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Apo Torosyan: Interview
http://www.hayem.org/index.htm?p=58
08- 02-2008
A Rigid Sense of Honor, Brainwashing and Escaping the Ottoman Past.
NEW YORK - When it comes to the Turkish Government, it's relatively
simple to understand why there is a rigid policy of denial and
rejection concerning the Greek, Assyrian and Armenian Genocides of the
early 20th Century:
No one wants to make restitution and return stolen properties. Once
land is claimed; once it's occupied, the occupants don't want to give
it back, especially if they've been living there for decades.
But why do Turkish people, in general, have such a hard time accepting
historical facts concerning the genocides of Asia Minor's indigenous
Greek, Assyrian and Armenian populations, and why do they so resolutely
deny and reject clearly documented historical accounts?
According to Apo Torosyan, a Greek-Armenian documentary filmmaker,
there are three major stumbling blocks: an absolutist sense of honor;
decades-long brainwashing; and a deeply rooted collective consciousness
Turks have inherited from their Ottoman/Moslem past.
There are terms in the Turkish lexicon which are firmly embedded in the
Islamic consciousness of the Turkish people, Mr. Torosyan explained,
and when certain terms are so entrenched in the mindset of a nation,
people can't help but develop certain attitudes.
"They are afraid of having to make reparations, of course, but it's
mostly their sense of honor that prevents them from accepting what
happened. I lived in Turkey for 27 years, so my roots are from there,
and if there's one thing I know about Turkish people, it's that honor
is everything to them. In Greek, when you have a glass of wine, you
say, 'Stin ygeia sou (to your health).' In Armenian, you say,
'Genatsut.' In English, it's 'Cheers.' One of the most beautiful
expressions is the Jewish expression, 'L'Chayim (To life).' The Turks
say, 'Sherefe,' which means, 'For honor.' There isn't a single Turk who
wants to believe his grandparents were murderers. They can not believe
their ancestors could do such dishonorable things," Mr. Torosyan said.
"And most Turks today can not read Old Turkish, so whatever has been
written in the Latinized New Turkish, they believe in that. Since the
1930's, history has been rewritten in Turkish schoolbooks," he said.
"Moslem rule does not tolerate non-Moslems. If you study the Koran
itself, you will find that there are orders to kill non-Moslems. In my
presentations, I go back to 1071, the year the Seljuks took over and
started conquering Anatolia little by little. From then on, there have
been rules and regulations in place that today still use words like
shariah, jihad and jizya, words that are rooted in the Moslem religion.
Words like that have a lot of weight behind them. Jizya is a special
tax for non-Moslem minorities only. They had to pay this tax because
they were lucky enough to be alive," he said.
"So certain words are used as a tool. The Young Turks, for example,
were atheists. None of them supposedly believed in God. They had
visions of the French Revolution in mind. The Armenians were so excited
about the prospects of freedom and democracy, and wanted to join with
them, but the Young Turks saw that the Armenians were looking for their
own independence, so the they inflamed Moslem sentiments against
non-Moslems. They said, 'Let's kill them.' It was, 'Join us under our
terms, or die.' They gave up their atheistic approach, and used the
Moslem religion as a cover to inflame the public. The public was told
that Armenians and Greeks, who were non-Moslems, were traitors, and
according to the book (the Koran), if they kill non-Moslems, Moslems go
to heaven," he added.
Even today, Mr. Torosyan said, Turkish people still retain such
attitudes from their Moslem heritage. Ottoman mindsets and structures
still pervade the Turkish consciousness and system of governance, he
said, so in a way, the Turks are unable to escape their own sense of
revisionist history and accept historical facts because of their
Ottoman heritage and extreme sense of honor.
Apo Torosyan: ...If you really want to know history, just take one page
of history, and cut that out of a book. Look at it; change the date;
change the names; and incredibly, you will find another page just like
it from another country and another culture.
...Oral history is more powerful than anything else, as far as telling
a story is concerned.
...Just because my ancestors were Greeks or Armenians, does that make
me so different as a human being?
"That hasn't changed. This belief is still facing us today, and it's
just incredible how it has penetrated the civilized world. In Europe,
there are riots going on right now under the Moslem banner. Europeans
are afraid of their Moslem populations," he said.
Mr. Torosyan is a second-generation Armenian Genocide survivor. Born
the son of a Greek mother and an Armenian father in Constantinople
(present-day Istanbul) in 1942, he witnessed, as a boy, the terrifying
events of the 1955 pogrom against the city's Christians, during which
Orthodox priests were hanged and Greek businesses were destroyed all
over Constantinople.
He graduated from Istanbul's Academy of Fine Arts in 1968 with a
Master's Degree, and immigrated to the United States the same year,
settling in the Boston area.
