Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?
Hasan Cemal shares Armenians` pain
April 04, 2011 | 00:41
Hasan Cemal, author, journalist and columnist of the Milliyet Newspaper, and also the grandson of Cemal Pasha, one of the masterminds behind the Armenian Genocide, took part in an event entitled "From Der Zor to Dzidzernagapert", which was held in Los Angeles, March 31. The presentation featured two discussants, the first of which is Richard Hovannisian, Professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History and Chair of the Armenian Educational Foundation in Modern Armenian History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The second is Dr. Pamela Steiner, Director of the Inter-Communal Trust-Building Project; Fellow, FXB Center, Harvard School of Public Health & Affiliate, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. She is also the great granddaughter of Henry Morgenthau, US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
Hasan Cemal shared his impressions in an article entitled "What will Cemal`s grandson say?" In entering the hall he heard a person asking why the grandson of their grandfathers` murderer had been invited.
"I am not going to enjoy an evening party here. But I say I have brought greetings to you from Anatolia. Our roots stem from the same sources. I am well aware of your pain and share it. I have come here to extend my hand to Armenian young people. However, we must not allow pain and torture to block the way to reconciliation," Hasan Cemal said.
During his speech he uttered the word "genocide" several times. One of the attendees asked him if he was not afraid to do so. "I showed him a brochure of the conference with me pictured laying flowers at the Memorial to the Armenian Genocide in Yerevan three years before," Cemal wrote.
In September 2008, Hasan Cemal visited Tsitsernakaberd and laid flowers. On April 24, 2010, he wrote that denying the Armenian Genocide was tantamount to being an accomplice to that crime against humanity.
Cemal Pasha, one of the three masterminds behind the Armenian Genocide, was assassinated in 1922 in Tbilisi by Stepan Dzaghigian.
-
Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?
This file photo shows Alevi groups during a rally in the Aegean province of Izmir. AA photo
Alevis not satisfied with Turkish government’s Alevi report
Saturday, April 2, 2011
İZGİ GÜNGÖR
ANKARA Hürriyet Daily News
Alevi organizations in Turkey have expressed dissatisfaction over the final report prepared by the government after a series of government-led Alevi workshops.
“The report is not satisfactory and seems to be an election ploy. It doesn’t meet the Alevis’ demands which have been voiced for years,” Ercan Geçmez, president of the Hacı Bektaş Veli Anatolian Culture Foundation, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
“In response to some of our demands including the recognition of cemevis as legitimate places of worship, they [the government] pointed to some Republican reforms as an excuse, thus exposing us against some certain [secular] circles,” he said.
“They likewise emphasize the necessity and importance of constitutional change with regard to our demand of an end to mandatory religious education. This proposal similarly remains insincere given the fact that the government already made constitutional amendments that were approved in the referendum last year,” Geçmez said.
The government would have made the necessary constitutional change on the issue and put them in the reform package at the time if they had been sincere, he said.
Alevis, members of a community widely perceived as a liberal branch of Islam, and Alevi organizations have long raised several demands including the recognition of cemevis as legitimate places of worship for Alevis, an end to mandatory religious education and the transformation of the Madımak Hotel, where 37 Alevi artists and intellectuals died in a fire set by a crowd of fundamentalists in 1993, into a museum.
They have also demanded the dissolution of the Religious Affairs Directorate, which is currently dominated by the country’s Sunni majority, and the abolition of compulsory religious courses from the school’s curriculum, which they criticized for only teaching Sunni Islam. They demanded mandatory religious courses be optional.
The report, announced Thursday as the culmination of seven Alevi workshops led by the government, included rather ambiguous solution proposals and gestures instead of suggesting concrete answers to Alevis’ basic demands on education, cemevis and the religious directorate.
The report suggested a constitutional change for the compulsory religious courses while granting the right to determine the content of compulsory or selective religion classes to the Alevi community. The current religious courses should be rearranged so as to be in equal distance to all beliefs, the report said.
