aurguplu

to everyone i see a gradual deterioration of my typing abilities in the postings, sorry. it's eithe that compaq keyboard which belongs to the garbage can or my mongol genetics which produced the fingers i have.

steve, you had touched a sensitive subject, but not the one you are thinking about. i guess no human society is completely free from some kind of racial prejudice. what i was referring to was institutionalised racism in the society's structure (as opposed to the state structures that have it). as a turk in europe i have had first hand experience of european racism (most of it in britain) even though my looks are european, i think i pretty well know how a racist mind works, an therefore i claim that the same thing is not prevalent in turkey. i regret one thing, though, i would agree with you that some form of racism is there and is on the increase, but that form is the one we have imported from the west via the movies, comic strips etc, and a mutated form of it has unfortunately been applied to kurds, maybe to the greeks and armenians (we had something against the arabs before that). it is something i deplore, but i can see the mechanics of it: the turks who experience racism in europe give it back to non-turks at least partly to eliminate their inferiority complex.

quote:Originally posted by nairi: quote:Originally posted by aurguplu:by the way, even though the genocide is a fact, western - especially german - sensitivities regarding it may indeed have something to do with this. imagine: if the ag weren't there, they would be the inventors of genocide. and as we know very well, they may well be the inventors of it, since they were involved in the ag as well. cheers, We were Turkey's subjects, not Germany's. You could have stopped the Germans from helping you plan and execute a genocide.nairi i am not shrinking from our responsibility. i am merely pointing out that these guys share some of the guilt with us.

quote:Originally posted by hagarag:For an Armenian to understand Armenian vengeance, one would have had to taste it themselves. I have tasted Armenian vengeance and I am an Armenian (if 7/8 Armenian qualifies as such). To undertand Turkish vengeance, one would have had to have tasted it themselves. I suspect that Ali, despite his family's prominence has been "jostled" by Turks due to his Oxford European perpectives. this is not untrue. i have been jostled, but no hard feelings. after all, life is a challenge, and since we are a bunch of barbarians , i do not subscribe to "turning the other cheek", but hit back when i am hit. and since i am a bit of a sturdy guy both physically and argumentatively, i tend to have things my way. people attack you the more for it if you show the slightest sign of weakness in holding your own. cheers,

steve, 1. there are turkish stereotypes, o.k., but many strereotypes that you refer to, especially the "laz" stuff, are used by the laz themselves. we have an entire literature of laz jokes, just as there are frisian jokes in germany, breton jokes in france etc. i have a ton of karadenizli friends, quite a few of them laz, (all karadeniz is usually referred as laz whereas the real laz are concentrated in a few places) and i know most of my laz jokes from them. 2. the turkish word for negro is zenci. but here, i have never heard zenci used in a derogatory context. i had heard one or two times "arap" used in that context, but that's about it. also, referring to blacks these days "siyah" or "siyahi" or "afrikalı" is more common. i observe "zenci" is gradually falling out of usage. we have quite a few black sportsmen from africa, brazil etc., and they are referred to as "siyah/siyahi, afrikalı" but not "zenci". i had heard on one occasion one of those "popular" turkish singers, of whom there are a dime a dozen, whose boyfriend was one of those sportsmen, and when it hid the tabloid lines that another singer had eyes on him, she said "arabımı kimseye kaptırmam", but it is pretty obvious that there was no racism involved here! 3. i take your word for your experience wit the mhp guys over there re the use of the word "armenian". i have heard precisely the same from an american racist guy when i was a student at oxford, who used the term "arabs" and "iranians" in precisely the same fashion. am i to deduce from that that "arab" and "iranian" are swearwords in american english? besides as a turk i would not agree that the mhp can be representative of my nation in any way. would you like the national front guys taken to be repesentatives of britain? besides, that story about the pkk that i told you about is true. 4. "kırk arabın aklı bir incir çekirdeğini doldurmaz" i had first heard this in its entirety guess where: at oxford from my tutor! it is true that as a nation if we are racist about anyone, these are the arabs (i am not sure that here the word was used to mean "black" rather than "arab"). cheers,

quote:Originally posted by MJ:Ali, Few more words. This time 10 minutes, I guess. Besides, my focus is not in place, tonight. I have not asked for lands in this forum. As I have said time-and-time-again, “asking lands” is not individuals’ or organizations’ prerogative. It is states’ prerogative. If I have made any comments regarding Turks not having any use of the lands subject to discussion, I have never meant to say that therefore I expect that Turks will give us these lands, or I have suggested that we should ask for lands. I know very well how lands are acquired. My comment has meant to articulate an opinion (strongly held, however) that Turks did not have any strategic reasons to do what they did to Armenians nor to mutilate the Republic of Armenia (in 1920-1921), jointly with the Russians (and otherwise they couldn’t do it at the time). However, I am aware that some, here, have asked for lands from you. What can I say… I am sure that I have articulated it a couple of times, but I will do it one more time. I have an impression that you are denying the right of Armenians to want or ask or demand lands. I have a strong impression that you are denying the right to the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire to have their own country. This is what frustrates me. I have also mentioned multiple times in this forum the Russio-Turkish Treaty of 1921 and its derivative four-lateral treaty. Of the same year. I am trying to say that these two treaties, which up to today remain the main treaties regulating the international relations of the region have been and remain gross violations of all norms, they are the ones which manifest mutilation of our body, and up to today, they restrict our sovereignty. And I am saying that the Republic of Armenia has a legitimate claim, here. By the way, I am absolutely convinced that if it is not the concern of Turkey for the revision of this treaty, it would recognize the Genocide without any significant hesitation. Politically relevant Armenians are the ones who are heading the Armenian government. I am not aware of them putting forward land claims. I indeed think that it is a mistake by them not to pursue the annulment of the treaties mentioned by me above. But it is their call. To summarize, I am just inviting you to recognize that Armenians have legitimate claims and rights – including land claims and rights on lands. I am not going to ask for lands over the Internet, and I don’t believe that you are going to deliver them to me by email. I hope that I have made myself somewhat clear. About the Diaspora, again. Just the availability of members of cabinet of Diasporan origin does not constitute anything resembling a Diasporans running Armenia. This opinion is totally baseless. As much as I remember, there have been four Diasporans holding high profile positions in ROA. Sebuh Tashchian was the Minister of energy of Armenia in its toughest years – early to mid 90. He is an incredibly positive personality, however he was an apolitical technocrat – a professional in the area of energy. Raffi Hovhannessian was the first Minister of Foreign affairs. I think he was a good man, and I agree with a lot of views that he had expressed. However, I think the correct procedure in governmental affairs is this – you cannot be in the cabinet and disagree with your President and make public statements contrary to his political line. You resign first, and then go against the President. He didn’t realize it. So he got fired. Libaridian was one of the main advisers of the President. His views are well known and his inclinations towards the normalization of relations with Turkey are well publicized (I happen to agree with all of his views except those associated with how to proceed with the treaties mentioned above). Finally, the current Minister of Foreign affairs, Oskanian, is born Diasporan. However, as much as I know, he is a citizen of the ROA, and shares the views and executes the will of both President he has represented. Therefore, I have no idea what you are referring to, when talking about the ROA being run by Diaspora. However, other than the position of the Presidency of Armenia, any other position in Armenian can be held by foreign nationals – Armenians or not. And this is a good thing. Even the position of Presidency can be held by someone born elsewhere, only he/she should be a citizen of Armenia, and should have resided in Armenia for the last ten years prior to elections, I think. This is a positive thing, too. I just noticed your paragraph about the land claims and so on. Here is my position, Ali, again. Whether Armenia claims lands or not (and anything and anyone else is irrelevant in this context), that issue exists. Instead of drowing the perimeters of what is allowed us and what is not allowed us, I think you’d better face the issue. It is not right to sweep it under the rug or request from us to sweep it under the rug. It cannot happen anytime in the foreseeable future. You have made several comments about the Jewish Diaspora in the US. I happen to live in the US and have a pretty good understanding of New York. First, I’d like to say that it is not my place to make comments about the Jewish Diaspora. They are doing fine without my comments and remarks. My interests are confined to the Armenian reality in these issues. I don’t understand why you are perceiving the Diaspora as some kind of evil creature. After all, it is Turkey’s creature, if that is what we have to contemplate. As far as I am concerned, any Diasporan who has the interests of the Republic of Armenia in his/her heart and claims ownership of it, is fully entitled to any position in Armenia, as long as he/she accepts the constitution and the laws of Armenia and pledges loyalty to the Republic. If I know such Diasporan Armenians, and I do some, I would encourage them in any possible way to claim the Republic as their own. To the contrary, any Diasporan or others, who runs away from the [bitter] reality of the Republic, however contemplates on the subject of his/her “Western Armenia” or “Great Armenia,” is a coward in my mind. There are these too – a lot of them. This may be not a very direct answer to the issues you have raised regarding the Diaspora, but I think it is to the point. So, I think, you should rather embrace them, too. ROA indeed wants diplomatic relations with Turkey. ROA also would like to tap into the Turkish markets (it has such potential) and use the Turkish roads. It is not a secret. But isn’t this normal that we would want it. However, everything has its cost. If there is a perception in Turkey that any blockades or “sanctions” are going to make Armenians to negate their rights, it is a mistake. It is not going to happen. Also, in the big picture of things, in the view of the chaos that took place and was supposed to take place in Armenia, the best thing that Turkey could do for it was the blockade. This is a different topic, though. About your dishonesty… I don’t remember calling you dishonest. Though have stated that some of your remarks were disingenuous. That was my opinion. However, I think it is different from calling someone disingenuous. I don’t think that anyone here has alleged you being dishonest. Even Gamavor, who is not necessarily your sympathizer, as far as I can see, has recognized you being an honest man. I am tired, too, and as I said before, my focus was not quite in place – had had a couple of glasses of nice wine tonight. I just wanted to finish my interrupted reply to you. At some other occasion, maybe I can do a better job at it. Cheers, Martin martin, i am pressed for time, so this is going to be a partial reply: since i have joined this forum, we have come to agree on a number of very important points, the most important of them being the genocide being a genocide and the necessity of recognising it as such, apologising for, and paying reparations (i also honestly, seriously and pesistently propose that diaspora armenians eventually resettle in anatolia as first class citizens of a civilised tr, which as far as i understand you don't consider). we have been disagreeing on two main points: whether turkey has one or two entities to deal with, and whether the diaspora should be regarded as a body as serious as the roa in any discusions. you say that the roa is the sole such body, and that turkey should only deal with it and ignore the diaspora (please correct me if i read you incorrectly) or at least not hide behind the pretext of the differing diaspora stance to avoid communication with the roa. i say that we cannot afford to ignore the diaspora on the grounds of its numbers, financial and political power, and the very clear set of aims, one of which (the land) we - rightly - see as a threat to our existence as we know it. we are both right and wrong. you are right in saying that states deal with states. true. that's at least how it should be. but the fact is that it isn't. we have very extensive ties with israel, and we know full well how deeply the diaspora is involved in israeli affairs, including the palestinian question. we see a very comparable case with the armenian question, and the example is extremely relevant to us: zionism started as an intellectual movement in the 19th century, and with the presence of the ottoman empire in the region and the appalling conditions of the jews in most of europe, maybe no-one took it seriously save some jews. a century later israel was a reality and had kicked the butt of all the arab states that were more than twenty times its size, and the palestinians today are homeless. it is extremely important that you realise that we are not playing games here about this issue but are genuine: we want no change of borders. and i want this land issue dropped because i) as long as it exists there will be no solution to the ag problem, and i want one, and soon, and ii) i know how resilient my people are when it comes to defending their land. you may call it barbaric, and after all being drenched in blood is not civilised, but it keeps our land ours, at least that's the way our folks think. i want to see the land claims dropped because there will simply never be an atmosphere in turkey that will allow for such discussion to flourish. when i discuss certain issues with you, i do not only do it as an intellectual exercise, but as a part of something that i am trying to pursue here, however small my contribution may be. when i discuss the ag issue, it gives me certain ideas, makes me read more about it, reformulate my stance, and discuss it with my fellow turks in a more informed manner (by being more informed i mean that i am one of those few turks who care to listen to what the OTHER side has to say: most of us over here are engaged in "turk's propaganda to the turk": i cannot imagine a greater waste of time). now i have seen that with intelligent arguments, clear language, well-presented facts, and a balanced approach COMING FROM A TURK, and some guts (risk-taking), may i add, a number of turks can be made to at least consider the possibility that what transpired was indeed a genocide. now engaging in such a pursuit in turkey is not as dangerous anymore as many would rightly think, as i have found by trial and error (you do realise, don't you, mj, that my posting here which i am sure some turkish security official checks every now and then is a pretty risky business, and i am aware of it), and the fact that i have occasionally aired my views re ag in public (small discussions, no press invited), and i am still here, and am no government official. i am conducting this pursuit because i genuinely hope that at some very distant future turkey will recognise the genocide, but that wil not just "happen", especially without the efforts of turks like us. this is what i am doing, i am taking a risk, maybe, but i think it is worth taking and my nation will eventually gain more from it that it fears it will lose. i also think that ag recognition is a realisable aim whereas land claims are not. i do not "say "amen" to prayers that won't be realised" as we say in turkish, and land claims are such a prayer as far as i am concerned. plus, any discussion of turkish teritorial integrity by a turk can be taken to be tantamount to treason by the the population, and i am no traitor, nor do i want to be seen as one by my own people. a similar reason why we don't even consider discussing land claims is that the very acceptance of such a discussion is recognising - or rather, condoning - the possibility that it is something that might happen one day. this land claims issue is an ongoing war as far as we can see, and a war is not fought by guns alone. words, propaganda, bribery, threat, diplomacy are all part of it. most of warfare, especially today, is mental rather than physical. what we are fighting about is clear: eastern anatolia. the desire of the armenian side to bring the land claims to the discussion table is their first line of attack, and our refusal to accept to discuss it is our first line of defence. you might ask, well what happens, after all, if you just "have a dent" in what you see as your first line of defence? the answer is clear: the second line of defence is exposed to attack. you might ask of course whether we are fully at ease morally with the fact that the original inhabitants of the lands are gone: no we are not (i am not at least, and i know of many turks, not necessarily intellectuals, who aren't either). but here i must reiterate my oft-quoted native american/australian comparison, but this time to highlight a difference between the two situations rather than a parallel: the white americans and and australians are almost totally descended from the white settlers, and native ancestry amongst these populations is an exception rather than a rule, in fact it is a great rarity, and at least in australia, it s something still to be hidden rather than cherished (i understand that the few white americans who have native blood are very proud of it today, as opposed to thirty years ago), whereas in turkey the situation is the reverse: there is practically no turk without "native" blood, even the central asian refugees who came as late as the afghan war in the 1980s have started to mix with the locals, and in a great many cases, entire chunks of turks of today are just converted armenians, greeks, slavs etc. this is a fact that has always been known to us and only - unsuccessfully - repressed under the republic, which was trying to impose western concepts, one of which was nation-state, and a racial concept could not be divorced from that. neither our religion nor our concept of ethnicity or nationality ever excluded others who wanted to join us (this is how we became an empire), and it was a matter of course for us that some, if not most, of our ancestors were the local anatolians. and this is also a main reason why we do not even discuss the land claims: we are just as anatolian as you are. the language and ethnic consciousness that we have, along with certain cultural items, came from central asia. but most of our genes haven't: they are local. an enormous portion of our culture is local, not because we were mere savages incapable of anything cultural, so we took everything from you guys, but we ARE part you. we are the greeks, the armenians, the slavs, the georgians, the italians, the laz, the circassians, the kurds, the arabs, the persians, the this and the that PLUS the central asian turks and - in a few places - the mongols. looking from the perspective of a native anatolian and not the central asian conqueror, we chose - or were made to choose - to take over the conqueror's language and religion, and in return joined his ranks. we did not take his culture in bulk, we took some items, and we were made to shed only the language, the cross, and eating pork (not even wine). practically the whole rest of our culture survived, because we survived: the turkish carpets of anatolia are full of designs that go back 8000 years, in many cases the weaving tecchnique and the colour scheme are the main two things that survive from central asia. the same can be said of our architecture, arts and crafts, family life, everyday interactions, food and drink, even popular religion (why is anatolia full of saints and teir shrines when islam has no saints and shrines, ever thought of it?). we are the locals+the invaders. to tell us that we should get out to make room for you is to tell us to get out of places that we have been in for millenia. we have a right to it by blood, not the blood on our sword but the one in our veins. it is not our genes, culture etc. that are different from yours: it is our ethnic identity. turkish ethnic identity is not and has never been blood-based. one of the top aristocratic families of this country is the mihaloğulları family, and as you can judge by the name, they were originally greek. there is hardly a seljuk sultan without a greek mother, which practice continued under the ottomans. all this mingling for the past thousand years has produced "us" and has removed from you the right to sole property to the land, including on moral grounds, i am afraid. what do you say? in fact, it only now occurs to me that this was the underlying argument deep in my brains all along. why didn't it surface and i was forced to resort to others, i don't know. maybe it's my barbaric genes that made me shout at the top of my voice "we shall fight here, fight there, we shall never surrender (freely adapted from churchill). so in brief, the armenians are perfectly entitled to resettle in eastern anatolia as first-class citizen as far as i am concerned, and to recall a point that was raised by other members earlier on, it might have satisfied ethnic desires better if the country was called anatolia rather than turkey. maybe if it were called that way we would not be at eachothers' throats to draw the border here or there. but then again, it was called "turchia" by the italians by the middle ages (it is significant that the ottomans never called it "turkey") and only after the collapse of the empire and the establishment of the republic with a predominantly turkish population was the place finally called "turkey" by the local inhabitants. this name business is something that the turks will face in the not so distant future, with the kurds if not with you. i myself am pretty uneasy about the whole place being called "turkey", because we have not been able to divorce the name "turk" from its ethnic context (whether we have actually tried or not is a different matter), and still "turk" is considered as a primarily ethnic term. i must hasten to add, though, that i am fully in favour of keeping anatolia in one place since it is an entity in every sense of the word: geographical, geopolitical, demographic and cultural. the people of anatolia would be far better off in one big civilised anatolia than in several smaller parts of it: the sum is more than its parts. this may have been incomplete, but gotta dash now, will complete later on, cheers.

