3309) In Memoriam Sir Mark Sykes: Remarks About The Present Disruption Of British Policy In The Near East

Revue Du Monde Musulman
1918-1919
Paris . .

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3308) Condensed Chronology of Main (ARF) Events (1860-1937)

By Sukru Server Aya

(1830 First Trade Agreement of USA with the Ottoman Empire)
1860 – Armenians (Constantinople) publish their National Constitution
1862 – First Rebellion in Zeytoun
1863 – Robert College opens, Founders: Christopher Robert & Cyrus Hamlin
1872 – Foundation of secret society in Van “Unity of Liberation = Miyoutyoun”
1878 – Treaty of San Stefanos (Yesilkoy) Art.16, Christians under Russian care!
1878 – Berlin Congress – Treaty. Reforms to be under European supervision
1885 – Marseilles, France. Formation of “Armenakan Party”.
1885 – Van – Foundation of “Armenakan Organization”.
1887 – Geneva, Switzerland: Foundation of Henchakist Social Democrat Party
1890 – Tiflis, Georgia, Foundation of ARF (Dashnak Party) Arm. Revolut. Feder.
1891 – Hunchakist party spreads to Pontus, Asia Minor and Constantinople
1892 – Tiflis, First World Congress of ARF – Bylaws; Tabriz and Tiflis bureaus!
1894 – DROSHAK published in Geneva by Rosdom ..

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3307) Video: The Truth Is Sacrificed by Sukru Server Aya

Videos: The Truth Is Sacrificed by Sukru Aya, Hosted by Bircan Unver

The Truth is Sacrificed Part I . .

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3306) Turkey Of The Ottomans By Lucy M . Garnett, 1911

I. Moslem Ottomans
2. Christian Ottomans
3. Hebrew Ottomans
4. The Ottoman Sultan
5. The Ottoman Parliament
6. Law Courts, Police And Army
7. The Religion Of Islam
8. Christianity In Turkey
9. Judaism In Turkey
10. Urban Life
11. Agrarian Turkey
12. Pastoral Turkey
13. Ottoman Homes And Home-Life
14. Education And Culture
15. Turkey At Play

Read The Full E-Book Below: . .

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3305) Critical Moment in Armenian History: An Appeal

By Jirayr Libaridian

Looming Danger of the Depopulation of Armenia and Artsakh

There are moments in a nation’s history when sustaining hope presents a serious challenge, when optimism can be maintained only if reduced to self-delusion, when indifference carries significant responsibility. . .

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3304) Slobodan Milosevic and Armenian Terrorism

by Maxime Gauin, 2 August 2011

In July 2011, the commemoration of the genocidal massacre at Srebrenica, particularly in Istanbul, and the more recently the arrest of GoranHadzic, recalled the extensive practice of ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces during the Yugoslav Civil War. If no one belligerent side was innocent of war crimes, the fact remains only Serbian forces engaged in the massacre of thousands of unarmed civilians with the intent to commit genocide, in the precise case of Srebrenica.

The background of these massacres was studied particularly within the texts of Serbian nationalist ideologues and other relevant published and translated documents, illustrating the progression from the expulsion of Belgrade’s Muslims (“Turks”) in 1807 to the atrocities of the 1990s (Grmek, Gjidara, & Simac). However, one of the roots of this ideological motivation is almost never stressed: the affinities between Serbian nationalism — including Slobodan Milosevic — and Armenian nationalism — including its propagandists and lobbyists who are welcomed by some prominent politicians in the USA and Western Europe. . . .

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3303) Among The Turks by Cyrus Hamlin, 1877

Among the Turks by Cyrus Hamlin, New York American Tract Society, 1877

Cyrus Hamlin (January 5, 1811 – August 8, 1900) was an American Congregational missionary and educator, the father of A. D. F. Hamlin.

Hamlin was born in Waterford, Maine. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1834 and from Bangor Theological Seminary in 1837. The Hamlins were a prominent nineteenth-century Maine family which also produced . . .

