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Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News
Unpleasant, uphill battle for Sister City - Pleasant Hill should forget Turkish Town
Pleasant Hill -- Quick, someone step forward and adopt war-torn as a sister city. Teach it to get along. Counsel it on how to promote harmony and democracy where now there is only acrimony and anarchy. Send a delegation on a fact-finding mission to determine what abuses of power do, indeed, exist.
Help, in short, restore pleasantness to The Hill.
Unquestionably, folks there need a positive civic role model after the strife that has enveloped the city in recent months. Perhaps representatives from a more stable region -- such as, oh, the Middle East -- could jet in occasionally, bearing trinkets to subdue the warring factions and dispense sage advice on ending long-simmering conflicts.
It's going to be a tough sell finding a town to accept Pleasant Hill now after so many gestures of ill will have blown through the City Council chambers. The latest storm came Monday night in a six-hour meeting that featured vicious sniping among council members, shouting and near-fisticuffs between observers, and fightin' words like "hostile takeover" being lobbed around like so many heat-seeking missiles.
The meeting concerned Pleasant Hill's sister-city alliance with Merzifon, Turkey. Several months ago, the council confirmed a recommendation to adopt the Turkish town of 45,000 for cultural exchanges, a move that caused howls of protests from Bay Area Armenians who point to Turkey's miserable human rights record and its refusal to acknowledge the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923.
Rather than admit their mistake and find a worthier, less historical baggage-laden burg to adopt, stubborn council members insisted on moving forward. A delegation of 12 residents embarked on a "fact-finding" mission to Turkey to ferret out those nasty Amnesty International rumors.
Facts apparently were found, and Vice Mayor David Durant presented them along with a series of slides that was part "How I Spent My Summer Vacation," part noblesse oblige heavy with condescension. The delegation visited all the people and places the Turkish government set up for them and -- shock of shocks -- they could not find anyone oppressed.
That, apparently, was good enough for the council, which voted 3 to 2 Monday not to rescind the sister-city alliance despite damning human-rights evidence. Oh sure, Durant said, people there talked elliptically of killings and deportations over Turkish coffee and breakfast of tomatoes and cucumbers at the mayor's house. But the G-word, genocide, was never spoken. That's bad form, apparently.
All that folks back home saw superimposed on the council chambers Monday night were photos of cute, smiling Turkish children, a number of grip-and-grin shots with teachers, church leaders and parliamentarians. No oppression here, just Kodak moments.
Durant prefaced his remarks by saying, "This is not an apology for Turkey; this is not a discussion of foreign policy." Rather, it was a feel-good presentation that perhaps could have been titled "Springtime for the Ottomans."
"I think everyone came away feeling it was a good thing," Durant said.
Either Durant is the most naive man in America, a telemarketer's dream call, or he is conveniently blocking out volumes of evidence of human-rights violations in his eagerness for sister-city affiliation.
"Here are 12 Turkish kindergartners greeting us with carnations and that was followed by a folk dance."
"We're at a wood-working art exhibit with a marvelous little guy who made sculptures."
"Here's Dennis with the headmaster of the school. It was not just superficial chit-chat. They asked about America, about chads and the Florida election."
Sorry, the feel-good message rings hollow. The city did a swan dive headfirst into the shark tank of geopolitics when it took the advice of its commission, Friends Abroad. As many speakers pointed out Monday, officials can't adequately answer human-rights questions only with smiling Merzifonians.
And maybe a few human-rights leaders should investigate Friends Abroad, the city-sponsored commission in charge of all things sister city. Council members concurred they were misled by Friends Abroad, which played hard and fast with the rules to ramrod Merzifon's approval through.
Friends Abroad's board voted unanimously in January to deny sister city status to Merzifon but held two subsequent votes before reversing itself and recommending Merzifon. The council was not told of the first "no" vote until well after it adopted Merzifon. A clerical error, Friends Abroad says.
In the past month, about 100 Bay Area Armenians and other anti-Turkey advocates have joined Friends Abroad, prompting one longtime board member to tell the council that her group has "suffered a hostile takeover" and that it now is a "spurious organization." But new members say it's just democracy in action.
So now Friends Abroad has morphed into Enemies at Home, and Pleasant Hill's very essence has turned into a misnomer. Clearly, what this troubled town needs is a sister city for a mentor.
Beirut or Belfast, anyone?
Sam McManis' column appears in The Chronicle on Tuesdays, Thursdays,
Fridays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (925) 974-8346 or by
e-mail at smcmanis@sfchronicle.com <mailto:smcmanis@sfchronicle.com> .
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