Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

ANKARA: From Where Should We Start The Armenian Issue?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • ANKARA: From Where Should We Start The Armenian Issue?

    FROM WHERE SHOULD WE START THE ARMENIAN ISSUE?
    Selcuk Gultasli

    Zaman Online, Turkey
    May 31 2006

    >From where should we start and what should we do regarding the
    "genocide" issue, which has become a tool in the hands of the enemies
    of Turks, Muslims and xenophobics, as Ara Sarafian, a British historian
    of Armenian origin, aptly points out? Should we feel relieved over the
    postponement of the French bill to punish the deniers of the Armenian
    "genocide" or should we feel the need for a fresh look at 1915? I
    support the second opinion.

    It does not take long for people who live abroad to "crash" into the
    dimensions of the Armenian issue. Everybody has certain memories that
    he/she cannot forget and feels himself/herself "caught red-handed." I
    also have a story:

    I was waiting for the green light several years ago. An old lady,
    about 80 years old, glaring with her elegance asked in French: "Could
    you please help me if you are getting across?" It is something very
    common in Brussels. Europeans are getting alone as they get older.

    Elderly ask the young to help them while they are counting money in
    the market or crossing the road. I told the old lady that I would
    help her with great pleasure and asked her if we could continue in
    English. With a perfect English, she replied jokingly, "how happy I
    am with such a handsome man" and asked me if I were English. When the
    green light was on and we began our very short journey across the road,
    I said, "No, I am Turkish."

    The old woman forcefully pulled her arm with incredible quickness
    and shockingly said, "I am Armenian and you are our enemies." I was
    trying to figure out what she meant and mumbled, "I like Armenians as
    I like all human beings. Why should we be enemies?" The old woman had
    already walked several steps ahead, repeating her hatred for Turks,
    which was enough to understand that it was impossible to continue
    the talk. I told her I could take her wherever she wanted to go but
    she refused politely.

    As a rule, after such shocking incidents one starts to do further
    reading about the events and what follows is the melting of your
    mindset.

    Leaving aside funny arguments such as, "It was the Armenians who
    actually committed the genocide against us," or "Armenians died
    of an epidemic," one has to accept that in 1915, Armenians, then
    Ottoman citizens, were subjected to oppression and one has to show
    respect for the loss of Armenian lives. Even Professor Guenter Lewy,
    who has become a target for the Armenian Diaspora with the claim of
    being pro-Turkish, put the Armenian death toll at 642,000. It is in
    vain to fight the Armenian Diaspora without acknowledging the great
    sorrow of Armenians; under these circumstances, it is impossible to
    find even a single serious interlocutor in the West.

    Acknowledging the suffering will provide an opportunity to utter few
    meaningful words about the massacres by Armenian gangs, their siding
    with the invading Russian army and the joy of the Western world while
    Muslims were being forced out by a genocidal campaign from the Balkans
    and above everything the heinous campaign by those who aim to clean
    their conscious over Turkey but refuse to face their own history.

    As one starts looking at the issue from a right point of view, one
    has to break another taboo. It is the notion that Muslims, Kurds and
    Alevis have vowed to destroy Turkey. I vividly remember the desperation
    of diplomats when they listened to General Tuncer Kilinc, the former
    Secretary-General of the National Security Council, when he begun his
    speech by insulting women with headscarves. Although the general's trip
    to Brussels was meant to build unity, he only left ruins behind. If
    statesmen themselves begin to categorize the Turks in Europe, then
    tomorrow, you will not find anyone to defend the country and then you
    will have to insult your own people time and again. There is dire need
    for the kind of ambassadors who regard themselves as representatives of
    all the people in Turkey, whether they are Muslims, Kurds or Alewites,
    but definitely not the kind of people who transfer the headscarf ban
    of President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to Europe.

    As long as the parrot mindset gives answers to Muslims "Turkey is
    secular, and will remain secular!" to Kurds "You are mountainous
    Turks," and to the Armenians "You died of typhus" there will be no
    remedy to our woes. Just as we respect the dear remains of our people
    who gave their blood in the Balkans, in the Caucasus and in Yemen,
    we have to feel the suffering of the Armenians. Only the, we can
    begin the fight against the genocide plot.
Working...
X