Although the letters section of TAT has been woefully neglected, plenty of messages come in. Offended Armenian readers frequently fall back on what their grandparents have told them, followed with the accusation, Are you calling my grandma a liar?

I respond by saying, of course they are not liars; but those who have experienced great trauma are not unknown to embellish the details. Particularly when the community demonizes one's tormentor. It is a fact that, by and large, Armenian parents, churches and teachers drill racist hatred of Turks into the minds of their innocents. Years later, even if the experiences of these now elderly Ottoman-Armenians were not that bad, how could they not be influenced by what everyone has kept on reinforcing, that the Turks are nothing less than subhuman animals? Even responsible Americans fell into this trap of imagination, having been conditioned by unending Terrible Turk tales, as this Mark Prentiss article reveals.

As an example, allow me to share "grandparent" excerpts from the recent letter of an Armenian reader, Ms. Selian. She offered two:

[1] Look, if I was not an Armenian whose grandparents' families were not murdered (including two children who were dismembered on their mother's thighs with an axe, so that she bore the two long scars until her own death in the early 1920s; seriously, no joke!)...

[2] [M]y very lucid Turkish-speaking 94 year old grandfather will tell you today about how he was taken in the 1940s in cattle cars to Turkish work-camps in Anatolia (along with other Armenians, Greeks and Jews), with the promise of never returning home, near-starvation and of being turned into bars of soap.  He was there for over a year and a half, and barely survived — and this was in the 1940s when Turkey was more "civilized".   Does that truth hurt too much to hear? 

Of course, the second example was from a shameful period of Turkish history;  all countries have their share of shameful history, but the ones from Turkey — as isolated as they have been — needs to be drudged up and lovingly preserved by the anti-Turkish hate mongering industry. This example has nothing to do with proving whether there was a "genocide," merely provided to show how "evil" Turks really are.

After expressing sincere regret for the family's suffering, the way I typically respond is, yes, of course Armenians were mistreated and murdered. But who were their murderers? The region was filled by lawless bands of all stripes looking for criminal opportunities. In order to prove "genocide," one must display the evidence that the killers were in league with the central government. "Intent" lies at the heart of the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention.

Grandmother and child. Photo credit: W. Whiteside, United Methodist Committee on Relief. UMCOR is helping people from both Armenia & Azerbaijan.

But even with these anecdotes, one must wonder about the huge holes in the stories. For example, with the first story, as gruesome as it may be to imagine: a mother is sitting or lying with two children on her lap. Someone is attacking with an axe (presumably; it does not sound like the attacker was using a little hatchet. Naturally, we know nothing of who this attacker really was. Was he swinging that axe on orders from his government?), with the purpose of hurting the children, in this case looking for "dismemberment." After we wonder why the purpose would not have been to outright kill (in which case the mother would not have been left alive to tell the tale), it's difficult to envision that repeated blows of a heavy axe, despite the presence of children (who probably weren't sitting still) to cushion the blows, would not have rendered the woman's legs useless.

As for the second anecdote, after I wondered whether the train was really of the "cattle car" variety, I responded, "I am sorry he suffered. But of note is that he was promised to never return, and to be turned into soap, presumably by the authorities. Yet he returned. I guess that was another example of broken Turkish promises."

Such is the harm caused by stories as these. Even if 100% true, what purpose does it serve to relate these inhuman tales to the young and impressionable? Of course, the idea is for the child to grow up and hate, following in the footsteps of their racist parents and grandparents. Turk-hatred is the binding force for many nationalistically-inclined Armenians (and Greeks). Even the Dashnak historian M. Varandian pointed out back in 1910 that such hatred may be demonstrated by "scandalous excesses, obviously found in the most intense pleasure in indulging in the most irreconcilable scorn and hatred of the Turks. 'The Turk is a cretin!' 'The Turk is a mongrel!' 'Wherever the Turk rules there is rule and decay!'"

Here are examples of the granny influence upon Armenian scholars, or would be scholars, Richard Hovannisian, Peter Balakian and Ronald Suny.

Now what is the flip side? How have Turkish parents and grandparents relayed their family history and suffering to their young, at the hands of Armenians, and others?

Turks write in to this web site as well, and I can see their experiences have paralleled my own. The topic has been mostly nonexistent in their upbringing.

This is the big difference between Turks on one side, and Armenians & Greeks on the other; the former is the "silent" type. The latter knows well the rewards that come with the squeaky wheel getting greased.

Armenians and Greeks are quick to charge Turks are filled with hatred against them. Are there Turks with hatred? Of course; Turks are people too. But this hatred is a "reaction" to Greek and Armenian "action," their relentless campaign to keep suckering the Christian West to keep their old prejudices alive.

But the whole of the Turkish community is free of hatred. They simply were not raised to hate.

The idea of this page is really not about comparing hatred, but about how Turkish family history not only has avoided their suffering, but has gone out of their way to clamp a lid on the happenings. It's really incredible.

And when Turks do talk about the horrors that were inflicted upon their families, they generally keep it between themselves. Advertising these stories to the world "never" is a consideration. (The few stories emerging during the 1970s-80s or so were mainly presented as a response to the overwhelming Armenian propaganda). Since there is no political purpose behind these never-heard of stories, we can more readily accept them as the truth. (As opposed to the reasons why most Armenian testimonials have been compiled, as part of the "master plan" to advance their genocide.)

The following two letters are from a Turkish-American. They are not atypical, in regards to similar letters from Turkish people, who feel sad about what happened to their families.

And since Armenians murdered many more Turks than the other way around, there were consequently many more such stories of actual violence. (Another reason why they may have been seldom told is because fewer Turks survived to tell them.) Much of Armenian Oral History, among the honest tellings at least, have centered upon general suffering, from famine, disease and the like.

What was great about these letters is that they summed up two general aspects of the Turkish character, vs. the general Armenian/Greek character. [1] Silence, vs. having a big mouth, and [2] Defending those who have wronged you, vs. going out of one's way to show your victimizer, real or imagined, is not part of the human species.

This latter aspect is a characteristic rarely mentioned, and I run into it (or hear of it) all of the time. For example, when the la-dee-dah "Picnic Turks" hold their "picnics," they usually discourage against the presentation of genocide-defense material, for fear of "offending our Armenian friends." During times when I check the knowledge of Turkish-Americans and bring up the topic of Armenians, the common replies I get are that Armenians are our friends, and sometimes — for those affected by the prevalent propaganda in the USA — that Turks sure did a number on the Armenians, didn't they?

But what a huge difference. The Armenians stress hatred and racism. The Turks go with humanitarianism, brotherhood and love. The former perpetrates the true systematic extermination effort, but it's the silent Turks who get hit with the genocide charge.