17 replies to this topic

[15levels]

This is extremely important.

Dear friends, please help us collect information and photographic evidence of the cultural genocide perpetrated against Armenians in Ottoman Empire. Please send us any available information/photographs of Armenian writers, musicians and intellectuals slain in 1915; the Armenian churches/monasteries distroyed by Ottomans in the years of the genocide and the following decades.
Its very important for our project.

Please reply ASAP. Thank you much in advance.

[ November 07, 2001: Message edited by: MosJan ]

[MosJan]

We have decided to reopen this topic...
i would like to ask all of you to be kind to each other, and respect if you will.
It is important that we treat everyone in a polite and respectful manner.

MOvses

[aurguplu]

dear rouben,

i have already put the first half of the list of the ottoman armenians of note under famous armenians. i hope to be able to post the second half sometime next week.

some of those slain in 1915 are mentioned as such (not in the armenian genocide, of course, but armenian "incidents"). it is a very depressing list, as you can see quite a few individuals who had rendered valuable services to both the armenian and the turkish nations.

the details of the source i took them from are there, the book is freely available in turkey.

the free circulation of such books gives credence to my conviction that the turkish government is easing the ban on the subject, and as i said before, we may well see the official recognition of the genocide sometime this decade. such publications help the formation of a public opinion inside turkey that will be favourable to the recognition.

regards,

[15levels]

Dear Ali,

Thank you for the posting. I only would like to note that the work of virtually all turkish organizations in Europe consists of denial and cover-up and in the most fierce manner. Armenians, the victims of the genocide in 1915 and their descendants, fall victim to propoganda and agitation, blackmail and sabotage in present day throughout the world. Netherlands is a good example, the Katch'kar errected in Assen and mass hysteria on side of turkish organizations in Holland proves that Ankara is keeping very tight grip even on those turks who live in a free society outside Turkey. Soon there will be another court ruling regarding Assen, more publicity we get out of it, better will it serve our cause which is just.

I thank you for taking rational approach on this subject, you are very rare and perhaps the only person of turkish origin to which opinion people (at least myself) listen to.

Best regards,

Rouben

[ThornyRose]

What about my bringing up the controversy over Şerare Yetkin's work on Turkish carpets and whether some of them might indeed have more to do with Armenians than they might with Turks? Don't they mean anything to you?

[aurguplu]

thorny,

i refer you back to my earlier posting on this particular subject.

i used to know a thing or two about carpets in my student days, have been actively researching them, both in turkey and outside it, and have rarely encountered any carpet, kilim, cicim, zili, sumak labeled as armenian. the few instances where i saw armenian works was one saddlebag in kuşadası, a few pieces in the shop of a relative of mine, and pictures of some karabagh pieces in a western book. in the west, the main market for carpets, the carpet business is a huge one, and armenians are very prominent figures in it. during my eight-year long stay in europe (england, france, italy, belgium, switzerland) i have never encountered an expert on carpets talk about armenian carpets. this is not to say that they don't exist, but they obviously do not constitute a major armenian art form. the architecture, stonework, metalwork, jewellery, watchmaking, and miniature-painting of the armenians, on the other hand, is mentioned everywhere. this is in fact very logical, for carpet weaving by definition is a nomadic art form, it is the furniture and dwelling of the nomad, and the two greatest carpet producing nations of history, the turks and the persians, are both nomadic in origin; whereas the armenians, sedentary since probably 800 b.c., are specialists in architecture and stonework, as a logical outcome of their lifestyle.

now we must of course be against non-turkic work being ascribed to turkic peoples, but we must not get carried away and ascribe our own works to others. i recall having a heated debate with some "expert" on the art of the levant, who commented on some pieces of carpets that they were greek and armenian, and went on to provide a very tortured explanation what some of the motifs meant. as he didn't have a clue as to what he was talking about, he was bullsh*tting. when i asked them what some specific signs on the works meant, he gulped, gasped for air, provided several contradictory statements in the same explanation, in brief, made at tilt of himself, at which point i lost patience and pointed out that the signs in question were the tribal insignia of the afshar and kayı tribes, both of which i happen to belong to (my mom is kayı, my dad afshar, but since they know zilch about turkish ethnography, they only have the haziest notion what the names mean). he didn't know where to look.

