The past year has
been rife with intriguing developments on our Turkish (non-Azeri) front.
So I thought it would probably be good to put those
often-positive-seeming events in some context.
Some 1,000 years ago, Turks arrived in Asia Minor—Anatolia and the
Armenian Plateau. That’s when our interaction with them began. These
marauding horsemen proceeded to establish rival domains that fought one
another until Turkish statehood was consolidated in the form of the
Ottoman Empire after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. All along those
five centuries, the natives (Armenians and others living further west)
were being trampled (figuratively, and probably even literally) under
the hooves of these newcomers to our homeland.
But despite what might have been expected, and as happened in most
other empires, the onset of the Ottoman era brought no real relief, at
least in the form of personal safety and economic revival, to the
subjects of this new state. Periodic massacres continued, naturally
aimed at Armenians, and others, who had to be tamed and controlled.
After Ottoman expansion was halted at the gates of Vienna in 1683,
the slow decay of the empire began. One aspect of the self-consumption
that plagued the lands ruled from Constantinople was the corrupt,
expropriative system of tax-farming that fell heaviest on the peasantry,
meaning Armenians. Someone would buy, from the government, the taxation
of a certain area. As long as the sultan got his predetermined amount,
that person was free to extract as much money from the subjects of “his”
area as he wanted and could. This resulted in families losing their
lands and and/or having to send sons to the cities to work to pay the
exorbitant taxes.
The political benefit of this was the slow removal of “undesirable”
populations (Armenians) from their homelands, allowing settlement there
by Turks and other Muslims who were being forced out of the periphery of
the empire. This gradual ethnic cleansing suited the purposes of the
Turkish rulers.
But this was not the totality of the ongoing repression. Armenians—second-class citizens under
sharia
law as implemented in the Ottoman Empire, despite being a “people of
the book” (and therefore deserving of Islamic protection), the loyal
millet, and the financial backbone of the empire—were subject to
constant persecution, whether it was having their tongues cut out for
speaking Armenian (as my grandmother had learned from her father), being
forced to convert to Islam, or having no recourse in the country’s
courts because of their “infidel” status.
Those four-and-a-half centuries of de-Armenianization of the
population of the Armenian Plateau paved the way for the Armenian
Genocide, definitive expropriation, and the establishment of a
supposedly mono-national Turkish state on the ruins of the occupied
western portion of the Armenians’ homeland.
But the genocide wasn’t enough for the murderous Young Turks’
ideological heirs, Ataturk and his Turkish-chauvinist minions. See “
Depriving Anatolian Armenians of Education”
in last week’s issue of the Armenian Weekly, which tells the story of
how Armenians were kept under- or un-educated in the post-1923 time
frame. This was nothing but a continuation of the forced removal of
Armenians from our homeland.
But of course, this subtle pressure wasn’t enough. During the Kurdish
uprising of 1937-38 in Dersim, the more traditional and murderous
Turkish techniques reappeared. As had happened for centuries, many
Armenians had “become” Kurds during the genocide, and a significant
number of those were in Dersim. As the rebellion was quelled, Kurds were
promised leniency if they ratted-out those hidden Armenians. Once their
identity was revealed, they were killed, and the Kurds who exposed them
were also penalized for harboring them!
And with this, we can perhaps accept that the Turks’ bloody ways of
eliminating Armenians from “their” (the Turks’) country ended and we
transitioned to more “civilized” processes of conducting anti-Armenian
campaigns. This might be when the real hatred of Armenians started to
wane, since there were no longer significant numbers of Armenians left
to hate. All that was left was the “Armenian” as an evil caricature,
which is what we must contend with even today. Most, who had not been
killed, exiled, or scared away, were concentrated in Bolis (Istanbul).
The 1930’s also witnessed the beginning of the out-of-country
external propaganda campaign that Turkey has waged unabated, and has in
fact escalated, against Armenians and Armenian interests to this day.
Its ambassador to the United States prevented the making of
Forty Days of Musa Dagh into a film.
In keeping with its more “civilized” approach, but still manifesting
hatred towards Armenians and other non-Turkish, non-Muslim minorities,
and still lusting after Armenians’ and others’ un-expropriated
possessions, in 1942,
Varlik Vergisi—the wealth tax—was enacted
as a means of stealing Armenians’ post-genocide holdings. Obviously,
this was just another way of driving Armenians out. While abolished just
two years later,
Varlik Vergisi just confirmed Ankara’s unstated
policy towards Armenians: They were to be driven out. Those of our
compatriots who remained under Turkish rule suffered the same ignominy
as in the pre-genocide period. Properties were stolen, Armenians schools
were kept under destructive state scrutiny, and life was generally
squeezed to make things uncomfortable. This led to a steady trickling
exodus from Bolis, but the community there was replenished, ironically,
with those of our compatriots who were even worse off in the “interior”
of Turkey (i.e., Turkish-occupied Western Armenia).
Meanwhile, the external front was heating up. As Armenians in the
diaspora came to be organized and set on the path of post-genocide
economic recovery, we were also becoming more active politically and
diplomatically, demanding the 3-Rs—recognition, reparations, return of
lands. Naturally, this led to Turkey responding. An excellent example is
the 1971-85 saga of the UN Economic and Social Council’s Sub-Commission
on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities effort to
prepare a report about genocide. Inescapably, the Armenian example had a
significant place in it, which led to an ultimately unsuccessful
Turkish effort to exclude it.
Starting in 1975, a roughly decade-long string of attacks on Turkish
diplomats commenced. Unsurprisingly, this elicited a response from the
Turkish government. But this response did not just consist of the one
that commonly comes to mind (Turks calling Armenians murderers and
trying to cover up their crimes). In 1978, the Turkish government
quietly reached out to the leadership of the ARF to meet and come to
some arrangement. The ARF immediately involved the Hnchags and Ramgavars
and met with the Turks. Not much came of it since all that was
proffered was some form of recognition. But, we’ll never know since the
third of Turkey’s four coups cut the process short. Perhaps this marked
the very beginning of Turkey’s “split personality” regarding Armenians
and Armenian issues.
The 1980’s witnessed unabated anti-Armenian attitudes. Examples
abound. On a very personal level, the first time I encountered a living
human being who unabashedly denied the genocide was in 1980 when then
Turkish Foreign Minister Ilter Turkmen spoke at the University of
Pennsylvania’s law school. There was the 1982 conference about genocide
that ultimately was held in Tel Aviv, with the Israeli government
withdrawing its sponsorship after tremendous Turkish pressure, in which
the Armenian Genocide was addressed. Turkey’s efforts on the academic
front really took off, with the poster-child of denialism becoming
UCLA’s Stanford Shaw. In 1982, the beginnings of what is now New York’s
Turkish parade began under the guise of celebrating “Children’s Day,”
which falls oh-so-conveniently on April 23 in Turkey. Also in the summer
of 1982, a trip to occupied Armenian territories by a small group of
Diasporan Armenians (including future Armenian foreign minister and
almost-president Raffi Hovannisian) ended badly with inappropriate
searches conducted of their persons by Turkish authorities who
confiscated most of the photographs they had taken.
But something must have been changing in Turkish society. The
repressive regime installed by Ataturk was starting to come apart. Plus,
the assassinations of the Turkish diplomats and the genocide related
publicity and activity in parliamentary and diplomatic sections, which
must have triggered some thinking Turks to inquire what the hullabaloo
was all about.
In 1988, Armen Aroyan started taking groups of Armenians to visit
their ancestral homes and homeland. He has continued since then. This
could not have happened without the knowledge and tacit acceptance of
the Turkish authorities. His were not the first, or only, trips. I
already mentioned one. Another happened in 1965 by Moushegh Kheteyan
(Mitch Kehetian), the same year my grandmother visited Giligia and
elsewhere in what’s called Turkey. This is evidence of something
shifting.
In 1990, the Turkish Historical Society, the seat of official genocide denialism, held its 11
th
Congress of Turkish History in Ankara, where 16 papers on Armenian
topics were presented. One of those was by Levon Marashlian who was the
first of us to dare to venture into that lion’s den and present reality
to a denial-addled Turkish society. This was not an easy step to take. I
remember how both Levon, and Armen Aroyan, were viewed with some
consternation for their activities. It was also in the 1990’s that the
partially, selectively opened Ottoman archives started being researched
by people who were not Turkish government lackeys. Meanwhile, more
Turkish scholars were looking into Armenian issues and deciding to
escape the denialism of their society. More evidence of shifting…
Yet all along, formal Turkish policy remained unchanged. Whether it
was opposing passage of commemorative resolutions in the House or Senate
of the U.S. Congress and legislatures around the world or pressuring
(in 1995) Argentina’s President Menem to veto a law recognizing the
Armenian Genocide, the Turks kept battling truth and simple reality on
every “battlefield” imaginable—not just legislatures and presidents, but
all diplomatic venues, the media, and academia. Yet something had to be
brewing.
Then came 2002 and what I’ll call the “AKP shift” when the Adalet ve
Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party) was elected to power.
Our compatriots in Bolis indicated this was an overall positive step.
Things started to loosen up internally and Turkish civil society seemed
to commence a very early, and fragile, spring bloom, despite the
Islamic/religious basis of this new ruling party. Now, more activists
inside
Turkey were coming around to truth. In 2005, at Bilgi University in
Bolis, a conference somewhat grandiosely titled “Ottoman Armenians
During the Decline of the Empire: Issues of Scientific Responsibility
and Democracy” was held after two previous attempts to convene it were
blocked. In 2007, the murder of Hrant Dink turned thousands of Turks out
onto the streets claiming, “We are all Armenians.” Things really seemed
to be improving or changing, at least on the non-governmental side of
life in Turkey. This decade seemed to deepen, enshrine, and confirm the
split personality I noted earlier. Turks want to know the truth, but
simultaneously can’t handle it because it involves admitting to
monstrous acts by their close relatives. The government wants to be rid
of the “Armenian problem” but doesn’t have the political will or a
society prepared to handle the ramifications.
Yet, during the same first decade of this century, we had the 2005
disclosure by whistleblower Sibel Edmonds of what can only be described
as the bribery of Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, by Turks so he would block passage of a resolution
commemorating the Armenian Genocide, which he did.
That same year, we had Dogu Perincek going to Switzerland to pick a
fight over the ability to deny the genocide despite Swiss law. This led
to his being found guilty and a series of appeals which just days ago
absolved him of wrongdoing because his freedom of expression had
allegedly been abridged, since the Armenian Genocide is not a “fact” in
the same way the Holocaust is, according to five of the seven judges of
the European Court of Human Rights that heard the latest appeal.
Of course, there is the 2007 murder of Hrant Dink by a 17-year old. What does that
age
say about where Turks’ minds are when it comes to Armenians? The murder
happened on the cusp of Turkish government and society interface—a
boundary still murky, as who exactly organized the murder remains hidden
and the subject of ongoing court cases.
Of course, the infamous 2008-09 Armenia-Turkey protocols are an
outstanding example of Turkish government duplicity and commitment to
evading responsibility for the genocide and the expropriation of
Armenian land and property.
Moving to the current decade, the reopening in 2010 of Sourp Khach on
Lake Van’s Akhtamar Island aroused both hope and suspicion. It is now
formally a museum, absent a cross on the dome, with extremely limited
rights of use by the Armenian community as a church and with what some
have argued was inappropriate material used in the renovation. But 2010
also witnessed a failed attempt to put a monument of Ataturk in a public
place in Buenos Aires. Interestingly there’s a similar process afoot in
the Los Angeles basin’s City of Carson even a now. A fundraiser for it
was held just two weeks ago! What purpose does erecting a statue of a
mass murderer serve?
The year 2011 witnessed the removal by the central government of a
Turkish-Armenian friendship monument that had been erected by local
authorities in Kars. A French attempt to pass a law criminalizing
genocide denial was thwarted, at least in part due to Turkish pressure.
