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3410) Glorification Of Armenian Terrorism, Once Again

Lisbon Operation Was A Blood Scattered For Justice: Estimates Brother Of Died Simon Yahniyan

GYUMRI, JULY 25, ARMENPRESS: In order to capture the world’s attention to Armenian genocide thirty years ago on July 27, 1983 five members of Armenian Revolutionary Army Vache Taghlyan, Sedrak Ajemyan, Simon Yahniyan, Ara Krjyan and Sargis Abrahamyan entered Turkish embassy in Lebanon. From the shot Turkish soldier 21 years old Simon Yahniyan was killed and the other four managed to enter the territory of the embassy and implement two blasts. Though many countries began speaking about genocide after this event but after several years many people still distort the details of martyrdom of Armenian young people. “Armenpress” spoke about the operation with the brother Simon Yahniyan Sareh Yahniyan who lives in Gyumri for already ten years.

*- Today you live in Gyumri though you were born in Beirut. Why you did you decide to move to Armenia?* . . .

- in 2003 I came to Armenia for the first time though since 3 years old Armenia is in my mind and heart. We accept Lebanon as a birthplace but Armenia is our motherland. In 1983 took place Lisbon operation headed by my brother. At that time I was 19 years old and Simon 21. It were the days of civil war in Lebanon. It was an operation without precedent: in peaceful conditions young people dedicated their life to their nation. Simon’s martyrdom was the reason that I came and stayed here and found the woman of my life. I named my son after Simon.

Simon dedicated himself to Armenia in his own way and I decided to dedicate myself to Armenia in my own way by coming staying here. Naturally I could not choose Simon’s way. It is not easy.

*- After 30 years what kind of estimation will you give to Lisbon operation?*

- Valuing that martyrdom after 30 years I think that something essential has not changed but as propaganda action is reached its aim: more than 20 countries recognized Armenian genocide after that operation. But I call it “Lisbon failed” operation. Unfortunately, it should waken also Armenians but it was not managed. I simply fell myself bad that up to now many people or do not know about this operation or have a wrong opinion. It is connected with ASALA. Many people call it terroristic act but it is not so. How can we call an operation a terroristic act when 5 young men killed themselves not demanding any other victims. Portuguese President Suarez a year later announced that he knew about fair demand of Armenians only after the operation. He did not call it as a terroristic act, but a blood scattered for fair case

*- What kind of remembrance events are planned this year?*

- In Lebanon as every year where the guys are buried will be held remembrance event. Events will be held also in many other countries. In Armenia it has never been celebrated officially but this year has been formed a committee which will be involved in it. I think the boys do not need to be glorified, simply the reality must be spoken about.

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Source

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On July 26, on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the Lisbon Five operation, hundreds marched in Lebanon in commemoration of the legacy of the five young Armenians who gave their lives for the Armenian cause.

A scene from the march in Lebanon

The march, as well as the dozens of commemoration events scheduled today around the world—including in Chicago and New York here on the East Coast—honored the memory of the Lisbon 5, and the legacy of struggle they inherited, embodied, and passed on.

There is a line that connects Lisbon Five to Tehlirian, to the commemoration of the Armenian genocide, the celebration of Armenia’s independence, and Artsakh’s freedom.

There is a part of Setrag, Vatche, Sarkis, Simon, and Ara beating under the chest of Armenians struggling anywhere around the world for freedom and justice—including, yes, social justice.

Three decades after the Lisbon Five operation, as the fronts, and the forms of struggle, have changed and multiplied, July 27 stands—first and foremost—as a day of celebrating the connection between the past and present, and between the different geographies and realities of our diasporic existence.

But most importantly, July 27 calls upon us to realize that our commitment to struggle ought to be beyond a particular day, beyond the ceremonious, the routine, and the pro-forma.

After all, there was nothing ceremonious and routine in their sacrifices.

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Source

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1980s-styled hysteria of the Dashnak newspaper "Asbarez"

EDITORIAL: Remembering the Heroes of Lisbon 5

It has been 30 years since that fateful day in July (27) of 1983 when five young Armenians set out to advance the Armenian Cause and through their ultimate sacrifice emboldened the entire Armenian Nation, but more important, elevated the demand for justice for the Armenian Genocide to new heights.

Vatche Daghlian. Sarkis Aprahamian. Ara Kerdjelian. Setrak Adjemian. Simon Yahneian. In an insta-second these five names were seared in our national psyche and consciousness and they became symbols of a national liberation struggle.

At the time, the international community had turned a deaf ear to the Armenian Cause. Many needed to be reminded of the atrocities of the Armenian Genocide and for many, it just did not matter. The world superpowers were courting Turkey and bolstering it into the whore that it has become. Matters needed to be handled differently—more forcefully.

Before Lisbon 5, there were others who advanced the Armenian Cause through the Armed Struggle of the 70’s and 80’s. Together these freedom fighters and the heroes of Lisbon elevated the just demands of the Armenian people and brought to the forefront the demands of an entire nation, which vowed for justice after reeling from the impact of the Genocide.

While we remember our heroes and reflect of their selfless act, we must, 30 years later, assess their legacy and recalibrate our efforts in the continuous pursuit of the Armenian Cause.

The dedication and sacrifice of the Lisbon 5 would come alive five years later on the battlefields of Artsakh when Armenians once again took up arms to defend the homeland against the blood-thirsty enemy.

The discussion and subsequent recognition by some countries of the Armenian Genocide can also be deemed as the direct result of the heroic acts of those who made the sacrifices so our national aspirations may advance.

It is undeniable that the events of 30 years ago and the selfless sacrifice by the Lisbon 5 instilled in us the drive to redouble our efforts to advance our cause and to sacrifice our time, resources and energy toward our goals and ideals.

The Lisbon 5 took ownership of the cause and by paying the ultimate price with their lives, proved to the Armenian Nation and the world that there is no limit on sacrifice when it comes to your beliefs and ideals—to liberating your Nation.

A generation later and in an evolving socio-political landscape with enormous challenges facing our nation, we need to recalibrate our approaches and apply the lessons of sacrifice embodied by the Lisbon 5 and ask ourselves—individually and collectively—whether we are doing our utmost for the advancement of the Armenian Cause.

The new generation, especially, must heed the call and embody the lessons of the Lisbon 5 legacy since it is they who will be leading our nation into the future. Their commitment, dedication and sacrifice will be the gauge by which our nation will advance.

“I will die without having seen the motherland. I don’t care. Others will see it…” So said Setrak Adjemian before he and his four friends headed to Lisbon in July of 1983. Others did…

8 Responses
bigmoustache says:
July 26, 2013
WOW great article. we need those young tashnags again for our struggles against turkey, azerbaijan and the corrupt Armenian government

Hratch says:
Let’s start with the corrupt Armenian government and then on to bigger things……

Robert says:
Not withstanding the deep held beliefs of the Lisbon 5 which one would hope were of pure intention, the idea of defending terrorism, is I think not ethical, nor smart. Lets not forget that the dead from that incident included a Turkish diplomat’s wife and a Portuguese policeman. To defend such actions and/or make heroes of it, is in my mind not very different than the Azeris making a hero of the axe-murder Ramil Safarov. Do we really want to be of the same mindset?

This of course is not to say that the Armenian Cause, Hye Tad, should not be advanced. On the contrary, we should look for constructive ways to do this, i.e. the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and ensuing reparations, and the building up of the Armenian nation economically, politically, militarily and otherwise. I don’t see how supporting terrorism in any way helps that effort.

Thinking back some 30 years ago, times have certainly changed for the Armenian people, that is a free Armenia and a liberated Artsakh (Karabakh). So I think it better not to judge the Lisbon 5 for their actions of a different time than today, either in a positive or negative light. Rather, it seems more fitting to consider how unfortunate that those young men of the Lisbon 5, that met their death some 30 years ago, were not able to see the dream of a free Armenia for themselves.

bigmoustache says:
July 28, 2013
were way past the opinions of others. the world did nothing while we were being massacred during Abdul hamids, talaats and ataturks reign. they did nothing when Azerbaijan tried to do the same in artsakh. your comparison is not right. this Turkish government is no different than the one that massacred our grandparents. they were never made to pay for their crimes or prevented from continuing their policies. its as if the Nazi regime was never toppled and brought to justice. if some jewish militant took matters into their own hands the world would understand that, and they have done that. mossad has killed Nazi war criminals in foreign countries before. the target of jcag/ara attacks were only Turkish diplomats, embassadors or military attaches, who are a representative of the same Turkish republic that tried to wipe out Armenia and who continue denying their atrocities thereby committing the final act of genocide. we never ever committed genocide, we fought in artsakh to prevent one. those boys sacrificed themselves for justice and to boost Armenian morale which was in a victims mindset for 100 years.

Alex Postallian says:
July 26, 2013
Don’t forget Calouste Sarkis Gulbenian,lived in Lisbon for years……..He did very much for the Armenians.He bribed the turks for 52%,of the Turkish petroleum co. bardered that,was nucleus of the oil companies in the world.He got 5% of all the oil out of Iraq.He was the richest man in the world..donating a lot of money to the Armenians.

Stephen T. Dulgarian says:
July 26, 2013
We will not forget the sacrifice of our brothers in arms of the Lisbon 5. The world powers never backed up the Armenian Nation after the 1st World War and because of that numerous Armenians have sacrificed their lives for their nation. God Bless the Lisbon 5.

GeorgeMardig says:
July 27, 2013
Whover denies the Armenian Genocide is a partner in the crime

Raffi Bairamian says:
July 27, 2013
God Bless Your Souls our beloved national heros.

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3409) Free E-Book: Turkey in Agony, 1913 by Pierre Loti

Turkey in Agony
Published for the Ottoman Committee,
London, by the AFRICAN TIMES AND ORIENT REVIEW, Ltd.,
158.FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. 1913

202 pages

THE OTTOMAN COMMITTEE.
President : The Right Hon. Lord Mowbray and Stourton. Hon. Sec. - - - Ellis Schaap. Assistant Hon. Sec. - Arthur J. Field. OBJECTS.
i. To resist encroachments upon the integrity of the Ottoman Empire.
2. To emphasize the strategical and commercial import ance of that integrity to the British Empire.
3. To maintain the friendship of Britain with the Ottoman Empire, and to promote a cordial understanding between Turks, Arabs and Britons. The Editor of the "African Times and Orient Review " having kindly given the use of his offices pro tem. to the Ottoman Committee, all communications are to be addressed to 158, Fleet Street, E.C. Due notice will be given of any change of offices.

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Direct Link: Turkey in Agony


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3408) Armenia’s Choice – Will It Be Russia Or The EU? And Why It Should Matter To The West

By Anna Borshchevskaya *

President Serzh Sargysan has been pursuing a multi-vector policy between Europe and Russia, but he will soon have to make a choice. Since the presidential elections in February 2013, internal pressure on the president has been mounting. The country’s economy is languishing. The government is corrupt and only pays lip service to democratic reform. Armenia needs to choose between Russia’s Customs Union and the EU’s Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA). The West also needs to act and pull Armenia into its orbit. Otherwise, Armenia’s dependence on Russia will continue to undermine Western security interests in the South Caucasus.


* Anna Borshchevskaya is a Fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy. She was an IREX Grant Recipient in
Armenia in December 2012.

Read The Full Document Below: . . .




Direct Link

Source: Turkish Policy Quarterly V.12 N.1 .

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3407) United States Supreme Court Lets Stand Decision Respecting Us Federal Policy Not To Characterize The Armenian Case As Genocide

Decision of the United States Supreme Court in Movsesian et al v. Victoria Versicherung et al is not to review the unanimous 11-0 en banc decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, that invalidated a California law that characterized the Armenian tragedy of 1915 as genocide.



