Review of “The Genocide of Truth”

Filed under: 1915 — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on July 13, 2008 @ 5:03 pm CEST

When one is interested in the events of 1915 – and those leading up to them – which are called the “Armenian Genocide” by some, there are a couple of must read books that deny the thesis that what happened constitutes genocide. Most of these books are written by historians.“The Ottoman Peoples and the End of Empire” by Professor Justin is an example of such a must read book for those who study this subject (either professionally or as an extra, out of interest), “The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey” by Prof. Guenter Lewy is another one.

Now, I have found yet another book that all those interested in this subject – even those who support the genocide thesis – should have in their possession: “The Genocide of Truth” by Sükrü Server Aya, published by the Istanbul Commerce University.

That this is a must read and must have book about this rather complicated subject, like the other books mentioned above, does not mean that you can compare this book in most other ways to those other, high quality works. First of all, Aya is not a historian, nor does he pretend to be one. He is a Turk who got interested in this subject and the Armenian allegations, who decided to study it himself as to find out what happened (whether they are right or not) and who, after many years of extensive research, came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as an ‘Armenian Genocide’ and that most Armenian activists purposefully deceive the public by lying about what truly happened almost 100 years ago.

Another major difference is that the other books, especially the one by Prof. McCarthy, almost read like a novel. They are meant to entertain and inform at the same time; they are clearly written by men who are used to write a lot and who are used to explaining historic events to a big, perhaps uninformed but interested public. Their books are written in a way that appeals to a big public. They cover a complicated subject in such a way that the reader can read the book in one day nonetheless and be informed. Of course it has to be pointed out that Anglo-Saxon intellectuals are famous for this style; academics of most other countries have a more boring writing style.

That is, however, not the case with Aya. His style is not boring, but it does not read like a novel either; that is mostly due to the fact that this book is not meant as an introductory or entertaining work. Rather, “The Genocide of Truth” is meant as a big collection of a wide variety of sources, much like an encyclopedia (it has 702 pages for instance). It is meant to explain the issue based on many (also foreign) documents and to show the reader that the no-genocide thesis is based on not just one or two important documents, but on thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands. It is not meant as a novel; the idea of Aya is that the reader can pick up the book whenever he wants to, and can start reading wherever he wants to. You can first read chapter one, and then chapter seven, next you can go back to chapter two and you will not be confused.

This is due to the lay-out of the book. Aya has divided the issue of the ‘genocide’ into several sub-issues. He starts off, for instance, by taking a look at the historical background of the ‘genocide,’ the division of the Ottoman Empire into ‘Millets’ (religious groups) and, then, he takes a look at the situation before, say, 1890; the Armenians and Ottomans had, Aya shows by using a wide variety of documents, a great relationship for hundreds of years. They were rightfully called the “loyal” people by the Ottoman rulers. The Armenians were Christians, yes, but they were loyal, and treated well. They were well off, and had political power, especially after the Ottomans started reforming their country.

Next, Aya takes a look at the missionaries who were active in the Ottoman Empire. This chapter, the fifth, is one of the best in the entire book. The sources Aya relies on are extensive – it’s hard to imagine that he missed any sources and documents that deal with the role (especially) American missionaries played in spreading a feeling of Christian superiority among the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and of nationalism (as in glorification of the own ‘nation’ – people). Furthermore, what makes this chapter so valuable – in the opinion of someone who has read a lot of books on this subject and who plans to read even more in the coming weeks, months and years – is that he explores a subject, or sub-subject actually, that has been ignored or not researched enough by authors of most other books on the events leading up to 1915. Yes, they often point out that missionaries played a vital role in transforming the ‘loyal millet’ into the ‘rebellious millet,’ but they mostly do so in one or two paragraphs. Aya does not; he takes the time to explain the situation and to explain the role these missionaries played; he actually spends 32 pages to it.

This chapter alone makes “The Genocide of Truth” a must read.

At the very start of the chapter Aya explains to the reader why it is so important to take a look at the missionaries, at how trustworthy they were, at the role they played, etc.: “nearly all information concerning alleged cruelties was reported by the missionaries to the American Board or Relief organizations and the US, British and other embassies.” Much information that was used in the West to stir up an anti-Turkish sentiment, a sentiment that is still alive and well, was provided by these missionaries who were more than Christians trying to convert people; they were also political animals, as Aya explains, who tried to help Christian peoples by turning them from subjects into rulers; even when they were the minority (as they were just about everywhere in the Empire at that time).

The above is not made up by some Turkish people who try to defend their country against allegations of a brutal crime. Aya can back his case up by using many documents. He quotes them at length, so that the reader cannot but come to the conclusion that, indeed, missionaries in the Ottoman Empire may not have been as peaceful and innocent as most Christians and Westerners would like to believe.

Aya quotes, for instance, from Salahi Sonyel’s work “The Great War & The Great Tragedy of Anatolia.” This work summarizes the role of the missionaries perfectly: “Christian minorities played an important role in efforts to dismember the Ottoman Empire. Their aims and ambitions, if fully realized, would involved the dissolution and disappearance of the Empire, to be replaced by puppet Christian states subservient to their patrons, the major Powers.”

There were reasons why missionaries and Christians in general wanted to destroy the Ottoman Empire. “While on a missionary trip to the Choctaw Indians, North American missionary William Goodell came up with the idea of re-conquering the Holay Land for Christianity. At that time, the Holy Land was entirely under Ottoman rule. This new Crusade – for that is exactly how the undertaking was seen – began with a series of reconnaissance tours, planned in an almost military fashion. The American missionaries spared no personal sacrifice the course of these tours,” Aya quotes from Erich Feigl’s “A Myth of Terror.”

One of those merry Westerners, the author explains, was Lord Bryce. If one wants to know what kind of person Bryce was, one merely has to take a look at “Britain & The Armenian Question 1915-23” by Akaby Nassibian. Aya quotes: “Bryce stressed that many Armenians had entered the civil or military service in Russia and some had risen to posts of dignity. He quoted the example of Loris Melikov, the commander of the invading Russian army in Asia in 1877… Bryce believed that the Turkish government ‘deserves to die’.”

Slowly but surely, American missionary schools were transformed into centers for rebellion and anti-Ottoman and anti-Moslem sentiment. The Ottomans knew that the missionaries and Christian churches were used to spread a message of rebellion and war, but there was not much they could do about it; it had agreed with Western powers that Christian missionaries could not be prosecuted for any crimes. As Aya explains, these missionaries used their invulnerability to the fullest.

Take a look, for instance, at this: “First the Catholic missionaries, then the Protestants had begun a campaign of indoctrination among the Gregorians which created many problems. … The Catholics in Turkey were protected by France and Austria; the Protestants mainly by Britain and the US, and the Orthodox by Russia. All these Powers aimed at increasing their influence in the Ottoman Empire, ostensibly in order to protect their protégés, but actually in order to promote their own interests. The Armenians were thus divided by the agents of the major Powers for their ulterior motives. Russia was using the Gregorian Armenians to descend to the warm waters of the Mediterranean and cut off the British route to India; hence it was pressing the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin to stop the progress of the ‘heresy’ of reforms and to clear the empire of it; Britain was using the Protestant and Gregorian Armenians to preserve its lifeline to India by containing Russia restricting French influence; and France was making use of the Catholic.”

Unlike what the reader may think, Aya does not just use sources that agree with him; in fact, Aya quotes from many works written by Westerners who defend the Armenians and the genocide thesis. What he accomplishes by this is that one quickly realizes just how incredibly biased the Western, Christian world was back then, and how biased it probably still is. Turkish Moslem suffering is ignored, Armenian suffering is exaggerated. Armenian Christians have rights, Turkish Moslems do not. Armenian Christian lives matter, Turkish Moslem lives do not.

After these initial ‘leading up to’ chapters, Aya skips to the changes in the Ottoman Empire, and the increasing tensions between Armenians and Turks. Aya shows, again by using a variety of sources, most of which either objective of pro-Armenian, that Armenians started rebelling against the Moslem rulers and killing Moslems on a grand scale behind the frontlines. Furthermore, the author shows also by using Armenian sources, Armenians joined the allies, and especially the Russians. They crossed the border and started fighting for the Russians. When the troops entered Ottoman soil, the Armenian soldiers started wiping out the local Moslem population. Officers of the Great Powers reported about the atrocities committed by Armenians, this is also before the Ottoman government gave the order to relocate the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia, and complained about them. Many of them were disgusted with the conduct of the Armenians who hated the Moslem Turks with such a passion, that not even one of them was safe.

They also, Aya shows, started rebelling on a massive scale behind the lines. They took over entire cities and villages, all in an attempt to occupy the Ottoman soldiers; the more soldiers had to fight against the Armenians at home, the less of them could fight against the Russians in an attempt to stop them from progressing and conquering Anatolia. These Armenian terrorists, because that is what they were, were supported financially, spiritually and materially by the Great Powers who supported the Christian minorities who fought against the majority of Moslems.

“Ammunition was scarce,” Aya quotes from “The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey” by Guenter Lewy, “but Prof. Menassian Effendi, Head of the National School and graduate of Yale’s Sheffield School of Science, cleverly transformed such chemicals as were at hand and manufactured smokeless and black powder, while mechanics turned brass cartridge shells. The Armenian laboratories were soon issuing 2000 cartridges daily, besides hand grenades… Women and children carried ammunition and food and water… After a three-hour fight, the Turks retreated, leaving 35 dead on the field.”

“Art. 6 of the program of the Hunchak Party stated: ‘The time for the general revolution (Armenia) will be when a foreign power attacks Turkey externally. The party shall revolts internally.’ In due time this program of course became known to the Turkish Government and during World War I, the Young Turks used the clause to justify the deportation of the Armenians… In order to achieve these aims ‘by means of the revolution,’ revolutionary bands were ‘to arm the people,’ wage ‘an incessant fight against the [Turkish] Government’ and ‘wreck and loot government institutions.’”

Armenians often talk about how the Turks started fighting against them in the 1890s, resulting in massive Armenian deaths, but they often forget to mention the inconvenient truth that the Armenians themselves started fighting before the Turks did anything; the Turks, as Aya shows, defended themselves. They were not aggressors, they were defenders. Case in point: “For example, the 1894 troubles in Sassun were preceded by Armenian attacks on the Bekhran and Zadian tribes, which resulted in armed battles between the Armenian revolutionaries and Kurdish tribesmen.”

