Sana da !  Keep up the good work

This reminds me a story about Pope John Paul my frined had told me.
On his visit to NewYork USA, just leaving the plane one reporter of a newspaper
asks this question to the Pope:
"What do you think about the brothels in New York?"
To which The Pope replies surprisedly:
"Is there any brothel in New York?"
And the following day the newspaper headline read like:
"Pope´s first question upon his arrival:
Is there any brothel in New York?"

Ý 

Quoting AlphaF

Dun aksam TV de, konusmacilari arasinda Adalet Agaoglu, Nuray Mert, Oral Calislar, Deniz Bolukbasi, Vural Volkan, Ercan Karakas ve bir de eski Buyukelcimiz olan, mahut "OZUR DILEME BELGESI" ni konu alan bir tartismayi dinledim.

 

Konusmacilarin tamaminin gayelerinin,  orada tarihi carpitip dinleyenleri kandirmak degil, iyi veya kotu butun yanlari ile olayin esasini ve cozumlerini tartismak olmasi gerekir diye dusunuyordum.

 

Ozurluler,  genelde konusmalarina "1915 de Turklerin bir azinlik grubunu soy kirimina ugrattigi kesindir.... ...." diye basliyorlardi ve "Turklerin ozur dilemesi tarihi bir borctur..... ..."  anlaminda sozlerle gorus belirtiyorlardi. Onlara gore tarih 1915 de basliyordu ve sahne Turklerin bu mazlum azinlik grubuna saldirisi ile aciliyordu. Tarihin oncesi - daha da onemlisi o gunlerde ortalikta olmayan bizler gibileri cok yakindan ilgilendiren -  bir gelecegi yok gibi idi....

 

Anlattiklarina gore o gunun Osmanli Imparatorlugunda ve Anadolusunda, sadece eli kanli Turkler ve nadide cicek bahceleri halinde serpistirilmis mazlum azinlik gruplari vardi. O karma nufus, Imparatorlugun refahindan ve geleceginden birlikte sorumlu degildiler. Bir tarafta, ortak vatan kavraminin bilincinde olan, Osmanli halki Canakkalede dovusup, olurken, baskalarinin diger tarafta - firsattan istifade - kendi cikarlarina gore dusmanla isbirligi yapmasi, gayet masum ve normaldi. (not: Bunu acikca soylemediler, fakat soylediklerinden anladigim bu 

 

Kafamdan, Oral Calislar´in yerinde olsam ve konusmama, bence tarih acisindan cok daha gercekci olan, " Gerci, Osmanli I. Cihan Savasi sonunda, Canakkalede dunyaya karsi ulkesini korumaya calisirken, Doguda bazi azinlik gruplari Anadoluyu isgal etmeye calisan Fransiz ve Rus ordularina yandas cikmislardi , amma.."diye baslama sorumlulugunu hissetsem, lafi nasil cevirir de neticede yine de sadece "Turkler ozur dilemelidirler ......." kivaminda baglayabilirdim diye dusundum. Isin icinden cikamadim.

 

Sonra,  "Osmanli Devleti gercekten belli etnik gruplari  hedef aliyormuydu, yoksa butun asilerin ustune yurumeyi - o zamanin sartlari icinde -  asli bir gorev olarak mi addediyordu? " diye dusundum. "Asiler Turk olunca ne yapiliyordu? Mustafa Kemalín uzerine de Hilafet Ordusu cikartilmamismiydi? Ataturk, Hilafet Ordusu ile basa cikamasaydi hali nice olacakti ? " sorularini sordum kendime.

 

Oral Calislar paralelinde gorus sahibi olan arkadaslardan, bu isin icinden cikabilecek var mi? Yoksa tarih gercekten tehcir ile mi basliyor?

Oral Calislara tavsiyem, elindeki ozur mektubunu, sahsen,  koy meydanlarinda Turk halkinin imzasina acmasi..

 Why don´t you be brave and post this in English... You know better Mr.Alph..

He is advising to one of the intellects (Oral Calislar) that He should read  ´I am apologizing´ letter in villages to Turkish people..

Practically he is trying to say he will be lynched or not welcomed there..

In my opinion, it is NOT a nice thing to say about people in Turkey.

