For the Benefit of the Turkish Ambassador

18 comments

1. The “Turkish” 100

   Because Turkey will have no real basis on which to build a case that it, too, has been a victim of a genocide, does not mean that it will not try.  So, someone should keep one eye on this fascinating story to see how (not “if”) Turkey exploits it.

   It is fascinating how many lies and distortions Turkey can come up with to re-write history. 

   What Turkey has on its side is the general ignorance of the main publics it is trying to impress with its distortions and lies.  And, that includes the media.  I am convinced that most leaders of the West are reasonably knowledgeable about the Armenian Genocide, for instance, but that doesn’t mean they will stand up for the truth.

   In a recent letter sent to President Meds Yeghern, on April 24, the President of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) made the astounding statement that one of the prime reasons for the relocation of the Armenians was because–sit well back in your chair, please–“In November 1915, the relocation included the western port city of Izmit, where Armenian homes were being used to import and store weapons to help the Russians and Armenian rebels in the east.”  Think of it:  In war-time Turkey the Armenians in a west-coast city were collecting arms to send a thousand miles through war-time Turkey to the Eastern front!!!!!  In a letter.   To the American president. 

   Also, in a lighter note, the Turks keep reminding editors that Santa Claus/Father Christmas was a Turkish bishop! 

   So, laugh if you will, but don’t underestimate Turkey’s creativity–nor overestimate the intelligence of the average person.

   Avedis Kevorkian
   Philadelphia, PA  USA

   1. Experienced Liars

      Avedis, their government and establishment are experienced liars when it comes to anything pertaining to Armenians. The best weapon–which we have at our finger tips–is the truth. Despite their diplomatic, economic, military, and propagandistic clout, we –without money, without PR agencies, without state support in the Diaspora–have managed to tell the world what really happened. Obama and the rest of the hypocrites know too well what happened, but for reasons we are familiar with, join the braying denialist camp. By the way, Obama, for all intents and purposes, is irrelevant now.

      Re Santa Claus being Turkish …  I guess you don't know that King Midas, Hector and Paris of Troy and the great Mihritades were also Turkish. The Gordian Knot was a Turkish Rubic Cube. You've to get up pretty early in the morning to come up with bigger lies than those disgorged by the Turkish propaganda machine.

      1. Were they all…?

         Were Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus Turkish too?
         This is like reading Quran, where even Alexander the great (including Adam and all the Jewish prophets) were portrayed to be Muslim.
         Is Obama's origin Turkish, likewise Queen Elizabeth might be Turkish too.
         Ok, you got it. Were Hitler, Stalin and all the murderers Turkish too?

2. Seconding the Comments

   Thank you for seconding my comments about Turkish lies.

   I hadn't heard that the Turks had claimed those other famous "Turks" and "Turkish institutions", but I am not surprised since they will be aiming high for their centenary in 2023, when they will claim to be the logical inheritors of the 10,000-year history of the inhabitants of the Anatolian Plateau.

   But, because we know the lies, let us not assume that the rest of the world does–nor that the Turks give a damn what we Armenians know and think.

   What is needed is for every Armenian everywhere to call out the lie in letters to editors each time a lie appears. That letter may not be used, but remember the letter has to be read before a decision is made not to use it. When enough letters are sent, and the message is reinforced.

   And, as for "President Meds Yeghern", as long as he is president of the United States of America, he is in a position to further the cause of his favorite country–Turkey. There are many leaders of many countries who will defer to him in matters Armenian.

   If the Armenians don't make 2015 a "universal event", Turkey will have won. Somehow, I have the feeling that 2015 will be like every other year: Armenians meeting to tell Armenians how much the Armenians suffered at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.

   Avedis Kevorkian

   1. Presidents Meds Yeghern

      Avedis,
      Do you refer to President Obama as "President Meds Yeghern" because he is in office? It was President George W. Bush who used the term for the first time and set the pattern.

