293) Dialogs with an Armenian

 

 

Mahmut Esat Ozan
The Turkish Forum

 

I HAVE BEEN HAVING some civilized conversations for sometime now, with an Armenian gentleman who lives somewhere in Australia and says he often reads my writings on the ‘Turkish Forum’. In our exchange of ideas we try to treat each other without using any personal attacks of any kind toward one another. We both hope that our lengthy and frequent talks will lead us to some positive thinking, and thus perhaps we will help in contributing to the establishment of a long-awaited solution to our problems. We think this could only be obtained by mutual honest disclosures hidden in these ‘truth-seeking’ exchanges. The following is an example of that kind of a dialogue. From some corner of Australia, Vicken writes:

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“Dear Mahmut, I am a seeker of truth and would like to be objective when judging any moment of history. I find your Turkish Forum articles quite interesting and different from others I had read before. However, I have observed that, like the Armenian scholars you criticize in your work, you, too, are very subjective. I know that you are writing for Turkey and Turks of course you would be writing in their favor. This e-mail of mine is not written to criticize you, but rather to initiate a dialogue, to obtain from you the truth of the past events. If you really are a ‘truth seeker’ like I am, and not just another biased Armenian or Turkish writer, we could continue having a dialogue. I ‘m ready to give you some facts about why Armenians today have this passion in seeking justice. I am truly an 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 as in the case of an endangered species, I am concerned about its survival. Here are some facts:

 

Item # 1- 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 was indigenous to Anatolia and they call it the “Armenoid race,� named after the Armenians. We are the ones who possess this racial type. The Hittites, the Urartians, etc...were Armenoid in racial character as evidenced in their rock-carvings. The excavation of skulls attest to their physical features. These skulls were flat at the back. It is believed that their owners had a prominent nose.

 

Item#2- The Armenian language is a separate branch of the Indo-European group of languages, and it contains within itself , the dead languages of the Hittites, Urartians, Phrygians, and Thracians.

 

Ittem#3 - The Armenians were first mentioned in historical records in 700BC by Greek and Persian sources.

 

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

 

- Within long years these conquering Turks, who speak a Turkic language from central Asia, invaded most of Asia Minor. In Eastern Anatolia now hardly any Armenians are remaining, and in Western Anatolia hardly any Greeks left. So now we have newcomers who have a population of at least 65 million people . Only about 40,000 Armenians are left, and a couple of thousand Greeks. So we can come up with the conclusion that something has happened there 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 has happened. And, if you are a ‘truth seeker,’ and a ‘lover of the diversity of human beings then you should think upon the following:

 

1- Why are Ancient Armenian churches and monuments destroyed or converted into mosques?
2-Why is it when one travels to the Armenian city of ANI the historical description at the gates does not mention anything Armenian?
3-Why is it that there are hardly any more Armenians left in their ancient homeland?
4-Why is it that Turkish history books omit information on Armenians?
5-Why is it that Kurds are being denied the right to have Kurdish language schools and broadcasts in their language?
6-Why is it that present day Turks don’t have more physical traces of their physical and facial Mongoloid origins? Please e-mail me back your answers as a ‘seeker of truth’ and not as a propagandist.
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THIS IS WHAT I TRIED TO CONVEY
TO HIM AS HONESTLY AS I COULD:

 

Dear Vicken,
I am going to answer your interesting and enlightening e-mail with my honest rebuttals. Australia is where you reside. I live in the USA. But the distances which separate us from one another should not separate us from the goal of dedicating ourselves to honesty and truth.
I understand quite well your people’s nostalgia for the days when Armenians were the inhabitants of a section of the Anatolian land space which your ancestors once called home. To tell you the truth you probably would be living there today if it were not for the betrayal by your ancestors of their own Ottoman Turkish government. It was a
government in which many Armenians held prominent official positions. Had they not rebelled against it and not attacked it by sabotage and subversion, aiding and abetting the invading enemy, the Russian Czarist Russia, the Armenians today would be holding the legal distinction of being the largest ethnic group in the modern Turkish Republic created in 1923 and they would make up a substantial part of that total Turkish ‘mosaic.’

 

If your people could acknowledge today the fact that all the misery which the world had to witness prior to that particular date was started by your ancestors' unparalleled treachery, and if you are willing to accept this basic fact willingly and honestly, then we could have an easier starting point for this debate.
Thank you for the history and language lessons. I am sure, there may be some people around who may not know these facts. I may have advantage over others I was part of a college department of International studies, and a professor of linguistics. I was always interested in, and fascinated by languages, history, anthropology, therefore, I am quite familiar with the subject at hand.

 

1000 YEAR-OLD
NEWCOMERS
You declare that Turks are ‘newcomers’ to Anatolia. But they’ve been there at least 1000 years or so. I had to smile at your statement, because I live in the USA, which was once inhabited by Indian nations, but now it is the land of 270 million ‘newcomers,’ of mostly European stock, having arrived there within the last few hundred years. You are from Australia, it also was once the land of indigenous people, called the Aborigines, of which you surely are not one. The white settlers have taken away their lands and simply decimated most of them. How does one take credit for, or be blamed for these events
which took place a long time ago in history? Scientists might say it’s survival of the fittest. Historians and anthropologists speak of the rise and the fall of civilizations. Even today, we are at a loss in explaining why the (white) European population is decreasing constantly in numbers, and at the same time, the Hispanic, African, and Asian populations are growing. Is this the cause of a cultural or environmental phenomenon?

