|
|
Reproductions
of New York Times articles presented in Peter
Balakian's
"The Burning Tigris" as "evidence" the genocide
occurred. Viscount Bryce
(upper right) worked as chief propagandist for England's Wellington House,
and author Balakian unethically still represents these propaganda reports
as
valid testimony; even some Armenian activists have come to realize the
"10,000 Drowned at Once" story was malarkey. As for
"800,000 Armenians ... Destroyed," please see table below, on this page. |
The American and Western press were totally biased against the
Turks during the World War I period. (As opposed to these days, when they
always make sure to be fair. Right. See bottom.) However, America's
most prestigious newspaper, The New York Times,
carried special weight. If you read it in The New York Times,
it had to be true... no? Unfortunately, the newspaper relied almost
entirely on biased sources, such as Armenians and missionaries... as if their
already built-in, pre-existing prejudice didn't already serve as a deterrent
to the truth.
It's not like The New
York Times had their own reporters on the field, generally
speaking. They mainly relied on the reports of the huge propaganda machinery
that was Britain's Wellington
House, which had an arm in the United States, operated by the Canadian,
Sir Gilbert Parker. Any quote by the missionaries was taken at face value, as
the missionaries were the heroes of the Christian world, at the time.
Let me make this clearer in
the words of Dr. Nazim Bey, "Secretary of the Young Turks' Committee and
one of Turkey's most prominent men," according to the Times
article (which I'll be ironically citing), "LOOKS TO GERMANY TO SET
TURKEY FREE" (December 22, 1915):
|
Nazim
Bey |
Dr. Nazim Bey spoke
calmly except when the subject of the world's impression of Turkish-Armenian
relations was brought up. Of this he talked in bitter words. America in
particular, he said, had gained a false impression in two ways. First,
investigators of conditions had not been neutral or unbiased. Second, these
investigators went to the wrong sources for their information to Greeks, Jews,
and Armenians, who are Turkish subjects and have grudges to air.
"Every time a Turk does something praiseworthy
in this world he is hailed as an Armenian," he continued, "but or
acts basely, he is a Turk or something else."
This is why Western news
accounts from the period are almost entirely tainted, and the objective
evaluator must take these reports with at least a grain of salt. Below are a
few examples, compliments of an Armenian web site.
|
|
|
CAN'T DEFEND
ARMENIANS |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Turkish Statesman Says Government Has No Gendarmes in Interior
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OCTOBER 25, 1915
BERLIN, Oct.24, (via London.)--The Constantinople correspondent of the
Tageblatt, Emil Ludwig, sends the story of an interview which he had with Halil Bey,
President of the Turkish Chamber of Deputies, regarding the Armenians. Halil Bey is quoted
as follows:
"They are traitors. You have in mind certain excesses and blunders, but, believe me,
the Government is not responsible for them, and regrets them as sincerely as anybody. But
we have no more gendarmes in the interior. Everybody is under arms as a soldier. Thus it
comes to pass that we have not everywhere been able to restrain the rage of the
Mohammedans against these traitors to their country. The Government itself will only keep
the Armenians so far from the theatre of war that they cannot conspire with the
enemy."
Halil Bey pointed out, says the correspondent, that the Armenians went over to the
Russians by thousands when the latter made an inroad to Van, and asked:
"Will you defend such things?"
AMSTERDAM, Oct. 24.--A dispatch from Constantinople to the Frankfurter Zeitung says that
Halil Bey, former President of the Turkish Chamber of Deputies, has been appointed
Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Ottoman Cabinet.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note the sarcasm used in the reporting. The article
is coming from the viewpoint that the Turks are such monsters, of course the Armenians'
betrayal is entirely defensible... since if they stick around, the Turks are going to
murder them all. The irony is, the Western media's made up arguments aside (Muslims hate
Christians, the Turks wanted to plunder the Armenians' wealth), the only reason why
Armenians got into this mess was because of their back-stabbing treachery. Had they
remained loyal, nothing would have happened to them... just like nothing happened to them
during the two peoples' peaceful co-existence for many centuries; and just like nothing
happened to other non-Moslem citizens of the empire who remained loyal, such as the
Jews.
Maybe The New York Times
could have answered Halil Bey's question more fairly, had they substituted "America" for "The Ottoman Empire."
RUSSIANS
SLAUGHTER TURKISH THIRD ARMY
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Give No Quarter to Men Held Responsible for the Massacre of Armenians
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MONDAY, MARCH 6, 1916
LONDON, March 6.--The Russian soldiers at Bitlis, according to a Petrograd dispatch
to the Morning Post, took a terrible revenge on the Turkish troops for the cruelty
which the Turks were alleged to have practiced to ward the Armenians in that
district. The correspondent says:
"Terrible slaughter followed the capture of the Turkish positions at Bitlis.
