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30 November 2009
08 November 2009
2980) A Brief Summary Of Armenian-Turkish Relations
(An open letter to righteous readers who are willing to explore the truth behind the tragic events of 1915)
A historical perspective: Armenians consider themselves to be descendants of Noah and assert that their legendary leader Haik was a great-great grandson of Noah. The first to write about Armenians was Xenophon in the 400's BC. Armenians over the centuries established many local kingdoms in the Caucasus, Eastern Anatolia and Mesopotamia, these generally remained in the spheres of influence of the Persian, Roman and Byzantine Empires while Armenian dynasties occasionally rose to power and reigned in Persian and Byzantine courts. Armenians adopted Christianity in 301 AD and established their own church. They consider their well known aptitude for business, arts and crafts to be a special gift of God and believe that they have been singularly chosen. They take pride in belonging to a nation which was the first to adopt Christianity as the state religion. . .
Later history: In the 11th century AD, Armenians who had long endured the pressure of the Byzantine Orthodox Church established friendly relations with the Seljuk Turks who started to enter Eastern Anatolia after defeating the Byzantines at Malazgirt in 1071, they were helped by Armenians who had deserted the Byzantine army. In 1080 internal strife in the Armenian kingdom of Ani, near present-day Kars, caused a prince named Rupen to flee to Tarsus where he founded the Kingdom of Cilicia in Southern Anatolia. This kingdom established relations with Europe through the Crusaders and enjoyed considerable prosperity, it also had friendly relations with the neighboring Seljuk Kingdom in Konya, it was defeated by Egyptian Mamluks and ceased to exist in 1375. From the 12th century onward growing numbers of Armenians settled in Anatolia which they shared with Turks, Kurds, Greeks, Assyrians and other ethnic groups living there. Following the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, its Armenian population began to enjoy religious and social freedoms that had been denied to them during the Byzantine era, notably the Armenian Patriarchate was transferred from provincial Bursa to the capital in 1461 by edict of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. Armenians began to rise in government, in social and economic life as well as in the arts and crafts and were dubbed "the loyal people" by the ruling Ottomans who counted on them to offset the influence of the local Greeks.. This symbiotic co-existence which provided innumerable benefits to both sides continued until the Turco-Russian war of 1877-78. The defeat of the Ottomans in Pleven, Bulgaria was followed by the gradual loss of the Balkan countries, the subsequent treaty of Berlin made it clear that the Ottoman Empire was no longer a major power. The founding of an Armenian revolutionary committee in 1878 signaled the beginning of the end; the militant micro-nationalist movements inspired by the French Revolution had reached "the loyal people".
The Nineteenth Century: The major powers of the time began to establish centers of influence in the weakening Ottoman Empire, they generally collaborated with minorities such as the Armenians. In this context the Russians trained and armed insurgents in Eastern Anatolia while the French did likewise in Cilicia (Southern Anatolia). Americans on the other hand adopted a more sophisticated approach, they started in the 1850's to establish colleges with adjoining hospitals and community centers that were run by Protestant missionaries in cities and regions which had sizable numbers of Armenians. These institutes were founded in Istanbul, Izmir Kizilcullu, Kayseri Talas, Tarsus, Antep, Amasya, Merzifon, Maras, Harput and Van, among other places. The schools were nominally accessible to all interested children, but most local Moslems kept their children away for fear of reprisals from religious fanatics. The result was that these modern schools were attended mainly by Armenians whose promising young members were encouraged to emigrate to America. Meanwhile the weakness of the Ottoman state precluded its taking decisive actions against separatist insurgents who continued to undermine the state. Armenians staged an armed uprising in Tokat in 1894, demanding the minority rights that had been promised them with the treaty of Berlin. This was followed by uprisings in Batman-Sason, Maras-Zeytun, Elazig-Harput, Mus, Bitlis, Van and Adana which were quelled by army units and local vigilantes. The armed attack in 1896 on the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul by Armenian terrorists and the attempt in 1905 to assassinate the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II (whose mother Virgine was an Armenian) further aggravated public opinion.
The Twentieth Century: In times of peace, the Ottoman state considered the numerous Armenian uprisings as isolated cases of local unrest and subdued them with local measures. In the fall of 1914 however peace was over, the Ottomans had entered war on the side of the Germans against Russia, GB and France. Early in the war, the Ottoman headquarters planned a surprise attack on the Russians in Eastern Anatolia to help relieve Russian pressure on German troops in the Romanian front. The plan involved encirclement of the Russian army in Erzurum by a surprise maneuver of the Turkish forces which were to arrive in the town of Sarikamis to the east of Erzurum after crossing a treacherous mountain range. The main premise for the plan's success was that it had to be completed rapidly before the onset of the worst winter conditions. This required winning over the local Armenian insurgents who had defected to the Russians and had the potential of impeding the plan. Acting commander-in-chief Enver Pasha attempted to convince renegade Armenian leaders to again support the Ottoman side with the promise of establishing an Armenian-run federation in six eastern provinces. Subsequent events revealed however that the Russians had succeeded in maintaining the active support of the Armenians at the expense of the Ottomans. This resulted in a dramatic turn of events for the Ottoman troops who were harassed and critically delayed by Armenian insurgents, as a consequence tens of thousands of Turkish soldiers perished in the unforgiving winter of the Allahuekber mountain range before engaging the Russians in Sarikamis. A few months later, early in April 1915, it was reported that Armenians had started to massacre the civilian population of the important eastern city of Van which they had occupied and declared independent. This gruesome news and other shocking episodes from numerous provincial localities, compounded by the frequent critical interception of army supply lines by Armenian villagers and the grossly negative role played by Armenian insurgents in the aforementioned Sarikamis debacle, all caused a fundamental shift in the Ottoman government's perception of Anatolian Armenians. The once loyal people were no longer viewed as an errant minority which, instigated by foreign powers, occasionally rose against the government. They were now charged with treason for fighting against the state on the side of the enemies. As for the common people, reports of massacres perpetrated by Armenians created strong emotions of hatred and revenge.
The spring of 1915 proved to be fateful for the Ottomans on all three fronts. In the East, Ottomans were fighting the Armenians and Russians while in the West, at the Dardanelles Straits, Ottoman troops were desperately attempting to thwart the British and French forces which, according to Winston Churchill's plan, were to push through the Straits to capture the capital city of Istanbul and rush supplies to Czarist Russia by way of the Black Sea ports. Meanwhile in the South, Ottomans were fighting British and Arab troops on a wide front which extended from Palestine to the Suez Canal. Against this dramatic backdrop the Ottoman government warned Armenian leaders early in April 1915 to stop all treasonable activities and massacres or face the consequences, but this was not heeded. The government then arrested 235 of them in Istanbul on April 24, which coincided with the Allied landing in Gallipoli at the Dardanelles Straits. Subsequently on May 27, 1915 the government decided to evacuate civilians from the war zones and to resettle in Syria Armenian villagers that critically intercepted military supply lines in the East, provided logistical support to the insurgents and carried out mass killings in neighboring Turkish and Kurdish villages. The resettlement was unfortunately marred by many deaths caused by epidemics, banditry and acts of revenge. The protection provided by government troops to the convoys proved to be inadequate, it reflected the limited possibilities of an overtaxed state which was engaged in three major battle fronts.