The report advised that cemevis should have a legal status and a legal commission should be set up to produce a formula in line with the Constitution for those who don’t want to benefit from the religious directorate’s services.
The report highlighted, however, that the possible constitutional arrangements on these issues should not contradict the Republican reforms.
For the Madımak Hotel, the report called for a rearrangement of a portion of the building as a memorial for those who lost their lives there.
Ali Balkız, former head of the Alevi-Bektaşi Federation, said the Alevis had been cheated as their basic demands on cemevis, Madımak and religious courses were not met while Fermani Altun, head of the World Ehl-i Beyt Foundation, praised the government’s Alevi initiative as a crucial step to further democratization.
The Madımak Hotel problem was solved, he said, and it was understood that constitutional reforms constituted the major obstacle before the solution of other problems. A new civilian Constitution is needed, he said.
‘Republican reforms not excuse’
Fevzi Gümüş, chairman of the Pir Sultan Abdal Culture Association, or PSAKD, said the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government put forward the Republican reforms as an “excuse” to not solve the Alevi community’s problems.
From the beginning Alevis asked for the abolishment of Article 24 of the Turkish Constitution, making “Religious Culture and Moral Education” a compulsory course for primary and secondary school students, but the report simply asked for an evaluation of the article within Republican reforms, he said.
“None of our demands are related to the Republican reforms. We want a legal status for cemevis, for instance. They can’t raise them as justification in solution of our problems,” Gümüş said.
“Besides, in some cases, the government hasn’t hesitated to confront the Republican values. They shouldn’t introduce these old laws as an excuse.”
LinkLeave a comment:
-
Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?
A police officer questions a witness after an attack bid on a pastor in İzmir. DHA photo
Christian cleric dodges assault in Turkey's west
Sunday, April 3, 2011
ISTANBUL - Daily News with wires
A foreign pastor in İzmir escaped possible harm Friday after a Turkish man shouting ultranationalist slogans fired blank shots into the air before being subdued by bystanders when he allegedly reached for a concealed BB gun.
Andrew Craig Brunson, the general-secretary of the Diriliş (Resurrection) Church Association in the Aegean province, was standing in front of the organization’s building when the suspect, identified only as M.A.E., approached and started shouting anti-missionary slogans. Brunson and passersby helped restrain the would-be assailant after he tried to extract an extra gun hidden in a bag.
“I have been living in Turkey for years,” said Brunson, whose nationality was not released. “My children were born here and they are growing up [here]. This is the first time I have experienced anything like this. I love Turkey, we have good relations with our neighbors.”
The İzmir Police Department’s anti-terror branch was continuing its questioning of M.A.E. as the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review went to print late Sunday.
Turkish media have reported that the individual is an extreme nationalist based on his Facebook status updates and his membership in various online groups.
Writing a Facebook status update a few hours before his alleged attack, M.A.E. said, “The imperialists who carry out missionary acts will remove their bloody hands from my country.”
In another update, M.A.E. quoted the outlawed Turkish Revenge Brigades, or TİT, and listed several associations whom he accused of conducting missionary activities.
Attacks against Christian clerics in Turkey
Christian religious figures have been the target of a spate of attacks in recent years, many of them deadly.
Last month, Istanbul police apprehended two men who allegedly planned to assassinate a priest in the city’s district of Fatih.
Previous attacks, however, resulted in a number of fatalities throughout the country.
* Italian priest Andrea Santoro was shot and killed at his church in Trabzon on Feb. 5, 2006, by a 16-year-old identified only as O.A.
* Three missionaries were tortured and killed at Zirve Publishing House in Malatya on April 18, 2007. Authorities continue to investigate the matter, which is believed to be an act of the “deep state,” rather than a group of independent fanatics. The latest Ergenekon raids last week were related to the investigation.
* Italian Pontiff Luigi Padovese was stabbed and killed by his driver in İskenderun on June 15, 2010.
LinkLeave a comment:
-
Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?
just turkish primitive mind culd come to this......banalyzing everething just to bring to theyr own level.....Originally posted by federate View Postat a loss for words... Bell?
