Author: Babajanian Karo

EDWARD NALBANDIAN: AZERBAIJAN NEVER REFUSED FROM THE TEMPTATION TO SOLVE THE KARABAKH ISSUE THROUGH FORCE

armradio.am
12.05.2012 12:04

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian received the Co-Chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group, Robert Bradtke, Igor Popov and Jacques
Faure and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office
Andrzej Kasprzyk.

Noting that the visit of the Co-Chairs to Yerevan on the day of the
18th anniversary of conclusion of the ceasefire agreement was symbolic,
Edward Nalbandian said ever since the establishment of armistice
the parties have had several opportunities to settle the issue,
but every time Azerbaijan has made a step backward, thus creating
obstacles for conclusion of agreements.

“Azerbaijan never managed to refuse from the temptation to solve
the issue through force, and continues its bellicose rhetoric,
the provocations at the line of contact, the purchase of armaments
instead of preparing its people for peace. This hampers the settlement
process and endangers the fragile situation in the region,” Edward
Nalbandian noted.

During the meeting reference was made to the implementation of the
provisions of the joint statement of the Presidents of Armenia,
Azerbaijan and Russia issued in Sochi on January 23, particularly
the creation of mechanisms for investigation of incidents at the line
of contact.

ANTI-IRANIAN PROTEST HELD IN AZERI CAPITAL

APA
May 11 2012
Azerbaijan

[translated from Azeri]

Baku, 11 May: A group of young people picketed the Iranian embassy in
Azerbaijan today. The protesters chanted slogans “Azerbaijan!”, “Iran,
don’t hold wicked Armenians in your arms!”, “Long live Azerbaijan,
shame on Iran!”, “There is no place for homosexual Iranian mullahs
in Azerbaijan!”, “Susa [Shusha, in breakaway Nagornyy Karabakh]
was sold to Armenians by the Iranian government!”.

Representative of the Board of Muslims of the Caucasus in the western
region [of Azerbaijan], Haci Tahir Qarabagi, said that this kind of
attitude of Iran towards Azerbaijan is against Islam.

A statement was read out at the end of the protest. The statement
pointed out Iran’s biased position towards Azerbaijan, its friendly
ties with Armenia, and the cultural genocide against 30 million Azeris
living in Iran.

“The Iranian government turns a blind eye to Azerbaijan’s
achievements. President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mahmud
Ahmadinezhad never mentions the genocide committed by Armenians against
Azerbaijanis in Karabakh. However, he lays a wreath in front of the
so-called Armenian genocide memorial. We, Azeri youth, will not allow
an Iranian provocation in our country.”

This protest comes in response to the picket staged outside the
Azerbaijani consulate in Tabriz [in Iran] on 8 May.

SERJ TANKIAN SAYS SYSTEM OF A DOWN BANDMATE DARON MALAKIAN FIRST TURNED HIM ON TO METAL
by: Chad Childers

Loud Wire

May 11 2012

Through much of the last two decade Serj Tankian has carving out his
place in the hard rock and metal worlds as a member of System of a
Down. But the hard-hitting pace wasn’t always his first love.

Tankian tells Noisecreep.com, “I actually didn’t grow up on that
kind of music. The first type of music I was exposed to was cultural
Armenian music. My parents were both in this cultural institution
where my mom would dance and my dad would sing. I was also exposed to
Arabic music as a child and French music because we lived in Lebanon
and that used to be an old French colony.”

Serj’s music education grew significantly when his family moved to the
U.S. He recalls, “When we moved to the States in the ’70s, I started
listening to the Bee Gees and a lot of the disco stuff you heard on
the radio at the time. I also remember playing a lot of soul music
too. When the ’80s came around, I really got into the goth and punk
scenes. I didn’t get into heavy metal till the late ’80s, early ’90s.”

The singer says it was guitarist Daron Malakian that was the lifelong
metal fan in the band that started to turn him on to the sound. “He
loved KISS, and bands like that, growing up,” says Tankian of his
System cohort. “I have never considered myself a metal guy.”

Tankian says he’s still finding new musical loves, and his current
favorite style is classical. He clarifies that he’s not talking about
Beethoven-like classical, but rather music and soundtrack scores that
make him feel like he’s driving around inside of a movie.