Conclusion: Some individuals in the West maintain that the resettlement was a state-organized mass killing that ought to be recognized as genocide. They would do well to consider the following:
-The Ottoman capital of Istanbul was occupied by the Allies from 1918 to 1922. The British authorities did not find any evidence of mass killings ordered by the Ottoman government, this conclusion was reported to London as well as to the U.S. State Department.
-In 1915-16 and again in 1919 the Ottoman government brought to court civilian and military administrators who were charged with negligence in following government orders of safe passage for the deportees and were consequently held responsible for losses suffered during the resettlement.
Many were indicted, some received the death penalty and a total of sixty seven were hanged.
-In times of war governments are by definition expected to defend their country against external and internal enemies. The question is how to treat subversive citizens caught in flagrant acts of treason, should they be executed or resettled? The Ottoman decision to move and resettle Armenians away from the war zone is to be considered in this light. It should be asked how the French would have reacted if separatist Corsicans had sided with the Germans during either world war, or how the British would have treated the Irish or the Scots had they engaged in mass treason in the same wars. The Armenians of Anatolia, led by foreign-provoked renegades, were involved in amply documented, treasonable activities starting from the 1890's, which in 1914-15 culminated in their defection to the Russian side. Their action resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of Turkish and Kurdish lives and led to Russian occupation of the Eastern provinces.
-Any comparison with the Jewish tragedy of World War II would be an unforgivable insult to a minority which did not commit treason nor rose against their country except in one desperate reaction of self defense in the Warsaw Ghetto. It would also be grossly illogical since it was the Ottoman side which reacted against repeated acts of treason and armed uprisings to defend the state.
Final words: Enumeration of civilian losses in Eastern Anatolia during the 1890-1919 period can not be limited solely to the losses suffered by Armenians unless one disregards the sanctity of human lives regardless of race, color and creed! A request to have the Turks express their grief for losses sustained by the Ottoman Armenians during the mass resettlement of 1915 would be grossly provocative and unfair if not accompanied by a request toward the Armenians to manifest repentance for the acts of treason and mass killings committed in Anatolia by their forefathers prior to and after May 1915. Failure to respect this modicum of intellectual fairness will only serve to further exacerbate relations between two peoples that in the past enjoyed long centuries of symbiotic coexistence. Accusations of genocide are typically formulated by ill-informed or ill-intentioned, mercenary academics and politicians who stand ready to pre-condemn without a fair trial and to pass so-called "anti-denialist" laws intended to punish those who assert that what took place was self-defense and not genocide. The racist, hate-mongering instigators who recruit and remunerate such "opinion leaders" secure their income by exploiting the unwarranted feelings of victimization that they foster among intimidated diaspora Armenians. However hard they may try, these ill-intentioned people will not help the Turks or Kurds forget the mass treason and killings committed by the once "loyal people". What is required is an honest, impartial investigation of all the facts by a committee of international scholars appointed, for instance, by the International Court of Justice with the consensus of both sides. This committee would base its conclusions on a thorough analysis of the Ottoman state archives along with those of Russia, the U.S., Germany, France, GB and Armenia, among others, with the hope of a return to normality by 2015!
Istanbul, November 2009 Fikret Semin
(B.Sc.in El.Eng.,Robert College, Istanbul; M.Sc.in Mech.Eng., Univ.of Mich. Ann Arbor)
PS: The above notes (with the exception of the "Final Words" which reflect my personal views) are mostly based on information which is readily available on the Internet. The following sources however deserve special mention:
-"Armenian Genocide Resource Center" run by Turkish Armenians who reside in the West, their website is: Armenians-1915.blogspot.com. Sincere thanks to the organizers for providing a rich source of balanced, updated information.
-"The Genocide of Truth", a monumental reference work of some 700 pages which is based entirely on "non-Turkish", Western and Russian sources. To the best of my knowledge this book is the first of its kind and is indispensable for anyone who desires to form an intelligent, unbiased opinion on the subject. It has been compiled and commented by Sukru Server Aya, Istanbul Commerce University published it in 2008. It may be accessed here .
-"The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnagzoutiun) Has Nothing To Do Any More", a booklet by Hovhannes Katchaznouni, the first Prime Minister of independent Armenia from 1918 to 1919. It comprises the report that he presented to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) congress of April 1923 in Bucharest. It may be reached at the above blogspot and includes such remarks as:
"In the years preceding the (First) World War, it was a gross mistake to allow the formation of armed volunteers that openly incited the Turks by massacring them, hoping that their retaliation would generate the sympathy of the West toward Armenians."
"The potential of the Turkish side was not assessed realistically whereas the capacity of the Armenians was overestimated. We were led to believe that the Western Powers would have run to our rescue."
"The Turks reacted in self-defence, their decision to resettle the Armenians should not be cause for remorse on their part."
Quod Erat Demonstrandum: Which Was To Be Demonstrated! .
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03 November 2009
2979) Türkiye’de Ermeniler-Cemaat-Birey-Yurttaş: Armenians in Turkey – Community-Individual-Citizen: Book Review By Sukru Server Aya
(Translated from Turkish)
ISBN 978-805-399—095-6 Bilgi Univ. Publication No. 253, İstanbul June 2009
INTRODUCTION
If many of my past and present sincere friends were not to be of Armenian ethnicity and with all of them, I had experienced not even one thing unpleasant, other than bilateral love, understanding and sharing; I would have had no reason to make this research. The fact that the book authors are aged to be my children or grand children and they all have “scholar titles” made me to think it over, because our “mission is to pacify, intermix, avoid any complexes of superiority-inferiority or wealth, and is to complete this short lifetime with positive endeavors!
If at the presentation made for the book, the writers were not to use a very heavy charge against the Turkish state and its sections such as “intended act of not educating”, probably my curiosity was not to be awoke!
Consequently the writers express in the introduction section of the book that ' This wall of silence was supported by prejudices based on wrong information and for one side “taught non-existence”, and for the other side “defensive/protective styles of habit” !' . . . 
