TURKEY’S CHRONIC INABILITY TO FACE THE TRUTH
Edward Papelian
Global Politician, NY
y
April 29 2008
White House should have the courage to call a spade a spade. President
Ronald Reagan did It – why doesn’t everyone? How would the USA react
were a country to demand that the terrible act of terrorism on 9/11
be labeled a simple "accident" and be forgotten?
The United State of America is regarded as the only country in
the world with a "universal constitution." As a result, the US
is often looked to in questions regarding moral responsibilities
related to human rights and justice. In the spirit of justice and
moral responsibility, on April 22nd, 1981, Ronald Reagan, one of
the greatest Presidents of the United States of America, labeled the
Turkish crime against all humanity as "genocide of the Armenians" in
his Proclamation 4838. Reagan’s Presidential Proclamation was made
during the cold war (!) and despite heavy lobbying by the Turkish
government. But President Reagan made it clear to Turkey that the
United State of America doesn’t buckle to threats and blackmail, and
that no country in the world can forbid the US to speak about the truth
about crimes against all humanity. Regan saw the Armenian Genocide as
an indisputable fact – as does the independent historian – and simply
spoke publicly about something the Turkish nation would prefer ignored.
This was President Reagan’s approach to (and understanding of) being
a superpower and defender of justice and democracy, but what about
the administrations that followed? Is the US on the way to losing its
former influential moral authority for the sake of "diplomacy"? Is
the US still able to speak out against historic injustices?
Some Facts: in the US, a group of paid lobbyists and Turkish
nationalists have continually launched unprecedented attacks on H
Res. 106 (Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian
Genocide Resolution). John Evans, the former US Ambassador to Armenia
and carrier diplomat, was forced to resign in September 2006 merely
for labeling the events of 1915 a "genocide" at a social gathering
in California. Later, however, we were at least shown that the US
Senate wouldn’t allow a foreign government – Turkey – to tell the US
Administration what to do. In a rare move of protest, the US Senate
refused to approve the successor of Amb. Evans, thus leaving the US
ambassadorial post to Armenia vacant for the past 18 months. As one
Senator stated, "We are obviously pleased that the administration
came to understand that I had no intention of withdrawing my hold. I
hope the new nominee would be somebody who understands the reality
of the Armenian Genocide and can express himself or herself when the
time comes for a nomination hearing."
Turkish Penal Code and Democratic Countries: why should democratic
countries condone the efforts of Turkey to import its Article 301
of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) – an article that criminalizes the
"insulting" of "Turkishness" (and/or the Turkish nation) and, in
practice, forbids telling the truth about the Armenian Genocide – to
the US and EU? How would the USA react were a country to demand that
the terrible act of terrorism on 9/11 be labeled a simple "accident"
and simply be forgotten? Why should America help Turkey in its attempts
to falsify history? Why should Armenian Americans and Armenians around
the world be forced to accept the Turkish genocide of the Armenians
(1915-1923) just as a "tragedy"? Turkish denial of Armenian Genocide –
corresponding justifying the crime and the ideology behind this crime-
and Turkish racial motivated foreign policy is threatening the very
existence of Armenian People!
The Birth of the Term "Genocide": while the Armenian Genocide was in
progress, a historically unparalleled humanitarian act was undertaken
in the US. The US ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau,
gave to protocol: "When the Turkish authorities gave the orders
for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant
to a whole race." His evaluation of the real intentions behind the
"deportations" (i.e. annihilation) instigated by the nationalist
government of Ottoman Turkey was confirmed by the numerous secret
reports sent to Berlin by German diplomats.
The slaughter of the Armenians is one of the defining moments of the
20th Century, a century characterized by genocide. The word "genocide"
was coined by the jurist Raphael Lemkin by combining the Greek word
"genos" (race) with the Latin word "caedere" (to kill). Following
the Turkish extermination program against the Armenians, the phrase
"Never again!" was once again heard. The devastation of the Armenian
Holocaust so shocked Lemkin (a lawyer of Jewish descent) that he
drew up a convention "against the destruction of national, religious
and racial groups" – but his initiative initially fell upon deaf
ears. Lemkin was only first heard after the Jewish Holocaust.
Years before the Nazi murder of six million Jews, Winston Churchill,
the Prime Minister of Great Britain, characterized Turkey’s break
with civilization as following: "In 1915 the Turkish government
began and ruthlessly carried out the infamous general massacre and
deportation of Armenians in Asia Minor… the clearance of the race
from Asia Minor was about as complete as such an act, on a scale so
great, could well be… There is no reasonable doubt that this crime
was planned and executed for political reasons… whole districts
blotted out in one administrative holocaust – these were beyond human
redress." (Sir Winston Churchill – The World Crisis Vol. 5)
Does Turkey Losing the Sense for Historic Facts and Reality? Noting
justifies genocide. Armenians don’t need to prove the fact of Armenian
Genocide. Let Turkish politicians prove to the world community the
existence of 5, 10, 15 million Armenians in "Anatolia" and, above
all, the existence of Armenian civilization in Western Armenia –
"Turkish Armenia" – in today’s Eastern Anatolia! (The number of those
who regarded themselves as "Turks" – not "Muslims" or Ottomans –
in Anatolia prior to the start of the Armenian Genocide and policy
of forced Turkification was not more than 3 or 5%. Even the rulers
of the Young Turkish movement themselves came from the Balkans and
areas in Greece…)
A couple of weeks ago, Recep Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minster, had
to cancel a news conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, to avoid questions on
the Armenian Genocide. In April, while Mr. Erdogan traveled to Sweden
to warn politicians there not to bring up the issue of the Armenian
Genocide in parliament, in the same time, Hasan Murat Mercan, the
chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Turkish
Parliament, was in Israel busy pressuring Israel against the Armenian
Genocide Resolution introduced in the Knesset. The next station will
certainly once again be Washington! But Democratic countries are
tired of Turkish fictions regarding the Armenian Genocide. What the
world really wants is a "Turkish Willy Brandt" who travels to Yerevan,
Armenia, and admits the past crime of Turkish government.
