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[brother]

Turkey's challenge to the Armenians

Thursday, January 6, 2005





Mehmet Ali Birand

  While I was interviewing Turkish History Institute President Hikmet Özdemir on yesterday's Mans¸et program, I breathed a sign of relief and said, ?Thank God someone is prepared.?

  The PR campaign waged by the Armenians since 1918 has indirectly affected us, regardless of how committed we were to our own version. The international public listened to the Armenians for more than 80 years and at long last believed them. It was included in textbooks and then taught at universities. Finally, the public was sure: ?Armenians had faced a genocide committed by Turks.?

  Professor Özdemir said the Armenians had been entangled in a blood feud against Turks since the Ottoman era, throughout the republican age, and noted, with examples, how Turkey had punished those who were found guilty.

  The Turkish History Institute has finished its research, which had started in 2001. A huge campaign will be launched in February.

  Four volumes of documents have been prepared. The allegations made by the Armenians are answered one by one.

  You might remember French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier saying, ?Turkey needs to face up to its history,? to which Professor Özdemir replies, ?We are facing up to our history, but all those who incited the Armenians should also do the same.? This is also part of the study: showing who was behind the Armenian uprisings. It appears Turkey will now put aside manners and shout out what happened.

  It won't only be the release of documents. For example, Turkey will ask for a retrial for Tehlerian, who was found not guilty after killing Talat Pas¸a in 1921 in Berlin. No one knows if this will be possible, but they will try and they will prove that a document used in that trial was a fake.

  Another new innovation will be to challenge Armenian intellectuals in television debates.

  It will be the first time Turkey will pose a challenge to the Armenians.

  [HH] How will we explain ourselves to the world?

  Armenians have been waging a battle for the last 75 years. They have brainwashed the international community. They have transformed the process into an entire culture by using tampered photos and fake documents.

  Turkey, meanwhile, inexplicably, was weak. It behaved like it had done something, and was so ashamed that it didn't even want to defend itself. The Armenians were allowed free rein.

  Things will change. Turkey, even though belatedly, has taken the initiative.

  However, the documents alone don't prove anything. The most important matter is publicizing these facts to the world and making them believable.

  That's the most important thing.

  How will we do that?

  Our attempts to make our voice heard have been so flimsy up until now that the state bureaucracy needs work miracles to pull it off.

  Another point to consider is that in addition to documents and promotion, there should also be political initiatives. Such campaigns can produce results only when all these initiatives are combined.

  What Professor Özdemir told me was very encouraging; however, there are still questions in my head about the way the whole enterprise will be coordinated. No matter how effective a campaign the institute wages, without help from all the other state institutions, nothing will come about. It will once again be the case of us talking and no one listening.

  However, this is the final match on the genocide allegations. Additionally, we have lost all the previous games and we know we need to win this one. We can't tolerate any mistakes this time.

[Othellos]

So, this is another effort of the Turkish establishment to deny one of the most hideous and barbarous crimes against humanity in the 20th century. Sad.

O.

[insan]

The so-called eye witness of Armenian genocide Othellos spoke.

[Othellos]

The so-called eye witness of Armenian genocide Othellos spoke.

Are you suggesting Insan that the Armenian Genocide never happened?

O.

[insan]

I have no idea other than two opposite points of view regarding this issue. We'll understand what's what after the challenge...

[Othellos]

I have no idea other than two opposite points of view regarding this issue. We'll understand what's what after the challenge...

Turkish attempts to "rewrite" history with respect to the Amenian Genocide are not new (the Turkish government has spent millions on this over the years). I think that this revitalized effort to deny the Genocide of the Armenian people by the Turks has something to do with Turkey's EU membership aspirations as they know well that the issue may come in their way.

O.

[turkcyp]

Please define Genocide?

Hundred thousands of Armenians have parished in the last years of Ottoman Empire. Nobody, even Republic of Turkey is not denying this.

Also at the same period at the same region thousands of Turkish people have parished as well, under the same Ottoman rule. You might add that Ottomans were doing Genocide to Turkish as well may be. Or may be it was the other way around.

Anyway, I have very limited knowledege about this matter. I have met only a few Armenian in my life, and they were all from Armenians currently living in Turkey. And they all claim that so many has died or killed during those years, but they never classify it as a genocide.

All they ask, at least the ones I have talked to, (and I am not dissmissing the probability of these people not talking their true beliefs because tehy currently live in Turkey) is that Turkish goverment, and society as a whole should not just dismiss these deaths, and have a frank and open discussion about them.

Other than that, I have done some research on the net, and I have come so many web sites talking about Armenian Genocide, and the same number of websites talking the otherwya around, and Azeri Genocide by Armenians.

I think issues like this, which has happened 80 years ago, can only be brought to daylight by independent historians. Not by the goverments.

Having said that I do think that Turkish goverment should instigate a open and frank discussion about this in his own society, and among historians. And if the historians say that there was a 'Genocide', then there is a genocide. I do not believe the either Turkish or Armenian sources in this matte, but only independent third party sources.

Take care,

[Othellos]

Having said that I do not think that Turkish goverment should instigate a open and frank discussion about this in his own society, and among historians.

Why not? I am just curious to know why you see it this way?

O.

[turkcyp]

Why not? I am just curious to know why you see it this way?

O.

Sorry, quite quite sorry...

It shoudl have been "I do think" instead of "I do not think"...

I have corrected my original post as well, after you have pointed it put.

[boulio]

the turkish govt. claims that hundreds of thousands of armenians perished in the ottoman empire however it classifies them as enemy combatants and fighting against the ottoman state.very dangerous way of classifiying genocide if it really did occur,im sure it could be claimed elswere in the world.