A very important and reliable “eyewitness report” is the rather long article written by Swedish Army Officer HJ Pravitz (Gustav Hjalmar Pravitz) who wrote a somewhat long article in the Nya Dagligt Allehanda, 23 April 1917, under the title: The situation of the Armenians: By one who was among them. This officer was neutral, and traveled the area on horse and witnessed the situation of the columns. The following is excerpted from this first-hand embedded eyewitness, a Protestant Christian, who had no reason to defend Turks! Full article is available on
http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/swedish-eyewitness.htm
“Recently returned home from abroad I have right now – i.e. somewhat late – had the opportunity to look at two Swedish booklets on the Armenian issue. ‘Sven Hedin – adelsman’ (Sven Hedin – a nobility) by Ossiannilsson and ‘Armeneiernas fruktansvarta lage’ (the terrible situation of the Armenians), by Marika Stjernstedt. The former book went immediately in the wastebasket. In all its poorly hidden appreciation of the title character, it annoyed me more than a main article in Dagens Nyheter. The latter, which seemed spirited by the compassion of the suffering Armenians, I have read repeatedly, and it is really this and its inaccuracies that my article is about.
I dare to claim, that any other Swede has had the opportunity like me, to thoroughly and closely study the misery among the Armenians, since I now for about a month have traveled right among all the emigrating poor people. And this, during the right time, fall 1915, during which the alleged brutalities, according to both writers, were practically bad. I want to hope, that what I am describing below, which are my own experiences, will have the purpose to remove the impression of inhumanity and barbarity from the Turkish and German side, which is easily induced by the reading of the two booklets mentioned above. If I understand the contents of the books correctly, both writers want to burden the Turks as well as the Germans with deliberate assaults or even cruelties. My position as an embedded eyewitness gives me the right and duty to protest against such claims, and the following, based on my experiences will support and strengthen this protest. … I started my journey from Constantinople through Asian Turkey, with a certain prejudiced point of view, partly received from American travelers, about the persecution of the Armenians by their Turkish masters. My lord, which misery I would see, and to which cruelties I would witness! And although my long service in the Orient has not convinced me that the Armenians, despite their Christianity, are any of God’s best children, I decided to keep my eyes open to see for myself to which extent the rumors about Turkish assaults are true and the nameless victims were telling the truth. I sure got to view misery, but planned cruelties? Absolutely nothing.”
From the Swedish paper, “Nya Daglight Allehanda”,.April 23rd, 1917, by H.J. Pravitz
“When Erzurum fell in February, 1916, an Armenian, with whom I just shared Russian imprisonment, uttered something I interpreted as ‘it would have fallen earlier if we had been allowed to stay’.’ That a country like Turkey, threatened and attacked by powerful external enemies, is trying to secure itself against cunning internal enemies, no one should be able to blame her… Armenians have their own religion, their own language, both in speaking and writing, their own schools etc…As far as the much discussed major Armenian migration is concerned, I am the first to agree that the attempts of the Turkish side to reduce the difficulties of the refuges left a lot to be desired. But I emphasize again, in the name of fairness, that considering the difficult situation in which Turkey, as the target of attack from three powerful enemies, was in and it was, in my opinion, almost impossible for the Turks under the circumstances, to have been able to keep up an orderly assistance activity…I have seen dying and dead along the roads –but among hundreds of thousands there must, of course, occur casualties-. I have seen children’s corpse, shredded in pieces by jackals, and pitiful individuals stretch their bony arms with piercing screams of ‘ekmek’ (bread). But my travel companion of mine, Dr. Schacht, was also traveling along the river. He also had nothing to tell. In summary, I think that Mrs. Stjernstedt, somewhat uncritically’ has accepted the hair-raising stories from more or less biased sources, which formed the basis for her lecture… But I do want to, as far as it can be considered to be within the powers of an eyewitness, deny that the regular gendarme forces, who supervised the transports, are guilty of any cruelties. (Rattvik, April, 1917, H.J. Pravitz”)
From the Swedish newspaper, “Nya Daglight Allehanda”,.April 23rd, 1917, by H.J. Pravitz
.
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22 October 2009
2978) “We May Think Of Turks As Backward Asiatic Slobs,” Shahan Shahnour . . .
WE NEVER LEARN
*********************
“We may think of Turks as backward Asiatic slobs,” Shahan Shahnour warns us somewhere, “but make no mistake about it: when it comes to Armenians, they can be very, very calculating and methodical.”
If the intention of the Protocols was to pit the Diaspora against the Homeland, it was must be declared a brilliant coup -- judging by the Diaspora's venomous opposition to the regime in Yerevan.
*
The Turks are now imposing punitive taxation on their media barons critical of the regime. It seems they respect a free press as much as we do.
I will never forget the conversation I once had with the publisher of a bilingual (English-Armenian) weekly in Los Angeles. He began by informing me that he had received a call from the secretary of a national benefactor.
“What did he want?” I asked, smelling a rat.. . .
“He demanded why I go on publishing you,” was his reply.
“And you said?”
“I said I edit only the Armenian section, someone else handles the English section.”
“Did he buy that?”
I guess he didn't because shortly thereafter I was fired with no explanation, severance pay, or even a thank you note for my decade -long pro bono weekly contributions of book reviews, commentaries, and translations.
COMMENTS
****************************************************
“Deal may end Turkish-Armenian friction,” reads the headline of a commentary on the Protocols by a British pundit. So far however it has succeeded only in increasing Diaspora-Homeland friction.
*
According to a British diplomat, also quoted in today's paper: “Africans as a whole are not only not averse to cutting off their nose to spite their face; they regard such an operation as a triumph of cosmetic surgery.”
My first thought: That makes two of us.
*
If you can't explain the inexplicable, what's the use of writing?
*
Every morning on waking up sometimes I fail to remind myself that the sun does not rise to hear me crowing.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
*************************************
“A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.” (William Blake)
*
To understand history means to see the connecting tissue that binds two apparently unrelated occurrences. Naregatsi's lamentations and a thousand years of subservience. Abovian's suicide and the Genocide. Tolstoy's excommunication and the Russian revolution. The persecution of dissenters and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
*
Perhaps one reason we don't behead our “kings” is that they know how to flatter our vanity. Example: We are a young nation and the oldest civilization.
*
If on occasion I insult my fellow Armenians it may be because so far flattery has not worked for us.
*
If they massacred us because they hated us, does that justify our own hatred for them? What if hatred is toxic to our understanding of our enemies, or for that matter of our friends, and ultimately of ourselves and reality?
*
I never say anything about others that I am not prepared to say about myself. It is through my own failings that I recognize them in others.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
********************************************************
Someone voices an opinion, another develops it, a third sees an idea in it, and a fourth formulates a general theory. That's how human thought is advanced. But where there is intolerance, there will be censorship, and where there is censorship, progress will be arrested, creativity aborted, and man moronized.
*
I too am a survivor – not of Turkish atrocities but of moronized fellow countrymen.
*
All men are created equal, but some men are in a better position to say one thing, do the opposite, and get away with murder.
