Useful Answers to Frequent Questions on the Armenian Genocide

[Tongue]

What Every Armenian Should Know..


Useful Answers to Frequent Questions on the Armenian Genocide
By Dennis R. Papazian

Frequent arguments proffered by the Turkish Government are in bold italics below. The answers follow in plain text.


1. Forget the Armenian Genocide. Why should we be concerned with something that happened 90 years ago and 8,000 miles away?

Genocide is a crime against humanity, and there is no statue of limitations on genocide -- not even one 90 years old. At the time the Armenian Genocide was being carried out, the Allies called it "a crime against humanity and civilization." The term genocide had not yet been created by Rafael Lemkin, but "genocide" means the murder of a nation, a term which the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, used in his report to the U.S. State Department.

The fact that a major crime against humanity takes place 8,000 miles away from the United States makes it no less a crime. Was Hitler justified in killing Jews because he was 5,000 miles away? Should American troops not defend Saudi Arabia because Saddam Hussein was 9,000 miles away?
It was the old Ottoman Empire that committed the crime, but present-day Turkey becomes an accomplice after the fact by its expensive campaign of denial, denial not only for itself but for the old Ottoman Empire. This principle of becoming an accomplice by the cover-up of a crime is part of the rule of law.

2. What have Americans to do with the Armenian Genocide?

America was the first country to recognize the Armenian killings as "the murder of a nation," that was before the word genocide was invented, and continued to recognize it until misguided officials sought favor with the Republic of Turkey by joining in an ugly, and quite unnecessary, distortion of history.

The Armenian Genocide was witnessed by hundreds of American missionaries in the Ottoman Empire who worked among the Armenians for nearly 100 years. They have testified to the destruction of the Armenians by the Young Turk controlled Ottoman government

The Genocide was also witnessed by American consular officials, stationed in the areas inhabited by the Armenians, who reported it to the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople (now Istanbul), Henry Morgenthau.

American Ambassador Morgenthau confronted the Young Turk leaders, trying to persuade them to cease and desist, and then he telegraphed the American Secretary of State calling the Turkish action an attempt at "racial extermination," another synonym for genocide.

The American Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, wired U.S. Ambassador Morgenthau to continue the strongest possible protests to the Ottoman government on behalf of the Armenians.

The Armenian Genocide was well-reported in the American press, such as the New York Times, and in dozens of weekly and monthly journals such as were read by the American public before the spread of radio and television. Furthermore, the U.S. Senate held contemporary hearings which affirmed its reality.

President Woodrow Wilson agreed to draw the boundaries of a free Armenia and sent a message to Congress asking for permission to establish a U.S. mandate over the new state.

I ask this] "Not only because it [the mandate] embodied my own convictions and feeling with regard to Armenia and its people, but also, and more particularly, because it seemed to me to be the voice of the American people expressing their deep sympathies. At their hearts, this great and generous people [the Americans] have made the case of Armenia their own.

The American people raised millions of dollars to aid the victims of the Genocide. Our older citizens will remember aid to the "starving Armenians.

President Herbert Hoover wrote in his Memoirs:

Probably Armenia was known to the American school child in 1919 only a little less than England ... of the staunch Christians who were massacred periodically by the Mohammedan [sic.] Turk, and the Sunday School collections of over fifty years for alleviating their miseries. . . .

3. All these Americans who reported the Armenian Genocide were biased against us. They were not telling the truth.

There was no reason for the Americans to lie. America was a neutral power during the time of the Armenian Genocide. In fact America never did go to war against Turkey but kept up diplomatic relations so that it could retain missionary property, try and gain economic concessions, and give relief to those Armenians who survived, mostly children.

Anyway, who are these Turkish propagandists and their fellow travelers to accuse the Americans of lying? The Turkish state is far from having a clean record in this regard.

4. Why not leave historical questions to the historians? Why should the issue of the Armenian Genocide be fought out in the U.S. Congress, the European Commission, the European Parliament, or among world governments?

The Turkish government and its supporters have adopted the line of "leave Armenian history to the historians" because they do not have objective scholarship supporting their allegations and have resorted to propaganda. Currently, they are losing their propaganda battle. The issue of the Armenian Genocide is not a question of historical truth; that has been settled by historians. It is rather an issue of morality, legality and the acceptance of the truth.

History is too important to leave to historians. By leaving the Armenian injustice of World War I uncorrected, the stage was set for the Holocaust of World War II. The abandonment of the Armenians was not lost on Hitler. Hitler said before sending his troops into Poland, "Go, go kill without mercy. Who today remembers the extermination of the Armenians?"