On February 23, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit unanimously held by a vote of 11-0 that a California law that was facially an insurance regulation had a more than incidental effect on U.S. foreign affairs. The court said that the statute,

"at its heart, intended to send a political message on an issue of foreign affairs by providing relief and a friendly forum to a perceived class of foreign victims."

Thus, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit found that the California law usurped the U.S. President's foreign policy making prerogative.



In January 2011, the Republic of Turkey, represented by the law firm, Saltzman & Evinch, filed an Amicus (Friends of the Court) brief at the 9th Circuit underscoring U.S.-Turkish foreign policy concerns on the matter.



Prior to making its decision on whether to take the appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court sought the views of the United States government. In response the U.S. Solicitor General, Donald Verilli, submitted a brief that urged the Supreme Court not to take the appeal. In agreement with the Ninth Circuit, Verilli wrote that the California legislature had

"attempted to ... create judicially enforceable rights based on politically charged events that occurred on foreign soil nearly a century ago."

This case has had a long and winding history. The invalid statute was passed in 2000, prompting several German insurance companies and their reinsurer to sue, attacking the constitutionality of the statue. When the statute was first challenged U.S. District Judge Christine Snyder ruled in favor of the Armenian plaintiffs on several counts in 2007. But the German insurance companies appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit who, on August 20, 2009, reversed the District Court by a vote of 2-1 in favor of the insurance companies. However, On December 10, 2010, the panel, on motion from the plaintiffs, reversed itself, by a 2-1 vote. Apparently one judge had changed her vote at the urging of the dissenting judge. Then-ATAA President Gunay Evinch stated in the media,

"The behavior of the dissenting judge is not indicative of American justice; I am certain that the American judicial system will right this wrong."

The defendant insurance companies then asked that an expanded panel of judges representative of the full court review the self-reversal and settle the matter for once and for all, which it did. That decision now stands, and with the Supreme Court's denial of review, can no longer be appealed.

ATAA Trustee Evinch's law firm is currently defending the Turkish Central Bank and Turkish Ziraat Bank in Armenian reparations cases. Recently, the District Court in Los Angeles dismissed the cases. Plaintiffs Bakalian and Davoyan have appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Source: http://www.ataa.org
kindly received from Ms Oya Bain

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3406) Freedom For History? The Case Against Memory Laws

Josie Appleton talks to Pierre Nora and Olivier Salvatori of the Liberté pour l’Histoire initiative in France.

Liberty Leading the People. France embraces memory laws like no other country. The organisation Liberté Pour l’Histoire believes that 'liberty for history is liberty for all'. (Photo by Eugène Delacroix under a Creative Commons Licence)

Laws criminalising ‘genocide denial’ started to appear in Europe in the 1990s. Initially these addressed only the Holocaust, but later spread to cover denial of ‘crimes of Communism’, and state-recognised genocides such as the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, or the Ukrainian famine of 1932-3. A 2008 EU Framework decision suggests that ‘publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes’ should be punished with between one and three years’ imprisonment . . .

No country has taken to memory laws more than France, for whom the business of legislating on the past has been described as a national sport. It began with the 1990 Gayssot Act, which punished Holocaust denial with fines and imprisonment. A decade later legislation came thick and fast: a 2001 law recognised the Armenian genocide, while another law that year defined the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity. A 2005 law recognised the positive role played by French colonialism, with a provision prohibiting criticism of, or minimisation of crimes against, harkis (Algerians loyal to France). A 2006 bill attempted to punish denial of the Armenian genocide; though this failed to pass the issue resurged in 2011 with an Act that punished denial or minimisation of the genocide with a €45,000 fine and a year in jail.

Yet it is also in France that there has been the staunchest opposition to these laws from historians. The umbrella group Liberté pour l’Histoire formed in 2005, and over the past seven years has taken on memory laws with a vangardist temper not often seen from this traditionally demure profession. I met the head of the organisation, historian Pierre Nora, and the group’s secretary Olivier Salvatori, at the offices of Gallimard publishers in Paris where they work.

Liberté pour l’Histoire has long argued that such laws violate the French constitution and the founding principles of the modern state. Their 2008 petition, Appel de Blois, declared: ‘In a free state, no political authority has the right to define historical truth and to restrain the freedom of the historian with the threat of penal sanctions’. Nora tells me that ‘Memory laws are completely different to laws on defamation, which protect individual rights and can be derived from the constitution.’ Memory laws aim not to protect rights but to lay down historical truths, under threat of penal sanctions.

The implications for historical investigation are profound. ‘What if somebody writes a book saying that 10 million rather than 12 million Africans were taken by the slave trade – are they guilty of a crime?’, asks Nora. The state is ‘prescribing limits’ for historians, telling them ‘what they should research and what they should find’. The group launched a petition in 2005 in response to the prosecution of historian Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau for ‘denial of a crime against humanity’, after he said in an interview that in his view the slave trade was ‘not a genocide’ since ‘it didn’t have the goal of exterminating a people’.

The last time European states prescribed historical truths under threat of penal sanction was under blasphemy and heresy laws. Yet contemporary memory laws are quite distinct from these old state-ordained truths. The striking feature of French memory laws is their lack of any overriding logic: one law is pro-colonialist, two are apologetic (though for events several centuries apart), and one (the Armenian genocide law) deals with an event that didn’t involve France at all and which many French people would not have heard of.

It’s not clear why a French president would be suddenly gripped with an urgent need to legislate on the 1915 massacre of Armenians, such that he would rush this law through –against opposition from his advisers – to be passed by an unprecedented hand-vote by a mere 50 deputies. ‘We don’t understand very well why they did it’, said Nora, ‘There are lots of hypotheses’. Some suggest that the drive could be geopolitical, putting off Turkey’s entrance to the European Union. A bigger factor is electoral: Armenians are an important voting bloc in key areas such as Marseille and Lyon, and it is no coincidence that the Armenian law initiatives appeared in election years. The 2011 law was adopted by the deputy for Marseille, who was also vice-president of the Armenia-France Friendship Group.

The precondition for memory laws is the moralisation of history – or more specifically, a shift from victory-history, whereby nations exaggerated their past heroics, to victim-history, where groups emphasise their past sufferings. The demand for recognition of historic suffering is implicitly a claim made through the state; it is ultimately a demand for compensation for wrongs suffered, whether in the form of monies or ideological protection.

Terms such as ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ are now part of the everyday business of political claims-making. ‘These terms were once very precise’, says Nora. ‘A crime against humanity was a legal term applied after the Second World War, which involved the legal duty to pursue and bring to justice the authors of the Holocaust until their deaths. Genocide meant the decision to destroy a part of a population for racist reasons’. Now events including civil wars and the slave trade can be described in these terms. In Nora’s view, ‘it is a judicial absurdity to say that an event such as the slave trade was a crime against humanity’. The authors of that crime are several centuries long gone, and their intention was not to destroy a population. The more that the word ‘genocide’ is used broadly for ideological reasons, the more it becomes ‘a word that historians try to avoid’.

Nora says that historians can cope with these cultural trends, so long as they are not embodied in laws – and consequently so long as historians are free to challenge or ignore this use of the past. It is memory laws that are the problem and need to be scrapped.

In this, Liberté pour l’Histoire has been remarkably successful. Though Salvatori tells me that the group is ‘not much of an “organisation”’ – there is no office or staff – they have made their voices heard throughout the media and at the highest echelons of state. ‘Our ideas have won the battle of pubic opinion’, judges Salvatori.

To all intents and purposes, the group has managed to render France’s memory laws null and void. A 2008 parliamentary enquiry – at which Liberté Pour l’Histoire gave the opening and closing testimonies – issued the resounding conclusion that government should refrain from legislating on history. Most importantly, the group achieved the suspension of the 2011 Armenian genocide law by the Constitutional Council, which found in a landmark decision on 28 February 2012 that the law was unconstitutional on the grounds of infringement on freedom of expression.

For now then, the threat of memory laws in France appears to have subsided. But the lesson of the past seven years is that the impulse to legislate on historical events reappears again and again, often without warning and in surprising guises. Quite soon after being elected last year, François Hollande expressed his desire to return to legislating on the Armenian issue. ‘Liberté Pour l’Histoire should remain vigilant’, the former justice minister Robert Badinter told the group’s general assembly: there could well be more memory laws. ‘We are not disbanding’, says Nora.

This informal network of historians has furnished Europe with an impressive case study of free speech campaigning. With the slogan ‘liberty for history is liberty for all’, they have defended not only the freedom of their profession but also the founding principles of the democratic state.

Josie Appleton is director of the civil liberties group the Manifesto Club. Speeches and articles about Liberté pour l’Histoire can be found on the group’s website. You can sign the 2008 Appel de Blois or subscribe as a member.

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Comments (2)
Antoon De Baets
April 28, 2013

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GENOCIDE AND CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

I admire the work of Liberté pour l’Histoire and fully support its analysis and goals. According to Josie Appleton, however, Pierre Nora and Olivier Salvatori said the following:

Terms such as ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ are now part of the everyday business of political claims-making. ‘These terms were once very precise’, says Nora. ‘A crime against humanity was a legal term applied after the Second World War, which involved the legal duty to pursue and bring to justice the authors of the Holocaust until their deaths. Genocide meant the decision to destroy a part of a population for racist reasons’. Now events including civil wars and the slave trade can be described in these terms. In Nora’s view, ‘it is a judicial absurdity to say that an event such as the slave trade was a crime against humanity’. The authors of that crime are several centuries long gone, and their intention was not to destroy a population. The more that the word ‘genocide’ is used broadly for ideological reasons, the more it becomes ‘a word that historians try to avoid’.

In contrast to the remainder of the interview, this passage is full of confusion. A few clarifications, sentence by sentence.

** “These terms were once very precise.”

This is correct, but the terms are now more precise than in the past. For the first definitions of “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes,” see articles 6b and 6c of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg (1945); for the first definition of “genocide,” see article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). For presently internationally accepted definitions, see International Criminal Court (ICC), Statute (1998), article 6 for genocide (which definition is identical to article 2 of the Genocide Convention), article 7 for crimes against humanity (which definition is a complete redrafting of IMT text), and article 8 for war crimes (which definition is based on 1949 Geneva Conventions and 1977 Additional Protocols). In general, the passage confuses genocide and crime against humanity: every genocide is a crime against humanity, but not every crime against humanity is a genocide.

** “A crime against humanity was a legal term applied after the Second World War, which involved the legal duty to pursue and bring to justice the authors of the Holocaust until their deaths.”

This is correct: the perpetrators of the Holocaust were tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes under the IMT Charter. But the Charter definition of crime against humanity is not “the legal duty to pursue and bring to justice the authors of the Holocaust until their deaths”; it is “murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.” At Nuremberg, the perpetrators of the Holocaust were not tried for genocide because the IMT Charter did not yet contain the genocide category. The United Nations General Assembly first affirmed that genocide was a crime under international law in Resolution 96 (I) (“The Crime of Genocide”) (11 December 1946). Genocide was a crime that only came into legal existence with the adoption of the Genocide Convention in 1948 and the latter’s entry into force in 1951. The Holocaust of 1939-1945 has officially been called a genocide since the adoption of the Genocide Convention. Nobody can protest in earnest against this case of retroactive labeling because the Genocide Convention was drafted precisely with the Nazi atrocities in the minds of the drafters. And many other crimes in history conform to the official genocide convention.

** “Genocide meant the decision to destroy a part of a population for racist reasons.”

This is not accurate: the genocide definition speaks of an intent to destroy in whole or in part; and the groups mentioned in the genocide definition do not only include racial groups, but also ethnic, national and religious groups.

** “Now events including civil wars and the slave trade can be described in these terms.”

(1) A civil war cannot be described as a genocide, a crime against humanity or a war crime. A civil war is the context in which such crimes may occur. In its 1977 Additional Protocols, the International Committee of the Red Cross was the first to distinguish the context of international war from the context of a “war not of an international character”. Such a distinction was urgently needed because by only covering gross crimes committed in international wars, a huge percentage of all gross crimes stayed in the dark. The distinction international / internal is also adopted by the ICC, but only for its definition of war crimes.

(2) For the slave trade, see my next point.

** “It is a judicial absurdity to say that an event such as the slave trade was a crime against humanity”.

This is not accurate: the slave trade is a crime against humanity but it is not a genocide. The ICC Statute determines that enslavement (a summary name for slavery and slave trade) was a subcategory of “crimes against humanity.” The Declaration of the 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance reiterated this view. Some define slavery inaccurately as a genocide or a “Black Holocaust,” but the slave traders’ intent was not to destroy the slaves but to exploit them as cheap labor. This was the view correctly held by Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau (and correctly rendered earlier in this interview, but not in the passage I discuss here).

** “The more that the word ‘genocide’ is used broadly for ideological reasons, the more it becomes ‘a word that historians try to avoid’.

It is correct that the word “genocide” is often abused (as in the example of the Black Holocaust above). Avoidance by historians of the term for that reason, however, is a weak offer. Some crimes are genocides, others are not. The use of recent concepts is not necessarily anachronistic and often plainly better than the use of concepts en vogue at the material time of the crime. (Space lacks to develop this important point here). We already saw above that retroactive labeling can be fully justified. In fact, historians do little else than retroactively labeling of historical events. To be sure, scholars and others retain the right not to adopt labels defined under international law for historical practices. They should, however, explain why their alternative label or definition is superior. I find such explanations, if they are given at all, seldom convincing. In cases of recent historical injustice, it is not recommended to define the nature of a given crime differently from international courts with their elevated standards of evidence and huge research departments. In cases of remote historical injustice, the use of either historical or recent concepts has to be painstakingly justified.

I elaborated these points at length in my “Historical Imprescriptibility,” Storia della Storiografia (September 2011) and “Conceptualising Historical Crimes,” Historein, no. 11 (2012).

Antoon De Baets
imos.org.uk
May 10, 2013

It is, of course, deeply ironic that governments, in order to appear to be anti-fascist, resort to exactly the sort of anti-free-speech methods that might have been recommended by Goebbels himself.

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Source

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Reply Comment:
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1- If commentators would read 60th-anniversary-of-genocide there should be no more argument as regards "what qualifies as crime of humanity or genocide" and most important of all, "who is the authority to decide" on the charge? At the present this is the United Nations and all claims must go to the special rapporteur appointed under General Secretary in 2004.

2- The equivalent of United Nations, before it was founded after WW-II was "League of Nations". Now, let us see what did the League of Nations say about the "genocide allegation": a- “League of Nations” - Important Documents “University of Bradford” Armenia and the League of Nations

Documents from the United Nations Library, Geneva; League of Nations Archives Collections Posting # 3293

Copy of “Note Verbal” by Secretary-General Sir Eric Drummond, dated March 1st, 1920.

Page 2: “Further, in Turkey, minorities were often oppressed and massacres carried out by irregular bands who were entirely outside the control of the central Turkish Government."

b- if-armenians-fight-with-us-against the Turks . .



CONCLUSION: What is the argument? Aren't above documents by highest authorities clear and loud enough?

I compliment and appreciate "Liberté pour Histoire"...But I think we have more than enough "Verite de la Histoire"

which some people do not want to see or like to admit. They neither apply to the available authority!

Regards

S.S. Aya .

Read More

3405) My Soul Dear Agop, . .

After serving the University of Istanbul, Cerrahpasha Faculty of Medicine for 41 years, Prof. Dr. Agop Koto?yan, otherwise also known as “ the famous dermatologist Agop without the arm “, has retired in last November. As luck would have it, he –the Agop Hodja – was born in the Delivery Room of the same Cerrahpasha Hospital 66 years ago. The hospital was 15 minutes away from his home by walk.

Preferring the official name of “ Kocamustafapasha” to the name Samatya,widely used by the people, he used to quip and boast; “ I am with pasha by birth..”. ‘Agop Hodja’, as he is called by his friends and colleagues, was respectfully sent away to his new life style by his devouted patients, students some of whom are now well respected scientists and colleagues from the hospital where he worked tirelessly and cared for countless amount of patients for four decades, after a . . .
solemn farewell ceremony.

In fact, what has retired was the symbol of determination, a personality who missed death by so little yet decided to strongly continue living miraculously. Having reached his highest professional achievements 30 years ago like heroes in epic tales, Agop Hodja shunned the limelight, stayed away from magazine journalists saying that it would be ‘advertisement’ of doctors themselves to take on the stage unless it was for presenting a scientific and medical discovery. It was very difficult to interview this humble yet very successful doctor who has set up the first clinic and laboratory in Turkey for study of sexually communicable diseases, who has become leading scientist in several medical specialties, and who has shown the way by his several discoveries in the medical sciences.

His life story could have started like a beginning of an epic story. But, in order not to lose sight of several drastic events in his life, we decided to chronologize the real events in his life.

There was once a little boy, named Kirkor, born in the Village of Terzili, in the borough of Akda? Madeni of the City of Yozgat in Turkey, of a poor family. He was Agop’s father.

Kirkor Koto?yan, born in 1911, lost his father at the age of 4 during the infamous internal strife and fighting of 1915. His mother saved him from death wielded by the bandits who massecred every man in his village, by hiding him in the caves of the village. They have sheltered to their neighbors who cared for and supported them after the departure of the bandits. Only after the peace and quiet have arrived, they were able to return to their own village.

Kirkor Bey, the father, married to a young woman, Makruhi Han?m, from the Village of ??dere of Yozgat, when he was 25 years old. The family moved to Istanbul in 1938 and settled in the borough of Samatya. A year later, the first son of the family, Agop, was born in the same hospital, Cerrahpasha Hospital of the Istanbul University, Faculty of Medicine, where he would later serve for years.

Kirkor Bey, his father, used to work in construction sites while his mother worked in the nearby factory. Poor but content, the family registered thir son at the Sahakyan Armenian Elemantary School in Samatya. His father bought him a brand new jacket to wear with first year of his schooling. One day, after swimming in the sea near Samatya, Agop notices that his new jacket was no longer where he left it at the beach, having being stolen by thieves. In addition to having lost his jaclet, he was admonished by his poor mother who could not readily afford another jacket for him for the next three years. Nowadays, agreeing with his mother, Agop remembers resolutely “ we were poor, we received bread with the subsistence help of the government and did not taste sugar or meat for months”.

The little Agop started to work at the young age while at the elementary school like some of his friends. He was working at a silversmith’s workshop when he finished the elementary school. While working there one hot summer day, he let his sleeve and thus his right arm caught in the press, destroying his total arm up his shoulder. Although the doctors in the hospital concluded that the kid, with this kind of injury at this young age would not survive, after remaining in coma for several days, he opened his eyes to the world again, in the Cerrahpasha Hospital where he would serve the other patients for decades.

He recovered fast that summer but was heart-broken each time his friends and others looked at him with pity which he couldn’t take. Although registered to the school for the upcoming semester, he did not attend the school but steadily and consistently studied on his own outside the school with hekp of the books he bought himself. After spending a year at home studying and thinking at the same time that he must educate himself at any cost and decided to go back to the Bezciyan Middleschool at Kumkapi District of Istanbul.

He continued to work during summer periods and weekends while attending his formal school years. He sold things at the streets, he worked in clothing manufacturing plants in order to help with the househould expenses of his family, never forgetting to give spending money to his sisters, Hripsima and Maryam.

While successful at the Middleschool, he actually topped his performance at the Galata Gestronogan Highschool. First in his class every year, he brought home Certificates of Appreciation and awards every year. He was also interestd in soccer, particularly a fervent admirer of the famous Fenerbahce Club for the last 26 years. Also interested in basketball but unable to play due to his only one arm, he devoted himself with a great energy and stubborness to the game of soccer at the highschool age and moved up successfully to the ranks of the local Samatya Genclik Klubü.

Whe he succesfully entered in 1957 the Faculty of Medicine of the Istanbul University, he found himself at the same hospital where he recovered from a near-death condition after the press accident when he lost his arm. As he entered thr doors of this faithful hospital, he couldn’t help remembering and murmuring to himself “ You saved my life one day old sport…. Now it is my turn to pay back…”. While teaching the highschool kids for pocket money during his medical school years, he did not not neglect play soccer with the team of the Cerrahpasha Hospital.

Again, he finished in 1963 the Faculty of Medicine with honors. He worked for year as an intern at the Capa Hospital Dermatology and Communicable Diseases Department. The following year, he accepted a Teaching Assistant position with the same hospital. His master’s thesis in the Dermatogy Department was called “ Clinical and Biochemical Research on Impetigo Herpetiformis Cases “.

In 1967, he became the Chief Research and Teaching Assistant of the Cerrahpasha Faculty of Medicine before he was sent to Germany in October 1969 by the Faculty to further study in his field. After learning German Language in four months good enough to study, he was assigned to work with famous Prof. Dr. Nödl in the Department of Dermatology of the Saar University of Hamburg. He also studied for short periods in the same university Departments of Allergy and Histology. His stay and studies in this university was extended one more year free of charge by the Trustees of the University due to his great success at his work.

Before he lost his right arm in the accident in 1952, like everyone else, Dr. Koto?yan used to use his right hand. After the accident, he worked very hard to learn to use his left hand and arm. He particularly suffered the most during his college years. He had worked very hard to learn to use his left hand and arm at the Faculty of Medicine for being able to draw fluid into his injection needle, use the needle with hand to make an injection to a patient. He injected water into oranges at home to improve his ability in this area, sometimes sleeping at the labs while working at it. In order to improve his ability to suture a wound, he practiced at home mending all the old clothing where there was torn or separate edges. In two years, without any help from others, he recovered from the loss of his right arm, acting like a normal doctor with no impairment.

One year after his return from Germany in 1972 to the Cerrahpasha Hospital, he successfully moved up to the Assistant Professor position. He became a full professor in 1979 by presenting his thesis titled “ Immunological Studies of the Acne Vulgaris Cases “. Beyond German language, he learned on his own English and French and became famous all over the world by giving lectures, speaking at the medical conferences outside Turkey. He authored two books and wrote professional articles totalling more than 300 in foreign press.

In 1975, he married Suzan Han?m. During his final talk at the retirement ceremony given to his honor on November 21, 2004, he said the following : “ I am not thanking two persons…one of them is my mom who brought to me to the beginning of this road; the other is my wife Suzan who elevated me to this position in my professional life. It is not that I am not thanking them, it is just that I am unable to thank them… Simply because, I already owe them everything. “

THIS IS CALLED ‘ LOVE OF THE COUNTRY ‘ He has received offers to join from very reputable universities in the world, such as United States, Germany, France and Canada. They offered him to stay and chair his own department. Refusing the all, he famously relied laughingly to statements like “ You lost your grandfather because he was an Armenian, you lost your arm because you were poor; then, why do you stay in this country ? “ What did he think for all these accusations ?... “ Yes, it is true that I suffered a lot in my country. I lived in lowest levels of impoverishment…True; lost my grandfather, my childhood and my arm nut not my ‘path’… I never thought for a minute that I am any different from anyone of the millions living in this country… I accepted and assumed as my brother all the people living on this land .. To love a country is not just love the good and bad days you experience in this country. Love of a country is to remain with the country in the good and bad days, to remain here at the homeland with everyone else… There is a proverb here in this country; “ ..an empty wheat spike stands upright but the one with wheat remains inclined..” I have always remained ‘inclined’ in this world, I never liked self-aggrandizement and pride, never stood up with false pride and empty self-imposed recognition, never said ‘I know everything’, I only held tightly the rope of knowledge and science. I did not leave my job and my responsibilities to luck and chance. Because, I worked very hard, never left a blank spot or unverified gap of knowledge. “

This extraordinary doctor further said while bidding goodbye in his retirement ceremony : “ My duties in this wonderful teaching instution is actually ending after spending 32 years in teaching out of the 41 years 3 months association with it. It is difficult to express the feelings I now have. One meets the first time a blank feeling and space in heart and mind when the time comes to say goodbye. One realizes something one never experienced before within the busy days of life. Agop the lovely baby lamb of his mother, Agop the silversmith, Agop the soccer player, Agop the student in Germany, Agop the profesor, assistant and the teacher teaching the highschool students for pocket money…They all have come together now, asking smartly ‘ What will happen now…? ’ “. Continuing his speech, he finally said: “ Hey… all these identifications I counted just now…If you would not feel shamed, you would declare me ‘dead’, but I am here now, elder than all of you, saying I am not dead…until I am dead.”. Everyone in the auditorium stood up, cheering and clapping.