The singer’s eclectic background is clearly continuing to influence
him, as he recently revealed that there are jazz, electronic, and
symphonic discs in the works to go along with his upcoming solo record,
‘Harakiri.’ Look for Serj Tankian’s ‘Harakiri’ July 10, followed by
his return to System of a Down for late summer shows, and his wealth
of non-rock projects to follow.

SINGING IN AZERBAIJAN – BUT NOT FOR DEMOCRACY

Saturday 12 May 2012

The country is in a fervour as it prepares to host Eurovision – but
activists say the party is just a smokescreen for human rights abuses

Shaun Walker Baku

Azerbaijan’s Ell and Nikki, who won Eurovision last yearGetty Images It
does not take long to notice that Azerbaijan is hosting the Eurovision
Song Contest.

Baku Airport is emblazoned with advertisements for the competition,
which will take place a fortnight from now, as is almost every taxi
and bus in the city, along with many of its buildings. The gleaming,
25,000-seat concert hall, built especially for the contest, has been
completed on time and was opened by the President himself last week,
and hardly a day goes by without breathless items on the evening news
extolling the upcoming event.

Not for Azerbaijan the flippant attitude that Eurovision is a carnival
of kitsch that should be taken as a bit of a joke. Here, it is deadly
serious business, and a chance for the country’s rulers to show the
progress that this small, oil-rich nation has made in the two decades
since it won independence from the Soviet Union.

But rights activists say that the government, led by the authoritarian
president Ilham Aliyev, is using the contest to deflect criticism
from the country’s appalling human rights record, and are calling
on the singers and delegations who will descend on Baku later this
month to speak out publicly.

Khadija Ismayilova knows all about what happens if you get on the wrong
side of President Aliyev. A campaigning reporter for Radio Liberty,
she has uncovered several corruption scandals linked to Mr Aliyev’s
family, including a report released this week providing evidence that
the first family has benefited financially from the construction
of the Eurovision stadium, using a number of shell companies and
opaque schemes. Last month, as she was researching the story, she
received a letter with stills from an intimate video in which she
was an unwitting participant – someone had broken into her house and
installed a hidden camera in the bedroom.

“It warned me that if I didn’t stop my investigations, they would
publicise the video,” she says. “They were calculating on me
being ashamed and going quiet. But they miscalculated.” Instead of
acquiescing to the blackmail, she went public with it, and vowed
to continue uncovering corruption. The video was published online,
and government-backed newspapers wrote stories attacking her and her
“loose morals”, dangerous in conservative Azerbaijan.

Ms Ismayilova is not the only one to suffer in the cause of
Eurovision. For many of the residents of the area around the site
of Crystal Hall, the Eurovision venue, the contest has ruined their
lives. According to Zohrab Ismayil, who has authored a report on
forced evictions in Baku, 281 families have been kicked out of their
homes to make way for construction directly linked to Eurovision. The
government paid them compensation at several times below market rate,
he says. “They managed to spend more than $700 million on construction
for the event, but couldn’t find the money to pay proper compensation
to people who were kicked out of their homes onto the street.”

The forced evictions are not just related to Eurovision, with an
estimated 4000 houses demolished in Baku alone over the past three
years as some of the money from Azerbaijan’s huge oil reserves is
spent on new construction. Award-winning journalist Idrak Abbasov
has attempted to publicise demolitions in his village of Sulutepe,
just outside Baku. Last month, he was given a savage beating by
security officers from the state oil company when he attempted to
video them knocking down houses in the suburb of Sulutepe where he
lives. He is now out of hospital, but his broken ribs mean he is
still unable to walk, and he spends his days reclining on a maroon
sofa in his parent’s small house. He has also lost sight in one eye
after the attack. Strewn over a chair is a fluorescent yellow jacket,
emblazoned with the word “Press” and caked in dried blood – he was
wearing it when he was attacked.

“They are not giving people any compensation at all, simply telling
them they have built houses illegally on land belonging to the state
oil company,” says Mr Abbasov. “They were attacking houses with
bulldozers that still had people’s belongings in them. People were
screaming and shouting, and I was filming it.”

Security guards attacked him and continued to beat him for 15 minutes
while he was unconscious, say witnesses. “It is pretty clear that their
goal was to kill me.” Previously, Mr Abbasov’s father was assaulted
and put in hospital, stones have been thrown at his house and car, and
his six-year-old son was run over in suspicious circumstances. Nobody
has been charged with any of the attacks.

