Calling all Turks

[Steph]

I reject your assertions, and just to eliminate any doubt I’ve never justified the genocide (implicitly or explicitly). The suggestion for the memorial in Yerevan was not to be erected in isolation. Sometimes you have to push the boundaries to get people thinking and moving.

Nevertheless, it is apparent that unless one subscribes to your black and white version of events you blast them with a racist tirade. Did it ever cross your mind that there may also be many good-willed Turks reading this forum turned away by your diatribe? To borrow a football analogy, I think you’ve definitely scored an own goal.

I am in no doubt of your acceptance of the Genocide as an historical fact.
I do take issue with your attempt to dilute the sheer magnitude of the turkish actions, yes turkish actions, from 1895 to the present day.
Like it or not, the people who planned the genocide of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians et al, were turkish political and military leaders. The people who carried it out were the turkish people. Whether they wielded a rifle, a club, a sickle or a flaming torch. Whether they ravished, raped and looted. Whether they stood by and watched, they were turkish.
Very few, so very few, protested, gave succour and support, concealment and nourishment.
There are good-willed turks, in my personal life and on this forum and elsewhere, but too few, as there were too few during the Genocide.

Ask yourself a question. Would the turkish people allow their government today to commit genocide ? Would the turkish people once more, stand by and allow it? Perhaps not yourself Ferdi, but what of your neighbour, the butcher,the traffic cop, the cafe owner, the farmer, would they?

(with apologies to the Kurdish nation)

[Edoman]

Ferdi, I thought you would like the comments

The path to reconciliation is impossible without acknowledging the past, but admitting realities can start with little things such as accepting that Armenians and Turks are human beings who have lived together for hundreds of years, that we both share values of justice, fairness, hospitality and family.

I took those words straight out of your Turkish Governments Propaganda Machine that has been feeding you.

Those words are not sincere; if it was you wouldn’t be blockading Armenia, spend billions lobbying against AG bill, destroying Armenian land marks in Turkey and play middle man in the Israeli Arms sell to your proxy Azeri cousins. The bottom line is that Turkey could never come to terms with their crimes because that would mean they have to insult their own “Turkishness”.

You talk about Turkish honor but you have to look at it from my perspective. I see a country that betrays their Muslim brothers, collaborates with Israel against the Palestinians, provides bases of operation for the two wars in ME against Iraq and Afghanistan.
Come on Turk, you are Turkefying your country sides by illuminating the Kurds while you use the PKK to keep your Military industrial complex well fed at the cost of the lives of your own Turkish soldiers. Islamism is threatening to take over your government and your military generals are ready at anytime to take a coup. Turkish Fascism is running amuck in your country while the Ergenekons are calling all the shots. You run kangaroo courts to justify your democracy but kill and torture your own people in your lovely jails. Don’t you think your Article 301 is racist and undemocratic? You guys don’t even know what democracy and secularism is. A simple headscarf issue almost turned your country inside out.
You killed Harant Dink and you want us to believe that Turks are sorry but you turn around and hand his killer a Turkish national flag to hold for the pictures.

No Turk, you have no honor and your national identity is the core of your problem and we cannot help you solve it.

Tell me Ferdi, how is it possible for an Islamic nation to turn secular overnight? Who was Mustafa Kamal, really?

[Joseph]

Let's all try to remain civil. We may not agree with Ferdi but we should also not generalize too much and equate Ferdi with the ulusalci.

[Edoman]

Joseph is absolutely right. Ferdi, I apologize for being rude.

I can’t figure you out Ferdi. I have butt heads with many Turks but there is something very different about you. Part of me wants to drag the Turkish dirt all over this conversation but the other part agrees with you to some degree.
Your assessment of how Turks feel, it appears to be very true but it also very strange to me as an Armenians that you guys would feel like that. Once I put myself in your shoes however I can understand that it is not easy at all to think that your forefather were responsible for such acts without a very good reason such as the survival of your nation, so a subconscious mind will have to find justification, we are after all human, all of us. My Grandmother who had learned your language perfectly spoke well of many Turks until the day she died, this is even after she almost took poison in order to prevent herself from being sold off in the Market to the Kurds or Persians. I could never understand it. She was only 12 then, she did manage to escape but she remembered quite a bit. Maybe she was talking about people like you Ferdi, I don’t know.

So Ferdi, you said

As I explained, most Turks will not take step forward to redress past Armenian sufferings because they also feel aggrieved. The national conscious says if we didn’t take certain actions then we would have been decimated. We would have suffered had we not done what we did. That’s the reality, whether you think it’s wrong, paranoid or whatever. We would have to get people to identify with the individual sufferings to move beyond this well established mindset.
.

