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Most viewers who saw the horrific depiction of mass murder in the documentary The Armenian Genocide Monday evening on KLVX Channel 10 likely were convinced the first genocide of the 20th century was a historical fact. Still, the 1915 genocide is denied by modern Turkey, which is seeking admission into the European Union.
With this in mind, Oregon Public Broadcasting, producer of the documentary, taped a follow-up panel discussion on whether the Armenian genocide actually occurred. After protests from Armenian officials throughout the Western world, most PBS affiliates -- including KLVX -- decided not to air the follow-up.
At press time, the hour-long genocide film by independent producer Andrew Goldberg was scheduled to air in nine of the top 10 markets, but only two -- Chicago and Houston -- were planning to show the follow-up program: Armenian Genocide: Exploring the Issues.
"It was felt the follow-up program wasn't necessary," said a source at KLVX. "The roundtable didn't really add anything new to the program."
Other sources at the local PBS station noted the station has been deluged with calls about the program and the possibility of running the follow-up program.
The subject of the Armenian genocide is not taken lightly by PBS for many reasons. In 1988, the broadcast of the program An Armenian Journey brought bomb threats to PBS stations and death threats to filmmaker Theodore Bogosian. The Turkish government lodged a formal complaint, charging "inaccuracies and gross misrepresentations."
Anyone who doubts how inflammatory the issue of the Armenian genocide is to the Turkish government and many in that Eurasian nation should read a 1996 Review-Journal story by Las Vegas resident Seluk Tezgul, a native of Turkey, who decried his native country's silence about its "bloody past." His article prompted a storm of threatening phone calls from friends and relatives and from as far away as Turkey.
Still, to leaders of most Western nations, the Armenian genocide is not a subject for debate. It's a historical fact. U.S. Sens. John Ensign and Harry Reid and U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley were among hundreds of lawmakers who sponsored resolutions urging PBS not to provide a broadcast platform for deniers of the Armenian genocide.
"If you want to have a discussion on Armenian genocide denial, that's one issue," said Elizabeth Chouldjian, spokeswoman for the Armenian National Committee of America. "But to call in two known genocide deniers and have them debate those speaking the truth -- this sends the wrong message to viewers, who might decide this is a controversy. In fact it is not."
An American Turk wishes to acknowlege the Armenian Genocide
The Las Vegas Review-Journal Copyright 1996
Sunday, April 28, 1996
Longing to stop the bleeding Seicuk Tezgul
Seluk Tezgul is a native of Turkey and has lived in Las Vegas for 14 months.
By Seluk Tezgul
Special to the Review-Journal
Longing to stop the bleeding
This month, Armenians mark the 81st anniversary of the massacre of 1.5 million of their people in Turkey, but not all Turks want to forget.
The souls of 1.5 million Armenian victims are, after 81 years, still longing for acknowledgment and an apology from Turkey.
Recently, when I was assisting in my friend's Las Vegas retail shop, a lovely elderly couple came in. While they were looking around, they asked me my national origin. Trying to guess their origin first, I responded hesitatingly that I was Turkish. "We are Armenian!" said the husband, looking at my eyes painfully and meaningfully.
I then realized what I was afraid of. Yes, they were Armenians, two members of a big nation that had attained high cultural and social values in human history in the east of Asia Minor many centuries ago. Two members of a noble nation whose 1.5 million innocent grandparents were massacred 81 years ago through the brutal and treacherous methods used by the Turks - my own ancestors. Imagine the emotional situation experienced by the three of us, who had met by coincidence.
Whenever I meet Armenians, I feel shame and pain because of my Turkish identity, and I wish to disappear at once or to hide myself in a hole in the ground. Usually after a brief talk, however, they realize that I am not one of the 60 million Turks who was cheated for decades by his own government's chauvinistic, illogical, unfair and nonsensical official state ideology and history into believing the crooked "facts" intended to suppress knowledge of the brutal genocide. On the contrary, they usually realize that I am one of the handful of Turks who is aware of that horrible genocide and acknowledges it. And this time, too, it took very little time for the couple to understand me.
I've never trusted and believed in the official history and ideology of my country. And when I researched and studied the reliable and honest foreign historians, I came face to face with the blood-chilling truth. The biggest Armenian genocide of the last century was horrible: Yes, indeed, 1.5 million innocent, highly civilized people - in comparison with their nomadic barbarian executioners - were slaughtered like poultry by the Turkish soldiers and people, with whom they had lived side-by-side for centuries.
In addition, I've listened to the chilling details of the massacres from the mouths of the living Turkish witnesses. The awful details of the genocide, which was completed insidiously within a year, can easily fill a small bookcase with tens of bloody-paged books. And today, I'm still hated by my own relatives and friends because of my acknowledgment of the genocide.
Unfortunately, their brains are washed by the lies and suppression of the truth by the Turkish government and army.
What could be the underlying reasons for this horrible injustice? If we study the history carefully, we'll see that the Armenian people settled down in the northeast region of Asia Minor around 900 B.C. - almost two millennia before the Turks and others invaded not only that region but, step by step, the whole of Asia Minor. (The Armenians' home country is still occupied by the Turks today.)
The agriculturalist Armenians had built a rather advanced civilization, especially famous for accomplishments in architecture and art. They were an honest, lovely, noble, humanistic and peaceful people. Their capital, Ani, was so beautiful it was called "the twin sister of Constantinople" by Roman historians. Armenians didn't know how to fight; therefore they built ceramic pots, jars and metallic handicrafts and jewlry instead of swords, arrows and shields.
On the other side, the Turks were a pastoralist, nomadic, quarrelsome, totalitarian people, without artistic and architectural talents like the other nomadic tribes of Central Asia. Their lives were mainly based on hunting, fighting, war and plundering. Therefore, they built powerful and effective weapons instead of handicrafts.
Naturally, when the invasion of the pastoralist nomads began in the early 11th century, the Armenians quickly fell under the barbarians' hegemony, like the other agriculturist civilized peoples of Asia Minor. Many thousands of their men were mutilated and massacred. The women were raped; pregnant women were stabbed; and their cities and towns were burned down by the invaders.
The Christian Armenian people lived under the merciless barbarian hegemony of the Islamic Turkish Ottoman Empire for several centuries, and they suffered indescribable sorrows as slaves until the genocide of 1915, which is commemorated on April 24.
The Ottoman Empire, which reigned tyrannically for more than 600 years, collapsed in 1918. Unfortunately its corrupt wreckage fell on a civilized nation three years before its death, crushing 1.5 million innocent Armenians.
Toward the end of World War I, the Turks were defeated on all fronts, but especially heavily on the eastern front by the Russians, and they blamed this on their minority people, namely Armenians, living in the Russian border area.
Thus began one of the most treacherous and insidious and genocides of history. It was planned entirely by Turkish statesmen and leaders and was carried out by Turkish soldiers hand-in-hand with their people - sadly, even by the Armenians' Turkish neighbors - and systematically completed within a year. Armenians were annihilated in front of the eyes of Western diplomats in Turkey. Some of the victims were rescued by those diplomats and survived. The best historical records of this genocide are those held by various foreign embassies.
That horrible genocide has never been forgotten, must never be forgotten and will never be forgotten.
Alas, still today the Turkish government and its leaders are deaf and dumb, and they remain silent about their country's bloody past. They are still denying history's clear and solid truths. Its 60 million people are still not completely aware of the genocide committed by their ancestors, because of the official state policy to suppress history. Of course, grandchildren should not be judged responsible for their grandparents' crimes, but the grandchildren should not endorse their ancestors' brutality either.
History is waiting for that honest, dignified, fair and noble Turkish leader who will acknowledge his ancestors' biggest crime ever, who will apologize to the Armenian people, and who will do his best to indemnify them, materially and morally, in the eyes of the entire world.
Yes, history is longing - and the Armenian people are longing - for that person who will break the dim and tragic taciturnity of 81 years between the two nations, the person who will stop the bleeding from that deep wound.
Everybody is longing, but - of greatest importance - the souls of those innocent 1.5 million victims, including bayoneted infants and raped women with their mutilated bodies, have longed for that noble leader for 81 years.
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This article was printed in the California Courier shortly after the above was printed in Las Vegas.
Death Threats Stalks Turkish Author of April 24 Article in Nevada Acknowledging
1915 Genocide
By Serge L. Samoniantz
California Courier Editor
LAS VEGAS - Selcuk Tezgul, a native of Turkey residing in Las Vegas,
is now living under the shadow of death threats from fellow Turks
after authoring an article in the April 24 issue of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal, where he decried the Turkish government's silence
over the 1915 genocide, and called for an official acknowledgment of
their ancestor's biggest crime ever. Tezgul told The California
Courier that he wished to make a favor to the Armenian people by
writing the truthful article, and was not expecting this flood of
negative reaction from some of his closest friends and associates. A
storm of phone calls, some originating from Turkey itself, have
threatened to burn down his house, and get rid of him. His own
business partner, he said, swore at him on the phone and threatened to
kill him with his own bare hands for writing such an article.
