Taner Akcam

Ironically, Taner Ackam’s exposition reveals exactly what the caliber of his “scholarship” is worth. For example, Akcam repeats the weasel history of his master Dadrian, in claiming that the Ottomans had a “two track” system. They wrote orders protecting the Armenians, but what they actually did — according to Dadrian/Akcam — was circumvent these orders with secret orders to exterminate Armenians. Not a single example of the latter has been found, although there are plenty of the former. Aside from the total lack of motive and lack of logic for this birdbrained speculation (which “assumes that the Ottomans deliberately confused their own officials in wartime so that future historians would be fooled,” as Prof. Justin McCarthy worded it), Dadrian/Akcam had to come up with SOME evidence to try and support their dishonesty. So they “cherry-picked” an example of telegram-cancellation from the memoirs of Talat Pasha’s secretary, regarding not an official telegram reflecting government policy, but a letter of recommendation regarding a job applicant. VOILA!

This is exactly what Taner Akcam has done, here. He found a link to my identity, and automatically concluded VOILA!

But as genuine scholars and truth-seekers know, the truth often lies beneath the easy surface. Taner Akcam is neither a scholar nor a truth-seeker, so whatever Dadrian-style “expedient information” that proves an agenda-ridden theory will suffice. Such is the role of the propagandist.

In Taner Akcam’s case, this kind of revelation is not harmless. Just as he has maligned his “own” people with deceitful Dadrian propaganda, helping to cause ignorant and already prejudiced folks throughout the world to further hate the Turks, making an announcement of my identity as though it were an established fact, without confirmation, is highly damaging, highly irresponsible, and highly unprofessional. Let’s hold this thought.

I’d like to address some of the points Taner Akcam has made in his circulated “AGOS” (an Armenian newspaper in Turkey) articles, the first being, “Holdwater: The mysterious name behind the ‘premier’ anti-Armenian website.”

Now note how creepy Taner Akcam is, even with the choice of his title. The TAT site is certainly not an “anti-Armenian” web site, but an “anti-Armenian GENOCIDE” web site. There is a huge difference.

For example, many Irish historians agree the Irish Famine did not constitute a genocide, as others — usually more emotional people — are too quick to conclude. The issue is open to debate. Those who disagree, such as the mentioned Irish historians, are certainly not “anti-Irish.” This point is so obvious, it should not even need to be spelled out.

Already Taner Akcam is signaling the less-balanced Armenians among the rank-and-file to “Get this guy.” He won’t be stopping there, but already we must ask: What kind of a morally-challenged man is Taner Akcam?

I remember other aspects of Akcam’s more aggressive article, but I’ll bring up only one more: Taner Akcam claimed that I, Holdwater, called Armenians “rodents.”

I remember thinking, that was way below the belt... even for Taner Akcam. Of course, I noticed there was no source. That was one whopper of an accusation.

That kind of thinking would be so in contrast to my character, it simply left me speechless. As I have written elsewhere, I was brought up to look upon Armenians as my brothers and sisters. My parents never said a single negative word about Armenians, ever. Many Turks have written me since, and I can easily conclude I am not an isolated example; this is a very typical Turkish upbringing.

I love all peoples. Yes, that includes Armenians. I have no hatred in my heart for anyone, not even those Armenians (and those like Taner Akcam) who totally throw away their morality, in their dishonest genocide affirming pursuit. (As Admiral Mark Bristol, and perhaps Mr. T, I may pity them; but I certainly don’t hate them.)

I have received the nastiest, most racist letters from Armenian readers, exhibiting the same mentality that we often see in hateful Armenian forums, and I have always replied civilly, hoping to reach out to their humanity. I have written many pages for the TAT site, and I believe even Armenian readers (save for the loopiest ones) are aware I have no malicious feelings toward the Armenian people, whatsoever. Quite the contrary; I am a humanist, and I have the warmest feelings toward Armenians. (Thanks to my upbringing, and helped, of course, by wonderful Armenians I have met along the way.)

