Some of the Turkish media, including the nationalist Sabah and Hurriyet, have criticized yesterday’s celebration of the 90th anniversary of the Turkish “liberation” of the Armenian city of Erzurum. (An important part of Armenia’s historic homeland until the 1915 Genocide, there is not a single Armenian left in the city.)

The main part of the celebration includes a play in which drunken ‘Armenian bandits’ fire at a mosque, kill the Muslim leader and massacre women and children. Then, the Turkish army rescues the city and hangs the Armenians.

“Another important problem in these performances is casting. Nobody wants to be Armenian,” writes a Turkish acquaintance who shared the news in a mass e-mail.