DERVISHES’ DANCE ON THE CHRIST’S IMAGE
Marina Grigoryan “Golos Armenii” (The Voice Of Armenia)

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
June 1 2006

Turkish Advertisement with Religious-Political Implication The
shots from the Turkish video clip have been “walking” by the World
Network three days and have already been titled “Dervishes’ Dance
on the Christ’s Image”. According to the Yerkramas newspaper of the
Russian Armenians, in St. Petersburg the Armenian activists are going
to institute legal proceedings against a Turkish agency circulating
cadres, which are offensive for Christians: the Christian cultural
monuments on the territory of modern Turkey are presented as cities
that have sunk, where only mermaids swim, while the image of Jesus
Christ has turned into a dance hall.

Such provocative video clips can hardly be considered just a commercial
subterfuge. Too little time has elapsed since a scandal caused by
Danish caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad, so one is inclined
to believe in obvious premeditation of the step undertaken by Turks
to artificially foment interreligious passions.

Turkey, which is doing its best to position itself as a secular
state that observes ethnical minorities’ rights, evidently cannot be
considered a civilized country, for even commercial interests are
unable to conceal political and expansionist ones. The Christian
cultural monuments, on which the heirs of nomads perform ritual
dances, testify to the fact that the very nomads that have arrogated
to themselves the invaluable monuments of the world history pretending
to be the region’s autochthon population are unworthy of such legacy
and can just spoil and destroy it. It is quite symbolic that Armenians
have been the first to make those who committed sacrilege responsible
via litigation – without mentioning other factors, the wound and pain
of the deprivation of thousands of the Jugha khachkars destroyed by
Turkish vandals is still with us. And yet, if political interests
hampered the Christian world’s consolidation in the issue referring
to khachkars, perhaps, this time the blasphemous cadres will make
Christians rebuff the provocateurs stirring up interreligious rows and
setting the representatives of various confessions against each other?