*
Like most men I was educated to be a dupe, but unlike most men I continued to be one even in my advanced years. When an Armenian writer from Beirut once told me he had given up writing because several of his masterpieces had burned during the civil war in Beirut, I believed him. But when I mentioned this to another writer from Beirut, I was told that's a favorite cliché of Beirutsi intellectuals – to blame the non-existence of their works on the war.
*
What we need is an Armenian Human Rights Commission that will expose our dismal human rights record. We are either for human rights or against it. If we are against it, we must be for Levantine charlatanism, Soviet brutality, and Asiatic barbarism.
*
We have a veritable alphabet soup of organizations and bureaucracies run by Levantine wheeler-dealers in the Diaspora and former commissars in the Homeland. What we don't have and need badly is a Human Rights Commission.
Bureaucrats are bureaucrats regardless of nationality. Unchecked by watchdog agencies, they will grab as much power as they can. But what I find even more repellent than power-hungry bureaucrats is the silence of our academics and intellectuals. Mart bidi ch'ellank.
*
I wonder, do Turks have a Human Rights Commission? If they don't, in what way are we different from them? If they do, is it conceivable that they are more civilized than we are? Something to think about.
THE SOURCE OF ALL EVIL
****************************************************
Rabbis, imams, sultans and their Christian counterparts in the West: They may believe they speak in the name of God but they speak in the name of a figment of their imagination in which they are, if not God, than one with the Almighty. What makes them powerful is their connection with the collective unconscious, and the unconscious is the source of all evil.
*
You begin to think for yourself only on the day you begin to see the Big Lie that is at the root of all propaganda lines.
*
Call a military defeat a moral victory and you've got yourself a win-win proposition; which may suggest that, in addition to being the first nation to convert to Christianity, we may also qualify as the first nation to be taken in by the "massals" of spin doctors.
*
We have been careless in our choice of enemies and even more careless in our choice of friends who can be even more dangerous than enemies. Our leaders did not massacre us, true, they only made us more vulnerable to massacres.
*
There has been so much oppression, injustice, and slavery in the world that one is tempted to conclude God may not always be on the side of equality, liberty, and fraternity.
REVIEWING THE SHITUATION
****************************************************
The Jews worshiped Jehovah,
the Greeks Jupiter,
the Russians Jugashvili,
and the Yanks the Almighty –
and I don't mean the Good Lord.
If you see progress here,
I must be blind.
*
The Turks are a nasty folk,
and so am I
because I refuse to be bamboozled.
*
Sartre was an atheist.
He believed in freedom
but supported Stalin, Mao, and Castro,
not exactly friends of freedom.
Sartre's master was Heidegger
whose master was Hitler.
*
In the Ottoman Empire
we were brainwashed
to be loyal subjects of the Sultan.
In the Soviet Union
we were brainwashed to be good comrades
and to kill and die for the Union,
but mostly to die.
We are now being brainwashed
by the brainwashed
to believe we are in good hands.
Now then, go ahead and say
you see a light at the end of the tunnel,
because speaking for myself,
I don't even see a tunnel --
probably because I am blind.
SONGS OF THE BLEEDING THROAT
****************************************************
Because history is the propaganda of the victor, we have made of it the consolation of the loser. Our revolutionaries assert they were not terrorists, they were freedom fighters. Americans are familiar with that line and they don't buy it. That's why when it comes to Genocide recognition they side with the Turks. They have other reasons. Imperial powers have neither friends nor enemies, only interests, and American interests are not on our side. We are of no use to them – except in time of elections when they are more than willing to tell us what we want to hear and we are more than willing to believe them. Being dupes comes naturally to us. It might as well be a habit, an addiction, a gorilla on our collective back impossible to shake off. Americans know this. So do our own leaders, whose lies are as bare-faced as those of Yanks running for office.
*
The average book on Turkish atrocities is another atrocity. In our efforts to paint them all black and ourselves all white, we succeed only in exposing our propaganda and damaging our credibility.
I am reading a new book on the Genocide in which our deportations during World War I are compared to the Japanese deportations in America during World War II. There are “loaded” comparisons as surely as there are loaded questions and as such they should be inadmissible, and those who make them ought to know better. It would be fairer to compare the treatment of Blacks and Indians in America with the treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
*
So far no book by an Armenian comes close to explaining why a writer of Siamanto's stature hated life in America so much that he preferred to return to Istanbul knowing full well that he could be butchered. Which he was. Or why an intellectual like Roupen Sevag, a medical doctor by profession and another victim of the Genocide, defended the Turks to his German fiancée when she was critical of them and wanted to convince him to move to Europe.
*
Speaking of Oshagan, Zarian writes somewhere that when writers like him speak of Homeland they don't mean Armenia but Istanbul. Several decades before the massacres, Raffi warned the Ottoman Empire was no place for Armenians. And notwithstanding Zarian's own repeated warnings that Soviet Armenia was no place for Armenians, American-educated Totovents and Sorbonne-educated Zabel Yessayan returned to Armenia only to perish in Stalin's Gulags. If our ablest intellectuals behave like dupes, why should we be surprised that there are still Armenians who trust our wheeler-dealers who try to brainwash us into believing we are in good hands and we have nothing to worry about?
THE PROTOCOLS
************************************
Our leaders must be celebrating.
They now have another reason to divide the nation.
Why do they oppose the findings of an independent commission?
Words on a piece of paper, agreements, treaties: they can't change reality. They have been ignored in the past, many times, and they can be ignored again. They are binding only if we allow them to bind us, and no one has the power to do that.
Who takes politicians and academics seriously?
A so-called impartial commission does not scare me. It is here today, heard tomorrow, forgotten the day after.
Relax! The sky isn't falling.
Nothing can be more naïve than to confuse the verbal commitments of diplomats with accomplished facts.
If, say, ten or a hundred years from now, an independent commission were to decide there is no God, do you think believers will give up their faith? They didn't under Lenin, Stalin, Mao and their kind.
And speaking of God: the Scriptures tell us, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And yet our leaders keep dividing us. If they can ignore the Word of the Almighty, why can't they ignore the empty verbiage of a commission? If only they had been more skeptical a hundred years ago and ignored the verbal support of the West! There would have been no Genocide and no Genocide commission deciding whether the Genocide was in fact a genocide.
*
The daily quotation of my morning paper today is by Aldous Huxley and it reads: “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
Go ahead, say it ain't so!
ARMENIAN TYPES
***********************************************
The white-haired elder statesman,
the "mi-kich-pogh" Panchoonie,
the apres-moi-le-deluge and
what's-in-it-for-me wheeler-dealer,
the loud-mouth charlatan,
the inbred moron who assesses himself as a genius,
the phony pundit (whose wisdom
is a figment of his imagination --
sometimes even recycled enemy propaganda:
remember our chic Bolsheviks),
the brown-noser,
and the grub-first-then ethics speechifier.
If I speak with some authority on all these types
it's because at one time or another I have been all of them --
all except the white-haired elder statesman --
my hair is black with only a shake of salt in them.