“The government is spending huge sums of money to show Europe that
people in Azerbaijan are happy,” says Rasul Cafarov, a pro-democracy
activist who runs Sing for Democracy, a campaign set up to ensure
that the performers who fly in for Eurovision will know exactly what
kind of country they have landed in. “Our message is clear: please
don’t close your eyes to the negatives. Try to meet with the family
members of political prisoners, opposition members, and people who
have been forcibly evicted from their homes.”

Some of the contestants have promised support, says Mr Cafarov, who
hopes that the government will be given a “nasty surprise” from the
stage. “It is an event to unite countries and communities and bring
understanding,” said a spokesperson for Eurovision, which is likely
to strongly discourage contestants from speaking out. “We believe
strongly that Eurovision is not political.”

But activists say that the government was the first to politicise the
contest, by making Mehriban Aliyeva, Mr Aliyev’s wife, the head of the
Preparation Committee. She is an MP with the ruling party and one of
the most powerful people in the country. “Accusing us of politicising
it when the First Lady is constantly appearing on TV promoting it
and they are using it for propaganda goals is just ridiculous,” says
Mr Cafarov. Ms Aliyeva’s role is not the only link between the ruling
family and the contest – the President’s son-in-law, a budding pop star
who has little trouble getting plenty of airtime on state-controlled
radio, will be singing at the contest’s Opening Ceremony.

Numerous investigations have linked Azerbaijan’s top officials to
allegations of huge corruption, including £30m of property in Dubai
apparently purchased by Mr Aliyev’s 11-year-old son. Officials from
the Presidential Administration have either denied or refused to
comment on all the allegations against them.

There is no danger that the properties of Baku’s ruling class will
be bulldozed, like the homes of so many of their citizens have been.

However, says Mr Abbasov, the attacked journalist, a fear of losing
their own property abroad could be a catalyst for the government to
be fairer with ordinary people. “If there was real pressure from the
West at events like Eurovision, then of course the ruling clan would
get scared,” says Mr Abbasov. “If there was a threat that all their
millions and all their villas and properties in Europe could be taken
away from them, they would think again.”

“It’s a joke to have Eurovision in a country with a rights record like
Azerbaijan’s,” says Ms Ismayilova. “It would be really great to hear
some kind of message from the stage from some of the contestants,
to remind the regime here that Europe is a set of values, not just
a song contest.”

SEARCH FOR CULPRITS FOLLOWS ARMENIAN RALLY BLAST

Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)

May 11 2012
UK

Hydrogen-filled balloons injure over 100, raise allegations of negligence.

By Naira Melkumyan – Caucasus
CRS Issue 641

Angry Yerevan residents are demanding to know who is to blame for a
gas explosion that injured dozens at a campaign rally on the eve of
Armenia’s parliamentary election.

Initial police investigations suggest the May 4 blast was caused by
a cigarette igniting balloons in the middle of the crowd attending
a campaign rally and concert staged by the governing Republican Party.

The balloons should have been filled with the inert gas helium,
but organisers appear to have used highly flammable – but cheaper
– hydrogen.

Around 154 people, including children, were injured by the sheet
of flame that swept over crowd. The rally nevertheless continued,
and President Serzh Sargsyan, head of the Republican Party, carried
on and gave a his speech.

“The Republican Party as the rally organisers are responsible not just
for the balloon explosion, but also for the fact people were forced
to wait on the square until Serzh Sargsyan’s speech ended. You can’t
justify this by citing the need to avoid panic. If the aim was to
avoid panic, then Sargsyan would not have made a speech after such an
event,” said Tsovinar Nazaryan, an activist from the Army in Reality
civil group.

Although a police investigation is ongoing, Nazaryan said it would
be difficult to find who exactly was to blame.

“It’s a shame that in our country it is hard to separate institutions
and say who specifically is at fault. But all the same I think the
Republican Party is guilty,” she said.

According to figures released on May 10, some 70 people were still
undergoing treatment in hospitals, with ten still in intensive care.

Most of the victims were students and members of the Republican Party’s
youth wing who were closest to the stage. They included people who
were holding the balloons when they exploded, and were then burned
by plastic that caught fire. Nylon waistcoats bearing the Republican
Party logo also caught fire.

