Deliberately ignoring my own mention that Mehmet Sait Uluışık is careful not to use the word “genocide,” the “Worldwide Circassian Brotherhood” states that the Circassian professor is not researching the Armenian “extermination” but the general history of the Circassians in Turkey.
Although the website’s response comes as nationalistic, it, nonetheless, seems to attempt making a well-taken point that not all Circassians were involved in the Genocide:
Истории известны имена видных черкесов и даже одной черкешенки, которые в Гамидие, Карсе, Хаджине, Геклуне, Шардере, Азизие и др. пунктах не только не принимали участия в грабежах, но спасли много христиан, иногда и с опасностью для себя. Известно так же, что Каймакам Феки (Вакке), по происхождению черкес – единственное влиятельное административное лицо, в районе которого не было пролито человеческой крови.
[It is known in history the names of important Circassians – and even of one Circassian woman – who not only didn’t participate in lootings in Hamidye, Kars, Hajin, Gyoklun, Serder and Azizye but saved many Christians [Armenians] sometimes putting their own lives at risk. It is known that Kaymakam Fekki (Vakkı) – from Circassian background – was the only influential administrative official whose region wasn’t shed by human blood.]
The article is right to point out that there were Circassians who saved Armenian lives – just like there were Turks and Kurds who did the same. These Circassians must be honored and remembered for their bravery.
Nonetheless, the “Worldwide Circassian Brotherhood” shouldn’t freak out because a Circassian scholar has decided to find out the role of some of his people in the Armenian Genocide. Instead, they should be proud of him and remind the rest of us – as they already did – that there were also Circassians who helped the Armenians.
Coming to Prof. Uluışık’s particular research and his interest in the Armenian Genocide, I am not at liberty to disclose the sources of my information.
A Seattle-based young Turkish lady who, as I have reported, courageously writes about the Armenian Genocide has been compelled to tell her family story after a fellow Turk indirectly but publicly questioned her “Turkishness.” The blogger’s response, as summarized in a comment, was direct:
My education, upbringing and cultural exposure has always been in Turkey and amongst Turks. My name is Turkish. My religion is Islam. My mother tongue was and still is Turkish. My beginning years and life began in Turkey. I have had little elementary exposure to much else, regarding my own ethnicity, save for my experience in the university. My parents always saw the Turkish girl in me and it was always very clear I was Turkish, it is what I feel and where I feel most comfortable defining myself. There has been no argument in regards to this. There is still none, so I am not entirely sure how else I should answer your question.
And in the actual post talking about her roots – that date back to 1345 – the Turkish blogger gives details of her ancestors. One of them, she says, was the first milk mother of the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
My great great grandmother, Aziz Haydar Hanim, was a ferocious figure to be reckoned with! In Pars Tuglaci’s book, Tarih Boyunca Istanbul Adalari (found in Robinson Crusoe bookstores in Istanbul), he writes of her fiery speeches alongside Ataturk. She championed the causes of women’s rights and immigration rights for those coming into the new Republic from the Balkans and even her hometown of Selanik, that of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
On the night of Ataturk’s birth, a ragged and tired Zubeyde Hanim, came to my great great grandmother. She came because she had no way to nourish her new born. Because Aziz Haydar Hanim was not only a school teacher/professor but a nurse by trade, she was the first milk mother of Ataturk. Ataturk always treated her like a second mother and until her final days, the albums my family has preserved show a smiley faced Ataturk hugging and embracing her, like one does a dear old aunt. Those old, dusty, torn photographs always brought a smile to my face.
Wow, a descendant of Ataturk’s ‘second mother’ challenging the ‘sacred’ establishment defended in the very name of Ataturk.
The story of the Turkish lady from Seattle is almost surreal. And her story is just another example of hope for lasting Armenian-Turkish friendship. Hrant Dink didn’t die for no reason; I can feel him smiling.
The blogger also raises the question of Turkish-European identity stating that she herself is very confused:
[…]
Well, 99% of Turkish people claim to be Muslim. Most of these people cannot recite anything from the Koran, explain Islamic history or advances in technology nor can they truly explain what secularism is, or even democracy for that matter. I have asked. Secularism in Turkey means there can be no other religion except Islam, but it should be kept to oneself. Completely confusing. Turkish Democracy means secularism.
Authors and journalists like, Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak, have been systematically targeted in Turkey simply for speaking their truths. The genocide continues, my friends. Turkey’s only hope for an honest EU membership, is acceptance of the past and the rebuilding of the many burnt bridges. Turkey at this juncture is not ready for the EU. Turkey first needs to accept and protect its own diversity, as the Copenhagen Criteria calls for, before it can even dream of calling itself European, if indeed that is who she really is.