His films include "Discovering My Father's Village - Edincik (2003),"
"The Walk (2004)," "Witnesses (2005)," "The Gates (2005)," "Water
(2006)" and "Voices (2007)," and have been shown in film festivals, on
television and at colleges, universities and lecture halls.
"Voices" was recently shown at the Arpa Film Festival in Hollywood, and
was presented as part of the Genocide Documentary Program. In "Voices,"
Mr. Torosyan interviews three survivors of the Armenian Genocide and
one survivor of the Greek Genocide. Yeghsapet Giragosian remembers how
her mother died of thirst and her brother from starvation. Luther
Eskijian helped Armenian freedom fighters in Ainteb, Turkey at the age
of 6. Of Hovhannes Madzharyan's family of ten, only three survived the
desert of Der el Zor. And Sossos Delis was born in Asia Minor. Members
of his family were massacred in Smyrna (present-day Izmir) in 1922.
In addition to the Arpa Film Festival, Mr. Torosyan has made
presentations to the Brandeis University Coalition for Tolerance;
Channel 26 TV in Glendale, California; Community Access TV, Channel 22,
"Witnesses," in Peabody, Massachusetts; the Connecticut State House in
Hartford; "Facing History and Ourselves" in Berlin;
Fresno University; the Flaten Art Museum in Northfield, Minnesota; the
Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg; Fordham University; the
Holocaust Center Boston North in Peabody; Horizon TV in Glendale; the
Human Rights Conference in Paris; the Human Rights Center in Istanbul;
the International Association of Genocide Scholars at Florida State
University; and the International Genocide Conference in Salzburg,
Austria.
Asked how his presentations and films have been received by Turkish
Americans, Mr. Torosyan said he has gotten a mixed response,
emphasizing that he is a big believer in public forums and enhancing
dialogue.
"When I e-mailed my press release, I also e-mailed Turkish groups -
Turkish newsmen, Turkish scholars, Turkish activists, even presidents
of Turkish associations here in Boston. Some of them are totally
against the Armenian Genocide, but somehow, none of them told me to
stop sending them any information," he said.
"What I'm doing is creating a dialogue. I met one gentleman, a Turkish
Ph.D from Harvard, during a presentation in Boston, after I got into an
exchange with Michael Gunter, who was denying all genocides except the
Jewish Holocaust. In that presentation, Mr. Gunter talked about how the
Armenians were traitors - there was a war; what happened to the
Armenians was not genocide; the routine rhetoric. So I said, 'Sir. You
are quite aware of the word, genocide. You've been using it throughout
your presentation. Let me read this paper from Raphael Lemkin (the
Polish-Jewish legal scholar who first coined the term). This paper
tells the world in 1944 that what happened to the Armenians was the
first genocide of the 20th Century.' Mr. Gunter's reaction, of course,
was not to give me the time to read it. He knew what was coming," he
said.
"But this Turkish gentleman I was telling you about, his wife was
attacked by some hardline Armenians. And the poor girl was crying.
So I told her, 'Listen. Not every Armenian is like that, so don't judge
all Armenians by the actions of a few.' And her husband came over, and
told me he would like to stay in touch with me because he thought I had
more knowledge and reason than rhetoric. I just received an e-mail from
him, and he writes, 'I understand the Armenian Genocide. But what is
this about the Greek Genocide?' I told him, 'It's impossible for me to
give you all the historical facts and details about it, but I hope
someday we can have a gathering. You create the gathering, and I'll be
glad to bring the artillery - people of high caliber who can discuss
history - not with feelings; not with fighting; not with hate; not with
rhetoric; with facts. And let's share our pain.' He was grateful for my
response. He's said he's going to try to help organize something like
that. It's time to let history be presented as it is, not as it has
been produced by the Turkish Government," Mr. Torosyan added, noting
that genocide is a universal, albeit tragic, human experience.
"That's how I believe reconciliation can be achieved - through
recognition first - between any peoples. Genocide is an enormous
danger. It is all around us. It is like fire. It can happen anytime
just because we have oxygen. If you have the right political and
military circumstances and the right people, genocide will occur. I
believe we should be able to communicate instead of attacking each
other. But of course, we can not communicate in an uncivilized manner.
We have to put aside our feelings, no matter how much we feel hurt by
the facts," he said, adding that it has not been so easy to convince
some Turkish Americans because of their unconscious tendencies to
discriminate.
"I had a group of Turkish friends, almost 15 of them. They were fairly
well-to-do, but unfortunately, they were not as well educated as I
hoped they would be, so they were limited in their outlook. We would
have discussions, and they would tell me, 'Look how we're treating you.
You're Armenian, but we're not treating you any differently.' They
didn't realize that, simply by saying that, they were already
discriminating against me. 'Why do you view me as an Armenian or a
Greek, and not as a human being just like you coming from the same
land? Just because my ancestors were Greeks or Armenians, does that
make me so different as a human being? The very fact that you're seeing
me that way means you're discriminating against me, just like my
ancestors were discriminated against,' I would tell them," he said.