5. Why should America acknowledge the Armenian Genocide now?

America is the moral leader of the world. We must set the record straight, to rehabilitate America's innocence, extricate the U.S. from an ugly distortion of history, and restore America's respectability in the eyes of our European allies who, accepting the truth, are amazed at America's hypocrisy.

No principled Turk should be offended by the truth. After all, a large number of Armenian survivors of the Genocide owe their lives to devout Muslim Turks, Kurds, and Arabs. To be a patriotic Turk does not require hating Armenians or distorting history. In fact, there are Turkish scholars who recognize the Genocide and urge their government to come to terms with Turkish history. A few, including Taner Akcam, have published books on the Armenian Genocide

6. There is more than one side to every story.

Truth is not divisible by two. Is there another side about Hitler who gassed Jews, about Stalin who starved Ukrainians, or about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge who massacred Cambodians? Of course not. Genocide is so blatant an evil that it has no other side to the story.

7. It is your word against ours.

The Turkish government has confessed in earlier times. Prime Minister Damat Ferid Pasha placed the blame squarely on the Young Turk Party and held war crime trials in which the chief perpetrators were condemned to death.

PrinceAbdul Mecid, the heir apparent to the Ottoman Throne, said during an interview: "I refer to those awful massacres. They are the greatest stain that has ever disgraced our nation and race. They were entirely the work of Talat and Enver. I heard some days before they began that they were intended. I went to Istanbul and insisted on seeing Enver. I asked him if it was true and they intended to recommence the massacres that had been our shame and disgrace under Abdul Hamid. The only reply I could get from his was: 'It is decided. It is the program.'"

Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later surnamed "Ataturk") said in a 1926 interview with a Swiss reporter that "these holdovers from the Young Turkey [sic.] Party should be made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse from their homes and massacred. . . ."

And, of course, Hitler knew and drew a lesson from it. As he sent his Death Heads troops into Poland to start World War II, he said: "Go. Kill without pity. Who nowadays remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?"

8. Why do Armenians get all the sympathy, Turks died too. Perhaps some three million Turks died during the period of the alleged genocide against the Armenians.

It is doubtful that three million Turks died in World War I. Turkish propagandists sometimes use the more correct, but still deceptive, expression "three million Muslims." Yes, three million Muslims probably did die in WW I, but so did twenty million Christians. What has that got to do with the Armenian Genocide?

The Turks died, unfortunately, because their own government led them into World War I against the European Allies. Many Turkish Muslims also died fighting Arab Muslims, who were seeking their freedom from Ottoman oppression, and Indian Muslims who were with the British Middle East army in Mesopotamia. All this Muslim blood, then, is on the head of the Ottoman Turkish government and not on the victimized and helpless Armenians.

There were at most around three million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, most of them old men, women, and children, and they can hardly be blamed for the death of three million "Turks or Muslims." That is absurd.


9. The Armenians were killed in a civil war, or an ethnic feud; it was not genocide.

When the armed government of 25 million people turns on and attempts to exterminate an unarmed minority of three million old men, women, and children, it is hardly an "intercommunal struggle," "an ethnic feud," or "civil war"; it is nothing more or less than genocide. The Turkish government had a bureaucracy, tax money, an army, irregular troops, the local police, and special killing squads to carry out its mission. What did the Armenians have?

If it was a feud between Turks and Armenians, what explains the genocide carried out by Turkey against the Christian Assyrians at the same time?

Furthermore, Turkish armies invaded the fledging Armenian Republic in the Caucasus inhabited by indigenous Armenians in order to wipe out not only Armenians in the Ottoman Empire but also Armenians who lived elsewhere.

10. Why pick on Turkey? Turkey is a "model modern Moslem country."

Since when do model countries deny their citizens human rights and religious freedom?

Turkey's thinly veiled military dictatorship with its long history of human rights abuses, its repression of the legitimate aspiration of the Kurds for cultural autonomy, its historic antagonism towards the Arabs, its invasion of Cyprus, and its current denial of freedom to Armenian and Greek institutions in Turkey hardly make Turkey a "model modern Moslem country."

If the Turks as a group are disliked and feared by most Europeans, the Kurds, the Arabs, the Greeks, and the Armenians, perhaps there is some reason. The Turkish people ought to demand that their government throw off its atavistic ghazi mentality, modernize its feudal agrarian economy, outgrow its penchant for military government, and end the abuse of human rights and persecution of minorities. Many Turks want this change and should be encouraged.