Yet in 2012, the Sourp Giragos Church of Dikranagerd was reopened and
returned to the Armenian Patriarchate by the local authorities, this
time by Kurds, who have been making ever-stronger overtures of
friendship to Armenians.
Just weeks ago, a conference was held in Bolis about
crypto-Armenians, eliciting some heart-wrenching discussions. Yet we
learn from Asbarez that, simultaneously, the “Turkish Government Targets
Academics Studying Genocide.”
Need any more evidence of the confusing, split personality of Turkey,
its society, and the humans composing it? This situation makes it very
difficult and risky for Armenians to engage. But engage we must, and we
are. Research about the
Hamshentsis has been going on for a
number of years. These are Armenians who were Islamicized over two
centuries ago, yet still retain bits and pieces of Western Armenian in
their rapidly disappearing local dialect. Obviously, the Turkish
government knows of this and allows it, much like the tours of Western
Armenia. Yet this is the same government that destroys Armenian
monuments—actively in the past and through neglect in the present.
While some scholars, intellectuals, and sectors of civil society are
soul searching and reaching out to Armenians, trying to find a way to
make progress, other parts of Turkish society are busy spouting
anti-Armenian hate. One example is the attempt to attribute Armenian
origins or connections to the Kurdish movement, which has led to much
loss of life and fear in Turkey over the past three decades. There are
the ongoing efforts to block Armenian Genocide resolutions/proclamations
and school curricula implemented by governments outside Turkey. Now,
this is increasingly taken on by the non-governmental Gulen movement. It
is the same religious sector of Turkish society that helped bring the
AKP to power a decade ago, leading to the “opening” in Turkish society
we’ve been witnessing. And, in what might be the height of cynicism,
Turks are reaching out to Native Americans, themselves victims of
genocide, in what can only be explained as a way of deflecting the
charge of genocide that attaches so strongly to Turkey.
All of this is the cauldron of confusion that constitutes Turkish
society. This doesn’t even include the anti-Armenian activity of
Azerbaijan’s government, a parallel track to Turkey’s efforts, both
aimed at delegitimizing our rightful claims for restorative justice.
But the confusion, the lack of clarity, and the absence of a societal
consensus in Turkey regarding Armenians and Armenian issues cannot last
forever. At some point, some force, governmental or otherwise, will
succeed in forging a consensus. The more we push and engage, the better
that outcome is likely to be. But I cannot imagine an outcome that I
would describe as being “good” for at least another generation. In fact,
we may end up seeing a few cycles of split personality/confusion/new
consensus before Turkey finally escapes its self-built trap of denial.
The first of these cycles, the one we’re in now, may well come to a close in 2015 with the 100
th
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. The outcome might be the offer of
immediate citizenship in Turkey and the right to return for all
descendents of genocide survivors. Turkey’s government could announce
this without ever using the word genocide; just “descendents of former
inhabitants” might be its formulation. What an ingenious trap! And it’s
very possible since I hear that this idea, of granting citizenship, is
often broached in casual discussions by Turks with connections to
officialdom. Turkey could trumpet its “magnanimity” while calculating
that very few Armenians are going to take up its offer. And, even if
many or most did, what would that change? Anyone returning would be
under the government’s thumb. What would we return to? Would our
ancestral lands be handed back over to us or would we have to buy homes?
What rights would we have? What guarantees of representation, of
personal safety?
Let’s keep pushing, engaging, educating, watching, and optimizing
every opportunity when it comes to Turkey and Armenian rights, but
always with extreme discernment and caution.
Unger Steve Elmasian
They need to be assimilated, integrated, loved and welcomed to be part of the world wide Armenian Family..
We will be a richer nation with their inclusion..
Why is it that the Armenian Church leadership and its clergy take full claim to the islamized churches, but not care about living souls of islamized Armenians?
Are they not one and the same?
Which is more important?
Bravo George, you are in our hearts and prayers.
Uncle Peter
the family and your work