'Shoot the Messenger'

by Taner Akcam
July 16, 2007

In May 2007, I revealed the identity of Murad
“Holdwater” Gümen, the secretive Webmaster of Tall
Armenian Tale, an extensive and influential site
devoted to “the other side of the falsified Genocide”
and the defamation of genocide scholars, myself
included. Mr. Gümen has been a leading voice in an
ongoing campaign to denounce me as a traitor to Turkey
and as a terrorist who ought to be of interest to
American authorities.

For the last three years, disinformation about
me from Tall Armenian Tale has been disseminated all
over the Internet, eventually reaching the open-source
encyclopedia, Wikipedia. This campaign, which
intensified after the November 2006 publication of my
book, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the
Question of Turkish Responsibility, culminated in my
detention by Canadian and American border authorities
last February, on suspicion of terrorism. As evidence,
they showed me my vandalized Wikipedia biography.

Just one month before this incident, the
assassination of Istanbul-based journalist Hrant Dink
by an ultranationalist gunman had put Turkey’s
intellectuals on high alert. We knew that in the
months before his death, Mr. Dink had been targeted by
an increasingly vicious media campaign intent on
portraying him as a traitor. Among other things, Dink
was pilloried for revealing the Armenian identity of
Sabiha Gökçen, the adopted daughter of Turkey’s
founding father, Kemal Ataturk. Leading the pack
against Dink was Hürriyet newspaper, one of the most
influential publications in Turkey.

In the campaign against me, disinformation from
Tall Armenian Tale was copied to YouTube videos
describing my “terrorist” activities. I received death
threats by email. My lectures and book tour were
disrupted, and poison-pen letters were sent to the
hosting universities. Following my lecture on November
1, 2006, at City University of New York, I was
physically assaulted.

My detention was the last straw. I challenged
Mr. Gümen to stand up in public.

The unmasking of an individual who had been
running a campaign of slander against me was presented
to readers of Hürriyet as a criminal or unethical act.
I was said to have endangered Mr. Gümen’s life.

“Murad Gümen, who has been defending Turkey for over
30 years under the assumed name ‘Holdwater,’ had his
identity unmasked by Taner Akçam, supporter of the
claim of a so-called genocide….Upon publication of his
identity, Gümen became a target and has been the
subject of a hate campaign.”—“Secret Lobbyist
Deciphered,” Hürriyet, June 21, 2007

“Murad Gümen, whose identity was unmasked by Taner
Akçam, has been the target of a flood of insults sent
by Armenians via the Internet. Gümen, who’s been
accused of racism, has had his photograph published on
the Web….[Taner Akçam]’s disappeared. It has not been
possible to reach Taner Akçam….Murad Gümen is a
successful illustrator and film producer who lives in
America.”—“Immediate Target,” Hürriyet, June 22, 2007

“Taner Akçam fled Turkey years ago. He lives overseas,
in the United States at this point, and gets fed by
the Armenian lobby. He vomits hate towards our country
in all of his books and his speeches. Recently he
unmasked the Web site that was maintained by Murad
Gümen, who has been defending the Turkish position on
Armenian issues in the United States, and he revealed
the latter’s identity which had been kept secret until
now. This individual named Taner Akçam who has spent
his life living outside of the country, writing
articles and giving speeches against Turkey…[T]his
individual…escaped overseas, works in opposition to
Turkey, betrayed his country, and serves the Armenian
lobby by promoting the position that ‘there was an
Armenian genocide’ all over the world!”—Emin Çolasan,
“Bravo Atilla Koç! This is How You Introduce Turkey!”,
Hürriyet, June 23, 2007

Hürriyet’s reportage concerns me deeply, for
three reasons.

First, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the
lynching mentality that was created against Dink.
Having revealed the identity of a secret slanderer, I
am now being denounced as a traitor who “vomits hate
towards our country.”

My second cause for concern has to do with an
anonymous email that I received on June 11, 2007:
“Today we have started fighting you and those
creatures you call your friends, within the boundaries
of the law. But if we don’t get the result we’re
looking for, we’ll start trying other alternative
ways. It would be better for world peace and truth if
sewer germs like you were taken off the
planet…tomorrow is going to be much more difficult for
you. Pray that the devil takes you away soon because
otherwise you’ll be living a hell on earth… you think
you’ve discovered who “Holdwater” is ...you have
gotten it all wrong. Right now the world is full of
millions of Holdwaters...One day you and your wild
Armenian blood brothers will drown in this sea of
Holdwaters…The truth hurts…it really does. One day you
are going to feel the pain so badly that when you read
these lines, you’ll remember how you were.” The
similarity in character between the campaign against
me by Hürriyet and the language used in this
threatening email is frightening.

The writer of that letter concludes, “Who am I?
You’re going to find out, Taner, you’re going to find
out.” Was it a coincidence that the Hürriyet campaign
began just 10 days later?

Third, Hürriyet cold-bloodedly disregarded the
most basic principles of journalism. Their headline on
the second day of coverage proclaimed that I had
“disappeared.” Readers were given the impression that
I had gone into hiding the day after Hürriyet reported
my unmasking of Murad “Holdwater” Gümen.

The fact is that my office address, telephone
numbers, and email address are all available online.
The University of Minnesota, College of Liberal Arts,
the Department of History, and the Center for
Holocaust and Genocide Studies have full-time staff.
There is no record of a call, not one single email,
from Hürriyet. They never bothered to contact me. They
didn’t check their facts or attempt to interview me.
And when I demanded a correction, the editor-in-chief
ignored my letter.

Thus, in Dink’s case and also in mine, one of
the most influential and widely circulated national
newspapers does not hesitate to transform itself into
a weapon. Once again, intellectuals and activists who
dare to question the government’s “official history”
are being put on notice. This shameful campaign not
only endangers my life and the lives of my colleagues,
my family and friends; ironically enough, the very
notion of free expression is being undermined by the
very institution that depends on it most: the public
press.

And what is the point, after all? I published a
scholarly study that deviated from the official
position of the Turkish State. One should ask the
Turkish authorities whether they truly believe that
shooting the messenger will prove that their position
on 1915 is the correct one.