“The great Turk is governing in peace twenty nations from different religions. Turks have taught to Christians how to be moderate in peace and gentle in victory.”Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary
Assembly: irreversible trend has commenced in Turkey
19.12.2008 18:39 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ An irreversible trend has commenced in Turkey, said Executive Director of20the Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly).
“Over 12,000 people in Turkey want history to be recorded truthfully, having already signed the internet-based petition apologizing for what they call the ‘Great Catastrophe’ that befell the Armenians of Ottoman Turkey in 1915. This public apology is a first step in that direction and will inevitably lead to Turkey coming to grips with its genocidal past,” Bryan Ardouny said.
“This process was encouraged in 2003 by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), which concluded that “the Events [of 1915], viewed collectively, can thus be said to include all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the Convention.”
Noting the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joseph Biden next month and Obama’s statement from October which read, “Joe Biden and I believe that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence,” Ardouny said, “They are both on record as supporting Turkey’s reconciliation with its past, and affirmation of the Armenian Genocide. Coupled with Obama’s recent selection of Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, the Obama-Biden Administration has an opportunity to clearly affirm the Armenian Genocide and, at the same time, help Turkey reverse its policy of denial. It will also send a me ssage that the U.S. will no longer shelter Turkey from criticism if it continues to persecute leading intellectuals by invoking Article 301 of its Penal Code.”
Some 14 thousand people have already signed the online public apology for the Armenian Genocide.
Massacre, Wounded Knee, South Dakota, December 1890
Turkey is today beset on all sides by the shock doctrine strategy of the west, and from within by its US-backed marionette government. Now the Armenian Genocide issue has once again bubbled to the surface. Apologize! Apologize! yell the so-called Turkish liberals, egos stroked and, no doubt, palms greased by their western puppeteers. It’s the same old drama with the same stodgy cast burbling the same trite lines. As usual, the Turkish government does nothing, thus contributing to the confusion, apathy, and fear that stalk the land. But that’s the whole idea isn’t it?
Turkish people! Instead of handwringing and moaning, ACT! Turkish people, you heirs of the Atatürk Revolution, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk gave you the right (and responsibility) to save your country. https://yunus.hacettepe.edu.tr/~sadi/dizeler/hitabe2.html ) Fight the rush-to-judgment efforts of the Armenian Genocide lobby. Every “Turkish child of future generations” should demand that their parliament immediately enact a resolution that condemns the American Indian Genocide. Turkish people…ACT! Defend your country against the dark powers that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk foresaw over eighty years ago. The facts of the catastrophe done to the American Indians are in plain sight and beyond dispute. Spain, Portugal, England, and, most importantly, the United States of America should stand condemned in the eyes of the world for the crimes committed against the aboriginal population in the Americas.
More than 200 million Indians lost their lives on the combined North, Central, and South American continents after Columbus landed in 1492. The Indians in South and Central America were mostly enslaved to extract precious metals. The Indians in North America were displaced, starved, and slaughtered to make way for the enormous flow of European immigrants. Vast numbers died from European diseases, perhaps the first weapon of mass destruction, in this case, biological warfare. Surely Turkey has the right to defend itself from the Western claims of genocide, given the historically bloody hand of the West.
From approximately 15-18 million North American Indians present in the days of Columbus, only 190,000 were left in the territorial United States in 1890. The destruction of the Southern Indians (the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek tribes) resulted in the seizure and clearance of their enormously fertile forest lands (the Southern black belt) in order to expand both slavery and cotton production in Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi. In this manner, the red and black races were displaced, enslaved, and murdered in order for white America to prosper. The proof of this assertion is fully documented and unassailable.
Turkey has welcomed the persecuted minorities of many nations. The same year that the destruction of the American Indians began, 1492, Turkey’s Sultan Bayezit II accepted with kindness and consideration the Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal. Similar compassion was rendered to Jews centuries later who fled Hitler’s genocide. Surely Turkey has the right, the responsibility, and moral authority to counter the orchestrated, poorly documented, rush-to-judgment of the Armenian Lobby and its collaborators, both western and Turkish.