The Russian troops had witnessed at Van, Mush, and many other places, an appalling
sight, the massacre: namely, by Turkish fanatics of tens of thousands of Armenian
Christian men, women, and children. It was unlikely after such deeds that any
quarter should be given. This colossal killing completed the destruction of the
Turkish third army.
Well, wasn't that just ducky of
the Russians, standing up for the Armenians the way they did!
The only massacred people
in these regions were Turks... by the Armenians, who revolted in anticipation of the
Russians' arrival. Professor McCarthy
concludes: "At the beginning of the World War, it
seemed as if Erzurum's Muslims might escape the fate of their neighbors who were
killed in Van and Bitlis.
In those provinces a large proportion of the Muslim population had been slaughtered
by Armenians, both local and from Russia." (The Americans Niles and Sutherland witnessed the
devastation at Van years later: "..The only quarters left at all intact in
the cities of Bitlis and Van are the Armenian quarters, as was evidenced by churches
and inscriptions on the houses, while the Musulman quarters were completely
destroyed.") What a very convenient excuse for the Russians... if
they slaughtered Turkish soldiers after the battle was lost... to commit a war crime
and blame it on their outrage over the Turks' nonexistent (in this case) barbarism.
Even if The New York Times had reason to be suspicious about the accuracy of this report, which
they almost certainly did not (although, to their credit, they did use the word,
"alleged"), demonizing the enemy was the path to take. The U.S. wasn't at
war with Turkey, but America was certainly allied with the Allies.
|
THE TOTTERING
TURK (Excerpts) |
BY FULLERTON L. WALDO, F. R. G. S.
Associate Editor of The Philadelphia Public Ledger
OCTOBER 25, 1915
There are 100,000 Armenians in Constantinople. The Turks whenever
they please hale them to the police stations, soak their feet in salt water, and then
apply the bastinado till their victims have to walk about on their knees for many days
thereafter, if they walk at all. One man I talked with, a cook in charge of a bake oven at
an American institution, had recently received the full official tale of seventy strokes
while the doctor held his pulse to make sure the exquisite torment did not send the
victim's fluttering life quite over the brink. But a weak old man, who in the same hour
was given but twenty strokes, died on the day following.
The newspapers today are filled with the execrable deeds of hireling Kurds and
Bashi-Bazouks in Asia Minor. And still, Ambassador Morgenthau assured me, the half has not
been told. The Black Sea and the Tigris River hold the secret of struggling thousands
ruthlessly thrown into deep water and shot from the bank. A good woman that I knew wanted
to go down from Scutari to Nicomedia by rail to help the evicted there, but the Turks
would not let her, for they did not wish her to see the crimes committed and apprise the
world of them. From that region 30,000 at least had been thrust forth to desert
wanderings, and tens of thousands more were interned in and around the station, waiting
till the cattle-cars had dumped their human freight and returned for more.
Of course, the Turks, with his sluggish mentality, is jealous of the Armenian's
progressive temper that out bargains, out builds, outplays and in all non-military ways
outgenerals him. The Turks fears the league of the Armenians and the Russians, for which
the former have toiled as their one hope of political and social salvation.
In the meantime, this man Morgentau, his soul fired to white heat by Russia's oppression
of his own people, the Jews, is determined to do his best for those whom Turkey so
barbarously mishandles.
Holdwater says: Wow! The Constantinople cops
sure knew how to have fun... summoning old men to the stationhouse for the pleasure of
whipping them and wrecking their feet. (We know from MIDNIGHT EXPRESS that Turks
love to punish feet. Remember when the hero of the film was hung upside-down and "Bluto"
started whacking his poor, bare feet?)
Do you feel the newspaperman got his information
from reliable sources? Given comments like the Turks' "sluggish mentality" (and
other lame descriptions in the rest of the article, not presented here), Fullerton was
full of it, and he was probably hoping to one-up the racist outlook of Ambassador
Morgenthau, who assured him that "the half (of the ugly story) has not been
told."
It's interesting that Russia's oppression of the
Jews was mentioned. One reason cited for the intense demonization of Turks has been the
need to take the heat off the Russian ally. (One instance of persecution in particular was
the Russian soldiers' massacring large numbers of Jews during Russian campaigns against
the Germans, in 1915.) The people would less likely concentrate on Russia's mistreatment
of their Jewish citizens during this period, if a greater devil could be conjured up.
