BY KARINÉ MACRI

The blatant disregard for life is no more apparent than in Turkish Prime Minister Recip Tayip Erdogan’s most recent flippant declaration of his willingness to deport over 100,000 illegal Armenian migrant workers from Turkey.  (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8572934.stm)

Erdogan told the BBC that of 170,000 Armenians living in Turkey “70,000 are Turkish citizens.” He goes on to say “We are turning a blind eye to the remaining 100,000… Tomorrow, I may tell these 100,000 to go back to their country, if it becomes necessary.”

Expelling the “problem” is a vestige of consistent Turkish domestic policies. Starting in 1915, the Young Turks carried out mass deportations of Armenian Ottoman citizens. In a pre-meditated, systematic and well-documented genocidal agenda, the deportations expelled women, children and the elderly to the deserts of Syria (Der Zor), resulting in the destruction of more than 1.5 million Armenians. (The men had been conscripted into the Turkish Army prior to the deportations and then murdered by their Turkish peers while in uniform, serving under the Turkish flag, thus ensuring the vulnerability of the women, children and elderly).

Back then (95 years ago this April), Armenians were standing in the way of Turkey’s plans of achieving a grand Islamic Turkish state that spanned across the Near East, aiming to encapsulate all the Turkic “-stans” that popped up after the Cold War.

But today we have a modern Turkey, an ally to the West, a vital gateway to the Islamic world under the guise of a secular democracy. So why the threats of deportation? Even more important, what does Erdogan actually mean when he uses the word “it” in his quote “if it becomes necessary?” What is “it?” “It” sounds very big and important. He’s willing to make the effort to kick out 100,000 workers whose jobs Turks DON’T want (assuming that number is even correct). Let me try to fill in the blanks. “If more nations like the United States and Sweden continue to turn up the heat on this genocide issue, Turkey will find herself at an inevitable crossroads.” One path leads to the status quo:

1. Aggressive denialism, using US aid to bribe US Congressmen and women to support denialist agendas.
2. Using the “stick and carrot” to pressure the US to squash any genocide resolution in return for use of Incirlik Airbase.
3. Defrauding and lying to the Turkish people about their own history, forcing them into an Orwellian existence, where the country of “Oceania” is constantly at war with Turkey.

Under the guise of a “modern” Turkey and with a new Latin alphabet, Attaturk is hailed as the father of contemporary Turkey. His statues are found all along parks and walkways. I wonder how US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would react to being asked to place some flowers at the statue of Adolf Hilter? Or perhaps be taken on a nice drive along Pol Pot drive?  Most recently, Secretary Clinton affirmed her commitment to blocking the Genocide resolution in Congress. The headline for an article from Reuters read that she made a “pledge on genocide resolution.” I find it remarkable how the official ambassador of the United States of America is overtly pledging the United States’ support in genocidal agendas domestically and internationally. Reuters very clearly points out that “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has assured Turkey that the White House opposes a congressional resolution labeling the World War One massacres of Armenians in Turkey as genocide, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Monday.”

The selling of the US to foreign governments must be an insider’s political game that idealists like myself have little to no knowledge about. However, the putrification of my government is certainly something to which I can object. US State Department officials consistently use the old ruse that  “angering Turkey is not a prudent decision for the United States because we need their assistance in the war on terror.” That argument is so flawed and overused that even the Turks laugh at it. Perhaps we are forgetting how the Turkish government denied the US entry, not once but twice, during this war on terror. No genocide bill was to blame for those fiascos. Or perhaps we forgot that after the Danish cartoonist incident, Turkey was all for “America Out.”

Secretary Clinton has no issues landing under “sniper fire” in Bosnia where she also had no issues acknowledging the genocide had taken place. Clearly she is familiar with the language, so we can rule out a lack of vocabulary on her part.

So when we look at these two countries, at the end of the day what we have is a dysfunctional family, where psychologists would be quick to point out the US as the “enabler” and Turkey as the “codependent” in the relationship. The US “enables” Turkey to continue its denialist agenda, continue its illegal blockade of Armenia and foster Islamic fundamentalism and xenophobia against Christian neighbors. Turkey  continues to make idle threats of not allowing the US to use its bases, boycotting American products, and recalling its ambassador. By the way, Turkey also “vowed” to boycott French goods after France decided to pass a law that made denying the genocide illegal. Trade between Turkey and France has quadrupled since then. More recently on March 11, the Swedish parliament  recognized the Armenian Genocide. Turkey quickly and fussily recalled their ambassador on March 11. Ambassador Zergün Korutürk arrived back in Sweden for work on March 30. The Turkish Ambassador to Turkey just returned to work April 2, despite all the huffiness involved in the typical tantrums, pre-April 24.

All this effort, money and manpower spent to keep up a façade that even the Turks themselves do not believe anymore. In an unprecedented move, a Turkish lawyer Bendal Celil Ezman, has filed a claim calling “on the Turkish state to recognize the crime against humanity committed by the Ottoman Turkish government during World War I, to condemn its mastermind, Talat Pasha, and rename all the streets that have been named in his honor.” (Reported by Asbarez.com)

An idealist like me would rather direct these assets toward setting up an airbase in Armenia, where a democratic Christian nation, despite an illegal blockade from Islamic Turkey and Azerbaijan, continues to produce GDP numbers in the double digits since the break-up of the Soviet Union, is ready and able to take assistance on a war on Islamic fundamentalism and terror it has been fighting solo since before the United States was even a country.

Internationally published author, Kariné Macri received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Honors English and Foreign Languages and Literatures from California State University, Northridge. The University published her Undergraduate Thesis, Dystopic Motifs From The Underground, in 1996. Her short story, “Benjamin Franklin Rejected in Armenia” was published in Armenia and distributed internationally in a compilation entitled: Special Residency Status: 18 Tales from Armenian Repatriates. She received her Master of Arts Degree in Commercial Diplomacy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Having traveled the world extensively since 2001 she formed her own writing company (Thinker Extraordinaire, LLC) and continues to be the voice for all those who cannot be heard.