If you're looking for me in the coming weeks, check in the Islamic Secularist Entity, i.e., Turkey: I'll be reclaiming my ancestral home and lands.
"Turkish Man Returns Property of 1915 Assyrian Genocide Victims" from AINA, January 9 (thanks to all who sent this in):
Inheritance from a Turkish father was shown to be taken from an Assyrian who was killed during the genocide in 1915. Berzan Boti is now apologizing for what his forefathers did and is returning the house and other properties to its rightful owners.At the end of 2008 a ninety year old taboo about the genocide was broken. Approximately 200 intellectual Turks started an appeal, apologizing to the Armenians for what happened in 1915 (AINA 12-12-2008). The genocide (called Seyfo in Assyrian) was called "the huge disaster" in the appeal.
Berzan Boti has bequeathed all properties to the Seyfo Center, a genocide studies institute based in Sweden. The properties were owned by Assyrians before the Seyfo genocide in 1915.
A year ago, Berzan Boti contacted the Seyfo Center. In the letter he apologized for what had happened in 1915 and expressed his willingness to return the properties:
"When I found out that the properties that I and my brothers inherited from our father wasn't our own, but properties taken from the murdered Assyrians in 1915 I felt an indescribable feeling of guilt and shame. I've been thinking long and hard before I have come to this decision. I tried to put myself in their position. I have personally apologized to every Assyrian and Armenian I've meet. But this does not get rid of the crime our ancestors committed. Even if I am personally not responsible for what happened in 1915, I felt as I had to do more than just to apologize. Finally, I came to the decision to give back all properties that I inherited from my forefathers to Seyfo Center, who struggles for a confession of the Seyfo genocide in 1915".
Berzan Boti has now signed a document saying that Sabri Atman, founder of Seyfo Center, is responsible for the properties. Atman received the letter and says that Boti's action is honorable.
"This is the beginning; I hope that other people that got properties during the Seyfo genocide caused will take their responsibility as Berzan Boti did," says Sabri Atman.
The transfer of property to Seyfo Center will take place during a press conference in Sweden in the spring.
this is significant. a realization about the affects terrible acts of the past may have upon others.
... wonder if such a realization will ever occur concerning Jerusalem ...
Though the Turks go to great lengths to hide what happen between 1914 and 1922 , on its face it was the viscous genocidal attacks by Muslims against Assyrian Christians in mostly Southern Turkey in which as many 750,000 where killed.
So, the press conference is to be held in Sweden. Why not Turkey?
We here Islamo-Leftists frequently making reference to the Native American genocide in order to demonize America. Such is the difference between a civilized culture and a barbaric one; civilized nations acknowledge their historical sins.
On that day when Muslims acknowledge the Armenian and Hindu genocides...the violent extirpation of other local cultures among conquered peoples...and the slaughter of the Banu Qurayzah...that's when the Islamic world will truly join the family of nations.
(A cold day in hell)
Cornelius, since when do muslims ever acknowledge any wrongdoing, unless it's to their own co-supremacists when one of their planned murderous or genocidal actions doesn't produce as many victims as they expected?
By the way, my question was just a rhetorical one, to add to what you stated.
I wonder where Taner - the Turk I argued with the other day - stands on this one?
It would be nice to think that there is an emerging collective memory awakening within Turks who have seen their secular utopia burn to the ground with the rise of the new and improving Ottomoton Empire. How many crypto Christians might there be coming out of the wood works, I wonder.
Muslims will join the civilized world, when Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan offers the Hagia Sophia back to the Eastern Orthodox Church for use by the church as it deems appropriate as church or a museum, receiving from Erdogran a sincere muslim apology for the despicable atrocities committed by muslim Turks on the premises in sanctification allah's name!
This is Good news
I hope one day the Turks will return my grandparents home that they stole.
He's not a very good muslim. A good muslim would've cleaved off his head and paraded it around town.
But he is a good person. And that is far, far better.
I hope I've made wrong assumptions; I'm stuck on the word "bequeathed".
Otherwise, this is A beginning, not the beginning. THE beginning would be when Turks start giving back the stolen properties BEFORE they die, not merely bequeathing their inheritance. How much more noble to have do it BEFORE death. Besides, the man's natural heirs and neighbors will probably block the physical (as opposed to the deed) transfer, or just reassume the property upon the untimely deaths of the recipients.
"... wonder if such a realization will ever occur concerning Jerusalem ..."
How far back are YOU talking about??
Concerned Citizen, one of his parents had to have done something right. The man has a heart and conscience.
He is to be commended for his own personal enlightenment and spiritual growth. He is a small lit candle in a great vast darkness.
I agree with lorfalcon.
I doubt that Berzan Boti has endeared himself to many Turks, but we should not hestitate to commend him.
Great headline!
Actually, the stealing of property from indigenous non-muslim communities whose members have been either killed, or driven out of their homes and neighborhood by razzias and muslim violence, or who have officially been expelled by their country's government, has occurred in each and every Muslim country from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean in the past fifty years and as we know is still going on today in Irak or Egypt for example.
We're talking not only about houses and private property, but about businesses, schools, houses of worship, community buildings and all kinds of community-held assets that went to the governments, and not only into private hands.
I think that DurbanII is the perfect occasion for those people to start demanding REPARATIONS.
But in my view, the most damaging has been the devastating psychological effect the violence has had on children, who are affected by their traumatic experience throughout their adult life and, unfortunately, it continues to affect their descendents, whether they are aware of it or not.
If Islam is going to start returning things, what would Islam be left with?
Not much, I think,