Because those people have always always backed wronged, mistreated people..

Because they are Anatolians. Because  they are from the soils which carry thousands of years of civilization..

Lets assume that nothing happened, lets say that not hundreds of thousands. Say ´only hundered people got killed´ and for the sake of argument, lets say that  it is all a local governer´s mistake..

Anatolian people will say ´look my brother, something happened, our boys made a mistake, I am sorry about it´.

I think people who are tearing their hair off should read what is said in that letter again.

They are not apologizing for ´genocide´ or anything like that..All they are saying is :

"My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers and sisters. I apologize to them."

Basically they are talking about TODAY. 

They are feeling embarrassed about ´the insensitivity and the denials of the events´ TODAY.

Impoliteness and unfairness are their main objections..

And of course, they are intellectuals. They are polite people. They could not say that ´I am ashamed of sharing the same citizenship with those savages in this  country´. Could they?

Anyway, I am glad those people initiated this apology letter. 

And I am really happy that people in Turkey are able to TALK about it..

Quoting AlphaF

Dun aksam TV de, konusmacilari arasinda Adalet Agaoglu, Nuray Mert, Oral Calislar, Deniz Bolukbasi, Vural Volkan, Ercan Karakas ve bir de eski Buyukelcimiz olan, mahut "OZUR DILEME BELGESI" ni konu alan bir tartismayi dinledim.

 

Konusmacilarin tamaminin gayelerinin,  orada tarihi carpitip dinleyenleri kandirmak degil, iyi veya kotu butun yanlari ile olayin esasini ve cozumlerini tartismak olmasi gerekir diye dusunuyordum.

 

Ozurluler,  genelde konusmalarina "1915 de Turklerin bir azinlik grubunu soy kirimina ugrattigi kesindir.... ...." diye basliyorlardi ve "Turklerin ozur dilemesi tarihi bir borctur..... ..."  anlaminda sozlerle gorus belirtiyorlardi. Onlara gore tarih 1915 de basliyordu ve sahne Turklerin bu mazlum azinlik grubuna saldirisi ile aciliyordu. Tarihin oncesi - daha da onemlisi o gunlerde ortalikta olmayan bizler gibileri cok yakindan ilgilendiren -  bir gelecegi yok gibi idi....

 

Anlattiklarina gore o gunun Osmanli Imparatorlugunda ve Anadolusunda, sadece eli kanli Turkler ve nadide cicek bahceleri halinde serpistirilmis mazlum azinlik gruplari vardi. O karma nufus, Imparatorlugun refahindan ve geleceginden birlikte sorumlu degildiler. Bir tarafta, ortak vatan kavraminin bilincinde olan, Osmanli halki Canakkalede dovusup, olurken, baskalarinin diger tarafta - firsattan istifade - kendi cikarlarina gore dusmanla isbirligi yapmasi, gayet masum ve normaldi. (not: Bunu acikca soylemediler, fakat soylediklerinden anladigim bu 

 

Kafamdan, Oral Calislar´in yerinde olsam ve konusmama, bence tarih acisindan cok daha gercekci olan, " Gerci, Osmanli I. Cihan Savasi sonunda, Canakkalede dunyaya karsi ulkesini korumaya calisirken, Doguda bazi azinlik gruplari Anadoluyu isgal etmeye calisan Fransiz ve Rus ordularina yandas cikmislardi , amma.."diye baslama sorumlulugunu hissetsem, lafi nasil cevirir de neticede yine de sadece "Turkler ozur dilemelidirler ......." kivaminda baglayabilirdim diye dusundum. Isin icinden cikamadim.

 

Sonra,  "Osmanli Devleti gercekten belli etnik gruplari  hedef aliyormuydu, yoksa butun asilerin ustune yurumeyi - o zamanin sartlari icinde -  asli bir gorev olarak mi addediyordu? " diye dusundum. "Asiler Turk olunca ne yapiliyordu? Mustafa Kemalín uzerine de Hilafet Ordusu cikartilmamismiydi? Ataturk, Hilafet Ordusu ile basa cikamasaydi hali nice olacakti ? " sorularini sordum kendime.

