Türk düşmanı Ermeni Diyasporasının Los Angeles’ta Starbuckslar’dan kaldırttığı posterler için Starbucks’a Tepkinizi Bildireceğiniz Linkler.
TURKISH DANCERS, IN TURKISH COSTUMES, UNDER TURKISH FLAG: SO WHAT’S WITH ARMENIANS?
I am saddened by the recent malicious campaign staged by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) against Starbucks for featuring Turkish folk dancers at a festival in Turkey on a beautiful poster designed by Tim Rose. The Armenian-American group falsely claimed that the dancers in posters were Armenian women, hatefully rejected the use of Turkish flag, and went on to distort the history of World War I featuring Armenian insurgency in the Ottoman Empire and the resulting mutual suffering as Armenian genocide.
I am also disappointed when Starbucks, quite unfortunately, took current Armenian claims at face value, without checking facts, and removed the posters, setting a perilous precedent for racial intimidation of more than a million Americans of Turkish-Turkic descent. Such ill-advised and ill-informed reaction to a harassment campaign by Armenian groups may yet prove to undermine the coffee giant’s substantial business in Turkey, as shock is gradually replaced by simmering anger at Starbuck’s instant appeasement of a few Armenian bullies. This entire episode will inevitably be viewed in terms of Armenian terrorism which claimed the lives of three Turkish diplomats in Los Angeles basin since 1973 and Starbucks might be viewed as approving Armenian terrorism in the Southland—or coerced by it.
The costumes shown in the poster are Turkish and called “bindalli“, meaning thousand-branched, a reference to rose bushes which are symbols of love in Turkish poetry . “Bindalli” costumes can be seen in Turkey’s Erzurum-Erzincan-Bayburt region today. You can do a google search yourself and click on “images” to see thousands of different kinds of bindalli costumes. Folk dancers from Erzurum-Erzincan-Bayburt also wear those costumes. The Armenian campaigns of anger and hate, therefore, directed at Starbucks and Turkey, respectively, exaggerated, misplaced and irrelevant.
Coffee is a Turkish invention and Turkish coffee has been a peacemaker the world over for centuries. ANCA’s hateful campaign directed at Turkish culture and flag betrays the spirit of peace and harmony promoted by Turkish coffee. “A single cup of Turkish coffee commits one to 40-years of friendship” goes the famous Turkish proverb. What is more natural than a global coffee-maker (Starbucks) displaying the inventor’s (Turkey’s) flag? Just like Olympics opening with Greece’s flag?
Turkey is a staunch US ally for more than 60 years helping the US advance democracy and liberties throughout the world, including but not limited to Korea, Kosova, Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan, and most recently, Syria. Turkey is a reliable member of NATO and G20, contributing visionary insights and solutions to global problems. Starbucks should not offend Turkey, Turks and Turkish-Americans, just to appease some Armenian protesters misrepresenting facts.
The Armenian defamation campaign also distracts attention from the 23rd anniversary of the Khojaly Massacre commemorated this week. On February 26, 1992, the Armenian military attacked the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly brutally massacring over 600 civilians, including 106 women and 63 children. The responsibility of the Armenian forces for the Khojaly atrocity was documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Washington Post, Newsweek, other rights and media organizations, and recognized by 16 U.S. states and over a dozen countries. In contrast, ANCA and few other Armenian-American groups continue denying that the mass killings in Khojaly were carried out by the Armenian forces.
ANCA would do better to condemn Armenian aggression in Karabagh and Armenian terrorism around the world, not Turkish coffee, folk dances or costumes or national flag or Turkish coffee.
Watching the next move by Starbucks, therefore, are about one million Azeri-Americans (from Iran & Azerbaijan), half a million Turkish-Americans (from Turkey, Cyprus, and the Balkans), another half a million from other Turkic nations (from Kazakhstan, Kyrgzystan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan), as well as 80 million Turks from Turkey and 15 million Azeris from Azerbaijan, who are all dismayed by Armenian hate-campaigns defaming all things Turkish and Starbucks’ instant surrender to appease Armenian lynch mobs.
I urge Starbucks to reject this intimidation campaign by restoring in its stores those wonderful Turkish posters previously removed in haste.
*****
Message to Turkish/Turkic Americans:
1) Please click on this link to join the campaign for setting the record straight ,
just launched from Pax Turcica :
https://capwiz.com/paxturcica/go/starbucks
2) Also, you are welcome to post your personal message
(please be kind, factual, and resepctful)
at the Starbuck’s site:
