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From: dbd@urartu.sdpa.org (David Davidian)
Subject: Re: Killer
Message-ID: <1993Apr22.064435.11697@urartu.sdpa.org>
Organization: S.D.P.A. Center for Regional Studies
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 06:44:35 GMT
Lines: 95

In article <1993Apr21.032746.10820@doug.cae.wisc.edu> yamen@cae.wisc.edu
(Soner Yamen) responded to article <1r20kr$m9q@nic.umass.edu> BURAK@UCSVAX.
UCS.UMASS.EDU (AFS) who wrote:

[AFS]     Just a quick comment::
[AFS]
[AFS]     Armenians killed Turks------Turks killed Armenians.
[AFS]
[AFS]     Simple as that. Can anybody deny these facts?

Jews killed Germans in WWII -- Germans killed Jews in WWII, BUT there was 
quite a difference in these two statements, regardless of what Nazi 
revisionists say!

[SY] My grand parents were living partly in todays Armenia and partly in
[SY] todays Georgia. There were villages, Kurd/Turk (different Turkic groups)
[SY] Georgian (muslim/christian) Armenian and Farsi... Very near to eachother.
[SY] The people living there were aware of their differences. They were 
[SY] different people. For example, my grandfather would not have been happy 
[SY] if his doughter had willed to marry an Armenian guy. But that did not 
[SY] mean that they were willing to kill eachother. No! They were neighbors.

OK.

[SY] Armenians killed Turks. Which Armenians? Their neoghbors? As far as my
[SY] grandparents are concerned, the Armenians attacked first but these 
[SY] Armenians were not their neighbors. They came from other places. Maybe 
[SY] first they had a training at some place. They were taught to kill people,
[SY] to hate Turks/Kurds? It seems so...

There is certainly a difference between the planned extermination of the
Armenians of eastern Turkey beginning in 1915, with that of the Armeno-
Georgian conflicts of late 1918! The argument is not whether Armenians ever 
killed in their collective existence, but rather the wholesale destruction of
Anatolian Armenians under orders of the Turkish government. An Armenian-
Georgian dispute over the disposition of Akhalkalak, Lori, and Pambak after
the Turkish Third Army evacuated the region, cannot be equated with the
extermination of Anatolian Armenians. Many Armenians and Georgians died
in this area in the scramble to re-occupy these lands and the lack of
preparation for the winter months. This is not the same as the Turkish 
genocide of the Armenians nearly four years earlier, hundreds of kilometers
away!

[SY] Anyway, but after they killed/raped/... Turks and other muslim people
[SY] around, people assumed that 'Armenians killed us, raped our women',
[SY] not a particular group of people trained in some camps, maybe backed
[SY] by some powerful states... After that step, you cannot explain these 
[SY] people not to hate all Armenians. 

I don't follow, perhaps the next paragraph will shed some light.

[SY] So what am I trying to point out? First, at least for that region,
[SY] you cannot blame Turks/Kurds etc since it was a self defense situation.
[SY] Most of the Armenians, I think, are not to blame either. But since some
[SY] people started that fire, it is not easy to undo it. There are facts.
[SY] People cannot trust eachother easily. It is very difficult to establish
[SY] a good relation based on mutual respect and trust between nations with
[SY] different ethnic/cultural/religious backgrounds but it is unfortunately
[SY] very easy to start a fire!

Again, the fighting between Armenians and Georgians in 1918/19 had little to
do with the destruction of the Armenians in Turkey. It is interesting that
the Georgian leaders of the Transcaucasian Federation (Armenia, Azerbaijan, 
and Georgia) made special deals with Turkish generals not to pass through 
Tiflis on their way to Baku, in return for Georgians not helping the Armenians 
militarily. Of course, as Turkish troops marched across what was left of
Caucasian Armenia, many Armenians went north and such population movement 
caused problems with the locals. This is in no comparison with events 4 years 
earlier in eastern Anatolia. My father's mother's family escaped Cemiskezek -> 
Erzinka -> Erzerum -> Nakhitchevan -> Tiflis -> Constantinople -> 
Massachusetts. 

[SY] My grandparents were *not* bloodthirsty people. We did not experience
[SY] what they had to endure... They had to leave their lands, there were
[SY] ladies, old ladies, all of her children killed while she forced to
[SY] witness! Young women put dirt at their face to make themselves
[SY] unattractive! I don't want to go into any graphic detail.

My grandmother's brother was forced to dress up as a Kurdish women, and paste
potato skins on his face to look ugly. The Turks would kill any Armenian
young man on sight in Dersim. Because their family was rather influential,
local Kurds helped them escape before it was too late. This is why I am alive 
today.

[SY] You may think that my sources are biased. They were biased in some sense.
[SY] They experienced their own pain, of course. That is the way it is.  But
[SY] as I said they were living in peace with their neighbors before. Why 
[SY] should they become enemies?


-- 
David Davidian dbd@urartu.sdpa.org   | "How do we explain Turkish troops on
S.D.P.A. Center for Regional Studies |  the Armenian border, when we can't 
P.O. Box 382761                      |  even explain 1915?" 
Cambridge, MA 02238                  |              Turkish MP, March 1992 
