited is the 1948 def that we can assume most authors are using unless stated otherwise. The alternative is to go around and ask them all. Obviously when Lemkin and Charny who both recognized the events as genocide did so they can be assumed to have been using their own definitions, both mentioned in the WP page you linked to. When Schaller and Zimmerer state that the exact legal and political definition is irrelevant from a historians perspective.

I don't have a clue if it was a genocide or not. But if an historian calls it a genocide, for it to be a meaning full observation, then the definition the scholar is using needs to be included, otherwise it is open to misunderstanding as there is more than one meaning of the word, and different scholars use genocide to mean different things. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Your observation that they used the term genocide without defining is not silly but probably accurate in several cases. When no alternative definition is given explicitly can we assume they are using the standard definition e.g.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary

the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group

If not why?

Wiktionary also uses this as one of two definitions the other being with intent to destroy in whole or in part. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/genocide

WP mentions in genocide that precise definition varies among genocide scholars in the case that one is not given does this automaticaly invalidate the reference or is it more reasonable to assume they are using the standard one found in dictionaries dating to 1944?

Xenovatis (talk) 17:27, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

The OED give "The deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group." Which is different from Webstesr no political group in the OED. So that is not going to work as different dictionaries use different definitions. Besides the problem is that the word genocide has a specific legal definition that has been developing over time. It was moribund until the 1990s because there were no prosecutions. This meant that there was a lot discussion and a of divergence divergence of opinion over what the word meant. Since then there has been flurry of cases at an international level and under municipal law. When Nikola Jorgić was tried in Germany Jorgic v. Germany it was not unreasonable that the German courts to find him guilty of genocide for his part in ethnic cleansing (so said the ECHR), but today if there was a repetition of similar ethnic violence because of the ICTY judgements and the ICJ judgements it is unlikely a similar verdict would be returned (again see the ECHR ruling). This means if a historian described ethnic cleansing as genocide in 1997 they could argue the position from the German court cases. But if this text is cited in 2007 then the scholar citing it ought to be able to see what the historian in 1997 meant when using the word genocide. If that can not be done then the older reference is not of much use.

I put it to you that any scholar who states that a genocide has taken place without defining what he or she means by the word can not be taken as a very authoritative source. And if we can not state in a footnote what is the definition we are using when we write genocide in the passive narrative voice, then we should not use the term but state that xyz has called the events a genocide and avoid it in the title by using a descriptive name that does not include genocide in the description. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Absence of participants

This discussion has degenerated, as I predicted, to the same arguments being recited over and over among a few users. On top of that, other users, who normally used to participate, are notably absent. This should tell us that the debate has stalled. Given this sorry state of affairs I propose that we end this debate and seek mediation. Dr.K. (talk) 18:57, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Have you been involved in any mediation attempts and have you found it useful? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk)

In a few cases but it's been a long time. At the time I found them useful. I am not an expert on mediation or levels of mediation available. I guess we could always find out what's available. Dr.K. (talk)

I second the mediation proposal.Xenovatis (talk) 20:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

It would be better to put a RfC first. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 23:27, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

(Notably absent, but now talking): No, there have been far too many RfCs on this one, and actually one is running as we speak (alone, on our own, and to our selves). If mediation can do it, then so be it. NikoSilver 23:32, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

An RfC with just one contribution during these past three months, I hasten to add.Xenovatis (talk) 23:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

God bless Niko. You used to be one of the regulars. Glad to see you back. Where are the other guys, Monsieur, AndonicO, laertes, Eagle of Pontus, AdrianTM, Rosywounds etc.? Κέκρωψ shows on and off. Dr.K. (talk) 00:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Like me, they've obviously lost faith in the proceedings and are just observers. I could remotely understand the position of the other side before the IAGS recognition... NikoSilver 00:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

You hit it right on the head. I have become a quasi-observer as well. It's senseless to carry on any debate at this juncture. Dr.K. (talk) 00:46, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Dont worry, I am always here, making sure Wikipedia maintains some sense of sanity. --A.Garnet (talk) 08:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