The horrific destruction of the sophisticated Native American cultural system was encouraged by the government of the United States, particularly under the administration of that so-called champion of so-called democracy, Andrew Jackson. By 1890, the American Indians were finished. Their numbers had been reduced by 98 percent over the 400 years since Columbus landed. By 1890 the United States government had seized 98 percent of their land. No greater genocide or land grab has existed in the history of the world. Surely Turkey has the right to challenge the unproven claim of so-called genocide by affirming through parliamentary resolution the well-documented genocide of an entire race of people by an act of policy by the government of the United States of America.
It is high time that Turkey takes the offensive on the matter of genocide. In this day of widespread destruction, it is high time to remind America, Americans, and their government, that they are up to their ancestral elbows in the blood of the American Indians. The Turkish government must condemn the American Indian Genocide, or itself be condemned. And if you, the Turkish people, think that makes you a traitor, then read again Nazım Hikmet’s magnificent poem, Vatan Haini (“Traitor”) below, along with Atatürk’s statement of your “primary duty.”
Cem Ryan, Ph.D.
Istanbul
21 December 2008
TRAITOR
“Nazim Hikmet is still continuing to be a traitor,
We are a half-colony of American imperialism, said Hikmet.
Nazim Hikmet is still continuing to be a traitor.”
This came out in one of the Ankara newspapers,
Over three columns, in a pitch-black screaming streamer.
In an Ankara newspaper, beside a photograph of Admiral Williamson,
smiling in 66 square centimeters, his mouth in his ears,
the American admiral.
America gave 120 million lira to our budget, 120 million lira.
“We are a half-colony of American imperialism, said Hikmet.
Nazim Hikmet is still continuing to be a traitor.”
Yes, I am a traitor, if you are a patriot, if you are a defender of our homeland,
I am a traitor to my homeland, I am a traitor to my country.
If patriotism is your farms,
if the valuables in your safes and your bank accounts is patriotism,
if patriotism is dying from hunger by the side of the road,
if patriotism is trembling in the cold like a cur and shivering from malaria in the summer,
if sucking our scarlet blood in your factories is patriotism,
if patriotism is the claws of your village lords,
if patriotism is the catechism, if patriotism is the police club,
if your allocations and your salaries are patriotism,
if patriotism is American bases, American bombs, and American missiles,
if patriotism is not escaping from our stinking black-minded ignorance,
then I am a traitor.
Write it over three columns, in a pitch-black screaming streamer,
Nazim Hikmet is continuing to be a traitor, STILL!
Nazim Hikmet
28 July 1962
(Translation: Hüda Cereb and James Ryan, 1 June 2005)
ATATÜRK’S SPEECH TO TURKISH YOUTH
O Turkish Youth! Your first duty is ever to preserve and defend the national independence, the Turkish Republic.
That is the sole foundation of your existence and your future. This foundation is your most precious treasure. In the future, too, there will be ill-will, both in the country itself and abroad, which will try to tear this treasure from you. If one day you are compelled to defend your independence and the Republic, then, in order to fulfill your duty, you will have to look beyond the possibilities and conditions in which you might find yourself.
It may be that these conditions and possibilities are altogether unfavorable. It may be that the enemies who desire to destroy your independence and your Republic represent the strongest force that the earth has ever seen; that they have through craft and force, taken possession of all the fortresses and arsenals of the homeland; that all its armies are scattered and the country actually and completely occupied.
Assuming, in order to look still darker possibilities in the face, that those who hold the power of Government within the country have fallen into error, that they are fools or traitors, yes, even that these leading persons may identify their personal interests with the enemy’s political goals, it might happen that the nation came into complete privation, into the most extreme distress; that it found itself in a condition of ruin and complete exhaustion.
Even under those circumstances, O Turkish child of future generations, it is your duty to save the independence of the Turkish Republic.
The strength that you will need for this is mighty in the noble blood which flows in your veins.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
From”The Great Speech”
20 October 1927
“Nâzım Hikmet vatan hainliğine devam ediyor hâlâ.
Amerikan emperyalizminin yarı sömürgesiyiz,” dedi Hikmet.
“Nâzım Hikmet vatan hainliğine devam ediyor hâlâ.”
Bir Ankara gazetesinde çıktı bunlar, üç sütun üstüne, kapkara haykıran puntolarla,
bır Ankara gazetesinde, fotoğrafı yanında Amiral Vilyamson’un
66 santimetre karede gülüyor, ağzı kulaklarında, Amerikan amirali
Amerika, bütçemize 120 milyon lira hibe etti, 120 milyon lira.