I don’t know about everybody else, but I can say for myself, I am tired of pretending to be European. I don’t even know who I am anymore.
I can relate to the issue of European identity especially when some Armenians militantly proclaim themselves Europeans and other claim the exact opposite. But it becomes more frustrating when “real Europeans” ask you whether you consider yourself European.
Past summer, for example, I met two Dutch visitors in Armenia who asked me whether I considered Armenia part of Europe or Asia. I told them that I refused to answer that question because of its Eurocentric connotation. “European” is unreservedly thought to be “progressive” and “positive” something that reflects the actual cultural oppression of the rest of the world by Europe. The latter often forgets that many of its “inventions” didn’t start in Europe – including much of women’s rights, which started – or were first institutionalized – in some of the Native American communities.
Had the Turkish blogger from Seattle been a nationalist, she would feel better about being European since as Native Americans are Turks, women’s rights come from Turkey! OK just kidding 🙂
During a visit to Germany Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyid Erdogan has denied the deliberate annihilation of late Ottoman Turkey’s Armenian population stating that it is not in Turkish culture to commit genocide.
Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said [in Munich] on Saturday there was no such thing like genocide in Turkish culture and civilization.
Erdogan replied to questions on several matters after his speech at the 44th Munich Conference on Security Policy in Germany.
In regard to Armenian allegations regarding the incidents of 1915, Erdogan said, “there is no such thing like genocide in our culture. We cannot accept it. We are ready to discuss the matter by the means of documents.”
[…]
Erdogan’s racist explanation for his government’s denial of the Armenian genocide must have raised eyebrows in Germany since the statement suggests that committing genocide is in the perpetrator’s group culture and civilization.
Bloombergalso reports Erdogan’s denial of the Armenian genocide but doesn’t reference the Turkish PM’s reference to culture.
Asked about the massacre of Armenians in Turkey in 1915, Erdogan said Armenia should open its archives on the period.
”There was no genocide and there is no way we can accept this,” Erdogan said, adding that declarations of some western parliaments that the killing of Armenians had been a genocide ”is not acceptable.” The parliaments of France and a number of other countries have passed resolutions declaring the Armenian massacres were genocide.
Ironically, the automated Google ad on the TurkishPress.com page on Erdogan’s nationalist comments links to the DNA Ancestry Project. Perhaps Mr. Erdogan should form an international commission to prove that it is not in Turkish DNA to commit genocide.
Interestingly, the topic of being capable of committing genocide was in the Armenian press last week. A Hetq.am columnist askes (in Armenian) whether Armenians are capable of genocide and argues that Armenia’s poor democratic record, the government’s treatment of its people and the people’s treatment of each other (especially on regional basis) suggests that Armenians are, indeed, capable of genocide. In terms of Armenia’s largest minorities, especially the Yezidis, the author says that they have been denied opportunity to be part of Armenia’s socio-economic culture and are, thus, not “important” enough to be considered for elimination. (I must add that Armenians have committed cultural genocide against the Roma (“Gypsies”) who are known in Armenian as “Bosha” – but almost every Armenian thinks Bosha is an insult and not an ethnic group.)
So, Mr. Erdogan, if you consider Turks human (and you should) then they are, too, capable of genocide.
In the opening of the paper, the blogger suggests that the Ottoman history may be very far, but it is also close.
The empire that once existed has turned to dust and the history it left behind can only be seen in museums and old books. And yet its trangressions still continue to haunt us.
After presenting Armenian and Turkish views on the history of Ottoman Armenians in 1915, the Turkish student does something few open-minded Turks would dare – to raise the question of power relationship between Turkish and Armenian nationalism referencing the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF):
ARF? The Black Panthers anyone? The ARF is nothing new. All oppressed groups will create physically strong leaders who can kick some ass on their behalf. Violent atrocities and oppression can only inspire more violence and oppression.
The blogger says that just a year ago she might have had different attitude toward the history of the Ottoman Armenians. But there are things, she says, that can’t be ignored.
After a long, disheartening yet fruitful research period lasting several months, I have come across substantial evidence that cannot be explained away. The Armenian Genocide has been therefore titled by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.
But it is not only the Armenian story, the student says, that has been denied in Turkey. Often the west itself has demonized Turks as a people.