“For example,” Aya goes on to quote, “an eloquent defender of the revolution explained to Cyrus Hamlin, the founder of Robert College in Constantinople, how Hunchak bands would use European sympathy for Armenian suffering to bring about European intervention. They would ‘watch their opportunity to kill Turks and Kurds, set fire to their villages, and then make their escape into the mountains. The enraged Moslems will then rise, and fail upon the defenseless Armenians and slaughter them with such barbarity that Russia will enter in the name of humanity and Christian civilization and take possession.’ When the horrified missionary denounced this scheme as immoral, he was told: ‘It appears so to you, no doubt; but we Armenians have determined to be free. Europe listened to the Bulgarian horrors and made Bulgaria free. She will listen to our cry when it goes up in shrieks and blood of millions of women and children’.”

The author also quotes Western newspapers from the time; the New York Times reported back then, for instance, that “a massacre at Zeitoun” had taken place during which Armenian “insurgents killed all Turkish soldiers in town except two.” Later, in 1909, which is six years before the Ottoman government ordered the deportation or relocation of Armenians, it was reported that “the leader of the Armenian community of Adana, Archbishop Museg, had urged his people to acquire arms.”

What Aya shows in this particular chapter is that, when we talk about the events of 1915, we also have to talk about the events leading up to the relocations. This chapter documents a side of the story that has been ignored in the West for more than 90 years, even though there are documents enough that proof that Armenians committed horrendous atrocities against (innocent) Moslem Turks, all in an attempt to cleanse the lands from them so that they, the Armenians, could have a nation-state of their own.

Next, Aya spends time to the relocations. Nowadays, Armenians claim that nearly 1.5 million of their ancestors died during these relocations and, they say, that happened because the ‘relocations’ were an attempt to wipe out the Armenian population of Anatolia. As Aya shows, there is however a minor problem with the aforementioned; firstly, it is quite unlikely that 1.5 million Armenians died, simply because the population statistics of the Ottomans shows that there were only between 1.5 and 2 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire at that time. As other documents show, many of them, more than half, survived the war and settled in the newly founded Armenia or other (especially Western) countries. If 1.3 million Armenians survived and settled in those countries, it is literally impossible to say that 1.5 others died. Either they were modern-day Jesus Christs – who rose up after being killed and then migrated –, that the Ottoman population statistics were way off, or Armenian activists are using false numbers. Aya proves, that the latter is most likely the case, also because the Ottomans taxes Christians more than Moslems; less Christians meant less money.

Those are not the only lies and distortions used by Armenians. Aya has documented many others. One of them: the so-called Andonian documents. This letter was used by Armenians to back up their case that the Ottoman government planned to wipe out their Armenian subjects. Sadly for them, however, the documents are forgeries; obviously made by Armenian nationalists themselves. The British and other allies have always refused to use these documents in court, simply because they were not reliable; not even almost. As Aya shows, however, that did not prevent Armenians and their Western allies from using these documents as ‘proof’ in the public debate. After all, the public does not take a long and careful look at what is presented as ‘evidence.’ If you tell a story and say that the document you hold in your hand is written by Ottoman officials, most people will simply assume it to be true.

It is despicable but, as Aya shows in the 17th chapter “Proven Forgery to Distort History,” done for decades nonetheless. Another such documents is the Blue Book by Arnold Toynbee. Toynbee was a historian, and generally considered to be a very good one at that, so Armenians use this book to back up their claims. The only problem, and this is something they never mention, is that Toynbee did not write this document as a ‘historical academic work,’ but as propaganda designed to convince Westerners that the Great Powers had to fight against the Moslem Turks and ‘liberate’ their Christian fellow citizens. Aya shows that this document too, is unreliable.

And there are many more forgeries and unreliable documents used by Armenians and their allies which Aya debunks by using a great many sources. The famous Hitler quote for instance (“Only thus shall we gain the living space [lebensraum] which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”), is shown by Aya to be a forgery, a fake. Hitler never said it; one ‘witness’ said Hitler had said it, but the allied did not include this in their evidence, simply because it was not credible. Hitler allegedly said it during a speech, but all the other transcripts, etc. of the speech do not mention this sentence. Why then has it been included? Because Armenians and their allies have always tried to use everything, everything that ever happened, to their own advantage to further their cause. It is a fake quote, everyone with the least of knowledge about this subject knows it, but Armenian nationalists still lie about it and try to convince Westerners to recognize their ‘genocide’ by using it as ‘evidence.’ As Aya shows, this is part of their propaganda campaign against modern day Turkey.

After that, Aya takes a look at the role epidemics played in the ‘destruction of the Ottoman Armenians,’ and he takes a look at what important Armenian leaders had to say about the First World War, the events of 1915, etc. As Aya shows, these individuals knew better than to blame the Ottomans; they blamed themselves for the misery that had fallen upon their fellow Armenians. They thought they could beat the Turkish Moslems, but they lost. They thought they could kill innocent Moslem lives and get away with it because the West would do whatever necessary to protect them, but the Turks were stronger than most expected and not quite willing to give their homeland to a people who had always been a (small) minority.

“The Genocide of Truth” does a great job convincing the reader that what happened was no genocide. The lies, forgeries and distortions used against Turks have been effective over the years, but “The Genocide of Truth” uses so many documents that the reader cannot come to another conclusion that the Turks have been done a great wrong. The question the reader will ask himself immediately after finishing this book is ‘how come Armenian nationalists are still so successful?’ The author deals with that question in “The Success of Armenian Lobbies and Diaspora” (chapter 24). Again by using a wide variety of documents, Aya shows why it is that Armenians have dominated this debate; they started influencing public opinion decades ago, they were given support from religious leaders in the West, and they were Christians and had, as such, public opinion automatically in favor of them. This is a great injustice, but that is how it is. Armenians have been active for decades, and are willing to spend a lot of money to convince governments to recognize the ‘genocide’ so that their Armenia can finally accomplish what it wanted to accomplish back in 1915: ridding Anatolia of Turkish Moslems (ethnic cleansing), after which the lands can be annexed by Armenia.

As said earlier on in this review, Aya’s work is not a quick and easy read, but it is a must have nonetheless. It is filled with information all those interested in this subject need; not just those who disagree with the genocide thesis. The wide variety of sources used makes up for the weaknesses of the book (such as style). It cannot be called a masterpiece, but it most certainly is one of the best collections of documents and excerpts ever presented on this subject. The author did himself and the larger public a tremendous service by compiling it and getting it published.

In what’s evidence that Aya understands the value of the Internet he has decided to put his book online; it’s not just available in hardcover (such as the one I have), you can also get it for free as an e-book here. Be sure to read the speech he delivered for the launch of his book.

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1 nevber

July 13, 2008 @ 6:23 pm CEST

Interesting article…. I did not read Mr. Aya’s book but however, I did read Mr. J. McCarthy’s latest book “the Ottomon Peoples and the end of Empire”. I also noticed that there was not much extensive analysis of the events that was leading up to the 1915 deportations by the Ottomans. Yes, the role of missionaries was mentioned but not in depth. That is a very important part of the history that must not be ignored or brushed off under the carpet. I will read Mr. Sukru Aya’s book. Sounds very informative!

2 Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief

July 13, 2008 @ 10:04 pm CEST

Nevber: you should certainly get this book. It’s, as I said, a grand collection of important documents. It should not miss from your library.

3 Ara

July 13, 2008 @ 11:24 pm CEST

How convenient that you defer to the reasons that this author of yours gives for an Armenian population of only 1.5-2 million during the end of Ottoman times. The Ottomans purposely underestimated Armenian population figures for their political aims, i.e. to prove to western powers that the Armenians were not a significant portion of the Eastern provinces and thus did not deserve special treatment. This does not mean that it’s likely that Armenians were/are inflating their numbers. You’re propaganda isn’t even logical, even in the face of obvious explanations. You get a sick joy from diminishing the suffering of Armenians I presume. It’s very sad.

4 David

July 14, 2008 @ 12:20 am CEST

Unfortunately for Michael van der Galien the ‘attempted extermination of the Armenians’ is bound semantically to the word Genocide. Raphael lemkin the man who coined the word genocide in 1944 used the Armenian massacres as an example of what the word meant. Anyone who comitts a crime and gets away with it will do anything it can to try to prove they didn’t do it. That is what the books in this review are trying to do. They are trying to justify that Armenians were ‘relocated’ which cannot be denied. It cannot be denied because the Armenians are the indigenous people of Anatolia and the inheritors of the cultures dating back over 8000 years. The Turks are newcomers from central Asia ariving about 900 years ago. Now there are less than 50,000 Armenians left in Anatolia and over 60 million Turks. Armenian monuments continue to be destroyed to remove traces that the Armenians ever lived there. Historians such as Guenter Lewy and McCarthy are like defense lawyers paid by the accused. They will write whatever they can to disprove the Armenians suffered Genocide. The documentation proving the Armenias suffered genocide is so overwhelming that it is only the hardcore Turkish nationalists, paid lobbyists and the very ignorant who will claim otherwise.

5 Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief

July 14, 2008 @ 12:27 am CEST

How convenient that you defer to the reasons that this author of yours gives for an Armenian population of only 1.5-2 million during the end of Ottoman times. The Ottomans purposely underestimated Armenian population figures for their political aims, i.e. to prove to western powers that the Armenians were not a significant portion of the Eastern provinces and thus did not deserve special treatment.

This is a lie. The Ottomans did not do any such thing. Famous historians have proven that they were honest, that they reported the numbers as they saw them. Their numbers date back for many decades, and are all quite trustworthy. The reasons they were:
1. They were meant for the Ottoman government itself, not for foreign governments - we have only seen those numbers after the government collapsed
2. The Ottoman government taxes the Christians extra. Not to count half of them would mean a gigantic loss of money

The ones who have been faking population numbers in the Ottoman Empire, however, have been the Christian minorities. The Greek, Bulgarians, Serbs and Armenians have all done it.

This does not mean that it’s likely that Armenians were/are inflating their numbers. You’re propaganda isn’t even logical, even in the face of obvious explanations. You get a sick joy from diminishing the suffering of Armenians I presume. It’s very sad.

Your argument does not hold any water; I argue that there could not have been 1.5 million Armenians who killed, thus I am "diminishing the suffering." No I’m not. The ones who died suffered tremendously.