11. We have opened the Turkish archives. The Turkish archives do not prove there was an Armenian Genocide.

The Turkish archives covering the period of the Armenian Genocide are not opened to the public. They are only open to Turkish scholars and persons friendly to Turkey.

The Turkish archives have been closed so long that scholars have no idea of what is being, or has been, purged. Furthermore, the work of the Genocide was done under the aegis of the Committee of Union and Progress, a shadow government similar to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and in particular by its Special Organization (Teshkilat-i Mahsusa) under the notorious Dr. Behaettin Shakir who was sentenced to death in absentia by a Turkish court-martial following World War I. Will their records be opened? There is no talk of that.

12. We will open our archives if the Armenians open their archives.

What could possibly be of interest to the Turkish government, relevant to the Armenian Genocide, in the Armenian archives? Armenia was not even reestablished until 1918 after the Genocide has been effectively completed. Rather we already have the American archives, the American missionary archives, the British archives, the Russian archives, the Italian archives, and even the archives of the Germans and Austrians, the allies of the Turks.

13. American Admiral Mark Bristol's testimony proves there was no Genocide. Admiral Bristol proves that Morgenthau was lying.

Ambassador Morgenthau, who informed the world about the Armenian Genocide, was there when it happened. Admiral Mark Bristol, who became U.S. High Commissioner in Turkey after World War I, did not even arrive in Turkey until 1920. Since Bristol was not in Turkey during the Genocide, and the Armenians had already been killed, he had to ask the Turks what happened. Bristol could only talk to the executioners of the Armenians, the Turks. The Turks are hardly creditable witnesses to deny their own crime.

Bristol, a stern military man, liked the military junta ruling the post-World War I Turkey, and he eagerly talked about the "bad qualities" of the Armenians and Greeks. Do "bad qualities" justify genocide? If so, that might put even many Turks and Americans at risk.

14. The only reason that the Turks aren't allowed into the European Community is their Islamic religion.

What concerns the Europeans is not the religion of the Turks, but rather their values. Judeo-Christian culture, which characterizes the Western world, is dedicated to developing a moral society with civic institutions. Democracy and faith in the beneficent value of truth is the current manifestation of this aspiration. If the Turks were to thirst after justice and righteousness, values to which we in the West aspire, they would most certainly be welcomed in any society. As I said earlier, many Turks do, but they are hindered by their government.

The first sign of this new morality would appropriately be for present-day Turkey to acknowledge the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians.

15. No one to date has been able to come up with creditable documentation of Hitler's alleged statement about the Armenians. Hitler never made the statement.

The Hitler statement, which Turkish propagandists have questioned, was authenticated by Dr. K.B. Bardakjian, at Harvard in 1985 from secret notes taken by German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris during Hitler's speech. (See K.B. Bardakjian, Hitler and the Armenian Genocide [Cambridge, MA: Zoryan Institute, 1985]).

16. How do the Armenians expect the American people to feel sorry for them when they support terrorism?

The assassinations of Turkish officials which began by two small clandestine groups in 1973 were stopped in 1985 by Armenian public opinion. Armenians do not need terrorists, because people of good will, having studied the Armenian case, now have greater understanding and sympathy. There is no Armenian terrorism today, and the Armenian public has sympathetic feelings toward those who were killed.

17. Only 600,000 Armenians died in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, not 1.5 million, and they were killing Turks during that time.

The Turkish apologists play with numbers in a grotesque way. They argue that only 600,000 Armenians were killed not 1.5 million. Would this change the basic truth that a genocidal massacre occurred in 1915-1923? Almost the entire Armenian population of Turkey was wiped out by its own government, the Turkish government. Does it really make the actions of Turkey better if they succeeded in killing only 600,000 Armenians and not 1.5 million? In any case, it was genocide.

The Turkish apologists insist that Armenians were also killing Turks. It is true that scores of Armenians fought back successfully. But how can you compare pockets of self-defense with murder by a government? The Armenians were killed by their own government, the Turkish government; they sometimes fought back to protect themselves.

18. The Turks had to deport the Armenians from the eastern war front where they were helping the Russians who promised them a homeland.

