It is not the job of a travel guide to be an arbiter of history. Lonely Planet’s Turkish guide has no reference to the Armenian genocide, denied by Prime Minister Erdogan.
It came as a great surprise when reading Lonely Planet’s Turkish guide to see that reference to the Armenian genocide, in fact almost any mention of the once huge Armenian population that was indigenous to eastern Turkey, was nonexistent.
The latest on-line version of the guide denies the genocide thus: «It was during this time of confusion and turmoil [World War I] that the Armenian scenario unfolded».
Lonely Planet is a premier travel guide, the largest guidebook publisher in the world. So when it tells us the Armenian genocide is something open to debate, a series of events or a «scenario», one has to wonder what is going on.
First and foremost, it is not the job of a travel guide to be an arbiter of history. In addition, since guidebooks by definition must be carried by travelers, the book must legally be able to enter the country. Turkey’s law against “denigration of Turkishness” encapsulated in article 301 of the criminal code has been used to prosecute those, such as author Orhan Pamuk, who have spoken up about the genocide. Thus those carrying an offensive travel guide might theoretically run afoul of the authorities. So Lonely Planet treads carefully in Turkey and in other states that have a thought police, such as China.
The extraordinary thing about the whitewashing of the Armenian genocide is that with a magic wand the entire history of Armenians in Anatolia, which dates from the sixth century BCE, disappears. A whole chapter in the history of Turkey, how almost its entire minority Greek, Assyrian and Armenian populations disappeared between 1915 and 1922 is rewritten. To be fairLonely Planet ’s Armenia guide describes the genocide as «the first mass extermination» of people and cites the figure of 1.5 million killed, but this is no excuse for the Turkish version.
Source: Jerusalem Post, comment by Seth J. Frantzman
My comment.
Just before the Messiah Jesus return, World politics will be based up on lies and denial. While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, the Turkish Prime Minister denies the Armenian genocide. Both of them are in the business of fabricating history.
President Obamas has also joined this dirty business. In His speech in Cairo in may 2009, He told the Muslim audience that the state of Israel is based on an European guilt offering after Jewish sufferings during World War II. By uttering such words, Obama is denying that the state of Israel has its base in a 3.000 year old connection to the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean ocean.
The US and Islam is joining hands in the fabrication of the history of the Middle East. Just like Iran and Turkey.
First published: 18th of March, 2010.
Written by Ivar
