It's not like the Boston Massacre, all the way back from the late 18th century, is a driving event in many Americans' minds. It's not like we are going to go out of our way to discover the real ins and outs of the Boston Massacre.
I'll tell you my overall impression of the Boston Massacre, based on what I was taught, which I guess would be the similar impression of fellow Americans. . .
The British soldiers were in Boston, the Bostonians did not like them, insults and perhaps a few stones were hurled, and the British soldiers cruelly shot into the crowd and murdered unarmed Americans.
Monsters!
My impression of the Boston Massacre was fortified through images as the one above.
Clearly, the aggressors were the British soldiers, and there was no justification for the cold-blooded murder they committed. (Yet this particular depiction was among the fairer ones, as we can see a few Americans attacking. Take a look below.)
We don't really need to go much farther than what this historical event has been called: "The Boston Massacre." A massacre involves the murder of a large group of innocent, unarmed people.
(Only four Americans were killed, by the way, which many would say barely qualifies as what we'd normally think of as a real massacre. However, the Boston Massacre would at least qualify as a "genocide," according to certain "genocide scholars.")
Naturally, this event was used to inflame the passions of Americans of all the colonies, in order to awaken and to fight against the unfair and murderous British.
Paul Giametti stars as John Adams
There is currently an HBO television mini-series entitled John Adams, which seems to have been produced with care and integrity (in other words, the historical facts as regards the Boston Massacre seem legitimate; but if not, I would be perfectly willing to "revise" my opinion once more trustworthy facts come along. The film is based on the book, John Adams, by the historian David McCullough, who appears to have done an excellent job with his research), and I learned the British soldiers were taken to trial over this incident.
Taken to trial in an American, and not a British, court, yet.
Now that certainly did not jibe with my impression of the Boston Massacre. The British were the cruel occupiers and the aggressors. Taking to court their own agents of aggression sounded ridiculous. And allowing them to be tried in a courtroom of their victims, the people they were oppressing, sounded unfathomable.
I suddenly realized that there might be more to this historical event than what I was taught, or the way in which I took whatever facts I was taught and formed my own conclusion. (After all, I am an American, and at least sub-consciously, I was going to choose sides.)
Soon I learned that the British were defended by John Adams, who would later become a United States President.
John Adams' loyalty to the United States cannot be disputed; I didn't need this film to tell me that. He was one of the great founding fathers of the United States. Yet here are the British soldiers, whose presence repulses him as the good American patriot he is, but because he is known as a man of integrity, the accused British seek him out to be their attorney.
Now there is a man who puts his personal honor before his "patriotism," and a man I can admire. A man who can serve as a role model to the Armenians obsessed by genocide, but of course he won't — because these Armenians sadly have trouble clearing their hearts and minds to the extent of considering the concept of personal honor.
The trial begins, and it turns out the rabble provoked the British. A witness (an African-American who nobly put the truth above political necessity, much to the consternation of the other Americans around him, as depicted) admits that it was the Americans who gave the order to "fire," which, in the confusion, the British obeyed.
A most profound parallel to the Hunchaks and Dashnaks of the Ottoman Empire who committed violence and massacres against the Muslims, in order to anger the Muslims to do the same against the Armenians, so as to invite the European imperialists whom these terrorists were dumbly counting on to give the Armenians free hand-outs. In other words, these immoral fanatics deliberately sought for their own brethren to become "martyred," strictly to reach a political objective. (An example that does not perfectly parallel the actions of the Americans of the Boston Massacre, because at least the Americans who did the provoking were bravely in line to get shot. The cowardly Hunchak and Dashnak leaders would rarely be near the scenes of the innocent Armenians who got murdered by those the terrorists provoked.)
The British soldiers were acquitted!
That was a shocker, and certainly not in line with my deeply held belief that these British soldiers were callous murderers.
(Not to say there were not callous murderers among the British, as the Revolutionary War progressed. But that goes with any war.)
What we have here are the British evilly using Americans as target practice. But we are not done yet...
What are the lessons here, ladies and gentlemen?
For one thing, patriotism must never supersede the truth.
The "end-justifies-the-means" mentality of the Dashnaks, currently in charge of the Armenian diaspora and the Republic of Armenia, teaches too many Armenians to lie, as long as Hai Tahd, or the Armenian Cause, is upheld. The tradition and the ideology of the Dashnaks are rooted in terrorism, and as the missionary Cyrus Hamlin instructed way back in 1893 (once he was appalled at the revelations of a Hunchak), "Falsehood is, of course, justifiable where murder and arson are."
