Reception of His Excellency Prof.dr. Ahmet Davutoğlu (Minister of Foreign Affairs) at Aramaic (Syriac) Association in Cologne, Germany
Your Excellency Minister and Professor Davutoğlu,
On behalf of the Syriac Universal Alliance (“SUA”), I wish to express the honor of receiving You and the distinguished members of the Turkish delegation on Sunday, 4 December 2011, at the Aramaic Association of St. Peter and Paul in Cologne, Germany (Aramaic is the equivalent name for Syriac, Süryani in Turkish; see “Attachment 1”).
Such events are rare and the Aramean (Syriac) people, both inside and outside Germany, greatly appreciate the time You afforded to us in Your busy schedule.
There has been of late a gap between Turkey and its Aramean (Syriac) people. However, this has now been partially bridged with Your efforts. Your visit to Cologne demonstrated Turkey’s willingness to embrace all of its citizens and Your speech highlighted that the Arameans are esteemed as an integral part of the rich cultural mosaic of Turkey. We applaud You for this and hope that this will pave the way for still greater appreciation of our people as an inherent part of Turkey’s future.
We are also grateful for Your invitation to welcome us in Ankara and are eager to dialogue with You about five key issues which the Aramean (Syriac) people need to bring to the attention of Turkey’s Government. These crucial issues relate to our future in Southeast Turkey and the relationship of the Turkish State with our people, particularly our people in the Western diaspora.
In the present letter, Your Excellency, we wish to take the opportunity to raise an urgent and critical matter that has greatly disturbed the Aramean people worldwide. It concerns the distorted portrayal of our people in a history textbook issued in 2011 by the Turkish Ministry of Education for the 10th class. This book educates Turkey’s next generation, which includes intellectuals, writers and leaders, but slanders the good name of the Arameans (see “Attachment 2” for a copy of the original source).
Written by Vicdan Cazgır, İlhan Genç, Mehmet Çelik, Celal Genç and Şenol Türedi, the textbook was edited by Dr. Osman Köse. Pages 65 and 66 contain a section about “The Situation of the Süryaniler in the Ottoman State.”
It portrays the Arameans as being the pawns of Western nations and “rebels” betraying the Turkish state in the past and the present. They have been unjustifiably demonized and implicitly branded as killing their Turkish fellow citizens. To our utmost astonishment, our people in the diaspora have incredibly been called “the political and religious tool of the West.”
The discriminative text about the Aramean people is fundamentally flawed in many respects. It does not reflect history, not even about our Aramean origins about which there is academic consensus. It is appalling that such poor scholarly work has managed to be made part of a national curricular text aimed at the youthful Turkish audience.
The long-lasting consequence of this distorted text for Turkish society is that the younger generation will inevitably harbor resentment and ongoing discrimination against its own Aramean people. Such a blatantly discriminative text violates our human rights and our dignity. The text allows for dangerous presumptions to be formed against a people that has already dwindled in its ancestral homeland and is a direct attack on our good standing as being always loyal to the states in which our people live.
For these reasons, this misrepresentation ought not be tolerated by the Turkish Government. It sends the wrong message to the Aramean people worldwide and the international community on Turkey’s strong commitment to human rights, equal citizenship, democracy and development.
Your Excellency, this matter deeply hurts and worries the Aramean people inside and outside Turkey. We are certain that you, too, will find the aforesaid section in this textbook of shocking disturbance – not only as Turkey’s Foreign Minister who fights for the best interests of Turkey and all its citizens, but also as an eminent scholar who profoundly cares about the academic and historical truth.
We request Your Excellency to urgently contact your colleague, the Minister of National Education, His Excellency Ömer Dinçer, and persuade him to rectify and revise the discriminatory text, which we deem is to be in the best interests of the Turkish state and society. We would highly appreciate and look forward to Your swift action in this distressing issue.
Finally, we wish Your Excellency and the Turkish people a joyful and blessed new year. We look forward to meeting You again in 2012 in order to discuss untapped opportunities and a successful cooperation between the Turkish Government and its indigenous Aramean (Syriac) people.
Yours sincerely,
Syriac Universal Alliance
