Keghart
By Jasmeet Sidhu, Toronto Star Blog, May 27 2010
The first thing I immediately noticed when I arrived in Turkey, was the price to get into the country. While British and American VISAs were only about $20, Canadians had to pay a whopping $60 for a VISA to enter the country. I never really thought about why, until we met with members of the Turkish foreign ministry in Ankara, Turkey.
By Jasmeet Sidhu, Toronto Star Blog, May 27 2010
The first thing I immediately noticed when I arrived in Turkey, was the price to get into the country. While British and American VISAs were only about $20, Canadians had to pay a whopping $60 for a VISA to enter the country. I never really thought about why, until we met with members of the Turkish foreign ministry in Ankara, Turkey.
So when we met with members of the Turkish foreign ministry in the capital, Ankara, we weren’t sure what to expect. Though we hadn’t told them that this was a topic that we specifically wanted to discuss, as if reading our minds, an Armenian historian who had once worked in Canada joined our meetings, and the discussion inevitably went towards the Armenian genocide for the majority of the meeting. It was a fairly amicable and pleasant meeting, however, with an obvious agenda on their side to get their story across to Canadian students who would inevitably be discussing their thoughts with other Canadians (like I am right now).
The narrative that the foreign ministry put forward was emphasizing a lack of intent, and relying on the legal definition of the genocide to put into question "the events of 1915" as they were referred to in the meeting. Indeed, "genocide" was not even a legal term back in 1915 and the convention on genocide did not exist until 1948, so how can one declare a genocide to have happened?
Also, genocide needs intent to eliminate an entire groups of people. This, one member of the Turkish foreign ministry declared, did not exist. As well, they argued, Turkey has always been open about this issue and has argued for a joint historical investigation with Armenia to discover what really happened in 1915, but Turkey claims that Armenia are not open to the process or willing to open its private records on the event. Probably the most fascinating part of the discussion was when the foreign ministry urged us to be "Canadian" and live up to "Canadian values" by having an open mind and listening to both sides of the story. They argued that they were being accused of the most heinous crime and urged a proper historical investigation before parliaments pass judgments on controversial aspects of history, for which they have no role.
I walked away from the meeting not necessarily sure what to believe, but feeling compelled to read and research more about this dark aspect of Turkish history. And I suppose that was the real purpose of this meeting, whether we had just heard propaganda or the "memory record of another people" as it was called — to not depend on simply just one side of the story, and to be your own critic of events and issues by doing the research yourself and coming to the best possible conclusion you can.
Jasmeet Sidhu is a graduate of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto. She worked for the Star in the radio room last summer, and writes a blog for the Star on climate change, where she covered the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen. In mid-June she will join the Star’s summer intern program. Follow Jasmeet on Twitter.
Keghart.com welcomes Jasmeet Sidhu’s article, but encourages its readers to respond to gross misconceptions that have appeared in her piece, such as Canada being the only country that has recognized the Genocide of Armenians, the Armenian archives not being open for studies, etc.
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5 comments
I would give this woman an F
Here is her email address: [email protected]
She is supposedly a star and a genius. Ha! Read all about her here: http://jasmeetsidhu.com/
Ms. Sidhu
I walked away from the meeting not necessarily sure what to believe, but feeling compelled to read and research more about this dark aspect of Turkish history. And I suppose that was the real purpose of this meeting, whether we had just heard propaganda or the "memory record of another people" as it was called — to not depend on simply just one side of the story, and to be your own critic of events and issues by doing the research yourself and coming to the best possible conclusion you can.
She is disingenous . If she knew that she was going to discuss the Armenian genocide with Turkish Foreign Offce members why did she not prepare herself . Why did she not arm herself with all the possible knowledge? After the meeting she was not sure what to believe and she has to do more research.
WOW…..Sorry lady…..your remarks are paper thin and you were the subject of a great Turkish snow job….
Sidhu and Turkey
Sidhu and Turkey
However, she exposed her unfamiliarity with the topic when she wrote that Canada is the only country that recognizes the Genocide of Armenians. In fact, more than 20 countries do so, including Russia, France and Uruguay. The latter recognized the Genocide in 1965–long before university student Ms. Sadhu was born. In a number of instances she also let the Turkish allegations stand without a rebuttal. The most egregious of this being the Turkish claim that Armenia, unlike Turkey, refuses to open its archives to scholarly research.
Another Turkish propaganda gimmick which she allowed to go without reply is Ankara’s game-playing that the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkey in 1915 couldn’t have been a genocide because the word had not been coined in 1915. In other words, if there is no word to describe an act, that act couldn’t have taken place! People don’t dream up a word and then reify it. First comes the act and then its description. I would bet that the world hadn’t coined the words "flood’ or "deluge" before the globe was covered in water, according to biblical tradition. There’s also a voluminious library by non-Armenian scholar verifying the Genocide of Armenians. Ms. Sidhu is inexplicably silent about this important fact.
I would like to thank Sidhu for pointing out that Turkish officials had patronizingly urged the visiting study group "to be Canadian" and to live up to "Canadian values." This is racist balderdash. It insults Sidhu and others who are New Canadians. The shameless and racist Turkish officials were blatantly saying that some of the students, having non-Canadian ethnic backgrounds, were deficient in logic and in such human values as looking at both sides of a story.
Finally, I am optimisitic about Ms. Sidhu. After all, she wrote that following the "educational" trip, she felt compelled to read and research more about this dark chapter of Turkish history." I am looking forward to reading her next piece–presumably the one she would write after reading and researching the Genocide of Armenians.
Jasmeet Sidhu’s “Turkey diary: Some Final Thoughts”
TheStar.com
Turkey diary: Some Final Thoughts
By Jasmeet Sidhu
The level and intensity of the response compelled me to write a follow-up post.
The purpose of this blog as designed by senior editors charged with training and development at the Toronto Star, was to provide a forum for student interns and student journalists to write and share their experiences, both within the journalism world and their activities outside of it.
I was invited to write about my experiences in Turkey this past month to provide an exploratory perspective on the country and the issues the country is facing based on the people I was fortunate enough to meet while there — all with the full disclosure that I am still a student and still learning the various topics that I brought up in my post.
Referring to my post on the Armenian genocide, I first want to clarify that I am by no means questioning whether the horrible events of 1915 took place — I wrote the blog because I felt that it was interesting to share the strong standpoint that members of the Turkish government were putting forward, vastly in contrast to much of the international political community and academic consensus on the issue.
When I wrote in the post about the urge to do more research after the meeting and to become your own critic of events, I was speaking for my newfound curiosity to sit down with several books on the topic, and to try to understand how and why the Turkish government continues with their narrative and disbelief of the genocide despite the strong scholarly evidence and the consensus of the international political community, documents and books that I wanted and would like to read in the coming months.
Finally, there is an error I would like to correct from the original post – there have been several governments around the world that have officially recognized the Armenian genocide, including Canada, with this link providing the list of countries as one commenter kindly provided.
Having now returned to Canada after a month in the country, I maintain that Turkey is one of the most interesting and dynamic countries moving deeper within the 21st century, and extremely beautiful, from the mountains of Cappadocia, the ancient mosques of Istanbul, to the ruins along the Mediterranean coast.
I am looking forward to watching how the country navigates its position along the traditional East-West divide in the international political community, and how it chooses to handle the various domestic issues it is facing, with the military, women and gay rights, and with ethnic minorities.
Jasmeet Sidhu is a graduate of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto. She worked for the Star in the radio room last summer, and writes a blog for the Star on climate change, where she covered the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen. In mid-June she will join the Star’s summer intern program. Follow Jasmeet on Twitter.
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