US AMBASSADOR SAYS GENOCIDE RATHER A SPIRITUAL PROBL EM BUT

[MosJan]

US AMBASSADOR SAYS GENOCIDE RATHER A SPIRITUAL PROBL EM BUT NOT POLITICAL

US ambassador to Yerevan Michael Lemmon reiterated on Tuesday his country's position regarding improvement of Turkish-Armenian relations.

 

 

Talking to Armenian reporters Mr. Lemmon said that his country has been supporting normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey, but added that it was primarily the responsibility of the sides involved, but not of outsiders.

 

 

In response to a question whether the US Congress might adopt a resolution acknowledging the Armenian genocide Mr. Lemmon said it was not clear whether such a resolution would help the process of normalization of relations between Armenians and Turks.

 

 

"I have never considered this process to be a political one, and though some people will not agree with me, it is rather a spiritual problem," the ambassador said.

 

 

© Copyright AZG

[MJ]

Which means that he needs some basic education and injection of common sense to understand the meaning of the word "spiritual," if nothing else.

[edward demian]

If the US ambassador to Israel eversaid that about the holocust, he would be recalled.The Israeli government would declare him a "personna non grata", and he would be finished as a diplomat.

But the insensitive US ambassador to Armenia has nothing to worry about. He knows that the mealley mouthed Armenian diplomats would put out a mild mannered long winded article in an obsure publication about it and that's all.

I was speaking with an Armenian priest a week ago and he told me in unambiguous Armenian: "Hayerea doushag chiunin." They need to develop the Atomic bomb if they want to be respected. My first thought was, and I said that woulfd be too expensive. It is cheaper to develop Bacteriological weapons. hisanswer was: "The world would condemn us".

That conversation changed somewhat. Mind you, I don't recommend the use of the bomb.

However, as I mentioned in another forum before, We could buy a few from disgruntled Russian soldiers, and watch the world smile at us from then on. We need to declare the US ambasador to Armenia a persona non grata.

Getze Tasnagtzutiuna! Miayn Zenkov e hayotz pergutiuna! Unmahatzan Vartanank!

[MJ]

Dear Edward,

 

I have found more common sense in your other postings. Sorry.

[gamavor]

Dear Edward,

 

Suppose that Yerevan already has the "bomb". What we should do next. To use it, or to do what Ali Suat said concerning the Genocide - to advertise it?

[edward demian]

None of the countries that have the bomb intend to use it. This world is divided between the haves and the have nots. The haves push around the have nots. Look at Israel. They have it and they are keeping it; along with anything else they want.

[aurguplu]

dear edward, dear gamavor,

 

an analysis of the israeli-palestinian conflict (not made by an arab or muslim) that i had read years ago said something like this:

 

"(commenting on an incident where israelis killed a palestinian civilian by locking him inside a room and then gassing the room, and later israeli reactions to it) ... it looks like something from the perpetrator (the nazis) had passed on to the victim".

 

this is the worst thing that can happen. today's victims are frequently tomorrow's monsters, because the "en eye for an eye" mentality is part of human nature. the thing is that it got no-one nowhere.

 

violence is like a contagious disease, it lives by spreading from the oppressor to the victim. but we humans are intelligent, and to my knowledge the only species on this planet that can take conscious control of its actions. we have the capacity to draw lessons from the past, and plan our future accordingly.

 

let's do it.

[Harut]

yesterday, in one of historic channels from LA, a man spoke and appologized for not informing people about massecers in Kongo(or Kenia? i forgot already).

he promised to prepare and show a really good and informing program about it.

 

i wonder when they are going to show at least a second lasting program that will talk about Armenian Genocide.

[edward demian]

Dear Aurguplu.

When I read an argument from a turk telling me to forget, I think of a common thief having finnaly been caught after years of stealing, telling everyone to forget their losses because it happened a long time ago. To that thief, my loss is insignificant because he stole from so many. But to the victim, that loss was singular and traumatic and has affected his life in many ways.