However, the cause for their suffering was not the Ottoman government, or any racial hatred from the Ottomans towards Armenians; rather, it was the determination, hatred and passion of their fellow Armenians who were more than willing to let their fellow Armenians suffer so that they could create Armenia, a new independent nation-state, founded on lands where Moslems had formed the majority for centuries.

Also; it’s interesting to see that you - and people like you - once again throw in personal insults. It’s obvious that you all cannot debate points, arguments. Instead, you simply try to silence critics by lashing out at them personally.

How’s that strategy paying off for you guys nowadays. Not so good anymore, huh?

6 Ara

July 14, 2008 @ 12:53 am CEST

Oh, Michael. You’re a funny one. But entertaining. In a macabre way.

7 ALINA

July 14, 2008 @ 9:46 am CEST

To all who is going to read "a must" books i’ll advise also to have a look at Armenian sources with the photos and facts. No need to write long speeches… http://www.genocide-museum.am/ The truth is always the truth….

8 Mary

July 14, 2008 @ 10:35 am CEST

You know Armenians need to move on and get a life, their country is in a economical sham,leaders are crooks steeling money,
they do not get alone with their neigboors,
and they are stuck with this So called Armenian genocide issue,
germans killed 22 million Russians and many more others,they moved on and used their efforts to build their country not bringing up old wars 50 years ago and try to undermine eachother,and this Armenian issue is 94 years old,and frankly we in USA do not care about it,
to be this strong willed movement must have some alterior motive behind it,can some one tell me what it is?do they want Turks to pay them like Germans did to Jews?if not what it is they want.

9 Elif

July 14, 2008 @ 12:41 pm CEST

I wish I knew Mary. That is a question I also raised to admins of armeniangenocidedebate.com. ‘Since they can not prove these allegations, they can never claim for money or land’ is the answer that I got. I am not so sure and comfortable though. These daydreamers are so full of double standards that for instance David is writing that we Turks are the ones who try so hard to deny something that we did but he is merely ignoring the millions of dollars spent by Armenian goverment as well as Armenians on forming this self fullfilling prophecy, for buying influence or to make the rest of the world believe in something that actually did not happen that way at all. How can you fight with ignorance, how can you fight with prejudices and how can you fight with this much hatred to a single nation? I really don’t know. They are showing the events of 1915 from their side only telling us that it is a proof that Turkey denying the genocide this hard is a proof that it actually happened but they do not even bother to think that, the so called truth they are trying to make this hard for the rest of world believe in, can this easily be counter claimed by these numerous historians that could stay unbiased for years. When it comes to Turks, for them, it is always Turks buy out these historians and when it comes to them, their sources are always objective and they don’t spend a bit on lobbying this.

10 Scarlet

July 15, 2008 @ 4:43 am CEST

Alina, if all we have to do is look at Armenian sources with photos to be convinced of an Armenian genocide, then what about the Turkish sources with photos of their ancestors massacres? Will that convince you that there was a Turkish genocide? But wait, since it is a Turkish source, it cannot be the truth I suppose…and the photos of the massacred must only be of the Armenians…well then how about our stories of our ancestors dying in the hands of the Dashnak armies, and what about the uncovering of hundreds of mass graves in Eastern Anotolia, in the Turkish and Muslim villages , which have revealed the remains of the murdered to be those of Muslims. The descendants of the victims still live in these areas today.These investigations have been going on for the last 25 years being conducted by Scientists and documented by the International media. Yet, this is always dismissed as ‘must be Armenians graves’ by Armenians. Let me put it to you this way, put the books aside, and the photos…and the sob stories of grandparents deaths…enough is enough and the time has come for the events to unfold thru an investigation of historical documents. Turkey has thousands which supports what Turks have been saying all along. The violence from Armenian revolutionaries which started in the 1880’s, and their plans to implicate the Turks of these murders and of what their real motives were behind the massacres and the lies are open and available to any person,scholar,historian. Russian archives already have revealed one document already, and it is NOT to the Armenians advantage. History must be based on facts and evidence and not by anti-Turkish campaigns, which are nothing but propoganda to sway people from learning about the real truth. Turks have never denied the deaths of your ancestors while Armenians continuesly ignore and deny the massacres of Turks. Yet, Turks are the ones being called deniers. You have become a hate-filled,genocide obsessed society and it is time to stop playing victims and end the self-pittying, exagerrated stories as if Armenians were the only ones killed and no one elses pain or memories matter. The justice that is being demanded for the deaths of Armenians are money and territories, as if this will automatically reduce your sufferings…it has nothing to do with Turkeys’ so-called denialism . So I ask you, what should Turkey ask for in return for the deaths of Ottoman Turks my dear Armenians?

11 aylin ata

July 15, 2008 @ 10:30 am CEST

For Mary:

You are right. Let us reevaluate Armenia’s persistence on the word ‘genocide’ from a different perspective:

Armenia’s attitude towards Turkey’s land integrity: Article 11 of the Armenian Declaration of Independence of August 23, 1990; refers to Eastern Anatolia of Turkey as Western Armenia and as such beholds that this area is part of Armenia. Since the Armenian constitution recognizes as a basis “the fundamental principles of the Armenian statehood and national aspirations engraved in the Declaration of Independence of Armenia”, it likewise accepts the characterization of Eastern Anatolia as Western Armenia and this, albeit indirectly, translates into the advancement of territorial claims. The Armenian politicians and school books call Eastern Anatolia of Turkey, ‘invaded mother land of Armenia’ and in Armenia the school children are being grown up being conditioned to be patriots to rescue their invaded land. Even the marches they sing are about this condition. The Armenians who write in such blogs that the Eastern Anatolia cities do not belong to Turkey, as if the present Eastern boundaries of Turkey was not determined by treaties of Gumru (1920), Moscow (1921) and the whole boundaries by Lausanne (1923) Treaties; after the Turkish Freedom War.

Additionally Armenia refused Turkey’s recurrent offers to commit an agreement declaring that each country recognizes the other country’s land integrity, in 1992 and later.

Why do the Armenians force Turkey to accept a genocide? The answer is hidden in a speech of the chief of Dashnak Party Hrant Markaryan who told that their efforts for the recognition of Armenian (so-called) genocide was not an isolated purpose but it was a part of the struggle for rescue of the West Armenia (Armenian Forum Vol2 No 4; Armenian Weekly On-line, 18 June, 4 July 2003). The Armenian then prime minister Andranik Markaryan told that the internationally recognition of (so called) Armenian genocide and demanding land from Ankara as ‘compensation’ was possible only after Armenia had strengthened and the Armenians should not have told that they demanded land from Ankara loudly and everywhere (Arminfo 26 May 2004). On one occasion President Kocharian stated that since today’s Armenia does not have the clout to advance such demands, doing so should be left to future generations at a time when conditions would hopefully be better suited to this end’. A poll taken in Armenia revealed that almost all youngsters in the Republic of Armenia wished to follow up with land claims from Turkey and 90% of them said Turkey must unequivocally accept genocide allegations. (Milliyet - April 11, 2006)

The world should not forget that Germany’s claim on Zudetland and Gdansk just because they were its historical lands caused burst of World War II! History is full of wars which broke up because of claims of states on their historical lands. If an item like the aforementioned Armenian item were present in the lawbook of Mexico claiming that Texas, Arizonna, New Mexico and California which were historical lands of Mexico, belonged to Mexico but invaded, would the American tolerate it?

Therefore the world should not overlook Armenia’s aggressivity, which is hidden behind their role of victim and should think about the price of their support to the Armenians very well.

12 Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief

July 15, 2008 @ 12:52 pm CEST

Just to add something to the above commenter; and - when you look at those areas - you have to keep in mind that Armenians have NEVER been the MAJORITIES in those lands. They were the MINORITIES and the only reason they call it their historic homeland is that they have lived their for a long long time. What they forget to mention, however, is that OTHERS always lived there as well and that the TURKS have lived there for many centuries and formed the majority for many centuries as well.

It’s like Turkey saying they want to annex the Netherlands because we have a sizable Turkish minority.

13 ALINA

July 15, 2008 @ 3:10 pm CEST

Scarlet J u better be a little attentive, i advised u to look at the armenian sources ALONG with the «must» books that editor offered… And it is very funny thing about Turkish genocide, do u really think that it was done by Armenians? I am glad that u discovered ONEJ Russian document not in the advantage of Armenians, there are million of Russian, American etc. Facts and documents …that are telling the truth. U can take a look at Morgentau’s memories, and many other diplomats who were witnesses of the Genocide and of the government policy on annihilation of the whole nation. Don’t u think that it is a necessity for the Turkish government to accept the evil not to repeat it again? Why do u think your government nowadays are trying to erase all traces of Armenian culture that was developed at the territory for many centuries? Germans are honest in front of themselves in the first place. Why do u think thousand Armenians in Turkey are afraid of revealing their roots? What we demand is justice, its the conscience to accept the evil and despite all false historians you can bring around, more and more people all around the world understand and see the truth, even within the Turkish society. And remember, no territory or money can recompense for the blood of innocent children!

14 nevber

July 15, 2008 @ 4:59 pm CEST

Alına, I would advice you to look beyond your extremly narrow window of Turkish obsession and hate. Please write comments with out making them up or at least have some basis to your lies. You are making utter fool of yourself! First of all, Armenians have been living in peace and harmony with the Turks for many years… They are free to practice their religion to it’s full extend, able to mobilize and have their own schools, newspapers, magazines, community centers, churches and many other necessary organizations any ethnic group needs to survive to be a healthy part of the society are living in. Can you claim the same thing about Turks in Armenia. Not that any Turk would want to live in such democracy deprived country. But for arguments sake, do you think any Turk would be given the same freedom in your country? It is easy to regurgitate same old lies that has been passed on to your poor souls but looking in the mirror would help see the truth. Why don’t you try to help the poor little kids who are running around bare foot in Armenia rather then romantisize the past like it was something to fight for….

15 Scarlet

July 15, 2008 @ 8:51 pm CEST

Alina , do not assume that my Government is the Turkish Government just because I do not agree with your distorted views. As for your statement of ‘there are thousands of Armenians in Turkey are afraid of revealing their roots’ is a ridiculous lie and one that is often repeated by the Diaspora Armenians who have never stepped foot in the country. Unless you know those ‘thousands’ of Armenians whom are hiding their roots, then I ADVISE you to stop making things up as you go along. Besides, there have been about 20,000 ethnic Armenians moving from Armenia to Turkey during the past several years, were they also hiding their roots ? or are you going to argue this little fact as well. Why are they NOT afraid to get Visas and travel to Turkey , why are they even stepping onto the soil of Turks who committed ‘genocide’ on their ancestors? The one thing I actually do agree with you on is there is no compensation for lives that are lost…so what does Armenia want by trying to get Turkey to admit to a genocide that did not take place…just an apology? I think you need to read more of YOUR Armenian sources that you’ve been telling people about and you will get your answer as to why, which is no big secret. And the only denialists I see are the Armenians who never acknowledge the deaths of Turks and Muslims where as Turks and the Turkish Government have at least admitted to the massacres during a war. Now go back to your ‘countless’ genocide books so you can be more convinced of how bad the Turks are.

