Dear Editor,
I just finished reading Meline Toumani’s book entitled, There Was and There Was Not: A Journey Through Hate and Possibility In Turkey, Armenia and Beyond. I feel obligated and qualified to express my views on the content of this controversial book because I am an American of Armenian descent, raised in a home by parents who were survivors of the Genocide of 1915, and have been actively involved in the Armenian community most of my life.
The premise on which this book is written is that (1) Armenians/The Armenian community is obsessed, consumed and suffocated (the author’s words) by hatred of the Turk, (2) because Armenians continue to seek recognition of the Genocide, they have become conformists and have lost their individuality (author’s words), and (3) Armenian obsession with recognition of the Genocide is the glue that holds the community together, and without it, Armenians will become “nothing” (author’s word).
I state simply and emphatically that this premise is patently false, and not based on fact or reality, but on the narrative of an author who appears to be emotionally and psychologically confused, in doubt and torn about what she believes, who she believes, and with whom she identifies. With all her research, interviews, conversations, life spent in Turkey, the author fails to provide facts, evidence or proof to substantiate and support her outrageous allegations. Sadly, she provides a distorted view of reality, and a gross misunderstanding of what it means to be Armenian. She is on a misguided and troubling journey to seek a truth that is evident, but that she is either incapable or unwilling to accept. The author does not comprehend or appreciate what an enormous task it was, and is, to build a vital and prosperous diaspora. Conformists did not step up to this challenge; individuals did, and continue to do so today.
I would be remiss if I did not note Chapter 3 of this book in which the author goes to the Armenian Home For The Aged in New York to hear eyewitness accounts from the elderly residents who were survivors of the Genocide. The author’s accounting of this visit is evidence of her glaring lack of judgment, empathy, and sensitivity. It raises questions about her honesty and true intent. This is a chapter that I found to be profoundly disturbing, and offensive: an affront to the memory of all survivors.
What is true about the majority of survivors in the diaspora is that they were not “obsessed” with hatred of the Turk, but were “obsessed” with the realities of survival. They were “obsessed” with the desire to work, to successfully raise their families in foreign lands, to adapt to their new environs, and to see their children educated. At the same time, they persevered courageously, and with immense sacrifice to preserve, protect, and defend their Armenian culture, language, and religion. This effort to preserve our Armenian heritage continues today.
What is true is that the Genocide of 1915 motivated and challenged ensuing generations of Armenians to rise above anger, hate, and revenge, and seek a higher, more noble truth and cause for which to strive: one that would result in the official recognition of the Armenian Genocide and its perpetrators; one that would acknowledge the injustices suffered by the martyred victims and provide their descendants with the justice they deserve; one that would seek to prevent such an act of inhumanity to occur again, anywhere at any time; one that would help create a world in which all human life is valued and respected, and all people can enjoy their God given right to be free.
I would respectfully remind the author, that conformists do not dedicate their lives to achieving such worthy goals, but individuals do.
Hazel Barsamian
Scottsdale, Arizona
January 6, 2015
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Ms. Toumani is just plain clueless. Hopefully she will outgrow it.
I also read the book and thought it very interesting, Toumani is right that our obsession with the genocide is very unhealthy – when she writes of the obsession, she talks more about those of us who are a couple of generations from the survivor generation. We need to talk about these things as a people and I’m glad the books was written. Genocide is used by our political parties to hold us together as a people, which is very sad – I mean, do children age 6, 7 or 8 need to be told of rapes and massacres? Does this not constitute child abuse?
On the other hand, I sensed that Toumani was not at all comfortable with her Armenian identity and a little self hatred peeked throughout the text.
I write all this not because I hate my people (I can imagine the possible attacks on me), but because I love our people and want us to grow and strengthen, not be crying over the past. We must remember, but also move on.
Gostan Zarian: “I don’t mean to forget, but not to remember. Not to place the awesome wound at the center of one’s being, not to turn into a sniveling woman in perpetual mourning. No words can age as fast as inspire more tedium than words of grief and lamentation. Especially to others. Yes. I have no doubt now that Armenians must free themselves from the graveyards, from the blood that still clings to their flesh, from their tattered clothes and degradation…We Armenians are not a nation of orphans and beggars, but builders and fighters.” (Bancoop & the Bones of the Mammoth)
Yes, Azat, how right you are!
We Armenians are so “obsessed” with the Genocide and “hateful”. We Armenians engage in hate speech.
How perceptive of you.
Turkey is not a threat any more, is it?
Oh wait, Turkey has closed its border with Armenia for 20 years.
Turkey has threatened Armenia many times since independence, as when Ozal threatened to teach Armenia the “lessons of 1915”.
Turkey has helped to arm Azerbaijan and sent Turkish military advisors.
Turkey was about to invade Armenia in 1993.
Yes, Ozat, Turkey has shown what a wonderful country it is by its ongoing treatment of Kurds, and its remaining Christians, such as Assyrians. They are all very happy.
“Happy is he who calls himself a Turk”.
I’m happy, Ozat, are you?
Turkey has not destroyed even ONE Armenian church in the last 100 years. What a remarkable record.
There was NO Varlik Vergesi in WW 2.
There were NO anti-Greek riots in 1955.
Turkey has NOT occupied Cyprus for 40 years.
Pan-Turkism is dead. Turkey does not care about Azerbaijan and Turkic Central Asia at all.
So yes, Ozat, let’s all forget the Genocide, and concentrate instead on what a wonderful country Turkey is now.
Sossie,
You seemed to have enjoyed creating a straw-man and arguing with your imaginary “Ozat” than actually addressing anything that I wrote. Bravo! You sound like a tin-pot dictator that tells his people: let’s not develop our society in any way because we are always under threat, so let’s only talk about out enemy and what they did to us and nothing else. You think a healthy society will grow from that or a not so healthy? Most Armenians live outside of Armenia (whose real population is close to 2 million) and none of us would move to Western Armenia if it were liberated – and not only because the Kurds would still be a majority of the population, unless we would want to commit genocide against them. All of us who are living in America, France, Argentina, Russia…etc are not going anywhere. A tiny few repatriate, but most of us or our kids will not be doing that. Get real! We should be developing a new, versatile, lovely Armenian culture of the 21st century, like Armenian writers and painters did in the 19th century in Ottoman, Russian and Persian lands. Instead of creating, we are stuck in this trauma of the past. It is hard to let go of trauma, but we must live and not breathe the air of corpses. No one says forget, we must never forget, but the dead would want us to live instead of keeping ourselves half dead with trauma!
If you want to respond, please respond to what I actually wrote.
A sniveling woman? that is a lovely misogynist piece of writing from Costan Zarian, who had quite a few psychological problems himself though I love his writing. Toumani is a brazen self-hater and makes very simplistic arguments. I too applaud questioning party lines- I am LGBTQ, Buddhist, 1/2 Armenian only yet I speak Armenian, love our culture and understand the difference between healthy self-questioning (why do we always build so may churhces and not cultural centers-I know why-but still we should balance that more–same thing with Genocide “obsession”–it hinders us yes, but we are doing 1001 other constructive amazing things as a community that Toumani ignores. her book is dishonest and so is she. Read it. The old age home where she makes fun of senile survivors; the basketball game between Glendale and Istanbul where she takes an insult out of context–everything conspires to present a one sided obnoxious view of Armenians and plays into the hands of antagonistic political force sin the West. And , here i am half joking, could she please just add the -ian to her name? What’s with Touman”i”?? Read my Huff Post review-Toumani is an real piece of work.
Very well said by Hazel. Totally share her thoughts and opinions.
It is painfully obvious that Ms Meline Toumani is a confused person, with a shaky character. There are many parts in the book, that clearly reflect her insensitivity , dishonesty and biased pro Turkish opinions.
I have no idea who she really is, or what her true background is. May be Armenians in New Jersey who might know her,can shed some light.
A question to be answered is how her four year stay in Turkey was funded or financed? Someone paid her to write this trash.
Vart Adjemian
Hazel Barsamian has written the quintessential review of Meline Toumani’s book. I felt, in the four minutes it took to read this review, more honesty, insight, and gravitas, than during the four days I took to read Toumani’s vial, inept “memoir.” In fact, those four days were filled with feelings about an author full of hatred toward her community and hatred toward herself, masked by an overt persona of a semi-educated, yet insecure, elitist. It is unfortunate that a few of us have had to waste our time reading and denouncing Toumani’s toxic tome. No doubt, some misguided Armenian-American youth, existing on the pseudo-intellectual fringe, will see Toumani as some sort of iconoclast. She is nothing of the sort. What she got published was full of destructive lies. Toumani needed to be exposed for what she is. Her like-minded friends, at their next Brooklyn wine & cheese love-in, certainly would not.
Thank you Hazel. I have not read the book yet and may not, but my mother was a survivor and I spent years researching that period of history for my book and film, MY MOTHER’S VOICE. In my mind’s eye I was there during the deportation and it was a painful experience writing my Mom’s story. The most difficult was “witnessing” the cruelty inflicted upon the Ottoman Armenians. There was no compassion extended to them because the purpose was to exterminate the entire Armenian population so the Young Turks would not lose Western Armenia as they did with the Balkans. Western Armenia is now call eastern Turkey and our roots have been shattered, but like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, we Armenians have begun to regain our Armenian intelligentsia…lost for almost a hundred years.
I’m halfway through the book, and I had guessed right from the title of the book itself: “Gar oo tchegar” was the start of fictitious stories that our elders used to tell us, and Meline is looking to the Genocide from that prism. In a nutshell, she suggests to lay aside all recognition / reparation efforts for the Genocide; modernize and think out of the box; seek relationship with similar activists both Armenian and Turkish; spread that “brotherly” feeling all over Turkey, Armenia, and both diaspora; let bygones be bygones; and secure the survival of Armenia and Armenians through such mental exercises. (I’m not sure what the second half of the book say about Armenian “invasion” of Karabagh). All I have to say to Meline is : The pursuit of Genocide recognition / reparation is NOT what’s hindering Armenian survival. Its not the diaspora, the Dashnak or otherwise methodology that is bringing insecurity to Armenian survival. It is us, Armenians, who stubbornly insist on living as Armenians in that geopolitics that is the root of all our ills. We are of a different race, religion, language, heritage…and we aspire to be independent of our neighbors: That’s where the problem is. We are not Turks, we are not moslems, and we geographically split the western Turkics from eastern Turkics, thus hindering all efforts of establishing a Turanic Empire. Our Genocide was interrupted, through Turkic loss in WWI, and us subsequently “safeguarded” in the Soviet Union. Now, all efforts are executed to put away the Armenian Republic, and that animosity has nothing to do with how the diaspora perceives the Genocide. Meline misses this basic drive of the Turks, and aspires to be an activist who will bring peace to the area through joint efforts with Turkish activists. BTW, she is not the first, nor will be the last with these aspirations of modernizing her compatriots mentality. Many have tried and failed; many others have tried between Israelis and Palestinians; but they have all failed, since they fail to apprehend the basic issue of “either me or you”. I know Armenians do not aspire to do away with the Turks in that geopolitics; but that’s not the case of Turks’ ideology of doing away with all others. Meline, the puck lies in Turkish courts for seven centuries: Will they live and let others live? Will they handle “others” in a way that is different from handling of the peaceful Chaldeans and Assyrians and Yazidis by ISIS???
Bravo, Hazel! I, too, am a first generation American Armenian, raised a home of survivors of the Genocide and have been and continue to be actively involved in my Armenian community. Sadly, I did not have the foresight to ask about their life in the ‘yergir’. They only talked about the things they saw as positive. I had the opportunity to go to their village and walked the streets/and paths of my family. My brother put it quite accurately when he wrote:
“They are all gone now.