We will never forget. My quarter Armenian chilldren will never forget. You cannot keep the fruit of your crime, enjoy the confiscated house you live in(metaforically),

eat the fruit of my orchards, wash the blood off the floors and tell me to forget, when I the victim am homeless, looking at all you took of mine from over the fence and know what happened in that house.

You thought that we would assimilate, intermarry, forget and go away, and a hundred years later we are still here and getting stronger. You forget! You repent! Allow the Kurds, the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Yezids and the Armenians their remedies and maybie we can forgive, but we will never forget. Even today, I have warm feelings toward turkey. I visited Istambul twice in my life and both times I felt warm towards turkey. I felt I was at home. The water tasted better than any I had tasted, the sounds, the smells, everything had a genetic memory trigger, and I felt at home. However, I felt that my home was full of enemies. There may not be anything rational in what I experienced, but there it is. I am willing to accept that a gang of criminals hijacked the government and used their power to destroy a small minority for personal profit ang gain. The turkish courts ruled on the perpetrators and convicted them. All you have to do is build on that. Don't ask the victim to accept his loss, it's the criminal that has to repent.

[khodja]

The elements of the Genocide are myriad-spiritual, political, psychological, economic. Firstly, the Turkish government has for some 80 years indoctrinated it's people to believe total falsehoods about what transpired. Even the words of Ataturk were swept under the rug. In light of the Cold War, the West turned away and allowed this to continue. How can a government admit to it's totally brainwashed people that what they have been taught in school is not the truth. Ditto for the Armenian community leaders, who want to dismiss the provocations of a few of their own that unleashed the forces of evil upon us. The Young Turks decided to eliminate the Armenians under their control, as well as Anatolian Greeks and Assyrians. They indiscriminantly targeted these ethnic and religious groups without regard to loyalty, age, sex, or station in life. When you target an ethnic group and not individuals who may be creating insurrection-that is Genocide. A spiritual problem alone? No Way. The political, psychological and economic effects continue to his day. Even the Turks have lost. The Armenians were an economic plus for Anatolia, not a minus. Something for Turks to ponder as their economy falters.

[gamavor]

I can understand the good will of some Turks, to try to reconcile Armenians and Turks, but I think their approach is totally unacceptable and fruitless. While admitting the crime of Genocide against Armenians, our distinguished Turkish friends continue to convince us of the necessity to forget it. From our point of view, there are several scenarios that might be entertained:

 

1. Forget but do not forgive

 

2. Do not forget and do not forgive

 

3. Forgive but do not forget

 

4. Do not forgive and do not forget and when appropriate "tralala" them.

 

5. Forget and forgive or vise-versa

 

Our attitude of course depends on the position of the Turkish side. Instead of wasting valuable time our progressive Turkish friends should use all their zeal and energy to explain to their compatriots what would be best for both nations.

 

 

PS: Greeks have never "invaded" Smirna. Simply Smirna was almost Greek town. To say this is as if to say that Bulgarians invaded Bulgaria, or Armenians invaded Van. (Let us say). The "incidents" in the Japanese subway were not incidents but well planed terrorist attacks. I wonder how much the Turkish propaganda machine brainwashed the brightest of the young Turks minds to the extend that they use the words "incidents" and "invaders" highly inappropriately.

 

[ September 12, 2001: Message edited by: gamavor ]

[edward demian]

Dear Nastratin

I think that I reached you with my heartfelt statement. If in my lifetime I succeed in reaching and tugging the heartstring of just a few turkish people, than I will feel that I have not lived in vain.

[gamavor]

Wow,

What a revelation. Khodja I am IMPRESSED!

[khodja]

Edward Demian,

 

I am sure that your efforts can and reach Turks, but contrary to the statements of some who post here, I am Armenian. I do not think like an Armenian, despite the comments by my former wife who would state that my "American Joe College" exterior only conceals a true Armenian.

