Taner Akçam

[xBaron Dants]

Taner Akçam, a Turkish historian who now lives in Germany, is in Montreal right now, and he gave a lecture/presentationofnewbook at McGill University yesterday (he will be giving another one at the Bolsahay getron today). For those who don't know him, he has collaborated a lot with Vahakn Dadrian.

Anyways, he was speaking about how recognition of genocide would take so much time in Turkey because accepting the genocide would mean accepting that so many people, which are viewed as heroes in Turkish society, were criminals. His new book, by the way, which I am now reading, is very interesting, and sees the genocide, as he says, in the oppressor's point of view, and not the victim's.

Of course, like any other genocide-related event, there was a crowd of about 15-20 Turks, which Akçam handled very well (they were being more polite than usual though, probably because Akçam is a Turk). One of them accused him of giving only the Armenian side of the story. He answered that there are no two sides of history. There can't be nationalistic views, such as the Armenian version, and the Turkish version. He said there is one side of the story, which has been proven, and it was up to Turks and Armenians to start dialogue, based on that one, true side of the story. An other one introduced himself as "not a real Turk" because he was born in Afghanistan, and he said that many Armenians today tell him "oh, your grandfather has killed my grandfather" to which Akçam replied "That is stupid, how can they tell you that if you're Afghan?"

[Genuine_Stud]

Taner Akçam, a Turkish historian who now lives in Germany, is in Montreal right now, and he gave a lecture/presentationofnewbook at McGill University yesterday (he will be giving another one at the Bolsahay getron today). For those who don't know him, he has collaborated a lot with Vahakn Dadrian.

Anyways, he was speaking about how recognition of genocide would take so much time in Turkey because accepting the genocide would mean accepting that so many people, which are viewed as heroes in Turkish society, were criminals. His new book, by the way, which I am now reading, is very interesting, and sees the genocide, as he says, in the oppressor's point of view, and not the victim's.

Of course, like any other genocide-related event, there was a crowd of about 15-20 Turks, which Akçam handled very well (they were being more polite than usual though, probably because Akçam is a Turk). One of them accused him of giving only the Armenian side of the story. He answered that there are no two sides of history. There can't be nationalistic views, such as the Armenian version, and the Turkish version. He said there is one side of the story, which has been proven, and it was up to Turks and Armenians to start dialogue, based on that one, true side of the story. An other one introduced himself as "not a real Turk" because he was born in Afghanistan, and he said that many Armenians today tell him "oh, your grandfather has killed my grandfather" to which Akçam replied "That is stupid, how can they tell you that if you're Afghan?"

Whats the name of his book? This sounds pretty interesting.

[xBaron Dants]

From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide

Published by Zed books.

[SagGal]

Another one introduced himself as "not a real Turk" because he was born in Afghanistan, and he said that many Armenians today tell him "oh, your grandfather has killed my grandfather" to which Akçam replied "That is stupid, how can they tell you that if you're Afghan?"

I hate to admit this, but I actually used to hate all Turks...todays' Turks, knowing that they weren't responsible for the killings. Armenians should stop saying, "You grandfather killed my grandfather," and etc. because if both of us (Turks and Armenians) want anything to be resolved, this certainly isn't going to help.

I remember one girl in my U.S. History class told (If I remember correctly) me, "The white race, which is what you are, was the one who brought blacks from Africa and made them slaves." I looked at her and said, "I'm white, but I'm Armenian. Besides, don't hate the modern white Americans because they weren't the actual people responsible." This is where the whole idea of todays' Armenians blaming modern Turks came in my mind.

Baron, you mentioned general things that Akçam said, right? Does he have his own site where I can read about him and more of what he said? Thanks hun.

[TJ]

planavaya planavaya
simpatichnaya takaya
i na iyu ya bolshe ni payu

[xBaron Dants]

I don't know about websites, but to get what he has to say, read the book .

As for the "your grandfather killed my grandfather" thing, of course it's useless.

[SagGal]

I shall, I shall It's just that the website might include more information about him. Information that is not in the book. I didn't want to know the website in order not to read the book. lol.

OK, I found something, which seems to be what he was talking about, but not his site.
THE GENOCIDE OF THE ARMENIANS
AND THE SILENCE OF THE TURKS.

planavaya planavaya
simpatichnaya takaya
i na iyu ya bolshe ni payu

Did you say, "i na iyu..."? Uhm, are you sure you meant to type "na"? lol. Maybe you meant, "i dlya neyo ya bolshe ne payu," or something like that.

[peacekeeper]

Who is Taner Akcam really?

