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1. Thank you so much for this interview. I’ve been reading Talin Suciyan’s articles and this was the most revealing text of hers. I’m bolsahye/tajkahye as well and the Turkish Armenian community has been increasingly more interesting since visiting. I’m so grateful to have read this and I think this will allow others to understand the bolsahye community much better and allow Turkish citizens to understand their political history and state policies.

2. This is a great article and an eye opener. The revelations described here are further testaments to the preplanned and state-sponsored genocide of the Armenians. As if for these Turkish criminals, with wolf-like appetites, the extermination of 1,500,000 Armenians and the complete destruction of their communities in occupied Western Armenia was not enough, they had to put in place specific racist methods and resort to further anti-Christian and anti-Armenian fascist policies to do “cleanup” operations once they had accomplished the first phase of the genocide, the physical destruction of their intended and targeted victims.

   You would think for a people that claims labeling their blood-thirsty murderous ancestors as genocidal is disrespectful to the Turkish nation, the steps they would take, after eliminating all Armenian presence from their ancestral homeland, would be to show compassion to what few Armenians were left by miracle and help them recover from total extinction. Instead, like a criminal murderer who returns to the sight of the crime to eliminate all evidence of his crime, they tried to make sure there were no sign of their existence left whatsoever by destroying their houses of worship, confiscating their belongings using bogus ad-hoc laws, and by making sure there were no witnesses left to their crimes by threats and intimidation tactics and other despicable methods to silence them.

   A crime of this magnitude and enormous scale can only be committed by full intention, preplanning and coordination from the government. After carving out a fascist and illegal Turkey on the corpses of the murdered indigenous Armenians and other Christians, making this racist nation secular and changing its alphabet was also planned and intentional. It was a way to disconnect the new generations of this nation from their genocidal past and instead brainwash them, through their corrupt educational system as evident by their adulterated bias and lack of depth and knowledge in the subject matter, into believing they belong to a noble nation with glorious past.

   If glory and nobility are achieved at the expense of the destruction of other nations, they sure have accomplished their goals.

   • “Faschist and illegal Turkey”. This just prooves that Armenians are unwilling to normalize ties with Turkey. There has to be a normalization plan where Turkey exists and Armenia exists. Period. This is why most people in Turkey are not willing to make any sacrifices concerning the Armenian question. You must probably be I bet a future ASALA/JCAG member. Am I right, Ararat?

   • @Rifat, there is no need for me to respond to the question you asked of me. @GB has already answered your question. I completely agree with his response. I could not have said any better myself. I would also add to his remark the restoration and the full liberation of Armenian provinces in occupied Western Armenia, today falsely known as Eastern Turkey.

     You highlighted the fascist and illegal Turkey from my remarks to make your point. These words are facts. Turkey is a fascist state because even to this day it is actively trying to suppress its so-called minorities, the murdered indigenous former majorities in reality, and devising all sorts of haphazard laws to force out what little is left of these native people from their occupied homeland. Turkey is an illegal state because its borders are not real but artificial. The borders of Turkey have been established through invasion, occupation, mass murder and genocide. In fact, Turkey was the only defeated country in the world in WWI that, instead of concessions, acquired even more lands at the expense of what was left of the Armenians. As if the complete extermination of the Armenians and the confiscation of Western Armenia were not enough, they had to move in and invade what was left of Eastern Armenia in attempts to attain their long-awaited Pan-Turkic goals. Ironically, this was accomplished by your “hero” Ataturk while trying and convicting in absentia the leaders of the Young Turk regime of the crime of mass extermination of the Armenians.

     I don’t have any problem with level-headed Turks who, slowly but surely realizing what their murderous ancestors have done, want to make amends with the Armenians but they have to realize that the Armenian Genocide and the confiscation of Armenian provinces as a result of the genocide are tied together and they can’t be separated. I do have major problem with racist Turks who want to continue to deny their crimes so they can keep their ill-gotten Armenian treasures.

     I say live and let live but the masterminds of the Armenian Genocide are still treated as great Turkish leaders and heroes in Turkey with schools and streets named after them. One among these celebrated masterminds of the Armenian Genocide is the Ottoman Interior Minister Talat Pasha who ordered and oversaw the deportation and mass extermination of Armenian women and children. Some years ago I read a book on how this blood-thirsty coward was traced and discovered hiding in Berlin Germany living his merry life while millions of Armenians lay dead at his orders. According to the book, horrified he let out a strange frightful sound when he faced his Armenian avenger who shot him dead at point blank range for his crimes against the Armenian nation. He was a monster and an evil man, he got away easy, he deserved far worse I thought. A sense of justice came over me with only one regret: I was not around at the time to pull the trigger myself.