Agop Bey is still continuing to work as a doctor in a private clinic of his own designed by his architect son, still humble and determined helping his patients in Istanbul.

His mother, Makruhi Han?m, 87, was unable to come to her son’s retirement ceremony due to an illness. Instead, his sister, Hripsime Koto?yan, the famous mathematician to whom Agop used to give pocket money, came to the pulpit. She read the letter from their mother who couldn’t come :

“ My Soul Dear Agop, Neither your father nor myself knew how to write and read. You went to school, educated yourself. You worked very hard and always studied, my dear…We were poor and were unable to make any monetary contributions for your journey which took you where you are today. Look here; I am declaring right now in front of everyone…Son; we coul not help you as required and we felt so sorry for that. Your father, who tried very hard to conceal his feelings felt very sad about it, also. Yet, you made us proud….Won every difficulty you faced….God, who helps the poor birds to fly, gave you wings to fly when you exhibited your desire to fly…My dear soul Agop; you worked very hard and now you are tired. I would say “ Rest a little now…” but I know you would not listen… I am now a little sick but you know that I am right there next to you…You should also know that your loving little mother is so proud of you… And, your father, looking down at you from Heaven, smilingly… My dear soul, my son, I kiss your dark eyes…”

Kindly Translated By Sadi Dinlenc

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Source in Turkish:

Cildiyeci Kolsuz Agop

Prof. Dr. Agop Kotoğyan yani meşhur ‘Cildiyeci Kolsuz Agop’, 41 yıl hizmet verdiği İstanbul Üniversitesi Cerrahpaşa Tıp Fakültesi’nden geçtiğimiz kasım ayında emekli oldu. Tesadüf bu ya Agop Hoca, bundan tam 66 yıl önce Cerrahpaşa’nın doğum kliniğinde dünyaya gelmişti. Hastane, evlerine 15 dakika yürüyüş mesafesindeydi.
Doğduğu Samatya semtini diğer adı Kocamustafapaşa’yla seven Kotoğyan, ‘Doğma büyüme Paşalıyım’ diye övünüyor. Agop Hoca, yıllarca hasta baktığı, laboratuvarında göz nuru döktüğü, kimileri şimdi namlı birer profesör olan öğrencileri, vefalı hastaları ve mesai arkadaşlarının katıldığı törenle uğurlandı.

Veda eden aslında azmin, direncin, ölümlerin eşiğinden dönüp hayata sıkı sıkı sarılmanın simgesi, yaşayan bir efsaneydi. 30 yıl önce mesleğinin zirvesine oturmuş, masal kahramanına dönüşmüştü. Hayatının içine girmek zordu. Çünkü gazetecilerden uzak duruyor, doktorların artist olmadığını, bilimsel tebliğler dışında dışarıya seslenmenin reklam olabileceğini savunuyordu. Türkiye’de, cinsel yolla bulaşan hastalıklar kürsüsünü ilk kuran, çeşitli bilim dallarında bölüm başkanlığı yapan, yeni buluşlarla çığır açmış bu doktoru albüm sayfalarımıza alabilmek için günlerce uğraştık. Sonunda hatırını kıramayacağı dostlar araya girdi, bize hayatının kapılarını araladı. İşte gördüklerimiz.

Aslında bu albüm şöyle başlayabilirdi: ‘Bir varmış, bir yokmuş. Evvel zaman içinde, kalbur saman içinde Yozgat’ın Akdağ Madeni İlçesi’nin Terzili Köyü’nde Kirkor adında bir çocuk varmış. Küçük Kirkor, kendi halinde yaşayıp giden yoksul bir ailenin çocuğuymuş.’ Ama masalsı hayatın içinde gerçeği kaybetmemek için kronolojik sırayla anlatmayı doğru bulduk.

Agop’un babası Kirkor Kotoğyan, 1911 doğumlu. 1915 yılında, yani Anadolu’daki o büyük kaos döneminde henüz dört yaşındayken babasını kaybetmiş. Köyünü basan çeteler köydeki tüm erkekleri öldürmüş. Küçük Kirkor’u annesi, onu madendeki mağaralara kaçırarak kurtarabilmiş. Sonra da bir yakınlarının yanına sığınmışlar. Olaylar yatışıp saldırılar durunca yanmış, yıkılmış, talan edilmiş köylerine dönebilmişler.

Kirkor Bey, 25 yaşındayken Yozgat’ın İğdere Köyü’nde yaşayan Makruhi Hanım’la evlenmiş. Aile 1938’de İstanbul’a gelmiş ve Samatya’ya yerleşmiş. Bir yıl sonra da ilk çocukları Agop, İstanbul Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi’nin Cerrahpaşa’daki hastanesinde doğmuş. Dünyaya gözlerini açtığı, ilk görüntüleri, ilk sesleri duyduğu bu hastane ile ömür boyu sürecek kader birliği de böylece başlamış.

Babası Kirkor Bey, inşaatlarda kalfa olarak çalışır, annesi de Samatya yakınlarında bir fabrikada işçilik yaparmış.

KOLUNU PRES KAPTI

Çok yoksullarmış. Küçük Agop, Samatya Sahakyan Ermeni İlkokulu’na başladığı yıl, babası ona bir ceket almış. Bir bahar günü arkadaşlarıyla Samatya sahilinden denize girip çıkmış ve bir bakmış ki ceketin yerinde yeller esiyor. Anasından bir ton dayak yediği gibi tam üç yıl boyunca da ceketsiz kalmış. ‘Bana yeni bir ceket almaları mümkün değildi. Ekmeği karneyle alıyor, aylarca et ve şeker yüzü görmüyorduk’ diye annesinin köteğine hak veriyor şimdi.

Küçük Agop, daha ilkokuldayken işe başlamış. Mezun olduğu yıl bir gümüş atölyesinde çalışıyormuş. Sıcak, çok sıcak bir yaz günü, gümüş kalıpları plaka haline getirmek için kullanılan presin silindiri iş önlüğünün kolunu kapmış. Sonra da elinin tamamı omuzuna kadar presin altında un ufak olmuş. Hastaneye vardığında doktorlar, ‘Bu çocuk yaşamaz’ demiş. Ameliyat olmuş, günlerce komada kalmış ve bir gün gözlerini açıp hayata yeniden merhaba demiş. Kaderin cilvesi bu ya, yine Cerrahpaşa Hastanesi’ndeymiş.

O yaz sonunda kendisini tamamen toparlamış ama çevresindekilerin acıyarak bakması kalbini çok kırıyormuş. Bu yüzden kayıt yaptırdığı halde okula gitmeyeceğini söylemiş babasına. Okula gitmemiş ama aldığı ders kitaplarını her gün muntazaman okuyarak kendine göre bir tedrisat yapmış. Okulsuz geçen bu yıl boyunca hep düşünmüş. O küçük ve artık tek kollu bedeniyle bir meslek sahibi olamayacağına karar vermiş. ‘Okumalıyım, her ne pahasına olursa olsun okumalıyım’ demiş. Ve dönem başlayınca Kumkapı Bezciyan Ortaokulu’nda eğitime geri dönmüş.

Bütün okul hayatı boyunca, yazları ve hafta sonları çalışmaya devam etmiş. Tahtakale’de işportacılık yapmış. Konfeksiyon atölyelerinde ilik makinelerinde çalışmış. Eve katkı olsun diye çalışırken çok sevdiği kız kardeşleri Hripsima ve Maryam’a da küçük hediyeler almayı ihmal etmezmiş.

FUTBOL YILLARI

Ortaokulda başarılı olmuş ama esas zirveyi Galata Getronogan Lisesi’nde yapmış. Her yıl okul birincisi olmuş, takdirlerle dönmüş evine. Agop Bey, hasta Fenerbahçeli. Tam 26 yıldır Fenerbahçe Kulübü üyesi. Basketbolu çok seviyormuş. Ama tek kollu olduğu için oynayamamış. ‘Ben de sahada top koştururum’ demiş ve lisede futbola başlamış. Oynayamazsın demişler, aldırmamış. Çok da güzel oynamış. Ve hatta, o devrin ünlü takımı Samatya Gençler Kulübü’nün kadrosuna girmeyi başarmış.

1957’de İstanbul Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi’ni kazanınca doğduğu, yeniden hayata döndüğü Cerrahpaşa Hastanesi’nde bulmuş kendini. Kapısından içeri girdiği ilk gün ‘Bir zamanlar beni kurtardı bu hastane, şimdi nöbet sırası bende’ diye düşünmüş. Bu dönemde lise öğrencilerine özel dersler vererek okul parasını kazanmaya devam etmiş. Ayrıca, Cerrahpaşa’nın futbol takımında oynamayı da ihmal etmemiş.

1963’te okul birincisi olarak doktorluk diplomasını almış. Bir yıl Çapa’nın Deri ve Frengi Hastalıkları Kliniği’nde çalışmış. 1964’te Cerrahpaşa’daki Dermatoloji Kürsüsü’nde asistan olarak göreve başlamış. Uzmanlık tezinin başlığı, ‘İmpetigo Herpetiformis Vak’aları Üzerinde Klinik ve Biyoşimik Araştırmalar.’ Ben başlığından bir şey anlamadım, Agop Hoca açıkladı: ‘Uçukla ilgili çok önemli bir çalışmaydı.’

1967’de uzman olmuş. Cerrahpaşa Tıp Fakültesi’nde başasistan olarak çalışırken üniversite tarafından Ekim 1969’da Almanya’ya gönderilmiş. Dört ayda Almanca’yı öğrenmiş. Hamburg Saar Üniversitesi Dermatoloji Kliniği’nde ünlü dermatolog Prof. Dr. Nödl’ün yanında çalışmaya başlamış. Ayrıca aynı üniversitenin alerji ve histoloji bölümlerinde çalışmış. Kliniklerde gösterdiği başarıdan dolayı, Alman Üniversite Kurulu’nun talebiyle okulda kalma süresi bir yıl daha uzatılmış.

Dr. Kotoğyan, 1952’de geçirdiği kazadan önce çoğu kişi gibi sağ elini kullanırmış. Onu kaybedince sol eliyle iş görebilmek için çok çalışmış. En büyük zorluğu da üniversitedeyken çekmiş. Tek eliyle tüplerden şırıngaya ilaç çekmeyi, bu ilacı hastaya enjekte etmeyi öğrenmek için geceleri hastanede nöbete kalmış, evde portakallara su şırınga edermiş. Dikiş atmayı öğrenmek için ise, evde ne kadar sökük ve yırtık varsa dikermiş. İki yıl içinde tüm bu işleri kimseden yardım almadan tek başına yapıyor hale gelmiş.