Eyewitnesses described how the flames burst outwards so quickly they
did not have time to react.

“I fell to the ground after the explosion. My face, hand and back were
burned, and I was taken to hospital in a police car. The people who
filled these balloons with explosive gas are to blame for not thinking
of the possible consequences. I am really angry with these people,”
said Andranik Mirzoyan, 20. “Nothing can compensate for the pain and
stress which we and our parents have gone through.”

Prosecutors opened a criminal case under a law relating to the safe
use and storage of explosive materials.

Rival parties took the opportunity to attack the Republican Party
for failing to halt the concert, although it did not harm the party’s
electoral performance, since it emerged from the May 6 polls in first
place with 44 per cent of the vote.

“The concert continued for two hours after the explosion. I am
shocked that at such a critical moment, the government behaved so
inadequately. It’s not just that there shouldn’t have been a concert.

In such circumstances it was intolerable to have a single speech,”
Vardan Oskanyan, head of the rival Prosperous Armenia party, which
came second with 30 per cent, said.

The Republican Party replied that it would have been irresponsible
to halt the concert abruptly.

“I would say it would have been a crime. If the concert was stopped
suddenly, then panic could have started. Apart from this, people had
started to leave the square in large numbers, and this could have
led to traffic jams so that ambulances wouldn’t have been able to
reach the square rapidly,” said Hovik Abrahamyan, head of the party’s
campaign team.

After making his speech, the president and Health Minister Harutyun
Kushkyan visited the injured in hospital.

“Thanks be to God, we avoided the worst consequences. At the moment,
all the injured are receiving the treatment they need, with good
results. If necessary, we will summon the best foreign specialists
to Armenia,” Sargsyan said in a statement.

His party promised to give all assistance to the injured, and provide
compensation as required.

“The injured are our children, our brothers and sisters. I know some
of them personally since most of them are members of the youth wing
of the party. We will do everything to help them get well again,”
said Eduard Sharmazanov, spokesman for the Republican Party and deputy
speaker of parliament.

Naira Melkumyan is a freelance journalist in Armenia.

ARMENIA’S EX-FM ACCUSES RULING PARTY OF ELECTION RIGGING

tert.am
11.05.12

In the May 6 parliamentary elections the Republican Party of Armenia
(RPA) employed new election rigging methods.

At a Thursday meeting of the joint campaign headquarters, Vartan
Oskanian, a member of the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), spoke of
phased election rigging: inflated voters’ lists, unprecedented voter
turnout early in the morning, vote count, etc..

“After all this, have I the right to doubt that there was a plan,”
Oskanian asked.

He noted that the publication of post-election lists of voters would
answer the questions. However, Armenia’s Constitutional Court ruled
such a procedure unconstitutional.

So 86 percent of Armenia’s voters participated in the voting, which is
absurd. Even in democratic states voter turnout does not exceed 50%,
Oskanian said.

LES ARMENIENS DANS LE R̩CIT HISTORIQUE TURC РII

Publié le : 11-05-2012

Info Collectif VAN – – Le Collectif VAN vous
invite a lire un extrait de la deuxième partie de la thèse du
chercheur Ã~Itienne Copeaux “Les Arméniens dans le récit historique
turc” mis en ligne sur son site Ã~Itienne Copeaux
est un historien spécialiste du monde turc. Chercheur au Groupe de
recherches et d’études sur la Méditerranée et le Moyen-Orient a
Lyon, il s’intéresse particulièrement au nationalisme en Turquie.

Légende photo: Déportation des Arméniens

Les Arméniens dans le récit historique turc (extrait de la thèse
de Ã~Itienne Copeaux) – Deuxième partie

Texte extrait de

” De l’Adriatique a la mer de Chine.

Les représentations turques du monde turc a travers les manuels
scolaires d’histoire, 1931-1993 ”

Thèse, Université de Paris VIII, décembre 1994

Chapitre onze : ” Sous la Turquie, l’Anatolie ”

Deuxième partie

[f° 696]

C РLe discours sur la question arm̩nienne entre silence et n̩gation

Le processus d’apparition d’une altérité dans le récit nous est
maintenant familier : on trouve mention d’un peuple au moment de
son intégration dans un ensemble turc, puis, a l’occasion de la
confrontation qui aboutit a sa sortie. Dans les cas des Arabes,
des peuples balkaniques et des Grecs, il s’agit bien d’une sortie
par défection, partition et création d’Etats. Le cas arménien
est bien plus dramatique, puisqu’il s’achève par la déportation et
le massacre.

