From: milson@gauss.math.mcgill.ca (Rob Milson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,talk.politics.mideast,talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.soviet,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe
Subject: A Review of Mutlu's Sources (II)
Date: 14 Apr 92 21:10:45 GMT
Organization: McGill University Computing Centre

I am continuing in my efforts to review the sources used by Mutlu in
his postings to the net.  Unfortunately, the two other books he cites:
"World Alive, A Personal Story" by Robert Dunn and "Men are Like That"
by Leonard Ramsden Hartill, are not in the McGill or the U. de
Montreal libraries.  However, I was able to track down the New
Republic review of "Men are Like That"; it is used by Mutlu to
substantiate the credibility of Hartill's book.  I will reproduce this
New Republic article below and hopefully, thereby give a clearer
indication of what the book is about.

From the looks of the review article it is a book worthy of being
read.  I, for one, will try to obtain and read it.

Mr. Mutlu, I hope that you do not continue to insult me publicly.
After all, I am merely reproducing one of your own sources.  I will
refrain from editorial comments or from comments about the relevance
of the article to your activities.  What can be the harm in that?


The following appeared in the New Republic on August 22, 1928.


			AN ANCIENT HERITAGE
Men Are Like That, by Leonard Ramsden Hartill.  Indianapolis: The
Bobbs-Merrill Company.  305 pages. $3.

"ENOUGH to say that men became beasts.  But then there is a brighter
side, for in such a pass there are men and women who become saints...
beasts and saints.  Men are like that."

Ohanus Appressian is an Armenian of the Caucasus.  His experiences
give him a right to offer judgement on the heights and depths of which
mankind is capable.  Ohanus came to work for Mr. Hartill, author of
this strange, dreadful book, at an American agricultural relief
station.  This is his story, set down by the American who became
interested in him, in the laconic terms of a man who has seen and
felt so much that nothing seems worthy of emphasis.

Some relief from horror is given by glimpses of Armenian village life,
of the serene beauty of the country of Ararat, and of the heroism of
friends.  There are brief notes also on the civilization of the early
Middle Ages, when Armenia was possibly the most advanced of any
Christian nation in the world, leading the way in the East until the
rich capital at Ani fell a prize to the Suljuk Turks.  An obstinate
loyalty to Christianity is the crime by which the Moslem invaders have
justified destruction a thousand years ago and persecution ever since.

The Armenian learned to the end the lesson of hate against the
oppressors of his people, but he does not rail against them.  he says,
in Mr. Hartill's words: "Russian troops did terrible things in the
Turkish villages.  The world knows the fate of the Armenians in
Turkey.  We Armenians did not spare the Tartars.  It is all a circle
of hatred and revenge, an endless chain plunging ever farther into the
depths and bringing forth the worst there is in human nature.  If
persisted in, the slaughtering of prisoners, the looting, and the rape
and massacre of the helpless become commonplace actions expected and
accepted as a matter of course.  Men are like that.  We Armenians,
brutalized by the horrors we had endured and inflicted in our war with
the Turks, were to be no more merciful toward one another in the civil
war that was soon to come."

Over and over again, Ohanus was on the brink of death.  His
sufferings, his griefs, and his escapes are incredible - unless one
knows the truth of what Mr. Hartill says in his foreword, that after
the eight years of hell in the Caucasus no man was living except by a
miracle.

What lifts this single refugee from the pitiable, inert mass of
victims is that his mind did not become numbed and powerless.  He
persisted stubbornly in thinking.  He offers quietly the philosophy
that his experiences brought him.  Hate begets hate.  As long as men
try to even up the scores of revenge there will be no hope for any of
them, even the strongest, ever to find peace.

				Lyman Bryson.