(As part of a ceremony on December 7th, 1970, the then-current German
Chancellor Willy Brandt placed a wreath at the memorial honoring the
Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw. After placing the wreath ribbon, he knelt
in front of the monument for a moment of silence before getting up
and leading his delegation away.)
Armenians always Rose against Foreign Rules: Armenia had been occupied
by Romans, Arabs, Greeks, Persians, Russians and, in the end, the
Turkish. However, Armenia always rose against all such occupiers and
managed to secure their freedom and survival, often even regaining
their kingdom and state. But none of the foreign occupiers of the
Armenian Highland (in Today’s Anatolia) were ever nearly as barbaric as
the Young Turkish regime: Starting in 1915 the Turkish regime pursued
a genocidal policy which, by 1923, had led to the total destruction
of Armenian civilization in the historic Armenian homeland (which
has since been renamed as Eastern Anatolia). In truth, however,
given the long history of Turkish-led massacres of Armenian people
in their homeland during 4000-plus years prior to 1915, the Armenian
Genocide of 1915-23 was to be predicted.
The German Empire was the closest ally of Ottoman Turkey. Therefore,
still in 1903 (!), Georg Brandes (1842-1927), a prominent Danish and
European literary critic, already raised his voice for Armenia in
an impressive speech to students in Berlin: "An Appeal to Europe’s
Conscious … I do not tend to overrate the spoken words of a
simple author, and I know quite well that the decision of all major
political questions lies with the ruling powers. But in our times,
even the powers that be must take note of a strong and unanimously
expressed public opinion, and that is why we must shout for as long
as it takes until such a public opinion is awoken in all countries –
and especially in the German Empire. As you all know, during the
last ten years Turkish Armenia has been the scene of atrocities
incomparable to anything in recorded world history since the time
of the barbarians. Prior to it happening, no one would have thought
it possible that an entire population could become the object of
such bloodshed, torture and mass murder. The blood of hundreds of
thousands is screaming to the heavens… when the Armenians began to
defend themselves at numerous places, the pretext was supplied to
exterminate this infidel – that is, Christian – population through
mass torture and mass slaughter…."
(This historic document from 1903 was reprinted in the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany’s leading daily newspapers, on
July 2nd, 2005.)
On April 24, 1915, 12 years after the almost prophetic words of
G. Brandes, the Ottoman Turkey’s government (hijacked by Turkish
nationalists) used a variety of pretexts to put their machinery for
the destruction of Armenians into motion.
While the genocide of Armenians was in progress Turkey told visiting
allies of simple "resettlement," but even the diplomats of Germany
described these statements as "blatant lies." The same "blatant lies"
are still being repeated in a continually more aggressive and rude
manner by Turkish politicians when visiting Capitol Hill and European
capitals! Turkish politicians have started to believe on their own
lies and fabrications. The chronic lies resulting from Turkey’s
ruthless pursuit of Pan-Turanism, hatred of other civilizations and
greed for foreign territories and property has resulted in Turkey’s
continual denial of its past and an incurable internal intellectual and
political stagnation. Otherwise, the numerous reports of eye witnesses
and survivors of the Armenian Genocide as detailed in the reports of
German, UK, French, Austrian and American Ambassadors and Consuls to
Ottoman Turkey would no longer continue to be denied by Turkey.
The Germany’s foreign affair documents of that time as a whole
illustrate a very exact picture of the systematic nature of the
Armenian Genocide. At that time, the German officials alone had the
privilege to encrypt all reports; the reports were only meant for a
small circle of superiors. For Ankara, these files are a particularly
uncomfortable source. No one can write them off as Armenian propaganda.
These secret reports were filed by the very allies working with the
Turkish government to help modernize the Turkish military during the
First World War – in other words, by allies that no reason to report
anything but the truth as witnessed.)
Hundreds of cables and confidential reports sent by German
diplomats in Turkey to Berlin are available on the Internet at
These papers document and confirm the mercilessness
of the Turkish authorities. Many of the diplomatic and eye-witness
reports are worded in a most ruthlessly factual, extremely direct and
not at all roundabout language; they speak of extermination a race,
annihilation and concentration camps. In one report from the German
Ambassador to Ottoman Turkey we can read: "… Apparently it is
feared that the real purpose of the Armenian deportations, that is
the total extermination of the Armenian race, could be thwarted by
further mass conversions. Since then another, less conspicuous way,
has been pursued…" (DE/PA-AA/R14089, Pera, 24 January 1916.)
