 and genocide today with George Kasin and me. I'm Jay Fidel and this is a movie that is about a real event and in fact George's family was involved in the Armenian genocide in the but around the time of World War I. So George you know what about this movie? What did you think of the accuracy of the movie in terms of the genocide? Pretty much accurate. They have they put a love a love story between three people you know three people two men in love with the same woman and that sort of takes away from the actual historical events you know the genocide but how to make it more interesting. 40 days of Musadar you know wereful's book that that was at the end they showed Musadar that was pretty much accurate too and what was happening there at the cleansing murder all pretty much accurate from what I have read and from what my grandmother said told me my parents were just little children if this happened luckily they got out they they weren't there in their hometown so they got out but it's it's a it's a good story yeah. Yeah the filmmaker was Terry George yeah it was done in 2016 it cost 90 million dollars and it was a bomb at the box office it earned 10 million or so on 90 million investment and you know what's interesting is that it was the love story was not convincing the actors were not particularly convincing the you know production values are pretty interesting I mean in good video and sound and all that and they did capture a number of the important historical events as I could see it in the period I mean they did place it in the period so you know what you had was a love story as you said as against a time of genocide I think he was trying to get our attention about the genocide and that's why he chose this some of his other movies have been docu-dramas along the same lines you know I wasn't convinced of the I don't know the acting in the romance I wasn't convinced you know that this is the way it really would have gone down characters with not all that you know well developed far as I could see but on the other hand it was it was really shocking to see the genocide unfold in front of you to see how it connected up with World War one to see the you know the turkey Turkish government go after them that way so without getting too deeply into the story which which ends kind of sadly right and I don't think they the two of them survive let's say oh yeah the the the Turkish guy the the Armenian he he does he does not survive or he survives I don't remember Michael Bogosian who was played by Oscar Isaac he survives he was a a pharmacist in this small town and then he went to Constantinople he he married this woman there because of the dowry so he needed the money to go to they were showing you you know how you go to medical school and yeah in turkey they were showing you about dowries and exactly arranged marriages transactional marriages exactly showing you life in the little village as opposed to the big city of Constantinople back then so I mean it was a kind of a series of history lessons and all that so that and the two competing fellows one was this a pharmacist ultimately a medical student running you know joining a medical school on the dowry yeah which wasn't that much money actually I think it was 400 400 something whatever the coins coins coins thank you and the other fellow we played by Kristen Bale who's a very good actor who was the the the journalist an American yeah American journalist based in Paris who was there and he was mighty upset with the way things were going and how the the Turks were treating people and so forth and he's the one who died in the end but it was a I guess a poet he didn't he didn't die he died in 1938 in another campaign he lived it was Anna Kassarian oh Anna died right to a French a French military navy ship that's right she's the one who died and so that frustrated both of her lovers and they became close because of that and and action when you say 1938 and you say that these people lived after and I remember the post script in the movie I mean they're talking about I think talking about real characters yeah I mean this was all based on real characters now the Christian the Christian Bale role was not that that was not a real character it was based on a number of western journalists who were there who wrote about this so Terry George wanted to make this wanted to have because he wanted that ambassador Morgan Thor he wanted to get him in there so that he sort of played with a little bit he was a high character guy Morgan yeah yeah exactly very he told the Turks way to get off exactly when when Talat Pasha said to him you know all these Armenians are dead New York life and other insurance companies have have had policies they have policies it now belongs they're all dead so the the proceeds belong to the state and Morgan said told him to go fly a kite right but one thing I wanted to just say because you did mention about the low ratings they're without sight unseen for rotten tomatoes and places like that all these Turkish men got on without even seeing the movie and downgraded it and that's one of the reasons other than that the plot might have been a little fuzzy with the romance that's why it rated so so low and then people never didn't want to go see it they thought it was a crappy movie but you know it wasn't a bad movie maybe it might have been the best but so that that was one of the things there but getting back to that to the whole thing Charlotte LeBone played Anna Kasarian who was an Armenian who had been raised in Paris France her father was a violinist and a famous violinist and he was traveling so she traveled around the world she lived in Paris so she wasn't she was very assimilated I mean she wasn't really you know she was a continental woman she'd been around and good looking but I tell you