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Thanks AmerikanTurk! I finally decided to check out your blog and this was the first entry I saw. I thought I would share it with our friends here on AC.
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Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Opinion by Ferruh DEMİRMEN
FERRUH DEMIRMEN
HOUSTON - TDN Guest writer
It would seem presumptuous of me, a mere soul of humble background, to pen this letter to the Turkish government and Turks abroad (diaspora Turks) giving a piece of advice on what to do about the Armenian issue. Hence, I write this letter with some trepidation. But having witnessed what I have witnessed over the years and experiencing personal anguish as a result, I have reached the point where I say, �Enough is enough.�
This sentiment is notwithstanding the fact that Turks in all walks of life, inside and outside Turkey, want to live in ethnic harmony and peace not only with Armenians living in neighboring Armenia, but also with Armenians living in diaspora. But a large majority of Armenians, especially those living in diaspora, want to have none of that. Diaspora Armenians and their supporters, stuck in history, are engaged in a slanderous �genocide� (�g�) campaign against Turks and Turkey invoking events that go back 90 years.
Even if one ignores the anti-Turkish slime delivered by the Armenian camp through speeches, interviews, articles, books and exhibitions, just seeing productions such as director Atom Egoyan's 2002 movie �Ararat,� bankrolled by the Armenian lobby, is nauseating enough. Countless Muslims, even xxxs, who suffered and perished at the hands of Armenians never had their stories told on screen or on stage. Their sufferings have gone pretty much unnoticed by the world. Turkey and Turks are under malicious attack.
Hence, I call on Turkey and the diaspora Turks to rise up and take the offensive on the so-called Armenian �g� issue. The Turkish side has been too timid and too defensive on this issue, and it is time to change the approach. It is time to grab the bull -- the venomous Armenian propaganda machine -- by its horns and tackle it head on. I am talking about legislative, juristic and legal action.
The Turkish government has long held that the �g� issue should be left to scholars, mainly historians, to settle. Normally, this would have been a sensible approach, leaving the matter in the hands of scholars who are supposed to be rational and objective. But just as it takes two to tango, it takes two sides to debate an issue.
The so-called scholars of the Papazian-Dadrian-Suny-Hovannisian bent on the Armenian side, however, have shown no willingness, and no courage, to debate the controversy with their adversaries. They spread their odious allegations with a singular mind, avoiding and running away from their adversaries like the plague. They are the Houdinis of the scholastic world, and they deserve a Nobel Prize for spinning the wheel. They claim, with a straight face, that the �g� allegations are a fact and there is nothing to debate.
The best example to such pseudo-scholarly approach has been numerous Armenian �g� conferences held from Chicago to Vienna to Los Angeles, where scholars from the opposite camp, foreign and Turkish, were deliberately excluded. Even the disgraceful �g� conference held in Istanbul last September excluded, by intent and design, scholars and intellectuals opposing the �g� allegations. Any real scholar worth a dime and deserving a semblance of academic respectability would frown upon and condemn such one-sided conferences. But not the Dashnakian scholars. They have an agenda to push.
What is more, the pseudo-scholars and their cohorts never talk about the atrocities the treasonous Ottoman Armenians committed against Turks, Kurds and other non-Armenians during World War I. They have incurable amnesia on how droves of Armenian guerillas at that time joined the ranks of the invading Russian and French armies in Anatolia, stabbing Turks in the back. Even Boghos Nubar, the unfettered head of the Armenian National Delegation at the 1919 Paris peace conference, who submitted a letter to the French foreign minister boasting of how Armenians fought alongside the Allies in World War I, if he were still alive, would be ashamed by pseudo-scholars' selective memory. And their memory, of course, is totally blank when it comes to ASALA terror.
They also would not like to be reminded of how Professor Stanford Shaw, a prominent American historian refuting the �g� allegations, was forced out from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) some years ago after Armenian thugs exploded a bomb in front of his house. The professor and his family left UCLA under a death threat.