A few months after the official start of the campaign to obliterate
the Christian subjects in Ottoman Turkey, Berlin once again received
warnings from its diplomats about the true intention of Turkey:
"…Apart from this, the Commander-in-Chief of the 3rd Army, Mahmud
Kiamel Pasha, who has relocated his headquarters here, is also
interfering harshly in the government of the Vilayets (…) This
humane practice, which I, too, espoused, was suddenly put to an end
through some sort of influence by the committee. Now, Mahmud Kiamel
Pasha has ordered the immediate and most ruthless deportation of all
Armenians (…) The supporters of the latter will, by the way, openly
admit that the final goal of their actions against the Armenians is
their total annihilation in Turkey. After the war we will not have
‘any more Armenians in Turkey’ are the exact words of an eminent
person."(DE/PA-AA/BoKon/170, Erzerum, 28 July 1915, Confidential
Report.)
For the most part, the Armenians living in Istanbul (Constantinople),
the capital of Ottoman Turkey, were not affected by the
genocide. This was nothing but a diplomatically tactic used to
mislead the foreign governments and embassies, a tactic reminiscent
of how the Theresienstadt deportation camp was used for propaganda
to cover up the real annihilation during the Jewish Holocaust. The
organized death marches of the Armenian people to the Syrian Desert,
however, were nothing other than mobile concentration camps: "Despite
assurances by the Porte to the contrary, everything is being directed
at the destruction of the Armenian people." (DE/PA-AA/R14088, Pera,
25 September 1915.)
Another report from the German Consul in Aleppo (Roessler) to the Reich
Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) summarizes the Turkish policy regarding
the Armenian people: "…All steps taken in respect of the Armenians,
as far as I could see and observe, led to the conclusion described
to me by the Director of Emigrants, Schuekri Bey, ‘The final result
must be the extermination of the Armenian race…’." (DE/PA-AA/R14090,
Aleppo, 3 January 1916.) Indeed, the fact that there is now no viable
Armenian civilization left in Anatolia is evidence that the aimed
for extermination was a success.
Mount Ararat is the spiritual centre of Armenia people. photo:
The Dream of Turkish Nationalists: A Turkish Empire only for Turkish
Race: prior to the Turkish-led genocide of Armenian people in 1915,
and despite both discrimination and numerous prior massacres,
through their skills and "survival tactics" Armenians had at that
time managed to achieve an almost "Golden Age" socially, culturally
and economically. This prosperity was noticed with distrust by the
Turkish nationalist rulers and neighbors; it was viewed as a possible
danger to the Turkish Nationalist Cause, for unlike the Turkish
regime the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey championed ideals of progress
and civility. This is one of reasons why the new Turkish nationalists
persecuted and pursued the extermination of the Armenians: The Armenian
culture, their new social status was a threat to the Turkish Islamic
Ottoman Empire.
The Young Turk movement dreamed of a Great Turkey without any prominent
ethnic minorities. The Young Turks were merciless in making this
dream come true. The Young Turkish ideology also propagated a single
nation of all Turkish races between Thrace in the west and China in
the east. But the Armenians, whose traditional homeland lay divided on
both sides of the Ottoman-Russian border, separated the Turkish-Muslim
area like a wall. To realize their Pan-Turkish/Pan-Turanic dreams,
it was easier for the Turkish to simply destroy the Armenians – a
Christian folk that was unwilling to assimilate and that, like other
Christian minorities in Ottoman Turkey, was an easy prey and in no way
related by blood to the "Turkish race and Turkishness" -(e.g.) than
to fight their way through North Iran. The Young Turkish rulers – the
Grand Vizier Talat Pascha and Minister of War Enver Pascha – began by
eliminating the leaders of the Armenians. Within three years there was
not a single Armenian left in the central historic settlement areas.
What happened to them was summarized and highlighted recently in the
cross-party and unanimously adopted Armenian Resolution of the German
Federal Parliament in 2005. The following consists of excerpts from the
rationale and resolution itself: "90 years ago, on April 24th, 1915,
by order of the Young Turk movement steering the Ottoman Empire, the
Armenian political and cultural elite were arrested, transported deeper
inland and to a large extent put to death. For Armenians throughout the
world, this date has become the Day of Remembrance for the expulsion
and massacre of the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire which
had already begun towards the end of the 19th Century and, however,
occurred to an even greater extent during the First World War.
At the start of the war the recruited Armenian soldiers of the Ottoman
Army were combined into work battalions and, for the most part,
murdered. As of spring 1915, the women, children and elderly were put
on death marches through the Syrian Desert. Those among the expelled
who did not die or get murdered while underway suffered this fate at
the latest in the inhumane camps located the desert around Deir ez
Zôr. Massacres were also carried out by special task forces set up
specifically for this purpose.
High-ranking Turkish civil servants who voiced resistance to these
procedures as well as criticism from the Ottoman Parliament were met
by the Young Turk Regime with brutal rejection. Many areas from which
the Christian Armenians were expelled were then resettled with Kurds
or Muslim refugees of the Balkan Wars. Likewise, members of other
Christian folks – in-particularly the Aramaic/Assyrian and Chaldean
Christians – as well as certain Muslim minorities were deported
and massacred.