Okay... what this boy is vomiting is not so
different from almost every other report regarding the Turks of World War I. The New York Times was
only doing, after all, what every other journal was doing... bombarding the public with
everything negative about the Ottoman Empire. However, it would have been one thing for
the Times to simply print these libelous words... but the editor decides to add
salt to the wound by presenting his own opinion (the highlights are mine), at the end of
the article:
Constantinople is now the critical point in the Great War. The
issue of the conflict turns upon it, and the next few weeks may decide the question. The
city is besieged by armies of Russians, English, Australians, New Zealanders, Indians,
French, Senegalese and Italians. Armies of Austrians and Germans are pushing down thru
Serbia to reach Constantinople before it falls. British, French and Italian troops have
rushed to stop their onward march. Meanwhile "the Sick Man of the East" is in
mortal danger. The Turk feels that he is losing his grip and the subject races who have suffered under his tyranny for centuries are
getting restive at the thought that the day of their deliverance is at hand. He has determined that they shall be destroyed rather than be
freed. The colleges which Americans have
founded in Turkey are threatened with extinction. It makes an American thrill with pride
to read in Mr. Waldo's article how these educational outposts of ours in the East are
calmly continuing their work in the midst of war. ---THE EDITOR.
ADDENDUM: The above may not have appeared in
The New York Times, but "Independent Magazine." (Not that
it makes much difference... every publication in America followed the same hysterical
style.)
ENVER'S 100,000
|
MARCH 11, 1919
Et d'un! as Monte Cristo used to say. RESHID BEY, sometime Governor of Diarbekir,
one of the guiltiest planers, and executors of the Armenian butcheries, killed
himself the other day when caught by the police. He seems to have been intending to
take refuge in Anatolia, where he might have made trouble. The arrest of drivers and
unary grandees of the Committee of Union and Progress spoiled his plans, and the
police were too hot on his track. If he dies unwipped of justice, yet "suicide
is confession."
Perhaps the strangest story in all the motley multifarious history of the Committee
attributes to it the dispatch of missionaries to the Russian Bolsheviki. Turkish
nationalism has vanished; but the far-scattered survivors of the Committee may well
have seen that their sole, if desperate, chance lay or lies in the spread of
Bolshevism to the west. To the Turks themselves the economic, social, and political
doctrines and practice of Bolshevism would be about as intelligible and interesting
as the nebular hypothesis. In so far, however, as it is mere looting and murder, it
has been practiced by the Turks in Asia and Europe for hundreds of years. The
assassins of Armenians, Greeks, Arabs, Syrians, understand that part of the
Bolshevist gospel. The Kurds are illustrious professors of it.
The Committee of Union and Progress, or its thriftiest members now in exile, are
supposed to have plenty of money in Swiss, German, Austrian, Dutch banks. It will
require a credulity almost unimaginable to believe that these chevaliers of
political and financial industry will be inclined to waste any of the proceeds of
their virtue on the dissemination of Bolshevism. In Constantinople an unexpected but
lovely fruit of the Bolshevist missionary work carried on by the Committee or its
colporteurs is the belief, according to a London Correspondent, that ENVER PASHA
"will shortly return from Russia with an army of 100,000 desperate characters
who will restore Committee rule." Evidently ENVER is rapidly becoming a
legendary character. It is only just to his merits to say that, compared with his
gentle character and achievements, the 100,000 desperadoes, if he could raise them,
would be like an infant school headed by one of those eminent pirates, Flint or
Blackbeard
I hope this was an editorial,
and not an actual news story.
Well, whatever it was, now we
know that Reshid Bey was on a level with Adolf Eichmann, given that he was a most
guilty planner and executor of the Armenian butcheries. That's all fine, but,
ahhh... where's the proof?
|
Dr. Reshid (Reşit)
Bey |
Coming to the events of 1915,
Dixon-Johnson writes: "Now... we find once
more the same influence at work.... There is absolutely no reason
why we should implicitly believe the reports which have been so assiduously
circulated in the Press.... The exploiters of these stories are under the same
disability, having only heard one side, and that an extremely biased one".
He adds that no
Englishman would condemn a prisoner on the evidence for the defence.
The Editor of the Economist says that "we must not allow our
standards of proof to decline in judging reports of atrocities". And this is especially necessary
"when sensational stories are
passed as authentic reports for the acceptance of a public prone to believe
anything".
C.F. Dixon-Johnson, British
author of the 1916 book, "The Armenians."
|
|
MILLIONS
SLAIN BY TURKS |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moslems Made Money in the Midst of War Slaughter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DECEMBER 6, 1918
LONDON, Dec. 5. -- Throughout the last four years the Turks, acting under the orders
of the Committee of Union and Progress, have done their best to ruin Turkey and have
succeeded "extremely well, " says the Constantinople correspondent of The
Morning Post, in describing the corruption and misery of Turkey. Three million
persons, he says, have been massacred and another million is on the verge of
starvation this Winter.