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3302) Life of Abdul Hamid, by Edwin Pears, 1917

Life of Abdul Hamid, by Edwin Pears
London, Constable, 1917

I Birth, Parentage, Etc., Of Abdul Hamid - Turkish Law Of Succession
II Condition Of Turkey On Accession Of Abdul Hamid
III: Revolution which places Abdul Hamid on throne
. . .

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3301) The Diversions Of Diplomat In Turkey, Samuel Cox, 1887

Diversions of a diplomat in Turkey by Samuel S. Cox
New York : C.L. Webster & Co. 1887

The author, who was American minister to Turkey, describes the country, politics, diplomacy, the Sultan, religion, Turkish wit and humor, minority groups, the Jews of Turkey, customs, harems, eunuch, slavery, marriage, the Balkans, Romania, Servia, Bulgaria, etc, and is well-illustrated throughout. Cox, a keen cultural observer, avoids diplomatic issues and seeks to impart something of the relaxation, if not the amusement, which furnished the pastime of a sojourn of unequaled refreshment and entertainment. Samuel S. Cox was United States Ambassador to Turkey from 1885 to 1887. Born in Zanesville, Ohio, he was the author of many books. . . .

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3300) May Love And Peace Win Over Hate And War One Day . . .

Happy Sixth Birthday Armenians-1915.blogspot.com !

Exclusive for
Armenians-1915.blogspot.com

July 31, 2011

I cannot believe it has been six years already: “How time flies!” ( I apologize for resorting to a cliché at a momentous time like this but this one really could not be helped.)

It was only five years ago to the day that I wrote about the first happy birthday of this remarkable website, bent on changing age-old prejudice via simple education, deep-running hostility via genuine kindness, and blind hate via solid facts, courageous exposure, and plain compassion.

In six short years, this site, a website created by a small group of devoted individuals , Armenians-1915.blogspot.com , has managed to become the largest single source of articles, books, films, and other information on the history of the Turkish-Armenian conflict of World War One as well as Turkish-Armenian relations today. That is no small feat no matter how one slices it.

My warm wishes and heartfelt congratulations go to Lara Kaplan, Seda Goulizar, and Murat Urguplu for their vision, enthusiasm, dedication, and hard work. I must say they have done a lot, if not the most, for leveling the playing field for all Turks by bringing to the attention of the world little known, much ignored, and/or deliberately dismissed out of sheer bias the flip side of this controversial issue.

Just how little known? . .

Well, I devised a little test using Google back on July 31, 2006, asking some questions, and I have repeated those same questions today, July 31, 2011, exactly 5 years later to the date, to determine where we are on these issues:

• Genocide: If you did a Google search on the word "genocide", you got 43.6 million entries in 2006 and 43.0 million in 2011.
  
  Since we know there has been many more articles written in the past five years—I alone wrote more than a thousand—I consider this Google result to be an aberration, perhaps showing Google’s limitations. Nevertheless, for lack of a better figure, please keep that 43 million figure in mind.


• Armenian Genocide: If you added the word "Armenian" before “genocide”, the number of entries dropped to 2.36 million in 2006 and 4.96 million in 2011.
  
  So the work on the alleged Armenian Genocide clearly more than doubled in 5 years. This is a simple but significant finding, perhaps proving my point that while the Armenians used to see the alleged genocide as “raison d’etre” ( psychological reason for existence,) they now turned it into a industry that actually feeds them with book and film sales, panels, exhibits, monuments, churches, donations, gifts, and more (i.e. physical reason for existence.)


• Alleged Armenian Genocide: If you further added the word "alleged" to the front of “Armenian genocide”, the number of entries dwindled to 163,000 entries in 2006 and 450,000 in 2011.
  