“Amerikan emperyalizminin yari sömurgesiyiz, dedi Hikmet
Nâzım Hikmet vatan hainliğine devam ediyor hâlâ.”
Evet, vatan hainliğine, siz vatanperverseniz, siz yurtseverseniz, ben yurt
hainiyim, ben vatan hainiyim.
Vatan ciftliklerinizse,
kasalarınızın ve çek defterlerinizin içindekilerse vatan,
vatan, şose boylarında gebermekse açlıktan,
vatan, soğukta it gibi titremek ve sıtmadan kıvranmaksa yazın,
fabrikalrınızda al kanımızı içmekse vatan,
vatan tırnaklarıysa ağalarınızın,
vatan, mızraklı ilmühalse, vatan, polis copuysa,
ödeneklerinizse, maaşlarınızsa vatan,
vatan, Amerikan üsleri, Amerikan bombası, American donanması topuysa,
vatan, kurtulmamaksa kokmuş karanlığımızdan,
ben vatan hainiyim.
Yazın üç sütun üstüne kapkara haykıran puntolarla:
Nâzım Hikmet vatan hainliğine devam ediyor hâlâ.
Ey Türk gençliği! Birinci vazifen, Türk istiklâlini, Türk Cumhuriyet’ini, ilelebet, muhafaza ve müdafaa etmektir.
Mevcudiyetinin ve istikbalinin yegâne temeli budur.
Bu temel, senin, en kıymetli hazinendir.
İstikbalde dahi, seni bu hazineden mahrum etmek isteyecek, dahilî ve haricî bedhahların olacaktır. Bir gün, istiklâl ve cumhuriyeti müdafaa mecburiyetine düşersen, vazifeye atılmak için, içinde bulunacağın vaziyetln imkân ve şeraitini düşünmeyeceksin!
Bu imkân ve şerait, çok nâmüsait bir mahiyette tezahür edebilir.
İstiklâl ve cumhuriyetine kastedecek düşmanlar, bütün dünyada emsali görülmemiş bir galibiyetin mümessili olabilirler. Cebren ve hile ile aziz vatanın, bütün kaleleri zaptedilmiş, bütün tersanelerine girilmiş, bütün orduları dagıtılmış ve memleketin her köşesi bilfiil işgal edilmiş olabilir. Bütün bu şeraitten daha elîm ve daha vahim olmak üzere, memleketin dahilinde, iktidara sahip olanlar gaflet ve dalâlet ve hattâ hiyanet içinde bulunabilirler.
Hatta bu iktidar sahipleri şahsî menfaatlerini, müstevlilerin siyasî emelleriyle tevhit edebilirler. Millet, fakr ü zaruret içinde harap ve bîtap düşmüş olabilir.
Ey Türk istikbalinin evlâdı! İşte, bu ahval ve şerait içinde dahi, vazifen; Türk istiklâl ve cumhuriyetini kurtarmaktır!
Istanbul. Mais Alizadeh –APA. “Such initiative is a great disrespect to the Turkish people. Apologizing to Armenians for 1915 events is the inviting Turkey to recognize this calumny.
Such campaigns aim to conceal Armenian occupation policy”, said deputy chairman of the Turkey’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) Onur Oymen reacting to the campaign started by a group of persons in Turkey for apologizing to Armenians, APA Turkish bureau reports.
Oymen said Armenia kept 20 percent of Azerbaijani lands under the occupation for more than 15 years. Oymen called the Khojali genocide committed by Armenians against Azerbaijani people in 1992 as a tragedy of the century.
“Do those, who proposed to apologize to Armenians for 1915 events which has no relation to the genocide, see occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijani lands by Armenians and the genocide committed by them in Khojali?”
The member of the parliament from CHP said if Armenians saw one per cent of pressure, which Turkey faced to open borders with Armenia, they would be withdrawn from the Azerbaijani lands. “The world doesn’t put pressure on the Armenians. Despite numerous statements by the international organizations, the Armenians didn’t withdraw even from a village of Azerbaijan. Will those, who invited our community to apologize to Armenians, demand the Armenians to withdraw from Azerbaijani lands? Will they call on the Armenians to apologize to Azerbaijan for Khojali genocide? It is very interesting for me”.
