One Sided Or Mutual?
BY TAHA AKYOL

Turkish Press
26 Oct. 2004

MILLIYET – In 1919, writer Ziya Gokalp told the following to a military
court about the Armenian issue: ‘It wasn’t one-sided, the massacre
was mutual!’ In two books, ‘Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing
of Muslims 1821-1922’ and ‘Muslims and Minorities,’ Professor Justin
McCarthy wrote about Muslim-Christian clashes and massacres between
which resulted in 5 million Muslim deaths. He researched not only the
Ottoman archives, but also made extensive use of reports of the British
Consulate. McCarthy characterizes the incidents which began with the
1915 Armenian revolt as a ‘war between communities.’ The real issue is
the ‘Ottoman response’ to the massacres which the Armenians started.
There were more Muslim deaths (Death and Exile, p. 217).

The Bosnians lived through the last massacre in the Balkans. Europe
just sat and watched this until NATO intervened! In his book ‘The
World’s Banker,’ Sebastian Mallaby wrote about the World Bank’s
failure to respond and the efforts of Kemal Dervis, later an economy
minister but then a WB official, to save the Bosnians. Through Dervis’
efforts, the WB eventually decided to help Bosnia’s reconstruction,
which encouraged NATO to intervene.

French daily Le Monde asked Dervis his opinion about the so-called
Armenian genocide. Dervis expressed his concerns about the incidents
and reminded them of Muslim massacres. The truth about the Armenian
question is that it wasn’t a one-sided reaction, but a mutual
massacre. If you act as if nothing happened, then people label the
incidents ‘genocide.’ Moreover, we have to remind the West of the
‘Muslim Massacre.’ The massacre, which began in 1821 on the Danube
and continued until 1995 in Bosnia… I wish there were more Turkish
people like Dervis working in the WB, the International Monetary Fund,
the UN and OECD.

–Boundary_(ID_c3+H/H923uvm23GBeX0nYQ)–