16 Richard

July 15, 2008 @ 10:45 pm CEST

Scarlet, You might be interested by an article written by Amberin Zaman (Turkey correspondent for the Economist) in the Turkish paper Taraf, describing hidden Armenians in the village of Tokat: http://www.taraf.com.tr/yazar.asp?id=11 Also here is a television documentary titled “Turkey’s Hidden Armenians”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h69Zz0sV0GY Finally, a young Turkish filmmaker has recently made a documentary “Whispering Memories” about the village of Geben and those Armenians who survived by hiding their origins: http://whispering-memories-docu.blogspot.com/

17 Ara

July 15, 2008 @ 10:49 pm CEST

The points several of you make about a minority of Armenian revolutionaries do not mean that a counter-massacre of any equal extent was committed by Armenians against Turks, nor that the murders match the definition of it being state sanctioned massacre to eliminate a race of people. The point is that there was a state sanctioned (this being the operative term) relocation and mass-murder of nearly all Armenian subjects of the empire, not limited by any means to the minority of revolutionaries, nor only to the vulnerable areas found on the eastern front of the empire.

Thus, flipping the genocide term around and accusing Armenians of themselves being guilty of what they wish Turks to admit to is complete and utter nonsense. Facts are facts friends. No use getting offended by them at this stage, more than 90 years later. It’s truly amazing how blind Turkish nationalism is, especially on this sad excuse for a blog and its very strange obsession with the Armenian genocide.

18 Ara

July 15, 2008 @ 10:58 pm CEST

Also, as to the point of Armenians living comfortably and freely in today’s Turkey (let’s forget the past for a moment), that is complete hogwash. I personally have many acquaintances who come from the community of Istanbul Armenians, and they all attest to discriminatory practices and numerous difficulties especially regarding property ownership, government service, etc. Yes, they aren’t killed on the streets (save for Hrant Dink), forced to relocate, or massacred and raped en masse as they were in 1915, but let me put it to you all this way, would you wish to be an Armenian in Turkey today, much less in 1915? Would you even wish it upon your enemy? No wonder the community is dwindling. If a country won’t even acknowledge your painful shared past, if discussing the spillt blood of your ethnic brethren is considered anathema, if your patriarch is forced to act as a pawn to prevent violence and backlash, where exactly is all this Turkish goodwill and innocence that you all talk about being manifested.

Cut the crap guys and open your eyes.

19 David

July 16, 2008 @ 2:35 am CEST

Dear Michael Van Der Galien you state "you have to keep in mind that Armenians have NEVER been the MAJORITIES in those lands. They were the MINORITIES and the only reason they call it their historic homeland is that they have lived their for a long long time"

If you are so confident of the statement you are making then please give the readers an approximation of the percentage of Non-Armenians in what is referred to Geographically as "Armenia" (now eastern Turkey) before the year 1071A.D (Seljuk Turk invasion). And for the centuries that followed. What are your sources? How do you know the Armenians were not majorities when maps from 700BC to the late 19th century referred to the area as Armenia? And don’t give McCarthy as a source as late 19th century population data was politically shrouded.

It may be true that by the end of the 19th century the total number of Moslems in the Armenian provinces were slightly more than Armenians however when you break up the Moslems into ethnicities (Kurds, Turks, Arabs, Persians, Circassians, Alevi), the Armenians were the single most numerous ethnic group. In fact, in the province of Van, the Armenians outnumbered the total Moslem population before 1915. The Armenian Genocide can also be referred to as "Demographic engineering" by the Turkish government.

You also state "It’s like Turkey saying they want to annex the Netherlands because we have a sizable Turkish minority". Again you make an incorrect analogy. It is like Turkey invading the Netherlands, slowly Turkifying and Islamifying the Dutch over hundreds of years, turning their churches into Mosques, claiming their foods, architecture and music as Turkish, an then during a world war killing the remaining Christian Dutch. Finally, the Turks claim that Deutchland is their homeland and the Dutch have always been a minority anyway. If you read all the litertaure of Turkish nationalists, like Zia Gokalp etc. They all refer to their origins as being from central Asia. In fact, the Turkish language is a branch of the Ural Altaic languages akin to the central Asia languages of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan etc. Your assertions and analogies are totally false and reflect your ultranationalist persuasion.

The Armenian Genocide was executed by the Turks to create a ‘Fait accompli’ an ‘accomplished fact’ a Turkey without its indigenous Armenians. You and your website are trying to perpetuate this act by spreading false information.

20 nevber

July 16, 2008 @ 7:43 am CEST

Ara, Ohhh how interesting, if Turkey and Turks were so evil, why do thousands of Armenian illegal domestic workers flood to Turkey every year? If they hate the Turks so much and are afraid to live among us, why do they choose to get a job that requires cleaning and picking up after us, living in our homes, eating our food, taking care of our children with out paying a single tax Lira from their wages? And most importantly, why do NOT a single Turk go to Armenia but many many more come to Turkey? You are purposefully distorting the truth and spreading lies and false information to create an environment where hate for Turks come natural to your followers. Now, as a Turk would I wish to live in Armenia? NOWAY! I would be too afraid to be insulted, beaten and many other horrible things that can happen to a person everyday. And the reason is because being a Turk in Armenia is like being an African American during the 60’s. There is no respect for my culture, language, religion and identity. And as you have stated in your last sentence, “CUT THE CRAPE AND OPEN YOUR EYES”….

21 nevber

July 16, 2008 @ 7:53 am CEST

I would like to also add; Turks can talk and explain their side until the end of time, but will not be able to get through to a single Diaspora Armenian’s mind. The same old lies are regurgitated and told over and over again!

22 Ara

July 16, 2008 @ 9:28 am CEST

Ok nevber, go talk to any Istanbul Armenian. I wasn’t speaking about recent immigrants to Istanbul from Armenia who are all across the world, not just lovely Istanbul. If you think that a small trickle of these immigrants, a couple of chartered flights, akhtamar island, etc show Turkish goodwill and somehow make up for genocide you are sorely mistaken. Think as you wish though.

23 Elif

July 16, 2008 @ 9:58 am CEST

Ara, I have drafted a long response for you and then I thought, what the heck, it is not worth it cos you can not fight with outbursts of ignorance. You can not fight with people who have not studied the subject a bit but have so many things to say about it (the sources are always Armenian goverment, ancestor testimonies or even stories of people like Morgenthau). You are so full of lies and you have deviated from reality so much, I do not think I can bring you back to normal waters. Hope one day you will understand what I mean. So I ‘cut the crap’ and went directly to the real agenda here which is obviously land or money. So to you to Alina, don’t you ever dare to show as if Turkish goverment or Turks in particular are not sympthazing with Armenians or they are not accepting the tragedic results of the relocation order or other events of 1915. You know as well as I do the part which Turkish goverment or Turks are not accepting, but you happened to forget to put it here. Don’t you ever dare to show that the only victims here are Armenians and as if an apology from Turkish Goverment to Armenians will suffice. I am so sick and tired of Armenians playing the emotion card as if Turks’s lost ones do not count or matter. Oh sorry Ara with your logic they do not count since the number of lives of Turks taken is smaller than the lives of Armenians taken, right? Emotion card is not working any longer to support your forged witness testimonies. If you want land through long –term plans of your goverment then you will have to fight and get it. Making the rest of the world believe in your version of history to be able to use the ‘G’ word via spending millions of dollars and through extensive lobbying works of your Diaspora won’t entitle you to land out of Turkey. However I agree with you Alina for the part that nothing will bring back my family’s loved ones who were lost during those events. Attack Turkey continously through anti-turkish propaganda and when Turks defend themselves back automatically, say to yourselves that ‘Ohh Turks are denying so there is a genocide’. What a self fullfilling prophecy! And Richard, what Scarlet meant there about Armenians not having to hide their identities is different then what you put here. You are comparing apples and oranges. Have you ever researched events leading to 1915? Maybe you have but you did not want to put it here just to be able to twist and bend realities like Armenians, if you are not one already. Turks stroke back to attacks of Armenian rebellions. Of course not every Armenian was a rebellion and to punish a vast majority of Armenians for something that some of them did was wrong but when you evalute the issue in context of 1915 and WW1 when Ottoman Empire was attacked from all around and Armenians, either rebelling or if not rebelling allying or sympathizing with enemy against Ottomans (after so many years of living in peace together), flash news for you, you are naturally going to be regarded as a betrayer. So when some of the Armenians had to hide their roots back then NOT NOW, what does this show to you? Also as for your sources, I think you should also make reference to the part where it is indicated that those Armenians who had to hide their indentities back then could come out long ago but either with old habit or else, they do not want to. Guys, I was born in Turkey, I passed all my life in Turkey and I am still living and working in Turkey and therefore stop bullying people around about Armenians being put pressure on or else. Also please stop sending your unemployed to Turkey if Turkey is this intolerant to Armenians. Just create job opportunties for your own people in your own country if you will ever be able to. And then let’s discuss which is more dangerous, to live as a Turk in Armenia or to live as an Armenian in Turkey. David, what are you trying to say? Please make yourself clear cos otherwise I am going to take this out of it: Armenia has the right to claim land out of Turkey because their population was the highest among other ethnic groups back then. Therefore they rebelled and therefore they started an ethnic cleansing of Muslims in 1880s and when Turks stroke back and took precautions (although managed poorly by Ottoman Authorities) and Armenians killed, then this became an intentional mass murder of whole or part of a nation (with your putting whole). Armenians living in Anatolia long before (in whatever number) gives the right to them to attack and kill innocent ones at the end of 19th century through rebelling. I do not want to awake you from the dream you are in but history is full of land wars and fights. How many Indians are left in America (indians being the natives of the land) today? Does this make 16 English colonies sent to the continent committers of a genocide? How many Aborjins are left in Australia (aborjins being the natives of the land) ? Again does this make England a committer of a genocide? Indeed I am now comparing very different events with each other but you are so full of denial, I can not awake you elsewise. If you accept that these are genocide, then to your logic yes Turks are committers of a genocide crime because they had to take precautions for rebellions. Michael, I sincerely appreciate your efforts to spread reality to world about the events before, during and after 1915 with your objective writing and sources. This is not a compliment or anything, this is a fact. I saw your Dutch group in facebook about the issue and joined already. It is so encouraging to see foreigners like you who are after reality only cos when you look at Turkey, we are so little in number to defend ourselves against this self fullfilling prophecy that long gone out of control. This is most probably because of the comfort most of the Turks take in the fact that we did not commit such a crime and therefore Armenia can not do anything about it.