Azerbaijani Diaspora intensified its activity in recent years and the process is still underway, said Nazim Ibrahimov, Chairman of the State Committee for Work with Diaspora, APA reports.
He said Azerbaijani Diaspora organizations in different countries were already providing activity coordinated with the Turkish Diaspora, preparing plans of joint events and working together.
“Today the Azerbaijani Diaspora is working in close cooperation with the Turkish, Jewish and other Diasporas abroad. I consider our activity will be extended in the next years and will give its results. The Azerbaijani Diaspora went into the attack already”.
The committee chairman emphasized that the World Azerbaijanis Solidarity Charter focused at the meeting of the World Azerbaijanis Coordination Council in Baku today will promote the strengthening and uniting of the Diaspora’s activity and forces abroad.
Turkey is an important state for the United States, therefore, I do not think that Washington will take any step against Ankara, said chairman of the American Azerbaijani Society Tomris Azeri, speaking about possible recognition of the so-called “Armenian genocide” by B.Obama.
She noted that any possible anti-Azerbaijani step of any US president will depend on the effectiveness of the activity of the Azerbaijani diaspora of America. “It is possible to inform them about the Azerbaijani position, in case our diaspora is strong”, said she.
Speaking about the Baku charter adopted this year, she voiced hope that the charter will make an important contribution to the development of the diaspora movement.
“I took part in the second session of the World Azerbaijanis in Baku in 2001 and I remember this event well. I also spoke there. I remember well the speech of deceased Heydar Aliyev. He said important words to us: “Unite, be united, be strong and do not separate”. But, after seven years I state with regret that we have not done all things that he told us to do”, noted Tomris Azeri, adding that she has always been pessimistic and hopes that the charter will promote the development of the diaspora movement.
According to her the Azerbaijani diaspora is closely cooperating with the Turkish and Jewish communities, as there are many Jews, originating from Azerbaijan and Turkey who are devoted to the land where they were born.
“At the time, it would be better for us to cooperate more a greater number of ethnic groups. We do not contend ourselves only with the said two groups. Why not cooperate with the Georgian community? Georgia is a close friend to Azerbaijan. Or Pakistani community and so on. There are many ethnic groups in the United States and we are open for cooperation with all of them”, noted the head of the Azerbaijani Society in the United States.
As for the plans to inform the Americans with reliable information about Azerbaijan and its problems, she said a large conference will be held in the Yale University in February when our compatriots commemorate the victims of Khojaly tragedy.
“It is necessary to stress the important of the constant work wth congressmen. It is necessary to meet each of them, hold talks. The US policy forms not only in Washington. Each member of our community must meet with his congressman and tell him: “I can vote for you but our problems are …” This is done by Armenians. They have two big organizations in New Jersey and they constantly invite congressmen and disinform them/
For example, New Jersey is a large and important state, where there are many Turks, coming from Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and so on. There are all opportunities for this state to become exemplary for Turks.
Few currently know about Khojaly. Therefore, I try to invite for Americans to each of our event. More Americans should know about it. Therefore, I think that the planned event in Yale University is of great importance in this sense.
Turkey’s powerful generals on Friday stepped into a deepening controversy over an apology by Turkish intellectuals for the mass killings of Armenians in World War One, saying the campaign had “harmful consequences”.
The Internet initiative, which has drawn criticism from Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and nationalists, coincides with a diplomatic rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia to end almost 100 years of hostility. Nearly 14,000 people have signed the apology.
“We definitely think that what is done is not right. Apologizing is wrong and can yield harmful consequences,” Brigadier General Metin Gurak, spokesman for the General Staff, told a news conference.
On Wednesday, Erdogan said the campaign had no other benefit than “stirring up trouble, disturbing our peace and undoing the steps which have been taken”.
President Abdullah Gul has distanced himself from those comments, hailing the initiative as proof of Turkey’s democratic health. He became the first Turkish leader to visit Armenia in September as Turkey sought to improve ties.
Turks, including Nobel prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk, have been prosecuted in the European Union candidate country for affirming that the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 amounted to genocide.
Turkey accepts that many Armenians were killed during the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, but strongly reject Armenian assertions it was genocide, saying that Muslim Turks also died in inter-ethnic conflicts. Western historians have backed Armenian arguments that the killings amounted to genocide.
