229) My Q & A's With An Armenian

My Q & A’s With An Armenian

An Armenian gentleman had seen some of my writings on the Internet. The following is the true account of our conversations which ensued this. It is hoped that something positive can be obtained from the disclosure of these exchanges of honest discussion online.

Dear Mahmut, I am a seeker of truth and would like to be objective when judging any moment of history. I found your article quite interesting and different from others I had read before. However, like the Armenian Scholars, you criticized. You, yourself, are very subjective also.

I know that you are writing in Turkey and of course you would be writing in favor of Turks. This e-mail is not to criticize you but rather for us to have dialogue to obtain the truth of the past events, that is, if you are really a ‘truth seeker’ like me and not just another biased Armenian or Turkish writer.

I would just like to give you some facts about why Armenians today have this passion in seeking Justice. I am a humanitarian and have no hatred for Turks. In fact I particularly like Turkish culture, and see beauty in its uniqueness. However, I also like my Armenian culture and like an endangered species, I am concerned about its survival.

- The Armenians are the INDIGENOUS inhabitants of eastern Anatolia. Anatolia is one of the earliest centers of civilization where it is believed that farming began. There have been settled communities in Anatolia since at least 6000BC.

- Anthropologists have scientifically proven that a branch of the white race is indigenous to Anatolia and they call it the Armenoid race, named after the Armenians, as we are the ones who possess this racial type in the most concentration. The Hittites, the Urartians, etc. ... were Armenoid in racial character as evidenced by rock carvings and the excavation of skulls. Physical features are flat at the back of the head together with a prominent nose.

- The Armenian language is a separate branch of the Indo-European branch of languages, and contains within it the dead language of the Hittites, Urartians, Phrygians, and Thracians.

- The Armenians were first mentioned in 700 B.C. by Greek and Persian sources.

- Turks, however, are newcomers to Anatolia. They came from central Asia and they did not come as civilized conquerors, they came as ruthless conquerors, bringing havoc on extremely civilized Armenians and Greeks, who had been the heirs of settled communities in Anatolia and contributors to civilization.

- Within 1000 years these conquering Turks, who speak a Turkic language from central Asia, make up most of Anatolia. Eastern Anatolia now has hardly any Armenians remaining, and Western Anatolia has hardly any Greeks left. So now we have newcomers who have a population of at least 60 million persons, about 40,000 Armenians left, and a couple of thousand Greeks.

- So we can come up with the conclusion that something has happened very dramatically. There is a Turkish story and an Armenian story. I am concerned more with the outcome, rather than the different versions of what happened.

- And, if you are a truth seeker and a lover of the diversity of human beings than you should consider:

Why are Ancient Armenian churches and monuments destroyed or converted into Mosques?

Why is it when one travels to the Armenian city of AN! the historical description at the gates does not mention anything Armenian?

Why is it that there are hardly any more Armenians left in their ancient homeland?

Why is it that Turkish history books omit information on Armenians?

Why is it that Kurds are being denied the right to have Kurdish language schools and broadcasts in their language?

Why is it that Kurds are being denied the right to have Kurdish language schools and broadcasts in their language?

Why is it that present day Turks don’t have more physical traces of their Mongoloid origins?

As a seeker of truth and not a propagandist e-mail me back your answers please!

This is what I tried to convey to him as honestly as I could:

Dear Vicken,

I am writing a few points as an answer to your very interesting and enlightening e-mail. Not being too familiar with the abbreviated forms of country names, I presume you are either in Austria or Australia. Now let me try to give you my honest, and at times, unnerving rebuttals.

I understand quite well your people’s nostalgia for the days when Armenians were the sole inhabitants of a part of Anatolian land space your ancestors once called home, and you probably would be living there today if a more recent generation of your ancestors had not betrayed their own government, (of which many Armenians were in official positions) and attacked their own army with the aid of the invading enemy, Czarist Russia.

If your people could accept the fact that all the misery that followed began with your ancestors’ treachery, then we would have a starting point for this debate.

Thank you for the history and language information. I am sure most people do not know these facts. It just happens, however, that I was a part of a college department of International Studies, and professor of Foreign Languages for more than 30 years, and have always been interested in, actually been fascinated by, all subjects involving history and anthropology and languages.

1000 Year-Old Newcomers



You say that Turks are newcomers to Anatolia since they’ve only been there 1,000 years or more. I have to smile at that because I live in the USA, which once was inhab­ited by Indian nations, and now has been settled by 270 million newcomers, mostly arrived within the last few hundred years. If your e­mail address suggests that you are writing from Australia, it also has (had) its indigenous people, the Aborigines of which you surely are not one. What does one credit or blame for these happenings? Scientists might say it’s survival of the fittest. Historians and anthropologists speak of rise and fall of civilizations. Even today, we are at a loss to explain why the (white) European population is decreasing, while the Hispanic, African, and Asian populations are growing. Is it a cultural or environmental phenomenon?