the truth she wasn't convincing to me I never I never found real passion with her anyway let me let me go back to the point that we are making and and that is I don't understand you know so you're saying that when the movie came out in 2016 Turkish people went down and they opposed the notion of a genocide and the genocide has been at issue there are people who say well we had a genocide and there are people who say we didn't have a genocide so it's in it's in contention there are deniers out there that denied the genocide took place which is really sad because you and I know that it did take place so the question though is why did the Turks hate them so much what was the problem this is like the the Kurds you know the Turks also hate the Kurds in East East and Turkey and we've had plenty of discussion about that precisely with the Turks the Turks they didn't like the Armenian and what what was it that Americans killed off all the native Americans and why is Putin literally killing off Ukrainians right now in these cities to what that hit me I want I can only think the word lemons around for Poland he wanted he wanted the land I mean basically the Turks knew that the Armenians were indigenous population right and at one time they had their own country right before the Turks invaded and it was like a competition thing they did they didn't want this element in there plus because the Armenians were being treated so poorly not my great grandfather because his cousin was the sultan's finance minister he was the finance minister Haggop Haggop Kazazian was the finance minister under Abdul Hamid and he was his fate he was Abdul Hamid's favorite official because he he was able to say Kazazian yeah that was our family sounds a lot like Kassan yeah well that's what my father did when he was after he as he wanted assimilate so he changed his religion from Catholic Eastern Catholic to Methodist and he went to Americanization classes and he changed his name to Kazan so now we know about you George all assimilation so getting back so they basically the Turks wanted to eliminate the Armenians because it was you know they wanted the land they wanted and they basically with my family they were filthy rich and they they took everything they took the thousands of acres in agriculture the the copper mine the silver mine their house that I mean they were the only ones who got out was my grandmother and my father and my aunt because they weren't there if they had been there in DR back here right which is where my grandfather's great grandfather was the member of parliament from they would have been I wouldn't have been here you know because they would have been killed along with everybody else so that's pretty much it you know there was a lot of Armenians who being treated crappy so they started to revolt you know just like American blacks you know black lives matter or and this is a this is a a policy of Putin if you take people and you oppress them and enough then they're gonna they're gonna revolt and then you have an excuse when to get worse just like in 2014 the movie we saw with the Ukrainian uprising in 2014 get them riled up infiltrate them with radicals right which which they did in in that 2014 and then once they're riled up then you have an excuse that's what's going on in Ukraine because they've got these radicals right there that are rabble rousing and then they can put them down so that this is a very good movie right now because what's going on in Ukraine people getting killed getting riled up and then the soldiers kill them and then you've got a clearance you've got the land cleared so that Putin can have his corridor to Crimea to the black sea and have his boats there in the black sea and then that's why he plays ball with air the one because he wants the boss first so he can get his ships into the Mediterranean so it's similar to what we did in the in the American West you know getting getting rid of the Native Americans and and Hawaii I mean if you think about it Hawaii was an independent nation and we wanted that naval facility in the middle of the Pacific so we took over you know Philippines and we took over you know the whole American southwest was part of Mexico so I mean it's a it's just an ugly situation of what happened to my family right and what's happening right now in Ukraine so Turkey in the Armenian genocide is not unique it just happens to be one of many genocides that we've seen in the last what a couple hundred years last 50 years things work I mean indeed I mean you know think of thinking Southeast Asia you know and the genocide there think of a number of African countries the wonder comes to mind genocide there North America you know awful what happens yeah and and you're right I mean you can look across the world across history and we may not be completely familiar with what happened before these things within the last couple hundred years because there may have been there probably were genocide possibly on a smaller scale everywhere so I put to you this idea George yeah it's part of the species yes once in a while for reasons that are really hard you know to to predict one group does genocide on another am I right totally I mean they've done studies with chimpanzees and they're two different tribes you know if chimpanzees and they kill each other they eat the babies of the of the opposing tribe they actually cannibalism so I mean it's part of the species you know it's part of what's in us we're we're a killer race you know I mean let's face it you know so yeah in China what is that the the the the the Uighurs yeah yeah right the Uighurs in yeah yeah and then and then Myanmar with the with the Muslims in the Rohingya or whatever you know it's all over the world you know and you go back in when the Turks took Constantinople from the