Turkish Journalists Visit Armenian Genocide Museum Institute

YEREVAN — On 23 October, Turkish journalists visited the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI). They were in Armenia within the framework of the project “Media Bus Tour” organized by Eurasia Partnership Foundation.

The journalists visited the temporary exhibition hall of the museum and got acquainted with the temporary exhibition dedicated to the WWI centennial.

After that, they had a meeting and active discussion with Hayk Demoyan, the Director of Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute and the Secretary of State Commission on coordination of the events dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Writer Serkan Engin: “ Obliged to talk about Armenian genocide at the cost of my life and freedom”

Turkish writer Serkan Engin considers it an obligation of his conscience to talk about the Armenian, Greek and Assyrian genocides in Turkey. “This is an ethical duty for me as an honest and honorable intellectual. This is my debt and obligation to humanity. I want to talk about all these genocides perpetrated by my Turkish ancestors, because in Turkey you must declare the truth loudly, against the lies of the so-called official history. I’m the child who shouts “The Emperor is naked”. I’m devoting myself to the truth at the cost of my life and freedom, because I want to create and increase awareness about these atrocities, so that similar crimes against humanity won’t be perpetrated again. I refuse to be “proud of” my ancestors who raped little girls, burned children alive, enslaved women and brutally slaughtered millions of innocent people,” the Laz-Turkish poet told Armenpress.

“I refuse to shout “How happy is he, who says I’m a Turk” every morning in school playgrounds. I reject the education system which tells our children a racist motto like “One Turk is equal to the whole world”. I don’t want to see any fascist youth in my country, or in any other country. We have to tell our kids “Every humans of the world are equal to each other, whatever their ethnicity, language, belief or gender. I want an education system in Turkey which reveals the importance of art, philosophy, and science,” he said.

Serkan Engin is against all kind of heroic tales, because politicians, generals and arms industry corporations use heroic tales for their own benefits, so that they can send poor young men to the war zones to kill each other.

“I’m an anti-militarist and proud of this. My heart and my pen are my only weapons. I stand behind all the oppressed people in the world, as an internationalist socialist poet and author, and my mission is to be the their voice. I’m a little child in an adult’s body who wants to love the whole world with childish pureness,” the writer stressed.