Instead, the pseudo-scholars, the purveyors of half-truths, talk ad nauseam about only how the Ottoman Armenians suffered during World War I, portraying Turks as barbaric subhumans committing horrific crimes against the Armenians. Some of the pseudo-scholars even push the limits of ignominy and dishonesty when they compare the 1915-1917 events with the xxxish Holocaust. It is a classic case of hate mongering. It is also historic revisionism at its worst.
Playing the �eternal victim� game, the pseudo-scholars and their cohorts hope to grab land from Turkey, though they wouldn't mind if the �poor� Armenians get some pocket money on the side. It is the same game that was played at the Paris, Sevres and Lausanne peace conferences after World War I, and the con game still goes on. Some Turks, of Akcam-Berktay-Gocek fame, attracted by the aphrodisiac and psychedelic effect of the sweet Armenian lollipop, have joined the con game.
So, it is time to drop the illusion that the �g� issue is something to be left to scholars to settle. It is time for the Turkish government to come to the realization that this approach, sensible-appearing as it is, will go nowhere. The fallacy of this approach became obvious when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's well-intentioned proposal last year to Armenian President Robert Kocharian that a joint Turkish-Armenian commission of historians be formed to study the 1915 events was thumbed down by Yerevan. The Armenian lobby was unmoved as well.
Yerevan and the Armenian lobby figured, Why rock the boat when everything is already stacked in their favor? Why take the risk?
Indeed, Turks and Turkey have already lost the world public opinion war on the �g� issue. The war has been lost mainly as a result of the relentless venomous Armenian campaign -- generously funded by the Armenian war chest -- against Turks and Turkey. But anti-Turkish prejudice in the West, deeply rooted in history and religious divide, has been instrumental as well. Add to this the lethargic, so-far Pollyannaish attitude of the Turkish government on the �g� issue, then we have a recipe for disaster on the public opinion front.
The evidence is everywhere. The spineless, unscrupulous Western media, by and large, is already in the grip of the deep-pocketed Armenian lobby; the ethnic-pandering politicians race each other to pass, or try to pass, no-questions-asked pro-Armenian resolutions in their parliaments, and the gullible, clueless public falls silent. Turks are relentlessly accused without being given the chance of self-defense. It is a charade played on world stages again and again.
The European Parliament, suffering from a bout of amnesia about what many European nations did to the natives of their ex-colonies, unmindful of their shameful World War I and World War II histories soaked in blood, sweat and slime, unmindful of the ethnic cleansing and genocide that they allowed to take place in their midst only a decade ago in what used to be Yugoslavia, and amnesiac about the genocidal massacre of Azeri civilians by Armenian armed forces in Hodjali (Azerbaijan) in 1992, has had the temerity, in its self-righteous way, to call on Turkey to recognize the �g� event going back 90 years.
Or else, the European Parliament has warned, Turkey will not enter the European Union. Such hypocrisy!
As if that were not enough, a mere denial of the Armenian �g� can be a punishable crime in Europe. This is the same Europe where freedom of expression is supposed to be a cherished doctrine. Call it �freedom of expression� with a streak of double standard running through.
Faced with such unpleasant reality, Turkey should drop the reactive approach and get proactive. It should stop being defensive and be offensive instead. While still seeking dialogue and accommodation with Armenia and while still encouraging scholarly work and meetings on the �g� issue (which in themselves are intrinsically meritorious undertakings regardless of political implications), Turkey should take legislative and judicial steps as well.
On the legislative side, the Turkish Parliament should pass resolutions condemning human rights violations of Western nations in the past and ask these nations to recognize their genocidal excesses in their ex-colonies. As ex-colonies, Algeria, Congo, Angola and Herero come first to mind, but many others can be named as well. There is no need to call representatives of these nations for defense. Just raising hands will do. Take the cue from European parliaments -- and call it �adaptation to EU norms.�
On the judicial side, Turkey should take the �g� issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to seek judgment on whether the 1915-1917 events could be called �genocide� under the 1948 United Nations definition, inviting Armenia to accede beforehand to the court's ruling. ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, has jurisdiction not only to settle legal disputes submitted to it by states but also to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it. It is truly international in its composition, and it is the only competent body that can rule whether the 1915-1917 events can be called a genocide. Armenia, for obvious reasons, has shied away from approaching the IJC; but Turkey should on its own.