re "gavur" (turkish spelling) yes, i had missed that one. i'm not proud of it myself (i very innocently used the term "gavuristan" referring to europe, not meaning anything bad, until my ex-fiancé banned it), but believe it or not, i know of turkish armenians who use the term "gavur" in reference to the europeans, especially in conversations with us. in turkey the use of the term (apart from being disapproved of on grounds of political correctness) is gradually shifting in use from "infidel" to "european" or actually "anyone who doesn't like us: the uk is a "dost" if it supports our eu aspirations, and germany "gavur" if it doesn't. cheers,

quote:Originally posted by bellthecat:Dear Ali All those "reasons" you list for Turkey denying the Armenian genocide are simply not valid. The only reason Turkey denies the genocide is because Turkey has always denied the genocide. Turkey was denying the genocide as far back as 1915!! With such an overwhelming history of denialist statements and publications by the Turkish state and its representatives it is nearly impossible now for that state to start saying they were all lies. And it will continue to be impossible until the current ruling elites and establishments in Turkey lose their influences. This will probably never happen - unless Turkey joins the EU (and that is unlikely to happen). All the "reasons" you cite are not real reasons. They are just the "filler" material that Turkey has to use to fill all their propaganda statements and literature. And you can be sure more "reasons" are being concocted all the time. Take the curious theory presented (invented?) by one Erol Goka in the first issue of the Turkish propaganda periodical "Armenian Studies". He says that the Armenian genocide is mostly an invention of "western Christian countries" who are guilty about the Jewish holocaust and want to absolve their guilt by inventing another genocide to show they did not create the concept of genocide but "learnt it from the Turks". steve, 1. the reasons that i have posted above are valid, as far as turks are concerned. and since i am posting them as someone who openly recognises the genocide, you may well believe that they have a least a grain of truth in it. the line "turkey is denying the genocide because it has always done it" is a real non-sequitur. it's like saying the world is sitting on the back of a tortoise: when you ask what the tortoise is sitting on, you get the answer: "very clever, young man, but it's turtles all the way down". of course turkey was denying the genocide as far back as 1915: this was the time they were doing it! what did you expect, talat to hold a press conference and say "listen, we are killing off the armenian nation. don't bother us now, we are busy"? besides, turkey is easing the ban on genocide-related material flowing and freely circulating in turkey. it is of course producing its material on the same old lines, but the ultimate effect of this is to make people more aware of, and what is more, more inquisitive about, the whole issue, and being here, i am witnessing it on a weekly basis (during the week i just work too long hours to notice anything else). and i tell you one thing: turkey is giving a clear, if not loudly pronounced message to the armenian community: we want to end the blood feud, but not at the expense of our territorial integrity (and please no more protests that roa doesn't have land claims, and the diaspora doesn't matter. the diaspora does, and they matter. to us if not to you.). understand our sensitivities and let's solve this problem. and as far as the line of erol göka, it is not recent, it is at the very least twenty years old, i had heard it when i was a child, and had believed it then. by the way, even though the genocide is a fact, western - especially german - sensitivities regarding it may indeed have something to do with this. imagine: if the ag weren't there, they would be the inventors of genocide. and as we know very well, they may well be the inventors of it, since they were involved in the ag as well. cheers,

quote:Originally posted by bellthecat: quote: we have no anti-armenian folk literature that has to be weeded out to make it look respectable (that has to be done with all european literature re the jews, for instance). there are no racial armenian stereotypes in turkish folklore (other than a general notion that you are a trading and artistically gifted nation) the way there are jewish stereotypes in european folklore. there are no stories like "armenians eat muslim children for passover" in turkey. there is not a single abusive term that designates "armenian" in turkish that i know (and i am a linguist). Come on Ali! Human stereotypes are the basis of almost all Turkish humour, which is why I can laugh at it even though I don't understand most of the words. More seriously, PKK suporters were called "Armenians" by Turks not because they thought they were etnically Armenian but because "Armenian" was an abusive term to call someone. Like your "arap" (Arab) equivalent for the English word "nigger". And there is loads of anti Armenian (and Greek) literature produced, intended for the uneducated masses (home produced films, comic strips, etc.). steve, go learn some turkish before you say something like that, especially to a native turkish speaker who has been trained as a historian of the turkish language! now your points: human sterotypes are the basis of much humour. after all, humour is cruel and uses sterotypes everywhere. in turkish humuor, though, we don't have that sort of thing except the trash the the government pushes and even that is not at all taken on by the turks. there is a ton of anti-greek, anti-armenian and anti this and that literature, but a lot of it is state sponsored/financed, instigated etc., because turks left on their own just don't have the cultural baggage to produce that kind of stuff. besides, the public doesn't approve of it, and several journaliss were publicly criticised for that sort of thing in their own newspapers and were made to apologise (bedri koraman was one, for instance). and back to my original point, there is not a single term that i know that is - or has been - in use as a swearword for armenian. not even those who hate the armenians' guts have any other word for them other than "ermeni". there is no "nigger" in turkish relating to the armenians. very occasionally "rum" is used - and erroneously, may i add - as a derogatory term for the greeks, but since the greeks themselves used/use it for themselves, as a derogatory term it really cuts no ie, i am afraid! the pkk supporters were called "armenian" not beacuse the term has abusive connotations in itself (but i get your point, to call the muslim kurds who had fought/killed armenians just nne decades ago armenians might offend them), but there were bodies of pkk members retrieved from the battlefield who had not been circumscised. as there are quite a few villages in the east who are turkish/kurdish on the surface now but are armenian in origin (and as the surrounding population knows all about it) and still speak armenian in private (and are widely believed to practice christianity), there may well be a very big grain of truth in some of it. plus do not forget that the pkk carried out joint operations against turkey with asala and other armenian groups outside turkey (and neither side denied it), and were on several occasions reported to have carried out such operations in eastern turkey (the authenticity of this i do not know, but it is of course possible). so there may very well be a grain of truth in calling at least some of these guys "armenians". i myself have seen quite a few kurdish - and turkish - pkk symphatisers who, when the conversation deepened and mutual trust established, confessed that their grandmother/grandfather was armenian. armenian grandparents are quite common in that part of turkey. regarding the "arap" business: first of all, we call blacks arabs because we are a profoundly uneducated lot: your average turk cannot really tell the difference between an arab and an african, to him they are all darker even than us, they have a vague notion that there are also persians who are not arabs (to know that persians and arabs are not the same was a mark of education in my youth), and we do have as a nation the sort of prejudices that every imperial nation has: there was an irishman, a scotsman, a welshman, and an englishman type of thing. the term "arap" is never used in a derogatory context, in fact we had a very popular singer esmeray who recently passed away who was the masses' beloved "arap bacı". we have many things wrong with our nation, but racism european-style is not one of them, i am afraid. cheers,

