Assyria Times
The Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides: An Inconvenient Truth
3/15/2010 22:19:00
By Lucine Kasbarian
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Recent articles in the mainstream media would have us believe that
governments around the world somehow question the factuality of the
1915 Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides committed by Turkey. These
articles would also have us believe that the Turkish government’s
latest temper tantrums over these genocides are justified. Turkey, of
course, just recalled its ambassadors to protest the passage of
resolutions by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs
Committee and the Swedish Parliament that acknowledged Turkish
culpability for these genocides.
Despite what today’s mainstream media are declaring, the evidence
proving the 1915 genocides is overwhelming. And formal resolutions
affirming these unpunished crimes against humanity made appearances
around the world long before 2010. Regardless of what pro-Turkish
apologists would have us believe, the issue has never been about
whether the Turkish regime carried out genocide. Rather, it has always
been about when Turkey would be punished and deliver reparations and
restitution to the rightful, indigenous inhabitants.
Powerful media elites would have us believe that the mainstream media
universe has been devoid of criticism for Turkey’s unpunished crimes
because such voices are either non-existent, marginal, irrelevant,
fabricated or some combination thereof.
What the media elites fail to tell us is that when these critical
voices — from victim ethnic groups or elsewhere — come forward to
submit letters, opinion pieces, or quotes, they are usually denied
access.
Media elites also neglect to tell us that opinions that do not reflect
the official narrative spun by Turkey — not to mention Israel and the
U.S. — largely go unpublished. Authoritative voices that would
discredit mainstream media’s official narrative of the genocide issue
are removed from the elite’s `golden rolodex’ — the name given to
describe the small group of establishment-approved `experts’ who are
most frequently quoted in news stories or asked to appear on
television.
The absence of dissent in the mainstream media and in the halls of
power does not mean that the victims of the genocides and their
descendants are insignificant, apathetic or deceitful. No, we are
alive, awake and infuriated.
The media are also telling us that we should sympathize with Turkey
because it feels `humiliated’ by accusations of genocide. Turkey uses
this word to describe its anger that its national honor has somehow
been injured by such accusations. Do Turkish, Israeli and American
officials know what `humiliation’ means to the survivors and
descendants of the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides who
experienced debasement and degradation during the genocidal ordeals
and are forced to endure denials and demeaning treatment right up to
the present day?
And how did humiliation of the victims occur? By order of the Young
Turk regime, unarmed civilian subjects — Armenian, Assyrian and Greek
men, women and children — were raped in broad daylight, in front of
their families and neighbors. The tortures and violations were beyond
one’s wildest imagination. Innocents were skinned and burned
alive. Their tongues and fingernails were torn out. Horseshoes were
nailed to their feet. They were stripped naked and sent on death
marches into the desert. Women’s breasts were cut off and their
pregnant bellies bayoneted. Fetuses were thrown up into the air and
impaled on swords and bayonets for sport. Men were tied to tree limbs
that were bent towards one another. When the tree’s limbs were
released, the men’s bodies were torn in half. Women were tied to
horses and dragged to their deaths.
Those Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks who were not exterminated,
enslaved in harems, or kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam were
driven from their indigenous lands. Those who survived the death
marches spent the rest of their lives in exile, uprooted from their
culture and civilization, grieving for their slaughtered families and
yearning for their ancestral homeland.
Media elites are giving voice to embroidered Turkish `humiliation’ and
not to the real humiliation of the victims, survivors and heirs who
live with constant anguish in the face of torture, dispossession,
contempt and indifference. Media elites are defending Turkey when it
is the martyrs and their heirs who deserve mercy and compassion.
In spite of Turkey’s efforts to humiliate the victims at the time of
the genocides — and to prolong this humiliation up to the present day
with cultural theft, trivialization and scape-goating — the dignity
of the victims and their descendants has, remarkably, remained intact.
Turkey’s genocidal crimes have gone unpunished. While continually
profiting from the homes, farms, lands, properties, institutions and
possessions confiscated in 1915, Turkey even accuses the victims and
survivors of the crimes that it itself committed. And media elites
portray ongoing survivor grievances as nuisances that impede
`progress.’
It is the genocide deniers — the rulers and lobbies of the U.S.,
Turkey, Israel, and Azerbaijan — who are the ones impeding
progress. Their denial, duplicity and audacity do not mean that the
genocides’ victims and their heirs have been defeated. Denying the
truth does not invalidate it. Fictional Turkish `reconciliation’
initiatives foisted upon Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks will never
take the place of genuine atonement and restitution, which are
necessary for true progress to be made.
To these deniers and obstructionists we say: `Your tactics are
transparent. The perpetrators, beneficiaries and enablers of the
ongoing genocide against the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek peoples will
be brought to justice. You can hide from the truth, but you can’t hide
the truth. We will persist, and the truth will prevail.’
—-
Lucine Kasbarian is a descendant of Armenian and Assyrian genocide
victims and survivors, and the author of Armenia: A Rugged Land, an
Enduring People (Dillon Press/Simon & Schuster)
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