24 Jonathan Wilson

July 16, 2008 @ 6:05 pm CEST

The Armenian relocations (Tehcir Law) was one of the biggest population movements ever planned by a government. The simple fact that so many Armenians survived as a result of the Ottoman government spending money, giving allowances to Armenians (confirmed by Ottoman documents and consuls), bringing them food and drink (confirmed by European consuls and missionaries), allowing them to have Raildroad tickets (as confirmed by American consuls who were there) shows that what happened to the Armenians was a failed rebellion and massive migration, not genocide.

Telling us that the inventor of the word, Raphael Lemkin believed the word may be used in relation to what happened to Armenians, is not proof that the LEGAL TERM of genocide applies. Raphael Lemkin was not a historian, he wasn’t there either.

Claiming to others that Armenians were once a majority back in BC times shows your lack of all logic. The Tatars were a majority in Russia once, and the Mongols were a majority in China and Afghanistan once, does that mean they suffered Genocide?

"there are million of Russian, American etc. Facts and documents …that are telling the truth" Yes and they all seem to point to Ottoman innocence and the truth about the severity of the Armenian Rebellion.

25 Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief

July 16, 2008 @ 6:18 pm CEST

You should be ashamed of yourself. Another Armenian hate merchant, a fake Christian, actively preaching the gospel of hatred for all things Turkey.

How’s that all-consuming hate working for you?

26 Ara

July 16, 2008 @ 7:01 pm CEST

How’s constantly lieing working out for you? Unlike you I personally know many Armenians from Turkey and I know the psychological pressures they face. If you choose not to accept this then don’t. I could really care less what you have to say on any Armenia-Turkey related issue because your mission is one of propaganda.

27 Ara

July 16, 2008 @ 7:02 pm CEST

Johnathan, don’t make us laugh. Food, water, railroad tickets…who are you kidding? Laughable. Tragic.

28 Jannaan

July 16, 2008 @ 7:23 pm CEST

Armenians are exerting psychological pressure on Turks in California, Michigan, Boston, Toronto, etc. Proving that racial hatred Armenians felt in 1915 continues to this day. It is way beyond clinging on to one’s own kind. Racial hatred is the main ingredient of genocide and Armenians are guilty of it.

29 Elif

July 16, 2008 @ 7:41 pm CEST

Ara, I was so right in my initial opinion about you. You just keep coming back with your nonsense and then you go accuse people of making propaganda. It really started to amuse me. What psychological pressure are you talking about? There should be a psychological pressure on Armenians though you are right, and it should stem from the fact that these Armenians as people living in Turkey and winning their bread from Turkey should feel ashamed that their goverment is accusing Turkey of a crime that it did not commit in the first place. They should feel psychologically pressured when they look at the faces of their fellow Turkish friends.

It is so obvious that you started to believe in the lies you spread as most of other Armenians. You are even denying official documents and evidences. Oh wait, there are witness testimonies to prove the genocide and stories. Sorry my bet. Amusing…

30 Ara

July 16, 2008 @ 7:47 pm CEST

lol.

31 Scarlet

July 16, 2008 @ 9:24 pm CEST

Richard,I’ve looked up the sights you’ve mentioned. Whispering Memories is a documentary on a community of Turkish-Armenians in Turkey whose ancestors had converted to Islam and hid their Armenian identity to be spared by the relocation in 1915. What’s amazing is that most of these people today chose to remain Muslims and finally were able to reveal their true identities with no discrimination. Anyhow, I don’t see how this particular issue applies to other Turkish-Armenians that practice their faith freely and speak their own languages. It is NOT a crime to be an Armenian in Turkey Richard, they do not walk around hiding behind masks to hide their identities as most Diaspora Armenians are foolishly led to believe. The other sight is the one from YT where a Turkish woman discovers her grandmother was Armenian and was adopted by Turks and raised as Turkish. Richard, many children were orphaned during the massacres of the Turks and Armenians. Many Armenian children were sent to orphanages set up by Christian Missionary workers and were clothed and fed (please refer to the Near East Relief organizations in Library of Congress where this is documented) while Turkish and Muslim (Kurdish) children perished and died from starvation and sickness. Some Armenian children as well as the Turkish ones were taken in by Turks and Armenians and raised as their own, without any prejudices ,regardless of who they really were. Some of the kids grew up not ever learning of their true identities, and some found out later on….And your point is Richard? And I also have a comment for David …Calling the Editor of this page of being an ultranationalist, when he is not even a Turk and accusing him of spreading ‘false information’ because you happen to not agree with his views is ridiculous . Also, your statement of ‘Armenian genocide was executed by the Turks to create a ‘Fait accompli’ , an accomplished fact, a Turkey without its indigenous Armenians’ is nothing but rubbish! And it does not support the fact that during the height of the Armenian massacres of the Turkish population in 1914 and 1915, the Ottoman Foreign Minister, many Ottoman Ambassadors to European states , several Ottoman Ministers of state and dozens of Lt. Governors were ALL Armenians. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like Armenians were so oppressed to me! And if this ‘accomplishment of a genocide of the Armenians’ was accomplished, we wouldn’t be still here today debating this after 90 years would we! The relocation ended with around 300,00 Armenians moving to other lands…(Those damn Turkish troops, how did they allow those 300,000 people to escape from their sight…on foot, no less!) another example of a failed ‘accomplishment of genocide, so what are we arguing about. The majority of the Armenians worldwide who have been conditioned with terrible images of the deaths of their ancestors, without any mention of the pain and sufferring they have caused on the Ottoman Turks, have potrayed themselves as the victims and blame the current Turkish Government by shamefully Politicizing the events as a genocide and making it a part of U.S Policy! Sounds to me like denial! Turkey has confronted its past over and over again by opening their archives, inviting Armenia for a joint commission, ‘asking’ to be taken to International court (The accused asking to be tried for genocide, can you imagine that!) and even acknowledged the massacres of Armenians years ago, but this is still not acceptable for the Armenians. Why? Because the term ’genocide’ is a way to Politically and legally make claims on territories and be ‘paid’ for their tragedies. The only problem with this is, for the Armenians that is,Once a Resolution is passed accepting the genocide of the Armenians, the United States would have broken a UN law, which states, that the term genocide can only be applied to those countries that have been accused, tried in a court of law and found guilty thru facts and evidence by a judge and jury! Now …is this so difficult to understand?

32 nevber

July 16, 2008 @ 9:55 pm CEST

Ara, you have said that you seem to know many Armenians from Istanbul. Well, so do I! Just because you know a few people who seem to have an opinion about Turkey does not justify the fact that ALL Armenian-Turks feel the same way. I also know many Armenian-Turks. (I purposefully use the word Armenian-Turks, because they are exactly that!) They are very happy living in Istanbul; they feel Turkish culturally and can practice their religion/culture in total freedom. How narrow you see the world. You know a few people and assume ALL feel and think the same way. Do you apply this type of thinking to everything in your life? If you do, then you have a pitiful existence. I feel sorry for your loved ones around you. What narrow view of the world. How judgmental!

33 Elif

July 16, 2008 @ 10:01 pm CEST

Scarlet, Armenians are buying time and through that time of course buying influence rapidly especially after 2000s. If they accept Turkey’s suggestion of taking this issue to international court now, since they have not bought enough influence yet, they very well know that they are going to lose in court. However if they, say, wait another 10 , 20 years and buy enough number of countries out accepting the events as genocide, who knows, then maybe they will be able to buy influence over the judges of international courts as well. Because at the bottom of all these denial lies the emotional and psychological propaganda that Diaspora is using to make people sympathize with their so-called cause.

34 Ara

July 16, 2008 @ 10:08 pm CEST

Nevber, what on earth are you talking about? If you would like to be part of a truncated and emasculated community of only 40,oo0 from a peak of several million only 90 years ago in a country of immense nationalism and chauvinism, then by all means go ahead and become an Armenian in Turkey. Change your last name, play by the rules, and don’t mourn your dead and swallow the lies that your patriarch feeds the press at least externally. Must be psychologically fun.

As I said, Armenians aren’t living in danger of imminent death or destruction today, but that’s what you keep implying I’m saying, which couldn’t be further from the truth. My point is that there are rules to follow and limits to patience, and the picture is not nearly as rosey as you paint it. But again, if you wish to think so, go ahead, live in your bubble, your narrow world view that you seem to ascribe to me.

And this by no means applies to the Armenians, but also to the Greeks and any other minority population in modern Turkey. SUBJUGATION psychologically after the already century old demographic subjugation.

You’re amusing though. I kind of like you, even if you don’t like me.

35 Scarlet

July 16, 2008 @ 11:56 pm CEST

Ara..what makes you so convinced that Turkish-Armenians have changed their last names and ‘cannot mourn’ their ancestors deaths..have you been watching too much YT lately? And FYI, the majority of the Istanbul Armenians are the descendants of the Ottoman Armenians from Istanbul whom were not affected by the violence in Eastern Turkey. You know, the ones that were spared for unknown reasons, from ’ MASS exterminations and the infamous telegram of Talat Pasha’s policy of ‘kill every Armenian man, woman, child’ which just happen to pop out of nowhere after his murder. The telegram must have been applied only to Anotolian Armenians…give me a break Ara.

36 Ara

July 17, 2008 @ 1:33 am CEST

The preponderance of -oglu last names among their ranks. You give me a break. There’s a story behind each name change.

37 Ara

July 17, 2008 @ 1:37 am CEST

Once again, another person attributes an implication to my writing which I never actually stated. I didn’t say that the Istanbul Armenians included former Anatolian Armenians (although they likely do in part), I said that they’re the only community left out of the former millions that existed in what is now Turkey.