[khodja]

Gamavor,

 

Thank you for the positive feedback. What is apparent to me is that Armenians need a Armenian Armenian Reconciliation Commission. This should not only be a ADL/ARF reconciliaton but a reconciliation between Armenians of different cultures and mentalities. We have been cast to the ends of the earth and have been socialized by different life experiences, even within diffrenet regions of a nation. We can not expect to all think alike. The Armenian Cause is the only common ground between Armenians at this point in time. As a Democrat I could have been very proud of John McCain as US President. I support the current President at this time of national tragedy, but I could never support his reelection. Can we agree to disagree?

[aurguplu]

dear edward, dear gamavor, dear khodja

 

i do not recall a single instance where i said that armenians should forget (if my memory has failed me, please quote the relevant posting).

 

do not forget. it is your right , and the duty of us - and the rest of the world - not to forget. but rise above it, the same way the jews have managed to do.

 

the one thing that really drives all armenians mad is the ongoing denial of the genocide. this i can understand as much as i can (though not quite as much as you can, since you are the victims) and i am fully aware that no dialogue of any sort is possible between the two nations unless and until this is sorted out. the reason why i am still in this forum and have gone into quite a few constructive dialogues with a good number of armenians is that i accepted the genocide and its criminality at the outset.

 

i do not under any circumstances try to forget, hide, alter or diminish the nature of the crime that has visited you people. i am a human being before i am a turk, and there are limits to "my country, right or wrong" for me, the armenian genocide is one of these limits.

 

my attitude to the problem is quite similar to that of a good many germans after world war two, who decided not to have children simply because they did not want to bring any more germans to the world.

 

but i haven't done anything against anyone, my family of the time had not, in fact at least one tried his best to avert it when he found out about it (it was too late), and you, me, mj, gamavor, khodja, we are all inheritors of a situation that we ourselves have no personal responsibility for. the thing to do is to carry on. one day - and fairly soon, i think, the turkish government will recognise the genocide and pull down the barriers it erected to keep its people in ignorance about the issue. when the full horror of that abomination shall hit the collective soul of the nation, the psychological shock will be of the same order of magnitude that germans experienced after the war. and by my familiarity with the germans and their culture, i can tell that that shock still forms the essence of the identity of modern germans.

 

there is nothing that i or anyone else can do to bring the dead back. if there were, i would have given my life to bring one of them back. but there isn't, and i can be of better use to treat the wounds of the past alive than dead. this is what i am trying to do.

 

think for a moment that we accept the genocide, repent, make all sorts of financial and other reparations bar cessation of territory, we even allow descendants of the victims to return to their original lands, and after all this the hate is not a bit diminished, and the armenians still want to carve up a chunk of turkey. what do you expect us to do? what do you expect ME to do? say that "well, our ancestors had killed their ancestors, so it is only right that they get their ancestral rights back, and we should really pack and go back to central asia"? who does that? do the americans do that and give the native americans their land back? do the australians sail back to england and return the land to the aborigines? the french? the spaniards and portuguese in the new world? the russians east of the urals? the arabs in northern africa? the white south africans? even the english who are basically german tribes from lower saxony in germany? the slavs in the balkans, who had come from the ukrainian steppes and invaded the balkans (and the whole of greece) in the sixth-seventh centuries AD? who does it, man? who?

 

and look back to your own ancestry. armenian is an indo-european language which is not native to the area. the original languages were urartian and hurrian, both of which were related to one another, and were related to present-day circassian, laz, georgian, abaza, chechen-ingush, etc. your ancestors themselves were invaders, you are not native to anatolia. you showed up there at around 1200-800 BC. there had been at least eight thousand years of modern human existence before you showed up.

 

how did you come there? did the natives greet you with flowers? did you greet them with flowers (you did not, if the swords found in your ancestors' graves are anything to go by). you now say that the urartians are your ancestors, when you two clearly spoke two totally unrelated languages. and you tell us that it is your home and yours alone, and that we have no right to be there even if we have been living there for almost a thousand years now, have mingled with the local population to such an extent that we are physically almost indistinguishable from them, share almost totally the same culture save religion (and the culture that we all share today is by no means only the pre-turkish anatolian culture. if in doubt, check you surname - i understand it is demiraiakian -), had mixed villages, and in thecoutryside, out of reach of the ottoman government, had - and still have - mixed marriages, so many of the surnames i see here have turkish components etc. etc.

