After a Long Separation, Ahmet and Mehmet Meet

By Jirair Tutunjian, Toronto, 17 November 2018

It has been more than two years since we overheard Mehmet and his friend Ahmet at the Ataturk Café in the boondocks of Turkey. Mehmet had wrapped up the conversation by asserting that Armenians were ungrateful because they had not appreciated that their deportation had resulted in the success of Armenians around the globe. Two years later—after the usual friendly formalities—Mehmet picked where they had left off.   

Mehmet: The last time we talked—before I settled in Germany–you said you had been picked to attend the public relations conference at the Presidential Palace which was held under the aegis of President Erdogan. You said you were going to present a paper about the ingrate Armenians. Did you see the President?

Ahmet: I couldn’t get close to the Great Man because of his security detail. I gave my thesis to a palace functionary and told him that it’s important that the President read it.

Mehmet: Efferim arkhadash. Tell me what you put in the paper.

Ahmet: I said that thanks to their migration from our country, Armenians discovered the world and were able to give birth to world figures in many fields. Had they stayed in Dortyol, Mush or Hajn, no one would have heard of them. They wouldn’t have walked down the Champs Elysees, Trafalgar Square, Times Square, Las Vegas or Sunset Strip. We opened their eyes. We elevated them.

Mehmet: You make a very original point, arkhadash.

Ahmet: The Armenians say we considered them outsiders, gavoors. If we didn’t trust them, why did we invite them to join our glorious army at the beginning of WWI? We accepted more than 200,000 Armenian men into our army although they were gavours and believers in three gods.

Mehmet: That’s true. But you know…we also…sort of… killed some of them.

Ahmet: Are you on their side? We had to get rid of some of them because they were joining the Russians.

Mehmet: Where did you find this important detail?

Ahmet: I guess you haven’t read Ataturk’s three-volume history of the Turks. The book proves that all civilizations are rooted in Turkish civilization. It’s all there including how the Armenians tried to flee to the side of the Moscoflar.

Mehmet: Armenians say our soldiers chased the survivors of the migration who were fleeing to Armenia.

Ahmet: There you go again. Our Red Crescent, escorted by the army, chased, as you say, the Armenians to provide them with food, water, medicine, and blankets. Our government didn’t want Armenians to flee to godless Soviet Ermenistan. We saved many lives. When we escorted them to the Syrian Desert, their churches were left vacant. We could have destroyed their churches. Instead, we sanctified and converted them to mosques where Allah’s words are still heard.

Mehmet: The research you’ve done is amazing. But you know that some churches became stables and cafes.

Ahmet: Are you on their side? Do you know why they succeed wherever they go?

Mehmet: That has always puzzled me.

Ahmet: They are successful because we taught them the work ethic and gave them the knowledge and the skills which they utilized wherever they went.

Mehmet: You should be on television. You should tell the truth to our latte-drinking leftist intellectuals and Europe-lovers who are eager to accept Armenian lies.

Ahmet: Where do you think their cuisine, their songs, and their literature came from? It’s all Turkish. Kebab, mantee, lahmajoun, tabouleh, pilaf, salata, pakhlava, yoghurt…

Mehmet: Allow me to be the devil’s advocate for a dakka. Our ancestors were wild horsemen and nomads when they left Central Asia. How could they have created these dishes whose ingredients aren’t found in Central Asia?

Ahmet: That question has two solid answers. A thousand years ago Central Asia was a lush garden… Jennat. You could plant anything there. Lake Baikal provided all the water we needed to grow wheat, pear, even pineapple and coconut. Then desertification set in. But there’s another theory about our roots. Boghazji Kemal University historians have proven that the Trojans were our ancestors. That’s the origin of the word Turk. Troy was an advanced civilization which the lying Greeks destroyed with their wooden horse.

Mehmet: So Hector, Paris, and Aeneas were our ancestors.

Ahmet: Certainly. Did you know that the Turk Aeneas founded the Roman Empire? That empire gave birth to Italy, France, Spain, Portugal… they are all our brothers.

Mehmet: Since they’re our ghardashlar, why don’t they want us in their European Union?

Ahmet: Western propaganda has made them self-hating Turks. Remember the café society traitors of Istanbul such as Orhan Pamuk and the rest who hollered “We are all Hrant Dink.”? Talking about treacherous intellectuals… did I tell you Turks founded Armenian literature? Look at the names of their leading writers… Toumanyan, Tekeyan, Chobanian, Srmakeshkhanlian, Demirjibashian, Beshigtashlian, Ali Shan, Minas Cheraz, Peshdimaldjian…all Turks with Turkish names but all in denial for the same reason our infidel intellectuals carp about Erdogan. And yet Ermenler go around and tell tall tales about us to the world. If we killed 1.5 million Armenians, how come there are 20 million Armenians now? It doesn’t add up.

And let me add something more. Something that Turkey doesn’t mention because we hate to talk about our humane deeds. You know that Armenians commemorate their false genocide on April 24 because they say that’s when we advised them to head to Syria so as to be away from the war front. It was no exile. Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire. Do you notice something about April 24?

Mehmet: Sorry, no.

Ahmet: It’s springtime. We could have started their resettlement in the middle of winter. But being compassionate and God-fearing, we encouraged them to travel when the weather was balmy and the trees in Syria were heavy with fruit. We are that kind of people.

Mehmet: We certainly are.