3. Rifat, as long as fascist, deep state, illegal Turkey exist and deny Christian Genocide of Ottoman Turkey, then consider entire Armenian nation as ASALA members!

   • @RIFAT

     Turkey is fascist. A few months ago Yusuf Halacoglu told in Zaman newspaper that Armenians should not be allowed to restitution of stolen confiscated property because states (devletler) “iyi niyetle yönetilmez”. Now, is this guy a historian or a Machiavellian ideologist? This is FASCISM. And you KNOW it. You even have your own fascist finger salute in Turkey. Turkish society – not only the state – is fascist to the core and you know it. http://www.zaman.com.tr/pazar_ermeni-tehcirinde-soykirim-oldu-mu_2080729.html

4. Rifat, trying to disqualify Ararat’s criticism of Turkey by suggesting that he is an ASALA member is meaningless and juvenile. Can you show evidence that Turkey was not fascistic and did not use illegal and immoral methods to rid itself of it’s Christian minorities? Can you show evidence of efforts initiated by the Turkish government to promote equality among muslims and non-muslims? Can you refute the impact that the imposed change of alphabet had on the people’s ability to know it’s own history? Fear of Armenian demands for justice does not permit you to label as ‘terrorist’ every Armenian who speaks strongly against the racist actions of the Turkish nation.

   How should Armenians normalize ties with a nation that does not respect Armenia’s right justice, to it’s historic homeland or the right of Artsakhtsi to self-determination? Turkey doesn’t want normalization! It prefers to hide behind genocide denial, while supporting the xenophobic actions of their axe-murderer-glorifying cousins to the east.

5. There seems to be a deep misunderstanding of fascism. A democratic state with democratic institutions in place cannot be fascist. That would be like saying a communist state can also be a democracy. No it can’t. Many authoritarian states share some characteristics with fascist states. This does not make them fascist states. Unless you can prove Turkey embraces things like state capitalism, you can’t say it is a fascist state.

   • Sadly, Turkey’s democracy has often been very fickle and only skin-deep. Beneath the surface many ‘fascistic elements exist.

   • R2D2, you honestly believe Turkey is a democracy? How many times has Turkey’s military removed the elected leaders just because they did not fit their version of Kemalism? What do you call a state where the military can do this?

     Didn’t Turkey tightly control its economy under Kemal? Didn’t this (along with its genocidal policies and the other good stuff) complete the full picture of Turkey as a fascist state?

   • Boyajian: there is a difference in what you say and others say. You say “fascistic elements”- which does not make it a “fascist state”, and I agree with you. “Fascist” state implies something totally different. And I’m still not sure how any state can be “illegal”. Turkey and Armenia are hardly the only nations with claims to the same territory, a bloody history, and in a situation where there has been a miscarriage of justice (our situation is just more complicated with genocide and the applicability of international law). Throwing out words like fascist and illegal state do nothing meaningful, and only succeed in getting under the skin of Turks who are as irrational as the Armenians who contribute nothing on these pages but trashing Turkey and intentionally misspelling Azerbaijan.

   • RVDV:

     You are correct about Fascism, if you take the original , classic definition as propounded by Mussolini et, al .
     However, since then, the labels ‘Fascist, Fascism’ have acquired additional, wider meanings.
     Wiki has a long entry on Fascism.
     I think this one fits Turkey well: [Roger Griffin describes fascism as “a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism”.]
     There are other characteristics of neo-Fascism described therein that aptly apply to modern Turkey.

     Yes Turkey is far more Democratic after democratic elections of AKP, but its State policy of the denial of the Armenian Genocide and its active, worldwide campaign of denial and intimidation of uninvolved 3rd parties in that regard clearly warrants a label of Fascism, does it not ?
     What about its State policy of attempting to snuff out the 3rd Republic of RoA since its birth: what do you call that ?
     Why would Turkey get involved in the NKR war ?
     Why would Turkey mass an invasion army at the border of
     RoA in 1993 ?
     By no stretch of anyone’s imagination could RoA or NKR threaten Turkey’s security.
     On the contrary, had Turkey recognized NKR, it would have divided Armenians’ united front regarding AG, and benefited Turkey greatly by weakening our demands from Turkey: self interest would dictate Turkey recognize NKR.
     Gas and oil can be gotten from Russia and Iran, for example.
     What other country can help Turkey with its AG Sword of Damocles than Armenia and Armenians ?

