Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Australia's Misplaced Friendship With Turkey

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Australia's Misplaced Friendship With Turkey

    AUSTRALIA'S MISPLACED FRIENDSHIP WITH TURKEY

    Eureka Street
    Aug 23 2013

    5 Comments
    Peter Stanley | 25 August 2013

    NSW Parliament recently passed a resolution condemning the genocide
    perpetrated by the Ottoman empire against its Assyrian, Pontic Greek
    and especially Armenian communities during the Great War.

    The Turkish Consul-General in Sydney, the foreign ministry in Ankara
    and even the city council in Canakkale (Gallipoli) immediately
    responded. They deny that the genocide had even occurred and have
    warned state parliamentarians that they will not be welcome in Turkey
    when the two nations commemorate the centenary of the Gallipoli
    campaign in 2015.

    Australians unaware of the details might be surprised at the vehemence
    of the Turkish response. Aren't Turkey and Australia friends? Don't
    the Turks generously welcome Australian and New Zealand visitors to
    Gallipoli throughout the year but especially in April? What have we
    done to offend them?

    The answer is that the parliamentarians have had the temerity to
    acknowledge the truth about one of the great crimes against humanity of
    the twentieth century. (Let's for the moment put aside the question of
    whether a parliament's view is even relevant. If the parliamentarians
    had resolved that the genocide had not happened it would still be
    an historical fact. But both Turks and Armenians regard legislative
    endorsement of their version of the past as scalps, and the Armenians
    are winning.)

    Australians have been captivated by the Turkish narrative of
    Gallipoli. The Turkish nation has built around the campaign (in which
    they defeated a British (and Anzac) and French invasion of Turkish
    soil) a national epic of salvation. That Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the
    father of the modern Turkish nation, commanded some of its defenders
    makes Gallipoli part of Turkey's national founding myth. In this the
    two nations have something in common.

    The problem is that the day before the 1915 invasion, the Ottoman
    empire, suspicious of its Armenian minority, embarked upon the
    systematic elimination of the empire's Armenian population. Impartial
    scholars accept that about a million-and-a-half of the empire's two
    million Armenians were killed directly or died of starvation and
    sickness over the next few years. Neutral missionaries and diplomats,
    and even Turkey's German allies witnessed and reported the massacres
    and deportations - as did Anzac prisoners of war.

    The world was outraged at the time, and the surviving Armenian
    community, including a substantial Armenian diaspora in the Middle
    East, Europe, North America and Australia, has never forgotten it.

    Turkey, on the other hand, denies that genocide occurred, disputing
    its definition in international law or arguing that while villagers
    may have been deported they died of incidental causes.

    The NSW resolution disrupts the astoundingly successful charm
    offensive Turkey has conducted in Australia for years, fostering a
    positive relationship with Australia through the shared ordeal of
    Gallipoli. The NSW resolution, instigated by Australia's energetic
    Armenian National Council and promoted by the Christian Democrat MP
    Rev. Fred Nile (but also by the premier Barry O'Farrell), has upset
    Australia's acquiescence with Turkey's desire to emphasise the shared
    history of Gallipoli while eliminating any reference to the genocide.

    You might argue that the Armenian genocide is remote from the
    Australian experience of the Great War. In fact, Australian troops
    (both prisoners of war and as combatants) encountered the genocide
    and its effects, and Australian civilians contributed vast amounts of
    money and time to the international relief effort mounted from 1915
    and for years after. In effect, Australian troops in the Middle East
    were fighting to defeat a regime capable of state sponsored atrocity,
    just as Australia's forces in the Second World War were fighting to
    defeat the regime responsible for the Holocaust. The Armenian genocide
    is part of the story of the Great War, something to which Australians
    should not be blind, and certainly not blinded by Turkish denial.

    The controversy obliges Australians to take sides. I am an impartial
    historian, having been convinced of the facts by the historical
    evidence. That claim makes me immediately suspect in Turkish eyes. I
    suppose I'll be banned as well. But having examined the evidence,
    I am co-writing a book on Australia and the Armenian genocide. As
    President of the recently-formed coalition Honest History, dedicated
    to standing up for honesty in our relationship to the past, I cannot
    connive at the falsification of history.

    Australia and Turkey are friends. But friends tell each other the
    truth. They don't react like children - 'if you say that you can't
    be my friend anymore!' Turkey's extraordinary response to the NSW
    parliamentarians will oblige Australians to choose between being a
    friend of Turkey or being a friend of the truth. I know which way
    I choose.

    http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=37100#.UhgPyMRzZMs

Working...
X