  It may be reasonably assumed that the word "alleged" is used in response to the Armenian claims and, therefore, probably reflects the opposing views if not also Turkish performance on this issue. The above Google data, spread over five years, with all of their faults, duplications, suppositions, and other shortcomings, still manage to tell us a bundle about how the Armenians have managed to transform an inter-communal warfare fueled by religious bias, nationalist fervor, and international designs, fought mostly by irregulars during a raging World War into a one-way, black-n-white genocide and how weak the Turkish response has been. If there is one good thing to say about Turkish performance here, it is that the amount of literature put out on this matter in the last five years surpassed that of the entire 1915-2006 period—I ought to know as I wrote a thousand of them since 2006 myself…)

Ethocide: If you keyed in the term "Ethocide" –which I had coined in 2003, my humble gift to the English language, in frustration caused by the incredibly biased and lopsided coverage of the Turkish-Armenian issue in media— the number of entries was 440 in 2006 which jumped to 3,360 in 2011, an impressive 660% increase!

Since this is the single word (meaning systematic extermination of ethics via mass deception for political and other gain) future generations of Turkish Americans will use to casually refute on their happy way to their high school’s prom the baseless Armenian allegations of genocide, this growth in the use of this new term is noteworthy.

Here is more food for thought:

• Armenia is still cultivating hate and vengeance: Assuming the above Google figures are correct, then a significant part of the general genocide literature (i.e. more than 11%) seems to have been generated by the Armenians and their allies. Not bad for a land-locked, poverty-stricken, violence-ridden, war-mongering, corrupt and tiny dictatorship with about 2 million inhabitants whose major exports are illegal aliens, organized fraud, violent gangs, international terrorism, military aggression, and ethnic cleansing, and whose major imports are Diaspora handouts, US Foreign Aid, Russian weapons, and embargoed Turkish consumer goods.


• Turks respond more, but still not in sufficient numbers: There is a slight increase on the Turkish responses from 6.9% in 2006 to 9.1% in 2011, if one assumes that Turkish entries are mostly in response to Armenian entries. While this small improvement is welcome, it is not sufficient for a great country of 75 million who enjoy the 16th largest economy in the world with a landmass larger than California and Texas, surrounded by four picturesque seas, four wonderful seasons, endowed with a generous array of natural resources, has been home to 29 past civilizations, and bursting at the seams with universities and colleges.

Positive Approach To The Turkish-Armenian Relations

Norwegian Tragedy : I would be remiss if I did not cover a positive approach to the Turkish-Armenian Relations. The Norwegian Tragedy of July 22, 2011, perpetrated by a blond and blue-eyed Christian terrorist, must have given every decent person in the world a rude awakening as its scope, depth, and reach single-handedly managed to turn upside down all conventional wisdom, centuries of bias and bigotry. It showed one and all that one way thinking in terms of “us-versus-them” does not work, never did, never will. Now, even the New York Times, the citadel of bias and bigotry in America, can start licking its wounds, especially after being exposed for its perhaps biggest blunder when it jumped the gun with who might be behind the Norwegian tragedy (you guessed it, the NYT pointed to Islamic groups and based their judgment on the “learned” advice of a so called “expert”.)

“Experts” are not immune to mistakes: We know about those “experts” whose ideas and reports filled the pages of NYT with pure anti-Turkish propaganda during WWI. We know other “experts” who still shamelessly promote a bogus genocide.

That said, I want the Norwegian tragedy to be turning point in the Turkish-Armenian conflict and hope that even the most prejudiced writers at NYT can now see the inevitable: Armenian agitation, propaganda, raids, bombings, feuds, ambushes, assassinations, revolts, treason, pogroms, territorial demands, and many Turkish victims killed by Armenians, all had something to do with the tragedy that befell the Armenians. It was not Turks, who after a millennium of harmonious cohabitation in Anatolia with Armenians , one morning, woke up with the crazy decision to kill all Armenians. This whole thing brew over a half century (1862-1915) and intensified over the last quarter (1890-1915.) If Armenians in most of Anatolia did not take up arms against their own government, state, and people, they would still be living in Turkey, just like the Armenians in Istanbul who stayed loyal to their country (which is one more reason why this is not genocide.)

