{"id":3280,"date":"2008-08-29T14:58:34","date_gmt":"2008-08-29T11:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=3280"},"modified":"2023-04-02T12:56:41","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T09:56:41","slug":"toronto-olaylari-uzerine-please-teach-the-children-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2008\/08\/29\/toronto-olaylari-uzerine-please-teach-the-children-well\/","title":{"rendered":"TORONTO OLAYLARI UZERINE: PLEASE, TEACH THE CHILDREN WELL!"},"content":{"rendered":"

PLEASE, TEACH THE CHILDREN WELL!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To: mcollins@embassymag.ca<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Michelle Collins,\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Please allow me to formulate my op-ed under the following headings in order to provide you with a thoughtful rebuttal to your article \u201d Turkey Decries Toronto School Board Genocide Course\u201d\u00a0 (Embassy, Canada, August 27th, 2008.)\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

GREEK-ARMENIAN COLLUSION AGAINST TURKEY:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The accounts of Turkish-Armenian history provided by a Greek-Canadian (Liberal MP, Jim <\/span>Karygiannis) and an Armenian-Canadian (ANC Exec. Dir., Aris Babikian) in your article are so typically distorted, that they can hardly be considered as much more than \u201csettling of an old score\u201d via \u201cpolitical lynching\u201d.\u00a0 It is quite in keeping with the Greek-Armenian collusion during the ill-fated invasion and destruction of Izmir by Greek army (1919) which, in turn, ignited the Turkish Independence War (1919-1922.)\u00a0 This anti-Turkish Greek-Armenian complicity was re-established in 1974 after the failed attempt by the Greek-Cypriots to ethnically cleanse Cyprus of its Turkish-Cypriot population\u00a0 which triggered a military intervention by one of the three guarantors, Turkey.\u00a0\u00a0 What we see in Toronto today is just another link in that anti-Turkish Greek-Armenian-collusion chain.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

GENOCIDE CHARGES UNFOUNDED<\/span><\/strong>:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Babikian\u2019s version of history is <\/span>so \u201cDiaspora\u201d that one can easily write a 500-page book on it, effortlessly.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have time to write it, so I\u2019ll try to make my response as manageable as possible. While some amongst us may be forgiven for taking the ceaseless Armenian propaganda at face value, merely because they are repeated so often, it is difficult and painful for us, Turks, most of whom are themselves the descendants of Turkish survivors of the yet mostly untold, readily dismissed out of bias, or ignored massacres of Turks during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, the\u00a0 World War I of 1914-18, and the Turkish Independence War of 1919-1922.\u00a0 Collectively termed, \u201cseferberlik\u201d (meaning \u201cthe mobilization\u201d in Turkish,) those endless\u00a0 war years of 1912-1922 rained death and destruction on Turkish people.\u00a0 The Ottoman Empire was under vicious attacks from all corners and Armenians shamelessly sided with the invading enemy armies when not violently revolting.\u00a0\u00a0 Those countless, nameless, faceless Turkish victims, doing nothing more than defending their home like any citizen anywhere in the world would do, are killed again today with those politically motivated and baseless charges of Armenian genocide.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

GENOCIDE CLAIMS IGNORE \u201cTHE SIX T\u2019S\u201d OF THE TURKISH-ARMENIAN CONFLICT:\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Allegations of Armenian genocide are racist and dishonest history. They are racist because they imply that Turkish or Muslim dead are not important, only Armenian or Christian dead are.\u00a0 This racist approach ignores the immense Turkish suffering: about 3 million dead during the WWI; around half a million of them at the hands of Armenian nationalists.\u00a0 By ignoring the suffering of one side completely, any war, including the American civil war, may be made to look like a genocide.\u00a0 And the allegations of Armenian genocide are dishonest because they deliberately\u00a0 dismiss \u201cThe Six T\u2019s\u201d of the Turkish-Armenian conflict:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

1)\u00a0 Tumult<\/span><\/span> (as in many violent Armenian armed uprisings between 1882 and 1920)\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

2)\u00a0 Terrorism<\/span><\/span> (by Armenian nationalists and militias from 1882-1920 perpetrated on non-combatant Muslim civilians, mostly Muslim women and children, and elderly men)\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3)\u00a0 Treason<\/span><\/span> (Armenians joining the invading enemy armies and killing their Muslim neighbors and other fellow citizens, including the Ottoman-Jews) <\/span><\/p>\n