Hi Everyone,
This is a real story and background about Taner Akcam, he is actually was a terrorist a while ago and now he claims he knows the history better than anybody.. anyways, this is his story, enjoy reading

You may have heard that the ranks of those who accuse Turkey of having committed a "genocide" against the Armenians now include a Turkish citizen named Taner Akcam. Akcam who is affiliated with a German research center and claims a doctorate in history, has become the darling of the Armenian diaspora activists in this country and in Europe. He has been invited to the United States several times--all expenses paid by Armenian organizations--to give talks and participate in conferences. Currently, he is a "visiting scholar" at the Armenian Research Center (ARC) at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. The ARC serves as one of main mouthpieces of anti-Turkey Armenian propaganda in the U.S. Its Director, Dennis Papazian, is a well-known professional falsifier of history who has consistently denied that Armenians were involved in the deaths of thousands of Turks in Eastern Anatolia during World War I.

During the past decade, Akcam has published several books in Turkey on the Armenian issue, including Turk Ulusal Kimligi ve Ermeni Sorunu (Turkish National Identity and the Armenian Question). Akcam's publications show no evidence that he knows Ottoman Turkish or that he has ever worked in the Ottoman archives. In his writings, Akcam parrots the familiar arguments that have become the staple of the Armenian propaganda machine. He wholeheartedly endorses the Armenian claim that the Armenians were the victims of a horrible "genocide" that was planned and carried out by the Ottoman government during World War I. While dismissing the actions of the Armenian terrorist organizations against the Empire's Turkish and Muslim populations, he puts the blame for the tragic events that took place more than 80 years ago solely on the Young Turk leadership. Moreover, in line with the standard Armenian arguments, Akcam asks that Turkey formally apologize for its "crimes" to cleanse its national and collective conscience from this "horrible" burden. In his only publication to appear in English so far--an essay that was translated from German by none other than the well-known protagonist of the Armenian version of history, Vahakn Dadrian--Akcam goes so far as to argue that there was a close connection between the Armenian "genocide" and the national resistance movement in Anatolia led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and that the foundations of the new Turkish Republic reflected the involvement of its leadership in a genocidal policy. At the conclusion of his essay, Akcam wonders how traumatic it would be for Turks to discover that the individuals they regarded as "great saviors" and "people who created a nation from nothing" were in fact "murderers and thieves".

To understand how a person who claims Turkish citizenship can express such outrageous views, it is important to know something about his background. Taner Akcam was born in Kars--a province where there is a sizeable number of Turkified Armenian families--and he is the son of the leftist writer Dursun Akcam. Taner Akcam became involved in radical leftist activities while he was still a lycee student. His radicalism intensified while he studied at the Middle East Technical University in the early 1970s. Akcam moved from student activism into political terrorism by joining the THKP-C (Turkiye Halk Kurtulus Partisi-Cephesi-Turkish People's Liberation Party-Front) in 1972--a terrorist organization that was implicated in the assassinations and killings of numerous far-right militants, Turkish security officials, and American and NATO military personnel. In the mid-1970s, Akcam became a leading member of DEV-YOL (Devrimci Yol-Revolutionary Path) and the editor of its periodical Devrimci Genclik Dergisi (Revolutionary Youth Magazine). It might be recalled that DEV-YOL was one of the two principal leftist terrorist organizations (the other being DEV-SOL) that played a major role in the bloody escalation of political violence in Turkey during the 1970s. In the bizarre ideological divisions among the leftist groups that proliferated on the Turkish political scene at the time, DEV-YOL was known as following a "pro-Soviet" line in terms of its international loyalties. DEV-YOL's bloody terrorist activities, which claimed hundreds of fatalities and a large number of serious injuries, included assassinations, armed attacks, bombings, and bank robberies. The group also achieved notoriety when it set up a so-called "liberated zone" in the town of Fatsa on the Black Sea coast where DEV-YOL militants established their control for several months before being routed by the security forces.

During this period of heightened terrorism, Akcam was an active participant in the planning of assassinations and armed attacks against the targets chosen by DEV-YOL. He was in the inner leadership circle of the terrorist organization and worked as the right-hand man of its leader Oguzhan Muftuoglu. In addition, as the editor of DEV-YOL's magazine, he wrote numerous articles exhorting DEV-YOL militants to engage in violence to bring down "the oligarchy", to punish "the fascists", and to get rid of "American imperialism". By the mid-1970s, as political violence between the far-left and ultra-nationalist groups escalated, Akcam had become one of the leading "theoreticians" of leftist terrorism and violence in Turkey.

