1- Jesus, Obama and Muhammad Were Turks,
According to Turkish False Claims
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
2- Anna Turcotte makes history as Westbrook, Maine, City
Council president
3- Aram Gavoor Appointed Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
at George Washington University Law School
4- France’s Zemmour calls for defense of Armenia,
a ‘Christian’ nation in ‘Islamic ocean’
5- Armenia Continues Fight Against COVID-19
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1- Jesus, Obama and Muhammad Were Turks,
According to Turkish False Claims
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
There is nothing wrong with being proud of one’s nationality, ethnic
origin or religion. However, when that pride becomes so fanatical,
reaching the level of absurdity, then we are dealing with someone who
has lost all sense of reality.
Turkish political analyst Burak Bekdil acknowledged in his article
published by BESA Center Perspectives: “The Turkish-Islamist psyche is
susceptible to…the pitfalls of honor, fatalism, conspiracism, bombast,
publicity, and confusion.”
Over the years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made many
bizarre statements that raise suspicions about his mental sanity.
Here are some examples of Erdogan’s nutty statements.
In 2014, Erdogan told a group of Latin American Muslims visiting
Istanbul that Muslim Pilgrims discovered America several centuries
before Christopher Columbus: “It is alleged that the American
continent was discovered by Columbus in 1492. In fact, Muslim sailors
reached the American continent 314 years before Columbus in 1178. …In
his memoirs, Christopher Columbus mentions the existence of a mosque
atop a hill on the coast of Cuba. A mosque would look perfect on that
hill today.” Of course, Columbus never said such a thing in his
memoirs.
In another outlandish claim, Pres. Erdogan announced that Turkey will
send a spaceship with a Turkish astronaut to the moon in 2023 on the
centennial of the Republic of Turkey. He speculated that a female
astronaut may be a part of the Turkish space team. It would be
interesting to see how Turkey, a bankrupt country, could spend
billions of dollars on such a far-fetched adventure, not to mention
its lack of space technology. Maybe this whole topic is a hoax to
divert the people’s attention from their woes and empty pockets to
gazing at the moon and stars! A skeptical Turk sarcastically said: “We
cannot go to the supermarket, so how will we go to space?” Another
Turk remarked, “We were not able to distribute masks [for COVID] to
citizens, so how do we go to space?”
Before Erdogan can fantasize about going to space, he should worry
about the collapsing Lira, millions of unemployed Turks, and a huge
percentage of his people suffering from abject poverty. According to
Turkish sources, 34 million Turks are on the verge of starvation. In
the first six months of this year, 1.6 million Turkish families had
their electricity and gas cut off because they could not pay their
bills.
Turkish analyst Burak Bekdil wrote that he “grew up in classrooms
filled up with mottoes like ‘A Turk is worth the world,’ ‘Turks have
had to fight the seven biggest world powers,’ and ‘A Turk’s only
friend is another Turk.’ Our textbooks taught us that the supreme
Turkish race dominated the entire world for centuries; that the
Ottoman Empire collapsed only after a coalition of world powers
attacked it; that we lost WWI because we had allied with the Germans,
who were defeated (not us); and that one day, we will make the entire
planet Turkish. We were taught that an Ottoman warrior could keep on
fighting even after having been beheaded by the [Byzantine] enemy.”
As a result, Bekdil explained, “Turks are hungry for fairy tales about
the good life they did not get to enjoy over the past century, but
believe they deserve. Any feel-good news propaganda, even Erdogan’s
famous ‘The West, including the Germans, are jealous of us!’ tirade,
finds millions of receptive listeners in Turkey’s post-modern
marketplace of absurdity.”
In an article titled, “‘Jesus Was Turkish’: the Bizarre Resurgence of
Pseudo-Turkology,” Luka Ivan Jukic wrote in NEW/LINES Magazine: “You
would be forgiven for not knowing that former U.S. President Barack
Obama was a Turk. Or that Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad were,
likewise, of Turkic origin. You would be forgiven for not knowing that
Russia is really a great Turkic nation, that Kazakhs and the Japanese
are genetically identical or that the legendary English King Arthur
was, you guessed it, a Turk. You would be forgiven because none of
this is true. Yet in countries from central Europe to Central Asia and
everywhere in between, supposed historical facts like these and the
theories they support have made their way from the minds of
overzealous and pseudo-academics into national school textbooks,
popular culture and, indeed, official government ideology.”