38 Le Petite Chat

July 17, 2008 @ 3:27 am CEST

i don’t think i can live up to quality of this discussion but it appears the chain of association flanking genocide is certainly anachronistic in some sense. Not just the verbal part of it. Could be systematic extermination if one likes it more. So in a sense it’s more like the mental associations rather than definitions of these words, if any, that counts in the discussion. Some historians argue that it was not a genocide cause they have in mind a model case of ‘genocide’, possibly of jews by Nazis during the Second World War. I honestly don’t know much about either but first thing coming to my mind (which is fertile with modern myths) is the retaliatory nature of an armed conflict. Somehow, genocide does not go there whatsoever is the numbers. Well… politicians are free to promote linguistic tokens when discussing facts. What else they are supposed to do? Or the other way around: what do you really believe when you say it was genocide and what do you really believe when you say it wasn’t? If everybody agrees on solid historical facts (if there could be such) than it’s merely a verbal discussion to call it genocide or not; if they don’t, that would mean, (well, at least, i think it would) that history of the era is poisoned with propaganda and distortion, whatsoever were the facts, now every piece of evidence is questionable. Who is going to judge you? What scientific or historical community? You can always say ‘i very much doubt the authenticity of that’ or ‘look.. how’s about this?. That’s why, i think, the controversy has become the business of irrelevant international bodies where people vote the truth.

39 Chuck Norton

July 17, 2008 @ 4:28 am CEST

"You should be ashamed of yourself. Another Armenian hate merchant, a fake Christian, actively preaching the gospel of hatred for all things Turkey. How’s that all-consuming hate working for you?"

<br>

Michael - I am shocked that you would talk this way

I mean, when I slam on leftists it is because they sling the hate card first and abandon the argument and avoid your best arguments and evidence.

Hey man let me give you some advice, when you are dealing with a genuine hater, creame them with logic and evidence first, then explain how their intellectual dishonesty can only be explained by hate or other such irrationality….then and only then should you have a ball mocking them.

40 Elif

July 17, 2008 @ 8:48 am CEST

Chuck, not that I am defending Michael, cos he does not need defending anyway but he gave all the logic and evidence in his above article if you read it to the very end.

These ‘genuine haters’ are now in such a position, you may need to jump right into your 3rd step

And Scarlet, I stopped trying to make sense out of what Ara is writing like 10 comments ago. I suggest you do the same:)

41 Selin

July 17, 2008 @ 10:06 am CEST

Ara, you got the "oğlu" thing completely backwards. In fact, the reason why there are so many "ians" with Armenians is because it’s an Ottoman tradition to call someone son of somebody else. But anyways, it’s a small detail.

Okay, here’s the thing with the "secret" Armenians: IF there are indeed a lot of them currently living as Muslims in Turkey, which is a story that I actually tend to believe, that means that the purported 300 thousand or 600 thousand Armenians who are unaccounted for according to census records during the relocation did not actually die, but they CONVERTED to Islam, or a good portion of them at least.

Ara, the story of mass numbers of converted Armenians living as Muslims in Turkey today actually CONTRADICTS the genocide allegations. That’s precisely why Armenian lobbyists have been very hesitant to promote this story. Halaçoğlu actually makes this point very clear in the sense that these people currently living in large numbers as Muslims in Anatolia explains the unaccounted Armenians who seem to have died in large numbers during the "Tehcir".

He is the head of the Turkish Historical Society and someone that your lobbyists are vehemently opposed to. For him to announce his support for the conversion thesis should actually make you guys worried.

42 Chuck Norton

July 17, 2008 @ 10:35 am CEST

Hi Elif - Obviously, I was just jazzing him a little bit

43 nevber

July 17, 2008 @ 3:44 pm CEST

Selin, no matter what kind of new revelations are revealed, or new information that arise, one can never convince/change the Armenian Diaspora’s mind. It’s almost like they are lost in this black hole of hate, suffering, agony and pain related to almost 100 years ago. They live with the so called memories of their ancestors and are unable to look forward to a bright future. The elderly or the wise ones in their community have created a pretty sad and angry generation. All they are obsessed with is to make the Turks come to their knees and beg for forgiveness. Give up their land and huge compensations for all the money they spend in the last 60 or so odd years on this issue. It’s almost an “orgasmic” thought that has taken over their soul. We have read articles, stories, so called news that are all related to this particular issue. Having said that, there are those power and vote hungry vulture like politicians who do not give a damn about the Armenian pain or distorted history which Turks shoulder with huge burden. All they care about is, “who will cover my election campaign”. So we poor souls spend so much money from a hard earned salary to support the system which purposefully continues the Genocide issue. Think about it. The politicians make so much money out of this. So, it is to their advantage to have this issue alive. At least in Europe and USA this fact is true. History is only an “interpretation” of the winners. However, both the Armenian Diaspora and the Politicians under estimate the Turks ONCE again! We may have been silent for various reasons but our voice is here and we are here to stay. I would also like to add, for those of you who may think the languages of the commentators are a bit aggressive or sarcastic, well this maybe true but after a while it becomes kind of boring to repeat the same thing over and over again. So the comments become either nonsense or funny. If you are outsider trying to make sense of the discussion, then just stick with us and try to have an open mind about what EXACTLY happened 100 years ago…. Instead of falling for the regurgitated lies, please understand that this is BIG BUSINESS… where a lot of people make money. A little advice to people like ARA, who seem to think that pro Turkish stance, is either “funny, cute, amusing or entertaining”, please do yourself a favor and find something that has real meaning in your life. Do not pass this hate to your child or the next generations… stop the abuse…!

44 Scarlet

July 17, 2008 @ 6:06 pm CEST

It’s taken me years to realize how pointless all this debating this! No matter what Turkey has as evidence ,it’s continuelly rejected as propoganda by Armenians without even having the descency to check out the sources ! Not one document so far has been proven to be forged by any Historian, not even by Armenian Historians, with the exception of a few that have actually taken the time to research some Ottoman archives..Yet, many of the so-called documents that the Diaspora has produced over the years, have been confirmed as forged or fakes by legal experts, and rejected by the United Nations back in 2000 . This, none the less, still managed to find its way right into the H.Res106 Resolution which was accepted by our Politicians whom some of them do not even know their A…..s from their elbows. Their decision to condemn Turkey of genocide came after a viewing of the documentary ‘Armenian Genocide’ ( the same one aired by PBS due to their large Armenian-American contributors) financed by Armenians, presented by the Lobbyists, along with a nice little prayer and blessing by the Armenian Archbishop! But a few days prior to this, the same House Committee rejected the viewing of ‘Armenian Revolt’ made by American filmmaker due to the lobbysts pressures! Tell me ladies and gentlemen… while accusing Turkey of forcing a ’GAG RULE" on the U.S Government…who IS really in control here , and who’s orchestrating the propogandas!!

45 Ara

July 17, 2008 @ 6:11 pm CEST

It is funny and entertaining, this tiny cocoon of ass kissing amongst denialists on this website. And no, I don’t have the oglu thing backwards, my friends have oglu last names because their families purposefully changed them to make it easier to get by in Turkey.

Enjoy yourselves though.

46 Scarlet

July 17, 2008 @ 6:36 pm CEST

Nevber, I read your previous post about the Armenians tying ‘to buy time’ w the Internatinal courts until ‘they can buy them out too.’..and it occurred to me..what is Turkey waiting for ….Let the accused apply to them first, The Government should bring up charges demanding justice for the massacres of the Muslims. Once the official papers are filed , Armenians have no other choice but to go and defend themselves and counter-claim. And Sephardic-Jews of Turkey should also do the same, for there is tremendous amount of evidence of what Armenian armies have done to their ancestors when they refused to revolt against the Empire.

47 Elif

July 17, 2008 @ 8:47 pm CEST

Scarlet, I was the one making the comment that you referred to and it is a good idea.

48 nevber

July 17, 2008 @ 9:44 pm CEST

Heeeyooo for the 20000322112224444 tımes, the word "deniers" came up again! WAW, Ara you are extremly original… I guess when you run out of ideas to smear, you go back to your good old comfortable "memorized words"… little one, why don’t you run to your Turkish hating blogs and tell them how original you were…

49 nevber

July 17, 2008 @ 9:46 pm CEST

Elif, I agree with you… Great idea!

50 Scarlet

July 17, 2008 @ 10:12 pm CEST

Sorry about that Elif, I thought the comment was from nevber..anyhow..as you can clearly see from Ara’s comments, he avoids certain questions directed at him by giving an unrelated answer…the only ones whom are denialists here are the Armenians…And I would like to also comment on the word’oglu’ that Ara seems to think every Armenian from Turkey has at the end of their names….Many Turks as well as Armenians have this at the end of their names, for if Armenians were really in fear of revealing their identities, then they could just as easily change their entire names or just drop the ‘oglu’ and the ‘ian’…all together. I don’t understand the logic in this for it defeats the purpose of ‘hiding’ ones nationality. For instance..Hagop Cigercioglu….Is a Turk suppose to believe Hagop is Turkish because of his ‘Turkish’ last name without considering the first? To my knowledge, the majority of Turkish-Armenians do have Armenian first names. So Ara, enough of this silly issue already.

51 Elif

July 17, 2008 @ 10:29 pm CEST

Scarlet, as I told before, I suggest you stop trying to make sense out of what Ara is writing, you too nevber cos otherwise in my opinion you will find yourselves in vicious cycles.
As for the surname and name issue I agree with you Scarlet. I have lots of Jewish friends and my family has Armenian neighbours and what you tell applies if not to all of them, to some of them. Either they have a foreign name and a Turkish surname or the other way around but we understand very clearly their origins.

52 Scarlet

July 18, 2008 @ 3:42 am CEST

Guess what Ara..you’re in this cacoon of ‘ass-kissing’
sight with us, because you ARE interested in what we have to say, whether you admit it or not, and maybe, just maybe you ‘ll learn that most of US are not that different then YOU.

Elif and Nevber, you must read the book ‘Genocide of Truth". I have been corresponding with Mr. Aya for the past year now and he is, by far one of the most intelligent people I have ever encountered. He is an active member of the Turkish Diaspora and has written this book from foreign sources. In other words, it is not a book just about his views and the views of Turks only. Good Luck

53 ALINA

July 18, 2008 @ 7:24 am CEST

Let me conclude this very "open-minded" discussion of pro-turkish blog, Armenians and Turks will always have their own truth. Although Turks accept that there were atrocities, they are getting into nervous tremor when others called it Genocide. So u can call killings of 1,5 million people "great achievement of Turkish government", the history will remain the same. And its not your fault, it was the policy of your government, so just
be brave to accept the truth!
To the editor of the blog who has so many turkish friends and successful benefactors, i’ll advise to continue learning and studying, and hopefully with time he will be able to see the history.

