IDLE NOISE EMANATING FROM BITLIS

[Guest Fadi]

sen_vahan

 

Why are you so hard with Ali ?

[sen_Vahan]

Hard? What do you mean? "Veshi nado nazivat' svoimi imenami", as Russians say. Do you agree that Ali nothing to do with the things I wrote? but he is the only person we have the dialogue with.

Vahan

[aurguplu]

hi

 

"love kills, but hate perpetuates a minority population".

 

i beg to differ. sibel (my wife-to-be) is an orthodox christian (not religious, though), and i happen to be a sunni muslim (not religious, though), and no-one is trying to assimilate the other.

 

i wonder what would happen if i got assimilated into the christian community inside turkey, with all my aristocratic turkish background and strong turkish identity (i do have a strongly turkish identity, believe it or not, just it is not a barrier between me and the rest of the world)? curious.

 

cheers,

[aurguplu]

yepp this is more or less the turkish position, and of course the turks have to be reminded of three of their own proverbs: "you cannot smear the sun with mud", "the candle of the liar burns until night sets in", and "he who has an wound, let him itch".

 

i know it was more than half a million, i was just quoting the official stuff.

 

cheers,

[Guest Fadi]

If you think you will have a dialogue with your tone then you are greatly mistaken.

[sen_Vahan]

Come on... I am not doing any generalization calling that a Turkish garbage. And I guess you know what I mean by that. And Ali has nothing to do with it. I think that it is a garbage and we should not refer to that any more as a literature source for genocide or our relations (especially as a historical source). And please do not show me your way of thinking, I can always apologise if it is necessary.

 

Vahan

[Guest Fadi]

Where have I shown you my way of thinking ?

 

You talk about Ali changing the subject, then you talk about return of land... what this has to do with the recognition ?

 

This person came here to discuss, he may have wrong informations it is to you to show that they are wrong, it is not by calling something trash that it show that you have a point.

[sen_Vahan]

Where have I shown you my way of thinking ?

 

You show me your responce,Domino, but it does not mean that I was writing it with a negative tone in order to insult Ali. No way!

 

"You talk about Ali changing the subject, then you talk about return of land... what this has to do with the recognition ?"

 

First of all, I am not talking about the return of land I am just asking which means I want to know his opinion. Second, I think Ali knows much more about the subject than I do but everybody has its own interests except the facts alone.

Third, recognition for the Turkish state has something to do with the lands and Turks are far more careful and diplomatic in in this problem. I feel that Ali is a real patriot of his country and he probably knows what I mean. I would like to know his opinion.

 

"This person came here to discuss, he may have wrong informations it is to you to show that they are wrong, it is not by calling something trash that it show that you have a point. "

 

In general you are right,Domino, but not in particular. Pay attention to what I am calling trash. May I ask you whether you agree with that? In my opinion, to have progressive and good dialogue we should try to improove the topic but not just refer to some traditional literature that we as well as many Turks know to be trash. (Here I mean the Armenian trash too which is not less than the Turkish)

 

There is too much useless stuff now (Arm&Turkish) in literature, relations. But shouldn't we throw them away in order to understand each other better?

 

Regards,

Vahan

[bellthecat]

Ali, I didn't think Turkey ever had an aristocracy along European lines. Position was, at the start of the empire, attained mostly through ability and luck, and at the end, mostly by bribes. And everything could be lost at the whim of the sultan. Very little was to do with the "natural" inheritance of power and position over others as if it were a god-given right, which is the essence of aristocracy. Or have I got it wrong?

[Guest Fadi]

What you call litherature, is what Ali has been "forced" to read from childhood... you can't just call it trash, you got to convince him first... that was what I had against you, rejecting like this what he write wont change what he believe untill you show him.

[wh00t]

Domino, why must you continue to post at Turkey.com. Why waste your breath at a place where no one wants to listen to you and allow them to leech off your intellect? Sorry if this is off-topic, you can PM me if you like.

[Guest Fadi]

No no need to PM, I have a responsability over that board, more responsability since the compagny will soon close...

 

More seriously, I do not post there to convince people anymore but just to play... that is the difference...

