ASTARJIAN: THE PEDDLERS OF ANKARA
Dr. Henry Astarjian
0/astarjian-the-peddlers-of-ankara/
Mon, May 10 2010
In his very recent press conference-which he held after a round of
meetings with the Washington establishment, the Armenian president and
foreign minister, and other participants in the Nuclear Proliferation
Conference-he behaved like Hoja Nessretin who, pretending to be a
businessman, bought a goat for a certain price at one end of the
bazaar and sold it for the same price at the other end.
When asked the rationale behind it, he said, "El beni alis veriste
gorsun" (Let people see me doing business).
This is precisely what Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and
his boss Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the two peddlers of fake merchandise,
did in the bazaars of Washington. They bought and sold political
ribbons by the mile-ribbons extending from Armenia to Azerbaijan,
to Iran to Pakistan to Iraq, to Palestine and Israel, and to the
Silk Trail, leading them in the company of the West to their origins:
resource-rich Central Asia. And America in its naivete is buying what
they are selling.
Erdogan and Davutoglu, desperate to find a solution to the "Armenian
Problem," have now decided to bring the fight to us, "the Ottoman
Diasporans" (a Turkish characterization). They are hoping to find
some Armenians or Armenian organizations that are receptive to their
way of thinking and to their plans for Armenia. They may be lucky
and find some who makes gestures and compromises on some issues,
but never on the issue of the genocide.
They are launching this new strategy knowing full well that their
maneuvers in shaping up the debate is dead on arrival. They know the
position of the "Bad Armenians." They know our role in blocking the
outcome of the deceitful Turkish-Armenian protocols. They know our
work in exposing past and present Turkish atrocities. They know that
we will pursue genocide recognition until they confess to the crime
committed by their fathers, and grandfathers. And they know that we
will not give up an inch of our confiscated land of Western Armenia,
which was proscribed by President Woodrow Wilson.
The peddlers’ recent political offensive against the Bad Armenians has
boomeranged. It has crystallized Armenian thinking, and united us. The
divide and conquer tactic has not worked, and is doomed to fail.
The diaspora’s cry echoed in Armenia and they responded favorably. Now
Davutoglu and Erdogan, acting like Davut Pasha and Recep Pasha of
the Ottoman era, had better realize that there are no Good, Bad,
or So-So Armenians. There are only Bad Armenians.
Davutoglu must find another way to peddle his ribbons. Perhaps he
should color them red, blue, and orange.
Whether the United States accepts the genocide as genocide does not
change reality-that what the Ottoman Turks committed was genocide,
and what the Erdogan-Davutoglu government claims as the "continuation
of the Ottoman Empire" is guilty of covering up the first-degree
murder of an entire nation, a crime indeed. Turkey cannot claim
selective inheritance of its Ottoman past; they must accept the bad
with the good.
A few hours ago, I watched a TV interview with Erdogan conducted by
Christiane Amanpour on CNN. The man sat there telling lie after lie,
distorting facts about every topic, including their obvious decision
to U-turn their state ship towards home, the Islamic berth.
Erdogan said, and I am paraphrasing, that previous Turkish governments
had ignored their neighbors, but we are now paying attention to our
neighborhood. We are on good terms with our neighbors to the south,
the east, the west, and the north.
Oh what a lie! How has he had good relationship with Armenia? By
blocking passage of goods to the landlocked people of Armenia? By
forcing a protocol down Armenia’s throat? By supporting the aggressions
of Azerbaijan in Karabagh and with pogroms in Sumgait?
He said that Turkey has lived in peace and harmony with all its
neighbors. To prove his good intentions towards Armenians, he said he
has tolerated the presence of tens of thousand of illegal Armenians
working and living in Turkey. He said he showed his benevolence
toward Turkish Armenians ("Of course these are our citizens, with
whom we have no problems") by ordering the renovation of the Akhtamar
Church in Van. (That may be partly true. Ramzy Kartal, a Kurdish
parliamentarian, who represented Van in the Turkish Parliament, told
me that Akhtamar was in his district, and that he had done everything
to preserve it). Erdogan did not mention that the renovations were
to attract tourists and to appear tolerant of Christian symbols.
Anticipating the next question, he displayed a masked face when
Amanpour asked him about the Armenian Genocide. He said his country
never committed atrocities in its history. Oh what a lie! They are
doing it right now to our friends and partners in destiny-the Kurds,
in Anatolia. They have killed and maimed, and raped, and displaced
some three million men, women, and children from their villages-three
million who have found refuge in strange places like Western Turkish
cities and Istanbul, not the deserts of Der Zor. They have done it
not only to us, but to the Muslim Arabs, the Christian Assyrians,
and other minorities as well. If they hadn’t committed atrocities
"in history," then why did Sherif Hussein of Hejaz revolt against them?
Didn’t Baghdad revolt? Didn’t Damascus revolt? Didn’t Cairo revolt?
He knows he is lying. He knows he is blowing dust in the eyes of his
audience. And yet he continues to peddle his fake merchandise in the
souks (markets) of the world.
While emphatically denying the genocide, he contradicted himself
when he said: "We are of the opinion that this matter belongs to the
historians. We have opened our archives and everyone is invited to
look and see for himself. Whatever these investigative committees say
we will accept." He did not mention how incriminating documents have
already vanished from the archives.
So, it is with this mental frame and political credibility that the
duo Turkish peddlers are trying to convert us, the Bad Armenians,
into Good Armenians-in an attempt to continue the denial of the
genocide and blocking America’s acceptance of the genocide as genocide.
Davutoglu, in case it hasn’t sunk in yet, I want you to know that the
10 million of us in the Armenian Diaspora, and Armenia, and Karabagh
are "bad."
As the Turkish saying goes, "Anliana sivrisineg saz, anlamiana davul
zurna az."