if you happen to visit a european museum, and see islamic works of art, they are usually labelled "asia minor", without the word "turk" ever present. it takes some familiarity with the various islamic styles and the specific art in question to realise that they are turkish, i even recall having warned some museum staff at one occasion that a work they had labelled as "persian" (a piece of calligraphy, was in fact the work of a well known turkish calligrapher from istanbul, whose work i had seen in books, private collections, and had even touched one at my master's workshop!

the attitude in europe against turkish artistic achievements stems from the now debunked notion of turkish ineptitude for fine arts. increased tourism, better museums, better catalogues, international exhibitions like that on suleyman the magnificent years ago and the sabanci calligraphy collection more recently, and most importantly, scholarly works conducted by european and american experts help to dispel that myth. we should not import a prejudice on turks inside turkey that is dying out in europe itself.

cheers,

[aurguplu]

dear rouben,

thank you for your reply. it is understandable that the work of most (though not all) turkish organisations even outside turkey re the genocide concentrate on its denial and cover-up, because 1) it is the policy of the turkish state, and 2) the turkish people are deliberately kept ignorant on this issue, so the turks who defend the turkish position outsde turkey genuinely believe that they are on the right side and you wrong, 3) they are usually confronted with xenophobia, turcophobia, discrimination and racism in europe, and naturally develop a defensive attitude, 4) the genocide issue keeps being reheated whenever there is an election in germany or france, or some international problem, so turks (rightly) think that those who bring it up do so to further their own interests, and don't care a bit if there was a genocide or not, 5) the issue is brought up by europeans, themselves seasoned practicioners of genocide, and 6) the genocide issue rarely comes on its own: it is usually attached to some greek and/or kurdish action and attempts to bring turkish territorial integrity in question. this naturally puts turks into psychological trenches, who have genuine - and not totally unfounded - concerns that their sovereignty and territorial integrity is still questioned by the west. this feeling has been exacerbated by the bosnian genocide and the russian action in chechnya (we have the impression that the west acts if it is christians that are killed, and just watches if it is muslims that are killed), and the current afghan war does not help to improve things. the ongoing occupation of about a fifth of azerbaijan outside nagorno-karabagh and the one million internally displaced azeris, plus the uighur genocide currently underway in sinkiang (chinese turkestan) also do little to help your cause, especially the former.

so the armenian genocide turns into a huge snowball of international conflicts when it comes attached to other issues. turks also - like anyone else - tend to react negatively to attempts to force the recognition of a crime they genuinely believe they did not commit. maybe my experience concerning the genocide may give you some helpful ideas as to how to approach a turk regarding this matter:

my family was involved in politics since ottoman days until the last decade, and one member of my family was a member of ittihat ve terakki during the genocide. now the genocide was planned by a secret clique inside the ittihat ve terakki, and no-one except talat and enver and possibly one or two more figures knew its true nature until it had actually started and reports reached istanbul of the atrocities that took place in eastern anatolia. the deportation itself was not much different from similar measures taken during wartime by many nations, including the usa (wwii, the japanese americans). what people realised too late was that it was being used as a cloak to kill off the armenians altogether and not simply to relocate them temporarily.

the fact that the reality of the armenian "incidents", as they are called in turkey, differed substantially from the official version, was first mentioned to me by my late grandfather about a year before he passed away (i was 14). my dad's wet nurse was an armenian lady "whose two sons had gone in the killings", as my grandmother had put it. so there were indeed killings in which people had died, which was news to me. then i spent long years in the west at high schools and university, during which i had ample opportunity to be exposed to the armenian version of events. i had at first protested like any "good turk", but my earlier exposure to some of the reality prevented my protests to turn into the hysteria that turks usually fall victim to in this issue. since i was a curious and reading guy with quite some international experience by then, i viewed the evidence in front of me (from turkish, armenian, german, and other sources) and concluded that there was indeed a genocide. one of the most shocking facts that i had discovered was that the armenian and turkish versions mainly differ in three points, i.e. the numbers of the dead, armenian treachery during wwi, and the intent, but that they do not differ in the fact that a substantial portion of ottoman armenians had died, and that the armenian population of turkey was reduced through killings and deportations to a fraction of what it was before. two the most surprising discoveries i made was that the official turkish version did actually fit the internationally accepted definition of genocide to a significant extent, and that the genocidal nature of the incidents (the intent) was actually mentioned in contemporary turkish sources, which were - and still are - freely available in turkey. most turks do not realise that, because they do not study it systematically, they dismiss it merely as an attempt at destroying turkey.

