FROM WHERE SHOULD WE START THE ARMENIAN ISSUE?
Selcuk Gultasli
Zaman Online, Turkey
May 31 2006
>From where should we start and what should we do regarding the
“genocide” issue, which has become a tool in the hands of the enemies
of Turks, Muslims and xenophobics, as Ara Sarafian, a British historian
of Armenian origin, aptly points out? Should we feel relieved over the
postponement of the French bill to punish the deniers of the Armenian
“genocide” or should we feel the need for a fresh look at 1915? I
support the second opinion.
It does not take long for people who live abroad to “crash” into the
dimensions of the Armenian issue. Everybody has certain memories that
he/she cannot forget and feels himself/herself “caught red-handed.” I
also have a story:
I was waiting for the green light several years ago. An old lady,
about 80 years old, glaring with her elegance asked in French: “Could
you please help me if you are getting across?” It is something very
common in Brussels. Europeans are getting alone as they get older.
Elderly ask the young to help them while they are counting money in
the market or crossing the road. I told the old lady that I would
help her with great pleasure and asked her if we could continue in
English. With a perfect English, she replied jokingly, “how happy I
am with such a handsome man” and asked me if I were English. When the
green light was on and we began our very short journey across the road,
I said, “No, I am Turkish.”
The old woman forcefully pulled her arm with incredible quickness
and shockingly said, “I am Armenian and you are our enemies.” I was
trying to figure out what she meant and mumbled, “I like Armenians as
I like all human beings. Why should we be enemies?” The old woman had
already walked several steps ahead, repeating her hatred for Turks,
which was enough to understand that it was impossible to continue
the talk. I told her I could take her wherever she wanted to go but
she refused politely.
As a rule, after such shocking incidents one starts to do further
reading about the events and what follows is the melting of your
mindset.
Leaving aside funny arguments such as, “It was the Armenians who
actually committed the genocide against us,” or “Armenians died
of an epidemic,” one has to accept that in 1915, Armenians, then
Ottoman citizens, were subjected to oppression and one has to show
respect for the loss of Armenian lives. Even Professor Guenter Lewy,
who has become a target for the Armenian Diaspora with the claim of
being pro-Turkish, put the Armenian death toll at 642,000. It is in
vain to fight the Armenian Diaspora without acknowledging the great
sorrow of Armenians; under these circumstances, it is impossible to
find even a single serious interlocutor in the West.
Acknowledging the suffering will provide an opportunity to utter few
meaningful words about the massacres by Armenian gangs, their siding
with the invading Russian army and the joy of the Western world while
Muslims were being forced out by a genocidal campaign from the Balkans
and above everything the heinous campaign by those who aim to clean
their conscious over Turkey but refuse to face their own history.
As one starts looking at the issue from a right point of view, one
has to break another taboo. It is the notion that Muslims, Kurds and
Alevis have vowed to destroy Turkey. I vividly remember the desperation
of diplomats when they listened to General Tuncer Kilinc, the former
Secretary-General of the National Security Council, when he begun his
speech by insulting women with headscarves. Although the general’s trip
to Brussels was meant to build unity, he only left ruins behind. If
statesmen themselves begin to categorize the Turks in Europe, then
tomorrow, you will not find anyone to defend the country and then you
will have to insult your own people time and again. There is dire need
for the kind of ambassadors who regard themselves as representatives of
all the people in Turkey, whether they are Muslims, Kurds or Alewites,
but definitely not the kind of people who transfer the headscarf ban
of President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to Europe.
As long as the parrot mindset gives answers to Muslims “Turkey is
secular, and will remain secular!” to Kurds “You are mountainous
Turks,” and to the Armenians “You died of typhus” there will be no
remedy to our woes. Just as we respect the dear remains of our people
who gave their blood in the Balkans, in the Caucasus and in Yemen,
we have to feel the suffering of the Armenians. Only the, we can
begin the fight against the genocide plot.