"The greater portion of the Ottoman Empire," the correspondent continues,
"has been conquered and parsed out among different races, and what remains is a
total ruin.
"It is probably true that never before have the Turks in the empire been so
rich. An ordinary policeman in Pera is estimated to be worth anything between 10,000
and 15,000 Turkish pounds.
"This accumulation of wealth has been a part of the program of the committee to
enrich the Turks at the expense of the Christians, and was carried out especially in
Smyrna and Constantinople. The consequence is that prices in Constantinople today
are enormously exorbitant. It must not be supposed however, that Constantinople
lacks anything. There is probably enough food were to feed the population for at
least eight months. The committee, by means of requisitioning from the Christians,
has concentrated all the trade in the hands of the Mohammedans. German officers had
their share also in this plunder.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SALONIKI, Dec. 4. -- M. Khanzadian, an Armenian leader and a former officer of high
rank in the Turkish Navy, on his arrival here today declared that German and Turkish
statistic which he saw in Constantinople in 1916 showed that 1,396, 350 Armenians
had been deported and that of that number 1,056 550 had been massacred.
He expressed thanks to the Greek Government for its sympathy with the cause of the
Armenians, and said that the Greeks and Armenians should combine their efforts
against Turkish oppression.
These two articles appeared back to
back. It seems whatever report came out of the well-oiled American branch of
Britain's propaganda arm, Wellington House, The New York
Times would be in a hurry to print it... there's nothing like sensationalized
news to attract readers. (Of course, not all biased reports originated from
Wellington House... the source here is a not-very-specifically specified
journalist.) Any bit of hearsay, like the report of "three million"
massacred, The New York Times saw as "News Fit to
Print." An especially tiresome "motive" the Ottomans had for
exterminating the Armenians, according to Armenians and their supporters in a
desperate search for motives, is that this was the nasty Turks' way to get wealthy.
Doubtless, Armenians were taken advantage of when they needed to sell properties
quickly at unfair prices, like the Japanese-Americans were ruined during their WWII
settlement... but the buyers were almost always fellow citizens, and not government
officials. Many of the affected Armenians were from the central and eastern regions,
and the more east one travelled, the poorer the Armenians got (generally). If the
Turks wanted to "rob" the Armenians, they would have had to do so in the
"wealthy" cities, and the silly article above claims that is exactly what
occurred. Well, I wonder how this occurred? If the Armenians were not booted out of
their homes for the resettlement program, the only way these Armenians could have
been robbed were if the Turks came into their homes with guns drawn, demanding money
to be handed over... which is pure, unadulterated poop-droppings. To get an idea of
who really robbed these richer Armenians (although this example could have been from
a different period, but the Armenians' treacherous tactics remained constant... and
this example is still applicable), look here.
My compliments to the Armenian who once served
his country before likely betraying it; unless he was given all the time in the
world as an Armenian to review critical government documents in 1916, he must have
had one heck of a photographic memory to have retained such numbers so precisely.
|
An
"Edited" Letter From a Turkish Official |
OCTOBER 19, 1915
To the Editor of The New York Times:
Thanking you for your publishing my letter of the 15th inst. in connection with the
Armenian crisis. I beg to attract your attention that at least three important paragraphs
of the omitted. As I consider these paragraphs of the utmost importance in favor of my
argument, I beg you to publish in extents this letter of mine with its corrections, in
justice to the claim of fairness you champion.
The second paragraph of my letter read.
Before entering any further into the subject I want to express my surprise in seeing
protests emanating from every quarter, though every nation has in its history similar
black pages, and I want to remind in this connection that should the different nations
follow the precept of the Christ. "Let he who has no sin throw the first stone.
" none of them would be in a position to raise any protest.
In connection to the expulsion, massacre, and the driving away of the Armenians, I said in
explanation, not as excuse:
In other words the Ottoman Government sees itself obliged to follow now the line of
conduct the United States adopted in regard to the Indian reservations and its action is
thus at least explained.
Finally my article ended:
If they (the Armenians) are now suffering of the severity of the punishment, it is very
deplorable, but they must not forget their previous actions: They were willing to take
unnecessary chances, they failed, they must now take the consequences of their rebellious
and treacherous actions.
These sentences were purposely meant to emphasize that the Turkish nation, as a race or as
a Government, is neither better have no doubt you will be kind enough to publish them.
ZIA MUFTY-ZADE BEY.
New York, Oct. 18, 1915.
While it is to the newspaper's credit
to have gone ahead and included the missing portions... why did The New York Times
originally leave out what the author claims were the most telling paragraphs of his
argument? Innocent oversight?
Now that the paragraphs were
printed out of context from the original letter, it kind of reduces whatever effectiveness
they might have had, don't you think?
