Step Into My Parlor, Said the Spider to the Fly
13:44, March 24, 2013
By Lucine Kasbarian
In April 2013, the winners of the 4th Annual International Turkish
Tourism Cartoon Competition will be announced.
The purpose of the competition is to `examine tourism’ in Turkey by
highlighting travelers’ experiences from a cartoonist’s point of view.
The theme of this year’s competition is `the resident and tourist
relationship.’ Tourism is one of the biggest income-generating
sectors of the Turkish economy.
Open to professional and amateur cartoonists around the world, the
contest will award the winners a one-week vacation for two at a
five-star hotel in Turkey.
The competition is co-sponsored by the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and
Culture, the Turkish Association of Tourism Writers and Journalists,
the Research Center for Caricature Art at Anadolu University, and the
`Anatolia’ Journal of Tourism Research. A representative of the
Turkish Ministry of Tourism, Turkish cartoonists, two Turkish tourism
journalists, and the editor of `Anatolia’ Journal serve as judges.
As a writer and cartoonist of Armenian descent, I am aware of the
overtures made by Turkey to encourage tourism by Diasporan Armenians
who may be interested in embarking on `nostalgia pilgrimages’ to the
regions from which their indigenous ancestors were driven during the
Turkish government-perpetrated genocide of 1915-1923. Turkish
officials and businessmen alike are clearly eager to derive tourism
revenues from what they see as a natural target demographic, namely,
the descendants of the forcibly exiled Armenians. After all, the
Armenian Highland, now referred to as `Eastern Anatolia’ or `Eastern
Turkey’ and virtually emptied of its Armenian population, is now one
of Turkey’s most impoverished regions.
While Turkey desperately wishes to avoid the issue of reparations and
restitution for the Armenian Genocide, one wonders whether the Turkish
government is nevertheless experiencing cognitive dissonance as it
invites Armenians to territory inhabited by their ancestors for more
than 3,000 years. It must take a uniquely wired mind to self-justify
the commission of mass murder, property theft and abduction while
coaxing the descendants of the victims to cough up money for the
`privilege’ of touring the lands stolen from their parents,
grandparents and forebears.
Turkey’s tourism outreach to Armenians reached unprecedented levels in
2010, after it purportedly `renovated’ the 10th century Armenian Holy
Cross Cathedral on Aghtamar Island on Lake Van.
Turkey announced that it expected thousands of tourists from Armenia
and its Diaspora to spill into the Van region for the ostensibly
auspicious opening of a monument that holds great historical,
spiritual, and cultural significance for Armenians. A condition in
Turkey’s gesture of `great tolerance’ and `largesse’ was that Holy
Cross would be a house of worship no more, as the structure was to be
only a state museum. Downplayed was the fact that ongoing Christian
worship inside the structure would be forbidden.
We could, of course, discuss how unsafe Turkey is, not only to
tourists but also to those indigenous groups who have been made to
feel like outsiders. The murder of Armenians — from journalist Hrant
Dink and defenseless old women in Istanbul to visitors in the resort
town of Antalya — are but a few recent examples.
Armenians commemorate April 24 every year because on that day in 1915
the Turkish government rounded up and murdered hundreds of Armenian
intellectuals and community leaders. The purpose was to eliminate
the top echelon of the Armenian people and, thereby, to more easily
dispose of the masses.
In recent decades, the Turkish government has reserved the month of
April to publicly rehabilitate its genocidal reputation. Each year,
Turkish Children’s Day and Turkish Cultural Month strategically
commence on April 23rd. Significantly, the Tourism Cartoon
Competition’s exhibition of finalists’ cartoons and its award ceremony
are also to be held in April.
As Turkey’s genocide whitewashing campaigns continue unabated, it
should come as no surprise that, `coincidentally’ this April, the
Eurasia Partnership Foundation, its co-sponsor, the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID), and other organizations
are bringing about direct passenger flights between Yerevan and Van
even as Turkey continues to close its border with Armenia.
The title of this article – derived from the opening line of Mary
Howitt’s famous poem – is intended to apply to Turkey’s overtures to
tourists. The line is often used in popular culture to indicate an
offer of friendship that is, in fact, a trap.
`Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the Spider to the Fly,
‘Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlor is up a winding stair,
And I’ve a many curious things to show when you are there.’
`Oh no, no,’ said the little Fly, `to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair —
Can ne’er come down again.’
— Mary Howitt, 1829
# # #
Lucine Kasbarian is a journalist, book publicist, children’s book
author and political cartoonist. She will speak on April 2 about the
book publishing industry on International Children’s Book Day at the
Armenian Library and Museum of America in Watertown, MA. See: