Mick Hartley

Armenia and Islamophobia

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Mick Hartley

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ction in the early Nineties is not something to be proud of, it hardly ranks as a crime on the same level as the massive slaughter perpetrated by the Turkish government from the 1890s through to 1915 and beyond. The British, French and Dutch weren’t cheering on the Serbs: they (foolishly) believed that intervention would only make matters worse. Indeed Britain under Tony Blair was later instrumental in putting a stop to Serbian aggression, a point surely worth mentioning when trying to find a moral equivalence between Turkish behaviour towards its Christian minorities with Western European behaviour towards its Muslim minorities.

And the Irish Famine? Comparable to the Armenian Genocide?

There’s more special pleading:

One of Akçam’s most illuminating explanations [he’s reviewing this book by Taner Akçam] for contemporary Turkish genocide-denial is that the victorious British and French statesmen who pressed the issue, following their victory over the Ottomans in World War I, conflated it with anti-Turkish imperialist agendas. The Armenian Genocide had been the work of the nationalist ‘Committee of Union and Progress’ (CUP) – or ‘Young Turks’ – that ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Following their defeat in the war, the next generation of Turkish nationalists under Mustafa Kemal – who actually included many of the same individuals – was initially ready to recognise the crimes against the Armenians and to prosecute some of those responsible, as the price for international approval. Yet as Akçam shows, the anti-Turkish vitriol of the British and French leaders; their determination to punish not merely the perpetrators of the genocide but the entire Turkish nation; and their attempts to dismember what was left of the Turkish state, caused a sea-change in Turkish attitudes.

It is tempting to suggest that ninety years later, certain Western politicians are still manipulating the Armenian question for cynical anti-Turkish purposes.

So anti-Turkish vitriol was responsible – and continues to be responsible – for the failure of the Turks to admit responsibility. Nothing to do with the Turks themselves.

Hoare concludes his article:

Akçam argues that confronting the fact of the Armenian Genocide is a necessity if Turkey is finally to complete the transition ‘from Empire to Republic’; i.e. the transition to a democratic state. He is undoubtedly right: Turkey should recognise the genocide. Yet the EU has no right to demand that it do so, so long as the Western European states themselves fail to recognise both their own historic crimes and the historic crimes committed against Europe’s indigenous Muslims.

But why should a Turkish admittance of guilt be dependant on a Western European mea culpa? Why is Hoare so determined to play down what happened, to put it into context: to argue, in effect, that in the end, and considering how brutal recent history has been, it was really nothing special. All that matters, surely, is the question, was the Armenian Genocide a crime against humanity, or was it not?

Comments

  1. J.Cassian Avatar
    J.Cassian

    Yes, I recently stumbled on that article too and it was depressing to see it coming from Marko Attila Hoare, who has written some excellent things about the wars in Yugoslavia. Again, it’s probably down to “consequentialism”: better ignore that inconvenient Armenian business because Turkey is the best Muslim state available and a potential model for other Islamic nations.
    But Armenia is a special case. There have been plenty of atrocities in the twentieth century but as far as I can see there are only three events which were indisputably “genocides”, i.e. a deliberate attempt to destroy an entire race: the Armenian Holocaust, the Shoah and the mass killing of the Tutsis in Rwanda.
    “It is tempting to suggest that ninety years later, certain Western politicians are still manipulating the Armenian question for cynical anti-Turkish purposes.”
    I’d say the opposite. Western politicians have been keener to manipulate the Armenian question (generally by refusing to admit the historical reality of the genocide) for “cynical pro-Turkish purposes”, because Turkey was too useful an ally to annoy.
    The article also displays the common but perplexing phenomenon where no atrocity carried out by Muslims may be mentioned for its own sake without a reference to some atrocity committed by a Western culture, however irrelevant(although the reverse almost never applies: for instance, I don’t recall many condemnations of Tamerlane in books on Hitler- not that I’m complaining about this “deficiency”).

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  2. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    What Britain might feel uncomfortable about on Bosnia is our Government’s forbidding of arms sales to the Bosnians. Otherwise, nothing to do with us. As for the Irish famine: oh bollocks – might as well blame the Yanks, it was their fungus. Or God- he intelligently designed it.

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  3. David T Avatar
    David T

    SHE intelligently designed it.

    Reply
  4. Marko Attila Hoare Avatar
    Marko Attila Hoare

    ler analogy doesn’t stand up at all.
    One more point: none of the organisers of the Armenian Genocide are left alive to prosecute; the present rulers of Turkey are not guilty of this crime. But the British politicians who aided and abetted the Bosnian genocide did so just a few years ago, and are very much alive and unpunished. And it was not just a question of their “not intervening” to stop Milosevic, but of active complicity in his crimes. If Britain, France, and other existing EU members cannot even recognise their crimes of a few years ago, why should Turkey be singled out for failure to recognise crimes that are ninety years old ?

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  5. Mick H Avatar
    Mick H

    Well yes, you argue that Turkey should recognise the genocide, but go on to add:
    “Yet the EU has no right to demand that it do so, so long as the Western European states themselves fail to recognise both their own historic crimes and the historic crimes committed against Europe’s indigenous Muslims.”
    But as I wrote in my original post, the EU has recognised the crimes committed against its indigenous Muslims. But you, and, one imagines, the Turkish government, will always dig up just one more historical grievance that hasn’t yet been apologised for. Until then, the EU has “no right” to demand anything from the Turks. And considering that we’re now 90 years on since the genocide reached its climax and we’ve had not the slightest sign of an acknowledgement of guilt yet, forgive me for doubting that we’re going to see much progress on this if it’s just down to the Turks themselves, for whom the current fiction – that it was a civil war with violence on both sides – is a history they’re very happy with.
    Your original article – and your reply here – seem determined to play down what happened. “Ottoman Muslim victims of Greek and Bulgarian atrocities in 1912-13 have just as much right to recognition as the Armenian victims of Turkish atrocities in 1915.” Are you seriously suggesting that we have here two crimes which have moral equivalence? Certainly your follow-up, “Or do we perhaps think that Muslim victims are less worthy than Christian victims?” is wearily predictable.
    Your accusation of British, French and Dutch complicity in Milosevic’s crimes goes further than I’d have thought the evidence warrants. Does denying arms to the Bosnian Serbs really carry a guilt equal to that of the Serbs who were actually doing the killing?
    Why does it still matter, even though “none of the organisers of the Armenian Genocide are left alive to prosecute”? Apart from giving the Armenians their due, Hitler’s famous quote should be reason enough: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians”. It was a genocide which worked: the genocide which the perpetrators got away with. It cast its shadow over history ever since.

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  6. Marko Attila Hoare Avatar
    Marko Attila Hoare

    “But as I wrote in my original post, the EU has recognised the crimes committed against its indigenous Muslims.”
    This is simply not true: the EU has recognised the crimes committed by Serbs and Croats against Bosniaks and Albanians in the 1990s – but not its own complicity in them, nor the innumerable European crimes against Muslims of the previous two-hundred years.
    “But you, and, one imagines, the Turkish government, will always dig up just one more historical grievance that hasn’t yet been apologised for. Until then, the EU has “no right” to demand anything from the Turks.”
    Why are the massive Russian and Balkan Christian crimes of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries against European Muslims mere “historical grievances”, but the Turkish crimes of 1915 a worthy cause to pursue ? I entirely support the EU demanding improved Turkish behaviour over human rights, Cyprus and the Kurds, but if we’re going to include recognition of historical crimes, then this has to apply to all EU members and applicants equally – not just to Turkey.
    “And considering that we’re now 90 years on since the genocide reached its climax and we’ve had not the slightest sign of an acknowledgement of guilt yet, forgive me for doubting that we’re going to see much progress on this if it’s just down to the Turks themselves”
    Actually, I think we are seeing progress from the Turks themselves – as witness the recent conference on the subject in Istanbul; the failure of efforts to repress it; Orhan Pamuk’s brave comments and the debate in Turkey that they sparked. The EU should simply insist that Turkey allow the debate to take place – I suspect that will achieve faster results than insisting on recognition of the genocide.
    “”Ottoman Muslim victims of Greek and Bulgarian atrocities in 1912-13 have just as much right to recognition as the Armenian victims of Turkish atrocities in 1915.” Are you seriously suggesting that we have here two crimes which have moral equivalence?”
    Yes, this is absolutely what I’m suggesting. In my article, I quote Leon Trotsky, who reported on the Balkan Wars, as writing at the time: “the Bulgars in Macedonia, the Serbs in Old Serbia, in their national endeavour to correct data in the ethnographical statistics that are not quite favourable to them, are engaged quite simply in systematic extermination of the Muslim population in the villages, towns and districts[.]” Why exactly is this less objectionable than Turkish crimes a few years later ? Or was Trotsky just another Turkish apologist ?
    “Your accusation of British, French and Dutch complicity in Milosevic’s crimes goes further than I’d have thought the evidence warrants. Does denying arms to the Bosnian Serbs really carry a guilt equal to that of the Serbs who were actually doing the killing?”
    The British, French, Dutch and their allies rescued Serbia from defeat in Croatia in 1991; blocked Croatian efforts to relieve Vukovar; negotiated the Yugoslav military’s “withdrawal” from Croatia into Bosnia; promoted ‘peace plans’ that encouraged the Serbo-Croat carve-up of Bosnia; helped murder the Bosnian deputy prime-minister in 1993; incited the Croats to attack the Muslims in 1993; incited civil war among the Muslims; waged a propaganda campaign to dampen popular outrage in the West at what was happening; and repeatedly blocked US initiatives on behalf of Bosnia. And, of course, maintained an arms embargo against Bosnia.
    At the very least, this makes the British and French leaders of the 1990s more guilty for what was happening in Bosnia, than today’s Turkish leaders are for the crimes of their grandfathers ninety years ago.
    “It was a genocide which worked: the genocide which the perpetrators got away with. It cast its shadow over history ever since.”
    Perhaps you should consider whether the numerous descendants of the Balkan and Caucasian Muslim peoples – ethnically cleansed from their homelands by Russians, Bulgarians, Greeks and others, and living in Turkey today – would share your view about which genocide has cast the greatest shadow ?

    Reply
  7. Mick H Avatar
    Mick H

    Well, I’m running out of steam here. Am I familiar with Trotsky’s reporting on the Balkan wars? – or indeed knowledgeable about the extent of ethnic cleansing of Muslims that went on in that period in the Balkans, in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire? No, I am not. Am I persuaded by your argument that it was just as objectionable as the centrally-planned, brutally carried-out massacres of around one million Armenians, which effectively spelled an end to the Christian Armenian civilisation which had been a presence in Anatolia for not far short of two thousand years? Frankly, no.
    You cite as a reason for optimism the recent conference in Istanbul. I might cite, in contrast, the recent government clashes with the secular Higher Education Council, and the arrest and imprisonment of the president of Yuzuncu Yil University in Van, Professor Yucel Askin – an arrest seen by a number of Turkish columnists as part of an ongoing campaign (see this article: http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD101405 – at MEMRI) to “turn the Republic’s [state] universities into madrassas” – during the course of which Professor Askin was accused by an AKP parliamentarian of being an Armenian – a smear which he felt able to make in the knowledge that the old prejudices still carry a charge, in the absence of any consensus that the Turks had in any way a moral debt owed to the Armenian community.
    “Perhaps you should consider whether the numerous descendants of the Balkan and Caucasian Muslim peoples – ethnically cleansed from their homelands by Russians, Bulgarians, Greeks and others, and living in Turkey today – would share your view about which genocide has cast the greatest shadow ?”
    We could play this game for ever. The Greeks of Smyrna ethnically cleansed by the Turks would give yet another answer. But in a way perhaps you’re right. Apart from the green light that Hitler felt it gave him by way of a precedent, the Armenian Genocide hasn’t cast much of a shadow. That’s a measure of how successful it was.

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  8. J.Cassian Avatar
    J.Cassian

    Armenians died.
    “Contrary to what J. Cassian says, the Armenian Genocide was in part a by-product of earlier Balkan Christian crimes”
    I fail to understand this reasoning. Both Abdul Hamid’s 1894-96 murder campaign and the massacres of Armenians in Cilicia in 1909, in which CUP members took part (10,000-15,000 estimated dead), occurred before the Balkan Wars you refer to and in completely different regions. Incidentally, the Balkans Wars hardly contained the first ethnic atrocities in that area: the Greek War of Independence and the Bulgarian massacres of the 1870s spring to mind. But you are right, the Balkan Wars probably were a contributory factor in the Armenian Holocaust, although not in the way you imply. The loss of almost all Turkey’s remaining Balkan possessions in 1912-13, though a political disaster, also provided a new opportunity for the CUP. With the amputation of predominantly Christian Turkey-in-Europe, the government could focus on its mainly Muslim Asian possessions. Turks were now the majority people in the Ottoman Empire for the first time in its history. This added to the attraction of Pan-Turkism, the idea of carving out a new “Turanian” empire in Central Asia, mainly at the expense of Russia, and either “Turkicizing” or totally eliminating other subject peoples, starting of course with the Christian Armenians.
    “the Tamerlane-Hitler analogy doesn’t stand up at all.”
    That was a facetious example to back the rest of my observation (by which I still stand) that there exists a common phenomenon whereby “no atrocity carried out by Muslims may be mentioned for its own sake without a reference to some atrocity committed by a Western culture, however irrelevant” (the Crusades usually fit the bill). If that’s not to your liking then how about a Young Turk-Nazi analogy? This one certainly will stand up, as Hitler was the first to admit. Yet for various reasons the Armenian Holocaust has never been subject to anything like the attention the Shoah receives and it’s still quite possible to deny it without committing social and intellectual suicide.

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  9. J.Cassian Avatar
    J.Cassian

    aid jobs on state farms, the distribution of land, grain and agricultural equipment, money to appoint teachers and to build separate villages, schools, mosques and houses.” Tens of thousands took up this generous offer and moved into Armenian regions but British consuls who came across the migrants found that, “all were armed but starving too: for, contrary to its promises, the government had done nothing to take care of them. They had indeed appointed commissioners for refugees, but these officials were extorting money from the locals by threatening to install the refugees in their neighbourhood, and from the refugees by threatening to settle them on barren ground. In October 1880, a British embassy from Constantinople visited a refugee camp on the banks of the gulf of Ismid and Moudania. It contained 7000 Georgians from Batumi who had been transported by the Ottoman government. More than 200 were already dead from hunger and disease. Without food or shelter, they were living on fruit stolen from the fields. They willingly acknowledged that the Russian government had treated them well but they had been attracted by the Ottoman government’s promises. The latter, not content with reneging on its engagements, was forbidding them to return to their country of origin. It is clear that by creating this situation [Sultan] Abdul Hamid was trying to provoke a conflict between the immigrants and the local Christian populations and he was hoping to achieve the elimination of the weakest: the Armenians.”

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  10. Marko Attila Hoare Avatar
    Marko Attila Hoare

    y Jews, Armenians, Tutsis, Serbs, Croats, European Muslims, native Americans or any others. Am I wrong ?
    I certainly did not “neglect” the Armenian massacres of the 1890s; in my original article, I specifically criticised Akcam for failing to reconcile their occurrence with his theoretical model, that located the roots of the Armenian Genocide in the years immediately prior to WW1.
    “I fail to understand this reasoning. Both Abdul Hamid’s 1894-96 murder campaign and the massacres of Armenians in Cilicia in 1909, in which CUP members took part (10,000-15,000 estimated dead), occurred before the Balkan Wars you refer to and in completely different regions.”
    The Christian nations of the Balkans began killing and expelling their Muslim populations at least as early as the early 19th century; the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 were merely the culmination of this genocidal process. The CUP leaders responsible for the Armenian Genocide learned their model of nationalism and ethnic homogeneity, in large part, from the Balkan Christian nationalists: the Turkish nationalists were children of the same Ottoman world that had given birth to Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Armenian nationalists. Even the CUP and the Armenian Dashnak nationalists had a history of collaboration against Abdul Hamid. The Balkan Christian atrocities of 1912-1913 were the immediate inspiration for the Armenian Genocide, though the roots go back much further in time – in my article, I suggest at least as far back as the Ottoman modernisation programme of the first half of the nineteenth century.
    So it is not a question of whether Muslims or Christians in the Ottoman Empire were “first” with their atrocities. The point is, the nationalism and the atrocities of both were essentially similar; they fed off each other and learned from each other. To recognise the atrocities of the one while downplaying or denying the other, can have nothing to do with justice. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is prosecuting Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks and Albanians alike – what would be the reaction if it were prosecuting members of only one side ?