quote:Originally posted by nairi:Dear Ali, I know the Genocide was more complex than many Armenians like to make it. And I'm sorry for offending and pushing you the way I did. I also sincerely apologize for all the innocent Turks who died during the Genocide or right after at the hands of Armenian vengeance. At the same time, I am very grateful for all our brave Turkish friends who saved so many of us during the most dangerous years. I truly hope you can forgive me. Sincerely yours, Nairi apology accepted. if i have offended, i offer mine as well. we are trying to end a blood feud here, and dealing with high tempers on both sides occasionally is part of the business, i am afraid. we have to get used to it. cheers,

quote:Originally posted by MJ:Ali, Let me express deep disagreement and disappointment with some of your elaboration. First, about the “center of the power of the empire being the Turkish nation, whose fatherland was the long neglected Anatolia.” I don’t understand at all what does this mean. Please explain me, first, what a “Turkish nation” meant at least from the perspective of the times subject to discussion. And what meant a fatherland for a “nation” who had invaded territories which could not in any possible way constitute fatherland in the context some of us are used to think about. To me the attitude of the young Turks to Armenians was very clear – Armenians where an instrument to be used in toppling the monarchy. Armenians did not join the Young Turks after the deposition of Abdul Hamid. Armenians were very instrumental in deposing him and had joined the Turkish revolutionaries from the very beginning. At least by 1905, the agenda of Independence of Armenia was out of the horizon of the Armenian Revolutionaries and the Reformation and the Revolution of Turkey was in. Armenian revolutionaries where in no way different from the Turkish Revolutionaries at the time – the ultimate betrayal of Armenian national aspirations had already taken place. In the big realm of things, I also consistently sense an underlying thesis in your contemplation – “we have done it, you have done it, we are almost even, let’s get over it and build together Turkey again.” And it disturbs me. It is clear that the sign of equality is the contemporary official Turkish line. I think it serves no purpose to give it to us, here, in this Forum, other than irritating the people. I have already contemplated on the subject of Turks losing “another inch of land. “ It was not Turks’ land to lose, in the first place. I have also contemplated about the “Russian threat.” This is a bogus argument. In fact, if anyone, Turks have been the threat in the region for centuries, and they have been the ones raiding the Southern borders of Russia,among other lands, as well as the Crimea for centuries. And if the Russians were seriously contemplating overrunning Anatolia, or at least if the Europeans, who you claim to be the foes of Turkey then and now, would not stand on the way of Russians, Turkey would’ve been wiped out from the pages of history centuries ago. Also, I am much disturbed in your attitude towards the “Armenian unrest.” Armenian unrest was not provoked by the Russians to any degree. First, you should not take the mentioned unrest “apart from being provoked by the appalling treatment of the Armenians in the 19th century.” How does one take such things “apart” is beyond my understanding. Freedom, Liberty and Sovereignty are fundamental premises of the history of nations. I am surprised that even after spending more than a year in this forum, if not for other reasons, you cannot understand these elementary things. I tend to come to an opinion that you merely cannot, since the ideals of Turkish imperialism are so deeply rooted in you. By the way – this pops out every now and then – I am not saying this out of anger or the like. Talk about Turkey not being regarded as Empire by young Turks… I also cannot understand why you are protesting the Russian meddling in the Balkan and other regions, while the Turkish meddling in any region is just a subject of pride for you, serving the purpose of the glorification of your “sword.” This is either very disingenuous and half-hearted, or you merely need to spend another year thinking about these, what one would think, transparent issues. I also have a reminder for the young Turks who want to build their neglected from the 16th century home. Don’t ever forget that your home is ‘our cemetery.” I also fail to believe lately that the “young Turks” you talk about in your message, “regret the recent past.” I have stopped believing in it for quite some time while following your materials. You are just searching for ways to get out of it and leaving behind the heavy legacy of your nation. You show no remorse, you just search for justifications – not any different from the official line of the Turkish government. If you had felt remorse, your bells would’ve “ding-danged” from a very different tower. I also have few words about your “open cards” play. Don’t ever overplay your cards. After all, your “size” doesn’t matter in “cards.” I remember calling your bluff off months ago, and you promised not to play that meaningless game of “Armenians becoming first-class citizens of Turkey by returning to their ancestral lands.” But you are doing it over and over again. Give us a little more credit, please, and understand that if we have to build something, that will be our own country - not somebody else’s. We may not have the military might of Turkey, and we may have deeper social and economic problems in Armenia than you have in Turkey. But things in our country may change with a snap of a finger, in the big realm of things, and we can easily recover. We have done it time-and-time-again. No matter how much we have fallen and how badly our moral has sunk, we have always demonstrated unparalleled resilience. While what Turkey has demonstrated for a century, now, if there is no one to plunder, it remains in eternal shambles. “None of us is proud of the past.” So what are you going to do about it? Warn us that if we don’t negate our rights, our “past” will become a reality again? What is your remedy for your and our past? Show us your remorse, first. And I don’t mean “your” in the generic sense of the word. Show me your remorse, Ali Suit. I fail to see it. As to your arguments about not taking lands from us but the Byzantine – it is very funny. It seems like you are “using” against me my own arguments in this forum (see /cgi-bin/forum/ultim...;f=18;t=000049). I am not talking to you about some esoteric ownership of some 1000 years old lands. I am not talking about such garbage as Sevres. I am talking about something very real – and you know it, and your government knows it perfectly, and this is what it is most concerned about. I am telling you that you have mutilated “my” body as late as in the last century. I am telling you that it hearts “me,” therefore I cannot forget about it. All you tell “me” is, “if you don’t want me to mutilate you further, then forget about it, and let’s sit together and mourn ourlosses.” It is absurd, Ali. And if this is something that Turks of your type cannot understand, there is no point to have any discussions with others. Also make sure that you understand how far do “your cards” take you – Trabezond is the only think which might be of interest to Armenia, economically speaking. But don’t exaggerate its importance to us so that not to illusion yourself trying to use it as a leverage over us. There exist two other Black see ports that we can have access to with less effort and less sacrifices. And I would translate here one of the absolutely correct arguments of one of our members – Georgians and Azeries have excellent relations with Turkey but it has not helped them to turn their countries into Paradise, as far as we are concerned. Believe me that many of us don’t feed ourselves with illusions, either. And before you promise us Paradise, which increasingly resembles the promise of one of the older Turkish members in this forum - Chircassian, “let’s make a deal – drop the Genocide allegations and any other type. Then, we may let you live and even have a role in the region.” It insults not only our emotions but also our intelligence – speaking of intelligence. Few last words. Never in our history, an Armenian Army has lost a battle to a Turkish Army – it has been quite the opposite any time the two armies have faced each other. Always remember this in case you decide to glorify the might of your sword, next time. This may require a little research from you, though, since I am sure they don’t teach it in Turkish schools. About Diaspora. Armenia is not run or financed by the Diaspora, as you have claimed lately. True, Armenia gets some help from Diasporan organizations such as AGBU and the types. But they have no control nor have attempted to control the foreign policy of Armenia. At most, they have controlled the elections of the latest disgrace on the throne of Etchmiadzin – they can have it. Those who have tried to control the political process of Armenia on the large scale, were banned from Armenia, and will be banned forever and dismantled, if they cross the line again. But let me appeal to your intelligence one more time – Diasporas don’t have influence over the Foreign Policies – even the “all-powerful Jewish Diaspora” doesn’t control the Foreign Policy of Israel, in fact it has absolutely no influence over it. Neither does the much more powerful than the Armenian Diaspora – the Irish Diaspora, control to any degree the serious processes in Irland. Diasporas don’t in any meaningful way, other than making a lot of noise, present land claims. States do. Diasporas do one thing – they gradually but consistently disappear – with different pace. There may be those amongst us, who would tie the Genocide to the land claims. They may be the ones unconsciously continuing being the toys of the Turkish ideology. But at the end of the day – they are irrelevant. And if you are going to continue playing this “card,” however “openly,” it is going to be your own loss. And if we have given to you a reason to believe that we are so anxious to sit with “you” around the “table,” I think you have grossly misunderstood the content of our interactions over the last year or so. As I have said lately, we have genuine interest in seeing Turkey join the family of civilized nations – at least because we are neighbors and none of us is going to disappear. Always remember that the Genocide is your legacy and the crime committed by you. It is up to you to deal with your own legacy and problems. We also have legacies of other types of ours. You deal with your own, and we will deal with ours. And if you think there are things for us to share with each other – let us know. But you have to be genuine. I wrote this material in a rush. It is a nice weekend, here, and I need to revitalize my energy after a draining week, before another similar one starts. mj, we have a communication problem. anyway, i am patient, and you polite (and your observations on a number of points are not at all that inaccurate), so let's give it a try: 1. the nation: it is true that there was not much of a turkish national consciousness, not at least amongst the common people, but there was a turkish nation, in terms of people who spoke turkish as mother tongue, professed islam, and (this is of course very, very much open to discussion) who did not regard themselves as belonging to any other ethnic group. the ottomans had carefully and discreetly prevented the emergence of nationalist feeling amongst the turks (if the ostensibly ruling nation gets nationalistic in an empire, that's the end of your empire), and when it was finally awakened in the late 19th century, abdulhamid ii, although certainly unclear in this matter as in almost anything else, did not a little to destroy it (but as i have stated the essentially ambiguous nature of most of his actions must never be forgotten. after all, his first priority was survival). 2. the fatherland: mj, our attitude towards anatolia is the same as that of any other nation that has conquered land and sat on it for almost a thousand years. in the purest sense of morality it is of course to be described as immoral/criminal/sinful/ or just plain wrong to march into someone else's land and take it over, but that is what everyone has done (including those that brought the armenian language into anatolia) and even though o.k. it is not right, then we are in the same boat with a sizeable chunk of humanity, icluding those that preach civilisation and human rights today. 3)i disagree to a certain extent with you regarding the clarity of the Young Turk attitude towards the armenians, in my opinion, it is only in hindsight that we come to such a conclusion about this clarity, whereas from the contemporary accounts nothing of the kind really emerges. mind you, i am not thinking that you are misrading history or have an agenda or anything, but you - like me - are after clarity of vision, and perhaps a bit uneasy with the idea that the whole thing was actually way too confused to allow anyone to carry out any "grand conspiracy". other than that, i agree with your analysis of the armenian role in ottoman politics that preceded the overthrow of abdulhamid ii. 4) "we have done it, you have done it, now we are even". so that's my line? mj, if you really think that i have this anywhere near my arguments (or my conscience) then either you have a very serious problem understanding my posts, or i have an equally if not more serious problem expressing myself. i am shocked to read this. i have said a million times that nothing justifies a genocide (genocide, for god's sake) and i have even defended this position of mine against some of the more intelligent turks (oz, i think) who had come here. we have done it. there is no doubt about that. you (or some of you) have attempted to do something on a far smaller scale and haven't actually accomplished much. my whole line of argument in calling the genocide a genocide and in telling that there could be no moral grounds for it has always been that i have always maintained that a state, for the dignity of statehood, should not target its innocent population for whatever action some members of that population may have taken. the genocide was not directed against the armenian revolutionaries, it was directed at the entire armenian nation save those in a few places like istanbul, without the slightest regard to whether the people thus "punished" were criminal in any way in the first place. it wasn't punishment, it was liquidation. there are and never will be grounds to defend it, and to accuse me of having said anything nearing that is, well i am left without words, actually. as far as getting over with it is concerned, well i think we both have to do it, the way germany and israel have done (and as it looks now, israel will have to do it again some time in the future, but this time from germany's seat). of course it has never ever crossed my mind that this could be accomplished without the recognition of ag, payments of compensation and eventual resettlement of the armenians. this is the message that i have been trying to convey to both turks and armenians, and neither side seems to get it for different reasons. 