4)\u00a0 Territorial<\/span><\/span> demands (where Armenians were a minority, not a majority)\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

5)\u00a0 Turkish<\/span><\/span> suffering and losses (i.e. those caused only by the Armenian nationalists)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

6)\u00a0 Tereset<\/span><\/span> (Temporary Resettlement) triggered by the first five T\u2019s above and amply documented as such; not to be equated to the Armenian misrepresentations as genocide.) <\/span><\/p>\n

Armenians, thus, effectively put an end to their millennium of relatively peaceful and harmonious co-habitation in Anatolia with Muslims by killing their Muslim\/Turkish neighbors and openly joining the invading enemy.\u00a0 Western diplomats and Christian missionaries were behind all of the \u201c6 T\u2019s\u201d\u00a0 listed above.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

TURKISH VIEWS CENSORED ACROSS THE EDITORIAL BOARDS DUE TO A \u201cCONSENSUS OF BIAS\u201d<\/span><\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

Excluding responsible opposing views in covering any controversial issue\u00a0 is a form of censorship which violates the notion of freedom of speech.\u00a0 Decent people everywhere have a responsibility to ensure that the public is given a fair chance to hear all sides of a controversy such as the Turkish-Armenian conflict.\u00a0 \u201cPartisan accounts\u201d of history should not be taught\u00a0 children as \u201csettled history\u201d .\u00a0 We must all strive to \u201cteach the children well<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 Fairness, honesty, and truth are all that I ask.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

HERE IS THE BIG PICTURE: <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Millennium:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 Turks and Armenians\u2014and other Muslims and Christians\u2014 enjoyed a reasonably harmonious co-habitation in Anatolia for a millennium (that\u2019s a thousand years!) under that \u201ccrescent\u201d that the <\/span>Greek-Armenian conspiracy loves to <\/span>demonize.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

THE LOYAL NATION:\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Turks liked and trusted the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire so much that Turks called the Armenians \u201cMillet-i Sadika\u201d (the loyal nation.)\u00a0 Armenians enjoyed high standards of living in the Ottoman Empire mostly engaging in trade, construction, arts, and more, while Muslims did most of the heavy lifting of the empire such as agriculture, soldiery, administration.\u00a0 (It is interesting to note that some Armenian propagandists use this as a proof of inequity, however, when the Armenians were given the right to soldiery after 1908, the Armenians invented ways to get out of that civic duty (see the letter by Armenians sent to the Lausanne Conference in 1923 asking for the right to be free from soldiery to be bestowed upon the Armenian community.) <\/span><\/p>\n

PROSPERITY & STABILITY:\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The above picture, i.e. with all its shortcomings and\/or defects, was still the nearest thing to perfection, given the state of humanity through the middle ages around the world, especially in Europe with wars, conquests, colonization, slavery, mass killings, mass deportations, crusaders, inquisitions, \u00a0holocausts, pogroms, and more.\u00a0 \u00a0Compared to all this mayhem in Europe in the last millennium, the Ottoman Empire with its unique \u201c millet system\u201d, \u00a0was so peaceful and orderly that it could be considered the USA or Canada<\/span><\/strong> of Europe at the time.\u00a0 Armenians were one of the major beneficiaries of this centuries-long stability.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