All that remains are the tattered and yellowed photographs, faded letters, and distant memories of the young Armenians who arrived on America’s shores the dawn of the twentieth century. Forced to leave their ancestral homeland in the heart of the Ottoman Empire, they brought with them the yearning for a new life in a new land of hope and promise. They persevered in their newly adopted country despite the sadness of separation from family members whose fate was always in doubt and in many cases never to be known. But they also brought with them a rich, ancient language and culture that was multi-faceted and most notably expressed through their deep and abiding Christian faith – a faith whose roots trace back to biblical times. Who were these people? They were my ancestors.
Sometimes as I gaze out at the crowd at a dance or picnic, I envision the early twentieth century generation with their smiling faces, their animated conversation, their overflowing joy and sense of pride. But most of all, I remember and hear their ancestral voices.”
Bravo Unger Hazel! There is much to be proud of in the ability of survivors to create a vibrant diasporan community. We are far from perfect, not above criticism, but certainly much more than is suggested by being labeled “obsessed.”
Sadly, Ms. Toumani lacks informed empathy for her suffering nation. Yes, suffering—not like unconsolable victims of their own obsessive creation—but like those who carry the burden of a quest for a just resolution to a heinous crime. The Armenian quest is not about hate, but about love for nation, heritage and slaughtered innocents.
The title of the book says it all: Talking to our children about the Genocide is like us telling a fairy tale story of “gar oo tceegar takavor meh gar”. I feel hurt how she ridicules our 90 plus old survivors telling their ordeals. Of how she sees our college youth at U of C Berkley (Patrick) on April 24. All she does is put everything Armenian effort down, harmful to our existence, and shames the expression of everybody’s Armenianness. She is a lost girl, looking for fame in other circles, presenting herself like a forerunner who will break the ice, think outside the box, modernize, and shape Armenians in their destiny. She may even believe, that Armenians were the reason of what befell them, and she wants to see herself as the Akcam Jemal Dink of the Turkish circles. Her part is a failure in re-inventing the wheel. I was also shocked of what Michael Arlen had written about this book. I will finish the second half of the book tonight, but I need to mention even this: Enough of her, enough of so many others, who make a sole thinker out of Hrant Dink. Enough abusing Dink’s memory. He was a great man. He paid the price. Yet Armenian survival is much bigger than Dink, let alone novelties like dear Meline. No hatred to her: She may choose to leave, or may choose to return to mainstream Armenian circles, who don’t ridicule our grandmothers’ ordeals, nor put down our campus commemorative members, nor express covert venoms to Armenian organizations. So many Melines have come and passed, but sorry that this Meline has gone astray too!!!
Thank you for your insightful remarks, Hazel.
Armenians must never forget. Period.
Our loss is great.
Those who try to minimize that loss are ignorant of the facts.
I don’t think, each of us as individuals can say if we’re obsessed or not: some are and some aren’t . But forgetting Genocide is impossible: we carry Historical trauma because of it! Our disfunctional and our successes have a lot to do with what happened back then. We can’t forget even if we try. Nobody denies Holocost, nobody days French Revolution never happened, nobody says Russian revolution was this little misunderstanding. We need to have that recognition so we feel equal to everybody else as a nation! It doesn’t mean it should be our only goal! I also think, that best way to go about it is not only by reminding the world and peacefully fighting for it, but also by educating children, all children! Having true age- appropriate history of the world instead of white- washed politicized and severely scewed one children study and cannot remember most of it.
So, no, it is not an obsession it is a duty of each and every one of us to actively pursue recognition of Armenian Genocide. It’s healthy for is and result will be good for the world!
Author is entitled to her opinion , of course
Very well said Hazel Barsamian.
Agree with Mr.Musurlian: to date, the best review and analysis I have read about the book.
And kudos to ArmenianWeekly for publishing Hazel’s letter.
Don’t go further, look at the Lausanne Treaty. The Truth was killed another time and the Armenian individuals,call them communities, took the challenge to reestablish Justice. Since then the Armenians are living the Genocide wherever they are. That is now part of their Identity… Armenians have done a great job beside surviving on their own, and look around your world, you’ll see.
Now one says there was or there wasn’t doesn’t change the World. Let us be more tolerating to one another and the World will be Brighter.