But how do we get people to identify with the individual sufferings to move beyond this well established mindset. Do you have any idea? Are you suggesting that Armenians take the first step when Turkey has the ball in their court?

[Sako]

Saco, thanks. Your right, I don't know what it means to feel those things. But I will definitely ponder some your thoughts and I hope you don't stay too angry for long.

Dude (yes dude), what’s your problem? I’m not angry no matter how many times you would love me to be so you could chant that phrase in my face. I’ve heard it a thousand times when I began talking reason. NOW I’m starting to get angry. That’s all you could understand from my words? How about Steph, Edoman, Joseph, hell everyone, they all gave you golden examples of what’s going on but still, you turn the conversation to other sentences rather then the problem ahead. You’re doing the same thing Turks do, bro. Come on.

And although you may be justified in your feelings, remember that anger is an emotion that is all-consuming and self-defeating in the long run.

And let me tell you something, since you want to be the moralist and all, everything is good in good measure. Anger, love, happiness, distress, everything has to be there in good measure. I wasn’t angry though and after all I said, you still think I’m angry. Or maybe the idea of an Armenian not beating you verbally sounds weird and unreal. Get over it, we don’t all stand and verbally attack everyone. We’re here to help you understand what’s going on but that very idea seems almost unreal to you. No one is here to blame you, no one is going to burn your house down (although the Turks burned ours), no one hates you, don’t make this personal. When you try to prove us wrong in some strange way without understanding what we’re saying (this is the fifth time already), it naturally generates some anger. In the beginning, no one attacked you but if you look over the thread from top to bottom, you’ll see what’s going on better and how in time everything became hotter and hotter.

I'll break for a while, but I look forward to browsing into your project I read somewhere in another thread, you obviously have a very creative mind.

So do you, use it bro.

Just as a parting tip, don't confuse your own feelings with what you have seen on an Atom Egoyan movie or heard from someone else.

Haha, damn, I was waiting for something like this. Ferdi, seriously, don’t go there. You have no idea who I am or where I’m from or what I’ve gone through so please, don’t think I’m this kid from Los Angeles who just found out his “grandma was Armenian” and decided to take up the Armenian flag and feel hate towards Turks. Please, save me that BS, seriously. I’ve read, I’ve felt, I’ve talked, and most importantly I’ve LISTENED from many sources, Turkish, Armenian, Indian, American, Mexican, etc. You really need to open your eyes and ears, you don’t have to go all over the globe to understand what’s going on, we all gave you a perfect explanation a kid could understand, no offense, so open up. Stop acting like we just CAN’T understand you, you aren’t the first or the last person that came in with creative ideas.

These feelings are not your own, but something you have inherited (or some may say burdened with).

This is the last time Ferdi that you ever say something like that without any clue. Stop thinking that every Armenian inherently was burdened and goes through so much anger. It’s you Turks that were and are so angered that you could annihilate an entire country and kill Hrant Dink, and do so many things that NORMAL people would never do even in their minds. I’m not angry, you don’t know what that is, stop using that word constantly. And stop acting like your Armenian and you have the perfect solution to even a part of the problem and we’re just so stupid and blank that we can’t understand you.

I reject your assertions, and just to eliminate any doubt I’ve never justified the genocide (implicitly or explicitly). The suggestion for the memorial in Yerevan was not to be erected in isolation. Sometimes you have to push the boundaries to get people thinking and moving.

Push those boundaries in your country even an inch in any direction and we’ll consider doing something.

Nevertheless, it is apparent that unless one subscribes to your black and white version of events you blast them with a racist tirade. Did it ever cross your mind that there may also be many good-willed Turks reading this forum turned away by your diatribe? To borrow a football analogy, I think you’ve definitely scored an own goal.

Good willed isn’t good enough, my friend. Good willed Turks should understand what’s going on if their so good willed, seriously. Also, they should understand us and how we feel instead of teaching us how to feel anger. Go teach those blank Turks in your country who don’t know what to feel and just go with what the president says. I’m not saying Armenians don’t get too fired up sometimes, you have no idea how many times I’ve told them not to be and really got angry. YOU have no right to do that though because Genocide is no joke and it wasn’t your Genocide. You look at it as history while we have to live with that every second of our lives. How would you feel if we said we never killed any innocent Turks in Armenia? You Turks have to know HOW to put out a fire, not groom it and tell it how to rise into the air. I’m not saying your wrong, I’m saying the way you say it is wrong and inappropriate.

No Turk, you have no honor and your national identity is the core of your problem and we cannot help you solve it.