Armenians all over Anatolia, not just on the eastern war front, were wiped out. The cities of Yozgad, Sivas, Caeserea, Hadjin, Marash, Adana, and Ankara -- just to name a few -- are hardly in the east. One needs but to look at a map of Turkey to see this. Turkish apologists depend on American ignorance of geography to make such foolish claims

Both the Turks and the Russians offered the Armenians autonomy. Neither promise could be trusted. Truth is the first victim of war. Neither the Turks nor the Russians had a history of granting their subjects freedom. The last tsar, Nicholas II, would not even share power with his own Russian people, which prompted the Russian revolution during World War I. Russia even forbade Armenian refugees, who had managed to flee the Genocide, from returning to their ancestral lands, which the Russian armies had overrun during the war. Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky, foreign minister of Russia in 1895, summed up Russia's traditional stance by saying, "Yes, Russia wants Armenia, but without the Armenians."

19. Individual Armenians and individual Turks should develop friendships which will ease the relationship between the Turkish government and the Armenian people and let bygones be bygones.

The question is not that of individual Turks and individual Armenians. Historically, many Armenians and Turks have developed close friendships, and I for one have many Turkish friends. The issue is the stance of the Turkish government toward the Armenian Genocide and indeed of the Turkish government's current repression of minorities. When the Turkish government faces reality and changes its backward policies, then individual friendships between Turks and Armenians can extend to a comparable relationship between the Armenian Republic and the Turkish Republic. One first sign of Turkish change would be to lift the embargo which it has presently in place between Turkey and Armenia.

The above document comprises pages 27-31(revised and updated) of the booklet What Every Armenian Should Know ©, which was written by Dr. Dennis R. Papazian and published by the Armenian Research Center in 1991. The booklet is still available for purchase from the Armenian Research Center for $5, postage included, Armenian Research Center, The University of Michigan-Dearborn, 4901 Evergreen Road, Dearborn, MI 48128-1491.

[Joseph]

Lies in Turkish: a Response to Turkish Genocide Denial

http://www.aina.org/articles/lit.htm

Lies in Turkish: a Response to Turkish Genocide Denial
Dr. Racho Donef
This paper constitutes a response to a series of articles published in the Turkish daily Hürriyet, by Ozdemir Ince in 2003, under the titles of "Genocide and Sweden" and "Lies in Assyrian [Syriac]".

In this extraordinary series of 20 articles, Ince accuses perished Assyrians and Armenians of treason. According to this viewpoint it is the murdered party that is at fault, not the murderers themselves. In this series of articles the only community, which has no fault about the events that took place in 1915, is the Turkish nation and the Ittihat ve Terakki [Society for the Union and Progress of the Ottoman Empire] government -- also known as the Young Turks. Everyone else is guilty of something or other, the missionaries, the Armenians, the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Protestant Church, the Hamidiye Corps (ie Kurds), the French, the English and the Russians.

The first article in the series was written after a genocide conference in Stockholm in early 2003.[1] Ince labels the Swedish academics who participated in the conference as "mercenaries", ie paid soldiers. Under the title "Genocide and Sweden", in his article Ince quotes E Feigl in A Myth of Terror, Armenian Extremism: Its Causes and its Historical Context to support his position: "… around the lake of Van in February 1915 there was an Armenian insurgence". Heigl further states that the Armenians massacred 30 thousand Turks and adds: "on 22 July 1915 the Turkish army which re-conquered the city, killed 20-25 thousand Armenians for revenge".[2]

Ince charging against imaginary adversaries arrives at the following mock conclusion: "The Armenians who committed treason and rebelled against their country and who killed 30 thousand Ottoman citizens are just and innocent. On the contrary the Ottoman army which punished the treasonous action of the Armenians against their country are 'guilty of committing genocide'". His sarcasm is directed at foreign scholars who implicate Turkey with the crime of genocide. In the quoted passage Heigl states "the Turkish army"; Ince changes this to "the Ottoman Army". Furthermore, it is not clear what Ince means by 30 thousand Ottoman citizens (Turkish, Kurdish or Circassians who inhabited Van at the time?) This matter of 'treason' is worthy of note; Hürriyet exploits it profusely in articles about Assyrians and Armenians. As has been documented elsewhere, when the Assyrian priest Yusuf Akbulut stated that "genocide occurred", Hürriyet immediately declared him a "traitor".[3]

It is also interesting to note the use of Heigl in this article. Ince who talks about academics, who are not impartial, obviously regards Heigl as an objective academic. The second points of interest is the strategy of reducing the genocide to a single event in Van and then holding the Armenians responsible for massacring Turks and deny the genocide in this manner.