i believe it to be important to note that never in my life had i been subjected to pressure to accept the genocide. i came to my own conclusions from the evidence before me. and therefore i do not believe i) that turks will not accept the genocide except under pressure, and ii) that turks will accept the genocide if enough pressure is applied.

i posted numerous entries in various places in this forum, where my views can be seen in greater detail. i invite you to have a look at them.

i think it would be more fruitful to get guys from both sides together who are agreed on some crucial basic points such as the fact of the genocide, and then discuss what can actually be done. i would be willing to help.

regards,

[ November 09, 2001: Message edited by: aurguplu ]

[aurguplu]

dear rouben,

i doubt that the turkish state exerts any significant pressure on turkish expatriates in europe or the usa on the subject of genocide and other issues, for the following reasons:

1. they can't. turks outside turkey are by definition outside the grip of the turkish state, and even if the government uses their families back in turkey to blackmail them (something that i have not heard reported), the pressure they will face from the eu and the usa will force them to back down,

2. they don't need to. since our entire nation has been brainwashed on this issue for three generations, the turks have a natural instict to see an attempt at turkey's very survival whenever they are confronted with the word "genocide". you really have to neither motivate nor force any turkish community to act against any such attempt, they will do it instinctively. and the fact that they are getting the treatment they are getting in europe as individuals (especially in germany) doesn't help to change the long-entrenched belief that christendom as a whole will do anything to destroy the turks.

3. they don't care. all warfare, including propaganda warfare, costs. you have to be willing to pay the price if you expect to win the war. in the case of propaganda warfare this is mostly cash. not the sort of amount that will rock the finances of any nation, but the sort of amount that no poor student, or student body, or expat ngo, or lone businessman can provide. turkish governments and business circles have been notoriously stingy when it comes to financing turkish propaganda outside turkey. i know this personally, as i was a member of the ottoman society at oxford university in the late 1980s, which wound up after two years because the government, the business circles, individual turkish businesses in england, couldn't come up with even a few hundred pounds per year to finance the society. we didn't have money to mail party invitiations.

so don't you worry about any turkish state activity of consequence against genocide affirmation. there wasn't one, there isn't one, there won't be one. the guys would rather buy themselves new mercedeses and seaside mansions and holidays in switzerland than finance anything that is ostensibly in the service of turkish propaganda.

regards,

[THOTH]

Ali,

You are incorect concerning Armenian carpets. I not only own a few, I have several books on them and their history (perhaps I can post some facts/history) - and I have been to an exposition that focused on them (along with other carpets from the Caucuses) - several years ago at the National Textile museum in Washington DC. I don't claim to be an expert (Its not really my thing and my wife actually know more then I - having bought carpets in Turkey, Cyprus and elsewhere) - but I know that Armenian carpets have a very long history - are a major art form among (traditional village) Armenians and they have unique patterns/designs that differ from most Turkish (and Turkick) carpets.

Otherwise, I do understand the points you are trying to make regarding the naysaying of Turkish cultural/artistic acheivements...

Winston

[THOTH]

Ali,

Again I commend you for your rational, informed, and courageous stand regarding the Armenian Genocide. We can only hope that there are (or at least in time will be) many more such as yourself in Turkey.

Winston

[khodja]

Ali,

The depths of your understanding of the issues continues to astound me. You are such wonderful resource in educating Armenians as to the dynamics of what is transpiring in the Turkish community. A key point that you have made is what fuels Turkish xenophobia is the miserable treatment they get from Christian Europe. Irrational Armenian hatred of present-day Turks does nothing to ameliorate the differences between our peoples but fuels Turkish intrasigence on the Genocide issue.

[khodja]

Ali,

BTW, when do you anticipate completing your translation work so that you can post the remainder of the names of Ottoman Armenian notables from volume 2?

[Boghos]

Indeed, Winston you are quite right. Armenians have been making carpets for a long time. I have also a number of Armenian inscribed pieces and own several books on Armenian carpets. As much scholarship as Ali shows I think he is incorrect in saying that carpets are exclusive to nomadic people. Carpets have been an absolutely common feature of most villages in the Caucasus, and many of the so called Caucasian carpets could be called Armenian. Karabagh is just but one of the types of Armenian carpets. Carpets are, and were a feature of people´s life everywhere in Anatolia and the Caucasus.