L’élément le plus important que nous aurons a évoquer est que,
depuis quelques années (1985), les livres scolaires n’éludent plus
la question.

[f° 697] arménienne. Le ” réveil de la mémoire ” arménien a
entraîné une évolution très nette du discours scolaire turc,
qui non seulement ne parle plus de l’Arménie de la même facon,
mais encore ne parle plus des mêmes âges de l’histoire de l’Arménie.

Un discours scolaire s’appuie toujours sur une historiographie
préalablement existante. Dans le cas de la question arménienne, elle
est assez abondante, et, chose révélatrice, une partie significative
en est publiée en anglais et en francais. Le volumineux ouvrage
d’Esat Uras, notamment, a fait l’objet d’un soin particulier des
autorités turques ; ce livre avait été publié en turc en 1953,
puis en 1975, et réédité en anglais en 1988, avec de nombreuses
additions, probablement en réponse a la vague d’attentats arméniens
de la décennie précédente, et a la sentence du ” Tribunal permanent
des peuples ” de 1984 1. La même année, l’historien Mim Kemal Oke,
universitaire et chroniqueur du quotidien Turkiye, publiait un livre
au sujet plus précis, dont l’esprit s’inspirait de celui de Esat
Uras 2, puisque son auteur s’y réfère ouvertement pour tout ce qui
concerne la culture ou l’histoire ancienne arméniennes. De telles
publications en langue anglaise ou francaise visent a ne pas laisser
aux Arméniens le monopole de l’expression sur la question. Surtout
pendant et après la période de forte activité de l’ASALA, les
autorités turques tenaient a faire connaître leur point de vue,
sous forme de réfutations directes 3, ou en donnant au discours
officiel la forme d’ouvrages historiques.

En langue turque, nombreux sont les ouvrages qui traitent de la
question arménienne ; en plus des deux auteurs déja cités, on
relève des noms connus, comme Ismet Parmaksızoï¬~Alu 4 ou Kamuran
Gurun 5 (auteur d’une histoire générale de la Turquie), et Altan
Deliorman, collaborateur d’I. Kafesoï¬~Alu et auteur de manuels
scolaires 6. Cette historiographie est déja presque traditionnelle
en Turquie, toujours sous la forme d’un discours de réfutation. Une
partie a été traduite en francais, a la suite de la ” sentence
” de 1984 7. Il est a prévoir qu’elle vivra tant que la diaspora
arménienne.

Lire la suite ainsi que les commentaires sur le blog d’Etienne Copeaux,
susam-sokak.fr

Lire la première partie:

Les Arm̩niens dans le r̩cit historique turc РI

Retour a la rubrique

Source/Lien : susam-sokak.fr

EX-DEPUTY: THE OPPOSITION IMAGE OF PROSPEROUS ARMENIA PARTY IS JUST A PART OF THE NEW STRATEGY FOR DISORIENTATION PEOPLE

arminfo
Friday, May 11, 19:25

Availability of effective alliances in the parliament of the 5th
convocation is ruled out, secretary of the Heritage faction of the
parliament of the 4th convocation, Larisa Alaverdyan, said at today’s
press-conference.

“I don’t see the Heritage party within the same coalition with
ruling Republican Party of Armenia, as political viewpoints of
these two parties differ very much. Nevertheless, I do not agree to
the technologies used by the leadership of the Heritage party for
resolving of problems in 2012”, – she said.

As for the opposition image of Prosperous Armenia Party, it is just a
part of the new strategy for disorientation of people, she said and
added she does not rule out the possibility that the leader of PAP,
Gagik Tsarukyan, may run for the president of Armenia.

Touching on the Karabakh conflict settlement process, Alaverdyan
said the new parliament will be as passive as the previous one in
this matter.

YEREVAN MUNICIPALITY: REAL IMPROVEMENT OR JUST A SHOW?

arminfo
Friday, May 11, 19:32

The Yerevan Municipality’s initial decision to transfer the Abovyan
Street boutiques to Mashtots Park and subsequent decision to remove
them from the park have given rise to the following question: “Was
it worth to move the boutiques from point A to point B if green areas
are still left under concrete?”

