TURKISH GOVT. DEVILS AT IT AGAIN

[khodja]

So Atom Egoyan directs a play "Salome" in Canada and a theatre reviewer of Jewish background, Tamara Bernstein, claims he is promoting the anti-Semitic elements of the play. Egoyan states that he is presenting the play exactly as Oscar Wilde depicted the story. I would bet anything that the Turks have their hands in this. They are petrified about "Ararat." They know that the dike is about to burst. They know that they are hiding something major. So they are stirring up Jews against Egoyan. I, for one, can anticipate their every move. Their modus operandi is something that some of us clearly understand.

[aurguplu]

dear hagarag,

with all due respect, i beg to differ:

1. egoyan may indeed be directing a play with anti-semitic elements in it. there are such literary and other works, many by major western artists, and if you are going to be faithful to the script you end up being compelled to reproduce the anti-semitic element.

2. i am not an anti-semite in any way, but i do suspect that the jews have a huge network of "moral policemen" throughout the world that spend an inordinate proportion of their resources on unearthing anything vaguely anti-semitic. the most dangerous thing to do in the post-holocaust wold today is to say anything that might possibly be interpreted as meaning that jews are anything less than pure angels with only the wings missing (look: if a palestinian whose entire family is being massacred by the israeli forces says anything against israel or the jews, it is anti-semitism, if israel elects someone like sharon (of sabra and shatila fame) as the prime minister, you may only comment favourably about it for fear of being branded an anti-semite). you really do not need a turk to motivate a jew against any alleged "anti-semitism".

3. the jews do have a problem with other people who have been victims of genocide, because they see theirs as really without parallel (in fact in this i agree with them). this is of course selfish, ignorant and immoral: the fact that the armenian, bosnian, cambodian, rwandan and other genocides of the 20th century were not quite as horrible as the jewish holocaust does not minimise their horror any the less. the jews really should be more considerate of the plight of others.

4. i think people are exaggerating the attention turks pay into the egoyan movie as well as the lenghts they are prepared to go to stop it. let me be clear on this: talk is all they will do. maybe they will ask the jewish lobby to do somethng about it, maybe they will hire some western actor to play ataturk in a propaganda movie. what they will not do is spend huge sums of money on it. and propaganda needs huge sums. absolutely colossal ones, especially when it is a truth that you are trying to hide and a lie that you are trying to push. i tell you, they won't do it. they didn't before. they even didn't do it in cases where they were right (like the oppression of bulgarian turks under the reign of zhivkov). turks don't like to spend money, they have a million excuses not to, they (the govt and the private sector) would rather siphon off the money and live a life in paris, london, new york, california.

besides, as i had stated before, even in turkey itself, they are allowing the public to get more and more exposed to the idea of genocide. even if they are doing something like that, it would be just to "save face", they know they cannot do it forever.

so i would not put that much store to turks conspiring with jews against the movie.


relax & cheers,

[Arpa]

The word is Ms. Bernstein will be rebutting the rebuttal today.
If I were a conspirationist I would bemuse that this saga was orchestrated by Atom's publicity agent, or in the least by his co-tribesmen. This is the least expensive publicity one can get specially at this the eve of the launch of Ararat. This will make Egoyan, a cultic and generally lesser known filmmaker a household name. This in addition to all the threats and sabre rattlings fom Ankara in re Ararat will certainly create a frenzie at the box office mo. As to "anti-Semitism", there must be a limit too. If one were to be so cynical one would brand Jesus the greatest anti-Semite as he broke all the prevailing laws and tabus and crticized the hierarchy. At this rate of usage the term will lose its mesning. Salome has always been portrayed as a temptress and an exploitative manipulator. Atom is not the first nor will he be the last.There is nothing new, historical figures, just as a "terrorist" may be an angel for one and the devil for others. The Mongolians are planning to sanctify what to some is the greatest butcher in history, Genghis Khan. As to anti-Semitism, it is fast losing its meaning. An incdent that happened in our neigborhood will illustrate ; A government employee accused his supervisor as an anti-Semite for removing him from his position. The irony of the story was that both the employee and his supervisor subscribed to the Judaic faith.

IF this story is an an attempt TO preempt to the launch of Ararat, then keep the cards and letters coming!!! Turkey is acting like a bird with ruffled feathers. One can fool some of the people some of the time but no one can fool all of the people all of the time.

[khodja]

Ali,

 

Thank you for your comments. The most critical comment you made was that Turks don't like to spend money. The government knows how vulnerable they are, not so much to territorial claims by the Republic of Armenia but to the claims of indivdual Armenians whose parents and grandparents were citizens of pre-Republic Turkey. The best move that the Turks could make would be to pursue the avenues that will enhance their prestige and bring money to some of their citizens, namely pursuing Balkan governments (e.g. Bulgaria) for restitution of properties confiscated from civilian Turks. Fighting this Armenian issue will, in the long run, tarnish their image further as it is a slippery slope for them. They do not have the record on their side as they do in the Balkan cases.