 

and we should go? let the americans, the australians, the white south africans, who have none of that relationship with the countries and peoples they conquered go, and then you will have a convincing case. but not until then.

 

and don't you ever tell me again that i ever advocated "forgetting" something like the armenian genocide.

 

god bless you all

[khodja]

Dear Ali,

 

Thank you for your posting. I must say that my posting surely was not a revelation to you or any other Turk that there are Armenians and Armenian organizations who have designs upon parts of the present Republic of Turkey. There are some, as any well-read Turk knows, would like the return to Armenia of the territory designated in the defunct Treaty of Sevres. There are some who also have design upon all territory ever under Armenian control. To take this to the absurd it would include everything within the Empire of Tigran I, from Lake Tiberias to Baku. Some of us are realists. My comments should be contrasted with those who wish to resurrect the Treaty of Sevres. These Armenians are as unrealistic as the Islamic radicals who state that " No land ever under the green flag of Islam shall be lost to Islam, no betrayal permitted." Moderate Armenian leaders are now conducting dialogue with prominent Turks. Hopefully this dialogue will lead to positive steps toward rapproachement between the Turkish and Armenian peoples.

[aurguplu]

dear khodja,

 

i am all for rapprochement and peace between our two nations, as long as my country stays intact.

 

we also want a turkey in peace with all its neighbours, and where no citizen is a second-class citizen.

 

look at europe. twice in the last century they were all at each other's throats. today there are no borders between them to speak of. when the integration is complete (and we both hopefully join it) you will be able to travel from armenia to norway without even a passport. and when this happens, the issue of which side of the border mount ararat is will cease to be an issue, for there will be no border.

 

the world is becoming one big country, although with many pains on the way. growing pains. our grand-grandchildren will be horrified at the horrors we have inflicted upon our fellow men, and laugh their collective behinds off at the ignorance, fear, prejudice, lack of principles and simply poor character behind it.

 

there are many blacks at top positions in the united states, and two of them are just one step below presidency (colin powell and condolezza rice), who are now entrusted with the defence of their country.

 

sixty years ago, blacks who served in world war two and heroically fought against the japanese attack on pearl harbor were not even given honours after the war simply because they were black.

 

ten years ago, south africa was an apartheid state. today it has its second black president.

 

who knows, maybe one day the president of turkey will be an armenian. we already had two presidents (ismet inönü and turgut özal)and two prime ministers (ferit melen and again turgut özal) who were ethnic kurds.ç özal also had the distinction of having a mother or grandmother of armenian origin by very strong popular rumour (if you don't believe me, ask levon yeshilian).

 

what most people don't understand about turkey is that we have always been a multicultural society and have managed to peacefully coexist until the nineteenth century (well, you have to use the standards of the centuries concerned before you hasten to compare it to today's standards). i am an anatolian turk, and like all anatolian turks, whether they know it or not, i have as much greek, armenian, hittite, serb, jew, arab, kurd, laz, georgian, russian, ukrainian, italian, you name it in me. just look at us: if you put fifty turks and fifty armenians together into a single room (and handcuffed them so they all remain alive) could you really tell them apart?

 

people can change. nations can change. we can change. you can change. even those who support usama bin laden can change.

 

let's give peace a chance, and peace will give us a chance.

 

[ September 13, 2001: Message edited by: aurguplu ]

 

[ September 13, 2001: Message edited by: aurguplu ]

[aurguplu]

gamavor,

 

the kingdom of greece invaded smyrna, a city of the ottoman empire. when a state enters the territory of another state, this is an invasion. the ethnicity of the population is not an issue. is called an invasion. in world war two, germany invaded silesia (poland) and sudetenland (czechoslovakia), where there were very large german populations, in several places the majority. now by your standards, this appears not to have been an invasion, am i correct?

