MEHMET Y. YILMAZ: PROPOGANDA FOR TURKS, BY TURKS

Hurriyet, Turkey
March 7 2007

I read recently in the papers that a documentary aimed at disproving
Armenian allegations of genocide was being filmed in Turkey. The film
reportedly starts with shots of images of the death of the Provincial
Governor of Bogazliyan, Kemal Bey, who was executed as punishment
for his mistreatment of Armenians during the forced emmigrations.

News has gotten out too that this film is being translated into
foreign languages. Now, I don’t want to cause disappointment here,
but I think this entire effort is one which is not going to serve
anyone’s purposes.

Until today, none of the efforts at trying to disprove the Armenian
allegations of genocide have found a place for themselves in the
Western media. In fact, we even know that the Armenian lobby places so
much pressure on any publishing houses which move to print books that
might aim at disproving these allegations that the publishing houses
later decide not to publish them. And for as long as the various
parliaments of foreign nations continue to pass official decisions
that "the Armenian genocide took place," this is just the way it is
going to be for us.

In the end, we will watch this film, and either get more angry,
or relax a bit. But there can be no real results which come from
"Propoganda for Turks by Turks." I have worn out the keys on my
computer from writing this over and over, but here goes one more time:

"We still have no serious organization to fight the Armenian genocide
allegations on the international platform."

What we really need is a strong platform which utilizes different
methods of reaching the masses. But instead, we still haven’t been
able to gather all our documents in reference to the WWI Armenian
emmigration period under one roof, opening them up this way to
research. All we seem to know is how to expose ourselves to our own
propoganda. And that, unfortunately, is not getting us anywhere.