“Thanks for your blog post [“Screamers:” Genocide: what is it and why do we need the term?] on the ‘genocide’ theme. I thought it was a lucid and intelligently worded piece. I was particularly struck by the fact you took issue with the airy-fairy use of the word, stating there was only one event really worthy of that distinction. You can imagine that in the world I move in, it is quite a battle to make that point come over. In that world of ‘tolerance’ and ‘combating racism and bias’ there is a strong tendency to paint all suffering with the same brush: slavery, apartheid, holocaust, it is all bad. No argument here, but we lose all perspective on the actual events by doing that.
I liked your point about the Turkish-Armenian conflict as well. I have felt for a long time there was something not completely right about the equation with the ‘Shoah’, but never knew exactly what. But you put it quite clearly.”
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Given especially — and if you’re not here to see it, the intelligent, civilized nature of this summer’s protests are the best proof — the mature, honest way that a younger Turkey is looking at its past and is ready to question the assumptions forced on it and speak the silences that were previously inconceivable — including the Armenian issue — to try and force Turkey to concede the term “genodice,” with the kind of obsessive inat that the campaign is being conducted in some quarters, is particularly unproductive and disrespectful, I think.
comment: nikobakos@gmail.com
Jadde: from Bosnia to Bengal 