Even if I were capable of hating the extremists among Armenians, I would stop myself. The reason: I am fully aware that once I sink into the snake pit of hatred, I will become no better than them. That is when they will have won.

What I don’t like is dishonesty. There is a world of difference between being against a ferocious falsehood such as the “Armenian genocide,” and being, as Akcam worded his headline, “anti-Armenian.”

AN EXPLOSIVE IRONY
Addendum, 8-07:

When Marmaduke Picktthall took apart Arnold Toynbee's Blue Book in an article for The New Age (December 16, 1915, Vol. XVIII. No. 7), he wrote::

I have never been a hater of Armenians; I had always hoped, with Mr. Toynbee, that they and other Christian populations would contribute to the progress and regeneration of the Turkish Empire. It has always struck me as horrible that Greeks and Syrian Christians, no less than Kurds and Muslim Arabs, should regard that race as vermin: it amounts to that. And I must say that I have never met a Turk who took that view of them; for the Turk they are the millet-i-sadikeh (the loyal sect), most favoured in old days, which has turned against its patrons and become an enemy.

While putting up this addendum, allow me to add that weeks after this response to Akcam appeared, Akcam has written another Holdwater-related essay featured in the "Blogian" site, entitled "Shoot the Messenger." You see, he is now the innocent messenger in line to get hurt by crazy fanatics. This is the only idea that he has ripped off from my message, while naturally ignoring all the rest, still repeating his same falsehoods. I have been told that a Turkish publication, Yeni Aktuel, has also featured an Akcam article, where Akcam basically says that he is in fear for his llife. In effect, he pulls the trigger, and then becomes the victim — fittingly, in traditional "Armenian" style! Frankly, for the moment at least, I have neither the energy nor the interest to keep rebutting this pathetic soul.

What Akcam was striving for was to drum up memories of those horrid Nazi propaganda movies, where footage of scurrying vermin was juxtaposed with Jews. He was trying to incite the less stable Armenian fanatics; Akcam was telling them in barely concealed “code” to “Go get this guy.”

In other words: Taner Akcam designed to cause terror. What a reminder that there are times when it can be difficult to shake one's roots.

And one need not have a terrorist background in order to engage in this kind of practice. Once I was corresponding with Dr. Dennis Papazian, with cc’s to a professorial Armenian-American woman and two genocide scholars. Suddenly, I received a message from the hateful Armenian-American doctor from Chicago who operates the “turkishdenial” web site, asking me whether I owned a gun. Now why would the likeliest suspect in this group of four have shared my letter with the nut job? Similarly, Dr. Richard Hovannisian reportedly called his fellow UCLA colleague, Dr. Stanford Shaw, a “criminal,” inciting the fanatics to harass Shaw (some bombed his house), ultimately turning Shaw into a nervous wreck, and forcing his retirement.

Hitler could not afford to get his hands directly soiled on his rise to power, so he created the S.A. in 1924 to conduct his violence and terror for him. Similarly, these Dashnak “professors” (and their Turkish lackey), can’t afford to overtly blemish their respectability; fortunately for them, there is no shortage of the fanatical faithful that they can resort to, in order to carry out their campaigns of intimidation.

We’ll sum up what else Taner Akcam has wrought with his move later on. Let’s now address a few points from his AGOS articles.

Akcam continues:

I too am among Holdwater’s priority targets. He leads the campaign against me, along with institutions such as the Assembly of American Turkish Associations (ATAA) and the Turkish Forum. He publishes articles on his site which claim that I am a terrorist; that I am responsible of the death of Americans in Turkey ; and even that I have planned and organized murders of American civilians. He lists my “terrorist activities” from the years 1974 to 1975, including precise dates and locations. These amount to nothing more than ordinary, small-scale arrests during student demonstrations of the era, which didn’t even make the press at the time.