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  11. J.Cassian Avatar
    J.Cassian

    zone is the fact that huge numbers of Armenians were deported from regions hundreds of miles away from the fighting. As Ternon says, the nearer an Armenian was to the frontline, the more likely he was to be killed on the spot; the deportations were arranged for Armenians nowhere near the fighting, in western Anatolia and elsewhere. Few Armenians were deported from Constantinople (due to political cautiousness), but 30,000 were deported from the vilayet of Adrianople (Edirne) in Ottoman Europe by rail in August to October 1915. The Austrian and Bulgarian consuls in the area described this as the execution of a “programme decided in advance” whose aim was “the extermination of the Armenians.” How close was Adrianople to the Russian front?
    “The Christian nations of the Balkans began killing and expelling their Muslim populations at least as early as the early 19th century; the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 were merely the culmination of this genocidal process.”
    As Mick says, “We could play this game for ever”, going back further and further into history and eventually you’d lose out. After all, the Armenians never invaded the Turkish ancestral homeland in Central Asia; it was the Seljuk Turks who laid waste to the Armenian realm in eastern Anatolia in the 11th century. Likewise, the Ottomans didn’t acquire their considerable territories by being nice to the natives, and Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs et al. were conquered by the Turks, not vice versa. If we’re talking about violence in the 19th century as the Ottoman Empire began to fall apart, then how about the Massacre of Chios in 1822 when the Turks slaughtered an estimated 20,000 Greek islanders in response to the revolution? I doubt that the Ottomans learned the art of massacre from their Christian subjects. Besides, the Armenians played no role in the events in the Balkans, so why were they due for reprisals?

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  12. J.Cassian Avatar
    J.Cassian

    00 degrees centigrade (not absolute zero but you won’t notice the difference if you’re subjected to a temperature like that: it will still freeze you to death).
    2. I think you come dangerously close to describing the Armenian genocide as a justifiable response to the Ottoman Empire’s Christian subjects “getting uppity”. I didn’t think it was the done thing to sympathise with the imperialists over their subject populations any more. Surely, by the same logic that produced the Armenian genocide, Britain would have been justified in responding to Irish nationalism, and the Easter Rising of 1916 in particular, by slaughtering the entire Catholic population of Ireland to guarantee its loyalty and prevent German landings there.

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  13. Marko Attila Hoare Avatar
    Marko Attila Hoare

    nvaded the Turkish ancestral homeland in Central Asia; it was the Seljuk Turks who laid waste to the Armenian realm in eastern Anatolia in the 11th century. Likewise, the Ottomans didn’t acquire their considerable territories by being nice to the natives, and Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs et al. were conquered by the Turks, not vice versa”.
    As I said before, it is not about who was “first” with their atrocities; if one wants to be pedantic, then it was the Muslims who “started it” with their expansion from Arabia in the Early Middle Ages. But the Ottomans in their Golden Age did not carry out genocide against Greeks, Bulgarians and others: the Christians were free to enjoy autonomy and practice their religion. Genocide in the Ottoman lands is related to the rise of homogenous nation-states in the formerly multi-ethnic Empire. And the Muslim peoples really didn’t behave any differently from the Christians in this respect.
    “I doubt that the Ottomans learned the art of massacre from their Christian subjects.” The art of massacre – no. The art of genocide is another matter.
    “Besides, the Armenians played no role in the events in the Balkans, so why were they due for reprisals?” No decent person would say that the innocent Armenian victims “deserved it” – the point is that the CUP was inspired by the genocidal actions of the Balkan Christians, and the Armenians paid the price.
    “To continue the temperature analogy, these atrocities were, say, morally minus 200 degrees centigrade (not absolute zero but you won’t notice the difference if you’re subjected to a temperature like that: it will still freeze you to death).” But why quibble over fractions ? Why argue that one shade of black is darker than another shade of black ?
    “I think you come dangerously close to describing the Armenian genocide as a justifiable response to the Ottoman Empire’s Christian subjects “getting uppity”. ”
    On the contrary; I think you feel that any historical explanation for the Armenian Genocide that doesn’t rest exclusively on the pure evil of the perpetrators automatically becomes an apology for those perpetrators. And this kind of accusation is used to stifle debate in all areas of genocide studies, not least with regard to the Nazi Holocaust. But on the other hand, you seem to have a certain blindness to the crimes carried out by the “other side” – in this case, by Armenians and other Ottoman Christians. Why exactly is the Balkan and Anatolian Christian massacre of Muslims so much less objectionable than the Turkish massacre of Armenians ?