 

[ March 12, 2002, 06:17 PM: Message edited by: Domino ]

[Guest Fadi]

BTW, you have a Private message... you will understand what I mean.

[Arpa]

First off, Ali, hayirli ve bereketli olsun!

You mean your future half is of Armenian extraction? She may not know this but Antioch was an Armenian town during the Cilician times. The Patriarch was there recently to reopen the church. Although most were exiled when the French handed it to Turkey, some stayed, most live on the Syrian side in towns like Kessab etc. The majority of them are in Ainjar in Lebanon.

 

As to your "aristocratic" ancestry, it is a known fact that Christianity was first adopted by the royalty, primarily the women, both in the case of Rome and Armenia. It may seem so on the surface, but my opinion is that the common folk had already converted but until the aristocracy (Constatin's mother and Trdat's Sister Sandoukht), the king would not relent and continued to persecute. When their own loved ones presented the dilemma... it is fabled that Trdat lost his mind...and the rest is history.

[aurguplu]

arpa,

 

thanks a lot. i understand your turkish is pretty good! did you learn it in the family?

 

no, my future half is of christian arab extraction, actually, but as orthodox christians intermarried, she may well have armenian blood (so might i, in fact, like most central and eastern anatolian turks), though to the best of my knowledge she doesn't know much about that sort of thing. she has family in syria and lebanon, and some in brazil (they chose to leave when antioch was repatriated to turkey in 1939).

 

we have visited some of the important sites in antioch, including the museum (wonderful graeco-roman mosaics) and some of the churches. i have not seen anything armenian there, though we met a family of neighbours who had an armenian grandfather originally from malatya.

 

i found the last paragraph very interesting (the one about the adoption of christianity, trdat etc) but i couldn't really see how it relates to my "aristocratic" ancestry. could you please clarify?

 

cheers

 

[ March 13, 2002, 02:14 AM: Message edited by: aurguplu ]

[aurguplu]

Domino,

 

thanks for defending me (or admonishing sen vahan about his style). vahan, i am not greatly offended by your style, but Domino is right when he says that you won't get very far in establishing dialogue with it.

 

i read as much western stuff as turkish stuff on the armenian question, probably more western stuff than turkish, actually. it is true we have been fed garbage by our educational system in turkey, but i had started questioning that garbage way back when i had started secondary school. it is also equally true that there is also armenian, western and russian garbage concerning this particular issue.

 

but i have learned that even though turks are on the whole on the wrong side of this rift, some of the things they say are true. there is nothing strange about this: in all human conflicts, there are two sides, and even the side that is generally regarded wrong can get a few things right. moreover, the armenian question was almost never approached by a dispassionate and disinterested individual: most of the writers on this issue are either armenian or turkish, or belong to one of the "camps" or have vested interests defending this or that position for their own nations, not for turks or armenians. for instance, it would be naive to expect a serbian or greek to be totally impartial on a subject which presents wonderful opportunities of turk-bashing, wouldn't it? the russians, on the other hand i) have rarely if ever have been allowed to express their own individual (as opposed to official) opinion, the english and the french were the enemies of turkey during the time that particular conflict took place, and the germans are at least partially motivated by the desire to "prove" that the idea of genocide is not teir gift to the world (and they will not know where to look when their archives concerning this issue gets opened soon - it has started to already. by the way, really, how seriously have the armenians examined german complicity in the armenian genocide?)

 

as for the land issue, i had previously stated in a discussion with mj that this was out of question as far as i was concerned, and i am pretty sure the same goes for any turkish government and the nation as a whole. there is nothing particularly turkish about this attitude: no-one gets out of the territories their ancestors conquered except by force. you might of course mention exceptions like finland after the establishment of the soviet union, but these are, as i have stated, exceptions. does france get out of corsica, brittany, euskara (basque country) or alsace? does spain get out of catalania or euskara? do the english get out of england and go back to northern germany and southern denmark where they originally came from? do the russians get out of east of the urals? do the americans sail back to the old world? do the australians do it? then why should we?

 

besides, we have much more of a right to be in these countries as we are largely the descendants of the original inhabitants of anatolia. the whites that have been strewn around the world cannot say the same thing: the american whites have little if any native blood, and the same goes for the australians. they still have their european culture, language and physical makeup. whereas in our case we are for the most part indistinguishable from the greeks, armenians, kurds and other peoples physically or culturally. the chief differences are that of language and religion. so any move to throw the turks out and replace them by other natives would be injustice to say the least.

