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Uzay Bulut

Uzay Bulut

Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist and political analyst formerly based in Ankara. She is a fellow at the Middle East Forum (MEF) and is currently based in Washington D.C. Bulut’s journalistic work focuses mainly on Turkish politics, ethnic and religious minorities in Turkey, and antisemitism.

28 Comments

  1. After all is said, it is distinctly Macchiavellan: Through thick or thin, it has served, and is still serving, the expansion of Islam on land. Even the objective un-biased Muslim will say: “But it’s working !!! Here and there, throughout history, everybody has done it: Look how the U.S. was borne !!! Look what all Christian colonialists have done time and again !!! Look even what non-muslim non-christian colonialists have done and still do !!!! The pages of history is in defense of perpetrating genocides and ethnic cleansing: So why to pick on Turks for committing a genocide or two.” And such answers will come from the learned human-rights-activist Turks, and this is called “the Fifth Narrative About the Armenian Genocide by Turks and Islam…”.

  2. a well constructed and informative article Uzay especially about the conflation between PKK and Armenians. I am surprised that you didnt cover another, more psycho-pathologically centric narrative that Armenians are suffering from inter-generational trauma and therefore their claims are groundless. I have often thought without a genuine truth and reconciliation process nothing will change in these narratives. Turkey will continue its denial which now borders on a collective conscious delusional paranoia. It would be of great of interest to me if someone were to do a journalistic investigation on the 2001 faux truth and reconciliation charade that was sanctioned by the Turkish government.

  3. Another form of “denial” comes from some Armenians who say, explicitly or implicitly:

    ‘That was 100 years ago. Stop harping on it and live your life. The genocide is over. There is no particular threat from Turkey now. It has not threatened Armenia. And pan-Turkism, which means Turkey somehow allying with Azerbaijan and the Turkic nations of central asia, is a dead theory that not even Turks believe in anymore. Let’s reconcile with Turkey, which is changing for the better and becoming more free and open.’

    • You are so misinformed Talin. Obviously you have not been following Turkish news for the last 10 or so years. Only about 5 years ago that Turkey threatened to drop few bombs on Armenia to teach us a lesson for supporting Karabagh…As Pan Turanism ( not pan Turkism) is alive and well in most Turkish political centers, however it is not possible to establish that union so desired by Turkey, because all these nations of Central Asia are at odds with each other, thus Pan-Turanism is nothing but a dream but still alive.

      The biggest mistake you did is suggesting Armenians to forget the genocide….Thank God most Armeniansd do not have your train of thought…Shame on you..

  4. Thank you for your candidness.
    It’s not surprising that western politicians/governments/leaders aren’t doing their part to bring the perpetrators to justice because of the massive PR and bribery efforts of the Turks and Azerbaijanis.
    3 billion dollars were spent showering European politicians and media people to be pro Azerbaijani. (As recently revealed by The Guardian.) That’s 3,000 million dollars.
    The West should be ashamed. It’s either being bribed or blackmailed into supporting the ongoing genocide denial.

  5. You had me up until you cited Bat Ye’or. The woman’s a complete imbecile who believes muslims are taking over the west even though actual demographic trends tell a different story. And you also ignored that a.) The Yazidis started out as a MUSLIM offshoot (they were followers of the Umayaad’s). More importantly the “conversion by the sword” was largely overexxagerated. Bat Yeor has no problem making things up that suit her so anything she says is suspect. Bernard Lewis (the dean of Islamic scholarship) has stated that Muslim fighters are commanded not to kill women, children, or the aged unless they attack first; not to torture or otherwise ill-treat prisoners; to give fair warning of the opening of hostilities or their resumption after a truce; and to honor agreements. … At no time did the classical jurists offer any approval or legitimacy to what we nowadays call terrorism. Nor indeed is there any evidence of the use of terrorism as it is practiced nowadays.”[59]

    Kemal Attaturk detested Islam and the government was largely secular. The Armenian Genocide was largely based on nationalism with Islam used an excuse to act on ethinc hatred