And a sense of humour appartently.Xenovatis (talk) 11:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Garnet. Considering you never left this discussion for more that a few hours, I'm still glad to see you back. Dr.K. (talk) 17:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

pov-title

I thought we were in a process that was working towards a consensus. Lets salami slice it. Does anyone deny that the name of the article is disputed? Would any one object to {{pov-title}} on the page and if so why? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The names of The Holocaust and Armenian Genocide are also disputed by some, undoubtedly. Is that reason enough to change or tag them? ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 09:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if there is currently a dispute over the name of those articles on the talk pages of those articles. In the case of this article everyone who has expressed an opinion seems to be agreed that in the title "Genocide" should be "genocide". Are you disputing that the name of this article is in dispute? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Philip that was the status-quo before the IAGS resolution kick-started the present discussion.Xenovatis (talk) 10:03, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the point is more that they set a precedent. As for de-bolding etc I agree and note that I have already compromised. It's times others followed that example. hint A.Garnet hintXenovatis (talk) 10:03, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I am disputing the relevance of the dispute to the naming of the article. There will always be those who dispute the term genocide, but I don't see that as a valid enough excuse to change a name that is already well sourced. As for Genocide versus genocide, isn't it customary to capitalize proper nouns in English? We are referring to a specific instance of genocide, after all, not the general abstract concept. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 10:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

True but the point is that it is not widely known by this name. Most of the academic quotes refer to "a genocide of the Greeks", "the genocide of the Pontic Greeks" , "genocide of Anatolian Greek populations" etc not to a "Pontic Greek Genocide" explicitly the way it's done for the Holocaust or the Armenian Genocide both of which are used as proper nouns.Xenovatis (talk) 10:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

No I dont object to a pov-title tag, in fact it should never have been removed unilaterally in the first place. --A.Garnet (talk) 11:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

So you agree to retaining the current title as long as it's tagged? ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 12:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

That complicates the issue by bringing in more conditins. Do you ·ΚέκρωΨ· deny that the name of the article is disputed? Would any one object to {{pov-title}} on the page and if so why? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:20, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course not Kekrops. That is not how I envisage this dispute being resolved, I thought that would be pretty obvious from the proposals myself and Phillip put forward. But in the meantime, the neutrality of the title and subject matter IS in dispute, even if you do want to disregard the arguments which go against your own position. --A.Garnet (talk) 12:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I object to the tag on the grounds that it doesn't seem to be required in other controversially named articles, so why here? ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 12:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, this is irrelevant. The tag was removed WITHOUT consensus after months by Xenovatis, that is why the article was locked in the ensuing reverts. I dont see why we should be trying to gain consensus to put it back. --A.Garnet (talk) 12:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The reality is most of us left it there to avoid edit warring with you. The article was certainly rather quiet after Laertes was blocked indefinitely. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 12:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Why would a Turkish nationalist user have a Greek name like laertes in the first place? Wrt to edit warring with A.Garnet, I don't see how a concensus can be reached, no offence, so what else can be done? I am reffering to moderation/mediation/etc. Surely one user alone cannot hold WP hostage, democracy or no democracy? Xenovatis (talk) 13:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps he was laying claim to the ancient Greek heritage of the town of Laertes, "currently in Antalya, Turkey". ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 13:29, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I removed the tag following the IAGS resolution. Since that had been cited in this talk page as a reason for keeping the tag as well as being the reason I became interested in the subject in the first place. The question I set at the beginning has still not been answered: what will it take to accept that it was a genocide? You know as well as I that there is no chance of court judgments or tribunals on something so far in the past while Turkey has invested too many decades in genocide denial to accept even the Armenian Genocide let alone the Greek one.Xenovatis (talk) 13:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Xenovatis no editor has to accept or reject the proposition that it was or was not a genocide. All we have to do is present the evidence in a neutral way and let the facts speak for themselves. Presentation of a neutral POV is in my opinion made more difficult by insisting on genocide in the title. But that is an issue for another section, this section on the talk page is to do with whether you |(and others) have any objections to the {{pov-title}} being re-added to the page while we talk through the other possibilities like renaming to lower case genocide etc. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk)

As I said to Relato I agree to the re-imposition of the pov-tag. However at least give some thought to solving the issue before removing the protection.My worry is that since the status quo post tag will benefit one side there will be less incentive to participate in the discussion and more incentive to stall and leave it at that as has been happening for almost a year now. I have shown good faith in participating very actively in this discussion (even though the status quo could be seen as being in my interest) and by already compromising on some points and wish to see some from the other side.