And if it receives a favorable ruling from ICJ, as is most likely, Turkey should demand compensatory damages from the perpetrators of fraud in Europe and North America.
The advantage of a judicial body such as ICJ is that both sides are given �equal time.� There would be no uncontested, one-sided monologues delivered by Armenian propagandists, no grotesque accusations without challenge and no hand-picked audience. The pro-genocide scholars, instead of playing the smear-and-run game, would face their adversaries. Furthermore, such a forum would be an excellent opportunity to expose to the world how the Ottoman Dashnaks back-stabbed Turks and other non-Armenians during World War I. That way the Armenian propagandists would taste their own medicine.
As for the diaspora Turks, they, too, should stop being passive and take action instead. The diaspora Turks are a diverse group that do not have, and are not raised with, any intrinsic animosity against any ethnic group, do not congregate in ethnically dominant neighborhoods (except poorly educated ones in Europe) and carry on with their normal daily lives trying to adapt peacefully to their host communities. The relentless anti-Turk campaign conducted by the Armenian lobby, however, has put these Turks in a difficult situation. With their ancestry accused of horrible crimes and their ethnicity and reputation smeared by insinuation, countless diaspora Turks experience insidious discrimination in the communities they live in.
Against these scurrilous attacks, I implore diaspora Turks to take legal action. That is the only way they will have a proper hearing. With regard to one-sided pro-Armenian positions in their local municipalities and school districts, Turks can insist that their views be taken into account by filing lawsuits invoking the right to freedom of speech. In this respect, the Massachusetts school-district case, launched with the participation of the ATAA (Assembly of Turkish American Associations) in Washington, D.C., is a good example.
Turks can file anti-defamation class-action suits against pro-Armenian scholars for denigrating their ancestry with slanderous lies. There must be accountability for disparaging a whole nation based on false claims. Thousands of foreign tourists and businessmen stay away from Turkey because of bad publicity.
Considering that discrimination based on ethnic origin is frowned upon by law in many countries, diaspora Turks, in particular those living in the United States, can file individual personal injury suits against instigators of ethnic animosity, which typically gives rise to discrimination.
Speaking of personal injury, I have failed to understand to this day why the families of Turkish diplomats who were murdered and wounded on foreign soil by ASALA terror have not filed civil suits against the Armenian organizations and groups that instilled hatred for Turks in the minds of young Armenians. It is such hatred that led to these nefarious crimes.
And finally, how about filing a lawsuit for perpetrating deception -- as an Italian atheist recently accused a Roman Catholic priest in a small town near Rome of unlawfully asserting that Jesus Christ existed? An Italian prosecutor is investigating.
Legal avenues are aplenty. Diaspora Turks should get off their comfy couches and act. This is particularly a good time to ponder the issue when the annual Turk-bashing Armenian ritual, due to culminate on April 24, 2006, is fast approaching.
And will the Turks on that day, feel satisfied when President Bush, while probably avoiding using the dreaded �g� word, remembers �the infamous killings of as many as 1.5 million Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman Empire,� but without saying a word about the sufferings of Muslims and without privately questioning the credibility of the number he is quoting? It all depends on how low the bar is set -- for Turks and for Mr. Bush.
Finally, and to sum up, Turks have already faced up to their history by admitting that Ottoman Armenians suffered greatly during the final days of the Ottoman Empire. But it was a suffering brought about unintentionally by famine, disease and lawlessness during forced relocation in time of war. The question is: Will the Armenians face up to their history by admitting that their sufferings were unintentional -- hence not �g� -- and that they share blame for the tragic events on both sides? Otherwise, the rotten relations between the two camps will likely continue indefinitely. This is no way to promote peace and harmony.