There is a world of difference between exposing what a propagandist and scholarly fraud that Taner Akcam is, and “leading a campaign” against him. Where is this campaign? Again, am I supposed to be operating as ANCA?

The purpose of the TAT site if to present truthful information. Nothing more. Akcam can’t stand the truth, so he must make unfounded accusations.

The articles he is referring to were written by others; primarily Mustafa Artun (“From Terrorism to Armenian Propagandist:
The Taner Akcam Story,” 2001.) Of course I am going to publish articles that are going to expose Akcam’s shifty personality, particularly if the articles appear to be responsibly written.

The only major time I got “personal” with Akcam on TAT is when he made unfounded allegations against the TAT site. The result was Taner Akcam: A Shameful Liar. Here, we looked closer at the Artun article, where we learned at least one fact (regarding Akcam’s prison sentence) was more truthful about Akcam than Akcam has been about Akcam. But I wound up downplaying Akcam’s terrorist period from the 1970s, because I don't have much information regarding the group he belonged to, DEV-YOL. (And unlike Robert Jay Lifton, I am going to try and avoid making definitive conclusions about something so serious, based upon just one source.) It is not so difficult to determine, however, that DEV-YOL was indeed involved in terroristic activities, likely Soviet-backed, in an effort to destabilize Turkey during those turbulent times. Naturally, America was this leftist organization’s enemy, and Akcam was a key component of this organization. (Lazy Turkish journalists ought to dig into Akcam’s old articles; Artun wrote: “...as the editor of DEV-YOL's magazine, he [Akcam] wrote numerous articles exhorting DEV-YOL militants to engage in violence to bring down ‘the oligarchy’, to punish ‘the fascists’, and to get rid of ‘American imperialism.’")

What I have done, as the reader may ascertain with a study of the page (where the links for all of the following have been provided), is largely disregard the 1970s period, as far as confirming Akcam’s terroristic past. Corroboration of Akcam’s terrorist status comes from Akcam himself. He admitted having collaborated with Abdullah Ocalan’s PKK from 1981-1984, a terrorist organization responsible for over ten times the toll of 9/11. Akcam further corroborated his involvement in a Canadian radio interview, albeit indirectly, when we learned the PKK tried to kill him in Germany. Akcam also belonged to another (likely Kurdish) group with Abdullah Ocalan, ADYOD (1975), the intentions of which were probably not peaceful in nature. While we must pause before accepting the word of a terrorist at face value, Ocalan has accused Akcam of having much blood on his hands.

It doesn’t take too much intelligence to guess who might have passed to Holdwater the police records of these insignificant arrests, whose dates even I had forgotten.

Unfounded conspiracy theories aside, I found them on the Internet; it was as simple as that. And for God’s sake! We’re only talking about three relevant entries, here. Note how the author of these entries, whose information probably is not as reliable as Artun’s, disagrees with Artun on the DEV YOL issue. (Scroll up on this link for the Artun article.)

Once I was arrested for an issue regarding the Cyprus landing. As the Student Association, we were distributing authorized leaflets against the [Turkish] military invasion of Cyprus [1974].

“Invasion”? Did not Greek Cypriot violence and massacres against the Turkish minority in hopes of “enosis” (union) with Greece lead to the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, enabling the mother countries to protect their respective minorities? The Turks thus exercised their legal right in 1974 to intervene, in order to prevent the Turkish Cypriots from getting exterminated, as the coup leader admitted was his goal (in 1981). How remarkable that the welfare of Akcam’s “own” people meant, and still mean, nothing to him.

... I did mention Holdwater and the campaign in an article I wrote on the detention. [See “A Shameful Campaign,” cited above.] Holdwater wrote a 30-page rebuttal, full of lies, insults and attacks.

This must be “A Shameful Liar” that Akcam is complaining about. (Which is one long page, not thirty.) The reader may determine where the “lies” are, since Akcam has not presented a single example.

Interestingly, since Akcam admits to having read the “Shameful Liar” page, how highly dishonest of him to keep making the same contentions, such as the mistaken photograph being kept for a long time, the “campaign” against him, and ignoring his self-confessed PKK connection. If one makes a claim or a charge, and these claims/charges are countered, it is very dishonorable to ignore the explanations and to keep on making the same claims/charges.

Taner Akcam ends his piece by scolding me for removing the name of the one whose identity I had a responsibility to protect, as such enters the realm of “distortion and alteration,” and that he was “rectifying the alteration... made on a document presented to the public.” Is he trying to tell us the copy I had put up on the site was taken from public records... instead of the private and original copy that was used? Naturally, the letter would have never been put up in the first place had I been aware of its public retrievability. But this fellow is going to be so low as to grasp at whatever advantage he thinks he possesses, further writing, “As you may know, we scholars don’t particularly appreciate the alteration of documents. Such distortion is an occupation reserved for the Turkish Historical Society.” Brother!

 Armenian Extremists React

Let’s take a quick look at what happened here, after Akcam’s AGOS articles were translated into English by Nazim Dikbas: a campaign of the most vile character assassination and hatred one can imagine, as Akcam knew all too well would take place.

Two key participants to date fueling this campaign of hatred have been Simon Maghakyan, who also goes by the name of Blogian, and Ruben Izmailyan.

These two poor souls are the kind that the Dashnak historian Mikael Varandian could have had in mind when he wrote of “the seed of the poisonous flower of racism and nationalism... sown and carefully cultivated in the minds of the (Armenian) youth.” The scary thing is, Varandian wrote his words back in 1910 (“The Rebirth of a Nation and Our Mission,” p. 144). Like many other young Armenians, Maghakyan and Izmailyan have been taught, as Varandian further put it, “a rabid and delirious form of nationalism,” appearing “in the form of inordinate pride and arrogance,” producing “scandalous excesses, obviously found in the most intense pleasure in indulging in the most irreconcilable scorn and hatred of the Turks.”

Izmailyan has it a little more under control (he was spotlighted on TAT as an Armenian-American evidently diaspora-bullied, forcing the cancellation of a long planned Turkish-Armenian musical event; it’s jarring to learn of him now in the role of intimidator), but Maghakyan is far too gone into mind trip-ville.

Both are young (Izmailyan is slated to graduate from Brown University in 2009; Maghakyan is a recent transplant from Armenia, aged 17 at entry into the USA in 2003, to begin in earnest the waging of his “patriotic” war. Soghoman Tehlirian, Talat Pasha’s assassin, was 17 as well when he betrayed his Ottoman nation in 1914 and crossed over to the Russians, eager to practice his own brand of patriotism), bringing to mind how the minds of Armenian youth are poisoned by “the fetish-culture of diasporan Armenians,” as described in Meline Toumani's “The Burden of Memory.”

“In this culture, many diaspora Armenians are reared to hate Turkey with a fervor that seems completely at odds with their daily lives as typical — even liberal — American citizens... often it is the later-generation descendants who take up the cause most ardently, suggesting that something besides a simple interest in justice fuels their behavior.”

Simon Maghakyan

Maghakyan is a rising star among Armenian extremists, fiercely on the front lines of the Armenians’ beloved genocide. For example, he sent an angry letter to The Jewish Advocate, criticizing them for identifying a photo as “alleged victims of the Armenian genocide.” He was praised by fellow extremists Harut Sassounian, Appo Japparian, and Prof. Dennis Papazian (“Good show Simon,” Papazian wrote; “we have to mock them”) for Maghakyan’s exercise in hysteria. The fact of the matter is that “Armenian genocide” photos are undocumented, even Armin Wegner’s; some Armenian sites have sunk so low as to use documented photographs of Ottoman Muslims slaughtered by Armenians, in order to represent Armenian victims. While I don’t know which photograph The Jewish Advocate made use of, if the source of the photograph cannot be verified, an ethical journal must use a word such as “alleged.” The “journalists” Harut Sassounian and Appo Japparian have no concept of such ethical practices; their genocide must be affirmed before all else. Unfortunately, Dr. Papazian is no different; a real professor would need to ask many questions of an unverified photograph of the dead (such as, who are the victims, who killed them, and why). The last thing Dr. Papazian wishes to serve as in this out-of-control and genocide-sappy bunch is a voice of conscience, because he too is just another propagandist. (Maghakyan’s goal is to become a “professor.” He has one fine role model.)

Taner Akcam actually solicited this young kid (Maghakyan may have reached the age of 21; but he has a long way to go before becoming a man), working in cahoots for their exercise in character assassination. (Maghakyan wrote, “Prof. Akcam told me about this finding on April 15, 2007 and promised me to send the English version as soon as it was published in Turkey’s Agos.”) It is truly astounding, not to mention so very embarrassing, that Genocideland’s aptly nicknamed “village idiot,” this self-professed “scholar,” would so openly collaborate on his latest terror campaign with such a young fideist. (And let’s keep in mind the audience for such a fanatic are other bent-out-of-their-minds zealots; Akcam knowingly chose a most dangerous audience to appeal to. In effect, he instructed his more radical followers to hitch a ride on the bullet of the gun that Akcam fired.)

Naturally, Maghakyan pulled no punches, calling Akcam’s victim an “anti-Armenian idiot” and “one of the most anti-Armenian Turkish-Americans on Earth and the webmaster of tallarmeniantale.com, a hate website that denies the Armenian Genocide and compares Armenians to rodents.” The kid is out of control, further writing that TAT’s webmaster has “an unbelievably ‘wonderful’ hate for the Armenian people.”

He is engaging in a not-so-hidden “Go get him” message of his own; has he no comprehension that sort of language can put him in, as he put it, “hot waters”? And here we go again with the “rodents” charge, as Akcam guided his flock:

“...[T]he covert webmaster of tallarmeniantale.com, a website that denies the destruction of over a million Christian Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I. Gumen has been using the pseudo name “Holdwater” in denying the Armenian Genocide and comparing Armenians to rodents.”

I haven’t the heart to tell the kid that the Armenians themselves put the toll of Ottoman-Armenians at “more than 200,000“ (at the Preliminary Peace Conference in Paris, 1919). That is considerably less than what I regard as the true figure, around half a million. But there is simply no way of reasoning with someone who has gone off the edge. For example: a Turkish reader reminds Maghakyan that the recently discovered cave with the mass grave said to be of Armenian victims has been confirmed by European scientists to have been a Roman site. Maghakyan exhibits his future professorial chops by spending not a second wondering whether the claim might have merit, but by responding that the Turk is a “racist.”

Apparently, anyone who says anything against the Armenian genocide religion is a “racist,” according to Maghakyan, blissfully unaware that anyone with objectivity can clearly see where the real hatred and racism is coming from.

(If we follow Maghakyan’s brand of reasoning, when the United Nations' highest court in the Hague, the International Court of Justice, declared in February 2007 that what Serbia and Bosnian Serbs did to the Bosnian Muslims, save for Srebrenica [where only the Bosnian Serbs were blamed for the act of genocide], did not constitute a “genocide,” then should we ask whether the Hague officials were “racists”?)

Simon Maghakyan is obviously an extremely intelligent person (sporting a near 4.0 grade average; only a few years in the USA, and his English is already much better than Taner Akcam’s ever will be), and what a dreadful, dreadful shame that he has allowed himself to become so psychologically warped. He also has no moral recognition of the hurt caused by his vicious insults, relying totally upon Taner Akcam’s speculative conclusions, and the harmful repercussions that could well follow.

"It is in our blood to hate the Turks. "

Narek Mesropian, Golos Armenii, August 5, 1997

Dr. Gwynne Dyer beautifully wrote back in 1976:

The deafening drumbeat of the propaganda, and the sheer lack of sophistication in argument which comes from preaching decade after decade to a convinced and emotionally committed audience, are the major handicaps of Armenian historiography of the diaspora today.

What can one do with someone as “convinced and emotionally committed” as Ruben Izmailyan? Give him the real facts, and he would not want to know about them... any more than the religious fanatic who cannot stomach the fact that dinosaurs did not co-exist with humans. This is why he believes he has the license to write such character-assassinating statements as the above.

Izmailyan then goes on to try and discredit Samuel Weems and his book, “Armenia: The [sic] Secrets of a Christian Terrorist State.” Naturally, Izmailyan has likely never read the book, not that it would have mattered. Many of Weems’ claims within this book, of course, were based upon the history of Richard Hovannisian. Izmailyan then attempts to discredit the TAT site by providing Weems as a primary example of the Western sources used. (“Considering that Mr. Weems is one of Holdwater's favorite ‘scholars’ it is easy to see the substance behind Tall Armenian Tale.”) Funny. Samuel Weems is only one of the countless voices featured on this site that turn the Armenians’ genocide on its ear.

Yet there is one big difference with Weems. He served as I have been serving. That is, he was the very rare researcher who gathered the facts and then “politically” analyzed them. (He performed historical analysis as well, of course.) This does not make Weems the typical example of the Western sources used on TAT. In order to determine whether Weems was being truthful, one does not simply take his opinions, any more than one should simply take my opinions. What the honest person does is look at the sources Weems used to back up his claims. For the most part, Weems did what I have been doing: mainly utilizing the sources that had no reason to lie for the Turks, and frequently despised the Turks. This is in marked contrast to the bulk of the sources used in Armenian propaganda, who had every reason to lie for the Armenians.

Again, the idea is to smear; such is a far easier course than to demonstrate why Weems, as a devoted Baptist, Christian scholar and Southerner (i.e., a far less likely person to defend Turks), would have been motivated to write his book. Did he get rich? From what I understand, he got much poorer. (It is not as though HarperCollins was his publisher.) Weems’ only motivation was to tell the truth, and while he may not have possessed a Ph.D., his approach to scholarship was leagues beyond the pro-genocide professors Izmailyan feels duty-bound to defend.

“Thus since Holdwater is no longer anonymous he can not spread unfounded lies and harass people any more.”

Let me address Ruben directly, sure as he is to be reading this page (and since I’d like to believe he hasn’t gone off the deep end completely); you have done your personal honor a severe disservice, by penning this dishonest and defamatory piece. You cannot make statements such as “unfounded lies” and “comparing Armenians to rodents” without providing the evidence. And even if my identity should be definitely confirmed one day, how in the world could you possibly think that would make a difference, as far as keeping the truth from being told?

Stop being a “professional patriot,” and start being a “human being.” Remember: once you lose your honor as a man, you have nothing.

I think we can safely begin moving away from Akcam’s clownish image as the “village idiot” of Genocideland, and start considering his entry into the realm of serious idiocy. He did not consider that his actions could trigger a chain of events seriously hurting “Hai Tahd,” rather than helping it.

He probably thought his revelation would have me, assuming he had me pegged correctly, put tail between the legs and disappear. I suppose the fighting spirit well in evidence from my writings had escaped his level of intellect.

And let’s examine the ultimate possibility of the opening of, what appears on the surface to be, Akcam’s Pandora’s Box. With all of these not-so-hidden “Go get him” messages that Akcam has initiated, what if a fanatical, foaming-at-the-mouth genocide believer takes it upon himself to follow in the footsteps of the criminal fedayis so irresponsibly glorified in Armenian propaganda?

I have it in good word one of the incidents wearing Prof. Stanford Shaw down was that he even became apprehensive about visiting the UCLA restroom. There were times Prof. Richard Hovannisian would actually spit on Prof. Shaw. (Let’s add the word “alleged” to that sentence, just in case; but thanks to my impeccable source, I have no trouble believing the story.) Now, if a “respectable professor” can’t manage to contain himself and acts so uncivilly, how could the mad dog genocide fanatics out there be kept under control?

