Taner Akçam In Montreal

[neko]

Thanks to Bush's tyranical regime any country can label you a "terrorist", for whatever reason, and because of "intelligence sharing" between countries you will be treated as a terrorist in every country.

 

Worst if you simply share the same name as an alleged terrorist! There was a case in Europe (Spain I think) a couple of years ago about a man being shot by police simply because he had the same name as a terrorist suspect. There was also a case in Australia of a British pensioner visiting on a holiday being stopped on a motorway by dozens of armed police, bundled into van, and taken to a police cell and held for several hours for the same reason, even though she was about 3 times the age of the wanted person!

 

The bit about a senator's wife named Catherine Stevens being mistaken for the watch-listed Cat Stevens would be hilarious if it weren't so revealing of the implications of misidentification for all of us.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17746791/

[Boghos]

Yes, and also no.

 

http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/al.html says that the curent design, the all-black eagle on an all-red background, dates from the 1939 occupation of Albania by Italy. The previous versions had colour variations to the background and to some features on the eagle's body.

 

It's a bit ironic that mostly Muslim Albania and Kosovo should have a flag whose origin dates from a 15th century rebellion by a local Christian ruler against the Muslim Ottoman Empire.

 

What can I say...Albania is a very unusual country.

[Stormig]

http://www.agos.com.tr/eng/index.php?modul...7&cat_id=22

 

“The Mysterious American Who Drives Armenians Crazy” Holdwater - I

 

.: Taner Akçam

 

Authors

Issue:581

18 Mayıs 2007

 

 

On 27 July 2005, Yeni Şafak Newspaper published an interview titled “The Mysterious American Who Drives Armenians Crazy”. The newspaper wrote the following about this person which it describes as “interesting and unusual” and who goes under the pseudonym Holdwater: “This mysterious American has been, for many years, the financer of a highly effective Internet site based in the USA. The main aim of the site called ‘Tall Armenian Tale: Other Side of the Falsified Genocide’... is to give strong answers to the Armenian Diaspora’s claims of genocide.”

 

 

According to Yeni Şafak, Holdwater is actually the son of a Turkish family which immigrated to America in the 1940s, he was born in New York in the 1950s, and his parents raised him without teaching him a single word of Turkish. He champions the Turkish theses on the Internet site he administers http://www.tallarmeniantale.com.

 

 

Holdwater explains his use of a pseudonym with receiving death threats and the sabotage of his broadcast repeatedly every day. “If I were to publish my real name... there would be no trace left of my family peace... nor of my business life, not even of my Internet site,” he says. Holdwater is afraid to disclose his name because his “peace will be disturbed,” however he does not hold back from publishing the photographs of intellectuals such as Halil Berktay and Müge Göçek, and parading them as targets by writing articles full of animosity and hatred. It is quite difficult to understand how someone who is afraid of being attacked can organize such ruthless campaigns of belligerence against others.

 

 

I am also among Holdwater’s priority targets. He leads the campaign against me, along with institutions such as the Assembly of American Turkish Associations (ATAA) and the Turkish Forum. He publishes articles on his site which claim that I am a terrorist and that I am responsible of the death of Americans in Turkey, and even that I have planned and organized murders of American civilians. He publishes a list of my “terrorist activities” from the years 1974-75, even with precise dates and locations. The list he has published is actually ordinary, small scale apprehensions during student demonstrations of the era, which didn’t even make the press at the time.

 

 

One does not have to be exceptionally intelligent to guess who might have given the police records of these insignificant apprehensions to Holdwater, whose dates even I had forgotten. But the real problem is: Those who present this information to Holdwater as “Taner Akçam’s terrorist activities,” are actually abusing Holdwater’s lack of knowledge regarding Turkey. Poor Holdwater thinks these apprehensions are “terrorist activities” and doesn’t know that they are all related to crimes of handout distribution and bill posting, for which police permission was obtained. Holdwater probably hasn’t even heard of the fact that you had to obtain permission from what is now called the Security General Directorate’s Associations Special Inspection Branch Directorate in the 1970s in Turkey. He probably doesn’t know either, that even if you did receive special permission from this office, you could be arbitrarily arrested and apprehended at Police Headquarters for 3-5 days. As a matter of fact, I was apprehended by the police once for an issue regarding the Cyprus landing. As the Student’s Association, we had distributed authorized leaflets protesting the military invasion of Cyprus. We were apprehended while we were distributing handouts and despite showing the permission documents on us, we were held under arrest for 2-3 days at Police Headquarters.