Open letter to readers of AW.
I spent quite a bit of time trying to research Meline Toumani. Most of her bio is sketchy with no specific details. Who is she?
– She claims she grew up in New Jersey. Where in New Jersey? When did her family move to New Jersey from Iran? Is Toumani her real name? Who were her parents?
– She claims that when she was young, she attended an Armenian Summer camp in Massachusetts. Which camp, which year? Someone must have attended the same camp and must have known her.
– She claims she graduated from U.C Berkeley. Which year? U.C. Berkeley has many American-Armenian students and an active student body. Does anybody know her?
– Unless she was independently wealthy, who funded/financed her stay in Turkey for 4 years? Something is fishy and smells.
– Allegedly she had a promising career as a journalist at the New York times. Yet I could not find a single article published in the New York Times by her.
I personally am of the opinion that she was paid to write and publish this trash on the Centennial of the Genocide.
Vart Adjemian
Vart…There are some answers to a few of your questions, but your overall premise & tone are correct: very, very sketchy! And, I know you & I are not trying to perpetuate some ridiculous conspiracy or smear campaign of Toumani’s credentials. Often times, where there is smoke there is fire. In this case, it is the smokescreen of ambiguity and the fire of 100th-Anniversary timing.
In addition to what you pointed out she, “in 2002 and 2003, she was the coordinator of the Russian American Journalism Institute in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, and in 2007 she and was a journalism fellow in residence at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.” At best she is a mysteriously-financed globetrotting dilettante. At worst…well…let your imagination run wild.
If she has applied for fellowships and book advances and gotten them, good for her. If her mommy and daddy have financed her hobby, I am less impressed. If she has procured “government” funding of some kind, from a “government,” that would be troubling.
{“– She claims that when she was young, she attended an Armenian Summer camp in Massachusetts. Which camp, which year? Someone must have attended the same camp and must have known her.”}
According to the counselor at the camp, Raffi Meneshian, Ms. Toumani was at the camp.
Also according to the same gentleman, her recollection of what transpired at the camp is inaccurate.
Here, people can read the entire post:
(Raffi Meneshian // December 27, 2014 at 4:37 pm // )
http://armenianweekly.com/2014/12/18/soul-searching-or-self-serving/
Peter and Vart,
it seems that she was funded by Global Post. Information about its founders and mission can be found here.
http://www.globalnewsenterprises.net/teamGNC09.php
I haven’t read her book, yet, but she has an article summarizing what’s in the book, which I read and found very disturbing. Ms. Toumani refers to what’s an undisputable historical fact as “Armenian version of the story.”
http://www.thenation.com/article/184225/madness-what-art-could-there-be#
I wonder whether the idea came form Global Post, and they decided to recruit her for the task as an ethnic Armenian, or she is the one who applied. She proudly advertises the book and the reviews on her website. What a “golden opportunity” to get recognition.
Vart,
Thanks for bringing up those valid points. If it helps to add some info, apparently someone knew her attending summer camp in 1989 (Raffi Meneshian) and posted his comment on Yegparian’s Asbarez and AW articles and Amazon (again with a generous two stars instead of one). Also, her husband “Alex Bruskin” was ‘promoting’ her book on his twitter account…
Ms. Toumani should have broadened her research beyond her childhood camp memories. A lot of us went to no camp. Our memories came from family members.
My grandmother was born long before the Genocide. She was v old when I was born. She and her mother escaped the Hamidian massacres.
She did not know the word “Genocide,” and had been obsessed only with keeping her family alive and together, not with Turks. She succeeded.
I have clear recollections as a young child of what she told me.
She told me that Turks and “Koorts” had “chopped up” the Armenians, who did not know who their ancestors were anymore because they were forced to bury their family bibles from Moslems. The bibles contained the names of their ancestors, and were handed down through the generations. Her statement conveyed well the destruction of history, place and possessions she and all Armenians suffered. Toumani is too young to know these things. I am not.