1972’de Cerrahpaşa Tıp Fakültesi’ne geri döndükten bir yıl sonra doçentlik sınavını başarıyla vermiş. 1979’da ise, ‘Akne Vulgaris Vak’alarında İmmunolojik Araştırmalar’ başlıklı teziyle profesör kadrosuna atanmış. Almanca’dan sonra yine kendi çabasıyla, Fransızca ve İngilizce öğrenmiş. Dünyanın birçok ülkesinde dersler, konferanslar vermiş, nam salmış. Özellikle son iki yılda dışarıdan gelen hasta sayısında büyük bir artış olmuş. Uluslararası tıp dergilerinde yayımlanan makalelerinin sayısı 300’ü aşmış, cilt hastalıkları üzerine iki kitap yazmış.

Suzan Hanım’la 1975’te evlenmiş. Üniversiteden emekli olduğu 21 Kasım 2004 günü yaptığı konuşmada ‘İki kişiye teşekkür etmiyorum: Biri beni bu yolun başına kadar getiren anam, diğeri beni şu kürsüye kadar çıkaran eşim Suzan. Teşekkür etmiyorum değil, aslında edemiyorum. Çünkü onlara her şeyimi borçluyum’ demişti.

YURT SEVGİSİ BUDUR

Birçok ülkenin üniversitesinden teklif almış: Almanya, Fransa, Kanada, Amerika... ‘Burada kal, kürsünün başına geç’ demişler. O, bunların hepsini elinin tersiyle geri çevirmiş. ‘Ermeni olduğun için dedeni, fukara olduğun için kolunu kaybettiğin o ülkede ne işin var’ demişler, gülmüş geçmiş. Peki ne düşünmüş? ‘Evet doğrudur: Ülkemde çok acı çektim. Sefaletin dibinde yaşadım. Doğrudur: Dedemi, çocukluğumu, kolumu kaybettim. Ama yolumu kaybetmedim. Bu ülkede yaşayan milyonlarca insandan hiçbir zaman farklı olmadığımı düşündüm. Bu topraklarda yaşayan tüm insanları kardeşim olarak benimsedim. Bir ülkeyi sevmek demek, bu topraklarda geçirdiğin güzel ve iyi günleri sevmek demek değildir. İyi günde ve kötü günde burada olmak, vatanın yanında kalmak demektir yurt sevgisi. Boş başak dik, dolu başak ise eğiktir, derler. Ben hep eğik gezdim şu dünyada. Kibirden nefret ettim. Boş başaklar gibi diklenmedim, caka satmadım, her şeyi biliyorum demedim. Burnumun dikine gitmedim, bilginin ve bilimin ipine sarıldım. İşimi şansa bırakmadım. Çünkü, çok çalıştım ve boşluk bırakmadım.’

DOKTORLUĞA DEVAM

Bu efsane doktor üniversiteye veda ederken şöyle diyordu: ‘32 yılını öğretim üyesi olarak geçirdiğim, 41 yıl üç ay süren üniversitedeki görevim fiilen sona ermiş bulunuyor. İnsanın hissetttiklerini anlatabilmesi oldukça güç. Ayrılık günü gelip çattığında hiç tanımadığınız bir boşluk hissine kapılıyorsunuz. İlk olarak geçmişin yoğunluğu içerisinde hiç gerçekleşmemiş olan bir şey gerçekleşiyor: Annesinin kuzusu Agop, gümüşçüde çalışan Agop, futbolcu, asistan, Almanya’da görev yapan, doçentlik sınavındaki Agop, ilk dersini veren, profesör olan Agop kafa kafaya verip ‘Şimdi ne olacak’ diyorlar. Neden sonra aynı toplantıya emekli Agop gelip de, ‘Hey geçmişin kimlikleri; utanmasanız Agop öldü diyeceksiniz. Şimdi, en büyüğünüz olarak ben, işte buradayım’ diyene kadar...’

Neyse ki Agop Bey tecrübeleriyle şifa dağıtmaya veda etmedi. Osmanbey’deki mimar oğlunun tasarladığı yeni kliniğinde, yine içten, yine mütevazı, çalışmayı sürdürüyor.

Ciğerim Agop, bilesin ki anacığın seninle iftihar ediyor

Prof. Dr. Kotoğyan’ın emekli olduğu gün annesi Makruhi Hanım (87) rahatsız olduğu için törene katılamadı. Kız kardeşi ünlü matematik hocası Hripsime Kotoğyan, kürsüye çıktı ve annelerinin gönderdiği mektubu okudu: ‘Ciğerim Agop. Baban da okuma yazma bilmez idi, ben de. Sen, okudun. Sen hep okudun ve çok çalıştın can parçam. Biz fukaraydık, senin yaptığın şu çok zor yolculukta yanına yetecek kadar azık koyamadık. Bak, burada da açıklıyorum, herkes duysun: Oğlum, sana yeterince yardım edemedik ve ben hep üzüldüm buna. Pek belli etmezdi ama baban da buna çok üzülmüştü. Ama, sen bizim yüzümüzü hiç kara çıkarmadım. Her zorluğun üstesinden geldin. Garip kuşun yuvasını yapan Allah, uçmak istediğini anlayınca sana kanat taktı. Ciğerim Agop, çok çalıştın, çok yoruldun. Sana biraz istirahat et diyeceğim ama biliyorum ki beni dinlemeyeceksin. Şimdi, biraz hastayım ama sen biliyorsun ki yanındayım. Bilesin ki anacığın seninle iftihar ediyor. Baban da şimdi yukarıdan sana bakıyor ve gülüyordur. Ciğerim benim, senin o kara gözlerinden öpüyorum.’

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3404) Question Of Genocidal Tendency In The Minority Politics Of The Young Turks

Kemal Çiçek
Abstract

The Armenian Question of 1915 should be addressed in a broader context and the events and/or politics that led to the deportation of Ottoman Armenians must be evaluated within the framework of the commonplace population politics in the global context of World War I. By examining unpublished archival sources and existing secondary literature as well as the memoirs of leading Ottoman politicians in the pre-war period, I will question the applicability of the term “ genocide ” and see whether the cadres of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), commonly known as the Young Turks, had any genocidal intention towards the non-Muslim communities in the Ottoman Empire. I shall also put forward many new questions as to whether or not there was, as has been emphasized in the dominant literature, any intent of extermination of the Armenians. Some of the questions to be discussed here are as follows: What was the reason for a sudden change in the Ottoman policies towards the non-Muslim Ottoman citizens even though the Empire had benefited from their service in the pre-WWI period in all sectors of the Ottoman adminis-tration? Were there any racist notions in circulation that might have influenced the CUP ’ s policies towards the Armenians in particular? Although Turkism was one of the main pillars of the Ottomanist movement, why did it become the only pol-itical solution to save the Ottoman Empire during the WWI? . . .


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3403) Nagorno-Karabakh - A Forgotten Conflict (2 Research Papers)

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1) Nagorno-Karabakh - A Forgotten Conflict - An Introduction To The Special Issue by Umut Uzer And Adil Baguirov
2) Nagorno-Karabakh: Competing Legal, Historic And Economic Claims In Political, Academic And Media Discourses by Adil Baguirov

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1)Nagorno-Karabakh - A Forgotten Conflict - An Introduction To The Special Issue
by Umut Uzer And Adil Baguirov


Abstract

In the general area of Southern Caucasus, the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is among the frozen disputes in the region, the others being South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which are nominally independent states, however de facto occupied by Russia. Pre-sently there is a cold peace in all these regions with the potential to turn into armed con-flict. The fact that the three historically significant countries in the region, namely Russia, Iran and Turkey are very much interested in Southern Caucasus can make any clashes in the region turn into a regional war with wide ranging repercussions.

This state of affairs makes the Caucasus a highly sensitive area of the world for war and peace. Focusing on the NK conflict with its historic, political, security, ethnic and anthropological dimensions, the collection of nine scholarly papers in this special issue of JMMA make serious contribution to the study of world politics in general and regional issues in particular which involve major international players and global security policies as being played out in the Southern Caucasus . . .


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Nagorno-Karabakh: Competing Legal, Historic And Economic Claims In Political, Academic And Media Discourses

Adil Baguirov
Abstract

The Armenia – Azerbaijan conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) region of Azerbaijan, which in its modern form has continued for some 20 years, is a compli-cated case study of multi-vector and multi-layered claims, mostly from the Soviet times, ranging from history, economy and legal status, used to justify the war, occu-pation and ethnic cleansing. The article illustrates that some of the weaker claims were dropped altogether, whilst others were continually mixed with additional charges to make them “ stick ” and are being repeated even today. Despite solid legal, historic and moral grounds, Azerbaijan has been lagging in clarifying and explaining the fictitious charges of NK ’ s supposed transfer to Azerbaijan ’ s suzer-ainty in 1920s, the legal status of NK itself, its economic and financial conditions in Soviet times, and the impossibility to apply the 3 April 1990 Soviet Law on Seces-sion to the NK case whether for the purposes of justifying its independence or attach-ment to Armenia. Despite all the challenges and blame shared by all sides, NK and adjacent currently occupied territories are recognized as part of Azerbaijan, with the latter retaining all rights, including military, to return it under its full sovereignty.

Both sides are well-armed and ready to wage another war instead of backtracking. The goal of this article is to help clarify some of the main claims related to the conflict, so that the international community can play a more pro-active and constructive role in helping to peacefully resolve this conflict.
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3402) 1915 Events: Critique & Exposition Of How Facts & Falsifications Mixed Up, Stirred & Served On A Golden Platter

Buenos’ Review Of Üngör Article by Sadi Dinlenc

Tal Buenos’ review (15 Characteristics Of The Armenian Narrative by Tal Buenos of yet another historical falsification of the 1915 Events, by Ugur Ümit Üngör, titled ‘ The Armenian Genocide, 1915, is an excellent critique and exposition of how facts and falsifications mixed up, stirred and served on a golden platter, as happened many times before.

The review by Buenos clearly describes 15 points where Üngör manipulated previous writings, historical facts and ignored realities to suit his pre-determined purposes.

The important issue here is not how Buenos has literally destroyed Üngör’s article but Buenos’ 15 famous points about destortion, ignorance and falsifications common to all articles written earlier by Armenians and/or their sympathizers, including some Turkish Apologizers recently, regarding the false claims of genocide. These articles, books and brochures commonly : . . .

1. Totally ignored the sufferings of Turks preceding the ‘forced deportaion’,

2. Did not remember the Armenian Alliance with the Russian Army advancing on Turkey,

3. Forgot to mention the alliance of 22,000 Armenian soldiers collaborating with Hitler in mass killing of Jews during the WWII,

4. Did not show any remorse for killing of innocent Turkish Diplomats by ASALA,

5. Tried taking about CUP only without mentioning Armenian Revolutionary Committees,

6. Exploited the anti-Turkish and anti-Muslim sentiments prevailing in Europe,

7. Intended clearly to destroy the Turkey’s name in Europe,

8. Started telling their stories by mentioning first the Armenian sufferings inflicted by the Turks as if Armenians were drinking a cup of coffee when all these things happened,

9. Tried to draw whimsical parallels between Hitler and the CUP leaders,

10. Emphasized that only the Muslims killed the Christians while not talking about at all the killings of Turks in the hands of Christian Armenian bandits,

11. Always named the killings “ racial and religious” without mentioning the security concerns and political reasons behind them,

12. Never mentioned the promise given by the Great Powers to the Armenians to fight with them against Turkey in return for their own homeland – which later was totally forgotten- ,

13. Never mentioned the famous speech which is in itself ‘ A TOTAL ADMISSION OF GUILT’ by the President Kachaznouni of the Armenian Republic of 1918, made in Bucharest, Romania, and submitted to Paris Conference where he famously grouped the previous and recent Armenian activities into the following headings, within his 6 pages long speech: (*)

“ We have participated in military operations….”
“ We were cheated… we were made part of the Russia ..”
“ We were dreaming….”
“ Turks were forced to declare the Deportations ..”
“ We could not see the realities..”
“ We are the reason of all these events ..”
“ The National War was Turks’ right ..”
“ We uprose and fought against the Turks…”
“ The Sevres Agreement has blinded us ..”
“ The foundation of our uprising was the ‘Greater Armenia’ “
“ We never managed to be a ‘State’ “
“ There is no such thing as Turkish Armenia “
“ We have used terrorism…”
“ The remnant of the old days ‘Dashnak Party’ has to terminate itself .. “
“ Dashnak Party is against the peace…”

(*) The whole written body of the speech and its appendices may be downloaded from the website, free of charge, Armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/07/2540-free-e-book-scanned-copy.html

When one pulls himself/herself away from the details, emotions and fanatical addresses, he/she will clearly see the above pattern which is becoming so outdated and non-scholarly, after all.