[aurguplu]

gamavor,

 

the kingdom of greece invaded smyrna, a city of the ottoman empire. when a state enters the territory of another state, this is an invasion. the ethnicity of the population is not an issue.

 

in the gulf war, iraq, ethnically arab, invaded kuwait, ethnically arab.

 

now by your standards, this appears not to have been an invasion, am i correct?

[gamavor]

Well,

 

Congratulations. In 12 century, Your ancestors invaded Armenian Principalities and Kingdoms. And subsequently destroyed them.

What I am suppose to do. To bomb you to Hell. NO?

 

Smyrna was part of Byusantium and was invaded by the Ottomans. Later, the Greeks tryed to recapture what is rightfuly theirs. What is wrong with that?

 

[ September 13, 2001: Message edited by: gamavor ]

[gamavor]

In 1974 if I'm not mistaken Turkey invaded Cyprus, and occupied half of the island brutally ignoring the independence of the Island. Any comments? Wasn't it an invasion?

Of course not. The angel Turks are not "invaders". They are "liberators "specialized in rape and torture.

[gamavor]

In 1974 if I'm not mistaken Turkey invaded Cyprus, and occupied half of the island brutally ignoring the independence of the Island. Any comments? Wasn't it an invasion?

Of course not. The angel Turks are not "invaders". They are "liberators "specialized in rape and torture.

 

PS: Recently I encountered a Turk bartender (don’t worry he is still alive

) and I asked him "Why don't you guys do not recognize the Armenian Genocide? He said, that the Turkish Government plays games with the Armenians, by saying that they (Turkish people) do not know. The truth is, he said "that turks very well know about the Genocide, but if they admit that publicly the whole world would be against them”. Make sense.

[gamavor]

Someone again is lying here. If some kindhearted Turks believe sincerely in the democracy how come they want to see their country intact? Or, territorially intact. In that case, how we can believe these same Turks that say that there won't be borders and it doesn't matter where exactly M. Ararat is?

The biggest lie of all is the myth of "peaceful coexistence". The second class " citizens" theory is simply continuation of the policies of the Ottomans. What people are well aware of is that Turkey ethnically and culturally is diverse country. What many people fail to understand is that that diversity is suppressed and subdued and in some instances incriminated.

[edward demian]

I take issue with those who say the Armenians are not native to Anatolia. First of all we are "Hyes" from the Country of Hayassa. Yes an Indo European (Aryan) tribe of Armens (Probably of Celtic Origin) invaded and conquered the Hittite Confederation to which the Hayasa belonged, but every Armenian school child knows that we call ourselves Hayes, and our land Hayastan. We use the word Armenian so the non Armenians will know who we are talking about. When the Assyrians first moved nothward and came in contact with the Hayasa, the Armenians were still lording over the Hayasa and had not as yet been absorbed. Eventually, because of their numerical inferiority, they were absorbed into the larger Hayasa population. Of course, the turks being selfconscious about their reacent arrival on the scene, want to cast doubt about our origin, so as to not diminish their right to the real estate.

My personal opinion is that if we join the EU borders will dissapear and you will loose the ability to persecute or control anyone. Freedoms of every kind will prevail and proselithism will destroy both your and my culture. We will probably all be Mormons or Pentecostals in a couple hundred years. All that holds your society together now is the fascist military regime. Once gone, there won't be any problem. You seem preocupied with loosing territory. I am not interested in a bloody confrontation with you over real estate. In a future United Europe there will be no borders. What we Armenians are saying is. We have a right to come and go as we please, we have a right to our history and hystorical monuments as much as you. As far as the American Indian analogy. The Native Americans have reservations which are sovereign territories, and they have a choice of living on or off the reservation. I'll take that same deal. It doesn't even have to be that good. An appology, and equal rights seems a good place to start.