She told me also that Turkey was an influential nation, with control over key waterways, meaning that no European power would do anything, despite their statements of outrage. The Armenians were abandoned and without Christian help. I would say that she reserved her hatred only for the British state in this regard, not the Moslems, whom she saw as individuals, good and bad.
Toumani’s reported position is not only contrary to the truth, but it is also superficial, and an easy sell to westerners made squeamish in the face of Moslem murders, who want to find a compromise to extinguish this old but still hot issue.
Ultimately, the truth of the Armenian Genocide is not property belonging to Armenians to sell. It is truth. Ms. Toumani has betrayed truth – not her own people.
Dear Hazel,
Thank you for a lucid and persuasive review. Perhaps you might consider sedding the review to The Economist ‘Letters’ section, which ran a superficial but positive review of Toumani’s book in the ‘culture’ section of their last issue. Sadly such ‘international’ publications seem incapable of proper research on such issues!
Its an excellent article Hazel,well said,thank you.
As for Toumani I don’t want to waste my time on her she is not worth it.
Why read it?
Instead, read Summer Without Dawn by Agop J. Hacikyan, an incredibly beautiful story you won’t be able to put down. You will get up in the middle of the night just to find out what happens on the next page. The writing is beautiful. The plot line is innovative and mesmerizing. The story unveils the Genocide with accuracy and sensitivity. This is the best Armenian historical novel I have ever read. Don’t go to the library for it. Buy your own copy because you will want to reread some sections just for the sheer pleasure of reading perfectly written narrative.
And try to track down the book Mamigon by Jack Hashian. This is about a man who knows who murdered his family, and, like Soghoman Telirian, wants Justice. Here is the opening chapter of the Forward:
“This is the story of Mamigon…soldier, sailor, blacksmith, truck driver. It is also a story about Armenians—not the gentle and sensitive Armenians of William Saroyan and Elia Kazan—but the Armenians descended from those who first cast iron and rode their horses roughshod and bloodily through the Bronze Age; of Armenians descended from those who beat back the Persian hordes of Darius and Cyrus, the Greek phalanxes, the Roman legions, holding out for centuries at the crossroads of civilization, the Golden Crescent, only to embrace Christianity and finally fall to the sword of Islam.
This is the story of Mamigon, a modern-day Armenian at the start of World War 1 who did not know how to turn the other cheek. It is a story of vengeance and death as he tracks the killer of his family across the suddenly hostile homeland of his fathers to the bewildering shores of the New World.”
Mamigon and Summer Without Dawn are books that will make clear who you are and the strength you inherited. Neither have anything to do with the ambivalence of the fairy-tale title of There was and There was Not.
Vart Adjemian raises an interesting supposition.
Somewhat tangential to the core of the story, but nevertheless relevant.
If it weren’t so tragically hypocritical, it would be comical of Ms. Toumani to speak about alleged hate that Armenians supposedly harbor towards Turks.
Let’s take a look at some facts.
A Turkish author, Orhan Pamuk, fled his native Turkey in fear of his life. Why ?
[In 2005, Pamuk was put on trial in Turkey after he made a statement regarding the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. His intention, according to Pamuk himself, had been to highlight issues relating to freedom of speech (or lack thereof) in the country of his birth. The ensuing controversy featured the burning of Pamuk’s books at rallies. He has also been the target of assassination attempts.](from Wiki)
An Armenian intellectual, writer, and peace activist, Hrant Dink, who preached peace and friendship between Armenian and Turkish peoples, was gunned down in broad daylight in Istanbul on a busy street: shot in the back of the head by a cowardly Neo-Nazi Turk nationalist Anti-Armenian scum. The real conspirators and organizers of the murder are still at large, being hidden and protected by the Neo-Nazi Turkish State.
An elderly Azerbaijani writer, Akram Aylisli, 75, who wrote a fictional book that told about the Baku pogroms of defenseless Armenian civilians, was officially ostracized, his pension and awards withdrawn, his books publicly burned, his family threatened.
All with the approval of the Aliyev Crime Family.