According to impartial calculations, over one-million Armenians
were victim to the deportation and mass murder. Numerous independent
historians, parliaments and international organizations describe the
expulsion and annihilation of the Armenians as genocide.
To date, the Republic of Turkey – the legal successors of the
Ottoman Empire – still continues to deny the fact that these actions
were systematic in nature and/or that the mass deaths during the
resettlement marches and the massacres were committed intentionally by
the Ottoman government… Turkish justification is that the Armenians
used of force and armed resistance against Turks during the Turkish
resettlement measures…
As a whole, the magnitude of the massacres and deportation that
occurred in Turkey is still played down and largely denied. This
attitude of Turkey is in direct contradiction to the idea of
reconciliation which stands at the forefront of the European Union’s
community of values. Even today historians in Turkey are still not
free to deal with the history of deportation and murder of Armenians;
despite relaxation of the previously existing liability of punishable
culpability, they are still subject to great pressure.
As the main military ally of the Ottoman Empire, the German Empire
was likewise deeply involved in these events. From the outset, both
the political and military leadership of the German Empire were fully
informed of the persecution and murder of the Armenians.
The files of the foreign office, which consist of reports from the
German Ambassadors and Consuls to the Ottoman Empire, document the
systematic implementation of the massacres…
The German Parliament honors and commemorates the victims of violence,
murder and expulsion among the Armenian People prior to and during
the First World War. It deplores the actions of the Young Turkish
government of the Ottoman Empire which resulted in the almost total
extermination of the Armenians in Anatolia. It also regrets the
inglorious role played by the German Reich which, when confronted with
manifold information on the organized expulsion and annihilation of
Armenians, did not once attempt to stop the atrocities…
The German Parliament is painfully aware from its own extensive past
experience how difficult it is for any nation to face the dark sides
of its past…
Against this background, the German Parliament deplores the fact that
a full discussion of the events of the past in the Ottoman Empire
is still not possible in Turkey, and that scholars and writers who
wish to deal with this aspect of Turkish history are prosecuted and
exposed to public defamation…"
(Lower House of the German Parliament, Printed Matter 15/5689, 15th
Legislative Period, 15.06.05)
It is worth mentioning that the Turkish government mobilized some
of the 1.8 million Turkish people living in Germany in an attempt to
force Germany to not pass the Armenian Resolution. Prior to the vote
on the resolution, Turkey even predicated "the end of the world"
should Germany acknowledge the shared responsibility held by the
German Empire. The Turkish blackmail attempts didn’t stop Germany
– the Turkish closest war-time ally – from taking this first-ever
official step to contradict the Turkish industry of genocide denial.
A press release of the ruling fraction of the German Federal Government
prior to the discussion of the Armenian Resolution in the German
Federal Parliament reads in part: "…The debate with which the German
Parliament marks the anniversary of the campaign to exterminate the
Turkish Armenians in the year 1915 pursues common three goals shared by
all parties: The German Parliament recognizes that Germany, during the
First World War, through partial approval and the failure to implement
effective counter measures, shares a joint responsibility for this
genocide and, therefore, asks the Armenian people for forgiveness…"
( s/rs_dok/0,,33401,00.html or Bundestag.de)
The German Federal Parliament also attempted to encourage Turkey
to end its simulated amnesia by admitting in its resolution that
"Germany, which assisted in the repression of the recognition of the
crimes against the Armenian People, is now also obligated to confront
its own responsibility…"
(Lower House of the German Parliament Printed Matter 15/5689, 15th
Legislative Period 15.06.05)
To the independent historian it is indisputable fact that Turkey by
using different pre-texts systematically and in an organized manner
cruelly liquidated a large part of the Armenian people during the
First World War. The exterminating acts perpetrated by the Young
Turkish government were in no way limited to the territory of Ottoman
Turkey alone, but rather extended all the way to the northwest of Iran
(which was briefly occupied by the Ottoman Turks) and only found their
provisional end in the Caucuses. No intelligent, seriously-minded
person questions the factuality of the systematic annihilation of the
Armenians by Turkey. At the time it was happening, even Talaat Pasha
– the main responsible person for the genocide – openly admitted it
was going on to foreign diplomats. But even that which was freely
admitted by those in charge at the time is now vehemently denied by
the Turkish government of today. They even go so far as to claim the
victims as the perpetrators, which in itself is a both a result and
proof of Turkey’s dangerous loss of memory.
Contrary to the official position of Turkey and its "palace
historians," the mass killings of Armenians were not the result of
chaos caused by First World War "epidemics/hunger." Quite the opposite:
The collapse of the war strategy of the Young Turkish Junta on the
battle field and the limited Armenian resistance forced the Turkish
to slow down the destruction machinery. This alone saved the Armenian
people from total annihilation by the Turkish Empire! The Germans even
warned Turkey that the "deportation" ("Sevkiyat", i.e. annihilation)
of the Armenian farmers of Central Anatolia would cause food shortages
throughout the entire Ottoman Turkey and harm Turkish troops. But
for the Turkish administration, the implementation of its destruction
policy was of first priority!