----------------------------------------------------
ana zalewska & karolin machova for elle turkey by senol altun
http://fashiongonerogue.com/ana-zale...y-senol-altun/Leave a comment:
-
Re: Incidents in Semdinli will not be Kept in Dark
No. Turks are born without any sympathic feelings, empathy and love don't exist for them. Only their kebob they worship and treat like a godLeave a comment:
-
Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?
Addressing thousands in İzmir on March 6, 2011, Ali Balkız claims Turkey is moving toward a dictatorship. DHA photo
Tens of thousands of Turks demand equal rights for Alevis
Sunday, March 6, 2011
İZMİR - Daily News with wires
Thousands of citizens demonstrated Sunday in the Aegean city of İzmir, demanding equal rights for Alevis.
The protest at the Gündoğdu Square, which comes after similar rallies in previous years in Ankara and Istanbul, attracted nearly 60,000 people, news agencies reported.
Speaking at the rally, Ali Balkız, head of the Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Association, an Alevi organization, said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wanted democracy and freedom “only for himself.”
“[Turkey is] moving toward a one-man rule flavored by religious sauce,” Balkız said. “[Erdoğan] played with the judiciary after the referendum and in the aftermath of the [June 12] general elections, he will move toward a presidential regime. I’m afraid an [Adolf] Hitler, or [Benito] Mussolini is coming. We have to prevent this.”
Selahattin Özel, the chief of the Alevi Culture Associations, meanwhile, criticized the government’s “Alevi initiative.”
“Alevism was defined by non-Alevis until today,” he said. “If they wish to learn what it is, our doors are open.”
Chanting slogans and carrying banners, the protesters demanded that the Directorate of Religious Affairs and mandatory religion lessons be abolished while also calling for cemevis, the places of worship for Alevis, to be granted legal status. They also said authorities should stop their practice of building mosques in Alevi villages.
LinkLeave a comment:
-
Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?
Two arrested in Turkey over alleged plot to kill Christian
Saturday, March 5, 2011
ISTANBUL - Agence France-Presse
Turkish anti-terrorism police have arrested two men suspected of plotting to kill a Christian religious figure in Istanbul, the Anatolia news agency reported Saturday.
They were picked up in a raid on an apartment in Gaziosmanpasa, a working-class district on the European side of the city, the report said, adding that police seized two pistols.
Several violent and sometimes lethal attacks have targeted Christians in mainly Muslim Turkey in recent years.
Last year a 26-year-old Turk was convicted of the stabbing death of the then head of the Catholic Church in Turkey, Luigi Padovese.
LinkLeave a comment:
-
Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?
TURKISH FOREIGN MINISTRY PUBLISHES REPORT ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Tert.am
21.02.11
Ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the Turkish
Foreign Ministry is taking counter measures to deny the historical
fact of the 1915-1921 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
By a recent report titled "1915 Events", the ministry attempts to
deny the historical fact of the Genocide.
As the Turkish publication Star says, the document which consists
of seven pages has been distributed among several non-governmental
organizations, while Ankara is now taking further measures to voice
the issue in international tribunals.
Emphasizing that Turkey has no problems with its past, the authors
of the report use the term "tragic events" to refer to the 1915 events.
"Twenty-nine Armenians held the title of Pasha and were in charge
for the ministries of foreign affairs, finance and trade. A great
number of Armenians headed different departments at ministries. The
Ottoman parliament had 33 Armenian members. Eighteen Armenians held
the posts of ambassador, chief consul and consul," says the document.
The report also refers to the rebellions in the Ottoman Empire in
the First World War period. It says the Armenians, collaborating with
the Russian army, "massacred 523,955 Turks" in the country.
"The decision to displace Armenians had not been previously arranged
by the Ottoman government ... Besides, 1,673 people were displaced
for ill-treating Armenians. Furthermore, 67 of those people were
sentenced to death," says the report.Leave a comment:
Leave a comment: