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ARMENIAN SCHOLAR AT EASE WITH CENSORSHIP
SYNOPSIS: From Ergun KIRLIKOVALI to several
African-American students who wanted more information about the Turkish views
after the biased lecture by the Armenian professor :
“Today, you witnessed with your own eyes how the views of a group of
people party to a controversial issue were censored by the organizers and the
lecturer. Ask yourselves: How can this happen in the 21st Century at an
institute of higher learning in the most advanced and richest state in the
Union, California? And next time someone gives you a lofty lecture about the
freedom of speech in America, please remember today!”
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| PART
1: THE MISLEADING INVITATION |
It all started with an innocuous looking invitation to the faculty members at El Camino
College in Torrance (near Los Angeles, California):
“ The History Department invites you and your students to attend a free lecture:
Dr. Levon Marashlian on the Armenian Genocide
Tuesday, May 9, at 1:00 in the Campus Theater “
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Dr. Levon
Marashlian (Sari Gelin)
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Shouldn’t that have read the “alleged” Armenian Genocide? Isn’t
Genocide a special legal term with a very precise definition, arrived at after many years
of diplomatic negotiations, until it was concluded in the 1948 convention in the United
Nations? Isn’t it true that the genocide convention was one of the longest negotiated
issues in the UN history? Doesn’t it require that a genocide charge must be proven at a
“competent tribunal” after proper “due process” before the label of genocide can
be used to characterize a certain tragic event after 1948? Isn’t it true that this law,
like all proper laws, is not retroactive?
For example, we know that the Holocaust is an incontrovertible fact, not because of those
numerous Hollywood movies, but because the charges of crimes against humanity leveled
against the German Nazis were subjected to a proper and rigorous “due process” at
Nuremberg Tribunal after the World War II. The prosecutors introduced supporting evidence,
facts, figures, eye witnesses and more and the defendants were allowed to cross examine
them before the final verdict was reached: what Nazis did to Jews during WWII was a
genocide (as Rafael Lemkin, the creator of the term, intended the term to mean). This term
now seems to be deliberately misused by partisans to misrepresent almost every human
tragedy. Is every killing a genocide? Is every my-grandma-told-me-story, family photo, or
crying eye witness account a genocide? Of course, not. There are other laws that deal with
such crimes. Genocide is a very special concept where a government acts with “premeditation”
to exterminate directly or indirectly part or whole of a group of people for national,
ethnic, racial, and/or religious reasons. While individual can take part in a genocide,
only governments can launch and conduct genocide. “Intent” is the key word here.
Intent to exterminate must be proven at a “competent tribunal” before anyone can use
the genocide label. Just because Armenian lobbyists shout the loudest doesn’t make a
civil war a genocide.
Where then was this “competent tribunal” for the Armenian allegations of genocide
held? And when? Who held them? Was due process allowed to run its course? How come we didn’t
hear about it? After all, Turks are a party to this issue and they must have been heard at
such a tribunal, right? Turks should have cross-examined the Armenian evidence and present
counter evidence, right? Isn’t this what “due process” is all about? Turks can
easily prove that most of the Ottoman-Armenians were brutal insurgents, armed to the teeth
by the Western allies during WWI, all of whom were intent on destroying the Ottoman Empire
and the Ottoman-Armenians did cause the deaths of 523,000 of their Muslim neighbors,
mostly Turks, between 1914-1923. Those insurgents did not shy away from using their own
wives, kids, elders as “human shields” after their bloody attacks on Turks to escape
Turkish investigations or retaliations. As one can easily see, the baseless charges of
genocide would be turned on its end and Armenians would be proven to be the bogus victims
of a nonexistent genocide. Didn’t a human tragedy take place there? Of course it did,
but that human tragedy victimized all peoples of the area, without discriminating them on
the basis of ethnicity, nationality, language, or religion. Why cherry-pick the Armenian
suffering and losses from the lot and totally ignore or dismiss the much larger Muslim
suffering and losses? Is this what genocide meant to be? A selective morality? Applied
only to the Christian dead by Christians? I think not.
Could this Armenian lecturer perhaps mean the Ottoman courts martial of 1915-1916 as the
“competent tribunal” that rendered a verdict of genocide? Nope, he couldn’t. Those
trials prove exactly the opposite of genocide charges where the Ottoman government tried
and convicted actually some of its own who did abuse the government’s temporary
resettlement order. Most of the defendants in those trials did commit crimes ranging from
theft to murder; they were tried, found guilty, and punished severely, some even with
death. These court proceedings clearly show that the Ottoman government had no intention
of systematically exterminating its Ottoman-Armenians as alleged. On the contrary, they
genuinely wanted to temporarily re-settle those Ottoman-Armenian who took up arms against
their own government, resorted to insurgency, terrorism, and treason at a time of war of
survival. ( Can anyone remember the German-Nazi courts trying German-Nazi officers for
mistreating, robbing, and/or killing Jews? Even the most biased Armenian can see how
absurd it is for the Armenian lobbyists and their sympathizers to compare the factual
Jewish Holocaust with the fictional Armenian genocide. )
Could this Armenian lecturer possibly mean the court proceedings of 1919-1920 as the “competent
tribunal” that rendered a verdict of genocide, where the leaders of Union and Progress
were all convicted and sentenced to death ? Nope, he couldn’t do that either, because
those trials were held in occupied Istanbul, by partisans with an anti-Unionist agenda who
happily accepted hearsay and questionable press reports as evidence, allowed no cross
examination of such shaky evidence, and violated almost every aspect of the “due process”.
These Kangaroo courts were so biased that the embarrassed occupiers, the British, asked
the crown courts to step in and take over the prosecution. The Ottoman leaders were exiled
to the Island of Malta awaiting trials there when the British desperately wanted to find
the evidence which could stand the scrutiny of the crown courts to convict the Turks of
the alleged war crimes. Result? No such evidence was found and the Turks were let go free
after two years of incarceration without filing a single charge against any Turkish
leader. Imagine this outcome, in spite of the following facts:
1-The director of the Ottoman archives was an Ottoman-Armenian who scanned the Ottoman
archives with a fine tooth comb to fined at least one “smoking gun” among a body of some
one million documents;
2- The British had access to all Armenian records, Ottoman or Russian, clergy or lay, all
claims of smoking guns”, all “crying survivors” and “sobbing witnesses”, and more;
3- The British had the Blue Book (a major source still used by Armenians today to prove
their genocide claims) at their disposal , having written the book themselves, which book is
a compilation of wartime propaganda material and falsified and/or embellished accounts of
wartime atrocities all of which were allegedly committed by the Ottoman-Turks;
4- The British had unfettered access to the U.S. ambassador Morgenthau’s and U.S. Consuls’
diplomatic reports and communications;
5- The British had unlimited access to the state archives of their wartime ally, France;
6- The British had easy access to the state archives of their wartime ally, Russia;
7- And more.
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Imagine all this enormous body of data, records, books, films, witnesses, diplomats,
soldiers, politicians, produced nothing, not one shred of evidence. Malta, technically
speaking, marks the end of all speculations about allegations of systematic
extermination of Ottoman-Armenians by Ottoman-Turks. That’s why today, after 91
years, Britain still refuses to label the human tragedy that engulfed the Eastern
Anatolia victimizing all of its inhabitants, Armenian, Turk, and others, despite
Armenian political pressure, threats, and terrorism. That’s why today, after 91
years, only a handful of states recognize the “alleged” Armenian Genocide, as an
unfortunate but clear extension of their anti-Turkish historical bias, more than
anything. After all, how can politicians decide a controversial debate pitting
historian against historian? Wouldn’t short sighted, fascist laws mandating a
certain view and censoring all others stifle further research, free exchange of
information and thought, and destroy freedom of speech? Didn’t Mussolini, Hitler,
Stalin, and the Taliban try similar laws dictating their views to be taught all
children to the exclusion of all other views, ideas, and teachings? Did legislating
K-12 education along fascist lines in Massachusetts and California to teach Armenian
“allegations” of genocide as “settled history”, after tremendous pressure from
the Armenian lobby in the last two decades, work for America? Jury is out here. The
former is being sued and latter may be next. And if some short-sighted and ignorant
French parliamentarians don’t check their attempts to appease their arrogant
Armenian constituents (and French bias and bigotry) and pass the anti-Turkish racist
law banning freedom of speech on refuting Armenian claims, then France is in for a lot
more than it bargained for.
If it is not the courts martial of 1915-1916, or the Kangaroo courts of 1919-1920 in
occupied Istanbul, or the 1919-1921 Malta Tribunal that never was, then what court
verdict could this Armenian lecturer be basing his “genocide verdict” on? I
decided to ask him this very question after his “presentation”.
The inevitable conclusion, therefore, must be this: either the Armenian professor
produces a court verdict given by a “competent tribunal” as specified by the 1948
U.N. convention, stating that Turkish-Armenian conflict during the World War I is
genocide or he starts using the qualifier “alleged” before the term genocide in
his writings and lectures until such a genocide verdict is at hand. Scholarly honesty
demands this from him. Either show a court verdict or say “alleged genocide”. It
is as simple as that!
Let’s continue reading the invitation sent by The History Department of El Camino
College:
“…The Armenian genocide in 1915 was the first genocide of the twentieth century…”
No, not really. The first genocide, or systematic and wholesale massacre (since the
term genocide was not invented until 1943 by Rafael Lemkin and therefore can not be
used retroactively) was the killing of the Hereros of Southwest Africa (Namibia) by
the German colonialists in 1904. The second systematic and wholesale massacre was the
killing of the Ottoman-Muslims, mostly Ottoman-Turks, by the Ottoman-Christians during
the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, where my father’s entire village of Kirlikova was
annihilated leaving my father, a one year old baby then, as the sole survivor (you can
read more about this tragic story in the archives below.) So, the Armenian professor
is wrong again. Where does the tragedy of the Ottoman-Armenians come on this list? No
where. Civil wars do not qualify under systematic-and-wholesale-massacre category ( a
precursor to post 1948 genocide category.) After all, deaths of 523,000
Ottoman-Muslims, mostly Ottoman-Turks, are directly attributable to wartime atrocities
committed by the Armenian nationalists armed by France, Britain, and Russia. (Though
the term “nationalist” is not always necessarily a negative one, the Armenian
version of nationalism is, as it meant wholesale death and destruction to the
Ottoman-Muslims in Eastern Anatolia between 1890-1920.)
Back to the invitation by The History Department:
“… and resulted in about one and a half million deaths; nevertheless, it is
often called the Forgotten Genocide…”
In my son’s history classroom during the last open day, I noticed a poster dated
1919 on the wall among many other historical artifacts from different years and
subjects. This one solicited funds for the starving Armenians of the Middle East. What
really attracted my attention was the number given as the total for the
Ottoman-Armenian casualties: 600,000. Knowing full well that even this number is more
than double the actual number of casualties (as Kamuran Gurun gives the figure of
300,000 in his book “The Armenian File” and please compare this with Turkish
casualties of 528,000 who met their end at the hands of Armenians, so that you can put
this whole civil war reality in perspective), how did this Armenian professor and
others like him manage to come up with this figure of 1.5 million? Do dead multiply? I
guess Armenian dead do… Is there any other explanation? Then there is this: the
entire Ottoman-Armenian population, according to the official Ottoman government
sources, was 1,295,000. How can more people than the entire population die? Did some
die twice? Even that doesn’t explain where the Armenian Diaspora today came from? If
the entire population was killed (and some were killed twice) then where did the
Armenians we see today in America, France, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere come from?
You see, the Armenian numbers don’t add up. They never did. Just like the
non-existing court verdict of genocide, 1.5 million dead do not exist.
The inaccuracies in the invitation continue:
“… Not only is little known outside the Armenian community about the Turkish
attempt to destroy the Armenian people, but today Turkey denies that it ever took
place…”
“Little known?” Honestly, can anyone watch on TV, hear on radio, read in the press
anything other than bogus Armenian claims? What exactly is this professor’s concept
of “little known?” Turkish attempt was not to destroy the Armenian people but to
defend herself against the fifth column activities of the Eastern Anatolia Armenians
at a time of war of survival. Turkey can not deny something that doesn’t exist.
The invitation reads:
“…This issue has become especially important as Turkey seeks entry into the
European Union, since France and other nations have called for Turkey's recognition of
the Armenian genocide…”
France is one of the six parties that Turks expect to hear apologies from since the
end of WWI. France was not invited to Anatolia and did not come bearing flowers or to
have a peaceful picnic there. France, along with other allies, rained death and
destruction on my people, Turks. Not content, France secretly divided up Ottoman
Empire between France and Britain (Sykes-Picot agreement) and used Ottoman-Armenians
to kill their Ottoman-Muslim neighbors. France donned French uniforms on
Ottoman-Armenian citizens and watched as neighbor killed neighbor. Thus, France, along
with her allies, ruthlessly destroyed a “millennium of harmonious co-habitation”
between the Turks and Armenians in Anatolia. Such shameless and evil schemes staged in
the name of advancing political French interests, fine tuned by the French
colonialists in Africa and Oceania costing millions of innocent lives over several
centuries, brought enormous pain and suffering to my Turkish predecessors. No less
than 2.5 million Ottoman-Muslims, mostly Turks, died during the WWI (528,000 of them
at the hands of Armenian nationalists; please don’t confuse these two figures.) This
France is telling me what to do now? I think not! While I hold absolutely no grudge
against French people today, I place the full blame on the French politicians for the
bloodshed in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Americas, and elsewhere. France went to
these places uninvited, used brutal military force to rain death and destruction on
local people, and exploited their natural and cultural resources. France should learn
to be big enough to face her history, before lecturing others on human rights. First
France should apologize to Turkey and then I can forgive France. Until then, France
has no credibility.
The invitation ends with this:
“… Please encourage your students to attend. Arrangements can be made for sign
up sheets, etc. to be available…”
Unsuspecting students, lured with the prospect of extra credits if they attended
flocked to the theater where they would be subjected to the unadulterated Armenian
propaganda.
And here is the signature under the invitation for the record:
“…Best Regards, Florence Baker, The History Department, El Camino College.”
Address: 16007 Crenshaw Blvd. Torrance, CA 90506 Phone: 310.532.3670 Toll
Free:1.866.ELCAMINO 1.866.352.2646.
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| PART
II: ATTEMPTS TO INCLUDE THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY FAIL |
Some college professors who were also bothered by this one-sided presentation contacted the
organizer. They pointed out to her that the scholarly way to cover a controversial subject
was to allow both sides of that issue to be heard by the students. Only lively, open, and
free exchange of ideas in a thoughtful debate could enable the students to judge a
controversy, not partisan monologues or biased choruses. In order to protect these
courageous professors from possible violent acts of Armenian terrorists who already claimed
the lives of three Turkish diplomats in California alone in the last three decades,
countless bombings, assaults, and death threats, I shall refrain from giving their names
here. Their reasonable, honest, and scholarly requests were turned down by the organizer
with hollow excuses like lack of time to make last minute rearrangements. The stage was thus
set for the Armenian professor and his one-sided presentation.
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A HEALTHY DOSE OF
PROPAGANDA DURING THE “LECTURE”
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The lecturer showed certain sections of two video films, stopping the films whenever
he wished for additional comments. Never mind that the photos, films, and stories he
showed were mostly out of context, sometimes even irrelevant, and their scrutiny was
not encouraged or invited. The lecturer chose the “blood and gore” segments of
those biased films for maximum impact, such as eyes being gouged and bodies hung
upside down, etc. Imagine the effects of this on the young minds. That’s exactly
what this lecturer wanted: to create a cult following among the youth bent one hate
for all things Turkish. I could very well show similar movies where the victims are
Ottoman-Turks and perpetrators are Otoman-Armenians. In fact, I can show more recent
movies where victims are Turks of the Republic of Turkey and the perpetrators are
Armenian-American terrorists. That would be arguing the Turkish-Armenian civil war on
the basis of who spilled more blood of the other and would prove nothing, other than a
bloody civil war which is what it was in the first place. I would like to call this
the “Texas chainsaw massacre approach” to history. This lecture milked the fears
and prejudices of unsuspecting young minds so much that Hitler’s propaganda
ministers could probably not top it.
After the propagandistic lecture ended – not a moment too soon-- the floor was
opened to questions and I asked the first question to the organizer:
“Being of Turkish-American heritage, and having read a lot about the subject, I am
unable to agree with the misleading and distorted characterizations embodied in this
lecture. Would you please allow me five minutes on stage to refute the lecturer’s
allegations for the benefit of the students here? “
Organizer appeared a bit perplexed and before she could respond, I heard the lecturer
say something along the lines of this is not a panel and ending with “ Mr.
Kirlikovali, please so ask what you want to ask.”
“I didn’t utter my name, how did you know?”
He said he knew me through my work. I thanked him and commented:
“I am afraid I find your lecture racist and dishonest.”
The lecturer asked why.
I said: “ You never mentioned the Turkish dead and suffering. You implied that
Turkish dead do not matter, only Armenian dead do. That, to me, is racist. And you did
not say a word about Armenian insurgency, terrorism, and treason that caused the civil
war and the ensuing temporary resettlement order. You left half the story out. And
that’s dishonest. “
By this time the temper in the hall was rising because some Armenian students didn’t
want to hear what I was saying. The lecturer argued that his case was accepted by many
as the settled history and he spoke the truth.
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A few pro-Armenian questions were fielded with which the lecturer was quite happy.
Those questions were something to the effect did Turkey recognize the genocide and why
did Turkey not recognize the genocide to this date. The lecturer jumped at the
opportunity to do more Turk-bashing. He said things like it is not easy to accept
genocide for an honorable person because it is a terrible stain in one’s history.
More and more Turks are beginning to see the truth about genocide and coming out to
embrace it (You wish…)
One innocent question by a student must have annoyed him a bit, though he seemed to
keep his cool. He asked why did the Armenians not sue Turkey at an international court
to which I added 127 Turkish NGOs recently suggested just that to the Republic of
Armenia. Also recently, the Turkish government proposed to the Republic of Armenia
establishing a joint committee of historians and opening all archives so that they can
study this matter and report on their conclusions. Armenia avoided saying yes to
either one of these proposals. What are the Armenians hiding? What are they afraid of?
The lecturer said that something like the situation was clearly a genocide and there
is no need to go to court.
I asked “Is genocide proven?” This was a trick question and he heard it all right.
If he said yes, then I would ask for what court, when, where, where is the supporting
documents and sources, which he obviously could not produce. If he said no, then the
effect of today’s lecture would be annulled. After all, if genocide was not proven,
then why was he presenting it as settled history?
After a brief pause, he motioned to the screen behind him implying the video films and
said:
“Of course it is, these films and materials prove it.”
I responded “Those materials could not stand to scrutiny of any court of law. You
know it, I know it.” (I may have also added something like those films and materials
were “a bunch of crap” proving nothing…But I can’t recall.)
One professor asked how many Turks were killed in Erzurum. Instead of replying, the
lecturer questioned back saying something like since you seem to know the answer,
suppose you tell me. The professor said he though this was a question-and-answer
session and not a question-and-question session. The lecturer then said what is your
source? I waved the book "Armenia: Secrets of a 'Christian' Terrorist State”
written by Sam Weems and I offered to give it to him as my gift to him. The lecturer
said that he already had that book and that Sam Weems was not a historian. I waved
four more books (by Guenter Lewy, Kamuran Gurun, Salahi Sonyel, Justin McCarthy, and
Stanford Shaw) and asked “These are by historians, have you read them?” The
lecturer chose to respond other questions ignoring mine.
