Derenik/Ali

[Arpa]

Ali, special for you.

Frorgive the poor translation, mine.

Dear Ali, pleasefeel free to translate this

to your favorite tongue.

Daniel Varouzhan, our dean of poetry may

have been embarassed by his family name,

Chbukar-ian, took the penname of Varouzhan,

i.e male bird.

Sorry to say that he retained his bptismal

name of Daniel, alien, he could have tiotally

revamped and armenianized it to something like

Armen Varouzhan. But that is a totally different,

if sad subject. One of these days we may wake up

and realize that Daniel and his kin are no friends

of the Armenian, never have been, never will be.

Turk and Jew, an alliance made in gehena.

Equally amoral, equally xenophobic(hate thy neighbor),

equally genocidal.

PS. Ali, if you want to learn how to read the Arm-text

let me know.

 

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Ø»Í ù³ñ ÙÁ Ó»éùÇÝ, çɳóÇ·, ¹³Éϳѳñ,

(ØÇÝã ³ñÇõÝÝ ³Ûï¿Ý í³ñ ÏÁ ϳÛɳÏÇ)

ÂÁßݳÙõáÛÝ ß»ÙÇÝ ÏÁ ëå³ë¿, »ñϳñ...

 

DERENIK

By D. Varouzhan (1884-1915)

(Note: All these works in re to the Armenian suffering, as well as those

by Siamanto and others were written before "the big one", i.e. before

1915)

 

The door opens wide, Derenik with awe,

Like a wounded deer hit by an arrow,

Falls in his mother's arms, weeping.

"what happened, my son... tell me quick.. don't cry,

Did the snake bite you, or the horse you kick"?

"My head tore open, our next door Ali!"

 

And he bares open, under those black curls

That gashing wound with blood streaking down

That little Armenian head, hit with Turkish vengeance.

Deep gorges open in brave mother's soul

Full of shame... is it right to caress

On her heart- head of a defeated coward?

 

In a moment, deaf to her mercy, she ponders

From chest to the head of that little wretch,

And she roars,- "Out!... until you triumph

His blood you cleanse with your own

Don't come today. You betrayed my care,

Did I nourish you with bread made of oats?... Out!!!"

 

The boy turned scarlet with shame protests,

"But mommy, Ali is a son of Turk,

There's fire in his eyes and pala on his back."

"And you're Armenian, and let at your waist be

My scissors, my spinner, whatever you want...Out!!!"

 

Derenik with shame, looking to the ground

Leaves in deep silence... There under a tree

I see him by light of the moon,

A big stone in hand, nervous and pale

(Down his cheek blood dripping)

At the doorstep of foe, he waits and waits long...

 

[ October 17, 2002, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: Garo ]

[aurguplu]

arpa,

 

thanks for the poem (if you can say thanks for such a poem, being ali son of a turk).

 

you know that i never denied there have been many ali's sons of turks who have done things that make humans worthy of the name feel their flesh creep and many ali's - turks or non-turks - ashamed and indignant.

 

so what are you going to do if one day you have the pala and we have the scissors? pay in kind?

 

i am one of those few out here trying to put an end to this cycle of hatred, and my own folks are not helping me much (an understatement), because they know full well that this will necessitate a "revision" of history and appropriate action (starting with admission and apology).

 

the only card that i have - and that i keep overplaying - is that if and when we own up to past crimes and approach in peace, we are going to be received in kind. all they have to do to blow me away is to link me to this poem of yours (and it is not the only one we both know, i have been pretty much everywhere on this website and elsewhere as well) to at least convince others (less naive ones) that we are hereditary enemies and there will be no peace till doomsday (and not even after we accept the genocide, apologise, and make reparations).

 

so what do you think i should do? drop dead? give up? accept that we are never going to resolve this conflict and future generations who were not even born then will ever keep fighting about it?

 

peace cannot be achieved if one extends his hand and the other fails to shake it. my hand keeps staying in the air.

 

very depressing...