I know many can say that in the Christian world Christian life is of utmost importance, and to a degree I buy that. We can witness it all throughout Christian literautre, the Turkish identity is dehumanized, demonized and the worst of all, that I hate so much and continue to fight viciously, the masculinization of the Turkish identity- there are no references to Turkish people being of the female gender. The only references to Turkish women are sexual in nature. For example, in Webster’s Dictionary, the definition of a Turk is a “cruel, har hearted man,” or in Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnets of Astrophil and Stella: “whether the Turkish new moon minded be/to fill his horns this year on Christian coast,” or in stanza V111: “forc’d by a tedious proofe that Turkish hardned hart.”
One can tell that this student is not just resisting nationalism but (male) chauvinism too. And here is why:
Sure I buy that the conditioning of anti Turkishness is abound, however, I can also be a witness to that the overt sexualization and mysognization of Armenian women, in particular, by Turkish men. Turkish men have often regarded Armenian women as “easy,” “sluts,” and “hairy.” There is a saying in Turkish that loosely translated says, “You are Armenian, and without wanting to you give it (your cunt) up.” Almost insinuating that Armenian women are just asking to be raped or assaulted. There is also another disturbing saying that says, “You are Greek, you put it (a cock) inside and let it remain there.” Both again complete and utter rubbish, but there again institutionalized anti minority sentiment.
She isn’t afraid to call things by their names, is she? And she won’t say, unlike some others, “I recognize [the Armenian Genocide], therefore you [Armenians] shut up [on restitutions]:”
The outright denial and laughing attitude of many Turkish politicians and diplomats is what has really made this unresolved continue to ebb and flow.
Of course, we can say simply that any comment from the Turkish government is mere opinion. One should not feel they have the right to punish others for their opinion, even if it is conflict with their own, others may say. Many might even add that no one is punishing Putin for Stalin’s transgressions, nor Spanish President Zapatero for the Spanish Inquisition. Or even that the French killed one million Algerians during the riot of colonial power and violence, no one is out for vengence against Sarkozy. In France it is forbidden to deny the Armenian Genocide though.
I have come to believe that reparations and restitution today for the modern states of Armenia and Turkey proper include a multitude of problems. However, I do not believe that an apology alone is all that can suffice for the victims. […]
Is justice justified when it brings injustice to someone else? After discussing the geopolitical unlikeness of land reparations to Armenia in the near future, she says:
I would also add that the eastern provinces are largely populated by Kurdish peoples, the lands revered by some as Armenia’s historic homeland, are the same ones considered by many Kurds as the dreamed of Kurdistan. To cede the lands on which the Kurds are (barely) living on today, would incite civil war in eastern Turkey.
Last semester I touched on the same topic in my early political thought class:
“[…]
But how can one achieve justice and what does it represent? Following the logic in Aquinas’ work, justice is the opposite of injustice. While justice is so vague that it would be difficult to fight for, injustice could be easily spotted. So in a sense working for justice can be done through minimizing and eliminating injustice. That has, I must confess, become part of my political philosophy after reading the works of these great thinkers.
[…]
Although almost none would argue, with the exception of ultra-nationalist Turks who think the genocide never happened, that genocide recognition by Turkey would be justice, others disagree on whether Armenians even should talk about returning western Armenia, especially at a time when emigration is a national problem in the Republic of Armenia and that few from the Armenian Diaspora have repatriated to the tiny country.
This is a topic that is not unique to Armenians but is actually a worldwide problem. Even the most recent population shifts in the world have resulted in the ethnic cleansing of indigenous or local inhabitants. Of course most of these have not been a result of genocide like in the Armenian case, but many people in the world have lost their land. What makes it even more complex is when multiple and quite different groups make claims to the same land – and separately taken they often sound quite legitimate.
The Kurds, for instance, claim what Armenians consider western Armenia as Kurdistan . There is no doubt that Kurds are extremely oppressed in the Republic of Turkey – a minority of over ten million, Kurds are not even recognized as such in Turkey. They have never had a political state and have faced oppression under different countries. Armenians, on the other hand, while resonate with the Kurdish struggle for justice remind that many Kurds participated in the Armenian Genocide, often for the actual hope of acquiring a homeland. A chilling New York Times article from February 20th, 1881, for instance, was titled “Turkish Policy in Armenia” and discussed the demographic changes made by the Ottoman Empire in western Armenia showing the Turkish intent to increase the Muslim population of the latter. The report pointed out the endeavor “to show that Armenia should be blotted out of the map and henceforth be known as Kurdistan.”
The prophecy of the New York Times article has come to become a reality. Western Armenia , or at least much of it, today is mostly referred to as Kurdistan. Travelers to eastern Turkey hardly find out that they are in a land that used to be called Armenia, and tour guides who make much noise about it get arrested in the first place. But then, who owns the land – Armenians, Kurds or the Turks?