5) re the land being ours and the russians: the land is ours (and this does not mean that it isn't equally yours, at least as far as i am concerned) the same way that american land is american. by the way, i have observed one thing, mj, this "this land is ours and not yours" business has been going on for a while in the posts, which i have replied to by using the american, australian and other examples that europe provides, and got no replies to them. i see a persistent silence whenever i bring that comparison to the fore. would you care to respond to it this time, please, and compare your past and present state to that of the native americans and australians, for instance? re the russians: as i am posting from the office at lunchbreak right now, i am unable to name you references, but there are plenty of them, none written by a turk or a turkophile. it is true that we have been aggressive toward russia in history. but it is also true that the russians have, from the 18th century onwards, did pose a military threat to us, and on one occasion in the late 19th century, had advanced as far as ayastefanos, a suburb of istanbul, where they had erected a monument marking their presence. we lost much of the balkans (slavic parts mainly) partly due to russian military campaigns. the bulgarian independence movement was almost entirely run by the russians, and to this day there is a piazza in sofia commemorating that. i am of course not "protesting" (as if that were at all possible or relevant) the russians, we were just two nations vying for power. but please do not tell me that russians did not have any ambitions concerning turkey and that these ambitions were ultimately not connected to their desire to get down to the eastern mediterranean. it would be like me telling you that turks have had never any interest in armenian lands. by the way, i do not claim that europeans are the foes of turkey "then and now" true, the first english history of the turks begins with the sentence "this is the history of the turks, rulers of the east, the present terror of europe" (rycaut), but never mind. the notion of enemy states and friendly states belongs to amateur minds. there are interests. when these conflict, you are enemies, when these coincide, you are friends. it's not emotional. it is pragmatic. i am also not glorifying the turkish sword or anything like that, a sword is a sword and what it does is murder by any other name. you wouldn't glorify the sword if you have the slightest aspiration to morality, and i claim to have. i am also never in defence of our performance in the middle east, but the middle east has always been a highly war-torn place anyway, way before our arrival. and i am not using a double standard like "my sword is right-your sword is wrong" or anything like that. you say that we don't show any remorse, but just want to get over with the heavy legacy of our past. some of the young turks do think tat wa, true: they don't want to be dogged by crimes that took place more than half a century before they were born. but we also show regret - if not remorse: if i know the meaning of the word correctly, you cannot personally show remorse for something that you have not done personally. even my dad wasn't born when the ag took place, you have all the right to expect regrets and apology in the name of our nation for us, but how can you expect remorse from us who have not been there when the crime was committed, who have no family members who took part in the crimes and who have not benefited from the crimes in any sense. none of my family killed anyone. we never owned any land that belonged to any armenian as far as we know. there is no property, movable or otherwise, that we took over from any armenian illegally or in any way that would hurt our conscience. so regret yes, condemnation yes, asking for (belated) justice yes (they were after all our citizens, the victims), apology in the name of my nation yes, but remorse? remorse as far as i understand is a feeling you show for a wrong you have done personally. ali cannot be expected to show "remorse" for what mehmet has done, especially if there is no connection between them other than belonging to the same ethnicity, just as mj cannot be expected to show any remorse for the actions of any criminal armenians against innocent turks at the time. i think we interpret the meaning of the word remorse very differently, (or have different notions about what to show remorse for) so i had to write the above. your land is our cemetery: true, as is the usa (you won't get away from this comparison) the cemetery of the native american. the americans have done things for them, true: the human zoos called resevations, after they broke their back completely. as far as my line that armenians should be allowed to return to anatolia and become first class citizens of turkey. it is not a bluff, nor has it ever been. many other people have done it, some native americans and australians, but also many people in the former soviet union, such as the crimean tatars and some other caucasian nations that were deported by stalin. the process is still going on. no independent republics were established as a result of that, and land problems (private ownership of the land) remain, but it is happening. so i cannot really see why on earth an armenian would refuse to come back to anatolia to settle in the same city that his ancestors once lived in if the country were civilised and he could be sue that he would live there as a first class citizen, at the same time retaining his identity without problems. the jews came back to israel 2000 years after they were kicked out by the romans. and there were quite a few of them who had resettled there in ottoman times and lived there for centuries before the establishment of israel, (and by the way, they were the only ones who didn't rebel against ottoman rule). so i really cannot fathom why on earth is my proposal that the armenians return under these conditions is a bluff? there is also another point that i fail to grasp: you had said in a previous posting (the one where you "called my bluff" i presume) that "no armenian is ever going to return to eastern anatolia even if by some queer magic it becomes part of armenia", if i quote you correctly. mj, please tell me, because i honestly don't understand (and not because i am playing word games with you, as you seem to imply sometimes), the logic of wanting eastern anatolia one the one hand and refusing to settle on it even if it becomes part of armenia. what are you going to do with the land? turn it into a national park with a sign at the entrance "no trespassing"? and, if you are not going to settle on it, why want it (as many armenians still actually do)? one of the arguments that i keep hearing in the forum is that "the turks should give us these lands as it would not hurt them at all, besides they are not making any use out of them." what use do you expect to be able to make of a land that you are not even going to settle, mj? tell me because i am curious. re your mutilated body: you seem not to understand that my efforts here (and over here) are to restore to whatever degree possible your mutilated body, and it cannot be done without our help, because it is your mind as well as your body that has been mutilated, and that it has been mutilated is still being denied by my folks over here, which mutilates your mind even more. second, on the one hand you talk about your mutilated body (and you have one and my ancestors are responsible for it, i am not contesting that) on the other hand you say that politically relevant armenians do not have land claims and that you are not talking about 1000 year old romantic ideas or garbage such as sevres. you are also not talking about land claims. you are also not talking about resettling in eastern anatolia. then what on earth are you talking about? and do not forget that you had some months ago invited me to discuss "intellectually" the resettlement of the border issues between turkey and armenia, and the rights of armenia to that land. and now (or for quite some time now) you are saying the above. what are you talking about, then? i am asking this because i honestly don't understand. i hope by now it should have been clear enough that i accept the genocide, regard it as a crime, maintain that we should eventually accept it, and pay reparations for it, to make a detailed repetition of the point unnecessary. i have also stated that turkey is fighting a losing battle in the genocide recognition business as state after state recognises it (one not very distant day turkey and azerbaijan will be the only states that still deny it), and that this state of affairs will keep turkey in the position of an intenational pariah, so many times that i am tired of repeating them anymore. you say my argument of us having taken these lines from the byzantines and not you is very funny. a paragraph later you say that no armenian army has never been beaten by a turkish army. if we have taken these lands not from the byzantines but from you, and if you have never been beaten by us, and if we are the criminal/barbaric/bloodthirsty etc. savages that you guys still claim, then how did we take these lands, what are we doing here, and you everywhere but here? i am not trying to attack your national pride, mj. as someone with 16 months of military training, i am also fully aware of the fact that there are no national characteristics that make one nation better than another in the battlefield. it is simply good training, good strategy, good tactics and good logistics, and above all, a very good reason. so you can of course beat a turkish army if you have these qualities and we don't (and frankly speaking, the turkish army has room for improvement), just as the israelis, who have had no military experience for two millenia, beat the much more numerous arabs who had an empire until eight hundred years ago. but your two lines cited above are true, and actually confirm my previous position, i.e. we took the land from the byzantines and not you. true, there are many wars between the turks and the greeks, but there are not many between us and you, for some reason. very simple: you were already under byzantine rule and by all accounts were not particularly happy with it. in fact they were little better towards you than we were in the 19th century. but at that time, as we were not interested at all in your relgious diffeences, we felt perfectly happy to grant you the religious freedoms etc. that you couldn't get from the byzantines, and you were perfectly happy with them. after all, you had been christian for a thousand years by the 15th century, when mehmed ii gave you independence from the greek partiarchate and for the first time in your history you had a patriarchate that was not subject to the greek church. am i mistaken? diaspora: mj, we have profoundly different views about the diaspora. you say that ROA runs itself and the diaspora plays little or no role in its government/finances etc. but then again, there have been (i don't know whether there are now) ROA ministers of disapora origin (not that there is anything wrong with it per se or that we have any right to critise/interfere etc). but the diaspora and their claims is a fact. you as a roa national have a set of claims from the tr, including those about the genocide, which we know about and which are not impossible to meet, besides they are "right" claims. any two nations wishing to make peace should be able to meet such claims. but then there is the diaspora, which is strong, and whether you or we like it or not, does have a say in armenian affairs. your republic now has a population of about 1.7 million, there are a total of some six million armenians if i am not mistaken, that means the diaspora forms the clear majority. the diaspora has been able to produce some very, very rich guys who are committed to the armenian cause at least ostensibly (they are always therewhen it comes to turk-bashing) and in a way that is perhaps different from your understanding of being committed to the armenian cause. your concept of the armenian cause and theirs may even differ substantially. as far as i understand you regard eastern anatolia as gone in practical terms, don't expect the armenians to ge it back, and would prefer to concentrate on the roa because you think this is the part of armenia that can realistically be made to survive as an independent nation with a bright future once the many present problems are solved. all you want from the turks seems to be the recognition of and apology for the genocide, and that not because it is going to make you feel less bad about it, but because by doing this turkey will show it can be civilised, and that you can have a peaceful western front after all. you are not that keen on the recognition of the genocide per se that much because whether we recognise it or not, you guys know full well it did happen and our recognition or denial is not going to change anything. plus, the whole wie world is also gradually recognising it in spite of our protests. it has become one of those open secrets. (correct me in the above if i got you wrong please) all these are fair enough as far as i am concerned, and i want the same recognition for broadly the same reasons (plus a few others). but where we differ is our attitude towards land claims by the diaspora. we have discussed this several times and we cannot seem to reach an agreement, because we have fundamentally differing concepts (you may call them convictions) of the importance, power and dedication of the diaspora. i do not doubt for a second that you are honest in your position as i want you to understand that i am honest about mine. you may genuinely think that the diaspora could not possibly constitute a threat to turkish territorial integrity and may (as you have) genuninely think that what we are actually doing is trying to hide behind land claims, using them as a pretext to avoid the genocide. all i can expect you here is to trust me, just as i trust you when you say that the roa and the guys in it don't have an agenda to carve up eastern turkey. i am not (i can only realistically speak about myself). i know that many people in turkey are, but then again, many of these stillgenuinely think that what transpired was not a genocide and that all this stuff about genocide recognition is really a racket to make turkey say goodbye to eastern anatolia. i protest that it is not, i put forth my arguments that it was a genocide (and i am not going to be humble about this: many of them eventually realise it), i say that it is really absurd to think that a state the power and size of the roa (here i have to use that sort of chest-beating argument even though it is not my style at all) could seriously contemplate wrenching half of our country from us, what they do is show israel as an example (and you can see the very serious parallel here and the convincing power of such argument, can't you, mj), there i gulp, gasp for breath, say err.. hmmmm... but really find no convincing way out, then the conversation dies down, only to resurface two days later when that same person waves a newspaper in front of my nose saying "see what your dear armenians said?" i open it up and see some guy from the armenian ministry of foreign affairs say "now it's time to discuss border issues and land claims with turkey." i don't know what to say, because it comes straight out of yerevan now. i talk to some armenians in this forum for instance (this had also happened in the past) one guy says that what he really wants is turkey to recognise the genocide so that they can get over it and make peace with us, and that they have no land claims, the guy next to him says "you may not have land claims, agop, but i antranik do. speak for yourself. and then there is a whole bunch of armenians behind shouting in support of antranik and a tiny voice of support for agop. and they are all armenians. i have to deal with all of them, and make sure that a clear majority both in the diaspora and the roa drop the land claims so that i can be sure that my acceptance of the genocide will not eventually lead into anything that will result in me or my offspring herding sheep in the steppes of kazakhstan. you may find this ludicrous, be my guest. but realise one thing: we take the diaspora very, very seriously, have every reason to do so, and it is not enough that the roa does not have claims: the diaspora is not a bunch of disconnected individuals: it is a highly organised entity full of money, power and a very clear set of aims. and please, for god's sake, read a bit before you say things like "israel isn't run by the diaspora." golda meir was an american citizen, and there are more jews in new york than israel, half of white house stafff is jewish, kissinger, albright, and the lot are all jewish, and for some reason the usa is at war with the arabs! and every year thousands of american jews migrate to israel. no diaspora, no israel. re we being so anxious to sit down and make a deal with you: it is the other way round, mj, i am afraid. we are the ones who closed the border and we are the ones who keep it closed. it is roa who wants diplomatic relations with us and see the problems solved, not the other way round (i mean the state). our regrets about the genocide are on a personal level, mine because i am human, i guess for the rest it is the same/similar. there are also those whose ancestors took part in it, now THEY have feelings of remorse about the whole thing (i don't know whether that answers your stance re remorse) and want to see it recognised. i had recently met someone whose grandfather had taken part in the killings (he had come from the balkans) partly because of a thirst for revenge and partly for booty. when the topic came up, he told me very plainly: "i want this to be recognised and finally get over with it, man, why don't they (the state) understand it? i don't want to live with this all my life." now that's remorse as far as i can tell, and only he can do that: his grandfather was guilty, mine wasn't. this has been bloody long, and i am tired. i don't know if i have been able to address your questions & doubts & anxieties adequately, at east i have tried to. i am very seriously disappointed with only one thing of the discussions that have recently taken place, and that is of accusing me with dishonesty: i am not saying anything other than what i am saying and my positions on several key issues must have been clear by now to anyone who can read. i will differ from you over many issues, as you will from me, we are two conflicting parties after all, and the roots of the conflict lie deep in history, and neither one of us can do a thing about it. but i came to this forum with a view to establishing bridges between those members who were ready to cooperate and do what i can to end this blood feud. honesty is the first precept of any such endeavour, and being seen as honest by the other side is the second. without these two, meaningful dialogue cannot take place, it becomes just a waste of time and words. regards,