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  14. J.Cassian Avatar
    J.Cassian

    eports of the genocide being true.
    “So no; the Armenians in 1915 were not equivalent to the Jews in Germany in the 1940s.”
    Ah, but the Jews weren’t so passive, were they? I mean, “Kristallnacht” wouldn’t have happened if that young Jew hadn’t shot the Reich’s ambassador in Paris. Hitler was obviously provoked. And did the Nazi idea of a Bolshevik-Jewish plot against Germany really have less substance than the alleged pan-Armenian conspiracy against the Ottoman Empire which was used against the Armenians in 1915? (I’m being sarcastic, they were both baloney). After the events of the 1930s I imagine Jewish loyalty to the German state had taken a knock, just as Armenian loyalty to Constantinople had probably wavered a bit after the 1894-96 massacres. What had provoked those massacres? As far as I can tell, nothing but the Armenians’ demands for equal rights. Then there was the Warsaw Ghetto Rising. Surely those Jews should have knuckled under. Subject peoples have no right of self-defence and any violence they receive in return is because they were “asking for it”. (Incidentally, some of the favourite reading of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto was apparently Franz Werfel’s “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh”, about Armenian resistance to the Turks; so they saw the parallels). Justin McCarthy’s attitude to Armenian issues is well-known and the laws of libel probably prevent me from elaborating further. Suffice it to say, I don’t think he is a reliable authority on this issue. Ternon gives a completely different account of the defence of Van (pages 239-242 op.cit.).
    “What would have happened to the Muslims of Eastern Anatolia if the Armenians and Russians had won ?”
    Well, what happened to the Armenians’ neighbours, the Azeris of Russian Transcaucasia during World War One, subjects of the Tsar? They were near the frontline and were highly susceptible to the lure of Pan-Turkism. Did the Tsarist government plan and carry out a genocide to deal with a people whose loyalty was suspect? I don’t think so. IIRC When Turkey entered World War One, it declared a jihad, encouraging the Muslim subjects of the British Empire to revolt against their Christian masters. Did the British respond with “justified” mass slaughter?
    “No decent person would say that the innocent Armenian victims “deserved it” – the point is that the CUP was inspired by the genocidal actions of the Balkan Christians”
    No it wasn’t. CUP Turkish nationalism preceded the Balkan Wars and the first revolt their chauvinism managed to provoke was amongst their fellow Muslim Albanians. The biggest influence on the “thinking” behind the Armenian genocide was probably Pan-Turkism.
    Finally, in spite of some considerable achievements, life in the Ottoman Empire for its Christian subjects probably wasn’t as peachy as you make out, even in its Golden Age. But that’s another matter.

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  15. Turxanthos Avatar
    Turxanthos

    /European organizations or states recognized the genocide of our people whilst only pushing for the crimes that did not involve their direct particpation.
    In fact, Marko Attila Hoare’s article is quite highlighting in terms of outlining the very reasons of the crimes commited by the Ottomans, and the crimes commited against the Ottomans. The tragedy that Crimean Tatars experienced is another example for a large scale and prolonged genocide, however, there is yet no entity in the so called humanitarian west who could push Russia to admit her own past crimes. Strangely, those crimes are justified or despised by pointing out the estranged presence of the Ottoman Turks (and muslims) in Europe. Since they were the invaders (new comers like Hungarians and Bulgars), the European/Christian crimes targeting the muslim population could be justified. Well, I must admit that it is some excuse, but it does not necessarly mean that it must be appreciated by the present Turks and Turkey.
    In that sense, I think the Europeans/Westerners must recognize the genocides that they commited if they really want to encourage the Turks for making any peace with the Turkish history. The European/Westerners commited genocides and plunder all across this planet that could be even deemed as the reason for the creation of term “Third World”, and as long as they deny to make compromise with their own past, it would be quite hard to find anybody in Turkey who would fulfill the role that they do not cast for themselves.

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