COMMUNICATIONS WITH ARMENIAN DIASPORA: PART I
By Ergun KIRLIKOVALI
“WHY DON’T YOU TALK TO EACH OTHER?”
Who amongst us has not yet heard the following well-meaning and naïve comments from disinterested third parties on the Turkish-Armenian conflict (or form some members of the Turkish-American or even Armenian-American communities:)
“Why don’t you sit down and discuss your differences face to face?”
For the record, I would love to do that, if I can be assured that there will not be any physical violence directed at me or any harm done to my family, friends, and/or supporters. I know of many Turkish researchers who would love to similarly engage in informed, thoughtful, constructive, and responsible debates with their Armenian counterparts, if those Turkish speakers could also be protected against random and ubiquitous Armenian violence. This is no idle fear or anxiety considering the following:
1- Armenian terrorism around the world
2- Armenian terrorism in America
3- Armenian terrorism in California
4- Armenian harassment and intimidation in California
5- Anti-Turkish culture in the Armenian Diaspora
6- Anti-Turkish Armenian activities in American campuses
7- Anti-Turkish bias cultivated by Armenians and their sympathizers in media
While some items in the above list are directly responsible for Armenian violence, others are contributory factors. Until the Armenian Diaspora matures to such a level that they can tolerate dissenting views and refutations of their genocide allegations, without calling names, shouting insults, or resorting to slander, intimidation, harassment, physical violence, and terrorism—in that order—, I am afraid, there may not be any peaceful discussions any time soon. Too bad for peace-lovers and truth-seekers.
What is even more ironical is the fact that some respectable American colleges are used as backdrop for Armenian propaganda (disguised as “genocide panels” in history departments) and Turkish-American speakers are deliberately excluded. When the latter request inclusion, they are quickly labeled “deniers” and campus police is alerted as to potential violence coming from deniers. Cases in point: Chapman University and Cal State Long Beach in 2007.
In both Chapman and CSULB campuses, history departments arranged a genocide panel but only solicited Armenian professors and/or sympathizers subscribing to pro-genocide views. When I and others in the Turkish-American community objected to this blatantly biased “academic” panel and requested inclusion of responsible opposing views, we were threatened with law suits and extra police presence during the event was arranged. This behavior is not only strange (as Turkish-Americans are not known to retaliate at all to the many decades of Armenian terrorism in California) but also unfair (as Turkish-Americans are the victims of prejudicial history passionately promoted by the Armenian Diaspora, not perpetrators of physical violence.) All Turkish-Americans want is to be heard fairly in an un-biased format and fair platform. Is telling your side of the story such a bad thing? So bad that it would necessitate ignoring, dismissing, isolation, defamation, and extra police protection?
ANATOMY OF A TYPICAL TURKISH-ARMENIAN CYBER-DEBATE
Having pointed out the above facts, I must say that I have attempted online discussions of the Turkish-Armenian conflict with Diaspora Armenians many times. It usually starts as my reaction to some published historical distortion defaming Turks.
What I have found out is that Armenians are not really interested in learning new facts concerning their genocide claims, as they are busy single-mindedly pushing their version of history on to you.
Genocide is all the Diaspora Armenians have ever heard all their lives from their parents and grandparents, therefore, it happened. It is a foregone conclusion. They are startled merely because you are so ignorant that you don’t even know it. They do you a favor by “educating you” with “facts and figures”. But when you show them that even their facts and figures just quoted don’t add up, they really get agitated. They start telling their family stories of pain and suffering. When you tell them you have similar family stories of murder and mayhem and that such personal tragedies do not necessarily turn a war into a genocide, they go out of control.
Some Armenians end the discussion abruptly (like the case below.) Others start a cut-and-paste war showing you how many states have passed genocide laws or resolutions and how many U.S. presidents condemned the perpetrators. When you them all that shows nothing more than good political organization skills of the Armenian lobby, not real history, and that history is not a matter for legislation but historical research, the discussion finally ends. All too often. the Armenian correspondent will resort to some choice words stereotyping Turks or Muslims before s/he leaves the scene with a blast.
