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HEROES OR VILLAINS?
ELECTION | FEBRUARY 13, 2014 1:33 PM
By Edmond Y. Azadian
When Osama bin Laden was shooting Soviet Mig fighter planes in
Afghanistan using shoulder-launched heat-seeking rockets supplied
by the US, he was hailed as a hero, a freedom fighter struggling to
defeat an atheist power occupying the Moslem land of Afghanistan. And
when Brezhnev's army left Afghanistan, tails between their legs, bin
Laden turned the muzzle of his gun against his US allies, eventually
bringing his violence to the American shores and destroying the World
Trade Center, the same voice which had credited him with heroism
branded him overnight as a terrorist.
There is an Armenian saying, fire burns where it falls.
Indeed, more than 3,000 families were burnt and they will never
forgive nor forget the acts which took the lives of their loved one.
But, in addition to the pain of the victims and the survivors, the
story has a moral. The moral of this story is that the definition of
a hero or a terrorist depends mostly on the perspective of the person
defining the act of violence and the actor.
If an act of terror is in line with the party's interest, then the
perpetrator is a hero. Conversely, if the violence is against that
party's interest, the perpetrator becomes a vile terrorist.
Acquisition and use of power can never be viewed neutrally since
the 16th century when Niccolo Machiavelli published his seminal
book on political philosophy, The Prince. Ever since, the word
"Machiavellian" has become synonymous with deceit, despotism and
political manipulation, although the author -- a poet and a playwright
at the same time -- was objectively describing the power of the rulers
and the exercise of governing people.
Armenians being at the receiving end of that power throughout their
history can better understand being the underdog under a hostile rule.
Armenians, in their turn, have sometimes resorted to violence only
to defend themselves.
This year marks the 41st anniversary of the beginning of such violence,
which shook the powerful state of Turkey and once again promoted the
forgotten issue of the Genocide on the world political agenda after
it lay seemingly forgotten in history's waste basket.
It began on January 27, 1973, when Gourgen Yanikian assassinated two
Turkish consular officers, Mehmet Baydar and Baladir Demir, in a Santa
Barbara hotel room in California. On the occasion of this anniversary,
the Assembly of the Turkish American Associations (ATAA), which
seems to be the propaganda arm of the Turkish government, issued a
statement reminding the Armenian public the "evil deeds of Marxist
Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and neo-Fascist
Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide [JCAG]."
According to the statement, these groups, who took over for Yanikian
in the ensuing years, carried out 300 attacks killing 77 diplomats
and civilians and wounding more than 700 people, including non-Turks.
The ATAA has also published 48 pictures of the victims, mostly
Turkish diplomats.
Looking at these pictures, a bystander may sincerely empathize with
these victims and their families, none of whom directly had a hand
in the Armenian Genocide.
But the perpetrators of those acts of violence were motivated and
propelled by a deep wound and a never-ending sense of anger. Yanikian
himself was troubled throughout his life by the murder of his family
members and the murder of an entire nation. Also, the youth who
followed suit had a selfless dedication to a cause that they deemed
justified putting their own lives in harms' way to carry the mission.
The victims of the political violence had their own personal dreams,
dreams for their families and for their nation. That is one side of
the equation. On the other side of the equation, a million and a half
Armenians had their dreams, they deserved to live their personal lives
and enjoy a free and independent sovereign homeland. Since the Turks
have reduced all the perished lives to a debate about statistics,
then we may forgo the human aspect of the body count and conclude that
the pain and loss of the Armenians outweigh the Turkish losses. Don't
forget that in addition to the loss of human lives, Armenians lost
their homeland of 3,000 years.
One may be for or against political violence but the truth of the
matter is that Turkey's political establishment -- long assuming the
Genocide to be forgotten -- only reacted to those acts and Turkey's
foreign minister at the time, Ihsan Sabri Caglayangil, invited the
leaders of the three political parties to Geneva, Switzerland --
the ARF, Hunchak and ADL -- to explore the means of stopping the acts
of terror.
The negotiations which began in Geneva were supposed to continue in
New York, when the foreign minister planned to attend the UN General
Assembly session.
But the Turkish government had in the meantime done its homework and
found out that the Armenian political parties no longer enjoyed their
erstwhile organizational discipline which had brought to justice the
perpetrators of the Genocide earlier in the century. The movement had
gotten out from the hands of the Armenian political parties and the
young generation had joined the worldwide political action movement.
Therefore, the Turkish Foreign Ministry even did not bother to
disinvite the party leaders. Instead, they chose a more serious
course; they approached the Israelis and made a common cause with
them as Armenian groups had made an alliance with the Palestinians
with whom they were training in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
When Ariel Sharon invaded Lebanon in 1982, his mission was to destroy
the power structure of the Palestinians. That mission also included
turning over the Armenian youth caught in the camps and all related
documents to Ankara, so that the Turkish "Deep State" could do its
job and bring a halt to political violence.
