To: Governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman
From: Lefteris N. Botsas, Rochester

Alabama celebrates Mustafa Kemal

By Lefteris Botsas

The great economist John Maynard Keynes wrote "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." And Keynes concluded: "But, soon or late, it is ideas,
not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil." Oi polloi, the average persons, have faith in what academicians say is true. Yet, as we saw in "Distorting History" (Greek American, December 16-17, 2000), for some historians distortions are sources of extra income. To use an analogy, as long as there is a demand for drugs there will be producers of drugs. And, as long as there is a demand for distorted records, distortions will be forthcoming. The beauty of the market economy lies in the fact that in free markets there can be neither surpluses nor shortages. As long as there is an effective demand for propaganda, propagandists will produce it.

Turkey seems to be spending enormous amounts of foreign reserves on propaganda. Part of it is necessitated by the needs of a third-world economy to be accepted as an equal in international groupings like the European Union. Another part is necessitated by need, real or imaginary, to appear worthy. Thus, in spite of the collapse of its national currency, the lira, last February, Turkey was reported to be shopping for a $10-15-billion high-tech defense basket. Even without its alliance with Israel, Turkey is a regional superpower, but its military leaders like military leaders elsewhere want the latest style in war toys. The poor farmers and peasants will find their own way to survive in a consumer-hostile environment.

On foreign soil there are organizations that go by the name "Friends of Turkey." Usually such organizations are formed by students or spring up when a nation is in danger. For example, during World War II some intellectuals formed Friends of Greece societies in the United States. But that was wartime and Greece and the United States were fighting Nazi Germany. Turkey entered the war only when Nazi Germany was no longer. Turkey had mutual defense agreements with Greece, France, and Britain, but chose to stay out of the war and reap the benefits of trade. Thanks to the Axis market, the World War II period was the only period that the value of Turkey's exports exceeded the value of imports. With exports of critical raw materials to Germany, the war created a golden age for Turkey's balance of payments. It is true that all ethnic groups attempt to influence foreign policies in favor of their former home country. There is a difference however between gaining friends and embarrassing them through distortions. So last month the governor of Alabama declared August 30th "A Day of Remembrance of the Turkish Tragedy for Liberation to Sovereignty and Independence." It is like declaring July 4 a day of liberation of the British. After ten "WHEREAS", the governor forgot to mention the complete elimination of Christian minorities in Turkey or alliance of Turkey with the central powers during World War I, the period of the "Turkish Independence". Actually, the Armenian Genocide in the hands of the Young Turks was an unimportant footnote for the governor of Alabama.

Many people erroneously think that the expression "crimes against humanity" is a post-Nuremberg legal concept for war criminals. Yet the British who were shocked by the crimes of the Turks against the Christians coined the
concept in 1915 Admiral Somerset Calthrope, the British High Commissioner in Turkey at the end of World War I wrote, "Not one Turk in a thousand will think that any other Turk deserves to be hanged for massacring Christians." It seems that the author of the Governor' declaration never heard of Armenian genocide, massacres of Kurds, or other atrocities, civil rights violations and so on. Now, in case of war all societies have committed atrocities. The Turks have no monopoly in that, but they seem to have monopoly in denials. In their thinking, denials lead to forgetfulness. As Professor Bass has explained it, "the forgetting of the Constantinople trials has been closely linked to the forgetting of the Armenian genocide." Central Asia will continue presenting a challenge for both Greece and Turkey. Both countries could gain much through cooperation, a word pronounced frequently but adhered to rarely in the post-1955 world of Turkish atavism and expansionism. Their defense expenditures, as percent of gross domestic product, are the highest in Europe and among the highest in the world. Yet they have produced no high tech defense products. The massive destruction of the remnants of Hellenic culture and religion in Turkey in 1955 and the invasion of Cyprus seeded additional obstacles to cooperation.

Membership in the European may be the only way for Turkey to cooperate.


Lefteris N. Botsas, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
School of Business Administration
Oakland University
Rochester, MI 48309
Telephone (248)370-3289
Fax (248)370-4275