Moreover if you find a carpet woven by a Cristian (that is with crosses or cross-like symbols for example, but not only) odds are that it was an Armenian. It is true that there are carpets woven by Muslims that were simply copied, and the other way around is also true.

Carpets have been a part of Armenian life for a very long time.

[MJ]

Just on a capcity of corraborative information... both of my grnadmothers where carpet/rug wovers.

[aurguplu]

dear hagarag,

i have actually completed the second part of the list, but right now i am completing a translation (of something much duller, just to earn some money), and as soon as that is over i shall post the list. i hope it will be sometime later tomorrow or wednesday at the latest.

cheers,

[aurguplu]

ok everyone,

i could not have known the importance of carpet-weaving amongst armenians as well as you do, so it looks like i was wrong (but i had not said that armenians didn't weave carpets or anything like that).

you will probably know that one of the oldest known human settlements that could be called a city was unearthed at çatalhöyük by the british archaeologist james mellaart (whom i have had the pleasure of getting acquainted with personally). mellaart (much later) published a two?-volume set on the site, in which he gives pictures and drawings of the motifs found at çatalhüyük and compares them to the textile motifs of the turkish carpets still woven in the area today. you really don't need to be an expert to notice the obvious continuity in many examples (though in some cases he may have jumped to premature conclusions).

he had also related the following story to my professor at oxford, prof. geoffrey lewis: as he was digging in çatalhöyük, he had noticed hand figures stamped on the walls in red ochre (you put your hand on the wall and draw its contours in red ochre, or you dig your hand in red ochre and stamp it on the wall) in arrangements. he then noticed something he hadn't noticed before in the neighbouring village: the same hand stamps on the same kind of walls with the same red ochre. when asking what they meant, the villagers simply said "anane (custom)".

eleven thousand years!

what happened to anatolia is this:

anatolia has been invaded by countless different people in history. none of these invaders eradicated the former inhabitants of the place, and each added something of its own. there have also been countless changes of ethnicity and linguistic affiliation, so that today there is practially no way of telling a turk from a kurd, or a kurd from an armenian, or an armenian from an assyrian, or an assyrian from a greek etc. you could tell different people from different regions to some extent until the turn of the century, but with the advent of the 20th century and increased mobility, even that has become all but impossible in major migration receiving cities. so this whole thing about this nation stole that from that nation in anatolia is groundless. a sizeable portion of turkish speakers of today are the descendants of armenian speakers only a few centuries ago, and you can repeat the same with any combination of peoples who are known to have been in anatolia ad infinitum. that's why i choose to cherish the sheer complexity of anatolian culture as it is and not try to divide it into artificial compartments of ethnicity, language and religion (race? in anatolia? come on!), and i invite all anatolians to do the same rather than bicker about what motif belonged to whom.

cheers,

[aurguplu]

o.k., thoth & boghos,

i have been misunderstood. i did not claim that carpets were exclusive to nomads, or that armenians never wore carpets.

we know that there was carpet and rug weaving in anatolia by the time the iliad was composed (homer talks about them), and very possibly much earlier. advances in archaeology tend to 1) constantly push the dates of several basic inventions such as pottery, weaving, plant and animal domestication and farming, and 2) reveal the multiple origins of these activities, i.e. that they were probably invented independent in several different parts of the world at different dates. the activity of making yarn out of plant and animal (especially plant) fibres is now known to go back to at least 30,000 years. the dog is now known to be domesticated several times from several independent breeds, pottery has been invented in different places several different times, the same goes for agriculture and metallurgy.

one more thing about christian symbols: turks freely use them everywhere, and also something as basic as a cross motif was around long before christ. it is the other, more complex, motifs that show unmistakable signs of cultural cross-fertilistion and continuity.

cheers,

[aurguplu]

dear hagarag,

thank you very much for your comments, and may i say you hit the nail in the head in your last sentence (to drive it deeper, may i add: the turkish intransigence generated by the armenian stance makes it difficult for turks like me to expose my countryme to unpalatable truths of the past. turks know that their ancestor did terrible things to other peoples in the past, just as everyone else (and they were done terrible things, too, just as everyone else), but tend to turn into oysters when these facts come attached with claims that attack their territorial integrity, sovereignty and, in some cases, very existence).

i do not like turkish intransigence, i try to combat it, but i cannot fail to note that it is only human nature to respond in such a manner if you are in our shoes.

ragards,