    • Bernard Lewis is a horrible example as he’s in the minority group of ‘scalars’ known to fabricate and basically is a Turkish foot soldier apologist who tries desperately to hide behind his doctorate to narrate a ‘poor Turk who was a victim himself’ narrative, regardless of FACTS. Lewis’ blatant Armenian genocide denials has been ridiculed by legitimate academia. Not a good example. As for Ataturk, he was a Donemeh Zionist Jew from Salonika as was the other Young Turk regime actors who directly concocted the Armenian Genocide and theft of property and wealth. That’s why the secularism. Henry Morganthaus wrote volumes on how Talaat and the Young Turk regime talked about Islam but never ever went to any Mosque. That’s because they were Jewish. Sir Gerard Lowther, British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople, witnessed everything and wrote how the “Young Turk regime was really a Jewish movement”. That’s why today Israel, the USA, who’s foreign policy is directly run by the Israeli lobby, and Great Britain actively deny facts and reality of the Armenian Genocide. It would open a Pandora’s box of who the actual concoctors of the Armenian Christian Genocide and robbery were. Even the ADL, a supposed ‘human rights group’ who’s head Abe Foxman, used to say the AG recognition would ‘harm the Jews of Turkey’? Really? how? Him and everyone like him knows exactly what happened. Cant hide the truth forever. The days are coming.

    • Yes , and today how many Armenians are leaving Armenia in there droves heading for the Turkic borders risking life n limb just to be amongst turks Turkish life and cultur how many legal and illegals are there currently living and earning the Turkish lira when they have pro armen nations they can also go to ! Yet they choose the Turks that the diaspora bark on about

    • While it could be argued that it was off-topic material (perhaps added for effect – she perhaps thinks this is what Armenians expect to read?), there is nothing that Uzay Bulut wrote concerning Islam that was inaccurate. Ryan’s claim that Muslims can’t kill women or children or commit various other atrocities because their religion commands them not to is like Erdogan’s AG-denying claim that Muslims can’t have ever committed genocide because their religion commands them not to. So, let’s just disregard every historical event proving otherwise. Also, calling Kemalist Turkey “secular” is vastly oversimplifying things.

  6. Lets be clear: the real reason for the Armenian, Greek and Assyrian genocide was theft of wealth and property. Nothing more. And to be clear, the Turks horribly oppressed everyone they occupied…. By 1915 however, most had rid the Turkish yoke but the Armenians weren’t so lucky as their ancient homeland was Anatolia itself. So the Young Turk regime, who were vastly Donme as that fact needs to be included in all Armenian genocide discussions, decided upon genocide and carried it out using Jihad as a unifying tool for Turks and Kurds to do the actual raping and murdering. The denial and brain washing since, and the reason for the Armenian genocide being labeled “the biggest Turkish national security threat” is again financial. Turks have no intention of ever recognizing what they did because it would mean reparations to the original owners and possible lands returned that DO NOT BELONG TO TURKS.

  7. Great article. It should be home-lesson for all European politicians because it is not difficult to apply the basic mechanism on everything that has to do with islam and the islamization of Western Europe. Keep on the fight for the free world and the revealing of islam as it is Uzay!

    • I agree with you,
      Seems to me after defeating corrupt Eastern Roman Empire by Turkic herds, today’s Turkish corrupt leader has the same mentality of Byzantine Empire!

  8. It is a disgrace that this author is using the Armenian genocide to extend her Islamophobic and Orientalist views that have been debunked by so many scholars. One cannot and should not fight for the rights of one group of people while denigrating another entire religion and group of people. After all denigration of an entire religious or ethnic group is the essential component for perpetrating a genocide. I wish the author had stuck to the initial points she had made and not gone off on a rant against Islam. It’s disappointing that Armenian Weekly would allow the publication of such an article, particularly in this era of increasing Islamophobia and White Supremacy in the US.

    • Dzovinar,

      Your post is nonsense. It also is quite fashionable.

      There is nothing Islamophobic or Orientalist in what the author wrote. Nobody disputes that non-Muslims [that means us, Dzovie] at best were third class citizens known as dhimmi before they were the subjects of official jihad. Nobody disputes that Turkish Moslem leaders declared jihad against the Armenians in aid of the government’s eliminationist intent. True, some Moslem leaders in Egypt and elsewhere condemned the jihad.

      As of “orientalism,” that is a bizarre [if fashionable] charge to make. The journalist is from Turkey. She said nothing to insult modern day Turkishness, just the genocide denial of the state.