It just boggles the mind that Taner Akcam would have been so outrageously irresponsible as to let his speculation out of the bag, presented as an actual fact. But we can’t expect someone with the grisly past of Taner Akcam to exercise such delicacy of thought.

Yet, one never knows. And if such a grim scenario should come into play, did Taner Akcam actually stop to consider how far that would set back “Hai Tahd”?

Now, what if his speculation was wrong?

Did Taner Akcam ever bother to consider, by presenting his finding as such an absolute fact and not the speculation that it actually is, the ramifications he would be personally responsible for? By accusing someone of being a racist “anti-Armenian,” he really set himself up for a big character defamation charge. That would only be the beginning, what with the other damage he has caused, influencing death threats and interference with livelihood. Perhaps Akcam would not be off the hook in any event, right or wrong.

Taner Akcam would be wise to consider attempting to undo the damage he has caused. A public apology to his victim would serve as a start.

Any way one looks at it, Taner Akcam has already greatly publicized the TAT site; wherever the ball lands, the TAT site could get publicized even more, potentially with the kind of audience that extremist Armenians would dread seeing educated. I cannot tell you the number of “neutral” people who have written in, thanking me for helping open their eyes. This site, save for the hopelessly prejudiced, throbs with truth.

We know the PKK chillingly turned against their one-time brother-in-arms. The Dashnaks, finding “loyalty” to be a foreign concept, historically also have been known to turn against their allies or champions. (Such as President Woodrow Wilson. The Rev. James Barton. Even Andrew Goldberg, producer of several PBS Armenian propaganda films, complained of facing the wrath of ungrateful Armenians.) If Akcam is going to conduct himself so brainlessly, thinking only of short-term gain, his Dashnak masters could well decide that Akcam has outlived his usefulness.

What concerns me is that there are almost no analysts out there, at least writing in the English language. (Mustafa Artun, whomever he is, was a real anomaly among Turks. And he appears to have stopped after penning just a couple of articles.) The contra-genocide Turkish sites keep on rehashing the historical facts, which of course is not unimportant. Some are simply copying and pasting articles of interest, which is highly useful as well. Yet hardly anyone is performing the important task of “political” research. And very few are taking on the villains of the genocide industry for the hateful propagandists that they (the ones speaking for the Armenians, at any rate) are.

Now a great thing about one of Ruben Izmailyan’s fall guys, Samuel Weems, was that Weems filled a very necessary void. As mentioned earlier, he performed the hard work of not just historical research, but original “political” research; he dug up the facts and analyzed them. Why are there hardly any Turks/Turkish-Americans doing the same, in regards to "genocide" matters?

(It’s pretty peculiar that non-Turks have become better known for this vitally-needed role. That includes, to an extent, Turkish-Americans as myself who have lost touch with the “old country,” or who were never familiar in the first place.)

Since the practically unchallenged genocide industry has become so omnipotent, more Turks are finally seeing the light and are awakening from their great slumber. Yet the situation is not that different today than when Sam Weems had written his early 2000s article, “And Just Where in the World are the Turks?”:

"I am stupefied, and I am wondering where in the world are the Turks? What is the Turkish government doing? Where in heaven's name is the Turkish Foreign Service? No one seems to be doing a darn thing in defending truth and the Turkish interest. If a non-Turk American, like me, can research and find such unbelievable data so destructive for the Turks' and Turkey's vital interests, I ask myself why in the world don't the Turks..?"

“It saddens me to see the Turks, sitting back and doing nothing.
I am declaring to every Turk who loves his homeland or to every Turkish-American who is ready to help his country of origin, to wake up to reality and rid himself or herself of this corrosive apathy, and of this masochistic sense of self-destruction.”

Yeow. “Corrosive apathy” and “masochistic sense of self-destruction.” Not pretty words to hear, but so much the truth.