 

at this point i have to address a few observations made about me by the members of this forum (i think it was tb who wrote the longest one). basically i was viewed as a turkish patriot who wanted the best for his country and saw reconciliation of the two peoples as a step toward this. i was also described as a rational player and a good opponent to have. i commend the contributors, but let me state my position myself:

 

i am a turkish patriot, but with a difference: my patriotism is characterised by the omission of "my country, right or wrong". this is probably due to my familiarity with history, especially the example of germany in wwii, even though i am by no means an expert on this particular area or period.

 

my patriotism also is - or tries to be - based on i) rational facts, ii) long-term vision, iii) containment of national pride, iv) a determination to find practicable solutions to existing problems that can turn a lose-lose situation to a win-win situation for both sides of the conflict, and v) a fundamental sense of justice common to humanity. i love my nation, language, culture and country, but that does not mean that i have to hate other nations, languages, cultures and countries. this is especially true in the case of turks, whose nation, language, culture and country has so many foreign elements in it, but still retains its distinct turkish identity. it is in this respect that i differ most profoundly from the narrow-minded republican or boz kurt type nationalists who are exclusivists in their outlook. the bozkurts are out there to purge all non-turkic elements out of the turkish identity, be they linguistic, cultural, artistic or other elements, or more dangerously, people.

 

as far as the fundamental sense of justice is concerned, it is based on the twin pillars of integrity and common sense (you know what they say about it: it just isn't common): integrity: is it just to lament the plight of the mayan indians in guatemala and to deny, or try to justify, the plight of the kurds and armenians in turkey? common sense: how can you expect that the world recognise the plight of the uighur turks in china, the one million displaced azeri turks in regions outlying nagorno-karabagh, the 14 million strong azeri community in iran, the iraqi turkmens massacred by the iraqi kurds and saddam, when you still deny the armenian genocide and denied until very recently the very existence of kurds in turkey? give no justice, get no justice.

 

long term vision: in a hundred years time, there will very probably be very few borders left on this world. this has already happened in europe, and it is a growing trend. it is up to us to ensure that our two countries aren't two of the very few losers left that still have border checks in 2100.

 

just look at the map, remove the conflicts, the borders etc. and see what a wonderful, prosperous place can be made out of it if peace prevails.

 

cheers,

[THOTH]

Ali - you are truly an enlightened individual. (And I can agree with everything you have said in your post). It is so very refreshing for me to meet persons of your disposition and attitude - truly a sign of some hope....

 

Whenever I am in Turkey again I must look you up. We could enjoy a nice bottle of Raki together and see who drink the most of it...

[Boghos]

Dear Ali,

 

You know I very much appreciate your scholarship and your presence in this forum, but to say that Jews did not consider themselves German is simply wrong. Many were already completely assimilated, this is a well documented fact.

[sen_Vahan]

Domino,

" thanks for defending me (or admonishing sen vahan about his style). vahan, i am not greatly offended by your style, but Domino is right when he says that you won't get very far in establishing dialogue with it."

 

OK, guys, I appreciate that, and i will follow Domino's suggestion to give facts about the things i was saying. Actually, I am sure you all know these facts and since I came late to this forum I even think you have already discussed most of it. I will later write why I am thinking it is not going to help, i mean giving the facts about that particular subject - the Armenian population in eastern vilayets.

 

In well-known Permanent Peoples' Tribunal (the one founded by Bertrand Russel) Yves Ternon in his "Report on the Genocide of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire,1915-1916" says:

"The official Ottoman census of 1914, for example, gives the size of the Armenian population as 1 295 000, while the statistics of the Patriarchate give a figure of 2 100 000, and foreign publications with NO WAY OF CHECKING THE FIGURES (ENL. by me) fall somewhere between these two extremes ACCORDING TO THEIR SYMPATHIES (ENL. by me) It is reasonable to assume that Ottoman civil servants had been ordered to trim down the census figures and that the Armenian Patriarchate in Constantinople which was responsible for the defence of the community's interests under the Sublime Porte, had a tendency to exaggerate the figures..."

