Limits of Democracy from the Voice of America to German Customs

On April 23, 2015 a news item titled "Growing Numbers of Turks Discover Armenian Ancestry" written by Dorian Jones appeared on the Voice of America web site. Jones reported that "It was Fethiye Cetin’s book "My Grandmother" that opened the door to one of Turkey's darkest chapters in its history. The book, as Cetin explains, documents her grandmother’s hidden life of being an Armenian orphan, that the grandmother only revealed when she was 70." Jones also said that "In a climate of improved tolerance, growing numbers of people in Turkey are discovering their grandmothers were Armenian, and the revelations are being viewed as an important step." The following sentence gives the impression that the author takes the line of the allegers and assumes that there was a genocide in 1915: "Historians estimate that up to 200,000 Armenians, mainly children and some young women, survived the deportations [ei relocation to Southern provinces of the Ottoman Empire] and mass killings [?! most of the time the murderers being famine or epidemics who are both very just regardless of ethnicity or religion] of 1915 and were assimilated into Muslim families. The publication in 2004 of Cetin’s book, which became a bestseller, helped many people acknowledge their Armenian roots."

Underneath the news item it wrote "There are no comments in this forum. Be first and add one." And I added the following comment:

In the The Black Dog of Fate, Peter Balakian quotes from his grandmother: “No, it wasn’t a world where people went public about such things (p.185).” This was correct for both Armenians and Turks. My aunt told me that our grandaunt was raped by Armenian Tashnaksutiun guerrillas and killed during the occupation of Erzurum in the WWI, when she was over 80 and myself 64 years old last April in 2014. My first letter to my grandaunt is on my blog: "Sorry My Dear Grandaunt, No Apology To You". Swedish army officer Pravitz had reported that he had heard an Armenian saying Erzurum would fall quicker if relocation to Southern provinces had not been exercised, in an article published in his country. Erzurum lost one third of its population.  Why Muslim losses do not interest the Western world? Is yours a half sphere world of Christianity? Why not have a complete world of humanity where we feel sorry for all losses. Armenian relocation was not the first tragedy of the century in the region. Balkan Muslims, Yerevan Muslims all faced such war tragedies in 1911-12 and 1914. President Obama repeated that 1.5 million Armenians perished. Can I suggest that White House officials check NARA documents for the 1922 census, which records that out of 1.3 m Ottoman Armenians, more than 800.000 Armenians were settled in several countries and 280.000 were living in Turkey as Armenian Turkish citizens, and now it is said that another 200.000 were also living in Turkey under disguise. My maths get stuck at this point. With wishes of peace and friendship. Let truth win.

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I captured the screen which appeared after I submitted my comment as seen above. What next? Well, it can be seen below.  I think the statement of "There are no comments in this forum. Be first and add one", needs the addition of "if you agree with what is said here". 

Another recent incident which makes one dubious about the nature of democracy in practice in the Western world today  was the confiscation of copies of a documentary film titled The Story of 1915 In Armenian Documents by customs officials in Germany.

The most controversial, and perhaps entertaining, point that links these two events is that, as expressed by the well known Turkish director and producer Serkan Koç himself, at the Gala organized by the Federation of Turkish Associations and took place at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, in the background of this "young rebellious Anatolian Turkish man" there is a mix of Turkish, Armenian, Greek and Pomak (Bulgarian Muslim) ancestries. He has sought the truth about so called ‘Armenian genocide’ and emphasises that he does not believe the Anatolian people should be stamped as ‘genociders’ since there is no trace about genocide in the Anatolian culture and history as this is the base of the making of his documentary. The documents which support his film, which is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Armenian and Turkish, are collected from Armenian and international sources.

Followers of this blog may remember my post titled "Our Armenians" in which I mentioned two women of Armenian origin who lived in villages of Erzincan whose identities were never concealed. Apparently depending on the socio-cultural environment and the position of the family in the society some must have been concealed and for some there was no such need. 

Actually, I am quite pleased about these revelations of origins since they indicate that the number of those thought to be perished lessens shattering the allegation of genocide. I have also difficulty in understanding the fuss made over these revelations as if it is not known how mixed is ethnicities in Turkish nation because Anatolia has been a cradle to so many civilizations starting with Hattis, Hittites, and so on, over the millenniums and because of all forced migrations of Muslim peoples in the direction of Anatolia from Caucasus and the Balkans starting from mid 19th century onwards. Anyway 284.000 Armenians were not relocated at all. What if a grandmother is Armenian? On our land what can be more natural than this?

It is amazing how scenarios are created to impose a certain point of view. If you don't buy the idea, then you are simply ignored. It looks this is how the game of democracy  is played nowadays.

Based on news on the following links:

http://www.voanews.com/content/growing-numbers-of-turks-discover-armenian-ancestry/2731238.html#hash=relatedInfoContainer

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=961351737231822&id=437219969645004

http://www.londraposta.com/1915-in-hikayesi/

http://www.dha.com.tr/ermeni-belgeleriyle-1915-belgeseli-londrada-gosterildi_913970.html

http://turkishfederation.org.uk/en/duyuru_detay.asp?id=43

http://tgb.gen.tr/haber/987/Almanya-dan-1915-Belgeseline-Sansur