ARMENIAN REBELLIONS, TERRORISM, TREASON, TERRITORIAL DEMANDS:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

All that started changing for the\u00a0 Turkish-Armenian relations after 1878 Berlin Peace Conference.\u00a0 Russia started claiming special protector\u2019s right over the Ottoman-Armenian community with an keen eye towards capturing Istanbul and the straits (Bosporus & Dardanelles) to extend the Russian imperial reach into warm waters of the Mediterranean. Britain and France were not exactly innocent bystanders as they were eyeing other parts of the Ottoman Empire for themselves.\u00a0 The U.S. Protestant missionaries, headquartered in Boston, with their many educational and medical facilities dotting Anatolia used as convenient cover for their missionary activities, focused their attention on the Armenian community once they realized that proselytization of Muslims, Jews, or Greeks were nearly impossible.\u00a0 The Boston missionaries started dividing and polarizing not only\u00a0 the communities of the Ottoman Empire but also the Ottoman-Armenian community itself.\u00a0 The missionary sermons were incendiary, pitting Armenians against Turks, Muslims against Christians, and even Protestants against the Gregorians and Catholic.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Thus, these religious men abused the traditional hospitality of Turks by organizing a hate-filled resistance among the Armenians against the Turkish rule, causing untold miseries on all sides\u2026\u00a0 These men of god, thus, caused much spilling of innocent blood \u00a0in the name of god.\u00a0 In that sense, the Protestant missionaries may well be considered the guiltiest party of them all, followed by Tsarist Russia, Imperial Britain, Colonialist France, and Western media (The New York Times, for example, topping the list in biased coverage by publishing 145 anti-Turkish articles in 1915 alone with an incredible \u201cZERO\u201d Turkish rebuttals allowed!) <\/span><\/p>\n

ARMENIANS REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATIONS LAUNCHED A BLOODY CAMPAIGN:<\/span><\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0 Armenians started creating revolutionary organizations: \u201cErmenakan\u201d in Van, Turkey (1882), \u201cHunchack\u201d in Geneva, Switzerland (1887),\u00a0 Dashnaksutiun in Tbilisi, Georgia (1890) and many others of many sizes and locations.\u00a0 Almost without exception, they were all bent on armed resistance against the Turkish rule.\u00a0 The Armenians used propaganda, agitation, terror, rebellions, and supreme treason, in that order, from 1882 to 1915, when finally some of the Armenians (not all) were sent on a Tereset<\/strong> (Temporary Resettlement).\u00a0 Tereset<\/strong> was a justified military measure because the Armenian bands would conduct violent raids on the unprotected Muslim villages, frustrate the Ottoman military supply lines, and even harass the rear of the Ottoman Army during a time of war.\u00a0 \u00a0No country (including the U.S. and Canada<\/span><\/strong>) would tolerate this kind of wide open rebellion, pandemic treason, and omnipresent terror to be put into action by any community, large or small, at a time of war the least of all.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

ARMENIAN NATIONALISTS USE CIVILIANS AS \u201cHUMAN SHIELDS\u201d AFTER DEVASTATING ATTACKS ON MUSLIMS:<\/span><\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

The Armenian bands would launch their bomb and gun attacks during the night and then hide in \u00a0ordinary homes during the day, turning Armenian women and children to little more than human shields for their murderous and treasonous acts.\u00a0 Those who cry out today \u201cWhy did the Turks force some helpless Armenian women and\u00a0 children to move?\u201d should re-phrase their questions and first ask the nationalist Armenian leaders \u201cWhy did you use the non-combatant Armenian women and children as your cover before and human shields after your dastardly acts of terror against the Muslims?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

DO DIASPORA STORIES PROVE GENOCIDE?<\/span><\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

What most coverage in the media describe are personal tragedies experienced by Armenians.\u00a0 Note that corresponding personal tragedies on the Turkish side, such as mine, are neither reported nor investigated, nor even wondered at all, in the Western media.\u00a0\u00a0 While it is not this writer\u2019s intention to minimize the Armenian suffering, it must be questioned as to how it can be considered as \u201cseparate\u201d from the Muslim suffering in the same area, same era, and under same conditions, when there was a terrible world war was going on that engulfed the Christian and Muslim communities producing an irregular warfare.\u00a0 How is my Turkish grandparents\u2019 suffering caused by Ottoman-Christians any less than Armenians\u2019 suffering caused by Armenian rebellions, terrorism, treason, territorial demands, and Tereset?\u00a0 How is Turkish suffering any less painful than Armenian suffering?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How are Turkish dead belittled and ignored while Armenian dead are exaggerated and glorified?\u00a0\u00a0 I am sure Armenians lived through some or most of those personal horror stories s often told in the media (though definitely not all of them.)\u00a0\u00a0 But they pale in comparison<\/strong> to what we, Turks, had to endure at hands of the likes of those Armenian terrorists, rebels, traitors, backstabbers, and murderers.\u00a0 \u00a0My personal family story is much more tragic than most Armenians\u2019, if anyone cares to know about it, please read the following essay of mine as it is too painful to write it here again:\u00a0 TURKISH LAST NAMES : HONEST STORY TELLERS\u00a0 :\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