54 Ara

July 18, 2008 @ 8:07 am CEST

No Scarlet, I’m not at all interested in what you have to say, not in the least bit. It’s purely the entertainment value that brings me back here.

55 Michael

July 18, 2008 @ 8:35 am CEST

It’s funny i read how every turkish individual is critizing armenians for not opening the archives.
"Turkey suggested formation of a commission of historians to study the fact of Genocide. When in Moscow, the President Sargsyan said the Armenian side doesn’t mind formation of a commission but only after opening of the border."
In the news i recently read how some turkish tourists went to armenia and they had a great time. They said that everyone was polite, friendly with them, no problems occured and that they were going to visit again. All the theories of how Armenians hate turks is bullshit. its mostly the armenian community abroad, the armenians in armenia want to open the borders with turkey.
recently armenia’s under 19 soccer team vs. turkey’s under 19 soccer team in armenia. both captains shook hands, no violence in the crowd between fans, no violence between players nothing happened.
Everyone criticizes armenia but how come no one is talking about how armenias president invited turkeys president to armenia to watch the armenia - turkey world cup qualifying game.
About armenians converting. what i learned was that many people were given the choice: convert or die. many converted to save there lives and the rest were either killed or exiled.

My Grandmother: A memoir by Fethiye Cetin. Cetin is a Turkish human rights lawyer whose grandmother told her that she was actually Armenian and that she survived the Genocide:

For most of her life Seher a Muslim, has concealed her true Christian Armenian identity from her family. Having watched the massacre of those closest to them, Heranus ( Seher’s real name) and her mother and brother undertake the forced death march in 1915. Seized from her mother by a Turkish gendarme Heranus is then adopted into his family and separated from her own for ever.

56 Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief

July 18, 2008 @ 11:01 am CEST

Perhaps our Armenian friends should read Edward Tasji’s (in Turkish Tasçi) autobiography. He was the son of a Syrian Orthodox father and Armenian mother. He described the hate in the Armenian diaspora, which is destroying their own community. Furthermore, he calls on them to stop advocating a mythical genocide.

These individuals have not read that book, I am sure, but they should. It’s one Armenian trying to convince other Armenians to stop hating.

57 nevber

July 18, 2008 @ 11:46 am CEST

It is truly amazing to me to watch the persistence of blindness among the Armenian Diaspora. It is like writing to a wall! What are you all Masochist? Do you enjoy being hammered intellectually and historically over and over again? All your arguments have been clearly and efficiently been challenged and explained. All your stories have been disproved and your lies exposed. What is the problem here? What else do you need? My only conclusion is, you people just love to argue for the sake of argument because that is all you know. You do not give a damn about the truth? Your words are repetitive, your comments are stale, your arguments are getting old and your characters are extremely boring. Your obsession of the Turks has taken over your lives. Boy, how important we all feel. Thank you for putting us in a pedestal like that! I mean, I knew we were interesting people with very rich history, beautiful country, wonderful and warm people. But I did not know we were millions of Armenians wet dream! It would be interesting to watch when you guys will wake up to find out it’s only a wet dream…

58 Ara

July 18, 2008 @ 4:33 pm CEST

Intellectually and historically hammered? Did I miss something? What on earth are you talking about? It would seem to me that any casual observer would conclude the exact opposite. Amusing.

59 Scarlet

July 18, 2008 @ 5:43 pm CEST

Michael- While the Armenian President has invited the Turkish President to Armenia to watch a soccer match, Turkish President has not yet agreed and I sincerely hope that he does . I personally believe that this is an admirable gesture from an Armenian President and one that I hope will not be met with arrogance. He has also agreed to open their Ottoman archives..on the condition that the borders be opened first, this will be a tough one for Turkey when an ally has been under occupation for 16 years, which is the reason for the closed borders. However, I think they should go for it! Also, if you care to, please read my post from #31 regarding the video of the Turkish woman’s Armenian grandmother. It is a shame she felt she had to hide her identity her whole life.

To the editor,Michael, I had the honor of meeting Mr. Edward Tashji some 25 years ago. He always spoke proudly of his love for his country and revealed the lies of the Armenian Diaspora after havng researched and studied the archives of 3 countries for decades…he is sadly gone now and is honored each year by Turkish-Americans everywhere.His elderly Armenian wife carries on his legacy.

60 Scarlet

July 18, 2008 @ 6:10 pm CEST

To Alina, your advice for the editor to continue to study and learn about the history of Turks and Armenians…until he accepts the idea of genocide is pointless. He is a non-Turk and has made up his own mind by studying the events objectively. You, on the other hand, will never understand this, for genocide is undisputable to you and others. Not only has the events been exagerrated and politicized to the point of nausea, but you cannot even look at Turks as intelligent people who have contributed to society and had their own rich history and culture…as our friend up there Ara is so surprised and amused by Nevbers comment.

61 Aram

July 18, 2008 @ 6:41 pm CEST

In fact Armenians, some Turk writers and people, and the majority of western genocide scholars tell the truth about the Armenian genocide. I am ready to republish all this for all open-minded Turks. But first let’s see what some Turk writers think about the genocide:
On June 1, 2005, the Armenian "Marmara" online newspaper of Istanbul republished on its website (in Armenian) the article written by Ahmed Altan in "Gazetem" website on May 30 titled "We the Turks couldn’t agree with you the Turks". The following is my translation of the article from Armenian: "It was necessary that 30 thousand people died till the Turks understood that a Kurdish issue existed in the country. After burying 30 thousand young men we reverberated that we have a serious issue that needs to be solved. After sacrificing 30 thousand people before 15 years and spending nearly 400 billion dollars, we made revolution on this matter. And so-called revolution meant giving the Kurds permission to sing in their mother tongue. So far, Kurds are not allowed to teach in their mother tongue. Those who are applying for that are regarded as guilty persons by the Court of Cassation. Now we have an Armenian issue. First of all we said: "There is no Armenian issue, only one-two persons died, but under war conditions that was normal". Then, the one-two number of dead people gradually went up to hundred thousands. It exceeded a half million and is on its way to reach one million. Now, like a school student, we say: "Yes, it is right, we killed them, but they also killed us". "We" refers to in four directions spread the Ottoman Empire, and "They" are the Empire’s subjects our Armenian compatriots. We try to prove that the compatriots in the Empire were equal to each other. It is possible that in the end we accept realities about the Armenian issue. But only God knows what will happen to us before we reach that point. Why are we behaving in such manner? In my opinion, this has two reasons: First, which I couldn’t completely understand, is that we are unable to prepare qualified state officials. I don’t know whether this failure comes from our race, genes, habits, or religion, but I know that on this land we have strong-minded, steadfast, farsighted, and vigorous new generation. Second, doubtless the most bewildering thing is the unfortunate condition of so-called the education system. We, from the beginning to the end, teach our students lies as history. Yet, we accept the World War 1 as "a war waged by the Imperialists to fracture the Ottoman Empire". Thus, we mention superficially the war originated as a result of attacks of Ottomans on the foreign possessed territories. In our history textbooks, we gave no place to Kurdish revolts, to Armenian massacres, to the unnamed crimes committed in countries in Balkans region, or to the economical results of the wars we were involved in without measuring our force. When we look at our history textbooks, we seem the greater "sacrificed people" in the history that gained the hostility of the whole world. The infants grow up believing in these stories. The infant, who had never read about the Armenian carnage, when hearing the term "Armenian Genocide" gets mad thinking that the whole world is playing hostility to the Turks. The grievous conflict of Turk assemblage with realities begins in this way. During this conflict two parties of Turks emerge: The first party harshly refuses to doubt about the lies inculcated in their mind. Even though knowing the reality, this party will have the fear that when facing it the state and the assemblage will suffer great damage. The lasting past, a population reaching 70 million, and despite of all this, the way we crossed are not enough to dissipate the multitude psychosis created by our cowardice. From the other side, there is another party of Turks who don’t startle from realities, believing that this assemblage can eliminate the difficulties created by the realities. I think that the conflict between the well-educated Turks, who receive the state’s support, and the Turks who don’t fear from the realities will continue for a long time. It will last as long as our timid Turks and state officials with insufficient capabilities comprehend that denying realities is insufficient to dissipate these realities. Till they admit this fact, it is not obvious what will happen to us in our struggle. It is only obvious that we will be unable to win over the realities.

62 Elif

July 18, 2008 @ 10:27 pm CEST

Aram, if as a Turk I think there is a genocide or if as an Armenian you think there is not one, does this make the events of 1915 a genocide? Does a Turk thinking differently than the majority undermines the evidences? I doubt so. So therefore can you please skip to the part related to your western scholars’ evidences for ‘open minded’ Turks. But you should also promise on one thing that you will also be ‘open minded’ about evidences of western scholars that do not support your facts.

63 Aram

July 19, 2008 @ 12:00 am CEST

Elif, I am talking about historical facts and the opinion of the majority of genocide scholars. I also stated (as an example) the opinion of Ahmad Altan. You probably know Orhan Pamuk’s opinion too. Here, I’ll mention the opinion of the most important personality for the Turks, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (the Father of the Turks).
In 1926 a Swiss journalist, Emile Hilderbrand interviewed Kemal , later known as Ataturk, who accused the Young Turks of the massacre of “millions of our Christian subjects”.The interview appeared in the August 1, 1926 issue of the San Francisco Examiner.It should be mentioned that in 1926 a Turkish group, including a number of Young Turks, attempted to assassinate Ataturk. The attempt failed and culprits were executed.Ataturk made the following statement to Emile Hilderbrand.“These left-overs from the former young Turk party, who should have been made to account for the lives of MILLIONS OF OUR CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS, who were ruthlessly driven en mass from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the republican rule. They have hitherto lived on plunder, robbery and bribery and become inimical to any idea, or suggestion to enlist in useful labour and earn their living by the honest sweat of their brow”.
In February, 2005, Orhan Pamuk said in an interview with a Swiss in February that "one million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it.". This was a clear reference to the Armenian Genocide. This comment led to several death threats, and inspired one local official to order the seizure and burning of his works.