An official of the Musavat Party in Azerbaijan posted a reward of $13,000 to anyone who would cut off one of the ears of the defenseless senior citizen.
So how was Ms. Toumani treated by those hate-filled Armenians.
Let us recall that she apparently ridicules elderly eyewitnesses of the Armenian Genocide, which is tantamount to denying the AG.
Well, Ms. Toumani was invited to Armenian owned and operated bookstore, Abril , in Glendale CA, home to about 80,000 Armenians, many of whom are descendants of the survivors of the Genocide.
She was given the opportunity to present her hateful book in a civil and safe environment.
The worst that happened ? She was asked some sharp questions by those present, which she apparently dismissed out of hand, and ridiculed the questioners.
Yep, those hate-filled Armenians.
Under the veil of modernization and thinking out of the mainstream box, it is her seeking recognition, rather than making the Genocide recognition as her central point. To easily access such recognition, which BTW she succeeded to achieve, she sweats to artificially hurt so many Armenian youth and elderly, circles and organizations. I wonder who she is doing lip-service. She has eloquent language to write, yet she is paying some dues somewhere else. Under every sentence regarding Armenians, her sarcasm goes the unnecessary extra mile. I don’t think she has sold her soul yet; I can see many things Armenian in her; and I hope she comes back to her senses and her unavoidable Armenianness.
Thank you, Hazel, for your extremely well written letter.
I cannot agree more with Mrs. Barsamian. This is the most intelligent and insightful analysis of Toumani’s book I have read within the Armenian Community. As a kid from Chicago, I remember Mrs. Barsamian and her mother, Mrs. Tatson, with fondness. It is people like Mrs. Barsamian we should be hearing from- people who actually contributed toward building a Community.
Dear compatriots. One thing we miss to realize: She has to renew her stay in Turkey; she has to abide by some central written and unwritten codes; she works for some company that supports and pays for her expenses and livelihood; and last but not least, Turkish MIT before clearing her stay and reports, knows damn well where and how long she’s been to which camp, what were campers taught there, which college she attended, what she used to do on April 24 Commemorations with the Armenian student body; mom, dad, grandparents, all background of ancestors social political communal; her stands as she grows up regarding Dashnaks, ASALA, A.G.B.U……. Before she can even dream of being an “activist” in Turkey; before she gets funded for certain reporting; she has to be an open page to the company(s) and country she wants to research and write about. Even this paragraph I’m writing about, this name I’m signing under, will be filed someplace somewhere in my background, worldview, Armenian and Turkish view…. So please, sitting in the US or some other area of the diaspora, I have to understand some delicate points!!!! I still believe she is “sweating” to put down anything Armenian done in the diaspora, at least the diaspora she was part of, where 5 summer camps she attended because “the camp was geographically close, rather than because her/her family had anything “common” with!!!! And mind you, what I know, MIT knows too, so does the the company she works for!!!! Having said that, she has eloquent language, and a good read, unless you miss that many notes she has to write down because she “has” to write down. As a silver lining, she calls for the betterment of our lives both in Armenia and the diaspora, modernizing ourselves to these times both economically and spiritually!!!!
If we think about it, and I have done so and said so for many years, we are quite fortunate that we don’t have more “Melanie Toumanis”.
We have very few, in fact, compared to other ethnic groups.
We Armenians are all more or less on the same page insofar as our history and our quest for justice go.
This is not conformism. This is commitment and a refusal to give up, which is what Toumani and her pals would like us to do.
And if we did so, Toumani would blame us for THAT – for giving up.
She’s a perpetual malcontent, out to make a pain of herself. Let her stew in her own sour juices.
There will always be the utterly malcontented and ignorant among us, especially those seeking notoriety, such as Toumani.
This must spur us all to work TWICE as hard. In this sense only, Toumani may have unwittingly done us a favor, though she intended to do us harm.
Midnight, just through the last chapter of this book.
And where did I end up to.
As always, impromptu unedited thoughts from me.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. The more Meline tries to transform herself, go from chapter to chapter, year to year in life, the more she comes back to the reality on ground. She just had to go through these experiences, to end up back to her roots.
