ahousekeeper ([info]ahousekeeper) wrote,
@ 2007-09-03 22:32:00
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Entry tags:adl, armenian genocide, turkey, turks

Saying truth through their teeth (Turkish way)
The ADL controversy somehow transformed the way the Turks were talking about the genocide. (Well at least the English-language Turkish press’ way of talking) a lot. Before it was lying through teeth, something that Turks master very well, but now it's saying whispering truths through their fiercly gritted teeth. Well, still it's better than outright lies.

Turkey has already lost the "genocide" battle. There is simply no one — except people with a vested financial or political interest — who believe Turkey's side of the story. Whether "the events of 1915" amount to "genocide" or not is not even debated in the West. This is one of those situations where perception becomes reality. Turkey can blame the nefarious Armenians and all kinds of anti-Turkish lobbies for this situation, but the fact of the matter is that suppressing free debate on this issue and accusing academics organizing conferences does not help the slogan "leave history to historians."


Omer Taspinar, a Turkish expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Source: Today’s Zaman, 03.09.2007

UPDATE: Цитата на русском

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Explaining the Armenian genocide controversy
[info]lchak
2007-09-10 09:04 am UTC (link)
Explaining the Armenian genocide controversy

Posted by Abraham H. Foxman

A favorite subject for discussion at conferences between Israelis and American Jews is how little we truly understand each other. While there is a tendency at times to exaggerate the gap between us, different perspectives do exist.
Armenian Americans in the Boston suburb of Watertown, angered by ADL’s position -- though ADL is just one of many Jewish organizations with the same position -- targeted us. They threatened to cancel our anti-bias program, “No Place For Hate,” if we didn’t change our position and they engaged in a public campaign accusing us of denial for not using the term genocide. In light of the heated controversy and because of our concern for the unity of the Jewish community at a time of increased threats against the Jewish people, ADL decided to revisit the issue and came to share the view of Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel that the consequences of those actions against the Armenians were indeed tantamount to genocide. If the word genocide had existed then, they would have called it genocide.
Some have asked why it took us so long to say so. The answer is because over the years we had faced a dilemma. For us, there were competing moral principles at work. The security and wellbeing of Jews everywhere in the world is a priority for ADL. In this case it was listening to the views of the leaders of the Turkish Jewish community, a community that lives well in Turkey but is still a small community of 20,000 in a country of 65 million Muslims. A guiding principle for ADL is that when Jewish communities around the world appeal to us on matters that may have an impact on their lives, we don’t act as if we know better. We pay attention. There was also our concern for the safety and wellbeing of Israel, whose relationship with Turkey is very critical. After the United States, Turkey is Israel’s most important ally.

On the other hand, we did not want to ignore the history of the Armenian tragedy. So, through the years we urged Turkish leaders to come to grips with the past in a way they had not. And, we referred to the events as massacres and atrocities. We just did not use the term genocide.

Our maintaining the equilibrium between two moral imperatives--concern for the wellbeing of Jewish communities and recognizing human injustice—was under attack. It wasn't that only Armenians protested against ADL's non-use of the word genocide, but that they were joined by some vociferous voices in the Jewish community

To be honest, I understood the passion behind these appeals but I was frustrated and disheartened that these critics were not taking seriously the dilemma we faced.
While some in the Armenian American community welcomed our change of position, they remain publicly critical of our not endorsing the Congressional Resolution, which we continue to believe is counterproductive.
This has been coupled with criticism from Turkish government officials (Prime Minister Erdogan called President Shimon Peres urging him to "do something" about ADL's decision). Turkish Jews, and many Israeli officials all wondering how ADL, which has been a leader in promoting Turkish-Israeli relations and working with the Jewish community in Turkey could do such a thing.

Therefore, it became apparent to us that at a time when the Jewish people faces its greatest challenges in decades--the Iranian nuclear threat, conspiracy theories about alleged Jewish power and disloyalty, boycott efforts against Israel--we were going to be interminably bogged down in an internal struggle over the Armenian issue, which would have had the effect of paralyzing us and making it impossible to focus on these other monumental challenges.

So we issued our statement. We used the term genocide for a tragedy that we always acknowledged. We have called on the Turks and Armenians to create a mechanism so they themselves can reconcile their differences over the past.

We will continue to work on behalf of the Jewish people and in the process to create a more tolerant world for all.

complete article:

http://blogcentral.jpost.com/index.php?cat_id=7&blog_id=76&blog_post_id=1489

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