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Daily Times, Pakistan
March 24 2006
VIEW: Turkey has to confront its demons - Jonathan Power
The past weighs too heavily upon modern Turkey, even though its
media and intellectuals can be very forthright about these issues.
The Turkish government still needs to open up. Denial is no
substitute for the whole truth. And if Turkey truly wants to enter
the EU it must get on with it, sooner rather than later
Say what you like about the US State Department's mastery of foreign
affairs, its annual report on human rights practice remains a beacon
of precise, honest and clear thinking. Published two weeks ago it
rightly chided China for going backwards after years of progress.
In Turkey its sharp critique has been well covered in the press,
giving the country a chance to see itself in the round. Despite
phenomenal progress in improving the parameters of free speech and
beginning to confront the legitimate demands of the Kurds, Alevites
and other minorities in recent years, Turkey still has not faced up
to its two big outstanding historical questions: What has it done
with all its Jews and Christians?
A very big question since Istanbul was the seat for centuries of the
Byzantine Church and the Ottoman Empire was the principle place of
refuge for the Jews after they were driven out of Christian Spain in
the fifteenth century. And when will it have an honest discussion
about the disappearance of the Christian Armenians, which some say
was an act of genocide?
If we're all going to be forced to make the clash of civilisations
the principle item on the geo-political agenda, as the Bush
administration's new National Security Strategy statement appears to
suggest, then those who oppose such polarisation need to face up to
why this modern, liberal Muslim state par excellence has not come to
terms with its terrible past. Ironically, this law-abiding state, the
creation of the pro-European, Westernising, Attatürk, has a worse
record on these matters than its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire. It
is rarely acknowledged in the West that Islam, in particular the
Ottomans, had a much better historical record than Christianity in
its tolerance of the other religions of `The People of the Book'.
For 700 years Jerusalem was under Muslim rule. The churches were
open. The Jews were given funds to rebuild their synagogues.
Likewise, from the 15th century on, when the majority of Arabs lived
under Ottoman rule, Christians and Jews were recognised and
protected.
Historically, there has never been a sustained, continuous, clash
between these great civilisations. Undoubtedly there have been
particular clashes and until the fall of the Ottoman Empire the
Muslim world won most of them. Yet in victory the Muslims invariably
showed greater magnanimity and tolerance than the Christian powers
when they triumphed. So why is it that the dying Ottoman Empire and
modern Turkey have such a poor record?
Some Turks would say in their defence it is because, since the Great
War of 1914-18 and the break up of the Ottoman Empire by the
victorious British and French, the West has inflicted one grievous
blow after another on the Muslim world. This has pushed Turkey - and
much of the Muslim world in this region - into an uncharacteristic
degree of defensiveness and intolerance.
Caroline Finkel, the author of the big new study on the Ottomans much
praised by Turkey's most famous novelist, Orhan Pamuk, argues that
maybe it can't be legitimately termed `genocide' when 80,000
Armenians have continued to live unmolested all these years since in
Istanbul. Nevertheless, as she told me in her home in Istanbul,
`terrible massacres did take place on both sides. That's not in
doubt. But the devil is in the detail. No `smoking gun' has been
found in the Ottoman archives', although she adds that some documents
could have been lost `perfectly innocently or removed'.
Finkel, while unsparing of the savagery of Ottoman forces in killing
off so many Armenians, reminds her audience that more Muslim Turks
than Armenians were killed in the war and that the fifth column
activities of the Armenians made inevitable their relocation to Syria
and Iraq, well away from the Ottoman-Russian frontline.
An open reckoning of the evidence by an independent panel of
distinguished historians should now be commissioned by the EU and
paid for by the Turkish government. The longer the Armenian issue is
left to stew, manipulated by the ignorant, the more damage to the EU
digestive tract, as the EU entry negotiations proceed, it is going to
cause. Likewise, a separate inquiry into what happened to the Jewish
and Christian minorities needs to be undertaken and why even today
the continued existence of a major Orthodox seminary near Istanbul
remains under threat.
The past weighs too heavily upon modern Turkey, even though its media
and intellectuals can be very forthright about these issues. The
Turkish government still needs to open up. Denial is no substitute
for the whole truth. And if Turkey truly wants to enter the EU it
must get on with it, sooner rather than later.