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Readers Comment

If Turks committed a genocide which is the greatest crime of humanity, and if Turkey really avoids of facing its history, and if the Armenians and their supporters sincerely want Turkey to do it, why do the Armenians persistently refuse Turkey’s suggestions to discuss these events together with historians from both sides and other countries? For example:

“Our objective is to have the matter investigated by historians and experts. We are ready to accept the decision of the joint historical commission. We agree for different professionals from various countries to be involved” Abdullah Gul recently said. If historians committee project could be realized, issue of so called Armenian genocide will not be discussed by politicians but by historians. Furthermore, other than Turkish and Armenian historians, historians from third countries will also be included.


The Turks who were eager for establishment of such an historical commission, were supported by the United Nations, European Parliament and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). http://www.tegenwicht.org/weblog_2006/67_armeens.... http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/bericht/77330, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/domestic/93374... and was very happy. While Turkey was eager and very happy, the Armenians were exceedingly unwilling and very angry.

http://www.keghart.com/content/dans-la-rue#english; http://www.hairenik.com/armenianweekly/august_2004/history001.html


In an interview with Armenian Reporter, Prof Richard Hovannisian from California University and the father of Raffi Hovannisian, the first Foreign Minister of Armenia, said: ‘It is very dangerous to establish such an historical commission…because according to 1948 United Nations’s Genocide Convention, a deliberate and planned massacre is mandatory. The Turks will accept that nearly 200-300 thousand Armenian died; but nobody can call them deliberate acts. In Turkish Archives the Turks have the telegrams sent from vilayets about the then Armenian upraisals and documents about the Armenians who fled from the Ottoman Army. So, the Turkish historians will accuse the Armenians and say that all these events were a reaction to what the Armenians did and were not deliberate’ http://www.kophaber.com/news_detail.php?id=4726

One of the supporters of so called Armenian genocide resolutions in U.S. Congress, Adam Schiff said “A committee about history is a struggle for distracting the truth. Turkey cannot rewrite history in exchange for good relations with Armenia.”


ANCA and other Armenian lobbying organizations stated that Armenia is forced to make dangerous concessions by Turkey and that Turkey’s moves towards establishing joint historians commission aims to call so called Armenian genocide into question and suspend its international recognition. ANCA’s aim is to provide recognition of so called Armenian genocide by U.S. Congress before establishment of a historians committee to discuss the events by keeping pressure.urging the Congress.

Let us go to a few years ago:

*In 2004, the Viennese Armenian-Turkish Platform (VAT) was founded to exchange documents about the 1915 events by Austrian, Turkish and Armenian historians. After receiving 100 Turkish documents, the Armenians abandoned the project refusing to continue to fulfill their commitments and afterwards the Armenian foreign minister announced that they did not want to discuss the 1915 events with historians. (I. Press Release 11.1.2005 Viennese Armenian-Turkish Platform – VAT

The Viennese Armenian-Turkish Platform deeply regrets to announce that she will not carry through her starting initiative „The First Viennese Armenian-Turkish Round Table” (FVATR Vienna 2005) originally planned for spring 2005. The reason is that the Armenian partner has not provided us with the necessary confirmation as agreed in August 2004…….On the other hand, the Turkish partner accepted already to participate in the dialogue, in which each part was supposed to present 180 documents on the year 1915 showing their understanding of this delicate matter. http://www.turkishdigest.com/documents/VATpressrelase.pdf)

*Armenia refused the Turkish prime minister's and the Turkish Assembly's invitation announced on April 13, 2005 which suggested to establish a Joint Commission composed of historians from both sides and discuss the events which took place during the 1st World War.

*And the Turkish prime minister repeated the same invitation on February 2008 , in Munich at the 44th Security Conference where the Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Oskanian also attended?

In neither of these invitations was there any precondition, unlike it is claimed by the Armenians.

***Why did the Armenian historian Sarafyan, who accepted the invitation of the then chief of Turkish History Foundation, Halacoglu, for cooperation to investigate Harput events, abandon the project, after talking the Armenian diaspora?

*The Ottoman and Turkish archives are open, unlike it is claimed by the diaspora. http://www.ankara.edu.tr/english/yazi.php?yad=36. http://www.tsk.mil.tr/ENGLISH/8_FRAGMENTS_FORM_HI... http://louisville.edu/a-s/history/turks/Documents... http://louisville.edu/a-s/history/turks/Documents... http://www.devletarsivleri.gov.tr/kitap/kitap.asp...

Even, Armenian historian Ara Sarafian from Gomitas Institute and Hilmar Kaiser searched the Ottoman archives (www.sarigelinbelgeseli.com

*In spite of this, why are the Armenian archives including the one in Zoryan Armenian Institute in Boston closed? Both Turkish government and Turkish History Foundation offered the Armenians to open these archives; but the directors of the Zoryan Institute replied that they did not have enough money to open the archives. Turkish government and Turkish History Foundation promised financial support.Why did the Armenians refuse this suggestion too? (Nüzhet Kandemir, http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/418517.asp). Note that Zoryan Institute has quite enough money to provide financial support for Taner Akçam who advocated the Armenian claims while working in Minnesota University until recently. Why have the Armenians always been terribly afraid of establishment of historical joint commissions?

Is it not striking that Sarafian, the head of the London-based Gomidas Institute, said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s offer to Armenia to establish a commission of historians to resolve the Armenian issue was positive, but Armenia was the wrong address. He also said that freedom of expression for historians in Armenia is limited and the genocide issue has become a political tool. http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/domestic/10426...

If a genocide had really occurred, why did Brian Ardouny of the Armenian Assembly of America announce ‘We don’t need to prove the genocide historically, because it has already been accepted politically’? Why did the chief of the Armenian Archives in Armenia tell that they were not interested in the archives, but all they are interested is the world’s public opinion.

Or why have the Armenians not admitted to an international court yet?

In your life, have you ever seen a criminal who persistently calls the victim to bring his evidences? And, have you ever seen a victim who passionately accuses somebody of committing crime and giving him great harm but strictly avoids of bringing his proofs before the referees or going to court, and tells that he need not prove that person’s guilt, because the community has already accepted him as guilty?

In this situation would you not question the era you are living in? 5000 BC or 2000BC?

What else should the Turks do to face their history? Is it Turkey/Turks or Armenia and those who support them who are terribly afraid of facing their history?


Akasya Dogan

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3401) 15 Characteristics Of The Armenian Narrative by Tal Buenos*

 

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Related Post: 1915 Events: Critique and Exposition Of How Facts and Falsifications Mixed Up, Stirred and Served On A Golden Platter

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8 May 2013 /
Following the outpour of media material on April 24 in memory of the dreadful events of 1915, it is important to take a step back and evaluate how this reflects on the Turk.

A recently published chapter by Uğur Ümit Üngör, titled “The Armenian Genocide, 1915,” in “The Holocaust and Other Genocides: An Introduction,” edited by Maria van Haperen et al. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012), is perfect for such an analysis. It does not introduce new aspects to the Armenian narrative of 1915. It unfolds the same story already told by scholars such as Vahakn Dadrian, Richard Hovannisian, Taner Akçam and Peter Balakian. It is not prototypical by any means; rather, it is perfectly typical. It stands out for its typicality, for being representative of the effort to strengthen the familiarity and acceptance of this Armenian narrative. Upon close inspection, one may glean certain overall characteristics of the Armenian narrative. The following 15 main characteristics point to a general theme: Turcophobia. . . .

1) European facilitation. The publication of this literature in Europe is likely not a coincidence and should be considered reflective of Turcophobic and Islamophobic attitudes that are prevalent in Europe. Such anti-Turkish content is not only emblematic of these phobias but may serve as a popular platform for their intensification and dissemination. One particularly troubling type of Turcophobic “literature” in Europe is the drafting of laws in parliament to cater to the anti-Turkish views held by constituencies with political influence.

2) No room for historical debate. The very title of Üngör's chapter shows an attempt to apply a political-legal term to the events of 1915, regardless of the hotly contested aspects of historicity. However, legal determination cannot precede a thorough examination of what actually took place. The unilateral description of the events as genocide shows a great level of distrust in what a committee of established historians of different nationalities may find. Ultimately, it shows intent to destroy Turkey's name.
Disregard of Armenian revolutionary committees

3) Little to no mention of the Armenian revolutionary committees. The role played by the Armenian revolutionary committees is typically played down and, at times, as in Üngör's chapter, there is no mention of them at all. The absolute omission of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation from the narrative makes the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) falsely appear to be the sole actor and therefore the sole bearer of responsibility. However, the revolutionary aspect of the events is fundamental to their fair and accurate description. Historically, “rebellion” is the most basic reason why the categorization of political massacres, as in modern-day Syria, is different from those of intended exterminations, as in Auschwitz.

4) Selective reference to Armenian nationalism. There is a tendency to eat the cake and have it too when it comes to Armenian nationalism. In discussions involving Armenian territorial claims post-World War I, there is a strong sense of Armenian nationalism, but it is concealed in the discussion of the years leading to 1915. In his brief recap of the ideological trends leading to the massacres, Üngör fails to mention Armenian nationalism, as if the Young Turks were the only nationalists in Anatolia.

5) The story always begins with Turkish action. The event that is described at the start of a narrative determines the perception of causality all throughout. The Armenian massacres may be put in the context of the 19th century campaign to rid Christian Europe of the Turk, but for Üngör there is no question that it starts with the CUP. For many diaspora Armenians, the narrative does not begin a single day before April 24, 1915. The Armenian narrative needs the Turks to be the cause, for otherwise the Turks cannot be guilty of genocide.

6) The Turks are “revanchists.” This French term describes nations that are warmongering because they seek to reclaim lost territories, and the Armenian narrative pins it only on the CUP after losing land in the Balkans. A narrative that is not Turcophobic would consider Christian revanchism since 1453, and Armenian revanchism since 1890, to be foundational.

7) The Turks wanted war. The distortion of the causes for World War I is a significant aspect of the Armenian narrative. The Ottoman state's preventive strike against Russia, following several threatening indications, is replaced by a claim that the “Young Turks had deliberately engineered an armed confrontation.”
Systematic destruction

8) The destruction was systematic. The emphasis on deliberation in the actions of the CUP is especially strong when describing the actual “process of destruction,” which for Üngör was “consistent.” This is claimed because of the desire to accuse Turks of premeditation and of having a plan. Regardless of the evidence, the Armenian narrative draws whimsical comparisons to the Nazi Germans and their level of intent and organization. This is designed to make the Young Turks go down in history as evil.

9) The CUP was homogenously national socialist. As part of the effort to Nazify the Young Turks, the Armenian narrative creates a cursory and simplistic image of Turkification that ignores local aspects as well as Ottomanist and Islamic streams within the CUP.