She just had to find out for herself, what other Armenians have gone much deeper ( many Dashnak visionaries whom she fails to acknowledge or mention; many many Armenian historic patriots before her), that unequal peoples cannot negotiate at par. That at the bottom of it all, it is the power or the lack of it that decides the outcome, be it Genocide, secondary citizenry, or reconciliation. She had to go all through this voyage, that an Armenian can make personal friends with the “others”, sleep in their homes, be welcomed in their houses, even in some instances be their daughter or son in laws… yet when it comes to communal, social, national levels, Armenians and Armenia can be only secondary citizens and country in the eyes of the “first-class” Turks!!! She finds out, that the “true” relations and understandings can be set among the “secondary” citizens like Armenians with Kurds, Alevis, leftists, gays, the poor, the people at the bottom of the ladder… That it makes no sense, whether through soccer diplomacy or otherwise, to come to an understanding with people who look to you through the prism of victors and losers!
She needs to live another four years in Western Armenia, in Van, that she keeps repeating as Anatolia or the land of Kurds; she needs another grant of four years in those areas, to reveal to us that though she can best relate to the “second-class” people called the Kurds, that come the establishment of a Kurdistan, Armenians will not be offered not even the Aykesdan of Van: Kurds in power, the best the Armenians can get is tolerance to have Armenian mass in Sourp Khatch of Aghtamar, or Sourp Guiragos of Dikranagerd!!!!
So what to say to the bashing of what is taught at Camp Haiastan (by a 25 year old lecturer); or the Genocide commemorators at UC Berkley; or Harout Sassounian, whose mentality will deprive even his grand-children to “visit” Turkey; or the Dashnaks, who were the first to reject the “soccer diplomacy”; or those Armenian activists, who told Meline that the Bolsahays are victims to the Stockholm Syndrome (of which, I think, she became one as she was going through this transformation).
Meline, in your analyses, which reminds me of King Arshag and the power of the “Hayreni Hogheh” ( as you end up the last chapter or two of your book after return from Turkey, on a free soil, on a more Armenian soil), you end up with what the Dashnags, all Armenian nationalists know damn well: That you can negotiate only as equals, at par, from power, irrespective of our Stockholm Syndrome “hostages” in Istanbul and Turkey at large. That lack of power makes not only Armenians in Turkey as secondary citizens; not only the survivors of the Genocide in the diaspora at large; but even the Republic of Armenia and Artsakh become “secondary” countries and nations, if they lack the power to negotiate Turkey and Azerbaijan at par. Yes, the lack of power that you write in your last chapter; the lack of Armenian power that makes us the weak link in our negotiations.
Thank Almighty Creation that you found out where the issue rests. Let the force be with you. Let journalists activists like you explore themselves, transform themselves, and see that at the end, it is not the recognition or the reparations that we lack, but it is the power that force these happen.
I love you, because I cannot hate an Armenian. And please, abstain from bashing any Armenian, the “losers” in this quest of survival, whether you attend an Armenian Camp for its proximity or through your affiliation.
Continue your transformative journey. May you bring us closer to that Power that we lack, that we lost through centuries of persecutions. Show your people where we’re failing, and how we can get better.
Regards.
My both grand grandmothers were genocide survivor, one of them died 8 years ago, she was 101 years old, she lost 8 members of her family in 1915. I could see the pain in her eyes, the look of horror on her face while growing up… Toumanis family was not touched by the Genocide. Her roots lie in Iran and Georgia. Had she lost her family she would not be quite so eager to brush off her community’s desire for recognition of the GENOCIDE!!! She showed little compassion for genocide survivors, little understand of what they went through. One of the most disturbing scenes Toumani recounts was her description of elderly genocide survivors telling their stories. She leaves the reader with the impression that she doesn’t believe the stories being told which I found outrageous on her part. She shows no compassion for those who suffered in the genocide and no understanding of the courage it took to build a diaspora. She highlights the worst characteristics of our ethnic group, without any balance, and overall, appeared confused about how she felt about her ethnic group. I am not impressed at