In one of the reports of the German consul coming from the place of
horror we read: "The aim of Turkish policy… is to attain the Armenian
regions and to annihilate the Armenians… All of the utterances of
Talat and Enver to the contrary are lies… There will be no place
left for Armenians to live."
The Assassination of a Mass Murder, the Trail of the Assassin and Its
Historical Impact for Nuremberg War Tribunals: the Turkish Minister
of Interior Talaat Pasha – "The soul behind the persecution of the
Armenians," according to German Ambassador Metternich to Ottoman Turkey
– hid himself in the middle of the German capitol city. Confiding to
the Turkish author Edip Adivar, Talaat said, "(I) am ready to die for
that that I have done, and I know that I am going to die for it." In
1921, a young Armenian shot him on Hardenberg Street. The assassin
was put to trial and to general surprise the Berlin court found him
not guilty.
Sitting in the courtroom at the time was a young law student
of Jewish heritage named Robert Kempner who followed the events
attentively. Kempner later wrote that during the trial, for the
first time ever, the basic principle was applied that "genocide can
be opposed by foreign countries and that doing so is not improper
interference in internal affairs."
When the Nazis came to power, Kempner had to immigrate to the USA. In
1945 he came back as an assistant chief prosecutor of the Americans
during the Nuremberg War Trials. (Der Spiegel, Germany’s leading
weekly news magazine, No. 16/18.04.2005, printed edition.)
Pan-Turanic, Communism and the Old Narrow Minded Racial Motivated
Policy of Turkey: the idea of a Pan-Turkism and Pan-Islamic dream
did not stop with the proclamation of a "modern Turkey." In 1923,
a pact closed between Stalin and Kemal gave the Armenian regions
of Nachicevan and Nagorno Karabkh to the new formed former Soviet
Republic Azerbaijan as a gift (ignoring the will of Armenian population
in these regions). Today , 93 years after the Armenian Genocide,
the possible proclamation of a Kurdish State and the existence of
the new Republic of Armenia – created on a small part of the former
Russian Armenia – bothers the Turkish military, while the existence
of Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh bothers the Turkish Nationalist and
Islamist Prime Minster. In 2007, in another one of his hate-laden
speeches at a Pan-Turanic forum in Baku, Prime Minster Erdogan
referred to Nagorno Karabakh as "a bleeding wound for the Turkish
people." (todayszaman.com, 10.03.2007.) In 1992, the Turkish President
Turgut Ozal, instead of facing the truth about the Armenian Genocide
and giving the young independent Armenia "a helping hand," was driven
by his military and bureaucrats to station thousands of troops on the
borders of the newly independent Republic of Armenia, threatening to
send a few "firecrackers" across the border to Yerevan teach it the
"lesson of 1915."
Currently Turkey still refuses to stabilize diplomatic relations with
young Armenian state by setting unacceptable preconditions. Turkey
also spares no effort in increasing hatred and friction between
Armenia and Republic of Azerbaijan. In turn, the Azeri-Turks
this includes both nationalists and authorities in the Republic
Azerbaijan – in the spirit of Pan-Turanism and the Islamic policy of
1915 – are not only engaged in an aggressive denial of the Armenian
Genocide and inflammation of hatred against Armenians, but are also
(by the reactivation of old policies) now claiming that the current
Republic of Armenia is located on "Turkish/Azerbaijani land." Denial
has indeed become a way for Turkey’s "youngest brother (Azeri-Turks)"
to justify genocide and bring their support for Pan-Turanic/Turanism
and inhuman policy pursued in 1915…
Turkish nationalism, which as of late has also taken a highly
religious tone, can seemingly only hold its nation together through
rude nationalism and by keeping the old bogeymen alive. This coalition
continually busies itself with the invention of more new justifications
and excuses explaining the "sudden" disappearance of the Armenians
as other Christian people from their historical home in Anatolia
(among other places) as well as for the destruction of their unique,
ancient culture.
93 years after the "deportation to death of the Armenians" the
Turkish government – as well as all Turkish politicians of every
color – continues to practice the aggressive policy of denial with
a diplomatic ruthlessness similar to that of the Pashas responsible
for the genocide. Even if the responsibility of the genocide lies
with the government of that time, the Turkish elite of today make
themselves moral accomplices through their continual policy of denial.
Moral, it seems however, has never played a role in the Turkish
politics. Through its defamatory policy of denial, Turkey has not
only ignored all rules of decent behavior but also the very history
of the genocide. In doing this, they are merely being consequent to
the historical policies of the rulers responsible for this crime. Back
then it was no different: "…Once the gendarmes had killed a number of
Armenians, Faiz El-Ghussein – the former chief district administrator
of Mamuret ul-Aziz (today: Elazig) – reported, they put turbans on the
corpses and fetched Kurdish women who cried and wailed over the dead,
having been told that the Armenians had killed their people. Then
they got a photographer to take photographs of the scene. It all then
served as proof of the alleged Armenian atrocities."(Rolf Hosffeld:
Operation Nemesis, Die Turkei, Deutschland und der Völkermord an
den Armeniern/Operation Nemesis, Turkey, Germany and the Armenian
Genocide.)