The ADL, as a conservative organization, has not espoused political
violence outside historic Armenia. But it looks like the facts of life
sometimes defy ideologies. The 1970s and 1980s brought the issue of
the Armenian Genocide to the world political focus, whether positive
or negative -- that is an undeniable fact.
After four decades, in hindsight, some people may applaud the deeds of
the Armenian youth, others may blame them and say they tarnished our
reputation. To objectively assess those events, one has to go outside
the parameter of the Armenian thinking and find out the impact of
those times on non-Armenians. One case in point is the prominent
Turkish writer Elif Shafak, who is an established and outspoken
Turkish author and columnist. The Free Encyclopedia qualifies her
"as Turkey's bestselling female writer. Shafak is a brave champion of
cosmopolitanism, a sophisticated feminist and an ambitious novelist
who infuses her magical realist fiction with big, important ideas ....
Critics have named her as one of the most distinctive voices in
contemporary Turkish and world literature."
She was born in 1971, the period when Armenian political violence
began. She was the daughter of a Turkish diplomat and throughout her
formative years, the word "Armenians" sent shivers down the backs of
her and her family.
As she grew up, she was curious to find out the source of the
Armenians' anger. And when she read history -- the real one and not
the one taught in her homeland -- she became one of the most ardent
sympathizers of the Genocide victims and in one of her novels, The
Bastard of Istanbul, she dealt with the issue of Genocide only to
find herself in front of a Turkish court, being accused of "insulting
Turkishness."
Another compelling case is the story of a Spanish journalist, Jose
Antonio Gurriaran. On December 30, 1980, he left the building of the
newspaper Pueblo in Madrid and entered a telephone booth to talk to
his wife. When he put down the receiver, two bombs exploded in the
nearby headquarters of Swissair and TWA. Nobody died but among the
nine injured was Jose Antonio. While still in the hospital, when he
struggled to save both legs, he started to read books and materials
about the case and the history of the Armenians. He also interviewed
ASALA members. Soon after the incident, his book, titled La Bomba,
was released, giving the first-hand account of a Spanish journalist
and the tragic story of the survival of a whole nation.
When asked whether it was worthwhile so much sacrifice and bloodshed,
and were the fighters heroes or terrorists, Armenians may never come
up with an objective answer. It is a burning issue and we will always
have a subjective answer.
Therefore the best way is to leave the answer to a prominent Turkish
writer and a Spanish journalist.
- See more at:
http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2014/02/13/heroes-or-villains/#sthash.UD7pmgbo.dpuf
ELECTION | FEBRUARY 13, 2014 1:33 PM
By Edmond Y. Azadian
When Osama bin Laden was shooting Soviet Mig fighter planes in
Afghanistan using shoulder-launched heat-seeking rockets supplied
by the US, he was hailed as a hero, a freedom fighter struggling to
defeat an atheist power occupying the Moslem land of Afghanistan. And
when Brezhnev's army left Afghanistan, tails between their legs, bin
Laden turned the muzzle of his gun against his US allies, eventually
bringing his violence to the American shores and destroying the World
Trade Center, the same voice which had credited him with heroism
branded him overnight as a terrorist.
There is an Armenian saying, fire burns where it falls.
Indeed, more than 3,000 families were burnt and they will never
forgive nor forget the acts which took the lives of their loved one.
But, in addition to the pain of the victims and the survivors, the
story has a moral. The moral of this story is that the definition of
a hero or a terrorist depends mostly on the perspective of the person
defining the act of violence and the actor.
If an act of terror is in line with the party's interest, then the
perpetrator is a hero. Conversely, if the violence is against that
party's interest, the perpetrator becomes a vile terrorist.
Acquisition and use of power can never be viewed neutrally since
the 16th century when Niccolo Machiavelli published his seminal
book on political philosophy, The Prince. Ever since, the word
"Machiavellian" has become synonymous with deceit, despotism and
political manipulation, although the author -- a poet and a playwright
at the same time -- was objectively describing the power of the rulers
and the exercise of governing people.
Armenians being at the receiving end of that power throughout their
history can better understand being the underdog under a hostile rule.
Armenians, in their turn, have sometimes resorted to violence only
to defend themselves.
This year marks the 41st anniversary of the beginning of such violence,
which shook the powerful state of Turkey and once again promoted the
forgotten issue of the Genocide on the world political agenda after
it lay seemingly forgotten in history's waste basket.
It began on January 27, 1973, when Gourgen Yanikian assassinated two
Turkish consular officers, Mehmet Baydar and Baladir Demir, in a Santa
Barbara hotel room in California. On the occasion of this anniversary,
the Assembly of the Turkish American Associations (ATAA), which
seems to be the propaganda arm of the Turkish government, issued a
statement reminding the Armenian public the "evil deeds of Marxist
Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and neo-Fascist
Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide [JCAG]."
According to the statement, these groups, who took over for Yanikian
in the ensuing years, carried out 300 attacks killing 77 diplomats
and civilians and wounding more than 700 people, including non-Turks.
