As Turkish professor Fatma Gocek informs in an e-mail communication, the Armenian church of Kayseri (Turkey) has been attacked by Muslim extremists.

There has been an unfortunate attack on the Armenian Church in Kayseri as
“some irresponsible people fired ten rounds on the outer door of the church,
chanted the Muslim proclamation of faith and shouted anti-Christian slogans.”
The governor of Kayseri immediately took the necessary security precautions
and placed guards around the church.

This is a rear incident when the attack on an Armenian church in Turkey has not been organized by the Turkish government. The Armenian Church of Kayseri, St. Krikor (Surb Grigor), is one of the few Armenian churches out of 2000 that has not been destroyed during or after the Armenian genocide of 1915.

Update: The Artyom Reader has an update on the church.

"Take Your Flag and Come to Berlin!"

If this slogan sounds promoting and cool, read this post before doing as directed.

Blogian is not the one asking you to go to Berlin. Blogian is simply quoting the "Talaat Pasha Movement”- the group of Turkish nationalists who are set to “honor” Talaat pasha, the main organizer of the Armenian genocide.

Denktash to lay flowers on the street where the main organizer of the massacres of 1.5 million Armenians was assassinated in 1921

This hate group, according to a Turkish daily called The New Anatolian, “aims to attract some 5 million supporters, including some 1,000 from Turkey” in their “paying tribute” to Talaat and protesting Germany’s recent official condemnation of its own role in letting the Armenian genocide take place.

Denktas, the former Turkish “president” of separatist “Northern Cyprus” is planning to "lay flowers where Talat Pasha was assassinated on March 15, 1921 in Berlin by an Armenian."

Why would nationalist Turks do such a thing? Why would ANYBODY “honor” Talaat, Hitler and the others on the list? Are there reasons that we do not know about?

During yesterday’s lecture by Daryl Davis, the latter talked about an interesting experience, which might be the case here.

Mr. Davis said that the American Nazi party was organizing parades in Washington D.C. to gain more supporters! How? Well, here is what happened. When the American Nazi party would announce they were going to “peacefully march” in D.C., tens of thousands of people would come over to protest the Nazis. The anti-Nazi protesters would get so angry with the idea of letting Nazis to march in D.C. that they would start clashing with the Police and sometimes becoming violent.

The American Nazi party would videotape the “savageries” by the anti-Nazi protesters. During recruitments or other “promotional” activities in the US, the Nazi party would show this video to Anglo-Saxon Protestants saying, “you see how savage these people are! You need to join our peaceful activities to fight for white rights and equality!”

Not to say that I am discouraging local Germans from smashing the heads of the “Talaat Pasha Movement” members, but Mr. Davis’s explanation is reasonable enough to consider.

According to The New Anatolian article, Germany is angry about the preparation to “honor” Talaat. Should an Armenian assassinate Denktas while he’ll be laying flowers on the street where Talaat was shot? NO! Because it is what nationalist Turks are hoping for.

Maral Der Ohanesian, a young Armenian lady who has been unmasking the Turkish denial of the Armenian genocide by an ongoing dialogue with the Editor of the Journal of Turkish Weekly Dr. Laciner, has sent her sixth letter to the latter (a copy is cc-d to Blogian).

Ms. Ohanesian’s previous letters and Dr. Laciner’s responses have been published in the Journal of Turkish Weekly during the recent months. The entire archive of Maral’s responses is available at http://armenianaffairs.blogspot.com/.

Dr. Laciner, objectively speaking, has had hard time answering to the points Ms. Ohanesian makes. The interesting aspect is that the Armenian lady almost only uses Turkish sources to support her arguments, while Dr. Laciner “validates” his denial argument by saying thing like Turks are not capable of genocide!

Photo: Surp Giragos cathedral of Diyarbekir (now in Turkey) before and after the Armenian genocide

While talking about Cemal, Enver and their friends, you wrote “They made great mistakes, yet I know that they did not make genocide, because they were Turkish.”

What does that supposed to mean? Excuse me, but are you actually saying that they can’t commit Genocide “just because they are Turks”?!! Are Turks some sort of impeccable or divine race, that doesn’t make mistakes? Please, make sense!!

Another interesting aspect of the new letter is that it has attached photos of an Armenian cathedral in Diyarbekir (now in Turkey) that Dr. Laciner listed in a previous letter as a “proof” that the Armenian genocide never happened.

In point “5. Bölge – Anadolu Ermeni Kiliseleri (Churches in Anatolia),” you listed only 8 churches in the region where over 2000 Armenian churches and monasteries situated before 1914, according to the list made by Maghakia Ormanian by the order of the Ottoman Interior Ministry. Well, even if you find that keeping 8 churches out of 2000 is a sign of “Turkish kindness,” I kindly ask you to publish the attached pictures of one of your listed churches (one of the 5 listed to contain a phone number), Surp Giragos Ermeni Kilisesi. Surp Giragos was one of the largest cathedrals of the Christian world. Today, the ruins of the church serve the “Armenian community” of Diyarbakir, which consists of 10 families (less than 1% that was before 1915). I have attached the picture of Surp Giragos’ bell tower taken before 1914, and a more recent one. Do you know that this is violation of the Versailles treaty, according to which Turkey pledged to protect the Christian monuments?!

Via Gibrahayer

LOS ANGELES (Combined Sources) System Of A Down won a Grammy Wednesday night in the "Best Hard Rock Performance" category for their single "B.Y.O.B." off the album Mezmerize. System beat out Audioslave ("Doesn't Remind Me"), Nine Inch Nails ("The Hand That Feeds"), Robert Plant ("Tin Pan Valley"), and Queens Of The Stone Age ("Little Sister").

