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A Bold Message, Lost in Turkey

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  • A Bold Message, Lost in Turkey

    AZG Armenian Daily #201, 21/10/2006

    World press

    A BOLD MESSAGE, LOST ON TURKEY

    Vartan Oskanian International Herald Tribune,
    Published: October 19, 2006

    YEREVAN, Armenia: Armenia should be rejoicing at the passage of a
    bill last week by France's National Assembly that would make it a
    crime to deny the genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in the
    early 20th century.

    The message from France is clear: So long as Turkey refuses to confront
    its own history, others will feel impelled to do so. If, on the other
    hand, Turkey embarks on the difficult road of acknowledgement and
    reconciliation, then others will have reason to step aside and let
    the process take its course.

    Instead, we note with dismay that this very strong message is being
    lost on Turkey. It continues to surround itself with myths, evade
    the past, and thus elude the future.

    As we observe the reactions in Turkey, we find it disingenuous for
    a country that itself doesn't allow free speech and criminalizes
    even the exploration of certain areas of its own (and therefore our)
    history to be so indignant over a law that criminalizes the rejection
    and denial of that same history.

    After all, the actual, difficult discourse must evolve in Turkey,
    and not in France, or Switzerland. It is in Turkey that a free and
    open dialogue is deeply needed, and sorely absent. Those who cry
    "leave history to the historians" have gagged the historians.

    At the same time, Turkey objects vehemently to the involvement of
    third countries in a discussion that really must take place between
    Turks and Armenians.

    No one wants such a dialogue more than Armenia. Yet Turkey has made
    such give-and-take between our peoples and our states impossible. In
    addition to the restrictions on speech, our borders remain closed. Nor
    are there diplomatic relations between our countries.

    In other words, there are no opportunities for new experiences, new
    memories, new interactions to build up alongside the old. Instead,
    there is a lingering security concern about a neighbor that has not
    repudiated such state violence.

    As Turkey continues to corner itself, it handicaps the future of this
    region and impacts the lives of its people and ours. Worse, those
    extremists who understand the great risks and costs of tolerance,
    openness and rapprochement, are emboldened.

    We are not the only neighbors in the world who have a troubled
    relationship. Yet it is exactly because we live right next door that
    we must be willing and prepared to transcend the past.

    France's principled acknowledgement of the 20th century's first
    genocide offers the hundreds of thousands of French Armenians, all
    descended from genocide survivors, the dignity that they have been
    denied because of the Turkish government's continuing insistence that
    the atrocities they lived through are unproven myths.

    There is no doubt that if the word "genocide" had existed in 1915,
    every one of the hundreds of articles in newspapers around the world
    would have used it.

    Look how frequently the word is used today to describe events and
    cases where the scale and depth of the carnage are even smaller.

    When a government plans to do away with its own population to solve
    a political problem, that's genocide. The U.S. ambassador to Turkey
    from 1913 to 1916, Henry Morgenthau Sr., called what he witnessed the
    "Murder of a Nation." Others called it "race murder." They did so
    because the term genocide did not exist yet.

    Those who deposed the Ottoman rulers - the early leaders of modern
    Turkey, including Kemal Ataturk - actually court-martialed those
    who instigated these crimes. Today's Republic of Turkey, which has
    inherited the nationalism of its founders but not their memory,
    spends untold amounts to convince the world they didn't happen.

    Not just money. Today, their continued insistence on rejecting and
    rewriting history costs them credibility and time. Today's Turks do
    not bear the guilt of the perpetrators, unless they choose to defend
    and identify with them.

    It is a political reality that both Turkey and Armenia exist today
    in the international community with their current borders. It is a
    political reality that we are neighbors. It is a political reality
    that Armenia is not a security threat to Turkey. Finally, it is a
    reality that today's Armenia calls for the establishment of diplomatic
    relations with today's Turkey.

    Armenia has no preconditions for establishing diplomatic relations. Nor
    is Armenia opposed to Turkey's membership in the EU. We'd like to see
    Turkey meet all European standards. We'd like to see Turkey become
    an EU member so that our borders will be open and we can cooperate
    to build a secure, prosperous region.

    We can only assume that Europe will expect that a Turkey which is
    serious about EU membership will come to terms with its past. A few
    in Turkish society have begun that difficult process of introspection
    and study. We can only welcome this process.

    It is essential that the international community does not bend the
    rules, does not turn a blind eye, does not lower its standards, but
    instead consistently extends its hand, its example, its own history
    of transcending, in order for Armenians and Turks, Europeans all,
    to move on to making new history.
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