 

maybe hating us has become part of your identity: "i am born, i am armenian, i hate the turks". you have other, beautiful things in your culture, and your history neither starts with 1071 or 1915 nor ends there. think about it.

[gamavor]

This turk Ali (our Ali) is so morally disgusting, that I couldn't resist to respond to that.

 

This MORON, SON OF A TURK, just few weeks ago in different topic was trying to justify the GENOCIDE, that HE (see how cool I'm) personally recognizes as a crime against humanity, and in the same time was offering us to go to so-called Turkey and to live as first class citizens. I wonder how deep morally one should have been sunk in order to come up with such an absurd idea.

And now he says that "he extends his hand and the other fails to shake it".

 

First Class IDIOT!

[joseph]

Aurguplu , when you say first class citisens :

which of your minority population is living like First Class Citizens , exa ,Armenians , Greeks , Asserians , Kurds , and what are the rights those minoritis enjoying in Turky , if they have the same rights that the Turkish population have , which is not too much any way , then why is the EU not taking turky in . Your democrasy is like a grave , marble from outside and only God knows how it looks from inside , after 80 years of establishing the state of Turky on the flesh and bones of its minoritys , Turky still dont show anything to convince any one with your Utopia .

[aurguplu]

gamavor,

 

i have come to the conclusion that no dialogue can be established with you. i have decided to stop replying to your comments to save time & nerves, maybe it would be a good idea for you to do the same. just ignore my postings, as i ignore yours.

 

i shall continue to converse with other members.

 

hovsep,

 

i agree with your points, but 1) things are improving, albeit slowly and only with outside push, and 2) we won't get anywhere without trying. accept the facts as they are and don't do anything about it, we'll be in the same sh*t we have been for the past ninety years.

 

[ October 21, 2002, 09:15 AM: Message edited by: aurguplu ]

[khodja]

What a misnomer!!! GAMAVOR- Who or what is Gamavor helping with his idiotic comments? A mad dog Armenian. The kind of Armenian who told my great-grandfather "Shut up old man" when he addressed a large gathering of Armenians in 1914 and told them that they were agitating the Turkish lion to come and chew on them.

[gamavor]

It has never been my intention to have dialog with any turk.

 

Turks should have dialogs with themselves first.

 

Hagarag, Jewgarag, Son of "who knows what",

 

If you have anything against any of my comments please explain why.

I told you before and I will tell you again:

 

I would have pleasure to personally shot down miserable creatures as you filthy grandfather.

[khodja]

Gamavor,

 

For your information the one you call my "filthy" great-grandfather was revered by many of his fellow Armenians.

[joseph]

Aurguplu , let me give you an aidia how to change:

First , you have to get raid of your " Rulling Army Junta " But then you will tell me that the " Islamist " will take over , and we Armenians will have an " Islamist " governed turky on our western border , my question is , is that good or bad for the armenians , so we have to choose the less evil which i think will be the " Junta ", but then again that means there is no change ,

Aurguplu , how many Turks think like you hundreds , thousnds , milions , and how long we have to wait my father is a Survivor of the Genocide he is 94 and i am 59 do you think that Turky is going to change in my life time .

[joseph]

The Turkish authority said that if the United States atack Irak and if the Kurds declare an indipendent state Turky knows how to deal with it , i hope another " Genocide " is not on their mind this time against the Kurds , you know Turky is making the decision who can have a state and who cant have one .

[khodja]

Turkish military junta is already planning elimination of the Kurds to complete the job that began with elimination of the Armenians, Anatolian Greeks, and Assyrians/Chaldeans. To paraphrase Ozal, Turkey will teach the Kurds "the lesson of 1915."

[aurguplu]

hovsep (if i may call you by your first name),

 

i understand the armenian indignation at the genocide not being recognised nearly nine decades after it took place. the thing is that maybe for the first time since 1915, that stance is being questioned by a growing number of turks, and it is not a riskless job. we want to have it recognised because 1) like all nations we have ugly facts in our past, and won't get beyond them unless we recognise them, 2) it is injustice not to recognise a crime, and 3) we are really making a tilt of ourselves by forever advancing arguments on whether it was a genocide or not when the armenian population dropped from 1.3 m (official ottoman figure) in 1914 to some 70,000 today.