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Another question was about how the Armenian churches cultivate hate for all things Turkish.
She gave the example of an Asian woman who had known nothing about Turks until she attended
an Armenian church and pretty soon thereafter she found herself hating all Turks everywhere.
The question was didn’t today’s lecture also cause the same kind of negative effect on
young minds. The lecturer responded by saying that he could vouch for other churches and
that if she could identify that church he would be happy to talk to them (Right!). A student
sitting in front of the questioner arose to disagree with the questioner saying that she was
the daughter of an Armenian minister and she doesn’t hate the Turks.
Another professor asked, after identifying herself as a member of the faculty, that she was
brought up being taught to hate the Turks and she did. Until of course she met Turks and she
was stunned to find out how pleasant and war Turks were, nothing like the image with which
she grew. She felt that the lecturer was aiding the perpetuation of hate among our youth for
all things Turkish. The lecturer objected to this by saying that he made it a point of
saying that not all Turks were responsible for what happened to Armenians and that some
gracious Turks, even some Ottoman officials, did help save Armenian lives. There are Turks
today that he loves listing the names of Turkish scholars known for embracing the official
Armenian propaganda line such as Halil Berktay, Elif Safak, Fatma Gocek, Zarakolu, and
others (He left Taner Akcam out!). I didn’t have a chance to say with the exception of
Berktay, none are historians and Berktay has a hidden agenda with the Turkish Republic going
back to 1970s when Berktay was a “wanted” terrorist, along with Taner Akcam. These
people were Marxist-Leninist militants who tried by force of arms and explosive to change
the regime in Turkey, from a Western democracy to Soviet style communism. You can see the
nostalgic “wanted” poster with Berktay’s and Akcam’s mugshots at
www.tallarmeniantale.com today. That is why these “scholars” embraced the Armenian
propaganda at face value. Their motivation is not historical truth but spite for Turkey.
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CONCLUSION
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The session ended after a few more “soft” questions by some students who seemed to
have swallowed the Armenian propaganda hook, line, and sinker. If it weren't for the
vigilance of one professor, we would never hear about this event. And if it weren't
for another professor, who together with the first one went to see the organizer to
convince her to allow the other side of the story to also be heard., the Turkish views
would not be noticed. Both professors asked the lecturer excellent questions... One
professor’s courageous last minute stand criticizing anti-Turkish hate teachings in
the Armenian community was truly spectacular. One engineer, taking time from work to
attend this lecture, also made the point about teaching of anti-Turkish hate in
Armenian churches... All three were brave, determined, well-informed, and
peace-loving.
As for me, I knew I would not get straight answers to my questions, but that is fine,
because my questions are not designed to change the mind of an Armenian lecturer. They
were designed to alert and inform the unsuspecting audience to the nature and depth of
Armenian propaganda they would be subjected to by this event. My questions would serve
to create a question mark in their minds so that they would not buy the distorted
Armenian claims at face value. Dare I say that my questions seem to have worked
because a few African-American students came to me after the lecture asking for more
information an websites on the Turkish views. This is good enough for me. As the
Turkish saying goes “Damlaya damlaya gol olur.” (Drop by drop, a lake forms.)
I left those students with these final remarks:
“Today, you witnessed with your own eyes how the views of a group of people party to
a controversial issue were censored by the organizers and the lecturer. Ask
yourselves: How can this happen in the 21st Century at an institute of higher learning
in the most advanced and richest state in the Union, California? And next time someone
gives you a lofty lecture about the freedom of speech in America, please remember
today!”
Mr. Kirlikovali's essay
ends with fifty-four "...QUESTIONS I WANTED TO ASK THE ARMENIAN LECTURER,"
which may be accessed at turkla.com/yazar.php?yid=4
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