Questions like these are very different to answer, and perhaps neither of our early great thinkers would try to find an answer to that. This is one of the examples when “justice” cannot be defined to its full extent and become a universalized one, yet most of our thinkers would argue that there are many injustices within the problem that can be minimized. Ancient Armenian churches and other monuments, if they have not been already exploded or converted to mosques or to secular buildings, are in ruins in the Republic of Turkey. Wouldn’t an act of minimizing injustice be restoring them or at least acknowledging that they belonged to Armenians? There are also many monuments in the TurkishRepublic that honor the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide. Wouldn’t it be minimizing injustice if something was done to these monuments? Yet would it not amount to injustice to destroy these monuments? Wouldn’t that be vandalism, and thus, not a universal form of justice?
A plaque on the Colorado State Capitol grounds helps to find an answer. In the 1990s, one of the state senators was reading the plaque on the Civil War Statue, placed on at the Capiol in 1909, when he noticed that the list of military engagements that Colorado cavalry participated in listed “Sand Creek: November 29, 1864.” The Sand Creek Massacre of about 200 peaceful Arapaho and Cheyenne peaceful villagers – mostly children, women and the elderly – had been recorded as a battle in the history of Colorado.
When the issue came to the floor many questions were raised. The statue was history itself, so was the racist plaque on it. How could a historical injustice be righted without committing another injustice, aka vandalizing an artifact at the State Capitol? The compromise was to place a separate plaque at the front base of the statue that would tell the real story of the Sand Creek Massacre and leave the original plaque in situ. The Sand Creek Massacre plaque at the Capitol is a perfect example of how Turkey should treat monuments honoring the perpetrator of the Armenian genocide. But the question is really far from that. Turkey is yet to recognize just the fact that the Armenian Genocide happened.
Justice is a very broad notion and has been the driving topic, in my view, of political thought development. Although some thinkers didn’t make direct observations of justice in the overall society, the bottom line of what they advocated was based in the belief of a certain form of justice. When Plato was saying that democracy is potential tyranny he was asking whether – what we today call – utilitarianism is justice.
When, in the summer of 2005, I was studying at the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies in Toronto, a Rwandan participant of the course once brought up the issue of justice. Her family had all been massacred in the genocide of 1994, when Rwanda’s Hutu majority decided to get rid of the Tutsis. In a sense, the Rwandan genocide was democratic, she argued, drawing parallels with the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide that were all committed in popular support. Hutus want democracy, my Rwandan friend said, but Tutsis want justice.
Justice is not a definite value or project that can be fought for in one and only way, but there is always room for minimizing injustice. At the Genocide Institute where I met my Rwandan friend, I also learned a famous quote that in order for evil to win is for good people to do nothing. I think Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas and Machiavelli all taught me engagement. That is engagement in limiting injustice. ” Justice for the Turkish blogger definitely starts with facing the past. She finishes her essay by saying:
Some maybe say that there is no way to lay appropriate blame, and maybe they are right. But we can still admit to our pasts and remind ourselves that we cannot erase history or who we once were.
We are nothing without our histories.
The Turkish blogger from Seattle is making history with her own writing, but it is not only her acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide that will likely make her a hate-figure among most nationalist Turks (perhaps, that’s the reason that she has so far hidden her name).
The Seattle student also brings up issues of sexuality and women’s resistance and posts a photo or two that some of the readers of my blog wouldn’t appreciate. I think, though, one can’t be a humanist without being a feminist and vice verse. And whoever the Turkish lady from Seattle is, she now has a friend in Denver.
Harvard professor and genocide scholar Samantha Power has made a video, posted at ANCA.org and YouTube.com, specifically appealing to Armenian-Americans and asking for their support for Barack Obama in the presidential elections. Power identifies herself as a senior foreign policy advisor to Obama. I wonder whether, if Obama gets elected, Samantha Power will become the Secretary of State.
A reader of this blog, commenting on a previous post, has brought to my attention to a YouTube videothat claims U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has received large contributions from a nationalist Turkish filmmaker.
The century-old AsbarezArmenian-American daily has also posted an Armenpress article on the destruction and a new photograph that shows the vandalized monument.
And although few would doubt that the hate crime was committed by Turkish nationalist(s), a blogger from Cardiff expresses hope that nationalist Turks are not behind the vandalism:
It’s hard not to feel hatred when something like this happens. In my home town of Cardiff, last November, from generous donations from a local Armenian, a memorial to the Genocide was erected in a public park. During the inauguration we had to listen to disturbing calls of hatred from about 50 Turkish protestors who did everything during the prayers, speeches, and songs, to disturb the ceremony.