*
You begin to acquire a moral compass on the day you feel guilty about acts you committed without a single trace of remorse.
*
If some very smart men profess very stupid belief systems, it may be because the aim of belief systems is not to make sense but to satisfy a need, like hunger. The rest is propaganda.
*
God is one, but the lies spoken in His name are without number.
*
To simplify matters for the simple-minded, let us say there are two kinds of people: (one) the brainwashed dupes, and (two) those whose ambition it is to be a human being.
*
Most Greeks and Turks (probably the overwhelming majority) are neither Greeks nor Turks, only citizens of Greece and Turkey. As for my fellow Armenians, I will speak only for myself: On a clear day I can trace my ancestry all the way back to my father.
*
History seems to suggest that the most effective way to combat a Big Lie is with bigger lies.
LIFE IS SHORT
***********************************************
Life is short,
art long, but even longer
is the list of things
that must be said and done.
*
You say, “Me wrong? Never!”
and I say “How I wish I were wrong.”
*
I have yet to meet a smart Armenian
who was not self-assessed
and a self-assessed Armenian
who was not a damn fool.
*
How to succeed as a writer?
I don't know.
But I can tell you how to fail:
Be an Armenian writer.
Michael Arlen succeeded
because he pretended to be an upper-crust Englishman.
Saroyan succeeded because he wrote about characters
that were as imaginary as Winnie the Pooh.
Compare the characters in PAPA, YOU'RE CRAZY
and MAMA, I LOVE YOU with their real counterparts –
himself and his two children
whom he disowned like an enraged grizzly bear.
IDIOTS
***********************************************
Christians believe their religion to be the only true one. Muslims, ditto.
Where there is unanimity, “cherchez” the Big Lie.
*
We brag about being survivors. Imagine a man who survives an accident in which his entire family perishes. Would it even occur to him to brag about his survival?
We are taught to brag by idiots who expect us to see a positive needle in a haystack of negatives.
*
Zabel Yessayan and Gostan Zarian survived the Turk's yataghan but fell victim to Armenian idiots – the very same idiots who expect us to believe we never had it so good because we are in the best of hands.
*
The aim of propaganda is to moronize the masses by convincing them not to think for themselves because leaders are the brains of the nation, which amounts to saying the people are brainless.
*
The French say “Cherchez la femme,” to point out the fact that some very smart men have committed murder because they were infatuated with a worthless slut. Our literature may be said to be a constant battle against our infatuation with empty verbiage. Hence its unpopularity with idiots.
IDIOTS (II)
***********************************************
Simenon, the author of over 500 books, believed it is law-abiding citizens who create murderers.
In his ANTI-SEMITE & THE JEW, Sartre asserts that Jews are created by anti-Semites.
Goethe once said that he can't imagine a crime he is not capable of committing. But not even he could have imagined that some day his fellow countrymen would be capable of incinerating millions of innocent civilians.
Speaking of the Armenian massacres, Toynbee tells us, given the right combination of circumstances, we, all of us, are capable of behaving like Turks.
In novels like CRIME & PUNISHMENT and THE POSSESSED (sometimes also translated as THE DEVILS), Dostoevsky identifies himself with characters who commit unspeakable acts to such a degree that he leaves no doubt as to his inner drives.
Long before the writers and thinkers mentioned above, our own Naregatsi described himself as someone a respectable citizen wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.
Moral: Only self-righteous and self-satisfied idiots assert moral or racial superiority.
ON THE PRINCIPLE OF CONSISTENCY
***********************************************
I don't understand why some Armenians consider the phrase “I don't understand” unArmenian.
*
Whenever I agree with a writer, I feel as though one of us were redundant. Which is why I find disagreement more stimulating, provided of course it is not an expression of prejudice or oneupmanship.
*
How Armenian are we when our cuisine and music share more features with contemporary Turkey than with 5th-century Armenia? I don't mention art and literature because it is extremely difficult to speak of the shadow of a black hat in a dark room.
*
When two people believe God or Truth to be on their side and they contradict each other, it is safe to assume it is not God or Truth that they share but Big Lies and the Devil.
*
What if God exists but wants to remain anonymous, inaccessible, and incomprehensible?
*
Isn't it absurd to think that after a burst of creativity God called it quits and retired? It makes more sense to assume that He is creating other universes in other dimensions even as I write these lines? -- if, that is, the principle of consistency (“Unless something very drastic happens, tomorrow will be the same as today”) applies.
HOW SMART ARE WE?
***********************************************
Our greatest obstacle to progress is our conviction that we are so damn smart that we can do no wrong.
*
History speaks louder than propaganda, but not to the deaf.
*
How smart are we if it took us 600 years to figure them out?
*
Being smart and being a dupe are mutually exclusive concepts.
*
No one is smart enough to tell an Armenian something he doesn't already know.
*
If I were to name my greatest enemy, it would've to be unawareness of my own ignorance.
*
Reading words, understanding their meaning, and placing the meaning in its historical context are three separate operations and require three different disciplines.
*
An idea that is against our own interests may not be anti-Armenian in the same way that being a law-abiding citizen and saying yes to authority may not be patriotic.
*
Ideas and imagination, intention and action, reality and fantasy: there are no sharp dividing lines between them. With a good lawyer one could plead not guilty, even when guilty as hell, make a good enough case to a jury of one's peers, and get away with murder.
*
There is no such thing as a sterile idea, only sterile minds.
*
Socrates and Christ have taught me, to say what must be said can be a capital offense.
*
I can't imagine anything more unpleasant and dangerous than a mind without doubts.
IF THE PAST IS PROLOGUE
********************************************
The only thing that so far has changed in our collective existence is the size and nature of our blunders.
*
To make plans without taking into consideration the unforeseen, the unknown, and the unknowable is to court disaster.
*
The apologists of the Wall Street bonus scandal call it “an insignificant fraction of the bailout money.” That's what they said about Watergate too -- “a third-rate burglary.”
*
I once heard an Armenian from the Homeland say, “So what if he [Nixon] lied? They lie to us every day.”
*
I look forward to the day when capitalism will bite the dust as communism did.
*
They gave the Nobel Prize to Arafat and Kissinger but not to Tolstoy and Gandhi. And when they awarded the Prize to Thomas Mann they did so not for THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN but for BUDDENBROOKS.
Had Hitler won World War II, he too would have been considered for the Nobel Prize “for pacifying the West after thirty centuries of almost ceaseless internecine conflicts.”
*
“After Hitler won World War II...” What a novel one could write with such a first line!
*
Before you dare to disagree with an Armenian, consider the words of an old wise man: “When you fight with a pig, you both get dirty, but only the pig likes it.”
IN PRAISE OF BREVITY
*********************************
Better a bad haiku than a mediocre sonnet.
In writing the principle that never fails is brevity. Keep it short!