Verbal Tragedy Perpetrated by Sargsyan: As if the Norwegian tragedy was not enough, another tragedy of a verbal kind took place in Armenia. What the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan reportedly said on July 25, 2011 in response to a question from a young participant of the Armenian language and literature contest, may be the reason why Turkey-Armenia protocols never progressed since the day they were signed about two years ago. The youth asked if Armenians will ever get Western Armenia and Mount Agri (Ararat for Armenians) back from Turks. Sargsyan responded that it would depend on the young participant’s generation and that Sargsyan’s generation already had done its part by getting (Karabakh) from the enemy (Azerbaijan) ! He added that every generation had its calling and that his generation responded well to his generation’s calling by taking Karabakh. In other words, he is suggesting to the youth to take back by force a piece of neighboring sovereign country, Turkey. This is happening today, not in 1915, ladies and gentlemen! And this is the psyche of the highest political leader in Armenia, not just some Joe Schmuckian in Glendale… Of course, the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and Foreign Minister Davutoglu came right back with disappointments, regrets, and sadness and condemned Sargsyan for promoting hate, vengeance, violence and terrorism. Can you blame the Turks?

Commission of historians: Having pointed out that extremism, violence, threats, deception, propaganda, and posturing never worked in the past hundred years in providing a fair and lasting solution to international problems, I really truly believe that exposing the facts is the only way to peace. If we can manage to establish a commission of historians, not henchmen out to settle a score or partisan scholars our for glory and gold, but true, non-partisan, dis-interested scholars, of Turkish and Armenian and other nationalities, open up all the archives, pry this controversy away from the dirty hands of Diaspora crooks in Glendale and Boston, and handlers Washington DC and elsewhere, then we stand a chance of reaching eventual peace, even if it comes in painfully slow steps at first.

Today, we cannot even agree on the numbers who lived, got temporarily resettled, got killed in the process or perished due to wartime conditions. Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot have 1.5 million Armenians dying when the entire population was 1.3 million. So, please stop this masquerade already! It doesn’t work! Never did! Never will!

You cannot report “…more than 200,000 Armenians killed…” in March 29, 1919 to Paris Peace Conference; state “600,000 Armenians killed” on an aid poster in America only two months later (May 1919) ; increase it to 800,000 in NYT the next year, claim a million in 1970s; a 1.5 in 1980s; 2 million in 1990s; 2.5 even 3 million in 2000s; and expect people to believe you. Dead do not multiply! Never did! Never will! You must start telling the truth: about 300,000 losses mostly by wartime conditions (epidemics, starvations, shortages, and more, very few by bullets… Really! ) And do not forget to add half a million Muslims, mostly Turks, met their tragic ends at the hands of Armenian nationalists under Russian, French, British, and Greek uniforms and no uniform at all. When you state the facts, the term “Armenian genocide” automatically becomes an oxymoron.

You cannot make some inconveniences vanish into thin air, such as Armenian propaganda, agitation, terror in that order from 1882-1920; Armenian revolts from 1862 to 1920; Armenian treason from 1821-1921; Armenian territorial demands to establish the first apartheid of the 20th Century; Turkish victims at Armenian hands; Turco-phobia; Islamo-phobia, and more… (While at it, please read the letters of Boghos Noubar, head of one of the two Armenian delegations to Paris Peace Conference, and the 1923 Manifesto by Hovhannes Katchaznouni to see that it was war provoked, waged, and prolonged by Armenian nationalists and that the Turks were only defending their home.)

You cannot go on with deception: fake Talat telegrams, bogus Hitler quote, doctored Vereshagin painting of pyramid of skulls, fabricated Mustafa Kemal newspaper interview, distorted Mustafa Kemal photos where puppies were replaced with dead children, fake photo featuring an alleged Ottoman official tainting starving alleged Armenian children ; and hundreds more. You cannot build solemn memory on lies and deceptions…Stop this senseless fraud!

