Quality world leaders are in short supply, and these leaders are often defined by their characteristics and what they represent. But what of the leaders who inspire dissent in the masses, exile whomever they please and whose sole purpose and agenda is hatred and corruption?
Authoritative rule is a commonality, and while Americans aren't necessarily under undemocratic rule, we have seen what it's forces can do to our country; stir thoughts genocide, terrorism, and unrest. Whether through coercion or combined hatred, these dictators took control of their region to carry out there own evil devices. To find out how do these ruthless despots rise to power, it is crucial to point out the origins and backgrounds.
Mehmed Talaat - Grand Vizer of the Ottoman Empire
Talaat is notoriously known as the main cohort of the Armenian Genocide. On April 24, 1915, Talaat carried out an order to arrest all Armenian's of political influence in the Ottoman Empire. 250 doctors, lawyers, journalist, teachers, and writers of Armenian decent were gathered and killed for Mehmed's vision of a pure Turkish state that excluded Armenian's the right to exist. On June 1, 1915, Talaat and his cabinet of officials passed the Tehcir Law, which deported a million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire to Syria where they forced to wonder the deserts to starve and die. Consequently, this also led to the Assyrian and Greek genocides, where mass killings ranged in-between 500,000 and 1,000,000 lives.
Precursor: Born of Turkish decent, Talaat's motivation for tyranny was birthed from his relentless nationalism in an empire that was collapsing due to an inability to adapt to democratic rule during this period of time. Talaat entered politics through a government job as a postal clerk, and would eventually rise to the rank of Minister of Interior Affairs in the Ottoman Parliament in 1909. A member of the nationalist Young Turk movement who illustrated the "Turkification" of there region, Talaat seized power of the state in a violent takeover. Under the visage of WW1, Talaat enforced policies that would set in motion the first modern genocide, claiming up to an estimated 1,500,000 Armenian lives through any way imaginable.
Allied with Central Powers, The Ottoman Empire suffered major losses in WWI, and Talaat resigned from his newly appointed place as Grand Vizer and fled to Germany. Talaat was assassinated during his war-trial, but even after his death, the events he put in place would still ravage the Armenian community. Succeeding his death the newly formed Republic of Turkey waged war on the struggling nation of Armenia in an effort to regain the sovereign state, which also claimed hundreds of thousands of Armenians.
Aftermath: To this day, the nation of Turkey still denies this holocaust. This has been the cause of unrest in Armenian communities around the world, with Turkey fearing reparations if globally recognized.
The actual death toll is still of much debate due to the limited documentation, but that they intended to exterminate entire groups should serve as proof of their genocidal intentions. Mehmed Talaat attempted to systematically eradicate an entire group of people based on an irrational fear of rebellion during wartime. As long as his intentions are defended by those who should be held accountable, the injustice will continue.