A
Recurring Element
|
The one interesting element I keep running
across in these newspaper accounts is that there were times the Turkish viewpoint was
expressed. For example, in a November 23, 1915 article, "TURKEY IS UNEASY OVER
GERMAN ARMY":
The correspondent also touched upon the
Armenian question, which he calls the "thin ice of Turkey, which one avoids as
dangerous." Halil Bey said on this subject that the Armenians had been guilty
of treason and conspiracies with the Russian and other anti-Turkish activities. He
declared that the Mohammedan population of Armenia had become so enraged at the
Russophile elements that they had finally resorted to violent acts. The Turkish
Government, he added, despite its own wishes, had been powerless to check these
outbursts because the land was without policemen, who had been turned into soldiers
and transported to the front.
How ironic that this very explanation, which
basically sums up the Turkish position today... and is backed up by plenty of
objective, irrefutable evidence, often (indirectly) by Armenians themselves...
was almost absolutely ignored. I guess it was a case of "The Turkish
government says...." Sure, who is going to trust the official line of a
government, especially the government of a people held in the lowest esteem? Ironic.
The very same attitude exists today... whenever the Armenian "genocide" is
covered in an American newspaper, the equal time portion pretty much amounts to: "The
Turkish government says..." Translation: it's a lie.
However, reporters today cannot be as
off the hook as their predecessors from many years ago. During the 1910s and 20s,
the hatred of Turks stemmed from understandable ignorance, as there were practically
no outlets to tell the Turkish side of the story. (Those who tried would get
vilified in the press, as Admiral Chester Colby was, to an extent.)
Today, now that Turkey has finally made an effort to tell her side of the story, for
journalists, historians, and the media to ignore the presented evidence makes
them unprofessionally irresponsible. (It's one thing if they make an open-minded
study and conclude the Armenians are the truth tellers... that they would be
entitled to do, of course; but to dismiss the opposing viewpoint out of hand is what
would be inexcusable. And this is what is happening, still... time and time
again.)
Speaking of time, that's all this is a matter
of. In time, the truth will be revealed. This is why Armenians are getting more
flustered, resorting to ridiculous avenues such as taking people to court... for
daring to voice an opinion other than their own. Why, their very reason for being
would be challenged. (Can you think of "Armenian" without thinking of
"Genocide"?)
When that time arrives, hopefully the
Armenians, who are so totally obsessed over this "genocide" topic, can get
over their hatred and concentrate on areas of our existence that truly matter.
Peace, love and brotherhood would be good for a start.
"The
Armenian, the Jew or the African should not damage their development with a
continual conditioning of hate; neither should spurious guilt be vented upon others.
These negative preoccupations and obsessions are obstructing our evolution.”
Robert John (Hovhanes),
Armenian historian; The Reporter, "America's Leading Armenian
Newspaper," August 2, 1984
|
An
Example of Biased Coverage from "Modern Times" |
Stephen Kinzer has been The New York Times' specialist on Turkey in recent years (it appears his run as correspondent
in Istanbul came to an end around 2000, and he has subsequently written a book entitled,
"CRESCENT & STAR: Turkey Between Two Worlds"); some of his fine articles
have been included on this site (Here's one, and another). However, I ran into letters from Turks who were none too pleased about Mr.
Kinzer's take on the Armenian "Genocide".... thanks to the magic of the
Internet, I came across this very article, and what follows is most of it. While Turks can
be grateful Stephen Kinzer is not the anti-Turkish journalistic maniac that, say, Briton Robert Fisk has proven to be, it's
interesting how Kinzer could be behind such a one-sided tale; it's almost like this
article was written in the wholly less enlightened days of Western media coverage during
World War I... where the accused comes across as guilty of all charges.
May 10, 2000
Turkish Region Recalls Massacre of Armenians
By STEPHEN KINZER
LAZIG, Turkey, May 7 -- Groves of mulberry trees at
lakeside resorts are about all that remains from the days when this region was a center of
Armenian life.
One of the gnarled trees used to stand beside a
long-gone Armenian Orthodox church. Now it shades Tahire Cakirbay, 66, as she looks out
over her fields and shimmering Lake Hazar below.
"They took the Armenians up there and killed
them," Ms. Cakirbay said, pointing to a hill above her. "They dug a hole for the
bodies. My parents told me."
More than one million Armenians lived in what is now
eastern Turkey until their community was shattered in an orgy of ethnic violence that
exploded 85 years ago this spring. Many aspects of what happened then are still hotly
debated, but here where the killings took place, few people doubt they occurred.
"They don't teach it in school, but if you're
interested there are plenty of ways you can find out," said Yasemin Orhan, a native
of Elazig who graduated from the local university last year. "Many Armenians were
killed. It's for sure."