PERSONAL TRAGEDIES BY THEMSELVES DO NOT MAKE IT A GENOCIDE<\/span><\/strong>: <\/span><\/p>\n

Not all killings, not all sufferings fall automatically\u00a0under the classification \u201cgenocide\u201d.\u00a0 The U.N. 1948 definition is crystal clear:\u00a0 there must be an intention<\/strong> to destroy all or part of a community.\u00a0 Without intention, a murder is just that, a murder, and penal code can amply deal with that.\u00a0 The Armenians or their sympathizers have never proven Turkish intent<\/strong> to annihilate Armenians.\u00a0 In fact, History shows that just the contrary is true: <\/span><\/p>\n

a)\u00a0 a millennium of peaceful co-habitation between Turks and Armenians; <\/span><\/p>\n

b) endowment of Ottoman-Armenians with a \u201c loyal nation\u201d status; <\/span><\/p>\n

c) highest posts for Armenians in all walks of Ottoman life (the parliament, politics, diplomacy, military, trade, business, art\u2026); <\/span><\/p>\n

d)\u00a0 all of the above followed by, unfortunately, an intense period of organized Armenian terror, rebellions, treason, and territorial demands, and more\u2026 <\/span><\/p>\n

e)\u00a0 triggering a temporary military, wartime safety measure of moving only those Armenians who posed a serious threat to Ottoman Empire\u2019s war effort; <\/span><\/p>\n

f) Note that Armenians of Istanbul, Izmir, Edirne, Aleppo and other places were not moved, as they were not considered a threat; <\/span><\/p>\n

g) Armenians in the armed services, doctors, and most inner city people were also kept out of the Tereset (Temporary resettlement) order;\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

h) detailed steps were described in countless official orders\u2014too many to be dismissed casually\u2014on how to move the community safely and orderly and claim the properties back on their return (contrary to common misperception, many did return!) <\/span><\/p>\n

There is more, much more, but I already wrote most of them at <\/span>www.turkla.com<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to re-write them here.\u00a0 You are welcome to check it out yourself. <\/span><\/p>\n

ETHOCIDE: <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Frustrated by the persistently biased coverage of the Turkish-Armenian civil war during WWI and the ensuing censorship of Turkish views in American media, I have coined a new term back in 2003\u2014my humble gift to the English language and a thoughtful and long overdue supplement to Rafael Lemkin\u2019s definition of genocide: \u201cethocide\u201d.<\/p>\n

A brief definition of ethocide is \u201cextermination of ethics by systematic and malicious mass-deception in exchange for political, economical, social, religious, and other favors and benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n

The civil war that had been raging up to 1915 and the Tereset it inevitably resulted in was no genocide, but what the Armenians and their sympathizers did in misrepresenting it ever since is clearly ethocide. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u00a0urge . therefore, an end to the ethocidal coverage of the Turkish-Armenian conflict in the Western media and academia.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

LAST WORD:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a wartime tragedy, engineered, provoked, and waged by Armenians, with support from Russia, England, France, the U.S., and Western media; but not genocide. <\/span><\/p>\n

Please, teach the children well! <\/span><\/p>\n

Ergun KIRLIKOVALI<\/span><\/p>\n

3.<\/span>Son of Turkish survivors from both maternal and paternal sides<\/span><\/p>\n

###<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PLEASE, TEACH THE CHILDREN WELL!\u00a0 To: mcollins@embassymag.ca\u00a0 Dear Michelle Collins,\u00a0\u00a0 Please allow me to formulate my op-ed under the following headings in order to provide you with a thoughtful rebuttal to your article \u201d Turkey Decries Toronto School Board Genocide Course\u201d\u00a0 (Embassy, Canada, August 27th, 2008.)\u00a0\u00a0 GREEK-ARMENIAN COLLUSION AGAINST TURKEY:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The accounts of Turkish-Armenian history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":431828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[491],"tags":[4035],"class_list":["post-3280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-canada-north-america-english","tag-asala-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}