In 1932, the Turkish language Institute invented the fake “Sun
Language Theory” which claimed that “the Turkish language was the
source of all human language and therefore all human civilization,”
Jukic wrote. “Linguists from the Institute claimed that language had
been invented by sun-worshipping proto-Turks in Central Asia as they
babbled at the sun.” Furthermore, the Turkish History Thesis claimed
that “Turks had brought civilization to China, Europe, India and
elsewhere when they migrated from the Eurasian Steppe.” These
pseudo-theories found their way into Turkish textbooks and popular
books, brainwashing several generations of Turks. Most adherents of
these pseudo-scientific claims are the followers of Pres. Erdogan.
There is no super race. All people are equal. They are all God’s
children. While claims of superiority may satisfy a vain human
inclination, no one should treat other races as inferior.
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2- Anna Turcotte makes history as Westbrook, Maine, City
Council president
(Press Herald, Maine)—The Westbrook City Council made local history
last week in unanimously selecting Anna Astvatsaturova Turcotte as its
president, the first refugee and by all accounts the first woman to
fill that role.
A lawyer specializing in international law, Turcotte has long been
involved in advocacy work around her birth city of Baku, Azerbaijan.
She wants to do more for Westbrook.
“I am a Mainer,” Turcotte. “This is my home, and at this point, I’ve
lived here for 30 years, longer than my home country.”
Turcotte’s Armenian family fled Azerbaijan when she was a child
because of attacks on Armenians there. The family spent three years in
Armenia before moving to the United States.
After graduating from the University of Maine School of Law in 2003,
Turcotte worked as a clerk at the International Criminal Court in the
Netherlands. In 2012, she published “Nowhere, the Story of Exile,” a
collection of her diary entries as a child fleeing from her homes.
Her political career in Maine began to take shape in 2013 when she
successfully worked to get the Legislature to officially recognize the
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, an autonomous state home to many Armenians
in Azerbaijan.
A few years later, she ran for the Westbrook council in Ward 3.
What she found while out among residents campaigning was pleasantly surprising.
She won the 2015 election with 64% of the vote, defeating incumbent
Councilor Paul Emery. She was unopposed in her reelection bid in 2018
and became the council’s vice president.
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3- Aram Gavoor Appointed Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
at George Washington University Law School
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The George Washington University Law School recently
appointed Aram A. Gavoor as its Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
A senior Department of Justice attorney with years of trial and
appellate experience and public law policy expertise, Gavoor also
teaches Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, and other courses at The
George Washington University Law School, where he received the
school’s Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award in 2020 and
2017.
Gavoor is a nationally recognized scholar in the fields of
administrative law, federal courts, and national security law whose
scholarship was cited by the Supreme Court of the United States. He
was recognized by The National Law Journal as a D.C. Rising Star (40
under 40) honoree.
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4- France’s Zemmour calls for defense of Armenia,
a ‘Christian’ nation in ‘Islamic ocean’
(Middle East Eye)—Eric Zemmour, far-right candidate for the 2022
French presidential election, called on Sunday, December 12 Zemmour
during a surprise visit to Arrmenia to better defend Armenia, a
“Christian” nation in the middle of “an Islamic ocean”.
The former journalist and commentator, known for provocative
statements against Islam and immigration, is the main challenger to
longtime far-right figure Marine Le Pen for a place in a second round
of France’s presidential election slated for April. One of them could
face the incumbent President Emmanuel Macron in the runoff vote. He
said on Friday that he chose Armenia for his first campaign trip
because "it is an old Christian land” and “one of the cradles of our
civilization.”
During a visit to the monastery of Khor Virap, his first overseas trip
as a candidate, Zemmour invoked what he described as a historical
clash between Christianity and Islam.
“It is the great confrontation between Christianity and Islam which is
reborn today,” he said. “We see it here with a Christian nation, which
intends to remain so, in the middle of an Islamic ocean.”