Greeks they killed everybody there was nobody left they they murdered every last person that was on that mountain you know that in Constantinople in the side the walls so it's not only Turks it's just what was troubling is a hundred years of history have gone by since the Armenian genocide and we still have people as recently as 2016 claiming that it didn't happen that's that's extraordinary and you know for that matter we have Holocaust deniers and I suppose every genocide has its deniers and then you know after you deny it and you say well denied or not we're never going to allow this to happen again it happens again again and again and again so I guess like I don't understand the Turkish mentality that made them do not only the Armenian genocide but the Kurdish Kurdish the Kurdish escapade only recently are they angry I mean what is it how do they justify that is it that power needs a scapegoat and these groups fell in the way of the scape think of Bosnia these groups fell in the way they became the scapegoat because there was a an easy political strategy to scapegoat somebody the the fact what the Armenians and the Kurds there's a similarity there because the Armenians they were the nationalists they wanted their own country because what happened is that all the Balkans pretty much broke away from the Ottoman Empire as the Ottoman Empire was collapsing Bulgaria Greece you go all the Yugoslavian areas all the Balkans so Armenians that this was an era of nationalism and they wanted they were the national like my great grandfather Michael put up his his picture now and I'll show you I just want to pictures worth a thousand words yeah he was a member of the Ottoman parliament look at those medals on him from the Sultan right so he was totally involved with the economy right the Ottoman economy and the official they showed in the movie the Turk and Emre's father you know the guy who finally defended Michael Bogosian and then got set the firing squad that they killed in the Turkish guy then Turkish guy he only had two medals so my great grandfather had four medals from the Sultan so he was totally assimilated into the economy right in he was an Ottoman he might have been a Christian but he was an Ottoman right but as the situation changed right they went after all the Armenians because they they didn't want Armenians to even consider having a country so they just cleaned them all out and that's what's happening now with the Kurds because the Kurds are trying to have their own nation right and and a good part of southeast Turkey is the the Kurds who you know the whole thing with the Kurds the Kurds helped killing the Armenians and then recently the mayor of of Diyarbakir Bakhtiyar he said the Armenians were the breakfast where the lunch in other words the Turks are trying to remove the Kurds right and it's the same thing that's going on now with Putin you know Lavrov is is like the Jerry Mahoney of Paul Winshal you know remember Paul Winshal and Jerry Mahoney the dummy whatever Putin wants this Lavrov to say Lavrov is going to say because he's the he's like Jerry Mahoney he's the dummy he's being manipulated by Putin so you've got the same situation there in Ukraine I mean that's what's happening he wants cleaning out and that's why they're murdering civilians they they want to clean them out and he wants to bring Ukraine to its knees right so I mean it's all interests you know they said that there's never friends and enemies there's just interests and Russia's interest right now is to have that corridor and Crimea to the Black Sea so so let's look at the Armenian genocide and and you know to the extent that Cherry George wanted to teach us things about it yes let's look at that and see whether we can learn anything about how to avoid getting swept into a genocide like your family and how how the world can step up and try to prevent genocides which we really haven't learned yet we really haven't learned that either on a small scale or on a large scale so the first thing is how would your family have done better if they had been able to identify this you know political social scapegoating that was happening I mean if you're if you're was it your grandfather the legislator great grandfather great great sorry thank you I don't want to show my grandfather yeah okay my grandfather we show my grandfather's picture Michael too that that he was a sitting city councilman in 1915 he was on the city council of the year back here he was one of five or six people on the city council and he got killed too they took them all out into the Desvenu valley and cut them open you know with a scimitar right all the men and then the women great grandmother Sophie and all the women they led them out into the desert you know to clean them out there too but you know my great grandfather because he was powerful you know he was wealthy he was telling these revolutionaries you know don't the lion is sleeping you know he knew that the Turks they were a minority they were only two million in in in about they were about 25 million Turks they were a minority he said don't rile them up because the lion is sleeping don't wake him up he's going to come and get you right but because the people were oppressed they were angry you know when you when you oppress people I mean just like the American the blacks in America with the black lives matter you know if you're if you're oppressed you're gonna you're gonna be angry you're gonna revolt so so I don't think my grandfather could have done anything more than he was trying to put down people who are how about run away well because that's an element in the movie they were trying to run away yeah eventually they time they knew but you know when you have business and my he had his copper mines he had his silver mines and they don't want to