Turks Angry at Mel Gibson

From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Wed, 2007-11-28 13:05

A quote from the Turkish English-language newspaper Zaman, 27 November 2007

The Foundation for the Struggle Against Baseless Allegations of Genocide (ASİMED) has begun an e-mail campaign to try and dissuade actor Mel Gibson from playing a role in a film that underscores claims of an alleged genocide of Anatolian Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I.

The president of ASİMED and faculty member at Atatürk University’s history department, Professor Savaş Eğilmez, […] noted that a similar situation occurred recently when Sylvester Stallone announced his plans to play a role in a new film adaptation of the book “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.” After a campaign led by ASİMED in which more than 3,000 e-mails were sent to Stallone, the actor declined the role. “[…] We have begun sending documents about the truth of the situation to Gibson. We started an e-mail campaign to urge him to decline the role and to not allow this film to be shot at his production company. What we are facing is a new slander campaign on the level of the ‘Midnight Express’. Everyone needs to be sensitive and aware on this topic. We need to put pressure on this famous actor by telling him the truth of the matter,” stated Eğilmez.

Once again: it *was* genocide

Submitted by Frodo42 on Fri, 2007-11-30 02:44.

Bernhard Lewis, who's been sentenced for holocaust denial on the matter, is hardly the best witness to bring.

 

Let me suggest a better one: Taner Akcam. Please read "A Shameful Act" and (re)form your opinion.

 

An additional disgrace is the fact that the practical execution of Holocaust was eerily similar to the Armenian genocide.

Some might say poetic

Submitted by The Undhimmi on Thu, 2007-11-29 20:12.

Some might say poetic justice for this low-talent anti-semitic, anti-English ac-torrrr :sigh:

Perhaps being on the sharp end of bit of Islamoseething might shut him up ;)

Once again: it wasn't genocide

Submitted by RS on Thu, 2007-11-29 18:10.

I've posted this before, and I fear that the impulse to go after Muslim misdeeds has once again impelled a contributor to The Brussels Journal to opt for partisan falsehood rather than disinterested truth. Perhaps a rereading of Julien Benda's La Trahison des Clercs (The Treason of the Intellectuals) is in order.

Let all those who have been retailing the Armenian genocide chestnut have the intellectual honesty to listen to the YouTube replay of Bernard Lewis's rebuttal to this accusation:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG70UWESfu4

A cryptic reply

Submitted by Frodo42 on Thu, 2007-11-29 16:49.

I got this somewhat cryptic response:

There is no project with Mr. Gibson relating to this subject matter.

Might mean there is a project, with someone else, or that there's no Musa Dakh project.

Writing done

Submitted by Frodo42 on Thu, 2007-11-29 16:00.

Good idea to write them a few lines of support.

I also included a booklet on the genocides that we published last year. If anyone's interested in a PDF of the English translation, mail me at [email protected]

@Frodo

Submitted by atheling on Thu, 2007-11-29 16:58.

This book is out of print, but is kept available online and contains eyewitness statements about the Armenian genocide, as well as the destruction of Smyrna, written by an American diplomat who was living there:

http://www.hri.org/docs/Horton/

Published in 1926.