quote:Originally posted by gamavor:Ali, I'm very curious to know what exactly you don't like about Russians? There are many things probably for which they might be disliked, but I think you have kind of obsession about it. Yes, in the Balkans, Russians were butchering turkish soldiers like sheep (note: soldiers not civilians), but still I don't get it. Likewise in the Balkans, subject to the Port nations had not been able to liberate themselves without the help of the Russians. Are you going to blame them for choosing freedom and not the turkish jatagan? Back to the point. What exactly you don't like about Russians? Russian culture? Russian girls? Russian Orthodoxy? Russian cousine? What? Russian imperialism? If so, why you like that much Turkish imperialism? What makes you think that turks are any better? gamavor, in fact there is nothing that i don't like about russians: i speak russian (i learned it on my own because i like the sound of it), like a number of turks, i have part slavic ancestry (although it does not really show anywhere other than my looks), i have had quite a few russian friends, and generally speaking, i find them nice, personable guys, who are in fact very much like us in terms of mentality and outlook towards life. i also love their culture. so there is nothing that i don't like about russians. but russia was also an empire, and like all empires, it was one that tried to expand, and since we were neighbours, we had had our fights, too. and also, it is known quite well (something which the russians who know themselves would not deny in private conversations) that at least in the past their rulers did have ambitions to ge down to the mediterranean. fair enough, for the prevailing morality of these times. if we had ambitions to get all the way to the walls of vienna, we are no-one to criticise others for other ambitions. but not to criticise them is one thing, to pretend they don't exist is another. i don't like turkish imperialism at all. if i were born a few centuries earlier and ruled the place, the first thing i would do would be to halt expansion after the conquest of costantinople and concentrate on what i had. (in fact, this was the plan of bayezid ii, son of mehmed the conqueror, but it was discontinued under selim the grim and suleiman the magnificent). one of the reasons of the conquest tends to be overlooked: the ottomans had initially created an efficient military force by and for conquests of "necessary" territory, but then the army became so powerful that it had quite some say in the way the place was run. the desire to keep the army busy must have placed at least some role in the conquests of the later centuries. it can be said (it is highly unorthodox of a turk to say that) that we reared a tiger to ride on and conquer, and when the tiger got too big we just chose to keep our place on its back to avoid falling and being prey to it ourselves. that, in a nutshell, describes the sitation of many sultans especially after the 16th century, i think. and of course, we sucked the blood out of anatolia without doing anything of note, so much so that even allowing for the very extensive destruction of anatolia in 1915-1922 (over four fifths of all recorded buildings were destroyed), there is still very little to show for almost half a millennium of ottoman presence. i tend to regard the ottoman empire a bit like all these gigantic american companies that expanded into all areas in the 1980s-90s and are collapsing now: don't bite more than you can chew.

quote:Originally posted by bellthecat: quote: so much for the Young Turks. now young turks: the young turks of today do not regard their country an empire... Probably true, (MHP persons excepted). But quite a lot seem to think Turkey is an island, which is just as dangerous! Ignorance of the rest of the world, and especially neighbouring countries is profoundly bad.dear steve, i don't think even mainstream mhp doesn't seriously consider any ideas about an empire anymore (especially toward the west). there was some serious consideration that we could do something vaguely resembling the eu with the central asian countries on the grounds of common origins/culture etc, which we failed due to the extremely disorganised and inexpert handling of the situation at the time of our dear old little brick-dropper of a president the late ozal. (i must personally admit that i had had that thought myself when these countries became independent, but i was always wary of russian presence, and when it became claer that these countries were economically not that much promising, either, their attraction for us diminished greatly). turks do not want to see their country as an island, at least they don't want to. but geopolitics has turned it into one for most of the last century: we intentionally severed our ties with the islamic world (and don't regret it a bit, given the current state of the islamic world), we are neither arabs nor persians anyway, and turned our faces to the west, which has so far been quite reluctant to take us in (not that we have really been any less reluctant ourselves), and we were practially selaed off from the communist world during the cold war beacuse we were on the othe side of the divide: all this makes you an island, whether you like it or not. now, however, our ties with both the eu and the former communit countries are growing, although still very little is going on with the muslims. we ourselves see the fact that our country has actually been an island in the 20th century, but it isn't something that we have done, nor do we like it: it diminishes our choices, creates a bit of an identity crisis (we had not been an island throughout our history), and hampers us economically. but i do not think that the outlook of especially the younger generation of turks is that far off the mark. it is just that the picture itself is an unattractive and hazy one. cheers,

quote:Originally posted by bellthecat: quote:Originally posted by aurguplu: 3. i am disappointed to see that a man of your intelligence and grasp of the subject cannot see the danger that turks saw in losing an inch of the land in the east: the danger was not you, it was the russians. after all, the armenian unrest, apart from being provoked by the appalling treatment of the armenians in the 19th century, was to a very large degree a russian-engineered affair with the single goal of descending to the mediterranean. the russians had been conducting a two-pronged attack on the ottoman empire since about the 18th century, the one component of which was the establishment of their presence in the balkan affairs (the western route to the eastern mediterranean), and the other, the creation of "an armenia without armenians in it" (alexander ii, if my memory does not fail me). you were going to be used against us to get a chunk of eastern anatolia, you would then be dealt with one way or the other, and once the mountainous high terrain of eastern anatolia was conquered, it would be a piece of cake to sweep across the central anatolian plateau both to the southeast mediterranean and to the aegean. look at history and you will see that any large eastern power that held the eastern anatolian highlands eventually swept into eastern mediterranean with ease. Dear Ali, I don't understand why you often refer or hint in your posts to some sort of Russian conspiracy to use and then dispose of Armenia. There is no evidence for any such thing. The Russians were quite happy to allow Armenian culture to develop in areas it controlled as long as activities there did not go as far as promoting sedition. Russian atempts to control the Armenian church were not directed at eliminating Armenians as an ethnic group - that is just mostly 19th century propaganda from the Constantinople patriarchate who could not envisage an Armenian being an Armenian unless he belonged to an all powerful Armenian church. Throughout the First World War, the Caucasian front was very much a side-issue for the Russian army, and all their battles and strategies there were defensive in nature (read Muratoff and Allen's "Caucasian Battlefields"). There was never any grand plan to march to Constantinople (or Adana) via anatolia, and for someone in Turkey to suggest that there was is rather ludicrous - you should know the geographic obstacles involved in such an invasion! The Turkish state had little practical use for eastern anatolia (except perhaps as a dumping ground for deposed Turkish officials from the lost Balkan territories) and its control over most of the territory was slight. Compared to the pre-ww1 loss of territory in the Aegean or the Balkans (especialy Albania) the loss of the Erzurum and Van vilayets would have had little economic effect. Obviously it had political uses, with the Young Turks probably making bombastic "not one inch" nationalistic statements. But those same Young Turks gave away Tripoli to Italy without much protest or loss of face, so they could easily have done the same to eastern Anatolia - but all that is hypothetical because there was no-one to give it away to! The Russians didn't want it, the Armenians there merely wanted better security and rights. Steve dear steve, 1. i think i will need to draw you a list of references you can consult re this issue. i do not mean to sound slighting or anything, but to say that russians were not involved in such conspiracies betrays a very serious lack of factual knowledge, i am sorry. 2. of course i am not implying that russians definitely wanted to see the armenians go any would do anything for it. they didn't. it is also probably true that they would't touch the armenians unless the latter rebelled. but they also knew full well that armenians have throughout the centuries been very resistant to assimilation (the russians did have a policy of russification, now you are not going to deny me that), and they were traditionally a very inward-looking, self-isolating group, and no-one really knew where their loyalties lay. besides, the russians did occasionally repress the armenians, closing down armenian-language schools etc. 3. that russians have traditionally been keen on descending to the mediterranean ever since the time of the normans is basic history: they needed to descend to the warmer mediterranean to be able to conduct maritime traffic throughout the year and be closer to the southern belly of europe (and the middle east and africa). this is such a basic "given" of international politics that i shall not elaborate it further. 4. the russians did have eyes on the eastern front, and in fact, kars changed hands between turkey and russia, on more than one occasion if i remember correctly. in the 20th century, stalin formally demanded kars and ardahan and a few other western provinces from turkey. part of this was also oil: the oil wells that russians had dug in the two years (1915-1917) in northeastern turkey are still there (and some did yield some oil). there were persistent formal and "informal" demands several times by russian ambassadors (including sazanoff) to grant free passage to russian ships, including warships, and to allow the russians establish military bases on and south of the dardanelles "to protect the ottoman empire against the british" that were politely but firmly refused by the porte (or rather the cup). (mind you, by the way, cyprus was originally "borrowed" by the british ostensibly to "protect" the ottoman empire and the eastern mediterranean against any southward russian expansion). 5. as someone who has actually done his military service in central anatolia, i know from first hand experience that once you get eastern anatolia, it is a piece of cake to get the rest. besides this is what we had done after all, isn't it? i am afraid you have to consult a military map/expert here, steve. 6. turkey did not keep territories on grounds of practical uses. otherwise we would never have gone to the yemen. besides, as i keep saying, the practical use of keeping eastern anatolia is to use it as a shield (with all those mountains) against any eastern invasion. i think that line of thought was prevalent in turkey ever since the mongol invasion. plus, both the turkish and the kurdish population there is to a large extent shia (alevite), and eastern anatolia was a bone of contention between turkey and iran until the eighteenth century (the treaty of kasr-ı şirin in 1763, if i remember correctly). eastern anatolia i still a troublesome place in this respect (and this is the main reason why turkey has never had any serious thoughts of extending turkish nationalism into iranian azerbaijan), although that trouble is now subsiding. re uses: what use is the rock of gibraltar or the falklands or northern ireland, and why is britain still holding on to them, and going to war if he authority there is challenged? 7. "... because there was no-one to give it away to" oh c'mon steve, even you guys stationed military experts and units there. really... 8. i symphatise with the armenians' wish that they merely wanted better security and rights (and i do not shrink from admitting that their plight, especially in the hands of the kurds, was little short of appalling) but the thing with human nature is that human desires are endless: the armenians constantly painted a picture (in turkish eyes at least) that the more they would get, the more they would want, until they got all the land that was traditionally called armenia. 9. the turks did give tripoli because at the time they were militarily not in a position to engage themselves there: a constant aim of the western powers, who had realised that turkey was the "sick man" of europe and would die one day, was to bring about the death at a time when it would be best for their own national benefits, and also to force the ottomans to open to fronts at the same time (basic military doctrine: you engage your opponent in two places, and move in for the kill in a third place where his forces are weakest). i think many members here have trouble seeing things in a greater perspective: the armenians were a mere pawn in a much greater game of chess that was about the dismantling of the ottoman empire, the russian expansion into the mediterranean, the middle eastern oil, and the holy places. the real players in the game were far bigger, and none of them placed arenians in the centre of their plans for the region. besides, the armenians were strategic to a certain degree, but were not indispensable. it is this that the armenian revolutionaries failed to realise and therefore failed to develop a plan "b": what would they do if their allies had first incited them against the ottomans, and dropped them once their usefulness was over? cheers,

