LET’S DO AWAY WITH FALSEHOODS OF BOTH TURKS AND ARMENIANS
Recep Guvelioglu
New Anatolian, Turkey
April 24 2006
Today is the day some Armenians claim as “the commemoration day of
the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians during 1915-23.” The date
has been chosen deliberately. On the night of April 24, 1915 the
Ottoman government arrested 200 leaders of the Armenian community in
Istanbul. They and some others were sent to Anatolian prisons.
According to the Armenian scholars’ claim, after that imprisonment
the Ottoman government started to implement its plans to liquidate
Armenians all over Turkey.
I don’t want to go into details of the atrocities committed by
Turks and Armenians in history. It was a bloody and disgusting part
of history. I personally spent quite a long time (some 20 years)
studying this issue. It would take almost a whole book to explain or
discuss the events and claims one by one.
What bothers me is some lies both sides use to present their thesis.
For example: The Armenian side always claims that “1.5 million
Armenians died in 1915-23.” There are two falsehoods in that sentence.
The first is the number. Some could argue that the number isn’t
important. Of course killing 10 or 10,000 doesn’t make any difference,
if the act is aimed at extinguishing a nation. But why say this
lie? Why do they exaggerate the number?
….Optional……….
I can give some records about the Armenian population and losses in
the 1900s:
“The Armenians in the Ottoman Empire before World War I amounted to
between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000. The Armenian Patriarchate gave the
figure as 1,845,450. Of these about 250,000 managed to escape to
Russia … Of the remaining 1,600,000 about 1,000,000 were killed
… Of the surviving 600,000 about 200,000 were forcibly Islamised …”
(Christopher J. Walker, Armenia: The Survival of a Nation,
New York, second ed. 1990, p. 230; available online at
). The statistic given by Tournebize in
1900 of the Armenian population in Turkey is 1,300,000 (Tournebize F.,
Histoire Politique et Religieuse de L’Armenie, Paris 1916).
According to 1917 English Yearbook, the total Armenian population in
Turkey was 1,056,000.
The French yellow book 1893-1897 (Paris 1897, p. 2-8) says that
the Armenian population in Turkey is 1,475,011 According to Ottoman
statistics, the Armenian population in 1914 was 1,294,851.
I can supply more such figures.
Now, how they came up with this figure of 1.5 million I don’t
understand.
…End Opt ………….
The second thing that bothers me is the historical period in the
sentence “1.5 million Armenians died in 1915-23.” Why do they include
the period of the Turkish War of Independence in the so called-genocide
claim?
The famous pro-Armenian writer Christopher J. Walker explains that a
“figure between 50,000 and 100,000 were killed off during the Turkish
invasion of the Caucasus in May-September 1918” (Walker, Armenia:
The Survival of a Nation, p. 230). He mentions the Turco-Armenian
war of 1918-1920.
Have you ever heard such a claim anywhere? This historian adds the
number of people who died in war to the number of what they call
“the number of genocide victims.” Besides, the new Armenian republic
started the war for revenge. It was not the Turks’ fault.
On the Turkish side there are also many falsehoods.
First of all, we are trying to deny the massacres perpetrated in
1915, as if the Armenians died due to disease. Another lie is that
the Turkish government has opened the Ottoman archives up the public.
We have not done so. No catalog has been properly published yet for
the Emniyet-i umumiye (General Security Administration) or Birinci Sube
(bureau of political crimes) archives of the Ottoman Empire.
Personally, I’m not afraid of the Ottoman archive records.
I don’t understand why the Archives Administration doesn’t release
them. There are a lot of falsehoods, as I said in the beginning, in
both sides’ claims. Like the Andonian documents on the Armenian side,
or some Turks’ claim that in history there was never an Armenian state.
If we erase the lies from our thesis, the picture will at least be more
realistic. Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II last week urged both sides to
get rid of narrow understandings based on racism. I cordially support
him. That should be the way.
Whatever the U.S. public network PBS says in their documentary on the
Armenian case isn’t important. Instead of ill-fated attempts to deal
with the Armenian diaspora, the Turkish government should deal with
the Armenian Republic even if its Constitution claims “genocide.” Our
government should try to solve the problems faced by Armenian
foundations in Turkey. In truth, there are good signs in both cases.
This is the warm atmosphere we need.
As for what happened in 1915, I would like to conclude today’s column
with the words of Ahmet Refik Altinay. Whoever let those inhuman,
brutal crimes occur in 1915 “upon them is God’s curse, and the curse
of angels and of mankind” (Ahmet Refik, Iki Komite Iki Kital. Kebikec
yayinlari, Ankara 1994).