THE “BALLISTICIAN” CASE
Here is an email letter I received recently form an Armenian I will call “Ballistician” (not his real name.) Let’s read:
“ Ergun,
My father was from a village called Darman which today is called Baglarpinari in the vilayet of Erzeroum. In 1915 my father was 7 years old. He had 2 older brothers and his mother at home with him at the time. His father had gone to New York to make some money to bring his family to America. The gendarmes came and took his mother and two older brothers away to never be seen again. It was the habit in 1915 to leave Armenian boys under the age of 7 to become Turkish. My father was taken to a Beirut orphanage by Danish missionaries until he was 16 years old. When his father in New York found out that one of his sons was still alive, he brought him to America.
My mother came (from) Kaiseri. In 1915 the Turks took her mother away to jail even though she had just given birth to a baby girl. The girl died since no one could breast feed the baby.
I have met many Turkish people in Florida that are wonderful and even have relatives that married Armenians. The younger Turks have good things to say about their Armenian relatives. They have no idea just how bad the genocide was or at least don’t admit it. The Turkish government hid all the facts from these people when they were growing up in Turkey. But what they do know is that their Turkey under the Ottomans is never discussed. Too bad.
You somehow think that my grandmother and her children deserved their fate. If so, I pray for all Armenians that still live in Turkey under fear. An Armenian cannot live as a normal human being if the crescent flag flies over their head. “
MY RESPONSE
Ballistician,
Have you ever taken a few minutes of your time to hear the Turkish side of the story for once in your entire life?
Your account of Turkish-Armenian history is so typical “Diaspora” that I could write a 500-page book on it, effortlessly. I don’t have time to write it and I don’t think you would care to read it. So, I’ll try to make my response as manageable as possible.
1. Turks and Armenians—and other Muslims and Christians— enjoyed a reasonably harmonious co-habitation in Anatolia for a millennium (that’s a thousand years!) under that “crescent” that you so passionately demonize.
2. Turks liked and trusted the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire so much that Turks called the Armenians “Millet-i Sadika”, the loyal nation. Armenians enjoyed high standards of living in trade, construction, arts, and other fields, while Muslims did most of the heavy lifting of the empire such as soldiery, agriculture, and administration. (It is interesting to note that some Armenian propagandists use this as a proof of inequity in the Ottoman Empire, however, when the Armenians were given the right to soldiery after the declaration of reforms on 23 July 1908 (II. Mesrutiyet,) the Armenians invented ways to get out of this obligation (see the letter by Armenians sent to the Lausanne Conference in 1923 asking for the right to be free from military service to be bestowed upon the Armenian community.)
3. The above picture, i.e. with all its shortcomings and/or defects, was still the nearest thing to perfection, given the state of humanity through the middle ages around the known world, especially in Europe with wars, conquests, colonization, slavery, mass killings, mass deportations, crusaders, inquisitions, holocausts, pogroms, and more. Compared to all this mayhem and carnage in Europe in the last millennium, the Ottoman Empire with its unique and tolerant “millet system”, was so peaceful and orderly that it could be considered the “USA of Europe” at the time. Armenians were one of the biggest beneficiaries of this centuries long stability.
4. All that started changing for the Turkish-Armenian relations after 1878 Berlin Peace Conference. Russia started claiming special protector’s rights over the Ottoman-Armenian community with an eye towards capturing Istanbul and the two straits (Bosporus & Dardanelles) to extend the Russian imperial reach into the warm waters of the Mediterranean. Britain and France were eyeing other parts of the Ottoman Empire for themselves.
5. The U.S. Protestant missionaries, headquartered in Boston, with their many educational and medical facilities dotting Anatolia serving as convenient cover for their missionary activities, focused their attention on the Armenian community after they realized that proselytization of Muslims, Jews, or Greeks were nearly impossible. The Boston missionaries started dividing and polarizing not only the many communities of the entire Ottoman Empire but also the Armenian community within itself. The missionary sermons were incendiary, pitting Armenians against Turks, Muslims against Christians, and even Protestants against the Gregorian and the Catholic. Thus, these religious men abused the traditional hospitality of Turks by organizing a hate-filled resistance movement against the Turkish rule, causing untold miseries on all sides. These “men of god”, caused much spilling of innocent blood in the name of god. In my opinion, therefore, these missionaries are the guiltiest party of them all, followed by Tsarist Russia, Imperial Britain, Colonialist Russia, and Western media (The New York Times topping the list in biased coverage by publishing 145 anti-Turkish articles in 1915 alone with an incredible “ZERO” Turkish rebuttals allowed!)