 

but i grew up at a time when you could spend a pretty unpleasant time at horror palace (prison) just for mentioning the word "kurd". anything armenian was strictly taboo for turks until özal. it is only now that things are thawing, but it takes time. and it won't just "happen". we (=turks)have to do some pushing, and i for one am doing.

 

as for the junta and islamists: well, we are the only muslim nation that has anything remotely resembling a democracy, and we have achieved this by making life very difficult for islam in general and political islam in particular. we can get very democratic and turn into an iran. no thanks.

 

and as far as the junta is concerned, they are easing their grip on the political life a bit. forty years ago they hanged the first democratically elected prime minister. in 1971, they just removed him. in 1980, they removed him and put him out of politics until 1987. the guys came back in 1987, and until 1997 there was no military. on 28th feb 1997, they caused the resignation of the government (headed by the islamic erbakan) by expressing their discontent with it. these days, they just ban people by using some articles of the constitution (which admittedly they wrote themselves).

 

the recent laws concerning kurdish, death penalty, minority foundations all passed under soldiers' supervision: we don't have a ditatorship, we have a "guided democracy" and as a citizen living in this country i think it is the lesser of the two evils (the other one being political islam). if they were as bad as they were portrayed by the west, they would have stayed in power once they came in. they didn't. why?

[aurguplu]

hagarag,

 

trust me,

 

1) there is no turkish military junta now: there is a national security council, like in all countries, but much stronger than in other countries, but they haven't come there with a coup, they were always there.

 

2) that "junta" is not planning anything of the sort: up to 1/4 to 1/3 of the turkish population is kurdish, a sizeable part of the army is kurdish, some high-ranking generals are/were kurdish, and the kurdish reality is an obvious reality. anything like deportation, genocide etc. is just not feasible, so even to think about it is a waste of time. right now the country is moving towards a binational stage even though this is not formally admitted.

 

3) it would be very strange for özal to say something like that as he was a kurd himself by his own declaration) and had an armenian grandmother (by many reliable accounts). he was by far and away the most liberal leader we had and if i can type on an armenian forum and get away with it residing in this country, i owe that to him before anyone else. can you please tell me where you got your quote from?

 

cheers,

[aurguplu]

hovsep,

 

the turkish authorities are just sabre rattling. if the usa has decided that there be a kurdish state, there is precious little turkey can do about it. if the kurds don't make the expected mistake of overlooking/oppressing the turkmens, the two states may even cooperate once the fact of its existence sinks in.

 

i understand many armenians had feared that if armenia had declared independence from the soviet union and the russians had accepted it, the next day the turkish army would be parading in yerevan (i think it was mj who had posted something of the sort). well, it's a good ten years since you got your ndependence, and our army has not been anywhere near yerevan, has it?

 

in this country we are now trying to get rid of our fears. maybe you could do the same. we are not out there to "finish any job we had staerted in 1915". 1915 is an unfortunate page in our history and if it hadn't happened we all would be so much better off.

[khodja]

Ali,

 

It has been reported in many sources that Ozal stated that "We will teach the Armenians the lesson of 1915." This is documented in many independent news sources. I paraphrased this in my statement. There is every reason that the Kurds, a large ethnic group, should have their own state within present day Iraq and eventually Southeastern Turkey. The British Empire is no more. The French Empire is no more. The Spanish and Portuguese Empires are no more. All that remains is the Russian Empire and the Turkish Empire. Both have been diminshed. We should complete the process in due course. Chechens, Tatars, etc. deserve freedom as do the Kurds. Mount Ararat belongs to us, Ali. Sorry to ruffle your feathers, but at a minimum Kars and Ardahan should be in Armenian hands. The Turkish Empire is still standing. Western Anatolia for the Turks. Southeastern Anatolia for the Kurds. Far Northeastern Anatolia for the Armenains.