***
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Opinion by Ferruh DEMİRMEN
FERRUH DEMIRMEN
HOUSTON - TDN Guest writer
It would seem presumptuous of me, a mere soul of humble background, to pen this letter to the Turkish government and Turks abroad (diaspora Turks) giving a piece of advice on what to do about the Armenian issue. Hence, I write this letter with some trepidation. But having witnessed what I have witnessed over the years and experiencing personal anguish as a result, I have reached the point where I say, �Enough is enough.�
This sentiment is notwithstanding the fact that Turks in all walks of life, inside and outside Turkey, want to live in ethnic harmony and peace not only with Armenians living in neighboring Armenia, but also with Armenians living in diaspora. But a large majority of Armenians, especially those living in diaspora, want to have none of that. Diaspora Armenians and their supporters, stuck in history, are engaged in a slanderous �genocide� (�g�) campaign against Turks and Turkey invoking events that go back 90 years.
Even if one ignores the anti-Turkish slime delivered by the Armenian camp through speeches, interviews, articles, books and exhibitions, just seeing productions such as director Atom Egoyan's 2002 movie �Ararat,� bankrolled by the Armenian lobby, is nauseating enough. Countless Muslims, even xxxs, who suffered and perished at the hands of Armenians never had their stories told on screen or on stage. Their sufferings have gone pretty much unnoticed by the world. Turkey and Turks are under malicious attack.
Hence, I call on Turkey and the diaspora Turks to rise up and take the offensive on the so-called Armenian �g� issue. The Turkish side has been too timid and too defensive on this issue, and it is time to change the approach. It is time to grab the bull -- the venomous Armenian propaganda machine -- by its horns and tackle it head on. I am talking about legislative, juristic and legal action.
The Turkish government has long held that the �g� issue should be left to scholars, mainly historians, to settle. Normally, this would have been a sensible approach, leaving the matter in the hands of scholars who are supposed to be rational and objective. But just as it takes two to tango, it takes two sides to debate an issue.
The so-called scholars of the Papazian-Dadrian-Suny-Hovannisian bent on the Armenian side, however, have shown no willingness, and no courage, to debate the controversy with their adversaries. They spread their odious allegations with a singular mind, avoiding and running away from their adversaries like the plague. They are the Houdinis of the scholastic world, and they deserve a Nobel Prize for spinning the wheel. They claim, with a straight face, that the �g� allegations are a fact and there is nothing to debate.
The best example to such pseudo-scholarly approach has been numerous Armenian �g� conferences held from Chicago to Vienna to Los Angeles, where scholars from the opposite camp, foreign and Turkish, were deliberately excluded. Even the disgraceful �g� conference held in Istanbul last September excluded, by intent and design, scholars and intellectuals opposing the �g� allegations. Any real scholar worth a dime and deserving a semblance of academic respectability would frown upon and condemn such one-sided conferences. But not the Dashnakian scholars. They have an agenda to push.
What is more, the pseudo-scholars and their cohorts never talk about the atrocities the treasonous Ottoman Armenians committed against Turks, Kurds and other non-Armenians during World War I. They have incurable amnesia on how droves of Armenian guerillas at that time joined the ranks of the invading Russian and French armies in Anatolia, stabbing Turks in the back. Even Boghos Nubar, the unfettered head of the Armenian National Delegation at the 1919 Paris peace conference, who submitted a letter to the French foreign minister boasting of how Armenians fought alongside the Allies in World War I, if he were still alive, would be ashamed by pseudo-scholars' selective memory. And their memory, of course, is totally blank when it comes to ASALA terror.
They also would not like to be reminded of how Professor Stanford Shaw, a prominent American historian refuting the �g� allegations, was forced out from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) some years ago after Armenian thugs exploded a bomb in front of his house. The professor and his family left UCLA under a death threat.
