2007 - 05 - 14 12:19# 977
after watching the documentary by France 24
i was thinking of hidden armenians around me, here in germany. there're many arm families who together with turks & kurds migrated from turkey somewhere after WW2. before coming to germany (or anywhere else in europe), they were already partially assimilated w/ turks, were hiding their identities, did not speak their native lang at home etc..
through armenian communities in germany i met many "turkish-armenians". although those are the families, who came back to their armenian identities, they know they're armenians, they even regularly come to arm community meetings etc... older members know bad german, so between each other they always speak turkish, mother lang spoken at home is also Turkish. Their kids already born here know well german & Turkish. They have mostly Turkish names & surnames. & mentality is Turkish.. my first reaction to them was rejection. "they're no armenians, they r turks!" (yes, i'm young & sometimes being stupid:) for long i couldn't understand how after all the sufferings seen from turks can armenians have turkish as native lang, give their children turkish names.. & that NOT in turkey, when they'd be forced to!! no, in free europe, where nobody discriminates them for being armenians, nobody prohibits them to speak armenian, practice own religion, culture.. it's their OWN CHOICE to stay with their turkish part of identity. i guess, it's just easier for them.. why to make effort & learn armenian? why rename their turkish surnames & go back to their armenian ones? etc etc.
it's easy to judge, but let's think what could we do for them to bring them back to “armenishness” (is there a world like “armyanstvo” in eng?). first thought is to provide armenian language courses. But they already exist in many arm communities, there is the offer, but it’s not demanded much, very few ppl go to these we just need to find incentives for those ppl to start learning Armenian, send their children to Armenian lang courses. You cannot just force them do so.
another idea was to collect such stories, find the ppl, send to them professional documentary film makers, shot films or reportages.. translate them into many languages & spread around the world using any channel: internet, tv... & first of all translate into turkish, cause those lost Armenians, esp in turkey, don't know armenian, english or any other foreign lang, only turkish.
what u think ab it all?
i was thinking of hidden armenians around me, here in germany. there're many arm families who together with turks & kurds migrated from turkey somewhere after WW2. before coming to germany (or anywhere else in europe), they were already partially assimilated w/ turks, were hiding their identities, did not speak their native lang at home etc..
through armenian communities in germany i met many "turkish-armenians". although those are the families, who came back to their armenian identities, they know they're armenians, they even regularly come to arm community meetings etc... older members know bad german, so between each other they always speak turkish, mother lang spoken at home is also Turkish. Their kids already born here know well german & Turkish. They have mostly Turkish names & surnames. & mentality is Turkish.. my first reaction to them was rejection. "they're no armenians, they r turks!" (yes, i'm young & sometimes being stupid:) for long i couldn't understand how after all the sufferings seen from turks can armenians have turkish as native lang, give their children turkish names.. & that NOT in turkey, when they'd be forced to!! no, in free europe, where nobody discriminates them for being armenians, nobody prohibits them to speak armenian, practice own religion, culture.. it's their OWN CHOICE to stay with their turkish part of identity. i guess, it's just easier for them.. why to make effort & learn armenian? why rename their turkish surnames & go back to their armenian ones? etc etc.
it's easy to judge, but let's think what could we do for them to bring them back to “armenishness” (is there a world like “armyanstvo” in eng?). first thought is to provide armenian language courses. But they already exist in many arm communities, there is the offer, but it’s not demanded much, very few ppl go to these we just need to find incentives for those ppl to start learning Armenian, send their children to Armenian lang courses. You cannot just force them do so.
another idea was to collect such stories, find the ppl, send to them professional documentary film makers, shot films or reportages.. translate them into many languages & spread around the world using any channel: internet, tv... & first of all translate into turkish, cause those lost Armenians, esp in turkey, don't know armenian, english or any other foreign lang, only turkish.
what u think ab it all?