 

You ask why ancient Armenian churches and monuments were destroyed or converted into mosques in Turkey. I would say that where these things happened, the destruction
must have been carried out by ignorant and very angry people. However, I think you should be aware of the fact that every church building and cathedral in the city of
Istanbul and other metropolitan areas are still standing.

 

Also during all the ‘normal’ times, lasting 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, Armenians in Turkey have a young and knowledgeable Archbishop, residing in Istanbul. His name is Mesrop Mutafyan II, whose newsletters I receive on a regular basis. In one of those communiqués his Eminence had stated that his ethnic followers have always been grateful to Mehmet II, the Conqueror of Constantinople, who in 1461 granted the Armenians their own Archbishopric privileges in the city of Bursa . He did this without them asking for it. Prior to this generous grant Armenians had no religious representation in Anatolia because they had lost every freedom they had including their religious one to the Byzantine Greeks. They were oppressed and denied every freedom they had before the arrival of Seljuk Turks. Thanks to the Turks they had recovered every human right they had lost. They now had their own Armenian Archbishopery.

 

Contrary to your figure, there are 70.000 Turkish citizens of Armenian descent, who still call Turkey their home, and they’ve been living there with full possession of their civil, human, and religious rights and freedoms. They have their own schools, their own churches, their own publications. On the other hand I am not able to answer your question about a city called ANI, since I do not recognize that name as a contemporary existing city. However, there is such an area left-over from antiquity, a tourist site near the Turkish city of Kars.

 

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, including all the Balkan provinces, as well as the present day countries which were born after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, the Armenian population accounted for, and amounted to only 1,2 million souls. Furthermore it was established that there was not a single area where the Armenians outnumbered Moslems, though they’ve been living there together in peace and harmony for untold centuries, beginning from the 11th.

 

The head of the provisional Armenian ‘government’ in France, Bogos Nubar Pasha, wrote on Dec.18, 1918 in his official letter to the French Foreign Ministry, that at the beginning of the war, there were 600,000 to 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 loss of life was established to be around 300,000.
Among the sources for this type of detailed information, a work entitled “Eine bittere Freundschaft,� A Bitter Friendship by Muammer Tukwasul, 1984, can be recommended. Especially its chapter called Die Kaukasusfront und die Armenier would give you an idea of what happened and how Turks feel about that tragic chapter of Anatolian history where millions of their ancestors were decimated by your ancestors.

 

As for your question regarding Kurds, the answer is easy. 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 ‘invaded’ and occupied by Hispanics, mainly Cubans, for a few decades now. The official public school census in Miami schools, in the year 1993, (before 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 were then and still are today taught in English, since that is the official language of the land. Those, who speak other ethnic languages, or wish to learn the same, have time to do so during their ‘Elective course’ 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 the country. There are also 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 Grand National Assembly.’ The ex-speaker of the Turkish Parliament was Hikmet Cetin, a full-blooded Kurdish person, who had also served as Secretary of Foreign affairs in the past.

 

THE CHILDRENS’ CRUSADE
Additionally as an answer to your question on why Turks look the way they do today is very simple. The Ottoman Empire was quite vast. Turks lived as colonizers in those conquered lands to which they had gone to govern and live. Many of them married women from those lands, just as I married an American young lady of German descent, here in the United States. Also, tens of thousands of people native to the Balkans, for instance, came to live in Anatolia, married and had families established there. This had some bearing on their racial characteristics.

 

One final remark I’d like to make here is an interesting as well as an intriguing one. It deals with the numerous Christian Crusades in general, and one of them in particular. It is known as the “Childrens’ 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.’ Turks of today move and act more like ‘European’ than the rest of the inhabitants of the Middle East.
One of the earlier TV documentaries going back to the early Sixties, was called :
“THE PASSING PARADE,� its commentator, John Nesbitt once explained that around the time when Genghiz Khan was invading China, a large army was being formed of European children in order to get ready to invade Palestine and to rescue it from the Infidel Muslims. They reached the Italian ports, looking for transportation to take them over the unpredictably rough waters of the Mediterranean Sea. They wanted to go to ‘The Holy Land.’ The 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 was saying: “Despite the fact that the children belonged to the same faith as did the Italian
merchants this did not deter them from committing the 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 documentary concluded that this was one of the reasons why you see today everywhere in Turkey many people with fair complexion. But it is true that the dark-complexioned ones whose original stock can be traced all the way to Central Asia still dominate the national scenery.

 

In a stark contrast with the Armenian situation, this mixture of different blood lines seemed to have produced a very fertile people in Turkey. The Turkish population is large, and getting even larger by every passing year. It is very young in its composition, it is strong, and growing in its demographics. Turkey today has one of the youngest populations in the world . Whereas, Russia, Germany, France and the Scandinavian countries show a negative growth, Turks’ yearly population growth is around 2.7. Even in the United States the yearly growth has not been over 0.6 at the most. The disparaging difference in numbers is a future insurance policy for the Turks, and the actions of the European Union indicate it is a big source of worry for them and for the other detractors of Turks everywhere.

 

meozan@aol.com