I came to UCLA as an exchange student from Ankara, Turkey. What
did exchange mean to me? Getting to know different people,
different cultures, making new friends and widening my
horizons.
I was curious about how the world perceived certain issues. I
wondered how they would treat me when I said I was Turkish.
As I expected, I did not have any problems getting used to the
life here, nor with making friends. I thought my decision to come
to the United States was worth it.
Unfortunately, this good mood of mine was destroyed when I
started to spend more time at UCLA, checking out newspapers, clubs
and meeting new people. I started to come across hatred of the
Turks by Armenians.
I found that many Armenians living in the United States were
influencing the rest of the people here ““ people who probably
never read about and therefore don’t know the facts about the
Turkish-Armenian history.
This hatred is really shocking, unbelievable and saddening when
I know the Turks and Armenians are now living in harmony in Turkey
and Armenia. I can see no hatred in Turkey, no hatred in Armenia,
so why is there hatred in the United States?
I found the answer when I realized that many of the Armenian
people living in the United States had ancestors living under the
Ottoman Empire. Now that they have immigrated, they have a very
strong lobby and can easily promote their propaganda.
Having known that UCLA is one of the most liberal schools in the
country, it was shocking to see people putting biased ideas forward
in the school’s newspaper. It seems the submission by Raffi
Kassabian, “Nations must take action to end cycle of
genocide” (Feb. 1), was not influenced by a cycle of genocide
that has actually taken place, but instead mostly by the
author’s anger toward the Turkish government.
Instead of finding solutions to human rightsabuses, he simply
degrades Turkey
The submission said the “Turkish government … has been
able to continue human rights abuses into the present day.”
It obviously ignores the rights given to the minorities living in
Turkey, mostly the Kurds. Right now, minorities can teach in their
language and own their own television programs.
Kassabian misconstrues the “Armenian Genocide,” an
event that Bernard Lewis, a premier Middle Eastern scholar and
professor emeritus at Princeton, and Stanford Shaw, a former UCLA
professor, said never occurred.
In an interview in 1993 with Le Monde, Lewis said, “When
you brought up the question of genocide, you imply that there was a
deliberate policy of extermination, to annihilate systematically
the Armenian nation. This is very doubtful. The Turkish documents
prove an action of relocation, not extermination.”
No one denies that Armenians died, but Turks did too. Kassabian
writes misleadingly as if a genocide happened, sending people on a
pathway to a faulty conclusion.
The use of vocabulary like “genocide” to describe
these incidents should be questioned. Great nations such as Germany
or the United States do not officially recognize these events as a
genocide. Additionally, since the United Nations has never
officially recognized the relocation in 1915 as a genocide, it
obviously does not fit their definition of the word. It is so sad
that most people unquestioningly believe what they are told.
I find it hard to understand why people try to promote conflict
in a world that yearns for peace. In a world where we keep
protesting wars and supporting unity, why do people try to fragment
societies?
This is not to say that we should forget about all the things
that happened in the past, but we need to see history’s facts
with clear eyes, not with glasses that show you what you want to
see.
I could have criticized the Armenians about many things in this
article, too. But instead, I only reply to what they have said
because I know that hatred will only promote more conflict.
If you want more wars, more deaths and more violence around the
world, go on promoting hatred against other nations and degrading
them. But if you support peace, go and talk to the people living in
Armenia or in Turkey and get a lesson out of their humanity.
Velieceoglu is a third-year political science
student.