You ask why ancient Armenian churches and monuments were destroyed or converted into mosques. I would say that where these things happened, the destruction was done by ignorant and very angry people. However, I think you should be aware of the fact that every church building and cathedrals in the city of Istanbul are still standing. Also during all the ‘normal’ times, all the way through the Ottoman centuries and in modern times, Armenians have been free to worship in their own churches. As a matter of fact, you have a very kind Archbishop, residing in Istanbul, by the name of Mesrop Mutafyan, whose newsletters I receive on a regular basis. In one of those communiqués his Eminence had stated that the Armenians were grateful to Mehmet II, the Conqueror of Constantinople who in 1461 granted the Armenians, without them asking him, their own Archbishopric privileges in the city of Bursa. Prior to this generous grant Armenians had lost in Anatolia their religious representation, because of the Byzantine oppression which had denied them this right. From that date on they would get their own Armenian Archbishopery.

Contrary to your figures there are 70,000 Turkish citizens of Armenian decent, who still call Turkey their home, and they’ve been living there with full possession of their civil, human, and religious rights and freedoms. On the other hand, I am not able to answer your question about a city called ANI, since I don’t know where that is. I do not recognize that name.

The Census Of 1898

According to a census taken by international specialists in the year 1898, it was found that in the entire Ottoman Empire, which included the Balkan provinces, as well as the countries of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, the Armenian population accounted for 1,2 million. There was not a single area where the Armenians outnumbered Moslems though they lived together in harmony for centuries.

The head of the provisional Armenian ‘government’ in France, Bogos Nubar Pasha, wrote on December 18, 1918 in his official Letter to the French Foreign Ministry that at the beginning of the war, there were 600,000 -700,000 Armenians living in Anatolia.

Of these, 390,000 - 400,000 were resettled in the Caucuses, in Iran, Syria, Lebanon-Mosul and Baghdad. Thereafter, their losses were 300,000.

Among the sources for this and more detailed information, “Eine bittere Freundschaft,” by Muammer Tukwasul, 1984, Econ Verlag, especially the chapter “Die Kaukasusfront und die Armenier” would give you an idea of what happened and how Turks feel about that tragic chapter of Anatolian history.

As for your question regarding Kurds: Being Turkish citizens, Kurds have the obligation to send their children to school to learn the official language of the land, which happens to be Turkish. I live in Miami, which has been occupied by Hispanics, mainly Cubans, for a few decades now. The official public school census in Miami schools, in the year 1993, (when I retired) was 8% White or Asian English speakers, 16% Black English speakers, 68% Hispanic, 8% Other, (Haitian and other minority groups). All of these children are taught in English, since that is the official language of the land. Those, who speak other languages, or wish to learn other ones, have time to do so during their ‘Electives’ hours.

By the way, in Turkey, there are many Kurdish radio programs on the air. You can hear their music, sung in their language, all over Turkey. They also have close to 200 publications in their own language, in the form of books, magazines, newspapers, and journals.

Another piece of information about Turkey on which you may not have access is the fact that the Turkish nation had at least one Kurdish President, several cabinet members and hundreds of deputies in the Turkish National Assembly. The ex-speaker of the Turkish Parliament was Hikmet Cetin, a full-blooded Kurdish person, who had served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs in the past.



The Children’s’ Crusade


Additionally as an answer to your question on why Turks look the way they do, it is very simple. The Ottoman Empire was vast. Turks lived as colonizers in those conquered lands, which they had taken over. They married women from those lands, just as I married an American of German descent. Also, people native to the Balkans, for instance, came to live in Anatolia.

One final remark I’d like to make here. It is an interesting as well as an intriguing one. It deals with the many Christian Crusades in general, but one of them in particular. It is known as the “Children’s’ Crusade.” The latter has left its indelible marks on the physiognomy of the darker complexion Turks. It even influenced, one might say, their ‘body language.’ They move and act more like ‘European’ than the rest of the inhabitants of the Middle East.

In one of the earlier TV documentaries going back to the late Sixties, by the name of ‘THE PASSING PARADE,” its commentator, John Nesbitt once explained that when Genghis Khan was invading China, an army of European children was getting ready to invade Palestine to rescue it from the Infidel. They reached the Italian ports, looking for transportation to take them over the unpredictable Mediterranean Sea to what they called ‘The Holy Land.’

Italian ship owners were ready and eager to sell them ships, and they did. They sold them rickety old ships they knew would not make the hazardous journey to the Holy Land. John Nesbitt, the commentator of the documentary declared: ‘The fact that the children belonged to the same faith as the Italian merchants did not deter them from committing this ghastly crime.”

Consequently most of the ships carrying these unfortunate youngsters sank during raging storms and thousands of them perished. Nevertheless, since this was a huge undertaking, the remaining other thousands were rescued by the ‘Barbary Coast pirates.’ Nesbitt explained further that these blue-eyed blond Germanic and Scandinavian children were transported to Turkey and were sold there as slaves. Those who bought them raised them as their own children instead of using them as slaves. The story concludes that this is one of the reasons why you see today scores of Turks with a fair complexion everywhere in Turkey as well as the darker ones.

This mixture of different bloodlines seemed to produce a very fertile people in Turkey. The Turkish population is large, and getting even larger by every passing year. It is very young, strong, and growing in its demographics.
-----------------------------------------------
© Holdwater
tallarmeniantale.com/mahmut-exchange.htm
-----------------------------------------------