dear mj, one (very) minor point. talaat did not have much of an education. he also had a very modest background: he was once a postal clerk, and he had at some point taught turkish at a jewish (alliance israelite?) school. some reliable evidence that i saw (not yet published) describes him as a simple hearted guy (if you can have this translated: o saf çocuk ...) regards,

dear rubo, i agree with most of what you say. i think one of the greatest mistakes armenians do is to portray their killers as "barbarians". here we must make relevant definitions of the concepts "barbarian" and "civilised". barbarian originally meant (in greek) someone who could not speak, who could only say bar, bar. then it was extended to mean everyone else. since all human cultures need an "other" to stress their good points (as opposed to their bad points), all cultures, especially the civilised ones, have the notion "barbarian". i take civilisation to mean cities, literate culture, monumental architecture, arts, music, philosophy, science, complex government etc. it is a very serious mistake to call a nation who fits this description "barbarian". "barbarian" most probably fits the description of the vikings, the huns, the vandals, genghis' mongols, non-settled africans, the celts and germans in caesar's time, and us when we were roaming about on horseback in central asia and not yet settled. the adjective to use there is "criminal", "atrocious" etc., but not "barbarian". "barbarian" implies reckless fits of anger with little foreplanning and afterthought. a bit haphazard, really. it appears that neither the jewish holocaust, nor the armenian genocide were haphazard. they were planned, institutionalised, and carefully executed. it takes a civilisation to do that. it is not at all surprising that it was the germans who killed the jews systematically, for apart from the will to kill them, they were perhaps the one nation with the necessary organisational, technical and intellectual capacity to identify the enemy, collect them, transport them, use them against themselves, kill them, and use their bodies to kill more of them, and justify the whole thing with racial, biological, cultural, economic, political and military theories! the armenian genocide was nowhere near this complex, but it was still an organised affair. barbarians can't do that. people with complex civilisational structures can. this was not a "barbaric" crime. it was a "civilised" one. i am sorry if i hurt anyone's definition of civilisation, but unfortunately it is not - not yet - what we wish it would be. it is what it is. re nairi: i have not yet received an apology from her regarding her conduct under the other thread. i keep the door open, but she'll have to do the walking if she feels so inclined, i am afraid.

mj, i broadly agree with the majority of your points, my points of disagreement are below: 1. the young turks were quite unclear amongst themselves about whether they wanted to save the empire in bulk or to save just one corner of it. it was by then clear that the balkans had gone for good, and all that was left was anatolia (the turks had never seriously contemplated large scale settlement of arab lands, save perhaps egypt). a realisation came about that the centre of power of the empire was the turkish nation, whose fatherland was the long-neglected anatolia. 2. that they were arrogant (with little organisational ability to show for it) is well documented. but their attitudes re the armenians are on the whole not clear-cut, the native anatolian turks, the true "ottomans" far more in favour of the multiethnic composition of the state and everyone's place in it, and the "rootless and ruthless" balkan immigrants (who manned much of the young turks' ranks) much less considerate of this line of thought, having realised that it was a thing of the past. 3. the attitude of the young turks toward the armenians was as unclear as the attitude of the armenians toward the young turks was, in fact, one bred the other: the armenians joined the young turks after the deposition of abdulhamid ii, took part in the government, but then refused to take up certain ministries on the grounds that tashnaktsutioun had told them that although they were going to be in the government, they would not participate in its running efficiently. i think it is n vain that we search for a clear line of action either on the turkish or on the armenian side, since both sides were composed of too many different fractions that differed too much in many fundamental points to put up any coherent action together. there was of course a faction that wanted to see the armenians gone, as there was an armenian faction that wanted to see the turks gone, but it came to the fore only after our entry into the war, and even then remained secret. 3. i am disappointed to see that a man of your intelligence and grasp of the subject cannot see the danger that turks saw in losing an inch of the land in the east: the danger was not you, it was the russians. after all, the armenian unrest, apart from being provoked by the appalling treatment of the armenians in the 19th century, was to a very large degree a russian-engineered affair with the single goal of descending to the mediterranean. the russians had been conducting a two-pronged attack on the ottoman empire since about the 18th century, the one component of which was the establishment of their presence in the balkan affairs (the western route to the eastern mediterranean), and the other, the creation of "an armenia without armenians in it" (alexander ii, if my memory does not fail me). you were going to be used against us to get a chunk of eastern anatolia, you would then be dealt with one way or the other, and once the mountainous high terrain of eastern anatolia was conquered, it would be a piece of cake to sweep across the central anatolian plateau both to the southeast mediterranean and to the aegean. look at history and you will see that any large eastern power that held the eastern anatolian highlands eventually swept into eastern mediterranean with ease. so much for the Young Turks. now young turks: the young turks of today do not regard their country an empire (if it is one it is disappointingly tiny), and one thing they can do without is one: our ancestors built an empire and neglected development since the 16th century, and we are and will be for a long time still paying for it. we are too busy building up our home to engage in anything else, and will be so for a good three to four generations to come. we know that the ottoman empire was gone with a bang rather than a whimper, and that means a lot of blood shed, ours as well as yours. those of us who are more conscious regret the recent past because of its inhumanity, others, more calculating ones, are distasteful of it because its legacy still impedes turkey in its efforts at democratisation, still others are a mixture of the two. but most of us have one thing in common: we tend to play with you with our cards open, especially behind closed doors where third parties are not present: we know what happened in the past, and none of us is proud of it. most of us regret it sincerely (some see it as a dirty job that had to be done). we are ready to do what we can to restore the situation, but giving land is not part of it. you weren't independent before the genocide or even the hamidian massacres for a very, very long time, and you weren't independent for any length of time in all or part of the land you claim even before we came in the 11th century. we formally took the land from byzantium and persia, not you. and therefore there is no reason why the genocide should be used as a card to get land. convince the diaspora that they have to give up any hope of carving out eastern anatolia, and then we are ready to sit with you at a table and sort the genocide business out.

rubo i have stopped communicating with nairi in view of her unacceptable attitude, but of course the topic under discussion needs addressing: turkey realises that it is fighting a losing battle in the genocide issue. it is obvious to any impartial third party who studies the issue from both sources that it was one. turkey is still scoring though, not on the merit of her arguments, but on the merit of her political/military/economical role in the region. it is simply more important in every one of these respects than armenia is. why does turkey deny the genocide? there is a set of reasons: 1) the armenians compare the AG with the jewish holocaust , which is inaccurate in two accounts: there was no separatist or any other subversive jewish activity in germany, plus the conflict in turkey was land-based, not race-based like in germany. 2) even though grossly exaggerated by later propaganda, the turkish line that armenians also killed turks, and way before the genocide of 1915 and even before the hamidian massacres of the 1890s, is basically true. and since these are (especially the latter) recent events, we do not have to resort either to government propaganda or to academic research to prove or disprove them; some survivors of it are still alive, some with mutilated bodies. we have our memories just as you have yours. we see in the international arena that your memories are given credence and ours ignored (after all, what is the "international arena" other than christendom"?), which in our eyes at least turns your version of the events into simple worthless propaganda. 3) the west ascended to supremacy in the last 500 years, before that it was the medieval middle east of the world. her well-documented ascent cannot be ascribed to civilised behaviour by any stretch of the imagination: slavery, world colonisation, the annihilation of the natives of america and australia, and the sucking off of the resources of these places which still goes on. and these people are now teaching us muslims in general and turks in particular civilised behaviour. this is an especially important point in all discussions pertaining to rifts between muslims and christians, of which that between us is only one: the west successfully COMPLETED the destruction of the natives wherever they went, and then settled there. in the one area where it didn't (africa) the process of it being thrown out is still not complete. the usa came into being in broadly the same fashion as the turkish empires in anatolia, with one significant difference: the anatolian natives survived in bulk, with their language, culture, economy, even to a large degree their former status, intact, for almost a thousand years after the battle of manzikert (1071 ad), whereas the american natives have practically been destroyed within less than two centuries. this gives the hardliners the following argument, the cold truth of which unfortunately cannot be denied: "we allowed our conquered nations live, propagate their culture and multipy, even attain positions of power in our empire, and then they turned against us in our darkest hour, and we had to kill them in order to survive. the west, on the other hand, set out to kill the natives of its conquered territories almost immediately after the conquest according to a well worked-out plan in a systematic fashion, and eliminated that danger. our natives were used against us, their natives can never be, because there are not enough of them left. we should either have assimilated our natives into our culture by the sword, the way we had done in some provinces, or kill them off way before when everybody was doing the same everywhere. it wouldn't have been an issue now." i have heard this (in different versions) from many hardliners, and the cold truth in it is evident. i have not been able to come up with any other argument than those based on humanity, which of course cuts no ice. 4) the armenian revolutionaries in the 19th century did have an argument that if the turks could be incited to kill enough number of armenian christians to provoke the christian west into action, they could get a piece of land with their help, just as was the case with the greeks and the balkan slavs. they had not envisaged that the killings would be on that scale, though, and also that the west would abandon them once the destruction of the ottoman empire was complete. this is pecisely what happened. i have mentioned this argument several times in this forum, and it has not met with any refusal so far. nothing diminishes turkish guilt in the genocide, but turks are not the only ones guilty, and some of the guilt rests with those armenians who gambled with their nation's blood. we do not see the same fury leashed on to us being leashed on to them. 5) the turks were not the only people who wanted to see the armenians go. the russians were always very wary of you, and your experience with them, save the genocide, is marginally better than that with us, as many of you do not deny. the germans, who were almost certainly the brains behind the genocide, also wanted you to go, because you stood in their way further south, and were unreliable allies at best: no-one was sure you were on his side. only now do we see germans being explicitly mentioned in the context of AG as one of the guilty parties. 6) the archival material relating to AG is dispersed and is not available to researchers in full. turkey keeps its archives closed/blocked/difficult to access, true, but so does russia, germany until recently, britain, france, usa, and last but not least, armenia. since much material relating to the period 1914-1919 was physically removed from the imperial archives in istanbul during the armistice in 1920 and was transported to these places, we want to see all of them made available so that we see the skeletons in everyone's cupboard, not just ours. these are the "academic" reasons to deny, or postpone the acceptance of, the AG. but there are several others that are not academic. these are: 1) the reparations business. an enormous amount of armenian wealth was confiscated during the genocide, and any recognition of the AG would of course be an empty gesture without the payment of reparations, for life and property alike. since about one million people were affected, even if you pay USD 1,000 pe head (which will definiely be more than that), you come up with a minimum figure of USD 1 billion (and we know that it is larger than that by several orders of magnitude), which will be a very severe strain on turkish economy. 2) the land claims. this is far more serious, and indeed the single most important issue in the whole business. as we have seen, there is a very strong argument that armenian revolutionaries envisaged sacrificing their people to get their land, which the armenians themselves do not deny, and the overwhelming majority of turks see the genocide claims mainly as a tool to pursue these land claims to conclusion. this is the reason why turkey denies the genocide, and until recently, deliberately destroyed or allowed to decay all evidence of armenian presence in anatolia, as well as denying a place to armenians in anatolia in history books. the turks do not target the armenians because they are armenians or christians (and that is one argument that they have against the killings being a genocide). there was no traditional hatred of the armenians, not at least until the arrival of balkan muslim and central asian refugees in the 19th century, the way there was anti-semitism in europe since the beginning of christianity. we have no anti-armenian folk literature that has to be weeded out to make it look respectable (that has to be done with all european literature re the jews, for instance). there are no racial armenian stereotypes in turkish folklore (other than a general notion that you are a trading and artistically gifted nation) the way there are jewish stereotypes in european folklore. there are no stories like "armenians eat muslim children for passover" in turkey. there is not a single abusive term that designates "armenian" in turkish that i know (and i am a linguist). there is no "yid". and we want this to be understood (and we see it isn't). what we want is to see the land claims (by this i mean actual secession of east anatolia to be handed over to armenia) dropped from the armenian agenda, and not only that of the ROA. once this is done, i think the denialist policy of turkey will be wrapped up very quickly indeed: more and more turks themselves come to realise that their own version of the events fits the commonly accepted definition of the genocide fairly well, and there is a term in turkish "ermeni kıyımı". where did it come from, and why do we of all people have it? people ask these questions, you know?