 

 

The other actions Holdwater has published as my ‘terrorist activities’ are related to our demand for the foundation of a student representation office on campus. Our university did not have a student representation office and we wanted a representation office where we could express our problems with the administration. All this is slightly difficult for someone who was raised with American culture and who has been educated in the USA to understand. Besides, those who transmitted to him the information regarding my arrests forgot to send him a photograph of me. Therefore, for a long time, Holdwater used a photograph of a PKK member as my photograph on his site.

 

 

Those who are carrying out a campaign against me, portraying me as a “terrorist”, are using this “mysterious American” called Holdwater. Their calculation is simple: To use the “terrorist” image which has formed in the States after September 11. They are expecting favours from a mindset which can explain both a person apprehended for handout distribution in 1974 and those who attacked the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, with the same concept of “terrorist”. With this attitude, they are actually making fun of Americans, too. After all, here we have a “terrorist” who has carried out direct “terrorist activities” against Turkey; and what is logical would be to get hold of this terrorist and hold him to account according to Turkish Laws. Or at least give information to Americans regarding the past activities of this “terrorist”, his investigation and trial.

 

 

But instead, they are telling the Americans something which amounts to, “We treat this man as a citizen with a clean record, but could you be so kind as to treat him as a terrorist?” Because the citizen in question had his prison sentence annulled with changes made to the Turkish Criminal Code in 1992, and also has a document stating he has a “clean record”.

 

 

It is impossible for Holdwater to understand all this, due to his lack of knowledge regarding Turkey. What I find difficult to understand is why this “mysterious” person is so full of hatred and animosity and why he organizes campaigns of belligerence against others despite stating that he is very afraid. I wouldn’t even want to imagine that Holdwater, who describes himself as “a typical Christian, who goes to church on Sundays with his family,” does not know of the Christian teaching which proclaims, do naught unto others what you would not have them do unto you. Next week, I want to take a closer look at the Holdwater issue.

 

 

Translated by Nazım Dikbaş

 

 

 

 

 

[Stormig]

http://www.agos.com.tr/eng/index.php?modul...7&cat_id=22

 

“The Mysterious American Who Drives Armenians Crazy” Holdwater - II

 

.: Taner Akçam

 

Authors

Issue:582

25 Mayıs 2007

 

 

In the interview to Yeni Şafak Newspaper on 27 July 2005, after stating the reasons for withholding his identity, Holdwater says, “I have managed to continue this daunting struggle by successfully holding my tongue for thirty years. So please don’t pressurize me more on this sensitive issue”. Holdwater claims he has exceptional ingenuity in protecting his anonymity.

 

 

I don’t know if anonymity ascribes Holdwater a particular mystery and a special meaning to his work; or if it arouses curiosity in people to think, “who actually is this person?”. It didn’t in me. Neither what he wrote nor his site interested me. Until he began to play an important role in the campaign carried out against me.

 

 

One of the most important arguments of his campaign was the presentation of a letter of complaint to American authorities on me being a “terrorist”. I don’t know if he actually did this. I don’t know either if there is a direct link between his campaign he and my arrest on the Canadian border. But I did mention him and his campaign on an article I wrote on the arrest incident. He wrote a 30-page answer back, which was full of lies, insults and attacks. He trusts the fact that his name and address are withheld. “No one knows who I am, so I’ll say whatever I like,” he thinks. This approach of Holdwater must be curbed, and he must be reminded that every game has to be played according to its rules. To shamelessly insult others while hiding your own identity fits with no proper principle, it’s a disgrace to say the least.

 

 

Holdwater’s claim regarding his intense effort to protect his identity doesn’t seem to hold water. Or he doesn’t take historians seriously enough. He doesn’t know we are enthusiastic about documents and love to trace them. To sum up, he has shown some degree of carelessness, the kind of carelessness committed by every ordinary person who fancies themselves as very clever and more intelligent than others. He published some letters he wrote in his own name and some he received to his own name, by removing his name.

 

 

According to these letters, Holdwater wrote a letter, in his own name, to president Jimmy Carter on 2 April 1980, using his real name and this letter was then sent on to the Holocaust Memorial Council. The Holocaust Memorial Council is an organization founded under official law by the United States Congress in October 1980.

