{"id":96092,"date":"2011-05-17T14:48:16","date_gmt":"2011-05-17T09:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=96092"},"modified":"2011-05-17T14:48:16","modified_gmt":"2011-05-17T09:48:16","slug":"islamisized-armenians-or-hamshenites-form-new-party-in-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/05\/17\/islamisized-armenians-or-hamshenites-form-new-party-in-turkey.html","title":{"rendered":"Islamisized Armenians, or Hamshenites, Form New Party in Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Historical communities of Islamisized Armenians, who live on the Black Sea coast in northeastern Turkey, are getting ready to form a new political party. The party\u2019s founder, \u0130smet \u015eahin, is a former deputy candidate from Istanbul\u2019s second region who ran on the ranks of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, until he was left out of the candidate list. The new party\u2019s name will be publicly announced following the general elections on June 12, reports the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hurriyetdailynews.com\/n.php?n=a-forgotten-community-seeks-to-join-elections-with-a-new-party-2011-05-16\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">H\u00fcrriyet Daily News &amp; Economic Review<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will become a party that produces global solutions for societal problems and protects the general interests of all oppressed people. Our party will remain completely outside the left-right paradigm,\u201d \u015eahin, who is a prominent member of the Hem\u015fin community (also known as Hamshen or <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hemshin_peoples\">Hemshin<\/a> Armenians), told H\u00fcrriyet.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, a total of seven Turkish-Armenians ran for seats in the parliament with the AKP, the CHP and the BDP, but all of them were left off the candidate list.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would have been naive to expect positive results. The AKP still uses the Armenian identity as a form of curse in t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate debates,\u201d said \u015eahin, who accused the ruling AKP and the main opposition CHP of nationalism, and then added that the Armenian community of Istanbul is still an inconsequential factor in Turkey\u2019s political and social structure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe presence of even a single Armenian deputy in parliament would remind Turkey of its history; it would force Turkey to face up to its own history. Turkey does not have the courage to face up to its history,\u201d said \u015eahin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe BDP presents the Kurds and Turks as brothers in arms that fought against common enemies to protect the Republic, with the aim of gaining recognition from the state. The BDP is getting corrupt. Instead of aligning itself with other oppressed peoples, the BDP chose to go\u00a0for an exclusively Kurdish constituency. In the past they had announced their support for me because I was from within the party and because I am a Hamshenite,\u201d said \u015eahin, adding that he found it meaningless for other people to lay so much stress on his Hamshenite identity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn recent years, more and more people have begun claiming they are discovering their Armenian identity, and I do not find this sincere. Hamshenites have always identified themselves as Hamshenites. If you ask whether they are Turks, you would elicit a negative response. If you ask whether they are Armenians, again you would elicit a negative response. They would only tell you they are Hamshenites,\u201d said \u015eahin.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Historical communities of Islamisized Armenians, who live on the Black Sea coast in northeastern Turkey, are getting ready to&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[11772,26583,26584,26585,26582],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}