The writer is a leading columnist on international affairs, human
rights and peace issues. He syndicates his columns with some 50
papers around the world
March 24 2006
VIEW: Turkey has to confront its demons - Jonathan Power
The past weighs too heavily upon modern Turkey, even though its
media and intellectuals can be very forthright about these issues.
The Turkish government still needs to open up. Denial is no
substitute for the whole truth. And if Turkey truly wants to enter
the EU it must get on with it, sooner rather than later
Say what you like about the US State Department's mastery of foreign
affairs, its annual report on human rights practice remains a beacon
of precise, honest and clear thinking. Published two weeks ago it
rightly chided China for going backwards after years of progress.
In Turkey its sharp critique has been well covered in the press,
giving the country a chance to see itself in the round. Despite
phenomenal progress in improving the parameters of free speech and
beginning to confront the legitimate demands of the Kurds, Alevites
and other minorities in recent years, Turkey still has not faced up
to its two big outstanding historical questions: What has it done
with all its Jews and Christians?
A very big question since Istanbul was the seat for centuries of the
Byzantine Church and the Ottoman Empire was the principle place of
refuge for the Jews after they were driven out of Christian Spain in
the fifteenth century. And when will it have an honest discussion
about the disappearance of the Christian Armenians, which some say
was an act of genocide?
If we're all going to be forced to make the clash of civilisations
the principle item on the geo-political agenda, as the Bush
administration's new National Security Strategy statement appears to
suggest, then those who oppose such polarisation need to face up to
why this modern, liberal Muslim state par excellence has not come to
terms with its terrible past. Ironically, this law-abiding state, the
creation of the pro-European, Westernising, Attatürk, has a worse
record on these matters than its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire. It
is rarely acknowledged in the West that Islam, in particular the
Ottomans, had a much better historical record than Christianity in
its tolerance of the other religions of `The People of the Book'.
For 700 years Jerusalem was under Muslim rule. The churches were
open. The Jews were given funds to rebuild their synagogues.
Likewise, from the 15th century on, when the majority of Arabs lived
under Ottoman rule, Christians and Jews were recognised and
protected.
Historically, there has never been a sustained, continuous, clash
between these great civilisations. Undoubtedly there have been
particular clashes and until the fall of the Ottoman Empire the
Muslim world won most of them. Yet in victory the Muslims invariably
showed greater magnanimity and tolerance than the Christian powers
when they triumphed. So why is it that the dying Ottoman Empire and
modern Turkey have such a poor record?
Some Turks would say in their defence it is because, since the Great
War of 1914-18 and the break up of the Ottoman Empire by the
victorious British and French, the West has inflicted one grievous
blow after another on the Muslim world. This has pushed Turkey - and
much of the Muslim world in this region - into an uncharacteristic
degree of defensiveness and intolerance.
Caroline Finkel, the author of the big new study on the Ottomans much
praised by Turkey's most famous novelist, Orhan Pamuk, argues that
maybe it can't be legitimately termed `genocide' when 80,000
Armenians have continued to live unmolested all these years since in
Istanbul. Nevertheless, as she told me in her home in Istanbul,
`terrible massacres did take place on both sides. That's not in
doubt. But the devil is in the detail. No `smoking gun' has been
found in the Ottoman archives', although she adds that some documents
could have been lost `perfectly innocently or removed'.
Finkel, while unsparing of the savagery of Ottoman forces in killing
off so many Armenians, reminds her audience that more Muslim Turks
than Armenians were killed in the war and that the fifth column
activities of the Armenians made inevitable their relocation to Syria
and Iraq, well away from the Ottoman-Russian frontline.
An open reckoning of the evidence by an independent panel of
distinguished historians should now be commissioned by the EU and
paid for by the Turkish government. The longer the Armenian issue is
left to stew, manipulated by the ignorant, the more damage to the EU
digestive tract, as the EU entry negotiations proceed, it is going to
cause. Likewise, a separate inquiry into what happened to the Jewish
and Christian minorities needs to be undertaken and why even today
the continued existence of a major Orthodox seminary near Istanbul
remains under threat.
The past weighs too heavily upon modern Turkey, even though its media
and intellectuals can be very forthright about these issues. The
Turkish government still needs to open up. Denial is no substitute
for the whole truth. And if Turkey truly wants to enter the EU it
must get on with it, sooner rather than later.
The writer is a leading columnist on international affairs, human
rights and peace issues. He syndicates his columns with some 50
papers around the world