(Of course, there are too many Armenians who are not consciously lying, so brainwashed have they become through their parents, teachers and churches, that they simply go into a trance over their religious "genocide," and don't have the ability to separate fact from fiction. The problem is, they don't care to separate fact from fiction.)
The genocide has become a great stain to the honor of the Armenian people, and it will be a long while before the Armenians can rescue themselves. Practically no honorable Armenians are stepping in to remedy the situation.
The movie gives us a clue as to why this may be. At the trial's end, the British officer warns John Adams that he might be in line to get hurt by the crazy American patriots, implying that Adams has proven himself to be a traitor to the American cause. (Imagine... defending the enemy!)
It was the program of the Hunchaks and the Dashnaks to assassinate, or hurt in whatever way possible, the Armenians thought to be loyal to the Ottoman Empire. Soon many loyal Ottoman-Armenians learned that they either must comply, or possibly die.
This program is now being carried out not by a few hundred revolutionaries, but through the millions of Armenians worldwide. (That is, those who have become genocide-crazed. Of course, the majority of Armenians, whose humanity and dignity are well intact, prefer to keep mum — because of the Armenian "Curtain of Fear." Some among the "Silent Majority" who know the truth also keep quiet out of "patriotism," which would not make them very honorable.) These diasporans (the real extremists among them who have learned the treasured bombs and bullets of old can now be counter-productive to the Cause) are waiting to sling mud at, or otherwise hurt, anyone who says their precious genocide does not conform to the historical truth. (Here is what happened to the exceptionally rare honorable Armenian who stepped out of line, and bravely decided to make the case public.)
Patriotism has been said to describe one who loves his country, but one who feels it is his duty to speak out against the crimes of his country. That makes perfect sense. For if you keep quiet when your country commits crimes, mindlessly waving the flag of the country, "right or wrong," then the ones who are running the country are encouraged to become even more immoral or criminal (because, as we all know, power corrupts), until there is little left of the country that you first loved.
If you love your country, and you see your country doing something we all know is wrong (for example, if you are a French citizen and you see that your beloved country, historically known for enlightenment and justice, is immorally bowing to political forces and making it a crime to speak your mind as regards to whether an event is not a "genocide," you must speak up to discourage a further descent into Stalinism or Hitlerism), you can't keep quiet. It's as simple as that.
We can see the glorification of Dashnaks is as wrong as wrong can be. These self-serving calculators and/or fanatics were criminals and murderers, responsible for great crimes not only against those designated as the Armenians' enemies, but against the Armenian people themselves. A few Armenians have certainly been truly patriotic enough to criticize them, and to warn their people, such as Arthur Derounian (John Roy Carlson). Kerope S. Papazian wrote a 1934 book warning his people and the world against them, so correctly and appropriately entitled, "Patriotism Perverted."
(While both Derounian and Papazian were far truer patriots than the Dashnaks, their emotions took sway as well, for believing the Ottoman Turks had conducted an extermination policy against the Armenians. It appears they considered this belief a form of "patriotism" as well, which also accompanied a hatred of Turks, at least in the case of Papazian. A patriotism based on hatred serves oneself, and not the country, and it is a form of "Perverted Patriotism" in its own right — as one refreshingly honorable Armenian has beautifully implied.)
This one does not pull any punches. The British are clearly shown as the aggressors, and the crowd is depicted as lambs for the slaughter. The engraving is identified as "THE BLOODY MASSACRE," and it was created by the great American patriot, Paul Revere! (It's hard to make out the words in Ye Olde English — a larger view is available at Mr. Lauger's Website, from where the above was snatched — but the poem below begins with "Unhappy Boston!" and the British troops are described as "fierce barbarians"... makes one think Paul Revere would have been much at home in a future Dashnak propaganda bureau.) Is there much difference between what is above and the shot below? (At least the go-for-the-gut words from above do not claim "The carnage ended in the massacre of 50,000 people or more.")
(TAT's Sassun page tells us what really happened.)
It may be said Armenians have at least some excuse, since this genocide belief has been ingrained into them from childhood, famously by their grandmothers, and their emotions and often their hatred of Turks override their ability to think straight (as far as this topic. Otherwise, Armenians are, as we all know, highly intelligent and gifted).
But what about the "neutral" people, the rest of the world whom the extremist Armenians are devoted to buy into the genocide viewpoint, and to share their hatred? What about all the intellectuals, the academicians, the journalists, and all else who unquestioningly accept this vile charge of the worst crime against humanity? (A charge, particularly a charge of this dimension, becomes vile when unfounded.)
