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Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News
Angry Bickering On Ankara Television Tackling The Armenian Genocide
by Armenian Genocide Resource Center
Posted: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 01:15 am CST
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Richard Kloian, Director
Armenian Genocide Resource Center
of Northern California (AGRC)
Tel:(510) 965-0152, fax:(510)215-0444
Email: AGRC@jps.net
-Six Hour Harangue Against Armenian Genocide Claims on Prime Time Turkish TV-
Ankara. February 3, 2001.- Beneath the eyes of the Turkish General Staff, the Prime Minister, and the President of Turkey, Ankara, the political epicenter of Turkey was home to an amazing spectacle Saturday evening. Millions of Turks had an opportunity to watch for more than six hours an acrimonious televised debate on the Armenian Genocide.
Broadcast under the title "Ceviz Kabugu" (Walnut Shell), a program of critical inquiry, the show was produced by journalist-publicist Hulki Cevizoglu and included the following participants: (1)Ayvaz Gokdemir, a deputy from (Gazi) Antep, and a leader of Dogruyol (True Path) party, (2) Hasan Celal Guzel, the Chairman of Yeniden Dogru party, and a former State Minister in late President Turgut Ozal's government, (3) a university professor from Istanbul, (4) another university professor from Ankara, and (5) Dr. Taner Akcam, who participated via long-distance telephone from Ann Arbor, Michigan where he is currently a Resident Scholar at the Armenian Research Center of the University of Michigan - Dearborn.
Another Turkish scholar who was invited declined to participate. Halil Berktay, who has spoken out and written articles addressing the need for Turkey to come to terms with the Genocide, had been the target of heavy criticism, and amid the current climate of hostility, it is not surprising he chose not to participate.
The program began with a fifteen minute film purporting to describe massacres allegedly perpetrated by Armenians against Muslims, showing the skeletal remains of victims. The other participants, one by one, accused Armenians of insurrections and uprisings in Zeitun, Van, and elsewhere, repeating the standard canard of Armenian provocations.
Almost unanimously they rejected "the false accusation" of genocide and made offensive remarks against the French parliament, any parliaments, that dare to level such accusations against Turkey. One of them, addressing the French Parliament, fatuously declared "How dare you blame the glorious and mighty Ottoman Empire and accuse it of such a crime?"
The only dissident in this spectacle of delusional grandeur and self-exculpation was Dr. Akcam. Before he was introduced into the program, viewers were made aware of the fact that he had published a number of books on the topic, including, (1)"Turkish National Identity and the Armenian Question," (in Turkish) and (2) "Armenia and the Genocide. The Istanbul Courts Martial and the Turkish National Movement," which was his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Hannover.
When Akcam's turn came to speak, he began his discussion with a reference to an article which had appeared that day in the Turkish daily "Hurriyet." In it, columnist Ertugrul Ozkok, concurred with his colleague from the newspaper "Milliyet," Yavuz Baydar, who called in to the program to express his strong disagreement with an unseemly photo that appeared a few days before in the "Hurriyet." In order to insult Armenians clamoring for the recognition of the Genocide, the typesetters of the newspaper had inserted at the foot of Komitas a dog in the position of spraying upon the statue of Komitas which the French government announced would be erected in Paris to commemorate the Armenian Genocide.
In connection with this complaint, Yavuz Baydar is quoted as saying, "I was always convinced of the necessity to show courage and to take to task Talat and Company for their misdeeds of which Komitas's tragedy is but one example. These men are our Pol Pots, Berias, and Stalins, and the sooner we call their crimes to account through post-mortem the better our chances of redeeming ourselves from this scourge of being accused of genocide." What is equally remarkable, his colleague, the columnist of "Hurriyet" agreed with him on this point.
Responding to the film that had introduced the program, Akcam said that the film contained several inaccuracies and as such should never have been shown. He said "the constant refrain of 'We are not guilty,' and the parallel blaming of the Armenians, the victims, very much hurts the cause of Turkey." Raising his voice, he said, "Unless we distance ourselves from the perpetrators of this crime, which was a genocide (Soykirim), we will never be able to extricate ourselves from this burdensome onus."
In support of his argument, he made several references to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, citing a speech he made on April 23, 1920 in which he denounced "the Armenian massacres" as "a shameful act." Responding to charges of atrocities by Armenian revolutionary groups, Akcam asked, "Why were innocent Armenians in such distant places as Konya or Kutahya destroyed for the crimes of these groups?" He criticized the mentality of wholesale retaliation. He mentioned the fact that multitudes of Georgians and Azeri's fought on the side of the Turks against the Russians but Russia did not destroy wholesale the Georgians or the Azeri's.
At this point Semra Ozal, the wife of the late President of Turkey, Turgut Ozal, phoned in to express her anger and vehemently shouted, "How dare you let this man speak.? Shut him up" (Susdurun bu adami). Before Akcam withdrew from the program he stated his summary view that the destruction of the Armenians is a historical fact, and that it was organized by the government. "If you can't bring yourself to describe it as genocide, call it massacre, if you want, but it was a crime against humanity," said Akcam.
The editor of the newspaper Aydinlik, Hikmet Cicek, instantly denounced Akcam as "a traitor," who "is more Armenian than the Armenians," and accused him of being in the paid service of the Germans. Dr. Akcam categorically rejected these accusations, loudly declaring that he has nothing to do with any part of the German government, doesn't work for anybody, and is totally independent.
Akcam's last words on the program were, "Ask for forgiveness from the Armenian people," and "make a commitment that in Turkey political dissent and disagreement should no longer be treated as an offense."
One western observer to the spectacle in Ankara shook his head and said, "And they want to join the European Union?"
Contrition, it seems, is a long way off...
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