quote:Originally posted by Tatavla:Do any of the Armenian members of this forum think that our ancestors came from the Balkans PERIOD(emphasis on the word period) ??? and that we today are the descendants of these people ? We are truly a mixture(culturally & genetically); not only of Anatolian peoples either...and a big part of this mixture is Urartu, Nairi, Haiassa-Aza and the likes... Even the most apolitic and culturally uninformed dandigin knows/thinks that we descended from the Urartu, and accepts this. So, for example; unlike the "Turks", she does not say "we are the descendants of Phrygians from the Balkans, period". "Turks" on the other hand -even though having only a minute amount of Central Asian Turkic genes, - insist on calling themselves Turks, just because they can speak the language more or less. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this. You are free to call yourself whatever you want, even if you know the facts or not. What is not right here, is when you change the name of the land , too. THIS IS UNJUST(along with the people who practice it). It is also unjust/uncivilized to say that you own this land, because your new adopted ancestors had been successful in invading and conquering it by sword and arrow. This whole notion would have been acceptable to those people that lived in the distant past, but should not be acceptable to today's "Turks", if they want to be counted as civilised. It is one thing to change your ethnicity (by your own will, under pressure, etc...) to the one of an invader, but it's another thing to claim the lands of the natives as your own, with your new ethnicity; regardless of what other ethnicities of the area think. At this age in time, no one nation should own a specific geographical area any more. SPECIALLY, if that nation is not a native of that land. tatavla, 1. if you don't know that your ancestors, (or that part that brought your language) came from the balkans, then you just don't know much about early anatolian history, i am sorry. and armenian being an indo-european language of the thraco-balkan type, and a relative of phrygian, is not some turkish theory but established fact which you can find in a thousand publications pertaining to the subject, none of which were written/sponsored/financed/published by anything turkish. you have been given the information that you are the descendants of urartu, which is true to a certain extent, but then again, why don't you speak urartu. after all, there was a language called urartian, which was a close relative of the earlier hurrian, and probably a distant relative of georgian (kartveli) of today. it was a caucasian language. you say that you are a mixture of all these people, do you think that this mixture happened peacefully? well, we are mixture of the chinese, mongols, turks, persians, kurds, arabs, armenians, greeks, hittites, serbians, bulgarians, circassian, georgians and god knows what else, and we know full well it didn't happen peacefully. you were formed by more or less the same historical processes, only that in your case it is so long ago, and the victims of your ancestors are extinct and therefore can't speak for themselves: have you ever seen an actual urartian? imagine that in three thousand years' time you go extinct, the historical record is destroyed, there is only our version of history, and there are some of your monuments still standing in anatolia, and we claim to be descendants of a mixture of central asian turks, greeks, and you armenians (which is not at all inaccuraate, actually), and own up your stuff. and there is no armenian around to tell the truth. what would that be like? 2. tatavla, i am afraid you have to read a bit more history. it wasn't us who called the place "turkey". it was the italians in the 12th century, in fact, even before the ottomans appeared on the scene. neither in seljukid times nor throughout the ottoman empire, the word "turk" never appears in OUR records connected with anything governmental. we never called anatolia turkey, there was no province, district, sandjak, anything that was called "turkey", "turkestan", or "turk-" anything. throughout the ottoman times the only time the word "turk" appears in any administrative context is the language. that waas called "turki" or "türkçe". that's all. the europeans, on the other hand, have been calling us turks ever since we came to anatolia, and expanded. it was they who called anatolia "turkey", as you can see from the european maps dating all the way back to the 15th century (the oldest that i saw). it was they who called suleiman the magnificent "the grand turk", when suleiman himself is never recorded to have designated himself as such. it was the europeans who had thought of carving up "turkey" in the 19th century when we were trying to preserve "the ottoman empire". you know how so many "turks" learned that they were turks? when they were thrown out of the lands in europe bag and baggage on account of being "muslim turks" as opposed to christian serbs, bulgarians, greeks romanians etc. muslims, yes, but turks? they were racially european, culturally european (yes they were), nominally muslim but in most cases enormous portions of christianity had survived in a different garb, almost never spoke turkish, at least not as a household language, in many cases had no memory either of anatolia or (who did, anyway?) of central asia, called themselves " ottomans" or "muslims" and not "turks", and were still called "turks" by the christian europeans and were killed, plundered, raped, dispossessed and deported on that ground. you could see the same tragedy unfold in the balkans when yugoslavia broke up: the croats, serbs and bosnians are all slavs who speak the same language, look the same, and have more or less the same culture. when the place blew up because germany had to pay its debt to the croatian ustashe from wwii, and serbs tried to hold the place together, they justified their genocide of the bosnian muslims by appealing to the christian identity of europe and saying that "they were throwing the turk out of europe". i am sure that was the first time most bosnians ever heard that they were turks, with their slavic language, 2 metres tall stature, milky white skin, blond hair and blue eyes! but since they were being killed on account of being "turks", many of them fled to turkey, and their children who are growing up now in turkey are becoming turks, and very nati,onalist ones at that, because their parents were persecuted for being "turks", even if they themselves didn't know that they were turks! this is how we are made. and this is why racial theories never really took hold in turkey. we know that most of us probably have %0.00000000001 central asian blood in our veins, and the only major aspect of culture that solidly survives from central asia is our language, but we are turks because we have been made turks by those around us, in a sense. we don't really make much of it, really, because we hae always been open. you are a german, you come to turkey, fall in love with the sun, the people (and maybe someone in particular), decide to settle, learn the language, take turkish citizenship, and there you are: you are a turk: "türk oldu". do you have something like "ermeni oldu" in armenian? and the reason why we finally agreed to call the place turkey is this. what most of us have in common is that we have all been kicked out of some place else on account of being turks, and no-one is going to kick us out of here.

quote:Originally posted by nairi:3. i happen to be a scholar of the turkish language who had studied abroad, and unless you are going to claim that the oriental institute at oxford is run by turks, i am afraid the info i have been given on the alphabet reform is correct. mind you, i am not saying that no armenian played a part in it: agop dilaçar (very probably your hagop something) was that man. but he didn't design the whole alphabet himself. Oxford is Turkish sponsored, like Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, Amsterdam and Leiden University and pretty much every other renowned Western University around the globe. Where the hell do you think the billions of dollars Turkey spends annually on propaganda goes? 5. well, tourists actually come to the place and see it with their own eyes. and we receive ten million of them every year, most of whom keep coming back. if they alone believe it, that's fine by me. it's far more reliable than the convictions of someone who hasn't even been to turkey. My point exactly. I changed my language to suit yours, as it is obvious that you are typical Turk who cannot accept the fact that your nation is the wrong-doer and in a so-called concealed fashion you pretend you do. You're not the first Turkish denier I'm having a conversation with, or as Arpa rightfully put it, a monologue with. First you learn to communicate in a civilized fashion, and then I'll go back to my initial manners. Nairi nairi, 1. it takes more than turkey's GNP to "sponsor" these universities, besides each of them published tons of material that confirm AG. besides as a turkish alumnus of oxfod i sadly know from personl experience that turkey does not even support turkish student organisations that organise "turkish nights" and things, let alone propaganda on any scale. all they do is pay lip service. and the "billions of dollars" that the govt spends in "propaganda", first it is not billions, second it ends up in swiss bank accounts mostly. what the govt does is restrict research facilities to academicians in turkish fields if their line opposes the turkish official line. they also occasionally hire some non-academics to produce trash. but no more than that. and no-one really gives a damn about the official turkish position in the west anyway. they all know the genocide took place (otherwise where did all this diaspora come from?) and they tolerate the turkish line just for political reasons. do not forget that neither the turks nor the armenians in themselves are of any importance either to the europeans or the americans. many of them can't even show us on a map. 2. no, not your point exactly: tourists travel all over the place and see 1) there is greek, roman, armenian stuff in turkey, so these people must have been here, 2) go to the east and listen to the kurds, and see more armenian stuff and obviously wonder where the people who built them are, 3) use guidebooks on turkey written by europeans, quite a few of which are on sale in turkey, and many of these refer to AG (there is even an insight guide with a full page on AG written by sevan nişanyan, a turkish armenian, who is still alive and well and working in the tourism sector). so no, not your point exactly. 3. your change of language to suit mine has not been succesful, i am afraid. it is obvious that you haven't actually understood my language since you tell that i don't accept my nation did wrong. and my style has always been crystal-clear about my position re the genocide: there was one, we did it, and it was wrong. how much clearer can one get? i find your last line extremely impolite and end this conversation here. first you learn to read what is before you, accept opposition in a civilised manner, counter it intelligently and without insults, and apologise for your past conduct, then i can think about resuming it.if not, i can very well do without it.

quote:Originally posted by Eduard Markosyan:think what would happen to the poor turks who would one day be confronted with the reality in a place outside of turkey. how much these poor creatures will suffer when they find out that they were lied and made fun of by their own government. many turks have, eduard. i for one. turks have always been suspicious of the official stories, those that told us that the last sultan sold the country, that the kurds are mountain turks, that we were all so wonderful with subject peoples that they wouldn't rebel unless provoked by the west, that anatolia had been inhabited by turks since 2000 bc etc. so many of us have acquired foreign languages and have been to the west (there are over three million turks abroad) that educated people who care about such stuff don't buy the government line anymore. besides, it is our common experience that we all had armenian neighbours, who are almost all gone now. of course we ask the question of what happened to them, and the govrenment line is not convincing. so i suggest you don't be so anxious about turks getting so shocked by the reality when they face it. in fact you would be surprised (both turks and armenians who engaged in this exercise frequently are) at how similar individual turkish and armenian accounts can be. there is of course greater material on the turkish side referring to the sufferings of turks, as vice versa on the armenian side, but turks do not deny the killings themselves (at least the local people don't). they oppose the notion of genocide of which i observe they have little idea of. they know that they are being accused of a genocide, which, though they do not fully understand, realise is something "very, very bad", and since they cannot - or do not want to - conceive that their nation can do something very, very bad, they oppose it. there are also two other factors: 1) armenians did some pretty horrible things too, especially but not only immediately after the deportations, and there are a lot of survivors of these events, now very old though. 2) another factor is the unclear stance of the armenians regarding the separation of the genocide issue from the land claims. we hear one line today, another the next day, and we are confused about your position re this (i.e. whether you want half of our country and throw us back into central asia). as far as i can see there is increasing awareness in turkey that the truth re AG claims is somewhere between our version of the story and yours. and i have been suspecting for a few years now that the state is consciously preparing the public opinion psychologically (this needs to be done) for an eventual recognition of the genocide. this will take some time, but strides are being taken, and the ball has started rolling now, so there is no turning the clock back. so in brief i am cautiously optimistic for the future.