A paragraph may be admirable in its beauty and complexity,
but it is one-liners that stick to one's mind.
“To be or not to be...”
“Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.”
“A bourgeois is a bourgeois regardless of nationality.”
“An Armenian's tongue is sharper than a Turk's yataghan.”
“Once upon a time we were willing to die for freedom, we are now afraid of free speech.”
*
ONE-LINERS FROM DIOGENES
*********************************************
To the son of a prostitute who threw a stone at him:
“Be careful, my boy, you may be hitting your father.”
To a bald man who insulted him:
“I congratulate the hairs on your head for abandoning a fool like you.”
On being reprimanded for masturbating in public:
“I wish I could satisfy my hunger as easily.”
*
ON NATIONALISM
*******************************
In the Middle Ages Armenians ruled empires and they were themselves ruled by Jews (Bagratunis) and the Mamigonians (Chinese). What has nationalism done for us except to divide us further?
DEAD MEN WALKING
************************************
In a book of abusive terms I once read that Greeks call Armenians “Turkish gypsies.” That was news to me probably because I seldom ventured outside our ghetto outside Athens – though I was fully aware of the fact that Greeks were not particularly fond of us. Not that they had any reason to be. In their eyes we were unwanted interlopers, D.P.'s (a Canadian abusive term for "displaced people"), who lived crowded in a ghetto that looked like a gypsy encampment.
*
Speaking of abusive terms: I have met many Armenians from the Homeland and none of them has ever called me “aghber.” If the natives call us “aghber” in the Homeland, why not in the Diaspora?
I suspect they don't call me “aghber” for the same reason that a white man is careful not to use the “n” word while visiting Africa, or refer to the natives as Japs while in Tokyo.
*
On a number of occasions I have been told when Armenians call their fellow Armenians “aghber,” they mean not “trash” but “brother.” But I happen to know from personal experience that no one can be as abusive to Armenians as a fellow Armenian (see below). If you don't believe me read Naregatsi on Naregatsi. Read Raffi, read Daniel Varoujan on priests, read Baronian, Odian, Massikian, Zarian....
*
I dare anyone to read Odian's FAMILY, HONOR, MORALITY (Istanbul, 1910) and not think of his fictional characters as dead men walking – not in the sense of inmates on death row but as men so degraded and dehumanized that they might as well be dead. And if you think Armenians today – be they in New York, Los Angeles, or Yerevan – are alive, it may be because we don't have writers of Odian's caliber, only Turcocentric ghazetajis and academics who come alive only when they speak of massacres.
What kind of life is it that is fixated on death?
I shiver to think what would happen to someone like Odian today who would have the courage to speak of Armenians not as they wish to be described but as they are.
*
Speaking of his tuberculosis, Albert Camus writes: “The illness comes on quickly, but leaves very slowly.” He fails to note that sometimes tuberculosis may even result in death.
*
Speaking of Armenians being too nice to use abusive terms: I don't mind admitting that on occasion I have myself described some of them as “Ottomanized morons,” “the scum of the earth,” and “inbred morons”-- but always in retaliation of worse insults, whether fairly or unfairly not up to me to decide...remains to be seen...posterity will tell...take your pick!
HEMINGWAY ON KEMAL ATATURK
****************************************************
“[He] looks like an Armenian lace seller than a Turkish general. There is something mouselike about him.”
What does an Armenian lace seller look like? I plead nolo. An Armenian lace seller makes as much sense to me as a Patagonian barber or a Syrian carpenter.
But if you are an American writer writing for an American audience, you can say anything and get away with it.
OSHAGAN & DOSTOEVSKY
************************************
Oshagan was wrong when he said he could not write like Dostoevsky because Armenians did not have Dostoevksian characters. But Dostoevsky's characters owe more to his imagination than to his fellow countrymen. Even Russian writers like Turgenev and Nabokov found Dostoevsky's characters unRussian. As for Oshagan: since he could not write like Dostoevsky, he chose to write like Proust, whose French characters are even more unArmenian than Raskolnikov and Dimitri Karamazov.
*
TURGENEV ON DOSTOEVSKY
********************************************
Whenever he saw anything morbid and strange, Turgenev would say, “C'est du Dostoevsky.”
*
CHEKHOV & ZOHRAB
***********************************
When Chekhov discovered he could make money by writing stories, he gave up medicine – he went on practicing whenever the situation demanded but never charged for his services.
Had Zohrab given up lawyering, he could have been as great a short story writer as Maupassant and Chekhov. There was some money in Armenian literature at the turn of the century in Istanbul but not enough for Zohrab's upper crust lifestyle. To give you an idea how much money there is in Armenian literature today: I am told one of our national benefactors financially supported several writers, among them Shahan Shahnour, by sending them a regular monthly check of $8.00 (eight dollars).
*
SHAKESPEARE
*******************************
One reason he was great is that he had a great audience. He wrote for kings and queens, and even his queens had cojones. An Armenian writer writes for Levantine philistines in the Diaspora and the offspring of commissars in the Homeland. That's why even Turks are ahead of us in literature.
*
ON LEVANTINE PHILISTINES
**************************************************
There is a Turkish saying: “Eshek khoshavdan ne annar?” (What does a jackass know about stewed raisins?”
As for the commissars in the Homeland: they are more like Raskolnikov without a conscience. My guess is, they miss the good old days when they could hunt down and shoot writers like rabbits.
A RECURRING EXPERIENCE
****************************************************
When as a child I first heard the story about the Ottoman Bank takeover by a small band of young revolutionaries in Istanbul, who then negotiated their safe passage to a foreign country, but whose actions provoked the massacre of over 5000 innocent civilians: I admired the daring of our youthful heroes, hated the Turks for their cruelty, and suffered with the blameless victims.
That's when I was a child.
Now that I am no longer a child, I have second thoughts.
What kind of heroism is it when the heroes survive and the people perish?
Our revolutionaries justify this colossal blunder by saying, “We made headlines around the world!”
Maybe. But who gives a damn about headlines in newspapers?
The Genocide that followed made headlines too. And again the ship went down, the people drowned, but our captain survived. And we are now taught to say, Long live the captain!
We are also taught to brag about our will to live; and by “our” they of course mean their cunning to survive.
As for the people: the people exist to serve the nation – meaning the leadership. What we are not taught is that this is another definition of fascism.
In a democracy it's the other way around. The state and the leaders (also known as “public servants”) serve the people.
Democracy?
What do we know about democracy?
I have had an Armenian education and I don't remember anyone mentioning democracy.
To speak of democracy to an Armenian audience amounts to explaining the subtle aroma and flavor of rosejam to a jackass.
“If one has character,” Nietzsche tells us, “one has also one's typical experience that recurs again and again.”
One could also say, “If one has no brain...”
