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  • It is indeed political

    It is indeed political
    Saturday, March 12, 2005
    TDN editorial by Yusuf KANLI
    Yusuf KANLI


    It's difficult for Turks and others who have not been to Armenia and
    who have no idea of the components making up Armenian nationalism to
    understand Yerevan's outright rejection of a Turkish proposal for a
    genocide study.

    For Turks, Britons, Spaniards, Israelis, Arabs and other nationalities,
    the concepts of "homeland," religion, history, national pride and
    such, and even the idea of things as simple as the success of the
    local soccer team, constitute the bulk of what creates a sense of
    belonging to the country and the nation. The love for the homeland
    and for the nation and the sense of belonging are the driving elements
    that produce a nationalism which is not based on racism or chauvinism.

    Don't we have racial and chauvinistic preoccupations? Unfortunately
    we do, and they are among the reasons why we have been struggling for
    the past decades to democratize this country and enhance individual
    rights and liberties and acquire a higher level of freedom of
    expression. Though we sometimes wrongly portray this struggle in
    Turkey with the clichéd "Westernization" or "Western vocation of
    Turkey" rhetoric, what we have been involved in is indeed just a
    fight to preserve our differences while at the same time becoming
    a more homogenous society, replacing a concept of nationality that
    includes racial connotations with an understanding of constitutional
    citizenship, creating a national identity that provides room for
    sub-identities, making all citizens of this nation and all parts of
    the country equal and thus boosting the perception of belonging to
    this state and nation.

    Had they not developed a sense of belonging, could the Israelis have
    survived thousands of years of rejection and humiliation, many wars,
    the Inquisition and a heinous Holocaust in addition to a campaign of
    anti-Semitism that still exists in many societies albeit to a much
    lesser degree?

    But if one looks at Armenia, is there any element that can create
    a sense of belonging among Armenians dispersed around the world to
    the land-locked state next door to Turkey? Armenia is incapable of
    becoming a center of attraction or placing itself at the center of
    nationhood for Armenians. It won its independence a decade ago with
    over 3.5 million people, fought a foolish war of expansion against
    Azerbaijan and occupied a substantial piece of territory -- ignoring
    all international calls to hand it back to Baku -- and now has a
    population of barely 1.5 million, while the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh
    and adjacent Azerbaijani territories are virtually deserted except
    a few settlements.

    The "genocide monument" in Yerevan has more importance to Armenians
    anywhere in the world than the entire Armenian territory does
    because while the country has been unable to become a centerpiece of
    nationhood, that monument is its symbol. For Armenians, the alleged
    genocide is not a matter for historians; it is the backbone of their
    nationhood, and they cannot risk it being challenged.

    Therefore, remarks of Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan
    claiming that the alleged genocide was not a matter for the historians
    but a political issue that had to be resolved politically were just
    expressions acknowledging this reality.

    Oskanyan and other political leaders in Yerevan as well as the Armenian
    diaspora, which has successfully transformed the "genocide campaign"
    into an international industry, knew better than the Turks that there
    is not even one document proving a systematic campaign of genocide
    by the Turks against the Armenians. There is nothing more than some
    memories, letters and propaganda booklets prepared by the powers
    fighting against Turkey in World War I. That's why the Turkish call
    for genocide studies under the auspices of UNESCO received such an
    immediate cold shoulder from Yerevan. Armenia simply cannot face the
    risk of being stripped of the glue of its nationhood.

    --Boundary_(ID_NGZR07S7xA8LCs/6R7sWCQ)--

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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