Morgenthau who was the USA consul in Constantinople between 1913 and 1916, reports that in Van, within three days, 24 thousand Armenians were killed. In effect Ince also concedes this. According to Morgenthau when the war started members of the Society for Union and Progress (the Young Turks) asked the Armenians leaders to cross to Russia and start an insurgence against the Russians. Armenians did not accept this. This concept of 'treason' originated from that instance. Morgenthau found it very strange that the Ottoman government which repressed the Armenians for 30 years expected loyalty from them.[4] This illogical expectation unfortunately still endures in Turkey; communities which for years have been repressed are required to show allegiance to "the country" (in effect to the state).

In the second article of the series entitled "Genocide and Sweden" Ince, brands the three Swedish academics who participated in the conference as "mercenaries".[5] It is not specified who pays these so-called "mercenaries". It is clearly implied that the Assyrians pay the academics of the Swedish Universities, which of course is a fabrication of Ince's; the Assyrians lack the resources which the Turkish Republic enjoys.

With great fanfare, Ince points out that two priest participated in the conference, and as though this fact has any significance, adds sarcastically, "of course you cannot have a genocide [conference] without priests"[6] I would respond to this assertion thus, "priest and religious leaders have the right to participate in genocide conferences for priests were also subjected to massacres". Furthermore, what could be so objectionable about priests participating in a conference? Ince who derides the involvement of priests in the conference seems to find quite normal the partaking of the Turkish Consulate staff in the same event. In fact, he hides this detail from his readers. With this type of half-truths and concealments, Ince is appealing to the prejudices of the Turkish readers and in fact he is reinforcing this narrow-mindedness. It is clearly implied that the participation of priest in conferences amount to a church conspiracy. According to Ince, members of the Protestant Church have contributed to the rendering of events as "genocide", rather than as "civil war".

Ince, who is clearly not very objective, surprisingly, I must say, published a letter from an Assyrian, by the name Michael, who took an exception to the first three articles in the series. Ince could not resist, however, making this comment concerning the letter-writer: "a typical example of 'genocidist' mind"; 'genocidist', to coin a term, being a person who pursues the issue of genocide. Michael, who notes that the Turkish academic who participated in the Swedish conference "Omer Turan, is clearly not very knowledgeable" also makes an interesting observation to Ince "[e]very day you seek rights for the Turks who live in Europe from the Europeans who you still cal gavurs [infidels]. Furthermore, you are seeking rights you are not prepared to grant to your own minorities".[7]

The journalist, who does not respond to this observation, mockingly calls Michael 'Baron Michael'. Why is Ince derisive of his Assyrian reader? If someone contemptuously him 'Ozdemir Pasha', would he not take exception to that? Ince's response to his reader's comment was: "How can I not trust Omer Turan and instead trust Swedish professors who are deprived of knowledge of the Ottoman language and the old script who accordingly cannot research the Ottoman Archives?"

If professor Turan has found a document in the Ottoman archives, which proves that "the genocide did not occur", he should provide it to academics and publish it promptly. There is no such document because there could be no such document and Omer who is doing research in the Ottoman Archives cannot prove that genocide did not occur. The documents in the Ottoman Archives have been carefully selected and any documents, which may be drawn upon to discuss the genocide, would not be available for the public. Documents indicating or proving genocide would not be given to researchers so as not to contradict the Official Thesis and version of events of the State. It is, however, also possible that archival staff can make errors and underestimate the value of some documents to third parties.

Moreover, the genocide is not an event that could be proven only through the documents in the Ottoman Archives. The archives of Germany, France and Britain, as well as others, have already been researched, documents published and the genocide of 1915 is beyond doubt except in Turkey itself.[8] I would respond to Ince in this way: "would I not trust the Swedish academics who have been educated in a liberal country, and trust instead Omer Turan who does research in Turkish Universities, unable to evade the framework of the Official Thesis?"

Ince's hatred of Assyrians is evident in the second series he entitles 'Yalanin Süryanicesi' [Lies in Syriac]. In this series, which started as a response to an Assyrian reader, Ince says, "we should trust non partisan historians". He never identifies those so-called non partisan historians; perhaps Omer Turan and some American academics paid by the Turkish Republic qualify as non partisan.