 

In my opinion, the author is right about European sources - they had no way of checking the figures, they could only take some from "the middle of nowhere".For example, I am anxious to know where did Toynbee take the number 1 800 000 from? It seems that he just took the average and plus/minus. So, we have in fact two sources - the Turkish first and the Armenian second. 1 295000 and 2100000, the difference is ~ 1.7 times! Being a physicist I am getting into trouble when I see such a difference in the same thing. And there is no way of objectivity, in my point of view, and what we consider to be right really depends on the symphaties. Unfortunately, one cannot check the number of people who are not alive now.

 

Now a little bit of another fact that you may consider to be not serious, but anyway. All my ancestors starting with my father's grandfather were from Van. A least the family tree gives an information up to the end of 15th century.(without any exaggeration) My father's grandfather left Van with his family in 19th century during the atrocities started in Hamid's period. He went to Russian Armenia along with many other families from Van. Being a student in erevan my father was very interested in the problem of Genocide and he obviously had many talks with his grandfather. Some results 1) We were in good relations with Turks,2) We were rich and prosperous, 3) The majority of inhabitants in Van were Armenians but there were also Turks Kurds, and there were Assyrian villages around. 4) When we had some problems they were mainly with Kurds, 5) Erzurum had the second largest Armenian population, 6) Something terrible happened in Turkey when Hamid became the sultan, many people were killed and we lost a lot of cultural monuments... 7) Lots of Armenians left Van, Erzurum, some went to Russian Armenia others to Cilicia or to the capitol and some found a way to migrate to European countries.

 

So by 1914 the Armenian population was already decreased. I do not think he was exaggerating beacuse he really knew a lot about the community being an active member of that.

 

Vahan

[Boghos]

As far as I understand, Mr. Urguplu is referring to his ancestor: Viceroy Mohammad Ali al K´bir.

[aurguplu]

dear boghos,

 

o.k. you are right. at any rate sweeping generalisations like "the jews, the armenians, the turks...." are bound to be wrong since no group of humans is composed of individuals who don't differ. but in the case of the jews, the idea that there was a holy land, that one day jews were going to live there iwthout the oppression of gentiles, and that their stay in the lands of the gentiles was ultimately temporary was a fairly strong one, wasn't it?

 

at any rate the jews are a far too diverse group to make any kind of generalisations. they have lived in so many different countries, absorbed and were absorbed by so many different cultures, produced figures of eminence with so many diverse views and opinions, that one would be hard put to find an opinion common to all jews.

 

but i think i was right when saying that jews had never contended to any piece of land in europe, especially germany.

 

cheers,

[aurguplu]

dear boghos,

 

excuse me my ignorance, but who is viceroy muhammad ali al k'bir?

 

cheers,

[aurguplu]

dear thoth,

 

thanks a lot. when you think of coming over, drop here a note, and let's have that bottle of raki.

 

cheers,

[THOTH]

Vahan -

 

I too had long been a sceptic of the Patriarchs figures - that is until I read McCarthy - now I beleive that they are accurate (really) and McCarthy proves this for me. In McCarthy's book "Muslims and Minorities" he reports the great discrepencies in thew figures concerning the number of Armenians in the East. He then details instances of great undercounts (primarily of Armenians) by the Ottomans (even though he attempts to "correct" these in his figures - he does not - and ends up making excuses contrary to his observations of (known) undercounts. Then he discusses the Ottoman census figures in Western Anatolia - lol and behold - they line up nearly perfectly with the Armenian Patriarch figures (well, well). So it is clear to me that in fact the patriarchs figures are (at least grossly) accurate. I conclude this because in areas where nobody had any particualr incentive to lie - they were the same. But in areas where the Ottomans had a great incentive to portray the Armenians as less - they did so. And McCarthy also points out clear discrepencies (underscounts) in the Ottoman figures over and over again. And the various European intelligence services used the Armenian figures in all instances I gather...

[Boghos]

Muhammad Ali was the ruler of Egypt between 1805-1848. If the names Ahmed Riffat Ibrahim or Hamzade Osmanoglou make any sense to you, drop me a PM.