What would the European Parliament know of Turk, Armenian, history?

Last week the Pope's reference to what was done to the Armenians in 1915 as the first genocide of the last century both opened the season against Turkey early and, as expected, gave the others a bit of courage. The European Parliament (EP) too, encouraged by the Pope, tried over the past few days to grab itself a place in the Kingdom of God.

In the debates held in the EP, types who could not possibly have even high-school-level knowledge of history read out memorized, pre-written texts in the chamber, pronounced the expression "Armenian Genocide," and said everything imaginable: that Turkey should, in sum, accept that it committed this genocide, should be consumed by remorse, should do what is required, for example pay compensation, return property to the living grandchildren of the one and a half million innocent people who died, and so on.

It can be said that the EP finally took such a decision because it could not withstand the pressure of Armenian propaganda. Indeed, the Armenian diaspora conducted an extraordinary lobbying effort on this matter and with these activities pestered even the most ordinary European parliamentarian relentlessly. It can of course also be said that Turkey did not carry out a corresponding effort.

It must be admitted that the members of the Armenian Diaspora in every country of Europe consist of people who were born there, that they have members who speak each country's language fluently, and that these members have made a continuous and persistent effort to tell their claims. These efforts were of the kind that made it possible to have people memorize whichever tale they wanted about what happened 100 years ago. When even the most incredible lie is repeated with this intensity and this persistence, it can be made believable.

Reality does not consist only of what exists in the realm of facts; it is made up largely of what we perceive. Those who cannot change the facts can shut people into their own world by building a perception of reality. This is of course not an honest and moral path. But whom can you expect to be moral in this struggle?

The Armenian Diaspora has shown incredible perseverance and insistence in telling its theses. They have made this their life's sole cause. That is why they are in fact pitiable. The only thing that gives their reality existence is this perception of the Turk, which they tell to others and to themselves and which they have in the end been forced to imprison themselves in.

In Hrant Dink's expression, put in a form that can be better understood, hatred of the Turk has turned into a dangerous thing that poisons the blood of the Armenians and consumes their very existence.

Let us also admit that the Turks rely only on being right, even in matters where they are most in the right, and attach no particular importance to expressing that rightness. There is almost a kind of shyness, a reluctance to cause the surroundings discomfort by tiresomely explaining one's rightness. The public diplomacy activities that Turkey has recently begun to take seriously upon seeing this gap have also not been enough to correct the perception on the Armenian question. These efforts have not been enough to make an alternative voice heard to ears accustomed to hearing the expression "Armenian genocide" repeatedly, every day, from the militants of the Armenian diaspora who have infiltrated everywhere.

For example, where did this figure of 1.5 million come from? Did these deaths happen out of the blue? Are you aware of the massacres Armenian gangs carried out from the 1870s onward?

And are you aware of the hundreds of thousands, the millions of Muslim Turkish children openly and deliberately massacred in the Balkans? Do you know that the decision on the Armenian deportation came right on top of the Balkan tragedy, at a time when all of Anatolia's fighting sons were on the fronts, and at a time when Armenian gangs, Ottoman subjects, were busy slaughtering Muslims while wearing Russian uniforms?

Are you aware of how many Muslim Turkish, Kurdish, Arab children lost their lives in these massacres? Did only Armenians die in this period? Let us remember the Armenians' sufferings too with respect, but was only their life a life? Were the others' not lives?

Moreover, do you really know where the Armenians were relocated? Were they expelled beyond Ottoman territory? Or were they merely moved from place to place within Ottoman lands?

In short, even these simple questions that would first come to mind in the context of such an event could not be made heard.

The truth of the matter is this: under the conditions of the First World War, when a full Turkish genocide was being prepared, there is a revenge that could never be taken from the Anatolian Muslims who managed to survive by defending themselves against this genocide, through the defense of Çanakkale, by relocating the Armenian population to other regions of the country, and through the War of Independence. There is a Turkish Genocide that stuck in their craw. There is the spite of what happened in the Balkans not having been able to happen in Anatolia.

If the Pope and the EP are entering such a risky subject that is normally not their business, it means they have made themselves open to a search for a crusader motivation behind it.

Otherwise, what would parliamentarians know of what happened in 1915? They, more than anyone, should know that the propaganda of lobbying activities alone cannot make it possible to understand what happened in history, and that only a perception of history can be marketed by it.

But however skilled and persistent the marketer of a good may be, the buyer of that good also makes a choice in the end. With so many crimes against humanity still taking place in the world even today, both the EP and the Pope have chosen to buy the rotten goods of those who come from the depths of the century and market their revenge and grudges to them in the guise of conscience.

Forgive me, everyone, but in the choice of this counterfeit good, I see only a crusader motivation.