TURKISH METHODS TO DISTORT FACTS MISLEAD READERS
Armen Minasyan

Panorama.am
21:45 18/12/2008

It is a pure fact that recently Turkish society is no more convicted
to traditional taboos regarding Armenian Genocide. Perhaps, Hrant
Dink’s activities and his achievements were conditioned by it. At the
same time those problems did not receive the adequate repercussions
of the public as they were pressed by total anti-Armenian campaigns.

And the evidence to this is Hrant Dink’s murder.

In these days a group of Turkish intellectuals has taken the
initiative to apology on behalf of Turkish people to Armenians,
which they preferred to name "Great Catastrophe". In fact such
initiatives are taken by and in a public which has rejected it for
so many years. Surely, this is another evidence of "those changes"
listed above. It was difficult to imagine that another part of Turkish
society would keep a silence and that prediction was soon a mystery.

Ertugrul Ozkok a Turkish journalist who writes editorials for Turkish
"Hurriyet" daily has mocked the initiative of his people in his "The
apology campaign for Armenians is a joke" article published yesterday.

When trying to bring some evidence that the current initiative is
"unacceptable" he makes an irrational request: the journalist expresses
his embarrassment as famous British singer, the member of "Genesis"
group Peter Gabriel joined the apology. "He apologizes on behalf of us,
"Turks", to the Armenians for the bad things that "we Turks" did to
the Armenians," writes Ozkok. Keeping mocking element in his words,
the Turkish journalist proposes Mick Jagger to apologize on behalf of
Armenians to Turkish for murdered Turkish diplomats, or, he himself
apologizes to the Indians, the Pakistanis and to the indigenous people
of former colonies in the Far East on behalf of the "Brits". First
you think that the observation is logical, but…Turkish journalist
tries to misguide the reader. If Ozkok thinks that British Empire
has violated human rights in the colonies and committed anti-human
activities, then he is free to make his own judgments and to take
the imitative to condemn them.

In this regard, note that any effort to make Armenian Genocide
recognized and condemned is first of all aimed to prevent from the
similar crimes, hence, we highly recommend the Turkish journalist
not only to speculate historic facts, but to be so honest to speak
about the crimes committed against mankind, which are committed in
present days also.

Analyzing the fact of apologizing on behalf of Armenians, then the
journalist again warps the facts and distorts the reality. The most
important element in this observation is that those two examples
are completely incomparable; how we can compare genocide with a few
private cases of murders (note that those Turkish "diplomats" notified
by Ozkok were members of "Gray Wolves" terrorist organization which
was under the support of the local government). From another side,
various condemning announcements were made on the murder of Turkish
diplomats and some persons were sentenced. But till today official
Ankara has made not a single announcement on taking the responsibility,
or condemning, or else apologizing. The authorities themselves have
supported the policy to renounce the facts and have committed violence
against those who have accepted it within their country.

Regarding Ozkok personally, note that he did not express his
own position on apologizing to Armenians and joining the apology
campaign. Would he sign under that apology if Peter Gabriel has
not done it? This is the question which should be answered by
Ozkok. Avoiding the explanation of his own position his words are no
more than pure attempts to criticize the campaign.