 

 

Holdwater’s letter received a reply from Council Director Monroe H. Freedman on 2 June 1980. One senses from the reply that Holdwater’s objections about the Armenian genocide were taken seriously. Freedman states that he doesn’t have sufficient information on the “Turkish theses” and asks Holdwater to forward any works he knows of. This, of course, is a great honour for Holdwater. Therefore, he sees no harm in publishing the letter on his website with his name removed. He also published another letter he wrote, this time to the New York Times, on the site. We understand from this second letter that, on 5 September 1980, Holdwater wrote a reply to Monroe H. Freedman’s letter dated 2 June 1980.

 

 

I don’t know how aware Holdwater is of this, but the Holocaust Memorial Council and the Holocaust Museum it governs are public institutions and therefore letters sent to these institutions are open to public. Which means, in accordance with the principle of transparency, all applicants can view these letters. Once you have the text of Freedman’s letter dated 2 June published by Holdwater, and the information that Holdwater wrote a reply on 5 September 1980, it is rather easy to access these documents. The Holocaust Museum has to give this information to anyone who demands it.

 

 

Yes, Mr. Murad Gümen, or, to use the English alphabet, Murad Gumen; as you see, one doesn’t have to be detective Kerry Drake to find out who you are [detective Drake is a comic book hero, and Murad Gümen understands very well what I mean]. Tracing documents published by you has proved sufficient. I believe you will stop taking historians lightly from now on. As you have understood, we are talking about a document you yourself have also published. All I am saying is, to prevent any distortion and alteration of the document, that the name on this document, which you effaced, is Murad Gümen. In a sense, I am rectifying the alteration you made on a document presented to the public. You may know, us academicians do not like altering documents much. (Document distortion is the reserved occupation of the Turkish Historical Association.)

 

 

Attacking others, and insulting them, while concealing your own name, does not fit moral conduct at all, Mr. Murad Gümen. Believe me, I am still really curious why you think I, and many others in my position, do not deserve a right you so readily find yourself endowed with.

 

 

 

 

 

Translated by Nazım Dikbaş

[Z'areh]

Good for Akcam, this guy Gumen must be sued for defamation, I think a long list of people, including Dadrian, would line up against him for anonymously printing stupid, baseless and hurtful (and in light of Hrant Dink's assassination, dangerous) accusations.

 

Thanks for articles Stormig.

 

[Stormig]

What goes around comes around - and I think the intensity magnifies. May he be disgraced and humiliated to the other end of the world and out of China.

[DominO123]

Good for Akcam, this guy Gumen must be sued for defamation, I think a long list of people, including Dadrian, would line up against him for anonymously printing stupid, baseless and hurtful (and in light of Hrant Dink's assassination, dangerous) accusations.

 

Thanks for articles Stormig.

 

He is denying that he is the guy in his site and further badmouth against Akçam.

[vava]

There exists the possibility that he is not Gumen - and that he was merely taking credit for Gumen letter to Jimmy Carter etc. Regardless, this Holdwater fellow has incurred considerable damage through all of this - and that's a good thing....

[DominO123]

There exists the possibility that he is not Gumen - and that he was merely taking credit for Gumen letter to Jimmy Carter etc. Regardless, this Holdwater fellow has incurred considerable damage through all of this - and that's a good thing....

 

No, you kow why? Because the same Turkish news who knew his identity have criticised Akçam on the open for revealing the info. They never said ''You got the wrong guy'' but said that he did the wrong thing be revealing it.

[Stormig]

No, you kow why? Because the same Turkish news who knew his identity have criticised Akçam on the open for revealing the info. They never said ''You got the wrong guy'' but said that he did the wrong thing be revealing it.

Indeed. And Gumen beatches that he is now receiving threats. "I am now receiving threats" and not "Why me???" Of course, Akcam is against that, too. What a saintly man. I would have relished in the fact.

And the profile makes perfect sense - "illustrator" Murad Gumen and snot-job-of-a-momma's-boy Holdzheet.

[vava]

I admit that the possibility is slight, and for all intents and purposes what we've all witnessed indicates no other option that holdwater = gumen. BUT until verified (and I don't know how one could do that) his exposure rests on purely circumstantial evidence and as such, the possibility does remain that it may not be him.