HOW TO RECOGNIZE AN HONEST MAN
***********************************************
A readiness to speak against one's own interests, or the courage to face and admit openly one's own failings, is the hallmark of an honest man.
By contrast, parading as a holier-than-thou role model is the quintessence of dishonesty.
But the most dangerous form of dishonesty is the assertion that man is fallible in all matters except in his choice of belief systems.
*
When Gandhi, Einstein, and Thomas Mann were offered the presidency of India, Israel, and East Germany respectively, they said, no thanks. Which reminds me of Plato's dictum that those who seek power are the least qualified to handle it. That to me might as well be the most convincing explanation as to why world history is an endless catalog of lies, disasters, and tragedies.
*
Our local paper has a literary critic who manages a bookstore. He contributes a regular weekly column devoted to new books and he is unfailingly kind to all the writers he discusses. Who takes him seriously? Only dupes, and there must be quite a few of them because he has been in business for many years.
*
Closer to home: to defend one's views just because they are one's own, even when the evidence is against them, is another instance of dishonesty. But the most widespread and universal symptom of dishonesty is saying “Yes, sir!” to someone simply because he has more power or money or prestige. Speaking for myself, I don't think those who speak in the name of God and capital (make it, Capital and god) are wiser than the rest of us. If anything, it's the other way around. Which is why I maintain the most egregious case of dishonesty is the assertion by the Catholic Church that in matters of faith the Pope is infallible – an assertion rejected even by some eminent Catholic theologians. Because, if true, all other organized religions, including an important faction of Christians, must be wrong. Which they may well be, but not because they reject the Pope's infallibility.
ASSETS & LIABILITIES
**********************************
A writer's two best assets:
the sensitivity of an open wound
and the hide of a rhino.
*
Money cannot solve our problems.
Money may even exacerbate them.
That's because where money enters,
philistinism is bound to follow.
And where philistinism enters,
mediocrity becomes the dominant mindset.
That's the only reason why
our problems remain unsolved.
As for our so-called “conditions beyond our control”--
they are nothing but convenient cover-up words
for our lack of vision and incompetence.
*
The biography of a man
duplicates the history of mankind,
with one difference:
what follows the Dark Ages
is not always Enlightenment.
*
There is so much talk of massacres in our media
that most Armenians are brought up to believe
genocide is the only legitimate violation of human rights.
As for free speech:
no one speaks in its defense because no one cares.
JUSTICE & THE LAW
********************************************
Armenians who oppose the Protocols do so because they are fearful we may lose. Justice, after all, is blind, and the law “is a ass” (Dickens). As a matter of fact, lawyers prefer to speak of evidence and the law rather than justice.
*
Relying on the evidence of insiders, an Armenian editor once published a critical article about the operation of an Armenian organization headed by a national benefactor,who took him to court; and because the insiders refused to testify against the benefactor (they were either hirelings or recipients of his generosity), the editor not only lost but also had a stroke and went bankrupt. That's justice Armenian style for you.
*
I have been to court only once in my life – small claims court. My adversary, an incompetent repairman who refused to do what he was paid to do. I took him to court with the absolute certainty that I couldn't lose. But I lost. He lied and the judge believed him and rejected my version of the story on the grounds that I couldn't produce a witness.
*
Why did I lose? I can think of many reasons. The judge may have been a racist. The repairman, like the judge, had an Anglo-Saxon name. How dare I, an immigrant, question Anglo-Saxon efficiency and integrity?
The judge had had no experience with incompetent or dishonest repairmen – who, after all, would dare to cheat a lawyer or a judge?
The judge's father had been a hard-working repairman who had also been unfairly accused of incompetence...and so on and so forth.
The fact remains that I lost and learned what I should have known all along, namely that, injustice is the price we pay for justice. That's not a contradiction but life, and life, as we all know, is not fair.
OBSERVATIONS
***********************************************
George Orwell criticized Dickens for “always pointing to a change of spirit rather than a change of structure.” If Dickens did that, it may be because a change of heart or spirit must precede a change of structure. Before you convert swine, you must introduce them to themselves. In the Soviet Union the structure changed but the heart went from bad to worse.
*
Dissidents win even when they lose in so far as they keep the tradition of dissent alive.
*
Both Tevye the Milkman and Bernard Madoff are members of the same tribe. Now then, go ahead and generalize.
*
It is easy to have all the answers if you ask the wrong questions.
*
There are two kinds of divisions, (one) dog-eat-dog, and (two) Armenian, and of the two, the second runs deeper.
*
Honesty and dishonesty are two painfully acquired habits.
*
If perfection cannot be improvised, it can't be worth achieving. God did not create a perfect world. What's good enough for God, it should be good enough for man.
*
Power means the power to get away with murder and to have the powerful on your side. Where power enters, justice is orphaned.
OBITER DICTA
*********************************
In the eyes of God, some wars are just.
Yes, but whose God?
*
I have been cheated by the poor and I have been cheated by the rich. The difference is that when I was cheated by the rich, they made it look like they were doing me a favor.
*
What others think of us may be as removed from reality as what we think of ourselves.
*
I look forward to the day when I will no longer look forward to anything.
*
Jesus and Torquemada, Marx and Stalin, God and the Devil: Can they be really separated?
*
There is a type of contradiction that is a symptom not of inconsistency but of ferment.
*
No one lives long enough to enjoy his immortality.
*
Our body language is invisible to us.
SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY
*********************************
Speaking of the superficiality of the Byzantine Empire, Zarian remarks somewhere: “Not a single school of philosophy.” By contrast, America may be said to be bursting at the seams with schools of philosophy.
The first time I heard someone say, “Live and let live, that's my philosophy,” I thought he was being funny. It took me a while to realize that he was dead serious. If a cliché can be a philosophy, any moron can parade as a philosopher. Which reminds me of the fact that after the Americans liberated Greece and GIs were seen everywhere in Athens, a new phrase entered the Greek language: “Do you take me for an American?” Meaning, “Do you take me for a moron?”
*
It must be just about the oldest trick in the world. You want to fool someone? Convince him he is so smart than no one can fool him.
You want to convince an entire race of men to behave like unspeakable barbarians? Convince them into believing they belong to a superior race.
That's why “Life is a bitch,” “Sh*t happens,” and “There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.” That is always why “There are more sorrows on earth than there are stars in heaven.” (Apik Avakian)
*
Closer to home: Do you need a class of men to behave like neo-Stalinist crypto-commissars? Brainwash a bunch of bullies into thinking they have leadership qualities. That is also why our political leaders are no better than the scum of the earth.