After three months of protest actions by the greens, the boutiques
have been removed from Mashtots Park, with no new alternative territory
to be given to their owners.

But things are not that simple. In its article on Apr 16 ArmInfo
reported that after the removal of the boutiques from Abovyan Street
that area was left neglected.

Was it a coincidence or not but after that article the municipal
authorities began improving the territory. But the point is that one
of the boutiques was not removed and has now been repaired along with
the area instead of being dismantled.

So, what was the real purpose of the Municipality concerning that
boutique? And what is it going to do with it?

They in the Municipality said they would answer that question within
five days.

GUNAYSU: THE REIGN OF LIES IN TURKEY
by Ayse Gunaysu

May 11, 2012

Organized denial means the reign of lies. The denialist, in order to
sustain denial, has to resolutely and incessantly lie. Otherwise it
can’t go on. The truth, even bits of information that might hold the
slightest potential of undermining the lie, is the biggest and most
merciless enemy of denial. So the denialist, having created a whole
world of lies, must fight any manifestation of the truth tooth and
nail to survive.

A scene from the genocide commemoration in Istanbul on April 24, 2010.

(Photo: The Armenian Weekly) We in Turkey all live in this world of
lies, so much so that our textbooks, news agencies, official documents,
literature, and even surnames are likely telling us lies. Even our
parents may have told us lies about our family history. Our whole
identity may be a fabrication.

And we, the Muslim majority in this country, believe in lies. Some-a
great many-of us prefer to believe in lies just to be well-accommodated
to our environment; some-again a great many-just for peace of mind,
avoiding asking questions that would upset our inner balance and make
us feel guilty (i.e., the punishment of one’s own self is worse than
that by others). And still some of us are paid to believe and make
other people believe in lies.

But lying is not just giving false information. Hiding the truth
is also a lie. So, some of us, even those who consider ourselves
almost totally immune to the official lies (including the writer of
these words), may well be the transporters of this type of lie-the
concealment of truth-thanks to the numbness we have inherited from
our dark past, the numbness that extinguishes our desire to search
for truth.

‘You will be back home soon’

Lies were central to the Armenian Genocide right from the start. On the
April 24, 1915 arrests in Istanbul, the Armenian intellectuals were
taken from their homes by policemen who were extremely polite and,
as Aram Andonian recounts in his book Exile, Trauma and Death: On the
Road to Chankiri with Komitas Vartabed (Gomidas Institute, 2010),
they were all told that it would not take more than five minutes,
that they would soon be back home, and that there was no need to worry.

Andonian understood why the policemen had behaved with such
refinement-to not alarm those who were yet to be arrested.

In other parts of the country, they lied to the people who were being
driven out of their villages and towns, assuring them that they could
come back and their property would be kept safe under government
custody until they returned.

The genocidal process unfolded for the coming months and years on
the basis of lies throughout each phase.

The denial of the evil-inconceivable, indescribable, and
irreversible-committed and its regeneration with lies corrupts the
entire system. Denial reproduces itself with lies.

The lie continued to be central in the foundation myths of the
Republic of Turkey. The notorious “war of liberation” of 1919-22 was
also built and sustained on deception. It was presented as a national
uprising for independence; yet, the declared war against the Allied
powers served to wipe out what remained of the non-Muslim communities
of Asia Minor after the Armenian Genocide and the Genocide of the
Assyrians and Greeks.

The Kemalist leadership lied to the Kurds, as well. They convinced
the Kurdish notables to take part in the military campaign as the only
way to stop the Armenians and Greeks from coming back and reclaiming
their confiscated property.

The resistance of the Kurds upon realizing and facing the truth was
violently suppressed each time, and generations of Turks were taught
that the barbaric Kurds-the traitors-had threatened the state, and
that the government had no chance but to bring not only “peace” and
“order” but also “civilization” to the region where “savagery” once
prevailed. This was the lie about the extermination of the Dersim
people in 1938.

Turks are the best of all nations!

