Pro-Active, with Truth on our side
Turks and Turkish-Americans have been absorbing the unwarranted attacks of the professional hate lobbies for too long. Sometimes the attacks assume a deadly form. Turkish Consul General Kemal Arikan of Los Angeles and Honorary Consul General Orhan Gunduz of Boston, for example, have lost their lives on January 28, 1982 and May 4, 1982, respectively, in the hands of cold-blooded Armenian terrorists. In countless other cases the Turkish-Americans have found themselves at the receiving end of gratuitous insults, media distortions, and public humiliation not because of anything they've done but because of their ethnic heritage. Because of who they were and are. In our beloved America, of all places, such maddening injustice should not happen. But such is life.

From "Midnight Express" to the allegations of so-called "Armenian Genocide" (which is now incredibly stretched as a paradigm to the so-called "Pontus Genocide" thesis) the Turkish-American re-action has been re-active indeed. Through countless after-the-fact letters written to editors and phone calls placed to the elected officials and media outlets, Turkish-Americans tried to redress the situation and balance the scales of justice, to little effect. Most recently we again had to watch as our heritage was made the butt of jokes on Saturday Night Live (through the mouth of a Greek-American actress at that) and Late Night With Conan O'Brian. To ridicule and vilify the image of a "Turk" and gang up on the grotesque stereotype created by the anti-Turkish lobbies is still a cost-free target practice for some U.S. politicians, entertainers and media professionals.

However, despite all this, we have one thing on our side - The Truth with the big "T." James Bone of The Times of London, in a recent C-SPAN discussion, said that our century is a "Century of Interpretation." This sharp observation is correct to a certain extent. However, if such Truth were not on our side, even this very paper you are holding in your hands could not exist. Without such Truth, with all its many uncomfortable shades of gray as acknowledged freely by a great majority of Turks, our detractors would have wrapped up and shut close our case a long time ago. The fact that they still have to bend so many arms in the shadowy backrooms of state capitols and have to spend millions of dollars in so many electoral campaigns in order to re-write history through legislative fiat is the proof par excellence that they do not have the Truth on their side.

They can have one resolution after another passed in all fifty state capitals, interject their twisted version of history into public school curricula and build all the expensive "Genocide Museums" they want. But they will never be able to discuss with us the truth of their allegations in public fora because Truth is the only thing in this world money can't buy. They will continue to insist, as they incredibly do now, that the only way they'll sit with us and "discuss" these issues is if we accept their allegations before hand! Such insistence to shunt any and all learned public discussion of their serious allegations again reminds us that Truth is not what our adversaries rely on.

But to have the Truth on our side is not enough because history still needs human mediation to write itself. It is time for all Turkish-Americans get pro-active to correct the wrongs committed against them and the American public. We are many decades behind in public relations and are relatively few in numbers. That's why individual reactions are not enough.

One way to fight this injustice pro-actively, that is, before it happens, is to strengthen our community organizations. All Turkish-Americans should join at least one organization and become a due-paying member. Grassroots organizations like the ATAA and the FTAA are the amplifiers that leverage our individual indignation to a jolting voltage at the national level. The bright projector that we need to shine on the Truth can only be powered by the collective might of our organizations. Join one today. And after you do, make sure that you take part in its deliberations and programs.

A second pro-active measure is to support the Turkish-American candidates running for political office. So far three candidates (Alan Uke of CA, Joseph Youssef of NJ, and Oz Bengur of MD) have ran for national office, without any success. Locally, Jak Karako, Tarkan Ocal and John Yackley tried to do the same in New York, Florida and Illinois, respectively. This is a momentum that is building up visibly from year to year. When we get our own representatives into the Congress, the Turkish-American issues caucus will be infused with a new vigor for sure.

A third measure is to support the internship program that ATAA and TUSIAD have just launched and develop similar ones at our local organizations. We need to get our youngsters educated in the way the American system works and help them gain the skills to work through the system towards our common goals. We must encourage our youth to enroll as interns at radio and TV stations, newspaper offices, public and law offices, and volunteer for many charitable organizations across the American landscape.

The journey ahead is long and arduous. But our hearts are pure, mind is clear and legs are strong. The City of Truth shining bright on that hilltop is beckoning us even though we need to build a road over the quicksand of misinformation in between. With principled collective pro-action through our local and national grassroots organizations, we'll definitely reach that city even if it takes us a hundred years to get there.

The Turkish Times