As with the Boston Massacre, the "neutral" people think they already know the facts about this genocide they have been hoodwinked to accept, much as they haven't conducted any impartial investigation. (And, really, why should people take the time out of their busy lives to investigate a topic they have no emotional investment in? What layman would want to take the time to study the facts about the Boston Massacre, for example, if there is no real reason to?) It's just another historical episode out of countless others, so irrelevant to our current lives, and who cares? If everyone says it's a genocide, then so many people can't be wrong... can they?
(Of course, those many people we think are correct also have not taken the trouble to investigate, so it is a case of the blind leading the blind.)
There is a big difference, however, in the case of accepting a "massacre" crime casually, and when a supposed intellectual simply accepts the charge and then repeats it in his or her writings. Why don't these supposed intellectuals do their duty and look into the matter? They certainly would hate it if people accused them of a crime without foundation. (In which case, the intellectuals would turn into instant "deniers.")
These people operate along the same lines as a New England clergyman that E. Alexander Powell, the American journalist and author, quoted in his 1923 book, "The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia," p. 10 (as reported in The Armenian File, Gurun, 1985):
"I don't want to hear the truth about the Turks, I have developed my opinion about them a long time ago."
In other words, ladies and gentlemen, it is simply prejudice. (There are many "Christian conservatives," for example, who dislike the Turks because of the religious factor.)
The other reason, of course, is politics. There are many "liberals" (who are supposed to be fair and tolerant) simply accepting genocide conclusions, because (other than their own prejudices against a people so widely maligned) they feel not to do so would be immoral — after all, genocide is the worst crime against humanity, and if so many others have accepted a genocide conclusion without similarly studying the issues, it's good enough. The reality is, repeating such a charge without objective investigation and verification is far more immoral.
As Kamuran Gurun nicely summed up, "The reason why things have come to this point is that Turks have remained silent, and that false propaganda spread by their opponents, with the addition of religious factors and political considerations, became established in people's minds." (That was back in the early 1980s. Today, with the unchallenged power of both unscrupulous Armenians and the unscrupulous genocide industry, the situation has become much worse, as difficult as that may be to believe — since the situation was already pretty awful in the 1970s and '80s.)
This "human factor" goes well beyond the Armenian matter, affecting far more important issues so relevant to our lives, and with such important consequences, than an invented genocide that took place nearly a century ago. The truth really is not as important to too many people, as too many people would be the first to disagree. People are far more comfortable with legends. The truth takes too much work, and can involve too much pain. (Having one's deep-seated beliefs challenged, for example, is never easy.)
Yet this is not an excuse. Especially for those whose job and duty it is to find and report the truth. Yes, we know we can't rely on journalists anymore, much as it is the journalist's duty to find and report the truth. When we can't rely on historians, however, then there is reason for our hearts to really sink. Only the professional and objective historian can undo the evils caused by the extremist Armenians and the genocide industry, but too many historians have amateurishly accepted what these groups have told the historians, at face value.
If these historians, along with the other "neutral" intellectuals, academicians, and journalists were to stumble upon the "new" facts about the Boston Massacre, assuming they previously felt the British were guilty of cold-blooded murder (as I did, and as I assume many other fellow ignorant Americans have), do you think they would "revise" their views and report the facts honestly? Or would they take out their Stars and Stripes and start screaming, USA! USA!, and still go along with their comfortable anti-British feelings? The odds are, of course, they would have no trouble with the necessary "revisionism."
The really frustrating thing is, however, that these same historians, along with the other "neutral" intellectuals, academicians, and journalists, can be shown the real facts regarding the Armenian tragedy, and they would still insist on screaming, Genocide! Genocide!
What is going on here? Are the "intellectuals" truly so dishonest? Or bigoted? Or stupid? How can that be? It boggles the mind.
One of the first Western historians to look at what truly occurred between the Turks and Armenians, William Langer, wrote (in The Diplomacy of Imperialism):
"...it is the duty of the historian to look at the facts from all possible angles, and to avoid being carried away by the tidal wave of uncritical emotionalism."
(That does not apply only to historians, naturally, but to all honorable people. But the historian has a professional duty to operate in such a manner.)
Of course, a lot of honest historians have been frightened away by the ruthless smear campaigns of extremist Armenians and other genocidists. If more honest historians find the courage to return and to do their duty, the truth will ultimately and indeed set us all free.
© Holdwater
The source site of this article gets revised often, as better information comes along. For the most up-to-date version, links and the related photos, the reader may consider reviewing the direct link as follows:
www.tallarmeniantale.com/boston-massacre.htm
Please Click On Image To Enlarge