Let’s not make this personal guys but he’s right Ferdi, I don’t think even you can forgive Turks for what they did or understand what they felt when they did it. Unfortunately, we can so that’s why we are more serious and prepared. You are not our enemy Ferdi and I know how Turks would reap you for accepting the past but this is something you have to solve in yourself. It is not your past or my past, it is our past. Turkey wasn’t a separate country, we lived side by side. I honor the Turks that helped so many Armenians escape and risked their own lives for ours. Those were the proper people, ones I would love to live next to today and have as a neighbor while the real Turks were the ones that slaughtered. I loathe them and YES I am angry and I’m sure you are too. This is proper anger. But hating all Turks and equally looking at everyone is WRONG, DEAD WRONG. When we say Turks, we mean the Turks with no feelings (there are many) not all Turks. Accept that fact and enough with the juggling of words. Your memorial issue is solved.

[VaheTheGreat(e)]

[QUOTE=Joseph;30487]I want to state again that I appreciate Jos's sentiments.


The Dashnaks and Hunchaks were formed mostly to protect Armenians from Kurdish, Laz, and Circassian marauders who plundered and murdered them at will during the reign of Abdul Hamid II; as Edoman has alluded to, they formed because the Ottoman government refused to protect Armenians and in many cases actually assisted their tormentors.[QUOTE=Joseph;30487]


Let me disagree with you on this one, Dashnaks and Hnchaks were created firstly as political parties (Socialist and Social Democrat), and yes they called for armed resistance but not just against “Chirkasians and Kurds” as you say but against Abdul Hamids murderous rule, as eliminating Armenians was already a state policy in that time, and sultans personal guard – Hamidie were executing that policy.

[VaheTheGreat(e)]

Regardless of the discussion and the sides and their arguments, just to state something in more logical way, i have to say this:

turks seem to have a genetic DNA fault is a genetic fallacy and smells "unchangable essences" which may drive us something like racism or any other illogical and inhumane ways.

Just to make a caution!

Well, so how you would expline that very specific for turks forgetfullness of own history?

[phantom]

I apologize if I’m becoming a bit repetitive, but the point I was trying to make was that if you want to break the barriers between ordinary Turks and Armenians then you need to bring this debate to individual sufferings first. Human nature dictates that we identify with the pain and suffering of individuals i.e. family, friends, neighbors and people of the same religion as us not as collective nations.

Given your philosophy, I think you should put your money where your mouth is and recommend to all of your Turkish friends, family and neighbors that they read the following books: Ane Anem by Fethiye Cetin and Vergeen by Mae Derdarian. Both are very personal books of the experiences of individual people. There are dozens and dozens of books and memoirs written by or about individuals who lived through the Armenian Genocide, and these books have existed for decades. Perhaps the Turkish people ought to start reading some of them.

Unfortunately, this issue has become a case of national honor for both Turks and Armenians. As I explained, most Turks will not take step forward to redress past Armenian sufferings because they also feel aggrieved. The national conscious says if we didn’t take certain actions then we would have been decimated. We would have suffered had we not done what we did. That’s the reality, whether you think it’s wrong, paranoid or whatever. We would have to get people to identify with the individual sufferings to move beyond this well established mindset.

The tragedy is that the Turkish government has brainwashed even educated people like you into believing this garbage; that a Genocide of one people was necessary for the preservation of another. Armenians made up between 2 million and 2.5 million among a population of 15 million Muslims. Moreover, the Armenian people were, and have always been, in favor of getting along with neighbors and going about with one's business. They were never militant or warlike. Why don't educated Turks like you apply common sense to form their own rational conclusions, rather than believing nonsense?

Also I don’t think you should overstate the threat i.e. Turkey going down the “rabbit hole”. Even if every nation on earth recognized the AG, is there a single government in the world that places legal culpability at the feet of the current Turkish government? And even if Obama makes a public declaration then what? There may be a moral responsibility but legally I don’t think a case against the Republic of Turkey formed in 1923 would be successful.

Tell that to the Turkish leaders who are all beside themselves right now worried sick that Obama is going to let Congress finally pass the Armenian Genocide resolution. What's there to worry about if there's nothing to worry about Ferdi?

All Turks, including the minorities, should feel shame and embarrassment for allowing their country to evolve into the laughing stock it has become; a country where a xenophobe can kill a patriotic saint like Hrant Dink and get wrapped in the Turkish flag by the authorities. At the end of the day, people deserve the government that they tolerate. And that, by the way, is coming from an Armenian from Turkey.

[Edoman]

Edo calling Ferdi. Do you copy. Standing by for your answer here in Los Angles. Please reply.

[Sako]

You hit the spot, Phantom. Really? You live in Turkey?