      You should apologize.

    • The only disgrace in these pages is your comment.

      There is nothing “islamophobic” in pointing out the continuing and Genocidal role of racism by Muslims against non-Muslims, who also are not Turks. There is also not a hint of what Edward Said called “orientalism.” Are you aware the author is a Turk? Have you read her other stories here and in other publications?

      Your post typifies a regrettable trend among many weak-minded herd-followers: ignore what the target has said, and attack for some tiny, and in this case invisible affront not to the poster’s group, but instead to a supposed victimized group, which I guess you think are Turks and Moslems, mostly thoseof 1915.

      Dzovinar, this may go over in a soft class at college, but nowhere else.

    • Speaking the truth about what happened to the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks for the last 600+ years leading up to now and in what is today called Turkey is NOT Islamophobia or Orientalist. It is called speaking the truth.

  9. An objective historian may say: The 19th century was to dismantle the Ottoman Empire; on and off incursions to the Caucuses, the Balkans, Egypt and the Arabic Peninsula. Sultan Abdul Hamid tried to preserve the unity, but was failing. The Young Turks took over, and tried to save the Empire’s unity: They failed. They lost the Balkans; they lost on the Russian Front; and Arab revolts were in the cooking. The Empire was dismantling into nation-states, and Turkic Ottoman refugees were fleeing into the heartland. Thus, the Triumvirate changed course, and adopted the motto of nationalism, trying to save the remnants of the vast Empire in a nationalistic heartland. And when nationalism runs high, other nationalisms cannot coexist alongside, and are strictly mutually exclusive. Empire- turned -into -a- nation Turks used the easy tool of religious Jihad to identify their easy targets of non-moslems ( Armenian, Assyrian, Pontic, Greek…), and moslem Kurds worked synergistic with Turks et al. to cleanse the land from all non-moslems. This march to Turkish nationalism is still in completion, the last targets being moslem-but-not-Turkish Kurds, Alevis, Zaza…!!! And a 13 year old Zaza kid in Chungush told me in 2008: “Our teacher taught us in school, that we had to throw all the Christians down that pit into their death, so that we save the Republic !!!!!! p.s. Turkish kids in mid-school are taught the Fifth Narrative: “We had to kill all the Christians, in whatever means possible, TO SAVE THE REPUBLIC”!!! So, the Fifth Narrative is: Yes, we killed them all (you may call it a genocide, a massacre, a cleansing…), but we are justified, because WE HAD TO SAVE THE REPUBLIC!!!!!

    • @ ‘Dzovina’
      So in an article discussing turkish MO in denying justice to the victims of the Armenian Genocide and their descendants, your response not only discuss the actual issue, but instead disparaged the author for his alleged “Islamophobic” and then “Orientalist views”, “a disgrace” and somehow, you also managed to insert “White Supremacy in the US.” into this.

      One has to wonder about your motives and authenticity, given your comment.
      The topic seems of a little interest to you, but highlighting what you think is “disgraceful” because the author dared to point out the facts, and did not choose to be politically correct.
      I know he speaks for most of us, certainly speaks for me. My grand parents witnessed the horrors of the genocide first hand, and yet I come here to read your comment.
      It is obvious that you think we shouldn’t tell the truth or censor ourselves to pander to a certain group, while recycling another special interest group’s talking points which are irrelevant to this topic.

      ————————————————————
      Since my initial response was censored, I can only hope that Armenian Weekly does not condone your attacks, nor endorses censorship, but I have seen stranger things.