An unprecedented series of lies was institutionalized by the new-born
state apparatus via pseudo-historians who were instructed to rewrite
the nation’s history-in the form of the famous Turkish History
Thesis, whereby it was “proved” that everything good in the world had
originated from the Turkish nation, and its people were the best in
all categories: honesty, courage, innovation, cleverness, etc.

Lies continued to be the essence of the system in Turkey, a tool
of repression used in every period of Republican history. It would
take volumes of books to mention them all. To give but one example:
It was a lie that Ataturk’s home was bombed in Salonika, a lie that
led to the burning alive of Greek priests, the rape of hundreds of
women, lynching incidents, and the desecration of sacred Christian
places during the two-day pogrom in Istanbul on Sept. 6-7, 1955-a
replica of the Kristallnacht-which drove thousands of non-Muslims,
mostly Greeks, from their homeland.

Lies never ceased through the military coups and the pseudo-democracies
in between. Just like the lie that the mosque in Marash was bombed by
the “communists”; this was followed by mass attacks at the homes and
workplaces of Alevis. During the pogrom that lasted two days without
any effective intervention by the police or the military, around 150
Alevis, including children, were butchered by fascist crowds in 1978
under a “democratic,” “civilian” government.

‘We kill for your good’

The military coup of 1980 and the period that followed-the reign of
terror-was from top to bottom the embodiment of a lie. The military
had taken over power for the good of the nation. Executions, people
dying through torture, prisons full of people, these were all for
the good of the Turkish people.

The 1990’s were also dominated by lies. It was never admitted that
thousands of Kurdish villages were burnt and razed to the ground,
causing the forced dislocation of millions of Kurds.

Only after 20 years are bits of truth being revealed about the deaths
of a number of high-ranking officials who served in the hot spots
of the war against the armed Kurdish movement. These officers were
said to have committed suicide, but legal cases were opened by their
families and the deaths have undergone an in-depth investigation, with
more lies brought to light-in the form of false official documents
drawn up by military units, manipulated witness accounts, names of
witnesses who were on duty elsewhere at the time of the incidents, etc.

But the biggest lie unveiled that covers the others like a huge
invisible dome is the lie that the “Turkish people” did not commit
a genocide against the Armenians and other Christian people of this
land, because it is the foundation on which all other lies were built.

Preparations for 2015

The intensity of the lies is increasing nowadays as Turkey ferociously
prepares for the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and for
Armenian organizations across the world commemorating the tragedy.

The Turkish state has not, for the time being, directly or officially
taken the stage, but is employing “civil society” behind-closed-doors
to organize campaigns against the “Armenian lies.”

The recent and now-famous Khojaly rally on Feb. 26 was the most
visible one, the first massive public appearance of a new national
mobilization campaign against the Armenians. Although the sponsorship
by both the Turkish and Azerbaijani state was obvious, it was still
presented as a civil initiative.

Universities are leading this “civil” campaign. During recent months,
“scholarly” denialist performances were staged at Suleyman Demirel
University in Isparta, Dumlupinar University in Kutahya, Afyon Kocatepe
University, and Erzurum Ataturk University. This denialist campaign
has even adopted the strategy of infiltrating the social structure
by making use of popular culture, an extremely powerful medium for
gaining control over the mind of the man on the street.

TV drama series about ‘Armenian lies’

The majority of Turks, it seems, is addicted to TV series-unending
productions about love, hatred, deadly plots, defeat, and victory.

They are in the center of the daily lives of the most crowded stratum
in Turkey, the middle class. Now, a TV series on “Armenian issue” is
being prepared. On the internet, a description of the show maintains
that it will not be disseminating hatred and hostility between Armenian
and Turkish people, that instead it will tell the “truth.”

But-surprise!-the “consultants” engaged for the new drama series,
from academia, are all renowned denialists who are taking part in
university conferences about the “Armenian atrocities” in Khojaly;
who are writing denialist books; who are acting as spokespersons of
the official state thesis. What’s more, the producer has long sat
on the executive bodies of the ruling AK Party and is a member of
the city council of one of the most densely populated districts of
Istanbul representing her party. Lies about Armenian history will,
through popular culture, be much more easily and convincingly injected
into people’s than through scientific and academic studies.

What about the ‘pro-Armenians’?