[Arpa]

Ali, don't be so hasty dismissing Iran. Even though those "idiots" may contend to be champions of Islam, surprise surprise!! Armenians contend to be "champions of Christendom". Equally idiotic as neither of us invented either faith.

I wish Turkey would be a "theocracy as Iran". At the present they are our major, if not sole lifeline. Remember the "blockade"?

Islam, with all its idiosyncratic xenophobia towards other faiths does have a streak of humanitarian compassion, if only towards its own. I have seen this in person. Wakf may be one of the most benevolent institutions of Islam.

As to "democracy". What is the definition? Is it as is repeated ad infinitum, ad nauseam that a certain country in the ME, a new found bosom buddy of Ankara, is the "only democracy in the region"? No BS has smelled more foul than that, yet the uninterested world will take it to be a "gospel truth" without questioning why people not born of certain ethnic mother will never be accepted nor granted citizenship.

Democracy?

Who invented the word?

Is the US a democracy or is it an oligarchy.

I have been trying to run for president but they tell me my good looks (a lie) is not enough. They feel my backside to see how fat my wallet is.

If it would take for Turkey to be a theocracy to be more benevolent towards their "enemies"...Amin!

[joseph]

Arpa : amin from me too.

[joseph]

Hagarag and Aurguplu , I think ozal made that statment while visiting Azrabayjan wright befor he died he said the Armenians should not forget what happen to them in 1915 . And Aurguplu ozals relation to the armenians or him being a kurd means nothing look at history , stalin was a georgian and georgians suffer under his leadership , sadam is an arab look what he has done to his own reletives and people , some people when they achieve power forget even their own mothers .

[joseph]

Aurguplu , my father heard that statement from " turkyayin sesi radiosy " he speaks turkish , I do too .

[aurguplu]

to everyone

 

i was made to act as the guinea pig of a friend's, and was out of order for a week (and will be for another one). therefore these late replies.

 

hagarag,

 

i understand your points re empires being no more, but we are not one either: we have two major nations (turks and kurds) and a few smaller ones (greeks, armenians, jews, arabs, assyrians, lazes etc). of the 70 million people in turkey, 50-55 million speak turkish, most of the rest kurdish (with 500,000-1,000,000 arabic speakers). we are a predominantly turkic country. as far as both our geographical and demographical features go, if we are an empire, then much of the rest of the world still is.

 

and sorry, whoever wants a chunk of our land has to remove us from there first. and by all accounts, this has been a pretty tough job throughout history for anyone who tried it.

 

hovsep,

 

özal was known as a brick-dropper. he is known to have said things that have ruffled everyone's feathers, including the azeris (he is known to have commented once on any fears of turkey doing anything pan-turkic with azerbaijan: "we are sunni, they are shia").

 

so i can imagine that in yet another özal gem, he might have blurted out something of this kind (or been misquoted and then not corrected it). if he did, well, i guess he is paying for it over the other side now.

 

cheers,

[joseph]

Aurguplu , but the prime minister of a country in a volatile region should know how to choose his statments , but like you said he is gone now , I heard that Echivit said that he was going to lift the blockade if his party comes to power after the next election , he was talking to some people from the eastern region of Turky I think , do you have any idea about that .

[aurguplu]

hovsep,

 

i agree with you that the pm of a country in a volatile region like ours has to choose his words carefully, and that özal didn't. he dropped so many bricks that he made the chief of staff resign over the iraq issue back in 1990 (91?).

 

i don't know about the ecevit statement. if he said this to people from the east (kars etc) you may as well discount it: everyone there wants the borders to open so that trade may be done. in fact, that trade is actually taking place, but through georgia, and it is the georgians who are getting rich off turks' and armenians' backs. if we could solve our problems we could have direct trade and that in turn would eliminate any "danger" we may pose to one another: you don't want to harm a country you are trading with.