Ms. Orhan said she had learned about the killings
from her grandmother. Here in eastern Turkey, the passage of several generations has not
been enough to wipe them from memory.
In the rest of the country, however, most people know
little about the killings of 1915. Turkish textbooks refer to them only indirectly. They
stress that Armenian militants were rebelling against the crumbling Ottoman Empire, and
discount or ignore the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians after the abortive
revolt.
Conflicts over how to deal with this episode have
provoked a worldwide propaganda war between Armenia and Turkey.
Armenian lobbyists want foreign governments to
declare that what happened in 1915 was genocide. Some Armenian nationalists say that if
Turkey can be forced to concede this, their next step might be to claim reparations or
demand the return of land once owned by Armenians.
Turkish diplomats resolutely resist these efforts.
They assert that Muslims as well as Christians were killed here in 1915, and that it is
unfair to blame only one side.
To most Turks the events of 1915 seem distant, but in
the Armenian consciousness they are a vivid and constant presence. Awareness of what is
simply called "the genocide" is acute in Armenian communities around the
world.
Often it is accompanied by fierce anger at Turkey's
recalcitrance.
This anger boiled over into violence during the 1970's and 80's, when a group calling
itself Commandos of the Armenian Genocide mounted a campaign against representatives of
the Turkish government. It killed Turkish diplomats in the United States and elsewhere,
and bombed targets including the Turkish Airlines counter at Orly Airport in Paris.
Since then the battle has shifted back to the
diplomatic arena. Each spring, foreign leaders issue carefully worded commemorations of
the killings.
Last month, President Clinton issued a proclamation
recalling "a great tragedy of the twentieth century: the deportations and massacres
of roughly one and a half million Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman
Empire." He did not use the word "genocide."
In the past year, Turkey has greatly improved its
relations with Greece, but there has been little progress with Armenia. The two countries
feud over a variety of political issues, but the wound that 1915 has cut into the Armenian
psyche also plays an emotional role in keeping them apart.
In recent months, some of the first efforts toward
reconciliation between Turks and Armenians have begun. One was a conference of Turkish,
Armenian and American scholars who met at the University of Chicago to begin a joint
inquiry into the events of 1915.
"This was the most difficult paper I have ever
written in my life," said Selim Deringil, a historian at Bosporus University in
Istanbul, as he presented his analysis of Turkish-Armenian relations. "Venturing into
the Armenian crisis is like wandering into a minefield."
The scholars who gathered at Chicago plan to meet
again. Another group plans to open a series of conferences later this spring in
Austria.
(...)
Elazig is just one place where Armenians were killed
by Ottoman soldiers and Kurdish tribesmen in the spring and summer of 1915. But because
several foreigners were living in the area and recorded what they saw, the killings here
were unusually well documented.
One of the foreigners was an American consul, Leslie
Davis, who took a trip around Lake Hazar, then known as Lake Golcuk, after the massacres.
"Thousands and thousands of Armenians, mostly helpless women and children, were
butchered on its shores and barbarously mutilated," he later wrote.
Armenian houses, churches and schools in this area
have long since been destroyed or allowed to collapse. New villages have sprung up along
the lake. Residents picnic under the mulberry trees that Armenians planted around their
summer homes a century ago.
It is still possible to find artifacts of Armenian
life here. At one antique shop near Elazig, $250 will buy a heavy copper serving tray
inscribed with the name of its former owner in distinctive Armenian script.
Just last month, a couple of men were discovered
digging at what they believed to be a former Armenian cemetery. They were apparently
looking for gold that, according to local lore, was often interred with wealthy
Armenians.
Nevzat Gonultas, manager of a telephone substation on
the lakeshore, is considered a local historian because his father spent many hours telling
him stories from the past. Like most people around here -- although unlike their brethren
in other parts of Turkey -- he knows what happened in 1915.
"Other people don't know because they don't live
here," Mr. Gonultas said as he sipped tea on a recent evening. "My father told
me that Turkey was weak at that time and the Armenians decided to stage an uprising. Then
the order came to kill them.
Almost all were killed. It wasn't a war, it was a
massacre."
The Turkish authorities do not accept this version,
and many Turks never hear it. A historical atlas issued by a leading Turkish newspaper
does not show that much of this region was under Armenian rule for centuries.
At historical sites in this region, signs and
brochures often discount or omit facts about the earlier Armenian presence. According to
one new travel book, "guards are under instruction to eavesdrop on tourist guides who
might be tempted to tell another story."
Anyone who seeks to learn about the events in 1915,
however, need only come here.
"This used to be an Armenian area, but now
they're gone," said a factory worker named Selhattin Cinar. "Dead, killed,
chased away. Our government doesn't want to admit it. Why would you want to say, 'My
yogurt is sour'?"