Instead, the pseudo-scholars, the purveyors of half-truths, talk ad nauseam about only how the Ottoman Armenians suffered during World War I, portraying Turks as barbaric subhumans committing horrific crimes against the Armenians. Some of the pseudo-scholars even push the limits of ignominy and dishonesty when they compare the 1915-1917 events with the xxxish Holocaust. It is a classic case of hate mongering. It is also historic revisionism at its worst.
Playing the �eternal victim� game, the pseudo-scholars and their cohorts hope to grab land from Turkey, though they wouldn't mind if the �poor� Armenians get some pocket money on the side. It is the same game that was played at the Paris, Sevres and Lausanne peace conferences after World War I, and the con game still goes on. Some Turks, of Akcam-Berktay-Gocek fame, attracted by the aphrodisiac and psychedelic effect of the sweet Armenian lollipop, have joined the con game.
So, it is time to drop the illusion that the �g� issue is something to be left to scholars to settle. It is time for the Turkish government to come to the realization that this approach, sensible-appearing as it is, will go nowhere. The fallacy of this approach became obvious when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's well-intentioned proposal last year to Armenian President Robert Kocharian that a joint Turkish-Armenian commission of historians be formed to study the 1915 events was thumbed down by Yerevan. The Armenian lobby was unmoved as well.
Yerevan and the Armenian lobby figured, Why rock the boat when everything is already stacked in their favor? Why take the risk?
Indeed, Turks and Turkey have already lost the world public opinion war on the �g� issue. The war has been lost mainly as a result of the relentless venomous Armenian campaign -- generously funded by the Armenian war chest -- against Turks and Turkey. But anti-Turkish prejudice in the West, deeply rooted in history and religious divide, has been instrumental as well. Add to this the lethargic, so-far Pollyannaish attitude of the Turkish government on the �g� issue, then we have a recipe for disaster on the public opinion front.
The evidence is everywhere. The spineless, unscrupulous Western media, by and large, is already in the grip of the deep-pocketed Armenian lobby; the ethnic-pandering politicians race each other to pass, or try to pass, no-questions-asked pro-Armenian resolutions in their parliaments, and the gullible, clueless public falls silent. Turks are relentlessly accused without being given the chance of self-defense. It is a charade played on world stages again and again.
The European Parliament, suffering from a bout of amnesia about what many European nations did to the natives of their ex-colonies, unmindful of their shameful World War I and World War II histories soaked in blood, sweat and slime, unmindful of the ethnic cleansing and genocide that they allowed to take place in their midst only a decade ago in what used to be Yugoslavia, and amnesiac about the genocidal massacre of Azeri civilians by Armenian armed forces in Hodjali (Azerbaijan) in 1992, has had the temerity, in its self-righteous way, to call on Turkey to recognize the �g� event going back 90 years.
Or else, the European Parliament has warned, Turkey will not enter the European Union. Such hypocrisy!
As if that were not enough, a mere denial of the Armenian �g� can be a punishable crime in Europe. This is the same Europe where freedom of expression is supposed to be a cherished doctrine. Call it �freedom of expression� with a streak of double standard running through.
Faced with such unpleasant reality, Turkey should drop the reactive approach and get proactive. It should stop being defensive and be offensive instead. While still seeking dialogue and accommodation with Armenia and while still encouraging scholarly work and meetings on the �g� issue (which in themselves are intrinsically meritorious undertakings regardless of political implications), Turkey should take legislative and judicial steps as well.
On the legislative side, the Turkish Parliament should pass resolutions condemning human rights violations of Western nations in the past and ask these nations to recognize their genocidal excesses in their ex-colonies. As ex-colonies, Algeria, Congo, Angola and Herero come first to mind, but many others can be named as well. There is no need to call representatives of these nations for defense. Just raising hands will do. Take the cue from European parliaments -- and call it �adaptation to EU norms.�
On the judicial side, Turkey should take the �g� issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to seek judgment on whether the 1915-1917 events could be called �genocide� under the 1948 United Nations definition, inviting Armenia to accede beforehand to the court's ruling. ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, has jurisdiction not only to settle legal disputes submitted to it by states but also to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it. It is truly international in its composition, and it is the only competent body that can rule whether the 1915-1917 events can be called a genocide. Armenia, for obvious reasons, has shied away from approaching the IJC; but Turkey should on its own.