     What else motivated Turkey other than base, ultranationalist, racist, visceral hatred of Armenians ?
     What else motivated Turkey other than the goal of the final solution – elimination of indigenous Armenians from Caucasus (after their spectacular success of exterminating Armenians in Western Armenia).

     What do we call that: Nazism ?

   • RVDV, your comments are more those of an apologist for Turkey, than an analytic and truthful observation. It is not easy to separate the fascist elements of Turkey from the ‘nation’ when they are done in the name of the nation and Turkish honor?

   • Vahagn:
     1. The military’s power has been taken from them. Almost completely.
     2. Regardless of point 1, there are several different factors we can observe to try and make a point about how democratic a state is. Take voting and universal suffrage. The US truly had full enfranchisement of minority voters with the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Turkey, meanwhile, had full enfranchisement in 1934. By that lame standard, I can argue that Turkey was fully democratic before the US under that lame, single variable analysis of “democracy.” Turkey is not a perfect democracy, it has its problems, and we have had 4 military coups. But every time, sooner or later, we went back to democracy. We have had peaceful transitions of power, we have liberals, religious conservatives, secular nationalists, and Kurds in parliament. We don’t come close to matching up with the West, but we’ve kept at democracy since 1950. To me, that’s something.
     .
     3.As to the economy under Ataturk. Say what you want about the man, he took Turkish society kicking and screaming into the 20th century and made us, basically by force, embrace modernity. I would call him a benevolent dictator, I am not sure how you can call someone who is responsible for instilling democracy in a nation as a fascist. You may wish to check your definition. Also, there really is no hard evidence to suggest he played a significant role in the Armenian genocide.

6. Could someone please explain what “20 Classes” refers to? My search engine didn’t reveal anything under that phrase.

7. [‘Nagorno-Karabakh is Turkey’s problem too,’ says Erdoğan]
   {13 November 2013 /TODAYSZAMAN.COM, İSTANBUL
   Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has reiterated Ankara’s commitment to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia, saying that “Karabakh is not just Azerbaijan’s problem, but also Turkey’s problem.”}

   “…but also Turkey’s problem”: say what ?

   There was no Armenian Genocide according to democratically elected PM Erdogan. (Charlie Rose show)
   Nagorno-Karabagh is supposedly Turkey’s problem too. (how so ?)
   The problem being the failed attempt by AzeriTatarTurks to exterminate and ethnically cleanse the remaining 150,000 native Armenians, after the Turkic policy of slow-motion ethnic cleansing had reduced NKAO’s ethnic composition from 95% Armenian to 75% Armenian (1920s to 1980s).
   Same policy had reduced Nakhichevan from 50% Armenian to 0% Armenian.

   A fair minded Armenian is confronted with those facts, and has a very hard time convincing himself that Turkey is not a…..what State ?

   Wonder how Turks would react if Pres Sargsyan declared that Cyprus problem is also Armenia’s problem.