 

Oral Calislar paralelinde gorus sahibi olan arkadaslardan, bu isin icinden cikabilecek var mi? Yoksa tarih gercekten tehcir ile mi basliyor?

Oral Calislara tavsiyem, elindeki ozur mektubunu, sahsen,  koy meydanlarinda Turk halkinin imzasina acmasi..

Such a great point of view... I was keeping myself hard to stay away from this "needless" apology thread...

But now i feel like to say a couple of words here...

First of all, people living on these lands nowadays has no responsibilty to apology from anyone... because i wasnt in that war nor the rest... what we have to do now, to my mind, is just to look at the history and get our lessons from it and work more in order to have brighter future and not to make the same mistakes...

Secondly, i see this "apology" event again as creating a chaos and take the attention on something else and cover up whats going on really... It was always like this in Turkey...

Thirdly, as Alphaf said, what happened those times was during "WORLD WAR I", did you hear me clearly? I am saying once more it was a WORLD WAR I ?

So who will apologize from all the Turks were killed? From all those british, anzacs killed there?

now your answer comes, it was told by "Emin Colasan" who is very well known columnist and writer. His answer was very clear...

The responsibles of what happened on those times are only but only the imperialist (the Entente Power) countries...

So it is really hard to understand, why i should apologize from someone because of the events happened in 1915... It was a God damned WORLD WAR...

It was a sad situation that nearly half of the world was dead in those lands...

But if Turks are supposed to apology?! then how about the rest?

I call everybody to a common sense here... why on earth we still keep up talking in those bloody history... arent we read enough? arent we told enough? 

What i expect from governers actually is... just to come together and say.. "we are neighbour countries, we should forget what happened in past sadly, and we should work on agreements on beneficial issues for our future..."

but i already know that... i wont be breathing if they ever try to say this... 

 YES,YES,YES. totally agree

Last night I watched another program about this apology thing. Doðu Ergil whose name appeared in this apology list admitted that he was not contacted about the text apperaed on that website and admitted that he instead would formulate it as:

"I feel sorry for those who ..."

Apperantly someone put the apology text and added the names without telling (many of) them what they were upto supporting exactly.

I`ve heard that there are even names of armenian asala terrorists who murdered Turks in that lists. Just a sign of how desperate these losers are.

It is hard to believe for that people, who are endangering their lives by initiating this campain, will go and add asala terrorists names..

But I am sure some nationalists, who have not blinked their eyes when they were killing their own citizens with the belief that they are protecting the state, would do ´anything´ to discredit this initive.

In an interview with Sunday´s Zaman, ISRO/USAK Chairman Professor Sedat Laçiner, commented on recent developments, with particular reference to the apology campaign launched by a group of Turkish intellectuals and said no apology was needed on the matter

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.138&bolum=8

Some passages from this ´wise´ guy: 

How many Armenians did Turks rescue during the deportations?

A substantial part of the male deportees were militants. There were many incidents where their relatives and families did have difficult times. Men were primarily targeted during the attacks. Children and the elderly had to suffer the consequences. Local people took action to keep the orphans or the widows with them. This is an Islamic tradition. This is an Ottoman tradition. Westerners cannot understand this. In some cases, the guy just wanted a beautiful Armenian girl whose husband died. Some marriages were built based on this motive.

Isn´t this assimilation, even if it is done out of humanitarian concerns?

If you ask this to Western people, this is genocide, because you are trying to assimilate the Armenian population. However, Serbs raped about 30,000 women during the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina but did not marry any of these victims. And they did not accept the children as their own. But there is something different here. These people did not see the Armenians as dirty and inferior. They made these women their wives. They had kids. They took these kids as their own and embraced these women as their wives.

But they converted them to Islam…

In that case, you accept your husband´s religion as your religion. But this Islamization is something like this: There were many Armenian women who did not actually perform their religious duties, though they looked pretty religious. There were some others who did not have much information about Islam. They believed in God. The Armenian people were not atheists. These marriages took place at early ages. And they died as Muslims. There are many Armenian converts that fall into this category.

btw..above is the also a simplistic answer to the thread ("His mother was an Armenian" !!!):

http://www.turkishclass.com/turkish/forum/forumTitle_37143

and to my questions in that thread :