You cannot continue with "social reconstruction", a term used by sociologists to describe rebuilding memory based on current social acts and sympathies, not history's facts. If Armenia wants to put an end to its isolation, poverty, corruption, and violence, then Armenia must stop the military occupation of Azerbaijani lands and allow about a million Azeri refugees to return to their homes in occupied lands (Karabagh and the seven regions around it.) And if Armenia wants to share in the peace and prosperity Turkey is building via its "zero problems with neighbors" policy, then Armenia should learn what is meant by "just memory". Just memory respects the suffering of all sides, not just that of the Armenians and acknowledges Armenian complicity and responsibility in all that suffering.

I know all of this is a big leap for Armenia, which is why I am suggesting a very small step, one that is already included in the frozen protocols of October 12, 2009: establishment of a commission of historians and opening of the Armenian archives (all of them, including the ones in Erevan, Etchmiadzin, Beirut, Jerusalem, Mekhitarist Church, Boston, Glendale, and elsewhere.)

Until the facts are established, which may take decades, we can rebuild those millennium-old friendships all over again... Let the facts speak for all of us. Then we can achieve fair and lasting peace… No more deceptions, terrorism, or aggression.

May love and peace win over hate and war one day…

Ergun Kirlikovali
President
The Assembly of Turkish American Associations
Washington DC
www.ataa.org

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3299) East Or West, Love Is Best!

Dear Readers,

On the happy occasion of celebrating the Sixth Birthday of this friendly site (where every one can read and comment freely), I feel privileged (may be because of my age) to share a few sentiments by this message. Those who read my essays, or books or comments probably understood by now, that I do not enjoy arguments founded on racial, national, religious fanaticism and I am a lover and friend of every one with equal life philosophy and who can rid themselves of prejudices or propaganda including bitter past events, especially antagonism such as blood feuds or rages of revenge!

This site’s E-library is full of authentic documents with diverse beacons of light on the Turkish-American-Armenian relations and history in the past two centuries. If you read these authentic documents, I am sure you will have to agree with me that super powers that wanted to share the Ottoman Empire, used the Christian minorities and encouraged their pawns with aggressive but “ballast words” such as:

* “Bryce did not mince his words. He believed that the Turkish Government ‘deserves to die.” [1]
* “…barbarous misrule’ of Turkish Armenia.” [2]
* “Bryce even believed that the regeneration of Asia Minor ‘must devolve on the Armenia’.” [3]

(Of course he did not elaborate how Armenians who were not even 20% of the population can achieve this)! . .

Although Armenians are flattered by the compliments of being the first nation who adopted Christianity, they and their supporters seem to override Christ’s teachings, such as “love even thy enemy, do not lie, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, beware of false prophets who come in sheep’s clothing ” etc! What’s even sadder is the fact that the Protestant (and some Catholic) “missionaries who came in large numbers in early 1800s to convert Moslems, but having failed concentrated on Gregorian Armenians, have been untruthful to the teachings of the Bible when commuting the “Gospel of the Savior”! There are tens of books in the E-library exposing the hypocrisy of those educated and devoted teachers, whose prime objective was “to get new converts in their branch of Christianity and thus prove their professional necessity”, even when their supreme goals made use of improper means! My sentiments on the subject were expressed in my books as well as posting 3250 with the bold observations of Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Dickens. Let us add two more clever remarks to the above:

* “It seems even more clear to me that higher levels of civilization must depend even more heavily on conscientious respect for the importance of honesty and clarity in determining what the facts are.” [4]
* “…it is the clear duty of men of science, and of all who value scientific knowledge to protest against the new forms of persecution rather than to congratulate themselves complacently upon the decay of the older forms.”
“New truth is often uncomfortable, especially to the holders of power: nevertheless, amid the long record of cruelty and bigotry it is the most important achievement of our intelligent but wayward species.” [5]

Special attention must be paid to the use of the very old card of religion (see posting 3285) and letting clergy lead the pivotal issues with their tale books, instead of logic, intelligence and realities! In this respect I wish to share a rubai of my idol Omar Khayyam:

"With those brave stupids, two or three,
Who in their follies are so wise
They know, what we scarce realize,
They only know the world, not we:

Thou'st better be an ass as well;
For they're so sunk in assishness
That they call every man, unless
He be an ass, an infidel!"