They are reluctant to acknowledge reality, Tezgul surmised. The
souls of 1.5 million Armenian victims are, after 81 years, still
longing for acknowledgment and an apology from Turkey, his April 24
article begins. After describing an encounter with an Armenian
elderly couple at his Las Vegas shop where I felt shame and pain
because of my Turkish identity, Tezgul goes on to explain that he
is not one of the 60 million Turks who was cheated for decades by
his own government's chauvinistic, illogical, unfair and
nonsensical official state ideology and history. On the
contrary...I am one of the handful of Turks who is aware of that
horrible genocide and acknowledges too, Tezgul readily admits.
I've never trusted and believed in the official history and
ideology of my country, he adds, and when I researched and studied
the reliable and honest foreign historians, I came face to face with
the blood-chilling truth. In addition, I've listened to the
chilling details of the massacres from the mouths of the living
Turkish witnesses, he continued. And today, I'm still hated by my
own relatives and friends because of my acknowledgment of the
genocide. Unfortunately, their brains are washed by the lies and
suppression of the truth by the Turkish government and army. Tezgul
writes that the agriculturist Armenians had settled in Asia Minor
almost two millennia before the Turks invaded the region. The
Armenians' home country is still occupied by the Turks today, he
wrote. Observing that the agriculturist Armenians had built a rather
advanced civilization, especially famous for accomplishments in
architecture and art. They were an honest, lovely, noble, humanistic,
and peaceful people, Tezgul write flatteringly. On the other
side, the Turks were a pastoralist, nomadic, quarrelsome, totalitarian
people, without artistic and architectural talents like the other
nomadic tribes of Central Asia, the Turkish author harshly notes.
He goes on to explain that the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of
World War I, but not before it had blamed its Eastern Front defeats on
the Armenians and began its genocide. It was planned entirely by
Turkish statesmen and leaders and was carried out by Turkish soldiers
-- sadly even by the Armenians' Turkish neighbors, Tezgul wrote.
That horrible genocide has never been forgotten, must never be
forgotten, and will never be forgotten, he asserts. Alas, still
today the Turkish government and its leaders are deaf and dumb, and
they remain silent about their country's bloody past. They are still
denying history's clear and solid truths. Its 60 million people are
still not completely aware of the genocide committed by their
ancestors, because of the official state policy to suppress
history. Of course, grandchildren should not be judged responsible for
their grandparents' crimes, but the grandchildren should not endorse
their ancestors' brutality either. History is waiting for that
honest, dignified, fair and noble Turkish leader who will acknowledge
his ancestors' biggest crime ever, who will apologize to the Armenian
people, and who will do his best to indemnify them, materially and
morally, in the eyes of the entire world. Besides the threatening
phone calls which brand him a traitor, Tezgul said, his own close
friends have now shunned him because of the lengthy article. This is
disturbing me emotionally, he frankly acknowledged. A graduate of
Istanbul's Bosphorus University, Tezgul came to the United States 15
months ago on a B-2 visa. Seeking freedom and new opportunities in
these shores, he invested $50,000 - his life savings - in a gift shop
in Las Vegas, which he operates jointly with a partner, Nevzet
Baguis. That investment is in jeopardy now, because of the article he
wrote, he said. Furthermore, his visa is due for renewal because of
the nature of the business investment. But, now with his life in
danger, he does not dare to go to the store, where his wife works. In
addition, his legal status in the U.S. is at risk, unless his visa is
renewed or upgraded. Extremely reluctant to talk to The Courier,
Tezgul, in a very subdued voice, nonetheless asked that this story not
be taken further, and wished that the matter would settle down
quickly. I am sure the Turkish authorities in the United States
have already faxed these details to Ankara, he said. I will
probably need a new identity and new passport if I wish to return to
Turkey, he said, understandably not too thrilled at the prospect.
As of May 6, he had not yet notified the FBI about the nature of the
phone calls and threats he had received, but the federal agency was
aware of the reason for Tezgul's distress. Plans were not yet in
place to begin an investigation, according to Las Vegas FBI office
spokesperson Debbie Calhoun. She suggested that Tezgul contact the
local authorities and tell them of his concerns. Tezgul told The
Courier he had received sympathetic calls from Las Vegas Armenians
congratulating him for his courage, but he was more interested in
putting this matter behind him, and resume a normal life.
Unfortunately, history shows us that honest, dignified, fair and noble
Turks are not given much rest by their own. The novelty of speaking
the truth -- even if it exposes one's own myths -- is still equated
in too many cultures as comforting the enemy, rather than freeing
future generations of Armenians and Turks of the burden of the past.
On a personal level, Tezgul's attempt to make a favor to the
Armenians has perhaps backfired. But, whether the Turks like it or
not, in the long run, his is the shot heard round the world.