Turkish Readers
Respond
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(At least there is one
difference between the WWI era and now, regarding anti-Turkish coverage... sometimes
journalists' reports don't go totally unquestioned. Not that The New York Times printed the following letters, mind you... they are
from The Turkish Times.)
Dear Mr. Kinzer:
I have read your article on the Armenians in
Turkey. It is clear that you are not interested in historical facts. Your article is
full of stories that you and the militant Armenians would like to hear. Your
knowledge of history is nil. Which region was ruled by the Armenians and when? Which
historical atlas are you talking about? Which centuries are you talking about? As a
journalist, you should be more precise than this. To my knowledge, the Turkish
tribes took control of Anatolia (Asia Minor) as early as 1071. If you have a probIem
with people taking territories other than theirs several centuries ago, please talk
to the Spanish Portuguese, British, French, Germans, and Americans.
You have failed miserably as a journalist, because your aim is not to inform the
public. Your aim is to declare the Republic of Turkey guilty of crimes against
humanity. You certainly don’t know why you are willingly misinforming the public.
I assume that you don’t know any better. But the militant Armenians have an
agenda. You even mentioned this agenda in your article: “Some Armenian
nationalists say that if Turkey can be forced to concede this, their next step might
be to claim reparations or demand the return of land once owned by Armenians.” It’s
all about the land. There are four groups of people who have never forgiven the
Turks for staying on their ground, fought for their freedom after WWI, and built the
Republic of Turkey on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire: the militant factions among
the Armenians, Greeks, Europeans, and Islamists. Whenever they observe a political
or an economic weakness in Turkey, they attack from every direction to achieve
something that they couldn’t at the end of the WWI: to divide the country. Those
days of the Sevres Agreement are over. Get over it.
Sincerely,
Ayse Evrensel Muncie, IN
--------------------------------------------------
Gossip as “History”
Attn.: Mr. Stephen Kinzer
New York Times
Dear sir,
I have read your article “Turkish Region
Recalls Massacres of Armenians” and I must say, I am lost for words. I was totally
shocked because I have read many serious articles from you in the past. I simply
cannot understand what got into you!
Your article is a school boy’s attempt to re-write history at Anatolian gossip
corners. Hell knows how many people live out there whose minds have been poisoned by
the PKK-propaganda as well as the anti-Turkish bandwagon fueled by the Armenian
Diaspora!
Mr. Kinzer, you know very well, that what you wrote is unfounded and is just as
absurd as the Armenian claims on this subject. Clearly paper is patient and the
tongue has no backbone, however, history is what it is.
It has the distinct disadvantage, that it
cannot be changed. Your sources of historic information are bizarre, to say the
least. I have a distinct suspicion that you not only interviewed (!) some peculiar
characters, unknown to us readers, but that you also read a lot of World War I
bulletins. Why don’t you try reading Prof. McCarthy (USA) or Prof. Eric Feigl
(Austria), both authorities on Ottoman history?
l am not going to get involved in historical arguments with you, sir, but I feel
compelled to ask you a few questions.
1. How come you failed to define the beginning of Armenian Terrorist acts against
innocent civilians and private property?
2. How come you did not mention the Greek component of that dirty game which started
soon after the Greeks lost their fanatic war to hellenize Cyprus?
3. How come you failed to mention that 80% of all the Armenian Terrorists had fled
to Athens after carrying out their murders just like the PKK Terrorists did?
4. How come you miserably failed to mention the Russian part played throughout
history in this region.
5. How come you further failed to identify the neo-Tsarist and Russian dirty games
played once again on the Armenian people?
6. How come you totally failed to mention that the Armenians have committed the very
same mistake in occupying 20% of Azerbajan’s territory as they did in 1915 in
attempting to seize parts of Anatolia with Russian help.
Finally sir, I would advise you to look for a correlation between the collapse of
the PKK and the accelerated Armenian activities throughout the World. I would
further advise you to scrutinize very carefully the non-Armenian elements at work,
here with particular emphasis on Russia and Germany — both very much interested in
the Caucasus region and the Turkic oil and gas reserves. Cheers Mr. Kinzer.
Best regards
Kufi Seydah, M. Sc., DIC.