      I am a registered Republican. When it comes to the Genocide of the Armenians, I find both one-and-the-same.
       

3. Turkish Ambassador

   Yes, I refer to our current president as "Meds Yeghern" because he uses that term instead of "Armenian Genocide."

   When he uses "meds yeghern," he is speaking to the Armenians and is saying, "Hey, ain't I wonderful, I know two Armenian words." And he pleases his Turkish masters.

   If he uses the term "Armenian Genocide," as he promised, he would be speaking to the world. And, he would offend his Turkish masters.

   I was not aware that The Idiot also used that term but, whatever one says about him, he isn't a hypocrite, because he never spoke of his love of the Armenians with the passion of President Meds Yeghern.

   Avedis Kevorkian
    

   1. Turkish Ambassadors

      Avedis,
      I do not think it matters whether a president of the U.S is an idiot, a hypocrite or not, speaks of Armenians with passion or never speaks of his love for the Armenians when it comes to acknowledging or not the Genocide of Armenians.

      Obama, Bush and their predecessors–save for Reagan for his remark–are one and the same as far as U.S policy with regard to the Genocide of the Armenians is concerned. They are all deniers of the Genocide of the Armenians and there are no degrees of the denial a truth. To treat some otherwise is more of a reflection of personal bias than anything else.

4. Hard-hitting Journalism

   Once again your editorial board is on the ball in exposing the Armenian Genocide denial machine’s activities and lobbying efforts. The Canadian-Armenian community is fortunate to have such hard-hitting investigative journalists on guard to defend the interests of our community.

   The most bizarre aspect of the topic of your editorial is the presence of the Anatolian Heritage Foundation’s (AHF) representative on the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund board.

   I am not sure under what circumstances or who appointed the AHF representative to the fund board, but this is a serious development and requires investigation because the fund is being manipulated by a handful of people from certain communities to advance their own agenda. Furthermore, the fund is mired in controversy. 

   The AHF is member of the Anatolian Heritage Federation, a national umbrella organization for over 25 Canadian organizations and foundations. The federation is supported and sponsored by the Gulen movement which is also known as Hizmet. The Gulen movement was established by Islamist religious leader Fethullah Gulen, patron of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul of Turkey. The declared aims of the Gulen movement and the Anatolian Heritage Federation are cultural, educational, business, and inter-faith dialogue. They also organize junkets to Turkey for Canadian parliamentarians and other political and civic leaders.

   But there is more sinister and dangerous feature for both organizations and their affiliates. Gulen's charter schools are under investigation in the U.S and Europe. The "New York Times", the "Philadelphia Inquirer", "Der Spiegel", "BBC", the "Washington Post", the "International Herald Tribune", "60 Minutes" on CBS, the "Middle East Quarterly", and other media have written extensively about the movement. Recently two Turkish journalist wrote an expose of the motives and agenda of Imam Gulen and his movement. Through his influence on the current government in Turkey, Gulen was able to silence the journalist by jailing him.

   In contrast to Jihadist fanatics, the Gulenist operate in a much shrewder way. Here is what the "Middle East Quarterly" (Winter 2009) wrote about Gulen’s philosophy and his disciples' modus operandi:

   "You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers … until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria … like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it … The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all-in confidence … trusting your loyalty and secrecy. I know that when you leave here-[just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and the feelings that I expressed here."

   Returning to the fund, I am wondering if one of its aims is to pit one ethnic community against another and sow discord among various communities. Furthermore, I am not confident that when the federal government agreed to establish the fund “to commemorate and educate Canadians about Canada's first national internment operations of 1914 to 1920”, was envisioning the current activities of the Endowment Council and its catastrophic ramification on the harmony of our civil society.

   It looks like the Fund under the leadership of the current Council is a train running out of control.   It is high time for the Federal Government to immediately step in and fire the entire Endowment Council and replace it with more object and impartial Council.

