From: cosar@ulysses.cs.umn.edu (Ahmet Cosar)
Subject: Armenian Terrorism: History as Poison and Antidote   (Part 4)
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 06:45:18 GMT

Source: Justin McCarthy "Armenian Terrorism: History as Poison and Antidote,"
        International Terrorism and the Drug Connection, Ankara, (Ankara
        University Press), 1984, pp.85-94.

                           ARMENIAN TERRORISM:
                     HISTORY AS POISON AND ANTlDOTE
                                Part 4


To a great degree, the Turks have succeeded. Politicians and statesmen in
Europe and America have welcomed the Turks as friends and allies. However,
Turkish silence has done nothing to kill the myth of the Armenian genocide.
A vocal, well-educated, and media-conscious group of Armenians, believing in
their cause and anxious that their children learn to believe as they do, have
kept alive the false picture of the genocide. They have succeeded in
perpetuating the myth and strengthening its grip. The false picture of
Armenian genocide has become the only picture seen.

While I was writing this paper a book appeared in my mailbox. As they do to
all professors, publishers send me copies of textbooks in the hope that I will
adopt them for my classes. The book, The Modern Middle East and North Africa,
by Lois Aroian and Richard Mitchell, is published by Macmillan, one of the
largest publishers in the United States. It is obviously being marketed
extensively with, I expect, a free copy being sent to every professor who
teaches Middle Eastern history. Thousands of American college students will
probably read the book.

The Modern Middle East and North Africa contains a section titled "The
Armenian Demise." I will quote only a few sentences from it:

   Armenians throughout Anatolia began marching southward or eastward into
   the Syrian desert wastes. Turkish and Kurdish forces denied them rest,
   food, and water. Thousands died on the way. Those who did not were often
   killed when they reached Dayr al-Zor on the Euphrates. Most Armenians
   caught in the east were killed outright.

The book goes on to state "Historians have not determined how many Armenians
died" (a statement that particularly bothered me, since I thought I had done
so). The lack of information on the Armenian dead is explained by the
assertion that "the Ottoman government imprisoned and later killed most of the
Armenian educated elite writers, teachers, businessmen, and prominent clergy
who might have written about the event." In the end, despite the avowed lack
of evidence, the authors found a number after all "Including perhaps 200,000
executed by the goverment, historians generally accept that as many as 1.5
million Armenians may have died." Some of what is written on the Armenians in
the book is half true. Some is completely false. None of it is completely true.

Of course, one of the great benefits in writing a textbook is that you do not
have to prove your assertions. An occasional reference such as "historians
generally accept" is considered to be proof enough. Reading the text, one
could be pardoned for thinking that only Armenians suffered, since only one
part of the one sentence is devoted to all of the Muslim dead of the time-
"Greek, Kurdish, and Turkish noncombatants in Anatolia died during the war of
hunger and disease, but they were not singled out for death in an organized
campaign." No mention is made of Armenian or Greek attacks on Muslims, both
of which were organized campaigns. Only two paragraphs are given to the entire
Turkish War of Independence.

Unlike many books written by Armenian and other scholars, this book is not
intended to be an Armenian polemic against Turks. It is a textbook, well-
written and attractive. It will appeal to many professors and their students.
Thus the myth lives on.

The examples of this type of historical distortion of the history of the
Armenians and the Turks are many. The Armenian Question is seldom mentioned
in print without half-truths and falsifications. In fact, in the United States
and Western Europe we have seen a new wave of false history. Armenian
apologists have succeeded in tying themselves to those who wish never to
forget the suffering of the Jewish Holocaust, and the Armenian experience has
been portrayed as a "proto-Holocaust." Television shows and newspaper articles
have repeated and reinforced the old myth, accepted because Europeans and
Americans have never been told the truth. A new generation of Armenians is
learning the stories that will produce future terrorists.

The lesson is obvious-silence does not work. Historical lies, unless they are
countered, will perpetuate themselves. As long as Armenian children believe
that their great-grandfathers were murdered by Turks, some Armenian children
will kill in what they believe is revenge. And as long as the world believes
in Turkish guilt, little will be done to stop the killers.

The solution is a difficult one the truth must be fearlessly proclaimed. I
say fearlessly, because one American professor, Stanford Shaw, and his family
have already been physically attacked for his statements on the fate of the
Armenians. Given the intensity of belief in the myth of the Terrible Turk, it
may be that the truth will not be heard. Nevertheless, the truth must be
spoken. Scholars, especially European and American scholars, must call for the
independent and unbiased study of history. As they have begun to do, Turks
must continue to open all archives and records so that this study can be made,
demanding that Russians and Armenians do the same. There will be no quick
solution and many years will pass before young Armenians realize that their
cause is not just. But I believe that, had the true history of the Ottoman
Armenians been widely known thirty years ago, there would be no Armenian
terrorism today. As historians, it is our duty to insure that thirty years
from now the same statement cannot be made.

I began by saying that the best weapon against Armenian terrorism is the study
of history. It might be better said that the best weapon is truth.


--
   A.Cosar                                                                      ________________________________________________________________________                
Disc space -- the final frontier!                                               ________________________________________________________________________
Xref: sparky soc.culture.turkish:8846 talk.politics.mideast:18557 talk.politics.soviet:6959 soc.culture.greek:7490 soc.culture.europe:7279 soc.history:7302