Parsing French FM’s Code Language
Editorial Board, 14 December 2012
In mid-December, Laurent Fabius, the foreign minister of France, wrote
an article in Istanbul’s “Hurriyet Daily News” about the
French-Turkish relations and made references to Armenians. The
article, titled “France and Turkey: New horizons for a long-standing
relationship”, was a masterpiece of double-talk, coded language,
waffling, Turkey stroking, diversion, and plain untruths. Let’s try to
translate what the long-time friend of Turkey wrote.
1. “I hope that one day soon, we can achieve a calm, fair reading of
history,” writes Fabius.
Translation: What we know is what Armenians claim happened. I hope one
day we get the Turkish version, and decide for ourselves who is
telling the truth. No mention that the Genocide has been established
as a fact by historians of the period, including the International
Association of Genocide Scholars.
You’ve heard Charles Aznavour’s weepy ballads. The Armenian version of
the Genocide is compromised. We hope “one day soon”, Turks will come
up with their version so we can forget the whole thing and share a
shish-kebab, a doner and Turkish Delight together.
2. “The question of the Armenian genocide is a sensitive and difficult
subject that has all too often cast a shadow over the French-Turkish
bilateral relations.”
Translation: Those pesky, irritating French-Armenians are sabotaging
amicable relations between France and Turkey.
“Sensitive and difficult subject” to whom? For Turks who rather see
the world forget? For Monsieur Fabius? The man who apparently would
like to see Armenians forget, although he would be appalled if someone
suggested that his co-religionists forget the Holocaust.
3. “The tragedy that befell the ancestors of our compatriots of
Armenian origin.”
Notice how the wily veteran diplomat waffles and refuses to say “genocide”.
4. “My colleague Ahmet Davutoglu has made encouraging statements. I
quote, ‘The Armenians have before them someone who is listening.'”
Monsieur Fabius isn’t lying: Davutoglu is his colleague: they are pair
of foxes who hope Armenians can be lulled through pretend language and
false promises.
And pray tell, when did Davutoglu begin to listen to the Armenians?
The Turkish foreign minister, a coward who hides his Karait Jewish
origins, knows too well what Armenians want. There are enough Genocide
of Armenians books, magazines, newspapers, testimonies from foreign
and Armenian eyewitnesses, diplomatic and military dispatches, photos,
movies, and TV documentaries to fill a whole wing of the Louvre. They
tell chapter and verse what Turkey and Turks did to innocent Armenian
civilians. These documents state exactly what Armenians want. Is Mr.
Davutoglu “listening” to the Armenians or to the Turkish or
Turkish-hired Western “scholars” who have made a career of Genocide
denial? Is Davutoglu waiting for Armenians to amass documentation
material to fill the Louvre before he concedes the truth?
5. “This foreign minister doesn’t say nothing happened in 1915.”
Ahem. Many things happened in 1915. The world was at war; four
emperors lost their crowns; many colonies gained their independence;
Frank Sinatra was born that year. What is Monsieur Fabius referring
to? Surely not to the birth of Old Blue Eyes? Perhaps he means to say
as the Ottoman Empire disappeared many Muslims also died. Perhaps
Armenians killed these unidentified Muslims.
6. “For myself, I am not unaware of Turkey’s suffering during the
gradual dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire, with its successions of
massacres and exoduses.”
There you have it. As predicted in No. 5, Monsieur Fabius doesn’t
mention that Turkey’s suffering was its own doing. It entered the war,
hoping its ally, Germany, would win and Turks would be given the
opportunity to ravish more lands and enslave more people. And what
about Fabius’ “massacres and exoduses”? Perhaps the unarmed Armenians
massacred the Turks and then, in a mass exodus, left their ancestral
homes for the green pastures of the Syrian Desert. Those crazy
Armenians.
7. “However,I do believe that the disappearance of the Armenian
civilization from Anatolian soil warrants some thinking on Turkey’s
part.”
Ah, mendacity, ah, doubletalk. “Anatolian soil,” says the minister,
not Western Armenia, not Armenian Cilicia. “Warrants some thinking on
Turkey’s part”? SOME? For about 15 minutes? Then what?
8. “As to what is needed to heal the open wounds opened in 1915.”
Fabius is asking the criminal–who has been denying its bloody deed
for a century–to decide what is needed to heal the open wounds. Not
Genocide, not theft of Armenian property, not the eviction of
Armenians from their 4,000-year-old homeland, but “wounds” which
Turkey might see fit to perhaps discuss, since Ahmetoglu is in a
listening mode this week.
Mon Dieu, ministre.
From: Baghdasarian