{"id":80639,"date":"2016-01-26T08:03:58","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T07:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/content\/?p=80639"},"modified":"2022-11-29T00:28:10","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T21:28:10","slug":"portrait-of-a-turkish-american-genocide-denialist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2016\/01\/26\/portrait-of-a-turkish-american-genocide-denialist\/","title":{"rendered":"Portrait of a Turkish-American Genocide Denialist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SASSUN-4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While Armenian-Americans closely follow the sinister efforts of Turkey and its lobbying firms, they rarely pay attention to a handful of Turkish-Americans who are either on the payroll of the Turkish government or blindly carry out propagandistic activities out of a misguided sense of patriotism!<\/p>\n

One such Turkish-American is Oya Bain who was described in a recent interview by the Turkish denialist website HistoryofTruth.com as \u201cone of the most active names in the Turkish American Diaspora.\u201d She is a Board Member of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA), a coalition of 60 Turkic associations in the United States.
\n<\/a>Ms. Oya Bains picture added to article by TF<\/span>
\nBain claims that after many years of ATAA\u2019s efforts in organizing \u201clectures, conferences, programs about the false Armenian claims throughout the U.S., in 2015 [Armenian Genocide Centennial], the frequency and the intensity of such programs reached the highest number.\u201d She adds that there has been a significant \u201cincrease in the number of serious scholars and academicians studying the Ottoman period during WWI objectively and publishing their findings without the Armenian threats and intimidation of the previous years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curiously, Bain uses the wording, \u201cwe have serious scholars,\u201d when naming denialist writers Ed Erickson, Michael Gunter, Guenter Lewy, Tal Buenos, Jeremy Salt, Norman Stone, Christopher Gunn, Maxime Gauin, and Pat Walsh.\u201d What exactly does Bain mean by saying, \u201cwe have\u201d them? This phraseology is surely a \u201ckiss of death\u201d for any self-respecting scholar!<\/p>\n

Responding to a question regarding relations between Armenians and Turks in Washington, DC, Bain takes advantage of the opportunity to attack the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA): \u201cYes, we have friends in the Armenian community. Turkish Armenians are warm, friendly and like us. Then, we face entities like ANCA, a relentlessly hostile and negative organization, prejudice, exaggerations and outright lies in the media, political circles, academia.\u201d She is also not too fond of my weekly columns: \u201cJust recently, an Oct. 20, 2015 article by extremist writer Harut Sassounian was headlined as \u2018To Ban Genocide Denial, [European] Court Incites Armenians to Commit Violence.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Closing her eyes to the millions of dollars spent every year by the Turkish government to manipulate politicians, journalists, authors, and so-called scholars, Bain exaggerates the measly budgets of ANCA and Armenian Assembly, falsely describing them as \u201cwell-funded, have plush offices and large staff\u2026. It is definitely an industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bain proudly reports that the Turkish Caucus in the House of Representatives has grown from 62 in 2005 to 151 members. Acknowledging that money buys votes, as in the case of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, she asserts: \u201cWe don\u2019t have as many votes as the Armenian and Greek communities, but we can provide financial and volunteer support.\u201d Bain lashes out at Senator Menendez and House members Pallone and Pelosi by describing them as \u201cdie hard members [of Congress] who are very rigid and very antagonistic to Turks.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a seasoned propagandist, Bain states that her organization tries to win over — I would say \u2018fool\u2019 — members of Congress by presenting to them \u201ca message of reconciliation with Armenia.\u201d As an example, she cites \u201cATAA\u2019s support for the 2009 Armenian Turkish Protocols, especially the formation of an independent committee of objective historians to study the Armenian-Ottoman conflict.\u201d She conveniently forgets to mention that Turkey has persistently refused to ratify the Protocols!<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that ATAA was established in 1979 by Sukru Elekdag, then Turkish Ambassador to the United States, Bain inadvertently discloses ATAA\u2019s extensive political activities which violate the organization\u2019s non-profit status! She unwisely urges ATAA groups \u201cto get out of the harmful mindset that as 501-c-3 [non-profit] organizations they \u2018cannot be active politically.\u2019 This attitude has seriously hampered our efforts to challenge the regional Armenian allegations.\u201d Complaints should be filed with the IRS to restrict or terminate ATAA\u2019s lobbying activities.<\/p>\n

ATAA may also be in violation of other U.S. laws. Qualifying as \u201cexcellent\u201d the relationship between ATAA and the Turkish Embassy in Washington DC, Bain acknowledges that successive Turkish Ambassadors in Washington have provided \u201cmuch support\u201d to ATAA, such as sponsoring \u201cmany fabulous fund-raising events at the Embassy.\u201d She does not seem to realize that her self-aggrandizing revelations could land ATAA in legal trouble, requiring registration with the U.S. Department of Justice as a \u201cforeign agent.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her concluding remarks, Bain accuses the American media of \u201cbias, suppression of any good news of Turkey, subtle discrimination.\u201d She then adds: \u201cThe media bias became much worse during April 24, 2015, the centenary of the Armenian claims\u2026. It will probably take another 100 years to reverse and correct the misconceptions.\u201d Bain vainly hopes that \u201cin the next 100 years the Armenian lies and propaganda will be purged and a balanced view of the Turkish Armenian tragedy will emerge, respecting the suffering and death of both peoples during 1915. I think the Armenian tragedy is now so debased by vulgar propaganda that it cannot get lower\u2026. One wishes that the Internet may eventually be cleansed of the garbage of wrong information about the Armenian claims. I am hopeful about the next 100 years. The tide is turning around.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is imperative that Armenians counter the lobbying campaigns of not only the Turkish government but also \u2018Lone Wolves\u2019 like Oya Bain, without overstepping the bounds of civility and legality!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Armenian-Americans closely follow the sinister efforts of Turkey and its lobbying firms, they rarely pay attention to a handful of Turkish-Americans who are either on the payroll of the Turkish government or blindly carry out propagandistic activities out of a misguided sense of patriotism! One such Turkish-American is Oya Bain who was described in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4101,"featured_media":774085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3488],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harut-sassounian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80639","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\/4101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}