5. Turkish Ambassador

   Basically, Garabed, you are right. But there is a difference between a person who says "Armenian Genocide" and then changes his mind (after getting his instructions from Ankara) and a person who says there was no "Armenian Genocide" from the beginning and has his view reinforced by Ankara.

   What will be of great importance is what the Armenians will do in 2015. Turkey is planning a major event for its "victory in Gallipoli" (although the victory was in January 1916) and it would be a major coup if the Armenian centenary were to take the headlines, instead. But I doubt if the Armenians are up to it.

   I won't be surprised if President Yeghern were to go to Istanbul for the Turkish gala on April 25, 2015 (to mark the date in WWI when allies began their attack).

   Avedis Kevorkian

6. Joe the Turk

   My wife's grandmother came to the U.S in 1917 at age 15; pregnant with a son. Her husband had been butchered by a Turk. Their farm was taken over by the same Turk who was their stable keeper.

   She was born in Gesaria (Kayseri). She could not speak Armenian but as soon as she landed on Ellis Island she changed her Turkish name to Armenian. She had traveled with an Ottoman passport after selling all she had to bribe officials and had booked passage on a Greek ship. Not long later she found similar Armenian "kaghtagan's" from Anatolia. Although some had Turkish names and most couldn't speak Armenian–they could all recite the Lord's Prayer in Armenian. In many places in Anatolia–even before Mustafa Kemal's dictatorship–Armenians were not allowed to speak their language. Ethnic cleansing started in Anatolia long before the Genocide, depending on location.

   My point is what Turk in his right mind would leave Anatolia for the frozen lands of North America, and miss on the plunder of the Christian infidels? The currently rich landowners of Turkey are proof  how they amassed their riches. To acknowledge the killing and raping of the Armenians is easier than to compensate the rightful owners. I don't care if they ask for forgiveness: they will answer to a higher authority for their bloody crimes, but I want what is rightfully mine.

7. Collaborating with the Denial Machine

   Kudos to your editor for bringing to your readers' attention such vital issue not only to the Canadian-Armenian community but also to the diaspora Armenians. The article gives us insight into what the Turkish government and its paid pied-pipers are preparing for the centennial of the Genocide.

   The Canadian-Armenian community should wake up and smell the coffee. It is unfortunate to see the denial machine fully geared to pre-empt the 100th anniversary of the Genocide yet our community is comatose and bogged down in narrow-minded and self-centred internal destructive politics.

   One puzzling question is related to the picture attached to your editorial. If I am not mistaken, one of the women in the photo is Marsha Skrypuch. Ms. Skrypuch is well known among Canadian-Armenians as the author of many children's books related to the Armenian Genocide and the George Town Boys such as "Call Me Aram", "Aram's Choice", "Nobody's Child", "Hunger" and "Daughter of War". It would be interesting to find out what Ms. Skrypuch is doing in the company of the denialists. Did she change sides? If yes, why?

   The most disgraceful aspect of this episode is the involvement of the Ukrainian community leaders and intellectuals who are in shameful cooperation with a denialist state and its hired guns. It is abhorrent to see the Ukrainian community, a victim nation of a genocide, to become a conduit of denial against another genocide victim nation such as the Armenians. The collaboration of the Ukrainian community’s representatives with the denialist machine should not be tolerated. I am wondering how the Ukrainian community would  feel if the Armenian community was involved with the denailists of the Ukrainian Holodomor.

8. Turkish Ambassador

   Laugh, if you wish; mock if you must.

   But, rest assured that when the Turks open that vast "Museum of Civilization" (which will comprise 2.5 hectares–that's about 13 football fields!), to mark the Republic's Centenary, in 2023, and claim to be the inheritors and direct descendants of the 20-or so peoples and cultures and civilizations that have occupied the Anatolian Plateau over the past 10,000 years, every distinguished or historic person who lived there will be a "Turk."

   In addition, the Armenians, for instance, will be the "recent" arrivals, and our 3000-year history will be denied and otherwise negated.

