Hysterical Guilt

I have been following the Turkey-France spat about the Armenian “genocide” with growing disbelief. One reason I started this site was the appalling lack of logic allied to nationalism that seems to stalk the world and a desire to make a gesture in defence of sanity.

Re the “genocide”, let’s start from square 1.

FACTS:

A “country” cannot feel, think or speak. It can, therefore, obviously not be GUILTY of anything. A “country” just “is”. Only PEOPLE are capable of the above: feeling, thinking, speaking and being guilty.

As for historical guilt, there are TWO major premises that concern us:

1) Only a MINORITY of people can be guilty of acts at a national level, namely THOSE WITH THE POWER OF DECISION. This clearly does not apply to the majority of the population in any country.

2) In the case of Turkey and the Armenian question, ALL THE TURKISH INDIVIDUALS RESPONSIBLE for the action against Armenians are LONG DEAD. NO TURK currently alive can possibly be guilty of ANYTHING; it all happened LONG BEFORE the vast majority were born. Even those alive in 1916 were far too young to have had any power of decision.

THEREFORE, NO GUILT WHATSOEVER CAN BE ATTRIBUTED TO “Turkey”. No child can be held responsible for the acts of its parents.

Given these FACTS, which in essence are bleedin’ obvious, how does one explain the hysteria of the Turks and their refusal to admit that yes, indeed, their ancestors were guilty of the genocidal killing of Armenians, which is apparently the conclusion of most historians?

Personally, I cannot understand it. A total refusal to apply logic to human behaviour is beyond my understanding.

This question of historical guilt is of course not confined to Turkey. The Germans are supposed to continue to feel guilt about the Nazis. The British should still feel guilty about the bombing of Dresden. The Japanese are supposed to feel sorry about their army’s behaviour in WWII, about the appalling massacres in China. Europe is supposed by Muslims to feel guilt about the Crusades; many Muslims still feel angry about them. Some British no doubt STILL hate the French because of the Norman invasion in 1066.  But NOBODY alive had anything to do with these acts and/or atrocities.

Concerning Dresden, I personally think it was wrong, a bombing too far, but I cannot feel ANY GUILT about it. I was not born when it happened. My parents had nothing to do with it, but even if they had, that changes nothing. The decision was taken by individuals who are all dead. Whatever guilt they bore they took with them to the grave.

Time for the Turks to grow up. The ironic thing is that by refusing to admit the facts they appear to be SYMPATHETIC to what was done by their forefathers.

The worrying thing is that even in the 21st century much of international politics seems to be carried out on the basis of primitive tribalism and illogicality. How the HELL can we change this?