Ara Baliozian
Reader's Comments by Sukru Server Aya
Dear Ara Bey,
This time I give you very short notes, and I know you will understand what I mean.
a. Thank you for your article, I name "Franks and beans" or actually "means". For me not much is new, tastwas like "frankfurters and beans of a cowboy" when your presentation is "frankly with means".
b. Never learn - punitive taxes: Our law applications nowadays in Turkey are resemble the "rules of the whorehouses". Don't ask my friend, it is a full shame!
c. Survivors: With so many survivors, how come they came through when all of them have been verbally killed more than they ever existed?
d. Idiots and Dicta: Religions and their "robed robbers" act in the name of "their own God", not mine or yours! If it was ours, we should have seen some profit!
e. Hemingway on Kemal Ataturk: The phrase is very familiar, but I heard that it was spoken out at Lausanne conference, by some British (may be Lord Curzon or Woodrow Wilson) for Ismet Inonu, who was the head of the delegation and was a thin tiny man.
I do not think that Hemingway ever met Ataturk who never went out of Turkey. Just for the sake of truth, please let me know your source, I can be wrong and I would like to know the truth. Another fact is that I do not remembers "any Armenian lace seller", they were generally Jews only. So, the person who created an Armenian lace seller, was just inventing!
f. JUSTICE and THE LAW: Tell me where you find it to be decent. Nowadays in Armenia and Turkey we have a drought of these life essentials.
Take care friend, you never get tired of talking to them, but doesn2T do much good. Don't worry, same goes true with me as well, this is why we understand each other well. Best regards...
P.S.: Protocols? They cannot bring any results because Diaspora's honey-money collection excuse will have to disappear, with so many jobs lost...
So it has to be a mud slinging conquest to continue for many more years, that neither of us can see it end, despite our talking sense!
Aya
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21 October 2009
2977) Adana Incidents Distorted by Sarafian at a California College
Sarafian Speaks On Massacre
By Michael Hamlin Jr. | October 14, 2009, Brianna Campbell / The Collegian -
Ara Sarafian, an archival historian who specializes in late Ottoman history, presented information to California State University, Fresno students Monday night about the Adana massacre of Armenian’s in the Ottoman Empire. . .
The year 2009 marks the 100 year anniversary of the state led massacre that killed at least 20,000 Armenians in 1909. The massacre was entrenched in political, economical and religious differences.
In his presentation entitled ‘Remembering Adana’, Sarafian illustrated the destruction the massacre caused through the use of vivid pictures and hauntingly descriptive text that described the devastation and tragedy that occurred in Adana.
“The massacre was completely out of the blue,” Sarafian said during his presentation. “The devastation is breathtaking; the pictures bring the damage to life. I like to show them because if I did not, you would think I was lying or telling a story.”
Fresno State student and audience member Lauren Beal believes Fresno State students can learn many things from Sarafian’s presentation.
“Students can learn a lot about Armenian history,” Beal said. “If you can learn from history, it most likely will not be repeated.”
Barlow Der Mugrdechian, director for the center for Armenian studies, agrees that history can teach many things.
“History tells us a lot about ourselves,” Mugrdechian said after Sarafian’s lecture had concluded. “It [history] can happen again, we have to be careful of that fact and learn from our past mistakes.”
The Turkish government disputes the history of the events in Adana in 1909. The government contends that the Adana Massacre was an Armenian attack on the Muslim majority.
Sarafian addressed this issue while speaking about the importance of writing the correct history of the past. He said there is no place for lies or inaccuracies.
“The Turkish government said the Armenians were rebels [speaking about the Adana massacre of 1909]. That is a flat-out lie,” said Sarafian, founding director of the Gomidas Institute in London, a leading research center which republishes English translations of Armenian texts about the Armenian Genocide. “Historical writing is up to you. History does not write itself, states do not write history, people do.”
As well as speaking about the Adana massacre, Sarafian also had a message for Fresno State students.
“Students should have awareness for prejudice,” Sarafian said. “We are the guardians of our own freedom. We need to take a moral stance. Maybe the real question we should ask is how to stop the violence.”
On Oct. 10, the countries of Turkey and Armenia signed an agreement to establish diplomatic relations and open their border after one century of hostility towards each other. The issue of whether or not the killings of Armenians during the end of the Ottoman Empire is only hinted at, but none the less, the peace treaty was still signed.
Sarafian also put a positive perspective on the tragic massacre of 1909.
“History doesn’t always have to be negative, it can bring people together,” Sarafian said. “The legacy of Adana may not be to divide people, but to bring them together.”
http://collegian.csufresno.edu/2009/10/14/sarafian-speaks-on-massacre/comment-page-1/#comment-39516
Comments posted by Ergun KIRLIKOVALI:
Salahi Sonyel’s book “The Great War and the Tragedy of Anatolia”, TTK, Ankara, 2001, has an entire chapter on Adana; “Chapter 3: The Counter-Revolution” whose four sub-chapters are:
“The Events of 13 April 1909 (31 Mart Val’asi), pages 48-52
“The Adana Incidents”, pages 52-60
“Who was responsible for the Adana Incidents”, pages 61-64
“The Commission of Inquiry into the Adana Incidents”, pages 65-70.
All of these findings squarely refute Sarafian's claims. Here is one excerpt from page 66 where one of the most experienced American missionaries in Anatolia, Rev. Dr. Christie, gives an account to of the very origin of the Adana incident to the American diplomatic representative who, in turn, furnishes it to British ambassador in Istanbul (Lowther):
"... that the young Armenians of Adana were nearly all revolutionaries, that arms and ammunition were on sale for months, and that both sides had been laying in store of them. He also attributed a large share in the (Adana) events to the 'evil counsels' of the Armenian bishop, whom (Dr. Christie) described as 'a very bad man'..."
These comments of Dr. Christie refute Sarafian's claims and show that the idea of a revolutionary plot did in fact exist among many Armenians headed by their 'evil' bishop. The Armenians were well armed and supplied, motivated, even arrogant, and quite aggressive; attributes in stark contradiction with the Sarafian misrepresentation of innocent, unarmed Armenians.
There is much more in this book and elsewhere to clearly demonstrate to truth-seekers that one-sided accounts of historic controversies, such as that by Sarafian of Adana incidents, do not help promote scholarship, truth, peace, or closure.
Dr. Gwynne Dyer, a London-based independent journalist, may have put it best in1976 after all:
“… The deafening drumbeat of the propaganda, and the sheer lack of sophistication in argument which comes from preaching decade after decade to a convinced and emotionally committed audience, are the major handicaps of Armenian historiography of the Diaspora today…”
Note to members of the Turkish-American community:
The above was also posted in the "ACTION ALERT" at www.mediawatchnow.com . Are you "action alert" yet?
An Armenian scholar (Sarafian) travels all the way from London, England, to brainwash your kids here in a California college. Did you lift your finger to help combat this anti-Turkish propaganda in your own backyard yet?
Or would you kindly rather “the protocols” do it for you as you cannot be bothered?
You can come out of your self-isolation now, register with www.mediawatchnow.com and start speaking up. We need you more than ever today…
Tell a friend!
Ergun.
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