Similarly, in the few remaining schools of today’s "modern" Turkey,
Armenian children (not welcomed in there historic home land) are
forced to write essays on how their ancestors committed massacres of
the Turks. In East Turkey (former West Armenia/"Turkish Armenia") –
where due to the genocide no Armenians are left – hateful theatrical
re-enactments of alleged massacres of Turkish/Muslims by Christian
Armenians are organized for school children, perhaps to give the needed
"education" how to justify a genocide and more? (Turkish Daily News,
"Anniversary celebrated with theatrical ‘massacre’", April 3, 2008)
Turkey, a land that has undertaken every attempt to forbid the use of
the word "genocide," has no compunctions against raising a monument
celebrating its own supposed "victims of genocide" – exactly at the
location where, prior to the genocide, the international contracts
had specified the founding of Turkish-Armenia (and/or the "Armenian
Provinces of Ottoman Turkey/West Armenia"). At the foot of the
biblical Ararat Mountain, the spiritual centre of the Armenia people,
the Turkish government has opened a "Museum of Genocide" ("Soykirim
Muezesi") to commemorate their own "victims of genocide" and falsify
history. This museum is nothing less than targeted provocation of
the real victims of the genocide.
Presently, 93 years after the instigation of the genocide of the
Armenians, selected Turkish "historians" maintain – for their own
self-satisfaction and for the targeted deception of the Turkish and
international public – that "there was no official document ordering
the extermination." If this logic were to be followed through,
the Holocaust would also be open to question; as is well-known, no
official document ordering the extermination was ever supposedly
issued under the National Socialist Regime either. The malicious
denial of the Turkish-instigated genocide of the Armenians and
the continual demand for still more proof is a byproduct of the
"glorious history" invented by Turkish bureaucrats for this "chosen
people." This invented, glorious history declares all civilized people
who ever existed within the perimeter of today’s Turkey – no matter
what their indigenous culture is or was – as proto-Turks. Armenians,
of course, do not belong to this. The splendid history of Turkey,
an artificial, eulogistic and ideological fabrication, continues to
exclude the worst and darkest sides of Turkey’s past – such as the
systematic extermination of the Armenians.
Some academicians and politicians ignore the fact that the Turkish
denial of Armenian Genocide itself is based on racism. According to
Turkish bureaucrats, the "Turkish Race" with its Islamic religion is
not a race able to committee crime against humanity. Turkish Prime
Minster Erdogan has argued that genocide is uncharacteristic of
Turks: "The character of this nation does not let it commit such
crimes." Professor Dr. Yusuf Halacoglu, the racially motivated
President of the Turkish Historical Society, openly practices
racism and extends great effort (with the assistance of Turkish and
Azeri-Turks nationalists and fascists,) on proving the non-existence of
the Armenian People and, in turn, the state of "Armenia." But sometime
Professor Halacoglu has to disagree with himself and explain to the
Turkish people why "non-Turks" still exist in Turkey. As he did when –
as it was widely echoed in the Turkish press in 2007 – he claimed that
"People we call Kurds are actually of Turkmen origin, while those
we think are Kurdish Alevi are unfortunately of Armenian origin." He
put forward the claim that "Most of the people in the TIKKO (Turkey
Workers’ and Villagers’ Liberation Army) and PKK (Kurdistan Workers’
Party) organizations are Kurds of Armenian origin." These are the
same "historians" and bureaucrats who, in addition to falsifying
history, have implemented a Turkish version of a Nazi-like ideology
propagandizing the superiority of the "Turkish race." This includes
legitimizing the act of genocide as well as the racist ideology
that led to the act – and includes the legitimization of any and all
stereotyping of the Armenian people as a dangerous enemy, as a deadly
bogeyman in the closet.
For Turkey, the denial of the Armenian Genocide is the equivalent of
denying the prior existence of the Armenian People in what is today
Anatolia/East Anatolia. To Turkey, to admit to the extermination
of the "Western Armenians" and annexation of their territories
would be the equivalent of giving the Armenian nation the right
of existence and, in turn, threaten the foundation of the Turkish
Republic. To prevent this, the Turkish Republic has chosen to cling
to the stubborn attitude that Ismet Inonu, the second President
of Turkey and successor of Ataturk, said in 1938: "The Turkish
nation alone has the right to place ethnic and racial demands in
this country." This particularly racist attitude is amplified in
the six principles of Kemailism (known as the "Six Arrows"), one of
which stipulates the basic characteristic of Turkish nationalism:
"The Turkish nation is indivisible; no non-Turkish minorities and
languages are permitted on Anatolian soil." (Die turkische Gefahr?..,
Hans-Peter Raddatz Herbig.) When such blatantly racist statements are
the basis of a nation/ state- ideology, it is hardly surprising that
genocide and its denial results, as genocide is, in the end, the most
paramount and aggressive expression of racial discrimination! (Denial
of Armenian Genocide has littel to do with the "Turkish honor"!
The Armenian Genocide was the intended result of activities planned
by the late Ottoman Turkish Government to annihilation the Armenian
population residing in their historical homeland. Denialists on
the Turkish payroll also ignore the fact that concurrent to the
Armenian Genocide, other Christian minorities were likewise killed
en masse. Were these "non-Muslin Turks" also all "foreign spies and
infidels etc "?