And if it receives a favorable ruling from ICJ, as is most likely, Turkey should demand compensatory damages from the perpetrators of fraud in Europe and North America.
The advantage of a judicial body such as ICJ is that both sides are given �equal time.� There would be no uncontested, one-sided monologues delivered by Armenian propagandists, no grotesque accusations without challenge and no hand-picked audience. The pro-genocide scholars, instead of playing the smear-and-run game, would face their adversaries. Furthermore, such a forum would be an excellent opportunity to expose to the world how the Ottoman Dashnaks back-stabbed Turks and other non-Armenians during World War I. That way the Armenian propagandists would taste their own medicine.
As for the diaspora Turks, they, too, should stop being passive and take action instead. The diaspora Turks are a diverse group that do not have, and are not raised with, any intrinsic animosity against any ethnic group, do not congregate in ethnically dominant neighborhoods (except poorly educated ones in Europe) and carry on with their normal daily lives trying to adapt peacefully to their host communities. The relentless anti-Turk campaign conducted by the Armenian lobby, however, has put these Turks in a difficult situation. With their ancestry accused of horrible crimes and their ethnicity and reputation smeared by insinuation, countless diaspora Turks experience insidious discrimination in the communities they live in.
Against these scurrilous attacks, I implore diaspora Turks to take legal action. That is the only way they will have a proper hearing. With regard to one-sided pro-Armenian positions in their local municipalities and school districts, Turks can insist that their views be taken into account by filing lawsuits invoking the right to freedom of speech. In this respect, the Massachusetts school-district case, launched with the participation of the ATAA (Assembly of Turkish American Associations) in Washington, D.C., is a good example.
Turks can file anti-defamation class-action suits against pro-Armenian scholars for denigrating their ancestry with slanderous lies. There must be accountability for disparaging a whole nation based on false claims. Thousands of foreign tourists and businessmen stay away from Turkey because of bad publicity.
Considering that discrimination based on ethnic origin is frowned upon by law in many countries, diaspora Turks, in particular those living in the United States, can file individual personal injury suits against instigators of ethnic animosity, which typically gives rise to discrimination.
Speaking of personal injury, I have failed to understand to this day why the families of Turkish diplomats who were murdered and wounded on foreign soil by ASALA terror have not filed civil suits against the Armenian organizations and groups that instilled hatred for Turks in the minds of young Armenians. It is such hatred that led to these nefarious crimes.
And finally, how about filing a lawsuit for perpetrating deception -- as an Italian atheist recently accused a Roman Catholic priest in a small town near Rome of unlawfully asserting that Jesus Christ existed? An Italian prosecutor is investigating.
Legal avenues are aplenty. Diaspora Turks should get off their comfy couches and act. This is particularly a good time to ponder the issue when the annual Turk-bashing Armenian ritual, due to culminate on April 24, 2006, is fast approaching.
And will the Turks on that day, feel satisfied when President Bush, while probably avoiding using the dreaded �g� word, remembers �the infamous killings of as many as 1.5 million Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman Empire,� but without saying a word about the sufferings of Muslims and without privately questioning the credibility of the number he is quoting? It all depends on how low the bar is set -- for Turks and for Mr. Bush.
Finally, and to sum up, Turks have already faced up to their history by admitting that Ottoman Armenians suffered greatly during the final days of the Ottoman Empire. But it was a suffering brought about unintentionally by famine, disease and lawlessness during forced relocation in time of war. The question is: Will the Armenians face up to their history by admitting that their sufferings were unintentional -- hence not �g� -- and that they share blame for the tragic events on both sides? Otherwise, the rotten relations between the two camps will likely continue indefinitely. This is no way to promote peace and harmony.
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