Taner Akcam was arrested in 1976. After a trial that lasted several months he was sentenced to eight years and nine months for his role in fomenting terrorism and political violence. However, Akcam did not stay in jail for long: in a spectacular incident that made the headlines in the Turkish press, he escaped from a prison in Ankara along with four other convicted terrorists in March 1977. After hiding in Turkey for several months, he managed to find his way to Germany where he asked--and received--political asylum.

In Germany, Akcam continued his involvement in radical leftist activism and became the leader of a group known as Gocmen Harekatı (Migrant's Movement) that sought to reorganize the other leftist terrorists who had escaped from Turkey. In the aftermath of the 1980 military coup in Turkey, Akcam became a leading figure in mobilizing demonstrations and protests against Turkey in Germany. He also wrote articles in various leftist publications in which he criticized DEV-YOL's leader Muftuo?lu for his "pacifism" and called for the renewal of the "armed struggle" in Turkey. He also maintained his fanatical criticisms and attacks against of the West in general, and the United States in particular. In an interview in 1989, he declared: "I consider saying 'yes' to NATO and the European Union the biggest shame for a revolutionary. I am against the West since I consider it an imperialist power...and because I view the technology, culture, and politics of the West dangerous for all mankind."

Akcam returned to Turkey in 1993 for the first time since his prison escape. Since his 1977 conviction and sentence had expired, he could not be put back into prison. In a press conference that he held upon his arrival to Istanbul, he stated that "DEV-YOL's struggle" was going to continue. However, by the early 1990s, DEV-YOL had become a relic of the past and a new generation of terrorists had appeared on the scene that did not much care for older militants such as Akcam. Taner Akcam then worked for a period as an "advisor" to another former leftists radical, Gurbuz Capın, who had become the mayor of Esenyurt municipality in Istanbul.

In the 1990s, Akcam decided to reinvent himself as a "scholar" by writing books and articles on the Armenian question. Following graduate work in the university, he became affiliated with a research center in Hamburg. His uncritical acceptance of the Armenian version of the events that took place in Eastern Anatolia during World War I quickly gained him the sympathy and support of the anti-Turkey groups--Armenians, Kurds, and Greeks--first in Europe, and later in the U.S. At last, after spending years in terrorist organizations, hiding from the police, and living in exile as a refugee, Akcam had found his true calling in life. By gaining the dubious distinction of being the first "Turkish scholar" to agree wholeheartedly with all the Armenian allegations and claims against Turkey, Akcam finally managed to make a name for himself outside of terrorism and also earn a livelihood through the financial support provided by Armenian diaspora organizations.

Akcam's critical views about Turkey and the actions of the Turkish state is typical of a generation of leftist intellectuals and political activists who emerged on the Turkish political scene beginning in the late 1960s. For them, the Turkish state is capable of doing nothing good and worthy and everything that smells foul and nasty. As their hopes for a leftist revolution in Turkey faded away with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the communist regimes around Turkey, they have searched for new venues to vent their anger and opposition to the Turkish state. Some former radical leftists have taken up political Islam as their new cause. Others have become supporters of radical Kurdish nationalism and the PKK. And in the case of Akcam, his lifelong opposition to Turkish state has manifested itself through his unabashed support for the Armenian falsifiers of history.

It is lamentable that a person who has been a fanatical critic of the U.S. throughout his adult life and who has worked in terrorist organizations that were directly responsible for the deaths of American citizens is now warmly embraced by Armenians living in this country. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise since the Armenian activists have shown, over and over again, that they are willing to provide moral and material support to those who engage in terrorist acts directed at Turkey and Turkish officials. As a former terrorist leader with a long record of involvement in activities against the Turkish state, Akcam should feel at home among his new Armenian patrons.



Taken from turkeyforum.org

[xBaron Dants]

umm, he HAS worked with Ottoman archives, and shows the sources for all the information he's taken. What's funny is that he doesn't even do this for Armenia. He does this for Turkey, because he hopes to see his country reach true democracy, yet Turks are the first to put him down, as they have all been fed the same propaganda, which essentially proves that he is right in claiming that Turkey is not truly democratic.

And he was arrested for speaking about Kurds, back when they "didn't exist", and were reffered to only as the "Mountain Turks".

[glz88]

U kno what

Well you kno guys i dislike Turks but I don't dislike them because they killed half of my family i dislike them because they won't ACCEPT it. That is the simple truth and they need to understand that we are going to grow and hopefully prosper throghout the years and that we are going nowhere. They need to understand that they killed their merchant class. They killed their economy and their intellectuals. That is why i dislike them not because of the murder. I would highly recommend seeing Ararat the movie. It is very philosophical and shows the modern conflict which we are looking at.