The definition of a "real" or "unreal" genocide is extremely flexible
for Turkish nationalists and Turkish Government. To them, when the
topic of Turkish crimes against humanity is broached, a "real" genocide
has to be as organized and extensive as the Jewish Holocaust; otherwise
the word genocide is seemingly inappropriate. Turkish nationalists,
however, make an exception to this definition when they talk about
the suffering of a "Muslim minority" (as in Bosnia).
Despite Turkish Propaganda Nobody Is Comparing the Armenian Genocide
with the Jewish Holocaust: there are, of course, both similarities and
differences between the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust,
but the end result of the policies behind them remains the same. The
Nazi’s simply perfected and industrialized of the basic annihilation
machinery initially practiced by the Turkish Young Regime "The National
Socialists definitely had great admiration for the Young Turks. Alfred
Rosenberg, the chief intellectual theorist of the Nazi Party, praised
the Turkish in 1926 as true allies while vilifying the victims. The
latter – just like the Jews – had attacked the backs of the second-tier
powers during the First World War. Thus, some severities [were] not
avoidable…"(Der Spiegel, Germany’s leading weekly news magazine,
No. 16, 18.04.2005, printed edition.)
In some cases, Turkish bureaucrats did make exceptions in how they
dealt with specific Armenians – particularly when it came to young
Armenian women. Forcefully Islamized, the Armenian women survivors
became "members" of numerous Turkish families. Indeed, there are many
"Turkish" grandmothers that are actually of Armenian origin but who
keep their roots secret due to fear of reprisal. There have been
cases in which the truth has come out, but they were suppressed by
the Turkish bureaucracy.
Turkish Historical Society President Yusuf Halacoglu, who is
involved in dubious "scientific research," has confirmed that in
1936-37 the state used a "house-by-house" method to identify such
converts. He, too, had "a list of Armenian converts" that he was never
to disclose. (Todayszaman.com, 27.08.2007, "Halacoglu is practicing
racism".) Perhaps Yusuf Halacoglu can verify some of the investigative
discoveries of the murdered Turkish-Armenian journalist Harnt Dink,
including that Sabiha Gökcen, the world’s first woman combat pilot
(whose real name is Hatun Sebiliciyan) was actually an Armenian orphan
who was adopted from an orphanage by Kemal Ataturk.
Unlike the Nazis, who murdered both Jewish children as well as those
of Jewish-born Christian converts, the Turkish and Kurdish Agahs
(lords) often left the kidnapped and forcefully islamized young
women alive (in some cases young children) – usually for later
exploitation. According to the eye-witness reports of Red Cross
workers, the marching deportees were stopped at numerous locations
so that the Turkish could choose their plunder. It was a "sheer slave
market," only "nothing was paid for."
The officials of the Young Turkish government and the common
people even fought among themselves for the property of the
Armenians. Numerous Turkish people and a group of Kurds profited
through the extermination program against the Armenians -much as
certain Germans did through the Holocaust. The auctioning of the
goods and chattels both stolen from and left behind by the murdered or
fleeing Armenians is direly reminiscent of the auctions held in Nazi
Germany at which the goods and furnishing of deported Jews were sold.
As was the case with the "stolen Jewish Gold," the Armenian Genocide
continues to be a "profitable venture" for many people and/or
groups. The Armenian Genocide was a financial windfall for Turkey,
but now it also offers financial gain for lobby groups such as The
Livingston Group, DLA Piper and Richard Gephardt (a Democrat lobbyist
for denialists Turkey at DLA Piper).
The Turkish propaganda used to discredit Armenians and gain the support
of the World Jewish Communities tries to label Armenians as Nazi
collaborators. (A good example of which is the multi-million-dollar
Turkish-paid DVD delivered by Time Magazine as an "ad" in 2005 for
which Time has since issued an apology.) The truth is, not only did
the Armenians take part in the liberation of the concentration camps,
but over 300,000 Armenian soldiers (out of a total population of lest
than 2 million Soviet Armenians) sacrificed their lives during the
Second World War. Investigations carried out by the German Dresdner
Bank, on the other hand, have confirmed that the Turkish government
– in spite of its claimed neutrality – not only supported the Third
Reich with regular deliveries of chromium exploited from territories
taken from murdered and deported Armenians, but was also one of the
main locations for the laundering of stolen Jewish gold. Furthermore,
Turkey shares responsibility for the Jewish refugee boat, Struma,
which, with over 700 Jewish refugees on board, was towed out into
the middle of the Black Sea by Turkey and allowed to sink in 1942
(for the ongoing Turkification process only "useful refuges" were
welcomed). These are but three of many examples of how Turkey lent
their support to Nazi Germany…
Compassion and civil courage on part of Kurds, Turks and Arabs is
also certainly documented in number. Many survivors of the Armenian
Genocide reported later that families hid them, although it was just
as dangerous for Muslims to oppose the genocide of the Christians as it
was for Germans in the Dritten Reich to lend assistance to a Jew. Those
courageous Turks who helped ran the risk of losing their home or life,
or suffered some other state-sanctified repercussion. Talaat Pasha
even had governors or district administrators killed when they did
not obey the deportation orders…
Even in "modern" Turkey, independent historians and journalists do
not have an easy life, especially if they undertake any attempt to
question the official national dogma regarding the Armenian Genocide
and destruction of other Christian minorities. When they do so,
the Turkish Minister of Justice speaks of the "stabbing Turkey in
the back with a dagger" and of the betrayal of the fatherland. (In
Turkey, such utterances – especially when coming from a minister of
the government – can be the equivalent of a death sentence and are
reminiscent of the fatwa of the religious fanatics.) Among others,
the Noble Prize winner Orhan Pamuk was forced to go to exile due to
his questioning of the official stance, and the Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink – an outspoken voice of the tiny Armenian
community still in Turkey (foreigners in there historic home land!) –
was executed in cold blood in 2007 in front of his office after the
Turkish judiciary publicly persecuted him.