   Avedis Kevorkian

9. Marsha Skrypuch’s interest in this topic

   Marsha Skrypuch here, author of three novels set during the Armenian Genocide (The Hunger, Nobody's Child, Daughter of War), two chapter books about the Georgetown Boys (Aram's Choice and Call Me Aram) as well as author of two books set during the internment of Ukrainians in WWI (Silver Threads, Prisoners in the Promised Land).

   My own Ukrainian grandfather was interned as an enemy alien in WWI and this topic is of deep interest to me.

   I am in the midst of writing a novel about the Kapuskasing internees.

   My novel will clearly show who actually was interned and why their relationship to the Armenians of Brantford was so close.

   I take exception to the slam on the Ukrainian Canadian community. Those who ask for tolerance should also demonstrate it. Shed light, not heat.

   1. Thank You
      Thank you Ms. Skrypuch for your letter and for the books you've written about Armenians and the Genocide.
      You say your grandfather was an internee during WWII. Sad as it is, the information does not add anything to the editorial which was about WWI internees.
      You say you are writing a book about the Kapuskasing internees. I hope you sell many copies of the book. However, that you are writing a book is of little relevance to the editorial.
      You say that you take exception to the slam on the Ukrainian Canadian community. Please read the editorial more carefully. It didn’t criticize the Ukrainian Canadian community. It criticized certain Ukrainian Canadians who have seen fit to invite a Turk from an Armenian Genocide-denying organization (“Anatolian Heritage”) to represent the non-Turkish Ottoman immigrants to Canada who were interned because Canadian authorities assumed they were Turks. The fact that many of these non-Turkish immigrants had left/fled the Ottoman Empire because of Turkish oppression of non-Turkish minorities makes the invitation surreal.
      Your aversion to criticizing the fund council (dominated by Ukrainian Canadians) is most disturbing, to say the least. People who don’t know you might even deduce that you are giving a pass to fellow Ukrainians.

      1. WWI Internment

         Dear Jirair

         Something you may not know is that Mr. Kilic is no longer on the Endowment Council. The spot is currently vacant.

         My Ukrainian grandfather was an internee during World War ONE, in Canada. I have written two books about the internment of enemy aliens in World War ONE Canada and am in the midst of writing my third.

         The reason that the endowment council has many Ukrainians on it is because the majority of internees were Ukrainian and it was the Ukrainian community that spearheaded acknowledgement of this historical injustice. Representatives of other affected communities are encouraged to sit on the council. Instead of complaining, why not contact the council and suggest an appropriate representative?

         One shouldn't look for conspiracies where none exist.

         The slam on the Ukrainian community I took exception to was this:

         The move was probably a reprisal for Armenian lack of support for a Ukrainian pet project. Shame on the petty Ukrainian representatives who have embraced an organization which denies the Genocide of Armenians.

         And what was this "pet project"? I suspect it was recognition of the Holodomor, the Stalin-initiated genocide of millions of Ukrainians. I am appalled that Armenians, who have also suffered a genocide that evil people deny, would demean themselves by referring to one of the largest genocides of the 20th century as a "pet project." How shameful.
          

         1. “Pet Project”

            Dear Marsha,

            I am glad Mr. Kilic is no longer on the endowment board. The publication of the Keghart editorial preceded his departure. I hope his replacement isn't another member of the Anatolian Heritage or a similar organization which denies the Genocide of Armenians.

            The small type of WWI blurred to WWII to my eyesight. That's why I thought your father was interned in the Second World War. Sorry for the misunderstanding due to optical illusion.

            The editorial didn't suggest there was a conspiracy at the endowment board. It correctly pointed out that the majority of board members are Ukrainian, since it was the Ukrainian community which highlighted the WWI internment scandal to the Canadian government.

            The editorial didn't slam the Ukrainian community, as I said in my earlier reply to you. The editorial criticized Ukrainian community representatives who saw it fit to invite to their board a representative of the notorious Anatolian Heritage.