The ATAA has also published 48 pictures of the victims, mostly
Turkish diplomats.
Looking at these pictures, a bystander may sincerely empathize with
these victims and their families, none of whom directly had a hand
in the Armenian Genocide.
But the perpetrators of those acts of violence were motivated and
propelled by a deep wound and a never-ending sense of anger. Yanikian
himself was troubled throughout his life by the murder of his family
members and the murder of an entire nation. Also, the youth who
followed suit had a selfless dedication to a cause that they deemed
justified putting their own lives in harms' way to carry the mission.
The victims of the political violence had their own personal dreams,
dreams for their families and for their nation. That is one side of
the equation. On the other side of the equation, a million and a half
Armenians had their dreams, they deserved to live their personal lives
and enjoy a free and independent sovereign homeland. Since the Turks
have reduced all the perished lives to a debate about statistics,
then we may forgo the human aspect of the body count and conclude that
the pain and loss of the Armenians outweigh the Turkish losses. Don't
forget that in addition to the loss of human lives, Armenians lost
their homeland of 3,000 years.
One may be for or against political violence but the truth of the
matter is that Turkey's political establishment -- long assuming the
Genocide to be forgotten -- only reacted to those acts and Turkey's
foreign minister at the time, Ihsan Sabri Caglayangil, invited the
leaders of the three political parties to Geneva, Switzerland --
the ARF, Hunchak and ADL -- to explore the means of stopping the acts
of terror.
The negotiations which began in Geneva were supposed to continue in
New York, when the foreign minister planned to attend the UN General
Assembly session.
But the Turkish government had in the meantime done its homework and
found out that the Armenian political parties no longer enjoyed their
erstwhile organizational discipline which had brought to justice the
perpetrators of the Genocide earlier in the century. The movement had
gotten out from the hands of the Armenian political parties and the
young generation had joined the worldwide political action movement.
Therefore, the Turkish Foreign Ministry even did not bother to
disinvite the party leaders. Instead, they chose a more serious
course; they approached the Israelis and made a common cause with
them as Armenian groups had made an alliance with the Palestinians
with whom they were training in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
When Ariel Sharon invaded Lebanon in 1982, his mission was to destroy
the power structure of the Palestinians. That mission also included
turning over the Armenian youth caught in the camps and all related
documents to Ankara, so that the Turkish "Deep State" could do its
job and bring a halt to political violence.
The ADL, as a conservative organization, has not espoused political
violence outside historic Armenia. But it looks like the facts of life
sometimes defy ideologies. The 1970s and 1980s brought the issue of
the Armenian Genocide to the world political focus, whether positive
or negative -- that is an undeniable fact.
After four decades, in hindsight, some people may applaud the deeds of
the Armenian youth, others may blame them and say they tarnished our
reputation. To objectively assess those events, one has to go outside
the parameter of the Armenian thinking and find out the impact of
those times on non-Armenians. One case in point is the prominent
Turkish writer Elif Shafak, who is an established and outspoken
Turkish author and columnist. The Free Encyclopedia qualifies her
"as Turkey's bestselling female writer. Shafak is a brave champion of
cosmopolitanism, a sophisticated feminist and an ambitious novelist
who infuses her magical realist fiction with big, important ideas ....
Critics have named her as one of the most distinctive voices in
contemporary Turkish and world literature."
She was born in 1971, the period when Armenian political violence
began. She was the daughter of a Turkish diplomat and throughout her
formative years, the word "Armenians" sent shivers down the backs of
her and her family.
As she grew up, she was curious to find out the source of the
Armenians' anger. And when she read history -- the real one and not
the one taught in her homeland -- she became one of the most ardent
sympathizers of the Genocide victims and in one of her novels, The
Bastard of Istanbul, she dealt with the issue of Genocide only to
find herself in front of a Turkish court, being accused of "insulting
Turkishness."
Another compelling case is the story of a Spanish journalist, Jose
Antonio Gurriaran. On December 30, 1980, he left the building of the
newspaper Pueblo in Madrid and entered a telephone booth to talk to
his wife. When he put down the receiver, two bombs exploded in the
nearby headquarters of Swissair and TWA. Nobody died but among the
nine injured was Jose Antonio. While still in the hospital, when he
struggled to save both legs, he started to read books and materials
about the case and the history of the Armenians. He also interviewed
ASALA members. Soon after the incident, his book, titled La Bomba,
was released, giving the first-hand account of a Spanish journalist
and the tragic story of the survival of a whole nation.
When asked whether it was worthwhile so much sacrifice and bloodshed,
and were the fighters heroes or terrorists, Armenians may never come
up with an objective answer. It is a burning issue and we will always
have a subjective answer.
Therefore the best way is to leave the answer to a prominent Turkish
writer and a Spanish journalist.
- See more at:
http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2014/02/13/heroes-or-villains/#sthash.UD7pmgbo.dpuf