In 2005, System Of A Down – Serj Tankian (vocals), Daron Malakian (guitar, vocals), Shavo Odadjian (bass), and John Dolmayan (drums) – became the first band in the history of the Billboard chart to score two Number one debuts with new albums in a single calendar year. The two albums, Mezmerize and Hypnotize, both debuted at number one, in May and November, respectively.

"B.Y.O.B." [Bring Your Own Bombs], the first single off Mezmerize, questions the ongoing war in Iraq and President's Bush involvement in it. The song asks repeatedly, "Why don't presidents fight the war?/ Why do they always send the poor?/ Why do they always send the poor?" System has been nominated for the Grammy's twice before. Their single "Chop Suey!" was nominated for Best Metal Performance in 2002 and "Aerials" was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2003. Both singles were off the album Toxicity.

David Gaunt from Södertörn University College (Stockholm) visited the Turkish archives last week to research WWI documents. He has prepared a report, which I am posting at the “comments” section.

According to Gaunt, the Ottoman archives are open, but some documents cannot be “found.” He writes, “Apparently some telegrams sent by Talaat from the Ministry of Interior inquiring about the number of deportees at the end of September 1915 were removed sometime before cataloging in 1991.”

One telegram surprised me and this was an order coming from Talaat to give amnesty to convicted prisoners who would be willing to join the gendarmes and the gangs (he used the term chete) for organizing the deportations. Many of the survivors and other observers mention that criminals were a large part of the taskforces that rounded up Christians in the towns and larger villages, but I did not think that this could be confirmed.

via e-mail communication

A friend from school dropped me off at home around 9:30pm. I don’t usually stay at school that late, but today we had a fascinating lecture at Arapahoe Community College by Daryl Davis, an African-American who has interviewed, converted and studied Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members.

KKK, as Mr. Davis explained, was founded in 1865 by mostly Scottish and Irish Masons. It is due to the Masonic tradition that the overall head of the Klan is called “imperial wizard” (like president), the local leader “grand dragon” (this is like a governor), etc.

“There is no the Ku Klux Klan anymore,” said Mr. Davis. There are many Ku Klux Klans now and some of them are very hostile toward each other.

Davis, who has been to 49 countries but has found racism in his native America only, says, “our ideology needs to catch up with our technology” (referring to the American nationalistic “greatest nation on Earth” slogan).

I do no want to tell all the details of how he got acquainted with Ku Klux Kan (you can find that in his “Klan-Destine Relationships: A Black Man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan” book, which I am planning to read next week), but the ugliest thing I learned about KKK is that they celebrate April 4 (Martin Luther King Junior’s assassination date) with T-shirts saying, “Our Dream Became Reality.”

“Ignorance–> fear–> hate.” – D. Davis

Mr. Davis had brought with him the robe of former KKK imperial wizard Roger Kelly, whose attitude, undoubtedly, had changed due to his encounter with Daryl Davis.

You can visit his official website at http://daryldavis.com/, which also reveals Davis’s other talents.

A newest movie with Armenian name, “The Yacoubian Building,” based on Alaa Al Aswany’s novel, has nothing to do with Armenians (except that the building was built by an Armenian, hence Yacoubian). Saves some life for Turkish hatewriters .

Mat Schulz’s 13 Feb 2006 article (The Sydney Morning Herald) on the Ukrainian city Lviv’s Old Town, which UNESCO has made a World Heritage site, says for him “the most beautiful [church] is the Armenian cathedral, built in 1370.”

(from www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~sedgwick/PhotoGallery.htm)

I hope Schulz will never find out that thousands of similar beautiful churches were destroyed in the Republics of Turkey and Azerbaijan in the last several decades.

Vice President Dick Cheney accepts a rifle from National Rifle Association President Kayne Robinson, right, and NRA Vice President Wayne R. LaPierre.
Photo: Gene J. Puska (from www.smh.com.au)

As AP reports, "US Vice President Dick Cheney… accidentally shot and wounded a 78-year-old man while the two of them were hunting on a ranch in South Texas."

Here again. The “Pro-Armenian” New York Times is reporting on the last Armenian-Azerbaijani meeting in France labeling the Armenian fight for freedom “occupation.”

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, centre with back to camera, and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev, center, pose before talks over the disputed Nagorno Karabakh enclave, Friday, Feb. 10, 2006, at the Rambouillet Castle, west of Paris France. Kocharyan and Aliyev to talk about ending an 18-year-old conflict over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Others are unidentified. (AP Photo/Patrick Kovarik, Pool)

Noting that the Paris talk between Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev over Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was not successful, New York Times reporter Katrin Bennhold is summarizing the conflict in the following subjective and oilized paragraph:

Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous territory in southwestern Azerbaijan that has been under Armenian occupation since a cease-fire in 1994 ended years of fighting in which at least 18,000 people were killed. The region is strategically important, lying at the crossroads of Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East, and it is a main transit route for oil.

First of all, Nagorno-Karabakh has not been under “Armenian occupation” since 1994. For the last 2000 or so years the region has been populated by Armenians (if this is what is meant by “Armenian occupation”). It has been part of many united Armenian kingdoms and it has been part of the Armenian Republic of 1918-1920 and later signed off to Soviet Azerbaijan by Soviet tyrant Stalin. In 1991 the population of Nagorno-Karabakh held a referendum, within Soviet legal system, voting for becoming an independent country. When Azerbaijan made clear it would not let Karabakh to be free, local Armenians and Armenians from the Republic of Armenia showed that Karabakh’s freedom could be gained by force.

The note of “a main transit route for oil” reminds of a non-popular movie, featuring Omar Shariff, which basically said the war for Nagorno-Karabakh was between America and Russia and was meant to gain the oil of Baku (according to the movie, America/Azerbaijan won the war).