Everyone understood that woman’s suffering, except for the Turks, who were busy counting their territories and wealth…

Earlier, Istanbul’s Agos Armenian Weekly had informed that 16 Diaspora Armenian celebrities had sent letters to the Turks and that those letters would be presented this week.

The author of the first letter is Lebanese-Armenian art critic, psychologist Anita Tutukian.

“My family’s story is about many experiences of brutality that I, as a fourth generation Armenian, still feel ashamed of.

My great-grandmother Gohar’s father, brothers and uncles died like “candy melting under the sun”. They were wealthy and were tortured to tell the Turks where they had hidden their gold. They confessed, but instead of being released, they moved their bodies to a place where everyone could see how they were slowly dying…Gohar’s sister died in the snow as she was fleeing Kars. Her cousins were kidnapped near that area and either died from hunger and thirst or they were raped. Gohar’s husband threw himself off a tall building. One of their sons had just gotten married and was killed while searching for food. His wife was kidnapped.

There was no connection with the other son who had left for America earlier. The stepfather, who was a priest, was humiliated. When he refused to take his ring off, his finger was cut. Later, he died as well. He hid in a cave and would feed his children grass and lizards for months. He worked with his hands like a slave. He was able to tolerate the sufferings and humiliation, but the Turks weren’t able to tolerate him. In the early 1930s, he left for Aleppo, but was forced to give up his properties on the road to Aleppo, even the blanket that was covering the newly born grandson…The grandson died from cold.

Everyone understood that woman’s suffering, except for the Turks…They were busy counting their properties and wealth…

I get the impression that I’m dreaming whenever I hear about the idea of establishing dialogue with the Turkish government. The Turks believe they emerged from the combination of a boy and a wolf. They don’t notice that they were guided by the logic of a boy and had the appetite of a wolf when they were killing the Armenians.

How can a boy ��?talk’ to a toy that has been torn apart? How can a wolf have any kind of ��?dialogue’ with its food? If the modern way of dialogue is talking to a Turk graffiti fan who writes “son of a bitch” on the tombstone of an Armenian who lived and died 113 years ago, what kind of a dialogue are we talking about?

Based on the Turks’ mindset, that tombstone is ��?guilty’. I’m not offended, but it will take many centuries for them to mature.”

Anita Tutikian was born in 1961 in Beirut. She started studying the arts by taking special courses and continued her education at Haigazian University. She also defended her PhD in clinical psychology at Sen Joseph University of Beirut. Tutikian has participated in more than 80 exhibitions and is author of several articles devoted to the arts.