Message to the Turkish people

My message to Turkish people is this:

1) Study. Then learn some more. The learning process never ends. Become as expert as you can in the genocide issue, and all the other issues designed to contribute to anti-Turkish hatred. You have a duty to become a historian in your own right.

2) Do not make the mistake most Armenians make, listening as they do only to their propagandistic professors. Read everything, not simply what Turkish historians have to say.

3) Do not falsify anything; do not sink to the level of the unethical pro-Armenian propagandists. Check your facts; don’t be sloppy. If the Turks have done wrong, don’t hide it. That does not mean you need to go out of your way to emphasize Turkish wrongdoing, because there are too many others who specialize in that field. The point is, no whitewashing allowed.

4) Armed with your knowledge, go out and engage. With others, organize. By yourself, create a web site. Don’t always rehash the cobwebbed old information. Do the research; the “Armenian genocide” world is vast, and there is no end to the uncharted waters of prejudice, misinformation and disinformation. Let the world know about your findings. When you encounter yet another propaganda article by amateurish or bigoted journalists or historians, let your voice be heard. And not just once or twice; you must keep at it. When writing letters, take the extra time to dig up direct contact information for the person(s) involved, rather than the generic “letter to the editor” e-mail address.

And mostly:

Get off your lazy butts. Don’t expect others to do your fighting for you.

This means you.

Message to the Armenian people

 "Where is the voice of what surely must be the overwhelming majority of Armenian communities everywhere denouncing such brutality?"

Bruce Laingren (former hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran), The Washington Post, July 21, 1983, excerpt from letter to the editor. (For full letter on this page, click here.)

And as far as your genocide religion, don’t forget what the rare Armenian-American scholar of integrity said, the amazing Dr. Robert “Hate hurts the hater and hated” John (truly, a man ahead of his time back in 1984, and still ahead of this time):

“The time has come to stop psychologically damaging ourselves and our children by ‘Holocaust studies’ and ‘Holocaust museums’...The Armenian, the Jew, or the African, should not damage their development with a continual conditioning of hate, neither should spurious guilt be visited upon others. These negative preoccupations and obsessions are obstructing our evolution.”

Be proud of being an Armenian, but remember: you are a human being first. Your tribal loyalty must never supersede your humanity. Your honor as a member of the human family must always take precedence. If you lose your honor, you are nothing. And if you are really proud of being an Armenian, then you must fight to regain the Armenian honor that the bullying Dashnaks have appropriated, and trampled under their feet. This honor includes the recognition of the great crimes the Dashnaks have committed, not just against fellow Armenians, but against the hundreds of thousands of non-Christian Armenians that the Dashnaks and others systematically “cleansed.” These would be from the Ottoman Empire, and later, from the newborn Armenia itself.

Taner Akcam will tell you I am “anti-Armenian,” but Taner Akcam has made a career out of being wrong. I only wish the best for the Armenian people, but the best can only come once the Armenians rid themselves of this collective hatred. With the hatred, the Armenians will remain slaves. Today’s Dashnak leaders, along with their hired agents such as Akcam, wish only to keep the Armenians in chains... in order to best serve themselves, no different than the pioneering Dashnaks.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s greatest stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klansmen, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”

At this juncture, the greatest stumbling block to Armenian freedom is not the Ku Klux Klan type of terror group maintaining a stranglehold on Armenians as a whole, but the Armenian moderate. Start paying attention to justice rather than “order,” and then the best will come. The Armenian moderate is the hope of the Armenian people. If he or she truly loves the Armenian people, the Armenian moderate must start speaking up.

I once tried to get through to the hermetically-sealed mind of Harut Sassounian with the following message, and the results were predictable. These inspiring words closed the 2004 film, HELLBOY:

What makes a man a man?
A friend of mine once wondered
Is it his origins
The way he comes to life
I don’t think so
It’s the choices he makes
Not how he starts things
But how he decides to end them.