THE INSUFFERABLE SHAME OF BEING A TURK
I am a socialist Laz poet from Turkey. My mother is Turkish so my mother tongue is Turkish, but I prefer to consider myself as a “Laz” like my father's ancestors, because I am ashamed of my Turkish ancestors from my mother's side of the family. I refuse to consider myself as a “Turk”, because my Turkish ancestors were perpetrators of genocides at the end of the Ottoman Empire and at the beginning of the Turkish Republic. 1,500, 000 Armenians were brutually murdered by Turkish and Kurdish people under the orders of Ottoman generals. Turks and Kurds have killed their own neighbours, raped their little girls, burned alive little children and women and grabbed the Armenians’ money and properties. Also thousands of Assyrians and Chaldeans had been murdered in their own homelands like Armenians by the Ottoman government during this genocide period.
A terrible genocide had to be committed against the Armenians. I accept the reality of the Armenian Genocide as the son of a Turkish mom and I am ashamed of my mother's ancestors, of my Turkish ancestry. This is the shame of the Turks and Kurds. This is the shame of Turkish History, also a shame for the Kurdish people. This is a blot on human history. I apologize to all the Armenian victims in the name of humanity and kneel down in front of your pain even though I had no participation in this violence personally.
Unfortunately, this is not the only “genocide” the Turks have been involved in. Also 353,000 Pontic Greeks had been brutally murdered in 1919 in Anatolia by the order of Mustafa Kemal, the Ottoman General of the Committee of Union and Progress (In Turkish: Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti ) who would become the founder of the new Turkish Republic. This new republic is the continuation of the old racist Committee of Union and Progress, having the same mentality.
These are not the only crimes of my Turkish ancestors. From the beginning of their history, Turks were trouble makers to all those near them. Turks have lived by grabbing the neighbouring lands, killing many people, raping their women, making their children slaves, grabbing their country and money for 2000 years. The Great Chinese Wall is the concrete symbol of Turkish barbarianism. First the Turks plundered Chinese lands, and killed them and when they began to be more organized and founded states, they began to attack more countries from the Great Chinese Wall to Vienna. I apologize to all the victims of my Turkish ancestors throughout history.
Dear friends, they can arrest me and put me in jail because of these explanations or a racist can shoot me on the street, but my conscience and intellectual ethics make me obligated to shout out the truth to the whole world. I will speak the truth till my last breath.
Your Brother Serkan Engin
March 2014
*Edited by Koshy A.V.
Turkish-Armenian Conflict
ReplyDeleteI strongly disagree with the outrageous and fallacious claims made here.
It is now firmly established by the European Court of Human Rights, ECHR on December 17, 2013 that the events of 1915 cannot be proven to be genocide or compared to Jewish Holocaust. What’s more, the verdict said clearly that silencing contra-genocide views is a direct violation of the human rights of the holders of those views. So, anytime an unproven but forceful allegation like genocide is made, like the enemy of Turks here is making, my freedom of thought, expression, and speech are violated.
The Turkish side of the story, long dismissed, ignored, and/or censored out of bias or bigotry, will finally be heard in full. Armenian agitation, propaganda, insurgency, deception, terrorism, treason, revolts, assassinations, murders, bombings, territorial demands, and the resulting Muslim, mostly Turkish, suffering and losses, all meticulously documented with rock solid historical evidence, will be included in the debate for a balanced treatment of the Turkish-Armenian conflict.
Armenian propaganda, hearsay and forgeries have run their course. They no longer work. It is clear now that iIt was a "inter-communal warfare between Christian and Muslim irregulars", as 69 historians and scholars declared in a signed, public statement published in New York Times on May 19, 1985. It was a "civil war within a world war" ... It was wartime tragedy where all sides suffered, not just Armenians... It was a "Turkish-Armenian conflict"... But not genocide, not even close...
Armenians now must face up to their own unspeakable crimes against humanity before any closure can occur. If one is still in doubt, let me refer one to an Armenian source to see photos of Armenian murderers, gun-toting Armenian clergy, their Muslim, mostly Turkish, victims: Houshamatyan of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Centennial, Album-Atlas, Volume I, Epic Battles, 1890-1914 (The Next Day Color Printing, Inc., Glendale, CA, U.S.A., 2006. The incredible photo on page 185 can be seen here:www.ethocide.com .This one will make a believer out of you that Armenians are not telling you the whole truth. They never did.
All this may be good, as it can now be expected to have a civilized dialogue and reasoned debate among parties involved which, in turn, may finally produce closure based on the concepts of “shared responsibility,” “shared pain,” and “fair memory”.
I don't think the Laz people would accept him as one of theirs; they are intelligent and honest people. Besides, if Turks have committed "genocide" against the Pontus Greeks as this ignorant claims, all they have left is taken by the Laz and other groups expulsed from Caucasus under Russian domination.
ReplyDelete