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TRAITOR, WHO CONDEMNS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE - OUEST
news.am
April 27, 2012 | 01:52
Armenian News-NEWS.am presents the article of Burcin Gercek published
in Ouest - France paper with some reductions.
"From April, 1915, the Turkish army and police killed more than one
million Armenians who were considered as the inner enemies of the
country. Hasan Cemal's name constantly reminds him that he is the
grandson of Cemal Pasha a member of the triumvirate which was ruling
the Ottoman Empire during the genocide.
'I learned to distinguish the history and my grandfather,' the elegant
man says.
The famous reporter of Milliyet, 68-year-old Hasan Cemal is known as
'the grandson of Cemal Pasha who kneeled in the Genocide memorial in
Yerevan, Armenia'. After that symbolic act in 2008 he participates
in world conferences and says that he shares the Armenians' pain.
The realization did not come in one day. In his first articles in the
beginning of the 1980's he was repeating the official disposition of
Turkey that 'There was no genocide but mutual massacre'. Later with
the help of the books of Turkish Historian Taner Akcam he discovered
that the truth is different.
His meeting with Armenian reporter from Istanbul Hrant Dink had an
important meaning.
'I started looking at history not with the eyes of the state but
tried to find out what had happened,' he says.
When in 2005 the organization of the first conference on the Armenian
Genocide in Turkey faced threats from the government Cemal stood
against the ban. Part of the media called him traitor.
The murder of Hrant Dink in 2007 turned everything finally.
'The death of Hrant deeply changed me. It was like all stones found
their places again. I saw all the other murderers in our history,"
he says.
After that without hesitation he uses the word Genocide which is still
problematic in Turkey. In the following year he went to the Genocide
Memorial in Yerevan. In 2009 he was one of the first to sign for the
apologizing action started by the Turkish elite.
Will he have the will to undo the damage done by his grandfather?
'I did not act because of my family history. It is intellectual
responsibility and willingness to go to political fight," the article
quotes Hasan Cemal.
news.am
April 27, 2012 | 01:52
Armenian News-NEWS.am presents the article of Burcin Gercek published
in Ouest - France paper with some reductions.
"From April, 1915, the Turkish army and police killed more than one
million Armenians who were considered as the inner enemies of the
country. Hasan Cemal's name constantly reminds him that he is the
grandson of Cemal Pasha a member of the triumvirate which was ruling
the Ottoman Empire during the genocide.
'I learned to distinguish the history and my grandfather,' the elegant
man says.
The famous reporter of Milliyet, 68-year-old Hasan Cemal is known as
'the grandson of Cemal Pasha who kneeled in the Genocide memorial in
Yerevan, Armenia'. After that symbolic act in 2008 he participates
in world conferences and says that he shares the Armenians' pain.
The realization did not come in one day. In his first articles in the
beginning of the 1980's he was repeating the official disposition of
Turkey that 'There was no genocide but mutual massacre'. Later with
the help of the books of Turkish Historian Taner Akcam he discovered
that the truth is different.
His meeting with Armenian reporter from Istanbul Hrant Dink had an
important meaning.
'I started looking at history not with the eyes of the state but
tried to find out what had happened,' he says.
When in 2005 the organization of the first conference on the Armenian
Genocide in Turkey faced threats from the government Cemal stood
against the ban. Part of the media called him traitor.
The murder of Hrant Dink in 2007 turned everything finally.
'The death of Hrant deeply changed me. It was like all stones found
their places again. I saw all the other murderers in our history,"
he says.
After that without hesitation he uses the word Genocide which is still
problematic in Turkey. In the following year he went to the Genocide
Memorial in Yerevan. In 2009 he was one of the first to sign for the
apologizing action started by the Turkish elite.
Will he have the will to undo the damage done by his grandfather?
'I did not act because of my family history. It is intellectual
responsibility and willingness to go to political fight," the article
quotes Hasan Cemal.