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'I wish I wasn't Armenian'
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnistDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=305387
28 January 2013, Monday
ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ
[email protected]
On Monday when I was turning the pages of the Taraf daily, I came
across this very striking headline, "I wish I wasn't Armenian." These
are the words of an old Armenian lady whom the Taraf correspondent
called Aunt Seta. Ms. Seta is a close friend of the four Armenian
women who were attacked in the Samatya neighborhood of İstanbul
recently. One of the ladies died while the others were seriously
injured. No suspect has been caught yet. Some argue that these ladies,
all of whom were over 80 and living alone, were attacked by thieves
whose only intentions were to steal their valuables.
Well, as I discussed in my earlier column, even if the intent of the
attackers was robbery, this does not change the fact that there is an
obvious racial hatred behind these assaults. If their only purpose was
to steal a few items from these old ladies they could easily
incapacitate the women without the brutality. But instead they
brutally beat and stabbed these women. And we have additional
information provided by the neighbors, including Ms. Seta, who said
that the assaulted Armenian women were actually quite poor. There are
of course other theories circulating currently. One of them claims
that the attackers intend to scare Armenians away from Samatya in
order to seize their properties. Whatever financial or material gains
may appear to be behind these attacks, I do not think they eradicate
the racial hatred apparent in their execution.
And it seems to me that these attacks have already achieved a lot. As
you can see from the words of Ms. Seta, they have managed to plant
profound hopelessness in Armenians and open up some old wounds which
might not have healed completely.
Maybe we need to look at the broader picture to gain a wider
perspective on these recent attacks against Armenians in İstanbul.
Very recently a Greek church in İstanbul was stoned by "unknown"
people. Then, the police revealed an extremely detailed assassination
plan against one of the pastors of the İzmit Protestant Church. The
police announced that they caught a dozen suspects who appear to have
been preparing for this attack for months. They are from different
cities. Amongst them are women and some of them penetrated the church
disguised as newly converted Christians. This assassination plan seems
very professional and organized to me.
There was another concerning development in İstanbul very recently as
well. An Armenian intellectual, who does not want to reveal his
identity, told me that he barely managed to escape unscathed from a
planned attack by two youngsters who were sent by an ultranationalist
who was angry with some of the words that this Armenian intellectual
had made on TV.
Well, in a country like Turkey, if several things as I mentioned
happens in a matter of weeks, we should have every reason to believe
that they are organized and somehow connected to each other.
Apparently, some circles are frantically trying to create an
atmosphere of terror for non-Muslims in Turkey. When there was a
comparable level of activities against non-Muslims in 2006 and 2007,
they ended up in disaster with a string of murders of Christians:
Father Andrea Santoro in Trabzon, Hrant Dink in İstanbul and three
Christians in Malatya were killed.
Since the beginning of the Ergenekon investigation in 2007, we have
not witnessed such kinds of attacks against non-Muslims. Some cells
seemed to have been reactivated to give Christians a hard time once
again. I really hope that officials will grasp the severity and
gravity of the situation soon and act quickly in order to bring the
attackers and the people behind them to justice. This situation is
quite serious and alarming!
From: A. Papazian
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnistDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=305387
28 January 2013, Monday
ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ
[email protected]
On Monday when I was turning the pages of the Taraf daily, I came
across this very striking headline, "I wish I wasn't Armenian." These
are the words of an old Armenian lady whom the Taraf correspondent
called Aunt Seta. Ms. Seta is a close friend of the four Armenian
women who were attacked in the Samatya neighborhood of İstanbul
recently. One of the ladies died while the others were seriously
injured. No suspect has been caught yet. Some argue that these ladies,
all of whom were over 80 and living alone, were attacked by thieves
whose only intentions were to steal their valuables.
Well, as I discussed in my earlier column, even if the intent of the
attackers was robbery, this does not change the fact that there is an
obvious racial hatred behind these assaults. If their only purpose was
to steal a few items from these old ladies they could easily
incapacitate the women without the brutality. But instead they
brutally beat and stabbed these women. And we have additional
information provided by the neighbors, including Ms. Seta, who said
that the assaulted Armenian women were actually quite poor. There are
of course other theories circulating currently. One of them claims
that the attackers intend to scare Armenians away from Samatya in
order to seize their properties. Whatever financial or material gains
may appear to be behind these attacks, I do not think they eradicate
the racial hatred apparent in their execution.
And it seems to me that these attacks have already achieved a lot. As
you can see from the words of Ms. Seta, they have managed to plant
profound hopelessness in Armenians and open up some old wounds which
might not have healed completely.
Maybe we need to look at the broader picture to gain a wider
perspective on these recent attacks against Armenians in İstanbul.
Very recently a Greek church in İstanbul was stoned by "unknown"
people. Then, the police revealed an extremely detailed assassination
plan against one of the pastors of the İzmit Protestant Church. The
police announced that they caught a dozen suspects who appear to have
been preparing for this attack for months. They are from different
cities. Amongst them are women and some of them penetrated the church
disguised as newly converted Christians. This assassination plan seems
very professional and organized to me.
There was another concerning development in İstanbul very recently as
well. An Armenian intellectual, who does not want to reveal his
identity, told me that he barely managed to escape unscathed from a
planned attack by two youngsters who were sent by an ultranationalist
who was angry with some of the words that this Armenian intellectual
had made on TV.
Well, in a country like Turkey, if several things as I mentioned
happens in a matter of weeks, we should have every reason to believe
that they are organized and somehow connected to each other.
Apparently, some circles are frantically trying to create an
atmosphere of terror for non-Muslims in Turkey. When there was a
comparable level of activities against non-Muslims in 2006 and 2007,
they ended up in disaster with a string of murders of Christians:
Father Andrea Santoro in Trabzon, Hrant Dink in İstanbul and three
Christians in Malatya were killed.
Since the beginning of the Ergenekon investigation in 2007, we have
not witnessed such kinds of attacks against non-Muslims. Some cells
seemed to have been reactivated to give Christians a hard time once
again. I really hope that officials will grasp the severity and
gravity of the situation soon and act quickly in order to bring the
attackers and the people behind them to justice. This situation is
quite serious and alarming!
From: A. Papazian