 

you can ignore an ecevit statement because like all politicians he is notoriously unreliable. if that statement was uttered near election time, it was worthless. i suggest you watch the new government (whatever that's gonna be) for these new moves. it could be a distinct possibility if someone like cem made it to the government, but that seems very unlikely now, as kemal derviş treacherously dropped him (the only time he got a negative point from me, and a VERY negative one at that).

 

if the roa gave a clear message that they didn't have land claims from turkey and wouldn't back any by third parties, turkey would sooner or later be forced to recognise the ag, and not necessarily through external, but internal pressure: turks are getting sick of having their feet tied today because of things that happened before almost the entire current population was even born. we had (smaller) such problems with greece, mainly over the aegean and cyprus, but secondarily over the thracian turks and anatolian greeks, and they are being solved now (cyprus may remain thorny for a while), and both sides see what a waste of time it has been.

 

neither the armenians nor the turks can unfortunately see what common benefits they can enjoy if they could put their egos in their pockets and look at the map with a calm head.

 

[ November 01, 2002, 07:40 AM: Message edited by: aurguplu ]

[Twilight Bark]

Alright Armenians, time to wake up. Our friend Mr. Urguplu shows, with no trace of a doubt, that the culprit in Turkey's self-limiting view of history, Orwellian culture of governance, and the consequent cultural and economical rot is, you guessed it, The Big, Bad Armenians (insert your scariest horror-movie tune here). Of course, we should have known it all along. I mean, everybody knows that Armenians were the ultimate reason for all the bad things that happened in late Ottoman history, not to mention the straightjacket that Turkey has to wear now. Mr. Urguplu's elders say so; it must be true. Only if the Big, Bad Armenians accept that they have been the roadblock to progress and enlightenment in Asia Minor and its environs, we can all move forward. As a global power with a formidable army, an arsenal of nuclear weapons, an all-powerful political and cultural lobby in the only remaining superpower of the planet, the Big, Bad Armenians must show what a big people they are, and stop threatening the vulnerable, friendless, tiny, landlocked Turkey. Then the poor Turks and their formerly Big, Bad neighbors can start realizing their full potential.

 

Huh!?

Oh!

 

Oh.

Oh, it was just a dream. I must have dozed off.

[aurguplu]

tb,

 

why don't you just post your comments separately without reference to mine, as the two have nothing to do with one another?

[aycemnik]

Hi everyone! I am a new member, and this is my first message.

I would like to reply to aurguplu, who stated that the hatred must stop between Armenians and turks. Now, how can you compare the hatred that Armenians have to the one that turks do towards us. Turks have always acted upon the hatred that they had for us. Armenians never did. What we feel can't be labeled as just a hatred. It is called AWARNESS. We NEED to be causious of turks. Say we forget Armenians, and look at the short and pathetic history of a tribe called turks. Show me one neibor of turkey that is in total harmony with them. NONE! They have always had and still maintain in conflict with Greeks, Bulgarians, Kurds, Arabs, Persians.....what have you. Even the famous Dracula hated turks.

Look, aurguplu, please, don't try to reason in regards to this issue. There is no justification to what happened to us. How can you hope for understanding between Armenia and turkey. There is only one party to be blamed and that is tukey. We, Armenians have never started anything barberic, we only defend ourselves. And yes, we hate too, we hate because we have seen it all. When I first learned of the Armenian Genocide, I was only 10. I did not sleep for a month.I can tell you that I matured for another 10 years durring that one month. The images will hunt me untill the day I die. I wanted to see the reason so badly, I still can't. Sure, I know why we were killed, but moraly, ethically there is no explanaition.

How can you explain what was planned by turks durring the fall of 1993? Give me one justifiable reason why turkey would want to attack Armenia. Do you think we should not be AWARE of turks? Oh, yes, I HATE turks. I always will. Oh, and by the way, even if they did attack, they would not have succeeded, we will always survive, because of our great love for our kind and for our country. And if anything should happen in the future I will be the first one to hold a gun to protect what has always been mine.

Since this is a poetry section, I will quote Shekspere, in regards to turks: "His sins will find him in the fullness of time".