[Nikephoros_Phokas]

http://www.agos.com.tr/eng/index.php?modul...7&cat_id=22

 

According to Yeni Şafak, Holdwater is actually the son of a Turkish family which immigrated to America in the 1940s, he was born in New York in the 1950s, and his parents raised him without teaching him a single word of Turkish. He champions the Turkish theses on the Internet site he administers http://www.tallarmeniantale.com.

 

This does not make any sense. Why would someone with such a small connection to Turkish identity and Turkey spend so much effort? Sending letters since 1980 Holocaust Memorial Council and Carter and then 20+ years later to still maintain the Tall Armenian Tale site. There is something deeper here than that article reveals. Who is his inside connection to the fascist Kemalist ideology if he does not know Turkish?

Edited August 22, 2007 by Nikephoros_Phokas

[Stormig]

This does not make any sense. Why would someone with such a small connection to Turkish identity and Turkey spend so much effort? Sending letters since 1980 Holocaust Memorial Council and Carter and then 20+ years later to still maintain the Tall Armenian Tale site. There is something deeper here than that article reveals. Who is his inside connection to the fascist Kemalist ideology if he does not know Turkish?

I don't think it's that far-fetched with Holdzheet. Most American Jews have not even stepped foot in Israel, yet they can be pro-Israel like for dear life. What better reactionarism to resort to if he had been picked on for being Turkish as a kid? Some take the high road, others slump.

[Yervant1]

First Person: Taner Akçam

As told to Ed Hammond

 

FT

December 8 2007 00:44

 

The Canadian immigration officer looked perplexed as he sat across the

table from me under the bright strip lighting of the interrogation room

I had been held in for five hours. He told me that even he wasn't

really sure why I was being detained entering Canada from the US.

 

I had already answered the scripted questions that everyone who is

hauled over by immigration control faces; how much money I had, what

the purpose of my visit was, whether I had any contact addresses in the

country, what I was going to be doing and so on.

 

The official even asked me, admittedly looking slightly embarrassed, if

I could help him to figure out why I was being detained. I was tempted

to say, `If you don't know, how do you expect me to?' But challenging

him would only make it look like I had something to hide.

 

I told him that I'm a Turkish historian whose work focuses on the

subject of the Armenian genocide of 1915, and because of this certain

groups target me for my views. I had published a book on the subject

three to four months earlier and, like many Turkish intellectuals, I

had come under increasing attacks from far-right groups who disagreed

with my saying that Ottoman Turks were responsible for the deaths of

more than a million Armenians in 1915.

 

The campaign against me started almost as soon as I published my book.

Organised groups, who use the internet to preach hatred, turned up at

lectures I was giving to disrupt my speaking or intimidate people

attending. I also used to get death threats telling me that my life

would be cut short unless I retracted my conclusions on Turkey's

actions in Armenia.

 

Once, when I was lecturing in New York, some people turned up and

started to distribute flyers claiming I was a mastermind of terrorist

violence including the assassination of Americans. They shouted abuse

at me, prevented people in the audience from asking questions and tried

to attack me physically.

 

Since I started work on the topic of the genocide I have had to alter

my lifestyle, I must be careful with my public appearances, with what I

publish. Not being able to voice an opinion in public is frustrating

and scary, but sometimes I have to decide not to provoke the situation.

I had to do this recently when tensions were raised by the US House

Foreign Affairs Committee passing a resolution condemning the Armenian

deaths as genocide. I have to make these decisions on an almost daily

basis.

 

When the immigration officers finally walked me through the Customs

barrier, I asked if they could explain why I had been detained. I was

shocked by what they showed me. It was a printed page that I

recognised. This was my Wikipedia entry ` the online encyclopedia

written by the public ` that had been vandalised. I had been held

because my entry accused me of being a terrorist and of being involved

in plots against the US.

 

Travel has become increasingly difficult, and I have had to clear up

the mess generated by the vandalised entry on the website. Although I

feel safe in the US, where I live and work, I try not to travel abroad

unless it is really necessary. I recently cancelled a trip to Turkey

because it would be unwise for me to show my face there at this time.

 

It is easy for people who do not agree with what I say to make life

difficult for me ` whether it is disrupting my lectures or impeding my

ability to move around freely ` but I don't regret having written my

book. It is the sacrifice that any Turkish academic must make who opens

the topic of Armenia.

 

I am not outspoken in order to cause trouble, but because I believe

wholly in what I say and write. The consequences of this choice are

something I live with. But this is our responsibility to humanity, to

freedom of speech.

 

And we must all be responsible for the democracy of one's country.