Bestsellers
You've likely heard the news that the #2 bestselling book in Turkey is none other than "Mein Kampf." But what you may not have heard is that the #1 bestseller in Turkey is called "Metal Storm," and tells of a fictional U.S. invasion of the country and a Turkish hero who wipes out Washington with a nuclear device.
The Turkish government is trying to play down the "Soaring Sales" of Hitler's Anti-semitic book even to the point of denying reality (which of course is rather typical of Turkey...ask any Armenian or Greek): "We have never had such an attitude [racism] in our culture, nor in our history, and we do not have it now..." says a government spokesperson.
Turkey has made it a point to officially deny the "Armenian" Genocide of the late 19th and early 20th centuries despite an absurd amount of evidence to the contrary. (Of course it wasn't just Armenians, but Greeks and Syrian "Nestorians" as well.) Their denials has even gone so far as to apply pressure on Microsoft to change some entries in their "Encarta" encyclopedia...alas Turkey failed.
I'd like to see a small sliver of Turkey's history held to the same standard that many of us hold our own country's history here in America. Turkish denials of the past would be comparatively understood if the US were to deny that europeans stole land from Native Americans here, or if the government were to deny that the "Trail of Tears" happened. Remember, the people of Asia Minor used to be a majority Christian population and the symbolic head of Eastern Christian Church, the Patriarch of Constantinople now resides in "Istanbul" and heads a local flock that likely does not outnumber the Orthodox Christians in Nebraska.
And so the Turks are reading Hitler's book...but curiously enough, Adolf himself did not deny the genocide:
I have given orders to my Death Units to exterminate without mercy or pity, men, women, and children belonging to the Polish speaking race. It is only in this manner we can acquire the vital territory which we need. After all, who remembers the extermination of the Armenians? - Adolf Hitler, 22 August 1939
The Orthodox Church has offered up far more martyrs in the last 150 years than it has in the previous 1850 or so years. Details HERE.
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