Zemmour delivered the remarks following a Christian mass at the
historic monastery located near the border with Turkey. “On the border
between Armenia and Turkey, facing Mount Ararat, I want to tell the
Armenians what a model of resistance they have been for centuries,”
the 63-year-old tweeted afterwards.
The 63-year-old presidential candidate for the Reconquete party has
been described by some as “France’s Trump” because of his hostile
rhetoric on migration and Islam.
Upon his arrival at Yerevan airport in Armenia on Saturday, a small
group of protesters shouted slogans against Zemmour, describing him as
a racist, and some held up signs in French that read, “Not welcome,
Eric Zemmour”.
“We have seen French people who fail in their duty because they talk
but they do not really defend Armenia,” said Zemmour.
Zemmour also visited the Armenian genocide memorial near Yerevan.
In Yerevan, Zemmour also dined with members of the local French
chamber of commerce and met with Armenian Catholic Patriarch Raphael
Bedros XXI before holding talks on Monday with four members of
Armenia’s parliament affiliated with the ruling Civil Contract party.
Two of those lawmakers head the parliament’s standing committees on
legal and foreign affairs. The parliamentary press service said they
discussed with Zemmour the “development of French-Armenian relations.”
France, home to a sizeable Armenian diaspora, is among some 30
countries that recognize the mass killings of Armenians during the
First World War as “genocide”.
While accusing Azerbaijan of systematically destroying Armenian
churches, Armenian leaders have long insisted that the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not a religious one. Armenia has also had
a cordial relationship with another Muslim neighbor, Iran.
France is home to an influential Armenian community. The latter was
instrumental in the December 2020 passage by both houses of the French
parliament of resolutions calling on Macron’s government to recognize
Karabakh as an independent republic.
Macron criticized Azerbaijan and accused Turkey of recruiting jihadist
fighters from Syria for the Azerbaijani army shortly after the
outbreak of last year’s war over Karabakh. The French president stated
in September this year that France and Armenia enjoy a “special
relationship” that should be deepened further.
Zemmour complained at the weekend that French leaders “talk but don't
really defend Armenia.”
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5- Armenia Continues Fight Against COVID-19
Armenia continues the fight against COVID-19, as the country continues
promoting the vaccination phase.
The U.S. State Department on July 26 warned American citizens to
reconsider travel to Armenia due to the increase in cases of the
Covid-19.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a
Level 3 Travel Health Notice for Armenia due to COVID-19, indicating a
high level of COVID-19 in the country,” said the State Department.
The State Department also urged U.S. citizens not to travel to the
Nagorno-Karabakh region due to armed conflict.
“The U.S. government is unable to provide emergency services to U.S.
citizens in Nagorno-Karabakh as U.S. government employees are
restricted from traveling there,” the State Department added.
WHO, with funding from the European Union, in September supplied X-ray
equipment to 7 COVID-19 frontline hospitals – 1 in the capital Yerevan
and in 6 other cities in Armenia.
A new law came into effect on December 10, by order of the Armenian
Ministry of Health, that would allow employers to fire workers who
refuse to provide proof of vaccination. Armenia has the lowest
vaccination rate in the region and Europe.
Armenia began its mass vaccination campaign in April with authorities
planning to inoculate 700,000 of the country's 2.9 million citizens by
the end of the year. However, only 516,989 citizens had been fully
vaccinated by Dec. 6.
620,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine were donated to Armenia by Norway
with the support of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism within the
framework of the Team Europe initiative is already in Armenia.
Poland has donated a total of 201,640 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca
anti-COVID-19 vaccine worth nearly $660,000. Poland's embassy in
Yerevan said on November 25 that the donation was made by the Polish
Foreign Ministry to Armenia's Health Ministry.
"The entire infrastructure is ready to carry out a large number of
vaccinations. I add that vaccination does not exclude the disease, but
reduces the risk of contagion", Armenian Health Minister Anahit
Avanesyan reported during a recent press conference, adding that the
late entry into force of the restrictive measures was a shortcoming of
her department. According to the minister, they are currently
considering the option of requesting certification of negativity from
Covid or vaccination to enter restaurants and attend concerts.
There were 7,006 active cases in Armenia as of December 20. Armenia
has recorded 343708 coronavirus cases and 7,903 deaths; 328,799 have
recovered.
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