Austria
TWO YEARS LATER,
KINZER WOULD GO ON TO BREAK ANOTHER TURK'S HEART
An Open Letter to Stephen Kinzer
1 May 2002
Stephen Kinzer
The Art Editor in Chicago
The New York Times
Dear Stephen,
I had an opportunity to read your April 24 article "Plans for Museum Buoy
Armenians and Dismay Turks" (Arts in America, April 24) only today, with
shock and sorrow. Now I am convinced more than ever that you are among a select
group of people who perpetuate a lie that has its origins in reports from the
Ottoman Turkey published in the New York Times during the First World War,
thanks to the likes of Ambassador Morgenthau, accepted blindly by the young
Armenians around the world and even referred to as truth by the President of the
United States. I was surprised to read letters from several Turkish-American
Associations to the President of the United States, thanking him for his wise
remarks, despite the fact that many prominent Americans and some of us have been
telling to the world that the number of Armenians who died between 1890 and 1915
is less than three hundred thousand, not one and a half
million as stated even in the President's letter and that the number of Turks
killed by the Armenians and others are in the millions. Therefore,
how can you state that in 1915 over one million Armenians were annihilated
by the Turks?
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Pre-war
Ottoman-Armenian population estimates.
One million Armenians survived after the war,
according to Armenians. Do the
math.
And please don't forget the ones who died did so
from all causes combined, not simply massacres.
Morgenthau himself wrote thousands
of TURKS
were dying DAILY, of starvation. |
It is because of writers and reporters like
yourself, who can easily distort facts and ignore the truth, that amateur authors
like Samantha Power can produce books which are totally biased and one sided. If
you have read the article that I sent you earlier, "Samantha Power Lecture on
Genocide - March 26, 2002, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, WDC, which gives a
summary of a presentation by Ms Power, the author states that her purpose in
writing the book was for future generations to avoid genocide and made references
to the Armenians killed in 1915, completely ignoring the fact that the Armenians
rebelled against their own government and started massacring Turks. Do you feel
comfort that others are following in your foot steps, referring only to the death
of Armenians and not mentioning the killing of the Turks?
You picked the right date to have your article published in the New York Times,
April 24, adding your name to a long list of others who have also done the same
thing since 1915. I am sure you received many thankful messages from your Armenian
friends, in a way, back stabbing your friends in Turkey except those who support
you, which is nothing new. I am sure the museum will be erected with donations
from wealthy Armenians in the United states and around the world, with the Hitler
quotation at the entrance, according to some Armenians. Many Jewish organizations
will support the building of the Museum with their donations, just like the
Armenians supported the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in return for displaying
Hitler's quotation, which has been proven to be a fabricated statement. Do you
believe that it is appropriate to exhibit Hitler's quotation at a Jewish Holocaust
Museum, visited by over two million people who
do not know the truth behind that statement?
An interesting coincidence is the picture of a woman's sculpture, placed next to
your article in the New York Times. The sculpture represents a woman, to be sure,
but ugly and without any decent proportions, which the artist has chosen to
present to the world. This sculpture also speaks the truth about your article,
ugly and devoid of truth. What a shame?
Please do not tell the unsuspecting listeners at your never ending presentations
that you love Turkey and you have many Turkish friends, because you will not be
telling the truth.
Sincerely,
Yuksel Oktay
Istanbul, Turkey
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The
Los Angeles Times Rewrites History |
Time for a little cheating... this web
page concerns biased reportage in America's
most prestigious newspaper, The New York Times... but there is
no end to the way other major American newspapers
present misguided Turk-related facts to their readers. I couldn't resist adding this
incredible bit from The Los
Angeles Times, as reported in the Fall 1986 issue of ATA-USA:
On February 28, 1986, the Los Angeles Times
carried an article about the death of Lady Amalia Fleming, a member of the Greek Parliament,
in which this major American newspaper went so far as to rewrite history.
“Lady Fleming was born Amaha Kousouri in 1912 in
Constantinople, before Greece lost the city to Turkey in World War I and it was renamed
Istanbul.”
ATA-USA concludes the article
by writing, "Hopefully, the Los Angeles Times will
get the message that this is 1986, not 1984!"
Now I can readily
understand and make allowance for the public's errors and misconceptions, for it has
had, after all, no means of knowing that it has been systematically deceived, but I can
find no excuse for those newspapers which, clinging to a policy of vilifying the Turk,
failed to rectify the anti-Turkish charges printed in their columns even when it had
been proved to the satisfaction of most fair-minded persons that they were unjustified.
A case in point was the burning of Smyrna in September, 1922. There was scarcely a
newspaper of importance in the United States that did not editorially lay that outrage
at the door of the Turks, without waiting to hear the Turkish version, yet, after it had
been attested by American, English, and French eye-witnesses, and by a French commission
of inquiry, that the city had been deliberately fired by the Greeks and Armenians in
order to prevent it falling into Turkish hands, how many newspapers had the courage to
admit that they had done the Turks a grave injustice?
E. Alexander Powell, "The Struggle
for Power in Moslem Asia," The Century Co., New York & London (1923), pages
32-33. |
Related: Missionary Testimony in a Biased New York Times Article
Turks and Israelis
(Legacy of William Safire)
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