   • It is natural for Turkey to involve itself in the NKR issue, for two reasons. 1: Precedent. NKR is, legally, a separatist entity ruled by Armenians occupying internationally recognized Azeri lands. Seperatist groups in Turkey- the PKK, no doubt view Armenian success in NKR (where I believe Armenians were outnumbered and had fewer resources during the war) with a degree of envy. States like Turkey, China, Russia, etc., with ethno-secessionist movements in their own borders, do not like things like the NKR. They don’t like when these movements succeed. Why else would China not recognize Kosovo (China being removed from the region, as Turkey and Russia have different stakes in Kosovo)?
     2: You stick with your ally, especially if you share extensive ethnic, historical, religious (more or less), and linguistic bonds, and that nation is your number one ally. I have certain misgivings about Azerbaijan but they are our closest ally, and you are kidding yourself if you think those bonds are only as deep as Azerbaijan’s oil reserves. For Armenians, belonging to a nation basically isolated in its region, where its neighbors (even your “brothers in religion”) actively work to deepen that isolation, it may not be very clear why Turkey would consider Azerbaijan’s problem our problem as well.
     .
     A fair minded Armenian is confronted with those facts, and has a very hard time convincing himself that Turkey is not a…..what State ?
     .
     Turkey is an illiberal democracy with socially ingrained prejudices and hatreds against certain groups.
     http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm
     This website has a good list of 14 characteristics of fascist nations. I think it’s a good list. I also think Turkey fully fits 3 of the 14 categories, and depending on internal circumstances (Gezi park protests for example) can partially fit 4, possibly 5 more categories (again, only partially). I’m sorry but there are plenty of racist, hate filled nations in the world. They throw bananas at black soccer players and politicians in Italy for example. That doesn’t mean the world is full of fascists and fascist states.
     .
     Regarding your population and ethnic cleansing stats. First you mention NKAO- whose population had reduced from 95% Armenian to 75%. Question 1- was this the result of ethnic cleansing or simply Azeris moving to the region since it was a part of the Azerbaijani SSR?Question 2- Ok so,the Armenian population declined there from 95% to 75%, then what do can we make of the Armenian population rising from 75% back to 95% AFTER the war? Were Azeris ethnically cleansed too? Was it simply a consequence of war? Do the two things go hand in hand?
     .
     Finally, Nakhichevan. According to the records I saw, the Armenian population there was less than 50 percent, even in 1828. In 1926, Armenians were only 10% of the population, or 11,000 people. The majority of the ethnic cleansing, if it was that, took place between 1917 and 1926. I would argue Russia and Turkey are more to blame for that than Azerbaijan.

   • Northern occupied Cyprus is Armenia’s problem too, not just Cyprus’. We must officially demand that Turkey leaves occupied northern part of Cyprus!

8. For Massis : A year before the Wealth Tax, the Twenty Classes/ Amele Taburu (20 Kura Askerlik) labour battalions were put into practice, which literally meant the random draft of non-Muslim men into the military. Sources have differences regarding the exact age of the men who were drafted: Dilek Güven gave the age span between 25 and 45; Ayşe Hür stated birth dates (non-Muslim men born between 1896 and 1913); Rıfat N. Bali indicated birth dates between 1894 and 1913. My grandfather, who was born in 1895, was also drafted. However, and more importantly, these men were drafted regardless of whether they had ever served in the military; thus, sometimes their military service amounted to three to four years in the form of forced labour. This practice was very well known from World War I years.

   • Thanks Talin; I assume your dissertation is in German. Are you going to come up with an English version of it that would be accessible to English speaking general public in the future?

9. This message is for RVDV! Exactly who are you trying to fool by attempting to depict your Islamic Crescent nation of Turkey, as being a democratic state with democratic institutions? Were you sent here by your Turkish government, with the intention of trying to convince us Armenians that Turkey is not as rotten as we believe it is? Or, are you just not paying attention to what’s going on in Turkey nowadays? Because if you did, you would notice the enormous effort put forth by the Turkish government in suppressing their citizens’ rights. I guess that explains the reason why out of all the countries in the world today, Turkey happens to have the highest number of journalists in prison. By now, it’s already well known by Europe and the United States, how Turkey persistently violates the human rights of its Armenian inhabitants, as well as its other Christian inhabitants. What about Turkey’s treatment of its Kurdish population? Turkey’s Kurds, who also happen to be Muslim just like the Turks, have been victims of abuse by the Turkish government for many years now. But what’s even more interesting, is that as time goes by, the actual number of Turks, whose rights are being trampled upon by the Turkish government, is also increasing in number. It really seems that Turkey’s problems are getting bigger nowadays. On one side, you’ve got a huge number of Turkish citizens who are disgusted with the oppressive policies of their extremist Islamic government, who tries so desperately to disguise itself as being a hard core democracy, and then on the other side, you’ve got a population of twenty million unhappy Kurds in southeast Turkey, who are already making noise of wanting to seek their independence. Can you imagine if southeast Turkey’s overwhelming majority Kurdish population suddenly decides to revolt? They can easily turn the Islamic Crescent nation of Turkey into a pile of mash potatoes and gravy, and in the process, break off the whole entire southeast region of the country. That is indeed a huge nightmare for the government of Turkey. And then, of course, there’s that Armenian Genocide issue which follows them everywhere they go. Turkey just can’t find a way to escape from that Armenian Genocide issue. It’s all a matter of time, before Turkey ends up having no choice but to recognize the Armenian Genocide, and will therefore be forced to pay billions of dollars in reparations, as well as returning stolen properties and stolen lands. This will happen after the Armenian government eventually files its lawsuit against Turkey, for its role in committing the Armenian Genocide, either in the European Court of Human Rights, or the International Court of Justice, or perhaps a combination of both. The Treaty of Sevres, and specifically “Wilsonian Armenia”, will enable the Western Armenian provinces of Erzurum, Bitlis, Van, and Trebizond, to finally be attached to the Republic of Armenia. And hopefully around that period of time, the Greeks and Assyrians will also file lawsuits against Turkey for committing genocides against their peoples. Even though extremely long overdue, Turkey will be punished, and justice will be served.