It seems they have now stooped to a new low and in line with the UK’s memorial day for holocaust, have decided to hack the cross off from the memorial. I must admit I didn’t think they would do this. Maybe it wasn’t commited by Turks. I hope it wasn’t. The police are searching for information.
A MONUMENT set up in Cardiff to remember 1.5 million Armenians who were massacred in 1915 was vandalised ahead of a service for all the victims of genocide.
The memorial in the Temple of Peace, Cathays, Cardiff, made of sandstone and Welsh slate, was struck with a sledgehammer on Saturday night, smashing the cross off it.
Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day and a service was held to remember all those who have died at the hands of ethnic cleansing.
Members of the Turkish community have condemned the damage.
Caerphilly Councillor Ray Davies, who campaigned for the Armenian monument to be erected, said many people at the service yesterday were close to tears when they saw what had happened.
“The desecration of the monument reminds us that we must always be vigilant against racism and hatred which is never far from the surface,” he said.
The pillar of pink stone was unveiled in November to remember all those Armenians who were murdered by Ottoman Turks in 1915.
[…]
But the service still went ahead as planned, despite protests from a small number of people who shouted through loud hailers.
Director of the Welsh Centre for International Affairs Stephen Thomas said: “It was particularly saddening for the Armenians present that this happened on the day of the Holocaust Memorial Day. This service wasn’t specific to the Armenians. We were trying to be all-inclusive about all those historical events where people have been massacred. It wasn’t very helpful in terms of trying to create a bridge and links between Turkey and Armenia that this was carried out. People were upset when they turned up and saw what had happened.”
Hal Savas, a member of the five-man delegation from the Committee for the Protection of Turkish Rights, was present at the service.
“Whoever has done it should be ashamed of themselves,” he said. “We would condemn any damage done to any religious monument.”
Hours before a January 27, 2008 commemoration for the Holocaust and murdered Armenian-Turkish Hrant Dink, members of the Armenian community in Wales discovered the site for the event – a traditional Armenian khachkar (literally, cross-stone) opened in November of 2007 – had been vandalized by a hammar left at the scene.
Image: A photograph from the November 3, 2007 opening ceremony of the Armenian Genocide commemorative memorial in Cardiff, Wales (United Kingdom) shows the khachkar (cross-stone) that was vandalized by a hammer in the morning of a scheduled event to commemorate the Holocaust and remember Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Photo courtesy ACCC.
A press-release by the Wales-Armenia Solidarity, posted by Unzipped, reads:
The tiny Welsh Armenian community were targeted with a despicable racist attack on Holocaust Memorial Day. The new Armenian Genocide Monument (which was erected by the community under the leadership of John Torosyan in November) was desecrated in the early hours of the morning before important ceremonies were held today to Commemorate the Holocaust, and to remember Hrant Dink.
The ornate Armenian Cross on the monument was smashed to bits by persons unknown using a hammer, which was left at the scene of the crime.
Mark Grigorian, a journalist and a blogger at LiveJournal, wrote earlier on the morning of January 27 that a text message had just informed him that “[t]he Armenian Khachkar monument in Cardiff commemorating the Armenian Genocide, which had been consecrated only in November in the face of vehement opposition by official Turkey and UM Turkish nationalist groups has been badly vandalised abd desecrated last night.”
Eilian Williams, talking on the vandalism, has blamed the “Committee for the Protection of Turkish Rights” under the leadership of Hal Savas – a member of The Muslim Council of Britain – for the hate crime.
Indeed, the announcement for the commemoration ceremony, posted at Seta’s Armenian Blog and apparently written before the news of the vandalism, expressed fears for violent Turkish protests quoting Hal Savas as saying, “[w]e will be out in force this time.” Savas’ group had protested the unveiling of the memorial in November of 2007, as reported by the BBC.
Image: Soldiers of Azerbaijan filmed using sladghammers to reduce sacred Armenian gravestones to dust in December of 2005. Visit www.djulfa.com for more information
It is not clear why the hammer – that was used to smash the cross on the genocide monument to pieces – was left at the scene. Perhaps a symbolic gesture to the December of 2005 destruction of the largest medieval Armenian cemetery in the world where Azerbaijani soldiers used sladghammers to reduce the sacred stones to dust?
Image courtesy Asbarez 
Image: Vandalized Armenian Genocide Monument in Cardiff, Wales, courtesy BBC