Turkish Academic Tricks and Use of Intellectual Insults: A nation
that experienced genocide should not be forced by others to prove
their suffering. Being subject of a Genocide is not a act which a
nation could be proud of it! Genocide Deniers, Revisionists like
Guenter Lewy – who has the agenda of retaining the uniqueness of the
Jewish Holocaust – that deny the Armenian genocide or making attempts
to minimize its scope purposely ignore a simple fact: in the end:
"That entire debate about whether there was or wasn’t genocide is
foolish and ugly. Nobody disputes the fact that more than one million
Armenians were murdered during a two-year period, and a million people
are not murdered without planning and without organization. The Turks
can invent a thousand reasons to explain what happened, but of what
importance will that be when the important thing is that people, women,
men, children, died strange and ruthless and unnatural deaths?" (Yossi
Sarid, Haaretz, April 27th, 2005, Back from Armenia.)
Threats and Blackmails Should Help To Cover Up A Crime against All
Humanity: whenever attempts are made in the US to get the Armenian
Genocide officially recognized, Turkey puts its genocide-denial
industry in motion to blackmail and threaten the US government. In
some ways, attempts are even made to create panic. At the moment,
both the Pentagon and the White House yield to the threats to ensure
the "safety" of the transit ways through Turkey to Northern Iraq –
transit ways that cut through the homeland of the very Armenians
that were transported and slaughtered en mass by the Turkish! But
the decision to do so is wrong: Besides delaying a justice long due,
it sends the wrong signals to the Turkish government, a government
that already is casting eyes at the border regions of Iraq. And in
turns Turkish "youngest brothers- Azeri Turks" are casting eyes on
remaining Armenian Territories such as Nagorno Karabakh and Republic
Armenia itself! To permit a past genocide not only makes those who look
away morally culpable, it also increases the chance of a new genocide.
Turkey, which destroyed important documents even as the genocide of
its "Christian subjects" was still in progress, ignores the fact that
independent historians from around the world have long passed judgment
on the subject. Genocide is genocide. A commission of historians, as
is suggested by Turkey as a smokescreen, cannot and will not change the
facts. When it comes to the Turkish national identity, however, history
is subordinate to the primacy of the policy. After all, who cares
about historical facts? For each and every governmentally dictated
domestic policy, a new history can be – and is – invented. Whether
or not this in any way serves to help the peaceful co-existence of
the varied ethnic groups on a long-term basis, however, is open to
question. Basically, the Turkish politicians are leading their own
next generation into an illness commonly known as amnesia.
The Truth about the Armenian Genocide Is That It Is True! The denial
policy of Turkey and the corresponding justification of the genocide
sends the wrong message to the new generations of Turkey; worse, it
breeds the potential justification of mass murder in the world as a
whole. Indeed, as the former Israeli Minister of Education and a Member
of Knesset wrote in reference to the Armenian Genocide: "We cannot
accept victims without murderers, genocide without the responsible. An
orphaned genocide is the father of the next genocide." (Yossi Sarid,
Haaretz, April 27th, 2005, Back from Armenia.)
Co-existence Is an Obligation of the People of the World: generations
have had to deal with the genocide of the Armenians. And much time
and energy has been wasted – time and energy which could have been
constructively used for compensation and reconciliation. As long
as Ankara continues to carry out international diplomatic feuds and
to view the acknowledgment and condemnation of the genocide as only
provocation or national humiliation, it has not and cannot understand
what humanity, democracy, compensation, reconciliation civilized
society, Europe and the culture of remembrance means. As a result,
communication and interrelations with the free, democratic world
will naturally remain troubled and disturbed. That is why the time
has come for Turkey to look in the mirror.
Turkey has to understand that the invented glorious history of Turkish
politicians/bureaucrats – the very ideology of the state itself –
is not only biased and based on racism, but that the corresponding
industry of genocide denial is outdated. Cosmetic "reforms" and
cosmetic "changes" to notorious penal codes are meaningless and change
nothing. It is the mentality of the Turkish politicians which has to
be change, not the facts on Armenian Genocide. What was happened was
and remains genocide. It is the Armenian Genocide!
–Boundary_(ID_blII6HmG8zSupj1t9nfyoA)- –
From: Baghdasarian