Partevhasak

Lav... inch asem? First of all, thanks for your views, very interesting. You are very optimistic, if you allow me to say so in a positive way. However, I believe that you don't really know many Turks - please correct me if I'm wrong. If you did know them, you'd revise your ideas for the following reasons: If we just look at the development of the Turkish identity, then we can clearly state that it is one of the fastest growing in the Middle East. I actually happen to know tons of them (it's inevitable in some places). More often than not, if you go to a Turkish xyz-shop and have a chat with the shop keeper, you'd realise he's actually a Kurd (i.e. Kurd, Zaza, Armenian, Aramaean, or anything not "Turkish" originating in Turkey). But these people increasingly call themselves Turks today, simply because it is much easier for them to be a Turk than anything else, their children often don't know a word of Kurdish or whatever else. (BTW - We also have quite a few Armenian families who are "Turks" ot "Kurds" nowadays.) Anyway, the point is that the Turkish identity is a very strong one. Just look a bit around you: Who the hell spoke about "Turks" in Irak until some years ago? But as we see, today, around 1-2% of the country's population are called "Turkmens". They are heavily supported by Turkey of course and happen to live just around the oil sources, but the point is that their identity has strengthened immensly in the last few years. What about other counries? Bulgaria, Krim Island, Albania... Turkish minorities everywhere, not the slightest decrease in their population records. In Iran, the Turkish invasion took place about 1000 yrs ago. While the original Mongolian Turks (the invaders) were clearly an extreme minority, as can be illustrated looking at the people living there today, today, their language is spoken not only by their own descendants, but also by the descendants of Medes, Parthians, Sogdians ("Uzbekistan"). Moreover, their numbers are drastically increasing (more than the rest) and the only place in Iran, where you can still find people (admittedly not very numerous, though) who don't speak a word of the official Persian is Azarbaijan. Just like Turks in Germany, in Ukraine, in wherever the hell they settle - they do not "integrate" themselves very well because the Turkish identity is not based on co-existence, but on rape, murder, robbery and theft (just see an actual statistical report in the German "Spiegel" magazine, where the Turks come out last BY FAR in terms of integration, education etc.). You can see this in Uzbekistan too, until recently mainly populated with Tajiks: The Turks virtually eliminate everything non-Turkish there (Jews, Armenians, Tajiks, etc.). I'm not saying that every Turk is a murderer or thief, but their culture is based on such elements, meaning that if a Turk refers to anything Turkish (e.g. "we have Ayran (drink), we have xyz-instrument, we have xyz-place with xyz-ancient ruins, our country, our pride, I love Istanbul, blue mosque etc."), he does in fact refer to Greek, Armenian, Iranian, Arab (or even Anatolian) cultural products. Face it, what the Turks came up with in all these centuries was "many sexual explosions inside of non-Turkish women" (as Borat would express it ) and the genocide or Armenians, Aramaeans, Pontic Greeks and progromes against Zazas - of course, after they first reduced the world's Iranian stock by about 50% in the east (an unbelievable performance, actually). What else is there? Now imagine a child from a Turkish-Armenian relationship (never witnessed one, btw), let's assume his parents want to express his multiculturalism and name him Levon. Also, let's imagine his mother is Hay and has a decent job which does not require her being naked. Now, either she's absolutely ignorant about her culture, her roots etc. and so's his dad, in which case Levon most probably wouldn't care a rat's ass about Armenia. Or his dad is a fanatic Anti-Turk for some reason, in which case Levon most probably would not consider himself Turkish, and neither his dad, and they wouldn't really be considered so by the Turks as well. So what could such people possibly do for the Armenian cause? BTW - this is an extremely constructed situation, if you want to know what reality looks like: Probably, such children would fall for the Turkish identity or consider themselves British, American, German, French etc., because 1. most people today are not interested in politics, even more, if they possess a mixed heritage; 2. on a purely social basis, there are far more Turks around (exc. for Glendale ), they have a very "brotherly" culture = they easily accept ANYONE, so it's more probable to make Turkish friends than Armenian; 3. it's cheaper, easier and more comfortable to make holidays in "Antalya" than in Yerevan (or Sevan) - very simplistic argument, but very true...; 4. If you have two identities: on the one side, you have genocide, the fight for recognition, a small country, many sad elements (music, poetry), a sad history, no major role in history/politics, i.e. "losers" - and on the other side, you have "winners", Kebab, dance music, great country with a glorious history (from 0 to everything they have, Ottoman Empire etc.), your only major concern is to be a part of Europe = winner's club, you have fellow compatriots everywhere, you don't have to integrate yourself anywhere b/c your compatriots will beat the shit out of English/German/French/whatever who criticise you etc. etc. PLUS: you will probably be discriminated by the Armenian society. So you tell me what identity YOU would chose if you weren't Armenian and did not have all that info about the past. You cannot expect a 14yr old to show such high moral and educational standards while most 14yr old Armenians in the US don't even know many things about their culture. So no, I do not believe that ANYONE should mix with Turks - not the Germans, not the Lebanese, not the English, the Spanish, and certainly not the Armenians. As the Russians say, one spoon of shit spoils an entire keg of honey...