64 scarlet

July 19, 2008 @ 1:49 am CEST

Aram, what language did the Swiss Journalist speak when conducting the interview with Ataturk and what country did this take place in…and were there any witnesses to this historical interview..also why are there so many Armenians and Greeks implicating Ataturk of giving the orders to kill millions of Armenians, if such an interview exists..has the authenticity been investigated…..Please post this issue (send a link)from the journal’s archive onto this sight, I am interesed in seeing this.

65 Kemal

July 19, 2008 @ 3:13 am CEST

No worries Scarlet, Ara’s assertion about such a statement by Ataturk is just another Armenian lie and falsification.

See Tashjian, James H., "On a ‘Statement’ Condemning the Armenian Genocide of 1915-18 Attributed in Error to Mustafa Kemal, Later ‘the Atatürk’", Armenian Review, Vol 35 (3), 1982, pp. 227-244.

The above citation is to an article written by James Tashjian and published by the Armenian Weekly in 1982, stating the fact that Ataturk never made a statement. The author James Tashjian was reportedly forced to leave the publication shortly afterwards.

Ataturk’s thoughts on the "Armenian question" penned by his own hand are below:

"[T]he possible cession of the Eastern Provinces to Armenia was the most important reason for [the Union for Defence of the National Rights of the Eastern Provinces] having been formed. They anticipated that this possibility might become a reality if those who tried to prove that the Armenians were in the majority in these provinces, claiming the oldest historical rights, were to succeed in misleading world public opinion by alleged scientific and historic documents and by perpetuating the slander that the Muslim population was composed of savages whose chief occupation was to massacre the Armenians. Consequently, the Society aimed at the defence of national and historic rights by corresponding methods and arguments."

Nutuk (Great Speech- English Language version), p. 4

"The assertions regarding the Armenian massacres were undoubtedly not in accordance with fact. For the Armenians in the south, armed by foreign troops and encouraged by the protection they enjoyed attacked the Muslims of their district.

Animated with the spirit of revenge, they pursued a relentless policy of murder and extermination everywhere. This was responsible for the tragic incident at Maras. Making common cause with the foreign troops, the Armenians had completely destroyed an old Muslim town like Maras by their artillery and machine-gun fire.

They killed thousands of innocent and defenceless women and children. The Armenians were the instigators of the atrocities, which were unique in history. The Muslims had merely offered resistance and had defended themselves with the object of saving their lives and their honour. The telegram which the Americans, who had remained in the town with the Muslims during the five days that the massacres continued, had sent to their representative in Istanbul, clearly indicates in an indisputable manner who were the originators of this tragedy.

Threatened by the bayonets of the Armenians, who were armed to the teeth, the Muslims in the Vilayet of Adana were at that time in danger of being annihilated."

Nutuk (Great Speech - English Language version), pp. 319-20.

Good try Ara. But once again, the ANCA propaganda machinery disinformation is revealed, and this time, by an Armenian.

And, wow, now you resort to citing Orhan Pamuk, a novelist, a writer of fiction, for proof. How so not impressive.

66 Kemal

July 19, 2008 @ 3:18 am CEST

For an elaborate detailed explanation of how the article Ara cites was revealed to be a forgery see http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/forger-Emile1926.htm

67 Ara

July 19, 2008 @ 5:46 am CEST

For a sad and detailed peer into the obsequious world of Turkish denialism, browse up and down this site.

Ara isn’t Aram btw, and vice versa.

68 Scarlet

July 19, 2008 @ 5:57 am CEST

Ara, check out the links Kemal has provided. An Armenian himself has admitted and wrote about the ‘fake’ interview of Ataturk…..no need for apologies, we all make mistakes. There is so much propoganda regarding this topic, one cannot keep up! Thanks Kemal.

69 nevber

July 19, 2008 @ 8:52 am CEST

Ara and his like minded friends are not remotely interested in finding out new information or revelations concerning the “Genocide” debate. If they were tiny bit curious personalities, at least they would check it out. But for them looking into the links we provide means finding out the truth and that must be avoided at all costs. The truth will be hard to face. I stopped making sense of what they write long ago. Now I am having fun seeing their desperation by bringing up false interviews, fictional writers and pretty mediocre journalist that have little credibility. By bringing these people up, they are only proving that we have “democracy” in Turkey and not much of it in Armenia… They can not claim, we silence dissenting voices, but we sure can claim that the non democratic country called “Armenia” does! This only makes their position weaker.

70 Elif

July 19, 2008 @ 10:41 am CEST

go nevber, by the way guys, aram and ara are different people I suppose so Kemal your responses are to Aram not Ara but seeing that they defend the same thing, either of whom your response goes to does not make much of a difference at the end.
aram, I am still waiting for your western scholar evidences and of course I know about Orhan Pamuk but my opinion about him has been pretty much pointed out in the above comments anyway.

71 David

July 19, 2008 @ 12:52 pm CEST

Is Turkey Muzzling U.S Scholars?
http://www.insidehighered.com/layout/set/print/news/2008/07/01/turkey

This article says it all.

Unfortunately there is nothing Armenians can say or do which can change the minds of those who don’t want to face the truth. I have been researching at a micro level the fate of the Armenians of Afyonkarahissar. The Armenians of Afyon were renowned for their craftmanship and skills. They were Turkish speakers and had never harboured any revolutionaries. Afion was situated in western Anatolia far from the war zone. Yet, in the summer of 1915 approximately 10,000 of them were deported to the Syrian desert. Their church and homes were confiscated and used to house the Allied POW’s. When Baghdad fell, a newspaper correspondent Edmund Candler reports in 1917 the fate of those who were deported from Afion published in the NYT. The article can be viewed at http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=The_Armenian_Tragedy_-nyt191702

The church at Afyon is now a ruin, a home has been built on a part of it. I have before and after photos of it. The Armenian cemetery does not exist anymore. This is one micro example of the thousands of Armenian communities in Turkey who were uprooted and supposedly ‘relocated’. If relocation was the plan why have their churches and cemeteries been destroyed. In any case the reason why I give Afion as an example is its location. It was far from the war zone. The Armenian men of military age of Afion were conscripted into the Turkish Army. The remaining women and children posed no threat to Turkish national security. One cannot understand the systematic nature and magnitude of the Armenian genocide until they have conducted adequate research at both a micro and macro level. It is very easy to deny and make excuses but the documentation is so overwhelming.

The Armenian genocide is an incontestable fact.

72 David

July 19, 2008 @ 1:00 pm CEST

By the way. Those who use the fact that thousands of Armenians survived in Syria and Lebanon as an example that the genocide did not occur need to realise one important fact. The Armenian genocide resulted in the largest humanitarian relief episode in human history. The American Committee for Armenian aand Syrian Relief and later called Near East Relief are attributed in saving the lives of 500,000 Armenians in both the Caucusas and the Middle East. In fact, the relief funds raised over 110 million dollars from 1915 to 1929. The humanitarian relief was unprecedented in human history. If it wasn’t for the humanitarian relief response from the western world almost all the deportees would have died as a result of starvation, exposure and disease.

73 Robert

July 19, 2008 @ 2:06 pm CEST

One simple question to David:

If the goal of the Ottoman Turks / Muslims was to exterminate / genocide ALL Armenians from the Empire, why did they allow all of these Relief people to operate on Ottoman soil and save so many Armenians ???

Now, about simple math, considering that the Armenian population was close to 1.5 million around 1915, if I substract the 500,000 relocated survivors, then those that were NOT relocated, then those who moved out to Europe or the US, then those who moved toward Russia for protection or as volunteers, how can you assert that 1.5 million Armenians died during this period ???

74 Elif

July 19, 2008 @ 2:14 pm CEST

David, we are running in vicious cycles here. First you indicated that East Anatolia was the land of Armenians and Turks came and took it from them and exterminated their culture and this continued for a thousand year and events of 1915 were the final massacres killing the last bit of Armenian culture in Anatolia and I think with this logic any war on earth would be classified as genocide (not that I agree what you are saying at all) and therefore we moved away from it and now you are implying that all western scholars saying there is no genocide are practically bought - out and the ones saying there is a genocide (at least according to you not the ones being silenced) are all free from bias (and I wonder who are sponsoring them for their researches).

Same old same old, come in with some accusations, meet people who have been thoroughly reserching about the subject, see their side as well, you still have to come up with something though to continue your accusations and therefore start to question the objectivity of the scholars dealing with the subject and try to show Turkey as spending huge sums in this type of lobbying where as in reality Armenian Diaspora is spending millions.

David once and for all, Turkey and Turkish goverment never denied the tragedic results of events before, during and as well as after 1915. As all Armenians are doing it very successfully, you are evaluating historical events in isolation and twisting and bending realities as you wish, hence Afyon incidents. Go back to 1860s and you will understand what I mean. Armenians rebelling plans against Ottoman Empire started as early as that and maybe even before that via Hınchaks. Land wars between different nations in history is not what we should be discussing here and Armenians rebelling against Ottoman Empire resulting in killings of several Muslims do not justify a punishment of relocating most of Armenians (which were also not related to the war zone as well) but we never deny the fact that Ottoman Authorities were not very well managed in organizing and controlling the relocation, Although had good intentions, Ottoman authorities caused lots of suffering for their own army as well. Is some of the fundamentalist Turks firing churches in Afyon (and in several other places you will be able to show) make this a govermental agenda to exterminate a whole nation? Yes there was a hatred against Armenians by Turks by then and it only stemmed from the fact that Hınchaks and from 1890 onwards Dashnaks organized Armenians to rebel against Ottoman Empire. So you bringing up incidents in isolation to prove genocide is not working. Part of my grandfather’s family is also victim to the events of 1915 as I might have told before and he was even remembering the firing of mosques by Armenians (together with alive Turks in them). Does this now make Armenian goverment a genocide committer?

Unfortunately as Turks, there is nothing we can do to make you understand that this part of history is seriosly politicized involving a lot of money for a lot of stakeholders where it becomes very difficult to tell fact from fiction.

I can give here a long list of rebels by Armenians resulting in several Muslims killed leading to the events of 1915 and forming this hatred between Armenians and Turks (who were living in peace together up until that time) but what difference will it make for you?

You want to see the events from the side that Ottoman goverment had a massive intentional killing program for Armenians and performed this at all costs. Lots of Armenian bureaucrats having important positions in Ottoman goverment back then does not even make you question the fact why Ottomans would put Armenians in important govermental positions when they were planning to exterminate the nation. I am sure you can come with an answer to this one as well though.

The only thing