10. RVDV, I give you credit for attempting to be ‘positive’ regarding the development of democracy in Turkey, but I don’t buy it. In my opinion, no matter how long Turkey “has been at it” (i.e.: developing democracy), they will never come close to it’s optimum realization without first recognizing the Armenian Genocide (AND the massacres against the other Christian minorities). The essential tenet of democracy is equality, and as long as some segments within a society are denigrated and deemed disposable or unequal in the eyes of justice, then you don’t have a democratic society. Turkey may have some of the trappings of democracy, but it is only skin deep. The birth of the state was built on the extermination/deportation of the indigenous inhabitants of Asia Minor. This state has done virtually nothing to take responsibility for its criminal past. Are you familiar with ‘Pollyanna?’

11. Calling Turkey “post-genocidal” is incorrect given that its genocidal policies remain intact.

12. R5D5 you may find this analysis useful: http://www.ardarutyun.org/?p=4140&lang=en (Republic of Turkey – the First Fascist State in History). There’s an Iranian proverb which says “just by repeating ‘halva-halva’ even a million times you don’t get sweet taste in your mouth”! Just having (some of) the formal prerequisites of democracy (multi party, elections, peaceful transfer of power etc.) doesn’t make a system democratic – otherwise apartheid South Africa (with its inherently racist-fascist state system) could also be counted as ‘democratic’. I think Boyajian’s and Avery’s descriptions of Turkey are far closer to the mark as its “democracy” is less than skin deep with real poser still lying substantially in the Deep (Fascist) State. Turkey historically has not gone through any of the stages associated with the development and establishment of civil society and democracy. On the contrary its history is replete with centuries of imperial-Islamic-Turkic conquest and domination and formal-legalised oppression of non-Muslim non-Turkic societies as second class “rayas”. The Republican Kemalist period did not establish democracy or even modernism – not beyond the two or three large cities anyway with the countryside remaining essentially and deeply pre-modern/Islamic – but a formal racist nationalist proto fascist state system dominated by the army and the security organs which tightly controlled the entire organs of government (ministries) as well as the bureaucracy, judiciary and even formal religion. In this system which has continued for decades original owners of the land (non-Muslim Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians) were treated at best as non-persons and at worst explicitly as enemies and millions of MUSLIM Kurds as “mountain Turks” – under the “mildly Islamic democratic” AKP government they’re still being persecuted including imprisonment of hundreds of their ELECTED officials. I believe Turkey has, along with Axerbaijan (the Khanate-Sultanate of Baku), proportionally the highest number of journalists in jail, which is hardly an index for democracy. Reverting to Islamic religious values, in some respects not far different from other Sunni-Wahabist values, and constant references to “glories of Ottoman Turkey” does not and will not make democracy but is a recipe for disaster for the Turkey’s Kurds and minorities in particular but also for the region (Turkey’s Ottoman bitten neighbours whose memory of “Ottoman glory” is as different as the former colonial peoples is of, e.g. the British Empire.
    Finally, Talin I’m slightly puzzled as to why you completely omit the Lausanne Treaty (LT) and its “arrangements” for Kemalist turkey’s non Turkic/Christian minorities. The “Nizamname’s” may still have been in force but the Republican period used – or more properly ABUSED – the provisions of the LT to limit more and more the meagre “rights” that it (LT) had formally secured for them.

13. Dear Massis, I wrote the dissertation in English, hopefully it will be published in 2014.
    Dear Wellistenow: “Post-genocidal” means exactly what you are saying.

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