I mentioned, in the beginning, those of us “…who consider ourselves
almost totally immune to the official lies.” In the Feb. 27 issue
of the daily Radikal, considered the only “leftish” newspaper in
the mainstream press, an article by Onur Caymaz, a progressive,
democratic-minded writer, appeared. Caymaz in his piece wholeheartedly
condemned the hate speech used in the Khojaly rally in Taksim. So
much so that his heading was, “We are all bastards!” in answer to
the banner at the rally, which read, “You are all Armenians, you are
all bastards!”

After expressing his disgust over such Armenian hatred (quite
impressively, I should confess), he provided an example to assure
readers that he was not siding with any one atrocity over another, no
matter who did it. For this purpose he quoted from a “book” said to be
titled Revival of Our Souls by Zori Balayan, “who personally took part
in the Khojaly massacre,” and depicted the torture he committed against
a 13-year-old “Turkish” boy in Khojaly. The quotation is quite long,
with Balayan describing with obvious pleasure and self-satisfaction
the details of how he skinned the abdomen and limbs of the boy, whose
mother’s “cut off breast” was tucked into his mouth to stop him from
screaming with pain. The quotation goes on, with Balayan explaining how
he was “a medical doctor and a humanist by profession” but still was
not shaken to see the boy die of bleeding in seven minutes; instead,
he experienced a “revival of is soul” for “avenging one hundredth of
what Turks had done” to his ancestors.

Even if one didn’t know that there was no such book by Zori Balayan,
it should be quite obvious, from the language used in depicting the
torture, that the quotation was wholly made up. What was shocking is
that the quotation was repeated not by a Turkish ultra-nationalist,
an Armenian hater, but from a person who sincerely denounces racism
and discrimination. A couple of days after the publication of this
article, Caymaz wrote in his personal blog that he was wrong, that it
was evident that Zori Balayan had not written such a book, and that
the quotation was false. He said he had heard about the book from an
Azeri physician in a panel discussion on TV. Caymaz apparently didn’t
have even the slightest inclination that a member of a warring party
might lie. But where did he find that quotation? I searched it myself,
and found that it appeared only on ultra-nationalist Turkish websites.

Even this did not give him a clue. And the Radikal newspaper’s
editorial staff didn’t find the outrageously cruel quotation doubtful
either. Lies, thus, easily found their way into the “progressive”
media and their audience.

Lies for all of us

I also said in the beginning, “including the writer of these words,”
when talking about being the transporter of that specific type of lie,
i.e. hiding the truth. It was only a few months ago that I came across
the story of ASALA member Levon Ekmekjian, who was executed by hanging
in 1983 in Ankara under the military rule, on charges of being one of
the perpetrators of the “Esenboga massacre” in Ankara in 1982. We, the
members or sympathizers of Turkish socialist-revolutionary parties and
groups of that time, some of us in prison, some in hiding in Turkey,
some political refugees in foreign countries, took for granted the
military rule’s account of the Esenboga attack. Even if there were
individuals who were exceptions, they have never been vocal. The
absolute silence about Ekmekjian in the memoirs of “revolutionaries”
and books compiling the stories of persons executed under the military
regime of the 1980’s clearly indicate how we avoided questioning the
official account about ASALA’s Esenboga attack, and how we simply
ignored the case of Ekmekjian.

A crack in the most fortified stronghold

But life incorporates in itself such dynamism, and therefore is
always exposed to such unexpected surprises, that no plan to hide
the truth can perfectly serve its purpose forever, as long as there
is the human element involved.

Nowadays in the social media articles are being circulated about
Levon Ekmekjian-his photographs, memoirs of his comrades-and quite
a number of Turkish and Kurdish people are eagerly exchanging the
newly absorbed information between them. This is especially important
as the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia is perhaps
the only single topic that is still absolutely untouchable among all
other topics related to the Armenian Question in Turkey, even by the
socialist movements, and remains an invaluable tool of manipulation
by the denialist apparatus.

With the Khojaly rally in Istanbul, the official lies about the
Karabagh conflict have also become vulnerable as people, at least
those who want to know the truth, gain more and more access to the
Armenian side’s account of events.

Yes, organized denial means the reign of lies. But even the most
fortified stronghold of lies is doomed to collapse no matter how long
it takes for a crack to branch out and spread through, undermining
the whole structure. It only needs the human mind to question, refuse
to be convinced, need more to learn, and tell others. And Turkey is
no exception to this general rule.