Ince accepts deportations took place in the Ottoman Empire but attributes this to the civil war and the need to defend the indivisibility of the Ottoman Empire. In his third article in this series, he advises his readers to read "the non partisan historians", though still these books or their authors are not identified -- most probably Ince has Omer Turan's books in mind. Finally, he asks his reader to be patient and announces that he is just about to embark upon discussing "the Assyrians events of 1915".[9]

[Joseph]

cont.1

In the fifth article Ince states that the Suryani [Assyrians] were forced to live with the Muslim Arabs who from the VII. Century dominated Mesopotamia: "In those days as there was no national consciousness, many Suryanis converted to Islam in order to avoid paying the cizye tax [for non-Muslim] and live in peace". He also adds that the Suryanis continued to convert to Islam even after the Turks dominated Anatolia [Asia Minor]. These assertions could be true. The Assyrians and other Christian peoples were forced to convert to Islam in different periods. What is objectionable, however, is Ince's assertion: "Among the Suryani who happily converted to Islam, do not doubt that there could be many ancestors of current Turkish nationalists."[10] Many Turkish nationalists could have Assyrian ancestors but the notion that the Assyrians happily converted to Islam is peculiar hypothesis, to say the least. More than likely those who wanted to avoid heavy taxes or be subjected to the Ottoman scythe and other discrimination have concerted to Islam. I personally I have not read of mass instances when the Christians converted to Islam happily (that is voluntarily and without a threat) after the Arab arrival in Mesopotamia and the Turkish arrival in Asia Minor. Ince would not have read those either. It is yet another false hypothesis.

In the seventh article on the topic, it is the turn of the Greeks to be attacked: "in the Greek insurgence of Moria that began in 1821, 25 thousand Muslims were killed in a few days" [note that he says Muslims not Turks]. I wonder how many Hellenes were killed in the four centuries of Ottoman domination? Are they not important? To call the Greek Independence War an 'insurgence' is a phenomenon that could be encountered only in the official Turkish history books. According to this notion, whoever rebelled against the Ottomans was a traitor. Only the Turkish nation is entitled to independence and other nations could only be slaves of Turks, and at the same time grateful for their situation. This is the thinking one discerns by reading these articles. Ince continues with inanities in the same article. "In the nineteenth century the reforms resulted in more freedom for the Christian peoples and that encouraged their wishes for independence. Moral of the story: do not grant the minorities any freedom because they could rebel and demand independence.

I am not sure how Ince measured the freedom of the subjugated (reaya) peoples in the Ottoman Empire but it seems their share of this difficult to measure concept (freedom) had increased. What were these freedoms though? Aytekin Yilmaz, in his Turkish book "Anatolia": from multiculturalism to monoculturalism defines these "freedoms" as follows: In the Ottoman Empire the non-Muslim peoples were treated as second-class citizens. They were subjected to many denigrating practices. For example, it was prohibited to ride a horse, carry a weapon, to walk on the footpath. The color of their shoes and the quality of the fabric of their clothes had to be different. It was forbidden for them to wear collared caftan, clothing made of silk, fine muslin, fur coat, and turban. For example, the Armenians wore red hut and shoes, the Greeks black and the Jews blue of the same. They also had to paint their houses with different colours. They could not even wear clogs in the bath house (hamam). They had to hang a small bell in waist clothes [or bath towels]."[11]

When Ince says 'more freedoms' he may mean that after the Tanzimat (Reform) period the Christians could finally wear clogs and remove their bells.

"If Abdülhamit II inaugurated a Panislamist policy, the reason is the successive rebellions of Christians for Independence and the Russian, French and English politics against the Ottoman Empire." In short, the Ottoman Panislamism is also the fault of the Christians. Perhaps, Pan Turkism is also a foreign conspiracy.

In his eight article Ince alleges that the "Assyrian genocide was invented".[12] How did the Assyrians invent genocide? That is to say, how did this conspiracy took place? Had "the Assyrians" (which Assyrians?) gathered in a place and said "let us invent genocide"? These types of arguments are childish and devoid of any semblance of seriousness. They can go no further than fooling an unsuspecting Turkish public, if at all.

In his tenth article, Ince - I would agree with some of his remarks here - states: "You English who's land you are distributing to whom? … You English you try to distribute Ottoman lands but why are you giving away the same lands to the Assyrians as well as the Kurds?"[13] I also find unacceptable that the English and the French attempted to have distributed Middle Eastern and Ottoman lands according to their national interests at the time, but the problematic notion is that "those lands" belonged to the Turks only. The ancestors of the Ottomans did not bring these lands they occupied from Central Asia, whence the Turks originated. Ince says these lands belonged to the Muslims for the last 1200 years. First of all, why go as far back as 1200 years only? Secondly, why is it that the heirs to the Muslim loot are only the Turks? Thirdly, it is not clear when he says Muslims which nations or communities does he mean: Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Turcomans, Persians, Alevis or Sunnis? Because he cannot say that Turks lived in Asia Minor for 1200 years he uses the appellation Muslim as surrogate for Turk. The Arabs who are also Muslim were not bound by religious ties and preferred to become independent form the Empire.

Ancient nations such as the Hellenes and the Assyrians lived much longer in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia respectively - much more than 1200 years - yet in Ince's doctrine only the Muslims who lived there for 1200 years and later Turks are entitled to them. These suppositions are ahistorical and illogical.

In the article series "Lies in Syriac" Ozdemir Ince liberally quotes and Assyrian researcher, Yakup Bilge. Ince uses passages from Bilge's book to criticize the Assyrians. Bilge in his book states that "… for Assyrians the most important period was the First World War. The Ottoman forces participated in the Assyrian-Kurdish war. The eastern Assyrians (the Assyrians who lived in Hakkari and Van) had declared war on the Ottomans". Following this quotation Ince repeats that "the Assyrians declared war on the Ottomans!" However, Bilge specifies as "Eastern Assyrians". It was the Nestorian (Assyrian) Patriarch who declared war. The Syriac Orthodox Assyrians (Western Syrians) who lived in Turabdin made no such formal declaration although they were still attacked by the Ottomans and were also subjected to genocide. Either Ince does not know these historical facts or he is trying to confuse the reader. Even though Ince makes liberal use of Bilge's book, he seemed to have overlooked the following sentence from the book: "… in Middle East during the upheaval that began in the beginning of the century and continued up to 1935, the Assyrians were continually subjected to massacres and were forced to live their homeland."[14] Although Bilge blames the West for the upheaval, Ince who perhaps was reluctant to also blame the West for the massacres, ignores this part of the book.

In the eleventh article Ince wonders: "after all these events if the Turkish Republic does not trust the Assyrians is it the fault of the Turkish Republic?" [15] Well, yes, it is! Note that it is not the right of the nation that was subjected to genocide to be distrustful. This right is reserved, according to Ince, to the inheritors of the state that perpetrated the genocide. Again, the 1915 events against the Assyrians are placed in a context of a civil war and then Assyrians are labeled as traitors and this is why Ince says the Turkish Republic does not trust Assyrians. It seems superfluous to make such argument at all, given that there are very few Assyrians left in Turkey to constitute a threat to the Turkish Republic.

[Joseph]

cont. 2

nce in the same article also raises the question of impartiality of sources of information for genocide research: "the reports by Christian missionaries, staff of consulates and secret service staff should be carefully examined (because they are not impartial)". Omer Turan's sources no doubt are impartial and objective (!). The objectivity of the staff of the Ottoman Bureaucracy and the secret agency Special Organization (Teskilat-i Mahsusa) is well known. Bilal Simsir who has carried out research in this field, in his books published by the Turkish Historical Society - no less - have included many reports by staff of the foreign consulates. Consequently, reports that suits the Official Thesis are published as neutral, independent and objective observations, while all other sources are regarded as subjective and partisan.[16]

"Finally we need to defer this matter to non-partisan historical science and real non-partisan honorable historians". By "honorable and non-partisan historians" no doubt Ince is referring to Turkish Republic supporters such as Justin McCarthy. It is a another well known fact that the foreigners working for the Turkish Republic are "non-partisan" but the foreigners who conduct research on the genocide are paid mercenaries. It is time for this disingenuous and dishonest proposition that "the question of genocide should be left to the historians" to come to an end. While the Turkish consulate official are expected to abandon their normal duties and, where possible prevent, and/or attend genocide conferences to sabotage them, it is quite hypocritical to say that the study of the genocide should be left to the historians. Ince who does not seem to be a historian, yet believes himself to be entitled to comment. A right he is unwilling to grant to the Assyrians.

It is also important to add that Taner Akçam who regards the 1915 incidents as "an event of mass murder" is not mentioned in the articles. Naturally, he is not objective either.[17] According to Akçam, a coded telegraph sent from the Interior Ministry to Diyarbakir on 12 July 1915 states that in Mardin: "700 Armenians and other Christians were slaughtered like sheep", refers to "estimates that in total 2000 people were killed" and it adds that there is fear that all Christians will be massacred. The telegraph concludes with the following sentence: "the general measures and policies which were constituted for the Armenians under no circumstances would apply to other Christians" and the telegraph asks that this practice end.".[18]

This document was read out to Ömer Turan in the Stockholm Conference and the good professor said that he did not believe this document, despite the fact that it was written by staff of the Ottoman Bureaucracy and published by the Turkish Historical Society.[19]

It is difficult to analyse this manner of thinking, which is approved by Ince. Documents which do not support the Official Thesis of the Republic are wrong, falsified, partisan, product of a conspiracy, or other, yet documents published by the official channels in Turkey which talk about Greek, Armenian atrocities against the Muslim population, and documents declaring Assyrians to be treasonous, are correct and non-partisan. This is completely unreasonable.