I don't disagree on letting the facts do the talking but doesn't calling this issue a debate violate WP:UNDUE? Otherwise why not call the AG a debate as well? Shouldn't instead a section be devoted to the minority opinion with size relative to the rest of the article determined by their prominence and presence? Additionaly all this discussion is as shown contrary to the spirit of WP:NCON and an example of WP:LAWYER and WP:GAME on the part of some of the users. This issue is debated for some 3 or 4 talk pages now and hasn't really moved forward no matter how many sources have been cited.Xenovatis (talk) 13:57, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

You know that those who dispute the term will never accept that it was a genocide, no matter how many sources are provided. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 13:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

What's left then but mediation? Evidently more sources labeling the events genocide won't do it because over fifteen new ones have been presented to no avail. I checked the RfM page and it is (1) already backlogged and (2) a fairly complicated process but ti still seems like this is the only way to reach a compromise.Xenovatis (talk) 13:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, I am not the only person to have disputed this articles title, that is visible now and from the archives of these pages. So lets not portray this dispute as respectable requests from a group of editors on one side against a stubborn obstacle on the other. Simply because there are more of you (not uncommon considering this page has become a raison d'être among Greek editors) does not make you right, in fact its pretty good indicator of pov pushing.

Second, you are seriously misguided as to what constitutes a majority point of view. "Exceptional claims need exceptional sources" as WP:V states. One book on this event by a respectable historian is not an exceptional request, but that you cant even fulfill this shows this is not only a minority view, but it can be argued whether it should even be in Wikipedia at all. The same goes for the IAGS resolution, that major scholars of the organistion (those dealing in Ottoman history, i.e. Balakian, Melson, Akcam etc) dispute the resolution shows simply that respectable scholars do not claim this event as a genocide. Now based on this to ask me the question "what will it take to accept that it was a genocide" sounds ridicolously presumptuous.

Accept these facts, consider mine and Phillips proposal and then this dispute will move forward. --A.Garnet (talk) 14:38, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It's typicall first he asks for scholars opinions. When these are supplied he asks for an IAGS resolution. When that is supplied he asks for journal articles. When these are supplied too he asks for books dealing with these events exclusively. When books are supplied too he asks for english language books. It will not end. A.Garnet I have replied to your assertions regarding Mazower, Akcam and Balakian and yet you persist in citing them without answering my points which pretty much invalidate your claims. No one disputes that the events are not as widely known or discussed as the armenian genocide but this still doesn't mean there is majority position that they don't constitute genocide, especially given that people like Lemkin and Charney and journal like the JGR have termed them as such.Xenovatis (talk) 14:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh and WP:V states the following:

In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers.

Quotes from academic journals and books and mainstream newspapers have been supplied in abundance. You simply insint on ignoring them and instead base your argumentation on quotes published only on a blog (albeit one of the IAGS which you have no trouble considering credible when it suits you) and the abscence of dedicated books on the matter.Xenovatis (talk) 15:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

In fact, only Akçam and Weitz expressly oppose the term genocide, while Balakian and others have raised concerns about the overall wording of the IAGS resolution. That is far from the same thing. Moreover, Balakian uses the very word which Garnet claims he rejects in the introductory paragraph of his response to the resolution. And, as pointed out by Xenovatis above, Mazower's opinion that "what was to happen with the Armenians was of a different order" refers only to the deportations before 1915, as is obvious in his choice of tense. Garnet's attempt to put words in these scholars' mouths is grossly misleading and intellectually dishonest. The irony is that he is employing the very method of which he accuses his opponents, namely the selective "quoting of scattered passages from books". And blogs, I might add. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 15:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Midlarsky was also erroneously cited when his quote explicitly says "what happened to the Greeks was the same as what had happened to the Armenians". And we all agree that what happened to the Armenians was genocide, right?Xenovatis (talk) 15:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

That confirms my point about Mazower. Midlarsky is referring to a time after the Armenian Genocide, or at least its commencement, while Garnet's Mazower quote clearly pertains to an earlier period. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 15:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

This section is wandering away from the point (as I said at the start of the section "Lets salami slice it." (baby steps)). Does anyone dispute the the name of the article is in dispute? This is not a question about whether a genocide took place or not this is a specific question about the title and as far as I can tell the dispute over the template was the reason for the page protecting in the first place. If no one disputes that a dispute over the name is happening then I will re-add the template as a fist step to "unprotecting" the page. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Disputed but in what sense. Within WP it is disputed by some editors, lately A.Garnet. Without it is disputed by the Turkish government. The whole point of this discussion was to either change the title or accept it, in either case getting rid of the pov tag. Wrt to this section wandering this is the least of our worries since this whole talk page, and the several archived ones before it, has been an excercize in WP:LAWYER and WP:GAME.Xenovatis (talk) 10:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