(or denialist ?) [6]


Now, let me add just a very few excerpts flood lighting the past:

* “Villages are in ruins, some being destroyed when the Armenians fled or were deported; some during the Russian advance; some on the retreat of the Armenian irregulars and Russians after the fall of the empire.” Second, the bulk of the adult population had perished during the war. “Not over twenty percent of the Turkish peasants who went to war have returned. The absence of men between the ages of twenty and thirty-five is very noticeable.” [7]

* “The Armenian is not guiltless of blood himself; his memory is long and reprisals are due, and will doubtless be made if opportunity offers.” [8]

Of course I am not saying that [since Turks were no Christians] turned their other cheek! Surely they retaliated to settle scores when they could do it because all their men were drafted! Between the years 1914 – 1922, Armenian Dashnakist revolutionaries fought three wars against Turks and they lost them all because their “big brothers did not want to pay more in money and particularly in life” and keep their palaver big promises! Accordingly the adventurist revolutionaries lost all wars (causing destruction of their innocent communities); Turks being more in numbers and fighting for their very last breath, succeeded in saving their independence!

It is hard to understand that (diaspora) Armenians are the only nation continuing to fight this “long time buried score” today, as if, a total population of not more than six millions dispersed Armenians, stand any chance against the economically and geo-strategically strong Turkish Republic with over seventy five million Turks! What more, Armenians are known to be the most capable artisans and traders. Strange enough the revolutionist inspirations dragged them in unsettled disputes and claims of land from all their three neighbors, instead of being the “smartest traders in the area” and taking their money as profit instead of grabbing land by force. Have you ever thought that if Hitler and Japanese had not wasted all their efforts and money on arms, but had expanded their leaderships in various industries, they could have purchased almost the whole world by now for sure! They erred by “grabbing and conquering” thus destroying everything plus over sixty million lives that died because of them. “Time is the enemy” and racist Armenian psyche is wasting this most valuable asset for blue birds in dreams!

As regards the status of real-politic, I should like to quote the first stanzas of a marching son which almost every Turk knows it by heart, since time it was penned on the tenth anniversary of the Turkish Republic.

The mountain peak breaks through clouds,
The silvery rivers flow with sounds;
The sun will rise at any moment,
Let us walk friends… with warm intent!

Finally for my friends who know me only from my writings, I wish to quote a rubai which talks to love and compassion, for those who wish to fill their hearts with logic instead of hatred!

“How lovely to halt and rest – and then to go on your way,
Not frozen nor muddled, to stay fresh by flowing away.
Yesterday is past and gone – so are your words of yesterday:
How lovely, to find for each new day something fresh to say.” [9]

Sukru Server Aya – Istanbul July 10, 2011

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Notes:
[1] [2] [3] “The Genocide of Truth” – Sukru Server Aya Istanbul Commerce Univ. 2008, P. 588
[4] “On Truth” Harry G. Frankfurt, Alfred Knopf p. 10
[5] “Religion and Science” Bertrand Russell, Oxford Univ. Press 1997, p.251-252-253
[6] “Omar Khayyam” by Prof. Athur J. Arberry, John Murray, London 1952, p. 128,
[7] General Harbord’s Report, p.8 (Posting # 2813)
[8] Ibid p. 18
[9] From - Mevlana Jalaludin Rumi – Translated by Prof. Talat S. Halman

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