  10. There is also “Narrative 5”, the “So what? Get over it!” narrative. It is the narrative presented by a great many non-Turkish academics (including, ironically, a number of Armenians). A key element to this narrative is decontextualisation. Just as an artefact’s intrinsic value is diminished if decontextualised from its origin, Armenians are diminished in cultural and historical importance by being decontextualised. The word “Armenia” is no longer used as a geographical or historical term – it is now called Eastern Anatolia. The ROA is also considered to be part of Eastern Anatolia by those using this term. This turns Armenians into being just one of a myriad of different peoples that existed on a vast land area called “Anatolia”, and since nobody is shouting “genocide” about the disappearance of the Galatians, or the Lycians, or the Issaurians, why should what happened to Armenians be singled out.
    Armenian sites are decontextualised by being labelled “multicultural” and appropriated into a wider “Anatolian” culture. For example, Ani, in most current academic literature, is not described as an Armenian site – it is an “Eastern Anatolian” site and is characterized as a place that was “home” to various “cultures” that existed side by side. The immediacy of the genocide on Armenian sites is eliminated through muzealization: buildings are “restored”, scrubbed clean of their inconvenient history, and presented as tourist attractions and demonstrations of “tolerance”.
    Armenians are thus minimalized and marginalised into being a non-nation historical minority, without any singular cultural or historical importance, but one that backwardly resisted assimilation into the multicultural and tolerant Ottoman Empire (which is presented as a sort of proto-European Union). In this context the extermination of the region’s Armenian population is presented as a required act on the road bringing Turkey into the modern era. The Armenian Genocide was thus not an exceptional event that justifies the “divisive” label genocide, but just a natural and inevitable historical process.

  11. In my 55 years since self recognition and political awareness, I have never met a Turk who has not expressed racist position towards all none Turks, be they Muslim or none Muslim. Unlike Kurds who being mostly Sunni Moslems easy to turn to Turks,Armenians are a nation with own religion, the Armenian church, on historical homeland defined since before Roman empire. From 19th and 20 the century fascist Turkish nationalists Armenian nation was an insurmountable obstacle on the road of The Great Turkish Race Nation.

  12. Why a comment from ‘Dzovinar’ accusing the author of ‘Islamophobic and Orientalist views’ is allowed and my 2 attempts to explain that the article did not have such views but instead explaining facts about the turkish MO when denying the Genocide were censored?
    Are only certainly people with certain views allowed to comment?
    This is puzzling and disappointing.

    • To all who have posted on this comments thread:

      We at the Armenian Weekly *sincerely* apologize. If your comment was not published, it was purely a mistake, not because it was being censored. We have recently discovered our site has had an enormous backlog of comments—nearly one thousand— and are currently moderating them. We are an incredibly small staff, just two people, and we are going through the comments as swiftly as we can. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. We do, however, moderate comments. Any comments containing profane language, hate speech, or racist diatribe will not be tolerated. Comments sections should exist to facilitate healthy dialogue, and we believe volleys of vulgar insults serve no one.

      Thank you for your readership,

      Karine Vann
      Assistant Editor

  13. How can any Armenian live under turkish rule knowing the full truth of these events? Talat Pasha was right about one thing, there can be no friendship between the Armenians and turks (as nations) after that crime. the only way to solve this situation is the turks returning to the Armenians the Western Armenian territories that were stolen from them through the Genocide. Or baring that, the complete destruction of one of the two sides. if we forget the Genocide without justice served we will slowly cease to be Armenian.

  14. They didn’t die. They change and hide their identies. There is still 6 million Armenians live in Turkey with hidden idenity. They call them as Kurds. There was ASALA(Armenian) terrorist group which betrayed Ottoman. They always try to make their rebellion. Even they tried to kill Vahdettin. That is the reason why Ottoman made a decision and expelled Armenians from Ottoman. Some of them try to resist to go. That is the reason why the most of them change their name and introduce theirselfes as Kurds. If you don’t believe me come to Turkey’s east. If you saw any chrisitian Kurds or Kurds that can’t speak Kurdish, they are the Armenians. You can find lost Armenians in Turkey as alive but can’t find a graves of them in anywhere around the world. Because they didn’t get killed. That is the reason why that Armenia still can not show the graves of Armenians. 1.5 million Armenians get killed but couldn’t even find a simple grave of them? Wow that is just so unreal.

  15. I have always supported that we should examine evidence that we have about that genocide. That’s why I agree with the Armenians that current government of the Turkey just denying that claim rather than proving that didn’t happen. I believe we Turks and Armenians, we should always be good friends. I love all nations and we all should be.

    Check that article which is written by a Turkish atheist about genocide:

    http://turkishatheist.net/?p=65

  16. I take issue with the end of the article in that the author craftily moves the blame for the genocide from the turks to Islam. As someone commented, religion might have been used to stir the turk masses, but the genocide was a land grab by the TURKS and nothing else.

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