nairi, first of all please observe the general deterioration in the quality of language that you use versus my observance of a constancy in the quality of my language. i think i have the right to be addressed in the same fashion as i address other people. 1. so you say that turkey controls absolutely everything written about armenians everywhere on earth (save armenia, i presume)? so we control russian, british, french, german, and american scholars, universities, libraries, publishers, everyone? and so effective is our campaign that no scholar save armenian (or armenian-sponsored) ones can publish the truth? so the entire academic world on this planet regarding anatolian and armenian history is controlled from ankara? give me a break! 2. i have no means to visit armenia at the moment, but i would appreciate if you could direct me to internet links about the stuff in garni and matenadaran. tigranocerta i presume is dikranakert, which i recall was an armenian town near present-day diyarbakır (i i am not mistaken most of the armenian population of diyarbakır came from dikranakert. am i correct?). i didn't know that there was pre-christian armenian-language written material there. i would appreciate if you could elucidate. 3. i happen to be a scholar of the turkish language who had studied abroad, and unless you are going to claim that the oriental institute at oxford is run by turks, i am afraid the info i have been given on the alphabet reform is correct. mind you, i am not saying that no armenian played a part in it: agop dilaçar (very probably your hagop something) was that man. but he didn't design the whole alphabet himself. also you seem to have missed the point: i don't say you didn't exist because you didn't have an alphabet of your own until 401 ad. what i said was that you were perhaps not as prominent as you think in eastern anatolia: the whole place was literate since 2000 bc, your existence has been recorded by your neighbours (who seem to have had few good words about you, but then, they had few good words for anyone, anyway, that's beside the point), but the place was run by hittites, urartians, phrygians, even greeks, romans and persians, but there is little record of an independent armenian state that controlled all or even the majority of the place called western armenia (and mind you, i know full well that that designation existed by herodotos' time and don't challenge it). it seems to me that with a few exceptions, most of armenia for the most part was ruled by other people, and we turks simply took it over from these other people. how many wars do you know of in the 11th-15th centuries between turkish and armenian armies? there are plenty between turks and greeks. 4. so it has been recorded that armenians did not raid or colonize urartu, they just moved in there. this must have been a rather unique event in human history, where one nation moves into another's teritory peacefully without any skirmishes, and then the other nation goes extinct, again peacefully, i presume. hmmmm... i'll check my records again. 5. well, tourists actually come to the place and see it with their own eyes. and we receive ten million of them every year, most of whom keep coming back. if they alone believe it, that's fine by me. it's far more reliable than the convictions of someone who hasn't even been to turkey. 6. i am not in pain, true, but i am also not trying to convince anyone with my distorted understanding of history. in fact, most of the time, i even don't issue grandiose statements like "it has been proven/established... no doubt" etc. i simply state all the facts that i know about a certain issue, and then challenge your position (if i disagree with it) by asking questions, which you evidently seem to have trouble answering, and therefore fly into fits of rage. i myself am perfectly calm, as you can see from the tone of my postings. i also think it is absurd to attempt to force down a version of history to people who know it not to be true. imagine me telling you that the genocide did not take place. now that's what i call distorted and absurd and shameful etc, and not my innocent postings that challenge the much-cherished but unfortunately not totally accurate positions that some of you hold. i am also one of the few here who can and occasionally does (o.k. i have been a bit sloppy in this respect lately) give references, most of which (especially those relating to linguistics and archaeology) are from non-turkish sources. consider. [ August 15, 2002, 07:31 AM: Message edited by: aurguplu ]

quote:Originally posted by nairi: quote:Originally posted by aurguplu:i read almost exclusively western european/american stuff Ali, you should know by now that Western stuff about Armenians is Turkish controlled. Again, Ali jan, let me take your pain away. Armenians didn't have an alphabet before AD 401. That's why there are no inscriptions in Armenian proper. Until AD 401, Armenians used other existing alphabets, like Turks today use the Latin alphabet, which btw, an Armenian designed for you. One last thing: when proto-Armenians arrived on the scene in Urartu, they integrated and ended up evolving what Urartians already had. That's why we are proud of our Urartians heritage, unlike Turks who not only do not recognize their Armenian and Greek heritage, they are doing everything to destroy it. Nairi nairi, 1. some western stuff is turkish controlled, but i guess not the stuff that relates to periods b.c. what turks attempt to control is mainly genocide-related stuff. 2. so is there armenian-language material in other alphabets before 401 ad? i didn't know that. could you please give me any reference books where i can find the stuff? (i am not challenging you, i am interested in it as a language buff). 3. the turkish alphabet was not designed by an armenian, if you mean the introduction of the specific turkish letters. an armenian - forgot his name - designed atatürk's signature and the calligraphy on western models (as if there could be ny other model). but the alphabet itself was the collective effort of many people, including atatürk, in which an armenian may also have played a part (there was an armenian, agop dilaçar, who did play a very important part in the language movement, for instance). 4. how do you know that when the armenian arrived on the scene they didn't "arrive" the way we did, and didn't do the things we did after 1071 ad? after all, your arrival suspiciously coincides with the downfall of the hittite empire (it was destroyed by the "sea peoples" of which you were one) and the elimination of urartu from the historical record. urartu was alive and well when you arrived. what happened to it that it was gone and forgotten by the christian era? and why did the language go extinct? does an entire nation give up its language out of their own accord? 5. you do not seem to have read much turkish stuff from after the 1970s. turks have been stressing their anatolian heritage as much as their central asian heritage, and we know full well that by genetics and culture we are more anatolian than central asian. we do not see the face of genghis khan in the mirror every morning, after all. plus we are not destroying our greek heritage at all, in fact we have been making quite a lot of money out of it since after wwii. and, what is more, the graeco-roman stuff in turkey is more in quantity, more impressive, in more places, and even better preserved than greece itself (where in greece do you have the likes of ephesus, pergamum, priene, didyma, aspendos, side etc?). it is the post-byzantine greek, and armenian heritage that was really hard hit, partly by deliberate destruction and partly due to neglect. true. but that is changing too, now. and although much is destroyed, there is still enough standing to pay tribute to your past in this country. and please stop referring to my "pain". i don't have one. i may have opinions that differ from yours, but that is something you must bear in a democratic forum, i guess. cheers,

quote:Originally posted by nairi:Ali, I thought you read objective books. You're really beginning to disappoint me more and more. Nairi sorry nairi, i don't have an agenda to impress you. and i read books, try to make sure they are as objective as possible, but in the topic under discussion (as in humanities in general), "objectivity" is a rare thing to find and difficult to define anyway. i read blatant turkish propaganda, armenian propaganda, discreet third party propaganda, eyewitness accounts, the lot. concerning ancient history (mushki/urartu etc.) i read almost exclusively western european/american stuff, because these are the guys who do most of the research anyway. there is not much primary research in turkish about these topics in the first place, and what little there is is awfully technical (translation of this or that bit of prayer from this stela, that tablet). the research that i read so far says that armenian, an indo-european language belonging to the thraco-balkan group, must have appeared in eastern anatolia at around 1200 bc, at about the same time as the destruction of one layer of troy and might have something to do with it. (ca. 1200 bc is the time when the trojan war took place). the languages that thus came to anatolia were at least two: phrygian and the ancestor of armenian. these were similar, as ancient writers tell us, bot not the same, as modern scholarship tells us: they must have split well before 800 bc, when first phrygian inscriptions appear. neither has anything to do with urartu, and they are very distantly related to hittite, luwian, lycian, palaic, etc. of the anatolian group of indo-european languages (these had come to anatolia at around 2000 bc). and the first people who are recorded to have spoken that language are the mushki. now mushki was the name that the native anatolians called the phrygians by. the area phrygia, or just west of it was also called mysia in antiquity, and there is an area in the southern balkans called moesia, precisely the place where the phrygians are said to have come from. the famous phrygian king midas is very probably the same person as "mita of the mushki" mentioned in the assyrian records of the same time as the careers of these two are quite identical. moreover, the georgians still call you samekhi. very early armenian dress recorded in low reliefs and other visual material is recognisably of the balkan type. armenian is not closely enough related to any other indo-european language known to form a group, but there are certain parallels that it shares with ancient greek and no other language (without it being a hellenic language), which can only be explained by a balkan origin since greek too had moved into greece after 2000 bc from what is now romania (the balkans and northeast of it were the original home of greek, thracian, illyrian (=albanian), italic (=latin, oscan, faliscan etc.), venetic, possibly celtic, and possibly slavic). your national name, hay, most probably comes from the urartian hayk', which meant hittite. this is a bit like the french national name coming from the name of a germanic tribe. and you were not hitties ethnically speaking (there is plenty of hittite material around, none of which shows any similarity to armenian, apart from being indo-european). none of this info comes from turkish (or armenian) sources, and to the best of my knowledge none of the authors had any political axe to grind. you might disagree with my extensive use of linguistic factors to determine ethnicity/nationality, but language is the one element that holds nations together (for a common social life you need a common language to communicate), and language has always been a key factor in determining one's ethnic identity. the main reason why most turks are turks and not a greek/serbian/armenian etc. is because they speak turkish as mother tongue. the same holds for you. you are of course partly descended from the urartu, hittites etc, but so have anatolian greeks, lazes, us turks, and kurds, and they are not you, nor you them. and as hagarag rightly points out, you are descended from a good number of other peoples, including the assyrians, jews, huns, mongols, and (as a member had posted: ugh) turks. but you prefer to portray yourselves as the descendants of urartu pretty much to the exclusion of anything else (even, as i sometimes see with amazement, to the exclusion of the mushki who first actually spoke armenian) because 1) urartus are old: this gives you antiquity 2) urartus were native, or at least very old in the region: this gives you a claim in the place 3) urartus are dead: there are no living urartus to raise objecions and tell their version of their - and your - story. 4) urartus have done things: their language was written down for centuries, the stuff they left behind are definitely their production because it is signed by them. if you really were that old and numerous in anatolia and surrounded by various people who were all literate, tell me, why is there not a single piece of writing in armenian in any script from the pre-christian era? the greeks have it. the persians have it. the hittites have it. the urartu have it. the assyrians have it. the jews have it. you don't. why?

quote:Originally posted by nairi:Ali did you know that "Turk" means "filthy" in European? And did you know that Ottomans were flattered by this derogatory term and therefore applied it to themselves? And did you know that even today Turks are seen as some of the dirties and filthiest people alive in Europe, in fact more so than Moroccans or any other Muslim population? How can you be proud of your country's name? if we both were in the eu, i could probably sue you for these comments: they come across as plain racist. i lived in europe for eight years, and have heard many derogatory things about turks, but never filthy. i know that the turkish people working in europe have a hygiene problem, this stems from their very low life standards both at home and over there above anything else. after all, europe was not a particularly clean place until surprisingly late: there are no toilets in versailles. after all, there is something called a "turkish bath" and not a "german/english/french etc" bath (and before you add, i know about the roman bath and the finnish sauna). and i repeat, i am pretty shocked to have this come from you. i may disagree with you or any other armenian very strongly over this or that issue, but i would never think of insulting your nation, and have never used comparable language when referring to armenians.