Hiya, I've just come across this topic and would like to put forward my personal experiences and opinion, I hope it's not out of context by now: Having read older topics, I believe that similar questions regarding otars have been already dealt with earlier. However, I always missed one huge point and am astonished that nobody ever brought it up: otar =/= otar. Judging from my wide experience with various countries, peoples and acquaintances, I have to say that it is crucial which foreign NATION we are speaking of. You people seriously don't want to tell me that all the 6 billion non-Armenians in the world are equally just otars, do you? As for intermarriage in general, this is not a particularly Armenian issue, but one concerning all "endangered" or, say, small communities in the world (I would not speak of the Armenians as endangered in the real sense). I believe it is only natural when a small people emphasizes the importance of intermarriage, this is witnessed in various parts of the world. It is also not necessary to mention that such strategies never work in the long run - you cannot name me a small population in the world who managed to remain pure. Even the "successful" Jews, who are often mentioned, managed to maintain their religion (which in their particular case is absolutely equal to their culture), but obviously not their race, as we all can see. The only other reasons for intermarriage can be of religious origin (Hindus) or open racism and extreme xenophobia as in the case of the Japanese. Finally, intermarriage actually heavily correlates with the level of education: Multicultural relationships tend to occurr rather more often between well educated academics (or artists) than between the common simple people, the reason being that educated people usually possess a much more universal perception of the world and are usually more willing to mutually accept the other culture as a part of their own. Furthermore, due to their usuallsy higher IQ, they are also able to learn languages more easily, identify common structures in different cultures, etc. You might think Dolma is so Armenian while in reality, it is probably anything from Greek to Persian. You might think the Armenian music is very unique, while in reality, it is a mix of various influences, reaching from French chanson (e.g. Haxverdyan, Movsisyan) to more traditional music played with originally Iranian instruments such as Tar, Dohol, Kamancha, etc. (You see, right now, many readers will think what? How dare you! Those are purely Armenian musical instruments! Traitor! Blabla - while educated people who have studied the subject know that most "Armenian" instruments are of foreign origin"). Accordingly, it is very clear that some of the otars will appreciate Dolma, Armenian folk music, etc. more than others, for it is also part of their culture. But then again, you need to have an interest in foreign cultures and KNOW about these similarities - that's what I meant with common cultural structures. You can expand the examples to many other fields of life. Most important, however: Educated people tend to identify their own culture in a different way than the simple man. The example par excellence is religion. I've made the experience that academics show a far lesser tendency to define themselves by a particular religion and usually are agnostics at best, while the working class is often religious (maybe not always "truly religious" in the real biblical sense, though, but the church is a fix part of the identity). This also often prevents intercultural marriages as these people often wish to marry within their own religious denomination. So, as far as my opinion is concerned, I can only speak from my own experience based on Armenian (and some non-Armenian) intercultural marriages, I beg your pardon if my views are not compatible with yours. As I believe that the issue of concern are merely the children, I will confine myself to them: If the children are raised in Armenia, nothing matters, marry as you like (except Turks). The child will eventually end up being Armenian. In the diaspora, however, things are more complicated. Judgning from my observations, if you insist on your child learning Armenian and retaining the Armenian heritage, then it is crucially important that you marry someone Armenian or at least someone from a similar culture (as with all things, exceptions confirm the rule). I have some Parskahay friends who married Persian women/men and those two cultures go well together because of numerous shared stuff. Furthermore, those who marry Armenians will usually either be Christians or convert to Christianity (if they legally can) - all the children of my friends are Christians (or, well, Atheists) and those living in Iran go to Armenian schools and learn to write Armenian etc. Also, "Armenian" is a socially recognised Iranian identity amongst Persians, meaning that most people over there (errogenously) believe Armenans are Iranians, so it is very normal to be an Iranian and Armenian at the same time, there's no need to "give up" one culture. Another people that seem to go well are Aramaeans (wrongly named "Assyrians" or "Chaldeans" - the same thing, actually) and as we know, there is a certain tradition between Armenians and Aramaeans as for marriage. One of my neighbours married an aramaean woman and that was just a perfect catch! (The guy's family though was very racist towards her, for reasons incomprehensible to me). I only know of one woman having married a Greek, and they seem to have faired well so far, but I don't know about children. And I know some Armenian-German marriages and Armenian-Russian: Their children will definitely lose their roots, as far as I can tell, no chance there. But that's only what I've seen, maybe your experiences are different. So all in all, I am not against intercultural relationships, they can produce better, broader educated Armenians in some cases - what's more important is that the otar partner is someone who himself/herself is interested in the Armenian culture and learns the language, the script, etc. That's what I'd expect at least. But I don't consider foreign cultural influence per se as a threat. I would not want my children to grow up wothout Tumanyan, Shiraz, Charents, Kuchak, but also not without Khayyam, Hafez, Homer or Sophokles. The only exception I have to make is with Turks. First of all, an Armenian marrying a Turk is just raping his/her ancestors. No discussion here. Moreover, possible children of such parents would grow up with a serious crisis of identity and probably give in to the more accepting Turkish side. Just my two cents