leave that behind they were too heavily invested yeah I think that probably made it hard for them to see the reality too yeah they thought that somehow they'd be safe holocaust the same thing with the Jews in Germany with the holocaust you know Dr. Meierstein he had his practice medical practice in in Leipzig or wherever you know he had his practice he they thought it was going to get better they didn't you never expect that to happen you know it's just and my grandfather was with my grandmother and my aunt and my dad on vacation on Maltar they were in the Mediterranean somewhere and because when this thing happened he went back his brother went from Constantinople he went and the other brother they all went there to hold on to their assets to their silver mine copper mine but they could have stayed away they could have stayed in Malta they could have stayed in continental Europe and then they would have been safe so I guess you know it's hard it's the same thing applies to other genocides and certainly the holocaust if you could see it coming and some some Jews did um then you didn't you you you left your property behind you left your life behind and you got away and uh I think that you is very interesting stories come out of Germany and you know and Europe the continental European theater there um where people did get away but a lot of them didn't because they wanted to hang around and and hoped it would get better and the lesson that I get out of this George is that if you see the winds of war if you see the winds of genocide on the horizon um of you know some kind of hateful scapegoating you have to be conscious because you and I understand this is part of the DNA in some countries more than others but once you see that happening you have to act on it and that is the way you could save yourself that's the way a lot of Jews save themselves by getting out of Europe when the time was right before the time got wrong that's what happened in the genocide in Turkey with the Armenians there's a lot of the wealthy ones you know my grandmother she lost everything but her brothers were in constant you know they were wealthy so they sent my brother my father to school in Bavaria here was the Germans were behind this whole thing and they send this kid to little kid to Munich to München no memeing in to a private Catholic boarding school in in Bavaria right and they and they did that so you know Dr. Meierstein went to Long Island and opened a new practice I mean if there's life there's hope you know and a lot of people you know left a lot of the wealthy armies you gotta be away from harm uh yeah and the in the movie the Germans are portrayed as as uh encouraging the Turks to do yeah they were behind they were the brains behind the whole thing I mean it as I've said before this was in some ways a dress rehearsal for the Holocaust you know um bring up that that that Michael the the the not the New York Times article the other one just the link yeah um yeah that that one is a good uh this guy Ziffar Chang wrote some article you know about how the army in genocide was tied to the Holocaust and and and then also um you know then there's one other thing there that other link that Michael had put the other link up and and it'll yeah yeah that New York the New York Times article yeah there was a New York Times article as well that that was about the Kurds and it there's a picture there of of the area of my grandparents where they lived showing after 2015 what the Turks did when they leveled everything except for my grandparents house and the two churches there because they were historic monuments so bottom line is cleaning out you know get out like you said get out while you have a chance because if there's life there's hope but it's a way to read the newspaper it's based to see the storm clouds on the horizon by the way those those references um people can when they watch this you know on youtube they can a they can uh freeze frame the thing and write it down or b we will put those links in the description on youtube so all they have to do is copy and paste the links out and they can see these articles and one other thing you know I mean Erdogan right he's now making friends with all the people he and alienated right and because he's got there's an election coming up in 2023 he's gotta you know he's gotta be re-elected so economically he's making friends and stuff but people in you know you have to be aware of once he gets re-elected is he gonna continue this or is just just temporary until he gets re-elected so you know and Putin you know this is all about his maintaining power as well he's all about powers that's what scapegoats are for scapegoats to allow the autocrat to improve increases power and and there's no question that Erdogan is into power he's been developing his power for a long time and he's had he's had coups against him or at least uh you know groups that he felt were trying to insurrect um and he's he's uh he's taken them out of office in one way or another and he's pretty tough he's an autocrat but I want to go to a second point before we run out of time and that is this the French in this movie yeah turned out to be the heroes yes I mean to some extent to a limited extent uh one of my favorite actors uh he was I forget his name but he was he was in the movie called The Professionals years ago and he was a really wonderful criminal in that in that movie if you have his name let's let's hear the name but um he's he's on he's on the uh the list yeah I just saw genre and all at the bottom that's him that's him um and and he played the captain of the French warship that picked up the escaping Armenian oh yeah it weren't that many that escaped as a matter of fact but he took a lot of them on his ship uh at some risk because you know he he could have