5. The Armenians started creating revolutionary organizations like Ermenakan (Van, 1882), Hunchack ( Geneva, 1887), Tashnak (Tbilisi, 1890) and many others of differing sizes and locations. Almost without exception, these Armenian organizations were bent on armed resistance against the Turkish rule. The Armenians used propaganda, agitation, terror, rebellions, and supreme treason, in that order, from 1882 to 1915, when finally some of the Armenians (not all of them) were sent on a TERESET (Temporary Resettlement).
6. TERESET (Temporary Resettlement) was a justified military measure because the Armenian bands would hit and run the unprotected Muslim villages, kill Muslim women and children, frustrate the supply lines, and otherwise harass the rear of the Ottoman Army during a time of war. No country (including the U.S., the U.K., France, or Russia or any others) would tolerate this kind of open rebellion, systematic treason, and omnipresent terror to be put into action by any community, large or small, especially when the safety and security of the country is in question. The Armenian bands would launch their bomb attacks during the night and then hide in ordinary homes during the day, turning Armenian women and children to little more than human shields for their murderous and treasonous acts. Those who cry out today “Why did you move innocent Armenian women and children from their homes?” should re-phrase their questions and direct them at their nationalist Armenian leaders “Why did you use the innocent Armenian women and children as your cover before and human shields after your dastardly acts of terror against innocent, non-combatant Muslims?”
7. What you are describing in your letter to me (above) are your personal tragedies. I am sure your family lived some or most of them (although frequent exaggerations and embellishments concocted by Armenian propagandists since 1915 are never challenged by the likes of you, thus diminishing Armenian credibility.) I believe that many Armenians lived through those horrors. But they pale in comparison to what we, Turks, had to endure at hands of the Ottoman-Christians, including the Armenian terrorists, rebels, traitors, backstabbers, and murderers. My personal family story is much more tragic than yours and if you care to know about it, please read the following essay of mine as it is too painful to write it here again:
TURKISH LAST NAMES : HONEST STORY TELLERS
8. Personal tragedies, by themselves, do not turn a war into a genocide. Not all killings, not all sufferings are automatically genocides. The U.N. definition is clear: there must be an “intention” to destroy all or part of a community. Without “intention”, a murder is just that, a murder, and penal code can amply deal with that. The Armenians or their sympathizers have never proven “Turkish inten” to annihilate Armenians. In fact, History shows that just the contrary is true:
-a millennium of peaceful co-habitation between Turks and Armenians;
-endowment of the Armenian community with a “ loyal nation” status in the Ottoman Empire;
-highest posts for Armenians in all walks of Ottoman life, like politics, armed forces, trade, business, art, and more;
-all of the above followed by, unfortunately, an intense period of organized Armenian terror, rebellions, treason, and territorial demands, and more (all with Western & Russian complicity and support);
-triggering a temporary, military, wartime safety measure of moving only those Armenians who posed a serious threat to Ottoman Empire’s war effort;
-excluding Armenians of Istanbul, Izmir, Edirne, Aleppo and other places who were not considered a threat;
-also excluding those Armenians serving the Ottoman Armies such as officers, doctors and inner city people from the TERESET order;
-detailed steps were described in official orders—to many of them to be dismissed casually—on how to move the Armenian groups safely and allow them to claim their properties back on their return (contrary to common misperception, many did return!)
There is more, much more, but I already wrote most of them in my corner here and you are welcome to check it out yourself.
In conclusion, it was a wartime tragedy, engineered, provoked, and waged by Armenians, with support from Russia, England, France, the U.S., Christian missionaries and Western media; but not genocide.
“BALLISTICIAN” RESPONDS:
Our conversation is over. I can’t stand a gray wolf maligning a people. You’re the typical Moslem. You’re blocked!