As a result matters that should have been resolved long time ago are still current and very much on the public agenda. In 2004 the Turkish Republic representatives are still hoping this matter will go away if they deny it long enough. In effect, the efforts of some academic and journalist have the opposite effect. They guarantee a public discourse on the genocide by the continual denial and machinations. There is nothing to gain by attaching a small community such as the Assyrians in Turkey. They pose no threat to Turkey.

Dr. Racho Donef
Sydney 2004

ENDNOTES

[1] For more information about the conference see 'Türk tarihçi Omer Turan, Soykirim'i (seyfo) yalan ve çamur atmalarla inkar etmeye çalisti', ACSA Betnahrin Information, 4/6/2003 [http://www.acsa.nu/artikel.asp?lankid=22&artid=338]
[2] O Ince, 'Soykirim ve Isveç (1)', Hürriyet, 9 April 2003.
[3] R.Yavuz, 'Içimizdeki hain', Hürriyet, 4 November 2003.
[4] H. Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, 1918, XXI.
[5] O Ince, 'Soykirim ve Isveç (2)', Hürriyet, 11 April 2003.
[6] O Ince, 'Soykirim ve Isveç (3)', Hürriyet, 14 April 2003.
[7] O Ince, 'Aldatildiniz', Hürriyet, 25 April 2003.
[8] G Yonan, Asur Soykirimi: Unutulan bir Holokaust, Istanbul, 1996.
[9] O Ince, 'Yalanin Süryanicesi (2)', Hürriyet, 2 May 2003.
[10] O Ince, 'Yalanin Süryanicesi (5)', Hürriyet, 9 May 2003.
[11] A. Yilmaz, Çokkültürlülükten Tekkültürlüge "Anadolu", Tohum Basin Yayin, Istanbul, 2002
[12] O Ince, 'Yalanin Süryanicesi (8)', Hürriyet, 16 May 2003.
[13] O Ince, 'Yalanin Süryanicesi (10)', Hürriyet, 21 May 2003.
[14] Y Bilge, Süryanilerin Kökeni ve Türkiyeli Süryaniler, Istanbul, 1991.
[15] O Ince, 'Yalanin Süryanicesi (11)', Hürriyet, 23 May 2003.
[16] B Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, Vols 1 and 2, Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1983.
[17] T Akçam, '1915 Efsaneler ve Gerçekler', Radikal2, 26 May 2003.
[18] T.Akçam, Insan haklari ve Ermeni sorunu, Istanbul, 1999, p.25.
[19] 'Türk tarihçi Omer Turan, Soykirim'i (seyfo) yalan ve çamur atmalarla inkar etmeye çalisti', ACSA, 4/6/2003 [http://www.acsa.nu/artikel.asp?lankid=22&artid=338]


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[Hovik]

The crux of the issue: The word "Genocide"

Dear Members,

I want to discuss the word Genocide. It seems to me that what this always comes back to between Turks (and their paid lobbists) and Armenians is a simple word, a word that for Turks means everything. Armenians all too often find themselves trying to prove that what happened to them does in fact fit the definition of Genocide. This, while substantiated by mounds of evidence in archives across the globe is not only like pulling teeth, but is a waste of our time. There is no reason to waste your breath proving it.

The very word Genocide was created by Polish-American Jew, Raphael Lemkin. And the event which brought him to do so was the Armenian Genocide and later, the Holocaust. The Armenian Genocide is therefore bound to the word Genocide. The very word Genocide may not have been created had it not been for the Armenian Genocide.

Of course this brings up another interesting point. Who is anyone of us to try to redefine what the creator of a word meant? To do anything in an attempt to separate the Armenian Genocide from Lemkin's invention is to violate his intellectual property.

Here is a video in which Raphael Lemkin discusses the word Genocide at the League of Nations and mentions that the Armenian Genocide fits his definition. Again, the word Genocide itself, was born at least in part from the events of 1915. END OF STORY...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2g6FjTNvs3I

Be sure to point this out next time you hear it being discussed.