Turkish Letters from the USA‏

(do click on the other two attached letters)

Los Angeles Times
May 1, 2010 Saturday
Home Edition

LETTERS
Putting away a painful past
Re "True to the past," Opinion, April 24

There are many misleading elements in Patt Morrison's interview with
Harut Sassounian. However, I must emphasize the choice of photo
illustrating this interview: Sassounian embracing the picture of his
grandmother, garlanded with a bandolier of bullets. This photo speaks
for itself about his mind-set.

Indeed, Sassounian often employs obsessive rhetoric against Turkey and
relentless opposition to the normalization process between Turkey and
Armenia. In order to reach a true reconciliation, Armenians should put
an end to selective and subjective reading of our mutual sufferings.

Revisiting the great Armenian American writer William Saroyan, whose
stories are embellished with compassion and empathy for diverse ethnic
groups, including Turks, may be a better way to build a peaceful
future between our nations than glamorizing armed kinfolk.

Hakan Tekin
Los Angeles
The writer is consul general of the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles.

Is Turkey's Consul Unhappy that not All
Armenians were Slaughtered like Sheep?
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier

Hakan Tekin, the young and inexperienced Turkish Consul General in Los
Angeles,is trying hard to earn brownie points with his bosses in
Ankara by countering any reference to Armenians in the U.S. media. He
went overboard last week by sending an offensive letter to the Los
Angeles Times.

Tekin was displeased with Patt Morrison's interview with me published
by the Times in its op-ed page on April 24. The article was titled,
Harut Sassounian: True to the Past.'

In his brief letter,Consul General Tekin made several
misjudgments. The first was to criticize the L.A. Times' Pulitzer-Prize
winning veteran journalist Patt Morrison, alleging that there were
`many misleading elements' in her interview, without naming a single
one.

Judging from the text of the Consul General's letter, it was probably
drafted by one of the many American public relations firms hired by the
Turkish government at great cost. While the words may have been written
by Americans, the thoughts are definitely those of a Turkish denial it!
P.R. firms don't really care how silly their letters sound, as long as
their employer is satisfied and compensates them handsomely. Here is a
piece of free advice that the Turkish government and the Consul General
should keep in mind before taking on again the free press in a free
country: 'Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the
barrel.'

Tekin is behaving as if he is still in Turkey,where the media is
routinely suppressed by such fascist tactics as throwing journalists in
jail or physically eliminating them. He is vainly trying to import
Turkey's undemocratic`gag rule' into the United States by trying to
silence the L.A. Times!

The Consul General goes on to attack me for the photograph that
accompanies the L.A. Times article, in which I am holding the picture
of my grandmother `garlanded with a bandolier of bullets.' I am very
proud of grandma Gadar, because at a time when more than a million
Armenians were being marched to their deaths by the genocidal rulers
of Tekin's ancestors, she and her fellow Zeitountsi's -- men, women and
children --defended themselves valiantly and refused to be slaughtered
like sheep. Had she not fought to save her life, I would not have
existed today, which may have made the Consul General happier! Is Tekin
upset that the Turkish government was unable to finish the job of
exterminating every last Armenian?

Consul General Tekin then criticizes me for my `relentless opposition'
to the infamous Armenia-Turkey Protocols. He has no one else to blame
than his own government for not ratifying these Protocols which have
been collecting dust in the Turkish Parliament for more than six
months. Armenians are indeed fortunate that Turkey's leaders
have inadvertently protected Armenia's national interests by not
ratifying the Protocols, so that they could extract more concessions
from the Armenian government!

Incredibly, Tekin ends his pathetic letter by admonishing me to be
more like William Saroyan, who the claims was `compassionate' toward
Turks! May I remind the Turkish Consul of Saroyan's well-known
statement castigating the Turks for having destroyed Armenia and its
people. Here is the original version of that quotation, as it
was published in Inhale & Exhale, New York: Random House, 1936:

`Go ahead, destroy this race. Let us say that it is again 1915. There
is war in the world. Destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them
from their homes into the desert. Let them have neither bread nor
water. Burn their houses and their churches. See if they will not live
again. See if they will not laugh again. See if the race will not
live again when two of them meet in a beer parlor, twenty years after,
and laugh, and speak in their tongue. Go ahead, see if you can do
anything about it. See if you can stop them from mocking the big ideas
of the world, you sons of bitches,a couple of Armenians talking in the
world, go ahead and try to destroy them.'

Could it be that the Turkish Consul General is trying to denigrate me,
because I have rejected his repeated invitations to get together, and
his persistent attempts to co-opt me? If it is any consolation for this
novice diplomat, I have not been tricked by his superiors either, who
are far more experienced than him in the art of fishing for Armenian
collaborators!