10) Muslims killed Christians, but not vice versa. The bilateral damage incurred by Muslim and Christian communities during this period of rising national claims for self-determination in the Balkans and Anatolia is presented in the Armenian narrative as unilateral. Only the massacres of Christians have a place in the narrative. Reading Üngör's work, one would conclude that the killings, dispossessions and deportations of Muslims in the Balkans never happened or have nothing to do with the Armenian issue. This is an extension of the Turcophobic elements found in the British narration of events in the 19th century, which highlighted the killings of Christians in Bulgaria during the local insurgency but understated the deportations and massacres of Muslims in Bulgaria during the Russo-Turkish War.

11) Propaganda and memoirs are presented as historical evidence and used selectively. Even Turkish propaganda is cleverly employed to present a Turcophobic narrative. Considering that Üngör does not discuss Armenian rebellion at all, his brief discussion of Turkish “manipulated photographs of alleged Armenian ‘terrorists'” gives an impression that the Armenian rebellion was altogether a Turkish invention that did not exist beyond the bogus images. Additionally, Russian propaganda is presented without question of authenticity or context. The central role played by Britain's wartime propaganda, known as the Blue Book, and its author, James Bryce, who had called for Armenian rebellion since the 1870s, in constructing the Armenian narrative is a prime example of this characteristic. A recent example would be Akçam's use of forged documents to promote Sarkis Torossian's story.

12) Slanted presentation of great-power involvement. The Armenian narrative is selectively critical of the politics of the international powers. Üngör says that the great powers were “driven by self-interest” when after the war was over “the Americans, French and British forgot their Armenian business partners,” yet to him they were anything but self-interested when they encouraged Armenians to rebel before World War I and supported national self-determination for Christians in Ottoman territory. This is based on a Turcophobic conviction that cooperation with the Armenians is morally sound but cooperation with the Turks is political.

13) The massacres were religious or racial in nature. The Armenian narrative shows the massacres as either religious, to rally Christian support, or racial, to provoke Nazi connotations. Being that there were no deportations of Armenians in certain areas and that there were no massacres prior to Armenian rebellion, it would be reasonable to consider that political reasons and security concerns caused the change. However, the Armenian narrative looks away from these historical aspects, possibly because the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide does not recognize political massacres as genocide.
Turkish diplomats' assassination rationalized

14) The assassinations of Turkish diplomats are rationalized. In order to protect its perceived moral leverage from suffering as a result of the violent assassinations of innocent Turks and non-Turks, the Armenian narrative seeks to rationalize these terrible actions. Üngör offers no mention or detailed discussion of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, but, instead, conveniently explains the assassinations by saying that “surviving family members of the victims felt deeply insulted by these politics of denial, which prompted a violent response from Armenian nationalists in the 1970s.” The idea that somehow there is an element of good reason in the assassinations, or that they were caused by Turkish politics, is Turcophobic.

15) The Turks are denialists. This is the most telling of the characteristics. The idea is to liken Turks to Holocaust deniers. There is a growing number of Turks who are willing to succumb to this pressure because they have been convinced that that is the responsible thing to do. However, denial is about refusal to believe, and the Turks who are at odds with the Armenian narrative are actually more eager than anybody else to tell the narrative of the events as they truly unfolded and without ignoring any aspect of Armenian loss.

The idea that the Turks should be excluded from commenting on their own memory, that they are so distrusted so as to always be suspected of undermining historical truths, is not only reflective of Turcophobia in the strongest of ways, but its popularity reflects how little awareness there is today of Turcophobia and its meaning. Turcophobia is so widely ignored that even Microsoft's spellchecker does not recognize it as a word.

How long will Turks suffer from accusations of denialism? Is the only way forward to disregard history and accept how the Turk is described in biased Western historiography, of which the Armenian narrative is only an extension? The modern Armenian narrative in the West was initiated by Bryce, who, since 1877, repeatedly stated in writing that Armenian nationalist endeavors should be supported because the Armenians are racially and religiously superior to Turks. To accept this aspect of Western historiography is to accept the Turcophobic beliefs that the Turk is inherently immoral and corrupt, excluded or looked down upon for not being of a European race and for not being of a European religion. To accept this false narrative because of current calls of denialism is to accept the Turk's position as the “other” who has no access to a Christian European tale. Turks have the right to explain that they are not in denial of Armenian suffering but that they are most certainly resolved to deny and weed out the Turcophobic roots of the current Armenian narrative.

History is filled with cruelty. Turcophobia, however, is the main reason why genocidal claims are still being made against Turks in the name of Christian Europe, Western historiography and Armenian nationalism. Where would one find similar genocide-related pressure over the bloody “Christian” crimes against Africans, Jews, Indians and Native Americans known as Indians?

It is time for the Turkish narrative on the history of European Turcophobia to emerge. The current accusation of denial is one chapter in this narrative, for it shows how the Turks are treated as outsiders who are told to shut up and accept the terrible things that are said about them, and are condemned when they vocalize their view of the past. It is time for Turks to be insiders, authors of their own narrative and masters of their own history.

*Tal Buenos has a master of theological studies from Harvard Divinity School (2005).

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Comments:
Londoner, 12 May 2013 , 16:25
'denialist' is a very convenient title for those who do not want to study the facts (referring to the British, Russian and US documents and to some of the statements of the First Prime minister of Armenia would be ample) and dismiss anyone who disagrees with the genocide myth because of the known facts.

Araratian, 12 May 2013 , 04:46
Nick you are hillarious and ignorant, get yourself a culture about Lemkin. He himself stated that the idea to define the crime the Armenian were subject, leads him to coin the word Genocide. If the inventor of the word says it was a Genocide people like you or like this Tal Buenos are nobody compare to Lemkin on this issue!

Random Armenian, 12 May 2013 , 04:19
The government of the Republic of Turkey has been actively and deliberately covering up the Ottoman crimes of 1915, since the 20's and 30's. And this was before WWII and before word 'genocide' came into existence and before we Armenians started to raise our voices to make the world remember. They turned the subject into a taboo in Turkey, and forced their allies to stay silent about it. And this policy continues today. It is Turkey's narrative that has changed over the years in the face of facts and research. The claim from Turkey used to be that there was no massacre of Armenians. No Armenians had died. Now today we hear, "we never denied there were Armenian deaths." Tal Buenos is trying to distract from all this by attacking a straw man "Armenian narrative". The Armenian genocide is supported by Turkish and non-Armenian scholars. Tal Buenos is completely ignoring the facts of the Armenian genocide put forth by researchers. This idea that research into the Armenian genocide is somehow racism against Turks and islamaphobic appears to be latest talking point from Turkish quarters. They're projecting their own racism towards minorities of Turkey. Turkey and their appologists like Tal Buenos make it sound like they're fighting unfair attacks and historical narratives from Armenians. But it's the other way around. We have been trying to undo a very successful Turkish coverup of history which began with the founding of Turkey.

john the turk, 11 May 2013 , 23:26
How were you going to live in your turk free homeland with a ten percent of the total population? You were obviously trying to remove the Turks from their homeland in order to create an Armenia but Armenia slipped away from your hands for ever that's why you try to charge Turks in your Armenian brain. The genocide business is a hoax to cover up your motive

Ararat, 11 May 2013 , 21:20
@Sandokhan, you are not a man if you dont answer the following question: The Ottomans invaded and occupied the Armenian homeland in Asia Minor. The Armenians wanted to live in their homeland free of Ottoman occupation. According to your twisted Turkish logic, the Armenians "rebelled" and sided with the enemy and all that other delusional stuff and therefore the Turks reacted and got rid of over 2 million Armenians, exterminating 1.5 million of them, and confiscating their homeland in the process to secure Ottoman occupied Armenian territories. According to the Palestinians, and the entire Muslim world including you Turks, the Israelis invaded and occupied Palestine. The Palestinians want to live in their homeland free of Israeli occupation. Palestinians not only "rebelled" and put up fights many times with an army and rockets but they also have a foreign army "Hizballah" present in the occupied territories fighting along with the Palestinians and firing thousands of rockets into Israel. They also have the financial and military backing of countless Muslim countries bent on destroying Israel. Now, using the Turkish model and twisted logic, such as yours Sandokhan, my question to you is: Does Israel have the right to "relocate", expel and exterminate millions of Palestinians to secure the state of Israel because of the activities of the Palestinian militia, Hizballah and many more Israeli enemy combatants bent on destroying Israel to establish a Palestinian state on the occupied territories of Israel? I am waiting for your answer. For someone as vocal as you on the Armenian affairs, I can safely assume you are not a man if you dont answer my question.

sinan, 11 May 2013 , 20:40
Billy It is a famous Armenian lie that they had 1.5 M victims that Armenians try to spread however, truth always reveals

Nick, 11 May 2013 , 20:20
Dear Saaten. Clearly I have no issue with my interpretation of events. I do not labour under the the lack of information that Lemkin laboured under. You seem to have an issue with my gentle attempt to point out some obvious areas for concern. As I pointed out, Armenian cultural representatives would be better served if they dropped references to Hitler and the Nazis as they sought to clarify the perception that people have about the Armenian experience in 1915...if it is clarity that they want. There are times when it seems that clarity is not wanted- just blind acceptance and the acceptance of all that goes with it. Certainly, if they want the Turks to discuss with them this experience thy should consider presenting a case that is not strewn with inconsistencies, half truths and not a few total fabrications.

Uncle Billy, 11 May 2013 , 17:05
@ Sandokhan, how many ways are you going to use to justify the killing of 1.5 million plus victims and the annihilation of a whole minority group from their anceteral lands? Sooner or later you are going to run out of excuses and reasons. Keep working!

Saaten Maagar, 11 May 2013 , 16:59
Dear Nick, if Lemkin was 15 when the Armenians were being butchered, I do not think you were even born. So if you have any issues with lemkin's assesment you should have a bigger one with yours.

Nick, 11 May 2013 , 14:02
Dear Araratianfreak. Nobody ever bothers to try and contradict the “15 point” That said, I am always curious that people seem to think that a mere reference to Rafael Lemkin closes the argument. This is a strange circular logic that actually proves nothing. Lemkin’s observations on the Armenian experience were only as reliable as his sources of information and the acuity of his interpretation was determined by the cultural prism made available to him by his education. He was 15 when the Armenians were relocated. To illustrate, he chose not to use the word “genocide” to describe the events of South West Africa under German colonial administration even though this was clearly genocide which included mass murder, the summary execution of combatants and non-combatants alike, expulsion into the desert (Kalahari), the appropriation or destruction of property necessary for the sustenance of life and culture (cattle), slave labour camps, death camps, medical and anthropological specimen collection for racial studies institutes in Germany (which often required direct murder) and right down to a written extermination order. He chose not to define all this as “genocide” because of his perception of the natives in South West Africa and their relative cultural attainment which (he felt) directed their response to German colonial rule and contributed to their extraordinarily high mortality rate- believed to be more than 80%. I would hesitate to call him racist since this is a modern term and we look at things differently now. Armenians are trying to use the term “genocide” for political and cultural reasons and the word “holocaust” has been around for a long time in this particular meaning. Neither of the two superficial points you make address the basic questions that arise with repeated attempts by Armenian genocide campaigners to tie the Armenian experience to the Nazi driven holocaust in Europe that is both causative and ideological. Such a connection simply does not exist. Nor does it address the question that arises relating to parity of interpretation; if the Armenians experienced genocide then we should also be discussing the suffering inflicted on the peoples of the Caucasus by Russia in almost two centuries of serial genocides, often assisted by Armenians and which had a direct causative impact on what Armenians experienced in WW 1.