            I find it incomprehensible, puzzling that you–who knows better–would accuse Armenians of denying or even diminishing the horrific Holodomor, the genocide of the Ukrainians in the '30s. You also incorrectly concluded by "pet project" the editorial meant the Holodomor. The reference was to the disagreement of Ukrainians and Armenians about the proper way to display the major genocides of the 20th century–the Armenian, Ukrainian, Jewish, Cambodian, and Rwandan–at the Winnipeg museum.

            I see the Turkish consul is still trying to make headlines by referring to interned Ottoman citizens (overwhelmingly non-Turks) as Turks while "Canadaturk" publication claims that a single Turk (Alex Ossman), who was buried in Brantford, was wrapped in the Turkish flag and the Turkish flag was raised at the funeral. As you might know (certainly the honorable diplomat and the editor of "Canadaturk" would know) that there was no Turkish flag in 1912 when Ossman died. If a flag was present at the funeral of Ossman, it was the Ottoman flag, not a Turkish flag. Of course, making "Ottoman" and "Turk" synonyms is a brazen Ankara attempt to appropriate the culture, history, accomplishments and identity of Ottoman citizens who were not Turks. Any day now, we will hear that the grandparents of most Diaspora Armenians were Turks. Already the foreign minister of Turkey has changed the "Diaspora Armenian" identifier with the newfangled and deceptive "Turkish Diaspora" tag. We are all Turks now.

            I am surprised that in your comments to Keghart you have shied away from writing about the manipulations of the Turkish side. I hope when your books are published, if not earlier, you will expose the games Turkish officials and media are playing. 

            1. Clarification and Friendship

               The person buried in 1912 in Brantford's Mount Hope was listed in the local newspaper of the time as "Ahemed Osmon". Since he died in 1912, he certainly wasn't interned in 1914. So who this particular sojourner was isn't the point. One person buried in Kapuskasing was Alex Hassan–from the Ottoman Empire but definitely not a Turkish name.

               I would urge you to encourage members of interned groups to offer their services to the endowment board. There is still a vacancy. Other reps don't appoint. That's not the way a government-mandated board works. The reason there are many Ukrainians on the board is because most of the people interned were Ukrainian. Out of 8,000 interned, more than 5,000 were Ukrainian. There were fewer than 200 Ottoman citizens interned.

               I am relieved that the "pet project" was not the Holodomor. Of all the injustices I've written about, I've only received hate mail and death threats for writing about one–the Holodomor. The Holodomor denial machine is alive and well, alas. I have never received death threats or hate mail for writing about the Armenian Genocide, although my books have been "challenged" by Turkish groups– i.e.– a legal process to have them pulled from schools. The challenges were not successful.

               Ukrainians and Armenians should be working together for recognition of their eerily parallel histories. Please know that I am a true friend of the Armenian community.
                

10. Genocide Issue

    People who comment on so called Armenian genocide first should know when the term was defined and its meaning.  Armenians were called as "nobel millet" under Ottoman rule and were promoted to highest levels in the government. The trouble started when they listened to western powers by the end of  the nineteenth century.   Then they joined forces with invading Russian armies, cut off Ottoman supply lines and terrorized the villages.  I want to know which country gave a red carpet treatment to rioting groups during a war.   Armenians have the backing of Russia and invaded Nagorno Karabagh.  This was the same situation to  what is happening in Ukraine today.   

    Losses were huge from all sides until 1915 due to relocation, harsh climate, famine and intercommunal war.  Since the description of events were not accepted as genocide by historians and by courts (December 17, 2013 decision of European Court of Human Rights also did not find enough evidence for genocide), Armenians first tried terrorism.  Now they keep on trying to persuade politicians.  

    Right now Armenia is landlocked, there are over 40,000 illegal Armenian workers in Turkey.   I suggest that we leave history to politicians and genocide determination to courts and move on.  

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