had a war out there against his ship by by the Turks uh but he saved them and he was determined to save them and he was a humanitarian and he was you know I guess he was reflecting the the French uh policy at the time but he he saved them and he's saying now what's the lesson there there's a lesson there that you you hope for you look for um active moral leaders who are willing to step in and save the people who might be victims of a genocide and that's what this ship captain was he he saved them and I'm not sure that he was you know operating on specific orders but he did what he thought he had to do and he saved them and they were saved just like the Jews that were not saved on that sturma in the black sea that sank you know because you know take them but he would take them and then that's that's the sadness of of of when you have genocide it's like this and it's just so you look for heroes you look for heroes who will intervene you look for heroes who will say no you can't do that you look for heroes to save people who are running from a genocide and they are the true heroes they are the moral um thought leaders who who save us and and and somehow you know act against the continuation of the genocide in this case the genocide had already gone a long way a lot people have been killed millions to all together one and a half million as I remember the Armenian and this and this is sort of at the tail end of it but it's just it teaches you something and Terry George is trying to teach us that yes there are heroes larger than life who will step in and actually help and that's what we need we need to insinuate that kind of thinking proliferated around Europe around the world where people are unafraid to step in even at the risk of their own lives and property to step in and say no you can't do that I'm going to I'm going to oppose you if you do genocide and and try to kill people the UN head has gone and done some negotiation there with Putin and so ostensibly they're letting some of those people out of that gas plant in in in Maripolo or wherever and letting them go so that they don't get killed you know the civilians right so he was able to negotiate that you know at least on the surface right to get these people out and that was very iffy right now George yeah really yeah that humanitarian efforts seem to have stopped and one of the elements that I found very interesting uh was that the Ukrainians who were about to you know leave on the humanitarian passageway passage uh were were concerned uh that the Russians were going to turn those buses around and head east into Russia oh and hold them in camps in Russia and they really didn't want that even in at greater risk to themselves so they didn't trust the Russians is what it was and nobody nobody trust the Russians right now and nobody can you blame them no and if your life is at stake you know you are going to make a decision based on who you trust you know yeah well George this is very interesting it's historical I'm glad I'm glad we found um you know some a movie that that um that helps you in terms of seeing back 100 years ago and and evaluating and confirming to some extent you know what happened in the Armenian genocide but I'm I'm also I think it's important that we study history you know history can help us and take lessons from history uh else we are deemed to repeat history we have repeated genocide so many times and we really want to get out of that habit and maybe now when we see it unfolding in front of us in terms of Putin's genocide in Ukraine maybe the lesson is refreshed and maybe we will find ways to stop it and maybe the US is is is the leader the moral leader that can stand up against it um all of this somehow connects doesn't it George yes I would suggest at 399 on on amazon.com or some to for the public to watch that movie because it was really suppressed by by Turkish men you know young Turkish men and take a look because this I mean it gets a little into that romance but a lot of the public in their reviews you know they liked it you know for whatever the lacking it was they liked it and they thought it was a good movie you know so um you know even the public like 4.5 out of 5 they rated it you know how do you rate it George I would rate it a nine and a half you know especially because I'm sensitized to this whole issue you know um um you know the reason I didn't give it a 10 is because I think that's that romance the triple romance between the two that sort of took away a little bit from the from the you know they try to make it more interesting you know but it's a few people have written doc done documentaries since then what was his name who did um intent to destroy which is a movie I've got his name but the the guy who that that was a really good actual you know documentary well I think the more documentary is the more I'm interested but I I would give it a nine because I feel that although the love story was not convincing um it it taught me what happened it taught me in in those days in that part of the world the reach of world war one was um was worldwide really in many ways perhaps not as worldwide as world war two but still uh it it covered a lot of ground and and this teaches you that it puts you there and it makes you understand that even people who don't think they're at risk that one day they find they're at risk this happened in both world wars and resulted in was part of genocide in both world wars we have got to stop doing that we've also got to stop doing the show uh george because we're out of time oh yeah okay yeah definitely say goodbye to the people george take care aloha thank you jay thanks for your insights today have a good day aloha thank you george aloha bye bye thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at think tech hawaii dot com mahalo