Sandokhan, 11 May 2013 , 01:25
@KAVAFIAN (“There was no rebellion, there was no treason.”): Exactly! Your Armenian leader Boghos Nubar told lies in 1918 en 1919 when he wrote that 200,000 Armenians sided with the war enemies of the Turks. >>>@ISSAC, all the Christian minorities (Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Pontic Greeks) had been “wiped out” in the universe you guys have created. >>>ARARAT, according your logic then the whole world is occupied territory. Please distinguish international recognized borders and occupied territory (it’s internationally recognized that Israel occupies Palestinian soil). >> [Ararat:]“Second of all, 1,500,000 innocent Armenian women, children and elderly dont just perish..” Mr. Buenos, you should include one more characteristic in your list: exaggeration (statistics, support Armenian narrative, etcetera) .

Vartan, 11 May 2013 , 00:49
According to mr Buenos's pathetic logic The indigenous people of Anatolia , the Armenians needed to tolerate another six hundred years of domination by the invading Mongolian Turks , continue being called gyavur , being treated like second class citizens and taxed way more than the rest of the ottoman subjects specially during the war , in order not to have deserved to be massacred in there ANCESTREAL land . Turcophobia ? Whatever that means ! How do you explain this great nation turkey's illegal blockade of what's left of historical Armenia it ravished over six hundred years ? It's foot on tiny landlocked Armenia's throat ? Good luck to you sir in your petsuit of justice .

Issac, 10 May 2013 , 17:35
Tal Buenos: Well then please explain why the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Pontic Greeks were also wiped out in the same period by the Turks.

Jacques Kavafian, 10 May 2013 , 17:21
This is the most ignorant rant I have read regarding the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian Genocide is one of the most studied topics on the face of this planet. There is no such thing as the "Armenian Narative". The argument that there was a rebellion is bogus. Armenians have always been poorly treated in Turkey and wanted some protection. There was no rebellion, there was no treason. That's the Turkish nonsense to somehow justify the Genocide. This topic has been studied ad nauzeum and judgement has been rendered. Turkey Committed Genocide and must accept this fact.

Ararat, 10 May 2013 , 11:58
Mr. Buenos, it is very obvious the main thesis of your article is to water down and trivialize the extermination of the Armenians as mere political killings and indirectly but cunningly legitimize the actions of the CUP by portraying the Armenians as revolutionaries and outsiders with designs on the Ottoman territory. First of all, the Armenians and the Armenian homeland in Asia Minor existed for thousands of years before the Ottomans set foot on these lands. Therefore there was no such thing as legitimate Ottoman territory but occupied Armenian territory. In other words, to claim the Armenians had designs on Ottoman territory is no different from saying the Armenians had designs on their own homeland. It does not make any sense. Second of all, 1,500,000 innocent Armenian women, children and elderly dont just perish because of political killings but because of a pre-meditated and state-sponsored extermination disguised under "relocation" from the war zones. But relocation to where? Not to a safer place inland into Central Anatolia but to Syrian desert with no chance of survival and return back to home. According to the twisted Turkish logic then one can safely conclude that, if the Armenian territory occupied by the Ottomans can be called as Ottoman territory then the Palestinian territory occupied by the Israelis can also be called as Israeli territory and not Palestinian territory. Therefore, the Palestinian nationalistic and revolutionary rebellions in Gaza and the West Bank can also be categorized as Palestinians having designs on Israeli territory thus the entire Palestinian population qualifying for "relocation", expulsion and eventual extermination by the Israelis. But as we all know, not just the Palestinians, but the entire Muslim world including the Turks on behalf of the Palestinians are up in arms calling for the destruction of the state of Israel because to them it is Israel that is occupying Palestinian territory and not the other way around. Perhaps this is the case because the Armenians are Christians but the Palestinians are fellow Muslims and different rules apply to Muslims. Can you Mr. Buenos explain this Turkish hypocrisy?

Araratianfreek, 10 May 2013 , 03:19
Dear Nick all the 15 points can be contradicted but the same space is needed it can not be done in a comment anyway it is the inventor of the word Genocide Raphael Lemkin that described it as Genocide and not the Armenians. The first time the word Holocauste was said in History is for 1909 Adana Armenians massacres it was described as Adana Holocauste by the french paper Illustration. The terms Crime against Humanity was first time in history used in 1915 during the Genocide by France, England and Russia warning the Ittihad . The term Extermination of the Armenian Race was said first by the Turkish Military court in 1919, the same Court that sentenced to death in absentia the Ittihadists Responsibles. As you see it is not the Armenians who label things. Talaat is even worse than Hitler and inspired him as did the Teshkilati Mahsuse since they preceeded the Ss and Hitler~!Last but not least Tal is not an Historian, all what he said represents his own opinion and History is not based on opinions but on facts. That nobody can change even after 97 years!

Sandokhan, 10 May 2013 , 01:04
In short we can say the Armenian version of the history is a racist story. Because in their eyes the Turks are barbarians who are not able to tell the truth.

Marawan, 09 May 2013 , 19:59
Most people when they see the name Tal Buenos, they just go to the next article unless you are a Turkish extreemist who embrace their new created history and hate all minorities.

David, 09 May 2013 , 19:52
It's time for Christophobic/Armenophobic "scholars" like you to stick to the historical facts instead of creating Disney-like revisionism of the mass murderers of not only the Armenians but Assyrrians,Greek, Yezidis, Kurds, etc. too. Nothing you can ever say will erase the "killing fields" of Turkey and the national disgrace and shame they brought to your country for the last 100 years from denialists like you. There is never any "justification" for mass-murdering defenseless women and children...period. You need to go back to college and study your history- then, you might understand why your own Govt. prosecuted your "heroic" young Turks/CUP and why they sentenced its proto-nazi leadership to death in absentia instead of reverently placing flowers on their graves in admiration through revisionism and propaganda masquerading as "scholarship". I'm embarrassed for the decent and educated Turks who know the difference.

john the turk, 09 May 2013 , 19:21
Dear Armenians even Truth can not hurt the shameless Armenians

Nick, 09 May 2013 , 18:29
It’s all very well calling Tal Buenos a “denial mercenary” but doing so without bothering to address any of the 15 points he describes merely acts as an illustration of points 1 and 2 of Buenos’ essay. In fact, reading through the 15 points it is hard to actually produce any decent contradictory argument and none of the critics posted below bother to try. The closest we get is a comment that simply illustrates Buenos’ points 13 and 15 and which describes a quote made by Buenos in an earlier article-"It is simply historically inaccurate, and morally misguided, to compare Adolf Hitler with Talat Pas,a -- or Tes,kilat-? Mahsusa with the Nazi SS” as being akin to denial of the Holocaust. Or to quote the critic directly: “The Armenian Genocide is not a matter of debate but a matter of fact, just like what happened to the Jews during the 2nd world war.” Any rational questioning of attempts to define the Armenian experience as something other than “genocide” is labelled as an example “Holocaust denial” but is, in fact simply a feeble and transparent effort to connect two completely different historical events in order to sanctify the Armenian tragedy, to put it beyond questioning and to use it as a political tool. The difference between Hitler’s Nazis and the CUP government in WW 1 is apparent to anyone who is bothered to look and a simple reference to any book, scholarly article or research paper by specialists on the Nazis and the Nazi period or on the development of Nazi ideology will draw a complete blank if it is seeking any Armenian connection and Turks-of any political description- simply do not appear. The Armenian ideological script writers would in fact do themselves a lot of favours if they dropped these spurious references to Hitler, the Nazis and the Holocaust altogether because to persist in this direction is simply to persist in a lie. Why should I believe in any narrative that is persistently prefaced by something that is demonstrably false?

Araratian, 09 May 2013 , 16:20
Tal Buenos is well known as a denial mercenary. Only Turksih papers gives him space for his rubbish writings he is always invited at the Turksih Embassy galas. His origins also are well known and a theologian should better dedicates himself to those issues instead of spreading falshood and hatered. The Armenian Genocide is a fact and is not subject to discussions and mental fruitlkess acrobacies. He is not only ignorant about Armenian Genocide but also about the Shoah, Tal read something about the jews Revolt in Munich before writing your paragraph 3 that I found really ridiculous!

reality, 09 May 2013 , 15:09
Money goes a long way to those who have no soul or ethics.

Garo Avedis, 09 May 2013 , 08:36
16)Turkey hides,aTurkey runs,Turkey guilty of genocide.you should have written a few sentances about the demostration.i have never read something that is so rubbish.

Ara, 09 May 2013 , 08:31
People like you are the reason that till now have prevented the acceptance of the Armenian Genocide by Turkish governments. despite overwhelming evidence you still put the blame on the victim. you have no shame!

Paul, 09 May 2013 , 01:17
Mr. Buenos is an apologist par excellence! If only Germany was as steadfast in denying what they did to the Jews and other minorities in WWII as Turkey has been about the Armenian (and Pontic Greek and Assyrian Genocides), he could have us all scratching our heads about the Holocaust, too.

Sandokhan, 09 May 2013 , 01:05
Mr. Buenos, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I want to share something related to your analysis too. You mentioned Ug(ur Ümit Üngör. You should know he hates the Turks. We have a firsthand witness of this hate. In a documentary called “The land of our grandparents“ (Dutch translation of “Het land van onze grootouders”) where he sold the viewers the Armenian version of the history, a witness saw his hate against the Turks. Between 36:41 and 37:47 the Turkish audio engineer, who accompanied him for days, mentions his hate against the Turks (Turkish viewers can affirm it). >>> Ug(ur Ümit Üngör is of Kurdish origin. This hate against the Turks can probably explained by the fact that the Turks “occupy” the soil Kurdish nationalists want. He even uses the word “colonization” for Turkish rule of Eastern Anatolia (see his article “Confiscation

Masis Ararat, 08 May 2013 , 20:30
Mr Buenos has been discredited in the past. One hopes he is a better theologian than historian. What matters at the end is the result. Killing Armenians was a sport of Abdul-Hamid. Over 100 thousand Armenians perished so it is no surprise that on the whole Armenians wanted out and revolutionaries took revenge. The Turkish government did not deserve their allegiance although a lot of Armenians continued to offer it. So those who talk about treason are ill-informed. A government cannot expect allegiance from citizens it massacres. Let us look at the result. An abominably immense crime against humanity and massive ethnic cleansing. Where are the Armenians ? Everywhere except their homeland of millenia. What about their property? May be it enriched many influential current Turkish families - perhaps Mr Buenos' sponsors? Who knows I don't. There are more honorable ways of earning a living Mr Buenos than to support an abomination.

Saaten Maagar, 08 May 2013 , 18:40
Mr. Tal, you need to stick to theology, a subject that you might know something about, not too sure about that either.

Sergey, 08 May 2013 , 17:49
Thanks to the author for this excellent summary of selective historical narratives blaming the Turks for all the injustices suffered equally by both Muslim and Christian populations during the WWI. The Turks and Armenians will truly find a path to reconciliation when they will revisit their selective historical discourses and will learn to respect each other's historical pain and sensitivities.

Ceygiz, 08 May 2013 , 17:35
It seems that you have a long record of Holocaust denial Mr Buenos. Lets look at what you said last January: "It is simply historically inaccurate, and morally misguided, to compare Adolf Hitler with Talat Pas,a -- or Tes,kilat-? Mahsusa with the Nazi SS -- because the former acted out of irrational hatred while the latter acted out of the natural need to survive" The Armenian Genocide is not a matter of debate but a matter of fact, just like what happened to the Jews during the 2nd world war. However, if I was to deny the latter, you would label me an antisemite, but it is alright for you to outright deny the extermination of my people- Utter hypocrite.

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Lemkin’s coining a new word does not make him an authorized international judge. He just said when he was “heard it by Armenians”, not knowing that Dashnakist Armenians in the German Army under General Dro, (22.000 – 4800 SS troops) assisted Hitler in sending Jews to death camps. Suggest you . .

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