All this is very well, but POV-tags should not be removed unless there is consensus for their removal. Please read WP:NPOV dispute which makes that very clear. Relata refero (talk) 12:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Fine, however this can't be used as an excuse to avoid debate and stall the process of a consensus. I put it to you that at this juncture it is better and more efficient to just resolve the dispute before lifting the lockdown rather than allow it to go on without reachihng a consensus. The later case would suit the side that placed the pov tag just fine so this is why I am anxious to bring the matter to a close, one way or another. This whole discussion has been a collosal drain on my time and I have no wish to see it extended ad infinitum, or should I say ad nauseum.Xenovatis (talk) 12:48, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Xenovatis Please refrain from using comments like it "would suit the side that placed the pov tag just fine so this is why" for two reasons, it show a lack of the assumption of good faith, and language like that tends to be self fulfilling in that it tends to help polarise opinions when we should be working towards a consensus. The person or persons who were edit warring with you over the POV tag could equally assume a lack of good faith and say "It suits the other side to keep the page protected without the pov tag just fine ...", I doubt if that would help your attitude in trying to find a working compromise with a person who made such a statement. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

If you read my statement I made the same comment for my self precisely because I agreed to the re-insertion of the tag even though the opposite and stalling might be considered to be advantageous. Both in this case and in earlier compromises I have shown good faith and willingness to compromise and would like to see it returned.Xenovatis (talk) 15:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

From the University of Michigan

This link has a rather nice chronology which I'll be mining for newspaper quotes to include in the relevant page. They also seem to endorse the term genocide.

http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/bts/index.html#b2

The Armenian[1] and Greek Genocides were widely reported in the world press at the time, and the public outcry in the U.S. led to a major relief effort.[2] However, the world soon returned to business as usual with the new Republic of Turkey and a silence fell over the world press concerning the destruction of the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian communities in the Ottoman Empire.[3] In drawing attention this prior engagement by the world press the Armenian Research Center is pleased to present a series of news reports, from twenty different newspapers to date, as researched and compiled by Sofia Kontogeorge Kostos, an Advocate for Genocides Awareness of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks of Asia Minor. These news reports are organized chronologically, and require the Adobe Reader (click here to download the free reader). Highlighting and the use of color within in the news reports, unless otherwise indicated, represent emphasis by Sofia Kontogeorge Kostos and not by the original authors.

Xenovatis (talk) 23:45, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikilawyering

WP:WL

Wikilawyering (and the related legal term pettifogging) is a pejorative term that refers to certain quasi-legal practices, including:

1. Using formal legal terms in an inappropriate way when discussing Wikipedia policy;
2. Abiding by the letter of a policy or guideline while violating its spirit;
3. Asserting that the technical interpretation of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines should override the principles they express;
4. Misinterpreting policy or relying on technicalities to justify inappropriate actions.

Wikipedia policies and procedures should be interpreted in a commonsensical way to achieve the purpose of the policy, or help dispute resolution.Typically, wikilawyering raises procedural or evidentiary points in a manner analogous to that used in formal legal proceedings, often using ill-founded legal reasoning. Occasionally wikilawyering may raise legitimate questions, including fairness, but often it serves to evade an issue or obstruct the crafting of a workable solution.

WP:GAME

Gaming the system means using Wikipedia policies and guidelines in bad faith, to deliberately thwart the aims of Wikipedia and the process of communal editorship. Gaming the system is an abuse of process and disruptive. Related terms are wikilawyering and pettifogging, which refer to following an overly strict interpretation of the letter of policy to violate the spirit of the policy.

An editor gaming the system is seeking to use policies with bad faith, by finding within their wording, apparent justification for disruptive actions and stances that policy is clearly not at all intended to support. In doing this, the gamester separates policies and guidelines from their rightful place as a means of documenting community consensus, and attempts to use them selectively for a personal agenda.

Just thought it'd make a handy reference that. Can't imagine why the thought occured. Xenovatis (talk) 21:29, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

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