Premier: Turkey Could Charge Countries Adopting Ar

[DominO123]

Reading this, one would believe Turkeys premier is a pre-puberty kid, playing with his cars.

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Premier: Turkey could charge countries adopting Armenian genocide bill

 

NTV television, Istanbul

12 May 05

 

Prime Minister Erdogan made a surprise statement regarding the

Armenian genocide allegations. Erdogan said that they too could adopt

decisions at the parliament on genocides committed in the past in the

15 countries that have adopted the Armenian genocide decision.

 

Continuing his visit to Hungary, Prime Minister said: I too could just

decide to pass decisions from my parliament on genocides committed in

various countries. I have such a majority.

 

Prime Minister Erdogan reminded that the 15 countries which passed the

[Armenian] genocide decision from their parliaments are countries that

have committed genocides in the past.

 

Erdogan said that the trap being laid against Turkey is very ugly,

Turkey will not fall into such a trap.

[DominO123]

I think, this is a good answer here, for the moron.

 

 

A genocide denied

 

In the 21st century, Turkish society will no longer be able to afford this

rotten foundation of repression and crude historical falsification if it

wants to be invited into the circle of Europeans. The Turks cannot demand

that others come to terms with their histories when they themselves are only

willing to believe in a version they invented, says Zafer Senocak.

 

Signandsight.com (Arts, Essays, Ideas from Germany)

2005-05-10

 

By Zafer Senocak

 

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Germans not only stood before

the ruins of their fragmented country. They also, in the light of the crimes

committed under National Socialist rule, stood before moral ruin and the

question of guilt, which after a relatively short phase of repression, led

to unprecedented historical scrutiny.

 

But what happens when instead of a culture of remembering, a culture of

repression and denial is established? How can two societies, one at home in

the culture of memory and the other in the culture of repression, come to

terms with one another.

 

The current debate surrounding the Armenian victims of Turkish deportation

and extermination in 1915 reflects the impossibility of this sort of

understanding. Many Turkish public figures and associations in Germany react

to the accusations of genocide with old patterns of repression that are so

thoroughly internalised that to abandon them would be like abandoning one's

very self.

 

This is no starting point, either for a dialogue with German society, which

is discussing this problematic chapter of Turkish history ever more openly,

or for the families of the victims who for decades have been seeking

recognition for their suffering.

 

This fact alone is monstrous enough. Imagine this for a moment: Your own

family is driven from its home, and in the process most of them lose their

lives, are massacred in cold blood. But the survivors and their children

then have to spend decades trying to bring the rest of the world, not to

mention the perpetrator nation, to recognise the suffering and injustice

inflicted on them. The accusation from the Turkish side that the Armenian

diaspora has purely nationalist motivations is downright shameless, given

that the Turkish establishment refuses to even lift a finger in

acknowledgement of these people and their personal histories.

 

Acknowledgement can neither be replaced by a public discussion of the events

in Anatolia, nor by parliamentary debate, and certainly not by an

international dispute between historians. The very fact that people are

calling for historians to debate the issue reveals coldness and distance,

which is part of the problem, not the solution. The archives are open, they

say, as if historical truth could be accessed solely through archives.

Historical truth is not a physical quantity that can be measured with a

mathematical formula. It is hidden in the memories of every individual

person. If these memories are subjected to a permanent process of

repression, there is no truth, only lies and falsification.

 

In the 21st century, Turkish society will no longer be able to afford this

rotten foundation of repression and crude historical falsification if it

wants to be invited into the circle of Europeans. The Turks cannot demand

that others come to terms with their histories when they themselves are only

willing to believe in a version they invented.

 

But virtually everything that has come out of the Turkish media in Germany

in recent weeks bodes ill. Instead of a serious debate on the issue, they

are concerned with capitalising on Armenia's history of suffering because it

is ideally suited to exploit Turkish nationalist feeling. But when this

takes place in Germany, it is not only dangerous but unbearable.

 

The defamation of critical voices by these press organs has by now lost all

journalistic sense and assumed the dimensions of a campaign. Once again it

is becoming clear that the majority of Turkish politicians and their lackeys

are utterly indifferent to the real concerns of Turks abroad. They view them

as a mass that can be manoeuvred to serve their own ends, however stable

they are. They see them as peasant victims, who can be shifted back and

forth, and abandoned at any point. The nationalistically-charged mass seems

to consent to this. It is not their integration into German society that is

important, nor their establishment and upcoming cosmopolitan orientation,

no, the only thing of relevance is nationalist ethos.

 

This is an unbearable state of affairs, which if it persists, does not augur

well for German-Turkish relations. German acceptance of Turks in Germany is

already minimal. The consequences of further alienation are virtually

impossible to estimate.

 

Sensible voices in Germany still capable of rational analysis are not

entirely absent. The Turkish Union in Berlin-Brandenburg, the TBB, has

refrained from jumping on the nationalist bandwagon. This should be welcomed

wholeheartedly, even if it means that the campaign now being launched

against this organisation will probably cause irreparable damage to the

Turkish population. The instrumentalisation of genocide, for whatever end it

might be, is always morally despicable and casts a dark shadow on those who

practise it. This applies in particular to politicians who serve the

interests of the so-called healthy understanding in Turkish society, to

which the denial and repression of genocide belong.

 

This instrumentalisation is not only morally despicable, it also deforms

those who practise it. Because by doing so they are treading in the

footsteps of the perpetrators. In the same way, a society which represses a

crime of such dimensions, which stubbornly refuses to feel guilt or

responsibility, is in no way immune to a repetition. The lynch-mob

atmosphere that has raised its head in recent weeks on Turkish streets

against minorities and other-minded individuals, does not - as one might

expect - awaken any bad memories, because such memories have been

deliberately erased.

 

All these events substantiate one fact: the scale and effect of the Armenian

genocide has yet to be understood by the Turks. What is lacking is not only

a rational analysis but a compassionate heart and an awareness of

responsibility, which would make many discussions completely superfluous.

For example, whether one categorises the events as genocide or massacre and

expulsion. A row over terminology cannot erase victims from memory or

history. A society that is unwilling to remember remains imprisoned by the

mistakes of the past. This verdict is much harsher that any judgement that

could be passed by some government.

 

*****

 

This article was originally published in German in the taz on 28 April 2005.

 

Zafer Senocak, born in Ankara in 1961, has lived in Germany since 1970,

where he has become a leading voice in German discussions on

multiculturalism, national and cultural identity, and a mediator between

Turkish and German culture.

 

Translation: lp.

 

 

http://www.signandsight.com/features/154.html

[Stormig]

I think what the prime minister says is entirely - well - factual. He very well could. But that would only leave Turkey in the same position as those condemned. That would suffice. I don't know if Belgium is among the 15 mentioned, but if it were, the fact that it may have passed such a resolution wouldn't edify this country in my eyes, for Belgians are very guilty of the blood they spilt in the Congo indeed and have taken not one step to make amends. In fact, it is almost nauseating for a country with such a stain in its history to show supposed sympathy - as it would be in the case of Turkey. Maybe someday both the Belgians and the Turks would make things right by their victims, but so far because of all the publicity Turks seem to have a better chance.