TURKISH NEWSPAPER WRITES OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Aysor
Sept 18 2009
Armenia
In a very rare news article published by one of the top newspapers
in Turkey Today’s Zaman the author openly speaks about the Armenian
Genocide and how they were orchestrated.
In the beginning it was total silence and denial. Then in the recent
two years we started seeing phrases like "so called Armenian Genocide,"
"Armenian claims of genocide," and so on. In any case the word genocide
was always written in quotation marks. Yet today, one of Turkey’s
premier newspapers Today’s Zaman published a rare story about how
the Armenian Genocide was organized and orchestrated by the ruling
elite of the Turkish government in 1915.
Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a human rights advocate writes that the "Massacres
of Armenians were orchestrated and organized by the Committee of Union
and Progress (CUP) — which came to power through a military coup —
while the Ottoman Empire was falling apart. After these massacres
and as a result of the lack of confrontation with our past, the CUP
and its gangs changed their format and turned into the "deep state"
in Turkey. These deep state elements continued their massacres and
manipulations and drenched Turkey with blood during the Republican
era. We have these deep state elements, but we also have many people
fighting against them with or without knowing the history."
True the word genocide is not used in that paragraph. Instead
Cengiz is using the phrase Massacres of Armenians. However, in the
5th paragraph he openly talks about the Armenan genocide in the
following way. "I was in Toronto last year attending an extremely
interesting course on genocide. For two weeks we went into all the
details of different genocides that took place in various parts of
the world. All lecturers gave exemplary presentations, and I felt I
had really learned something. However, I also realized that there was
a fundamental difference in the way in which the Armenian genocide
is being handled. When we spoke about the Holocaust, we spoke of the
Nazi regime; when we discussed the genocide in Cambodia, we talked
about the Khmer regime; when it came to the Armenian genocide, though,
we only heard the word "Turks."
While his sincerity is most appreciated he does have a point that
when the world refers of the Jewish or Cambodia national tragedies
we do refer to regimes. However, we speak of the Armenian Genocide
Turks are indeed pointed. But why is this?
It is the 90 years of the denial of the truth and the fear to face
its own history that has made things come to this place, where a Turk
is pointed when speaking of the Armenian Genocide. Why is it taking
Germany only 20 years to face the Jewish Holocaust, say thank you and
compensate, but when it comes to the Armenian Genocide even the past
90 years are not enough?
It is believe that if Turkey had earlier recognized the genocide and
condemned it the following generations would have blamed it to the
ruling regime of the time not the nation. In fact, I have heard many
stories that many Turkish families have risked their lives hiding
the Armenian families, their neighbors from massacres and killings
in and around 1915.
A historic moment is upon us. Today the president of Armenian,
meeting with the leaders of various Armenian parties and discussing
the pre-signing of the Turkey Armenia normalization protocols, despite
much criticism, said that "we want to show that even the nation that
has fallen a victim to a genocide can be the first to offer a hand
of normalization of relationship." Arming themselves with sincerity,
honesty and the sense of fairness and justice the Armenian, Turkish
and Azerbaijani nations should look to a new South Caucasus, building
a better future for their children and themselves.