"My ancestors did not have a peaceful life under Turkish rule, and I
present that case. I make a historical presentation of the past 1,000
years about how minorities lived under Turkish rule and the oppression
of the Ottoman Empire. Armenians had to wear red. Greeks had to wear
white. Neither Armenians nor Greeks could walk on the same path as
their Turkish overlords. If a Moslem was coming from the other end of
the roadway, Christians had to step aside. They were not allowed to
build their homes higher than Turkish homes. They could not have their
bells ringing too loudly, or ringing at all. There was so much
discrimination. Turkish people say, "No, no, no. You guys didn't
complain.' But how could we complain? If we complained, we would be
dead," he added.
Asked if he felt his efforts to convey the facts about the genocides
perpetrated by Turkish authorities and mobs against Turkey's Greek,
Assyrian and Armenian communities through documentary filmmaking were
penetrating the minds of people who were unaware that these tragic
events occurred, Mr. Torosyan said he felt his efforts were making an
definite impact, stressing that it is important to discuss the events
from the standpoint of genocide as a devastating crime against human
beings in general, not just against individual groups.
"Absolutely. I have thousands of notes from students and faculty - even
from a limo driver, when I had my show at the Florida Holocaust Museum.
The guy who drove me from the airport to my hotel was interested in the
subject. The next thing I knew, he even came and stayed to see my
presentation and my movie. This wasn't even an Armenian or a Greek
person. His name was Lee. I'm talking about people who never even heard
of Armenians or know where Armenia is; who are not even aware that
there is such a thing as genocide, which I try to emphasize more than
anything else because, if I just try to discuss the issue by talking
only about the Armenian Genocide, then I'm just politicizing things.
But if I talk about genocide in general, then what happened to the
Armenians, the Greeks and the Assyrians also makes genocide a tragic
human experience," he said.
Discussions on genocide transcend the Armenian, Assyrian or Greek
nations' experience, Mr. Torosyan said, citing that one can readily
point to Darfur or Rwanda as among today's most poignant examples.
"If you really want to know history, just take one page of history, and
cut that out of a book. Look at it; change the date; change the names;
and incredibly, you will find another page just like it from another
country and another culture," he said.
His most potent weapon? Oral history and tradition, he said, adding
that he wished he could have thought about interviewing actual
survivors sooner than he did.
"Oral history is more powerful than anything else, as far as telling a
story is concerned. It's too bad I jumped on this bandwagon so late.
Survivors of genocides from 90 years ago are dwindling into nothing.
How many people are 100 years old to remember? So there was this great
collection of witnesses to actual events who are no longer around to
tell us what happened on film. Many institutions have records, course,
but not very much on film," he said.
The future for documentary films about the genocides in Turkey now
rests with the descendants of survivors, he added, and those
individuals are still an untapped resource.
Is there any hope in making the issue more poignant for the mainstream,
Mr. Torosyan was asked? Yes, he said, especially among younger people.
"The only people I'm hoping do want to talk are people like this
gentleman from Harvard. He is more interested in learning. That's the
difference between old timers, who are already brainwashed and can't
question or doubt what they were told about history. Doubt is a sign of
intelligence. If you don't question or doubt what you're learning, then
there's nothing more to learn. Younger people today believe in
questioning things. I believe that the human mind can expand because it
has the capacity to learn," he said.
So how does he plan to get through to people of Turkish heritage?
"I haven't had a symposium yet. I still believe that facts, dialogue
and open forums are the answer to this problem and will ultimately
prevail. Younger people are much more open-minded. I have had several
Turkish students tell me they like my message, which is one of hope,
not hate. One Turkish girl recently told me she didn't know about all
the things I was talking about, and said she wants to look into it
further. I think I unlocked her mind by giving her the key of doubt
about her nation's past. There are a huge number of younger Turkish
people who are dying to learn more about their own history. They just
haven't had the opportunity," Mr. Torosyan said.
By Evan C. Lambrou
Special to The National Herald
January 12, 2008
http://www.hayem.org/index.htm?p=58
08- 02-2008
A Rigid Sense of Honor, Brainwashing and Escaping the Ottoman Past.
NEW YORK - When it comes to the Turkish Government, it's relatively
simple to understand why there is a rigid policy of denial and
rejection concerning the Greek, Assyrian and Armenian Genocides of the
early 20th Century:
No one wants to make restitution and return stolen properties. Once
land is claimed; once it's occupied, the occupants don't want to give
it back, especially if they've been living there for decades.
But why do Turkish people, in general, have such a hard time accepting
historical facts concerning the genocides of Asia Minor's indigenous
Greek, Assyrian and Armenian populations, and why do they so resolutely
deny and reject clearly documented historical accounts?
According to Apo Torosyan, a Greek-Armenian documentary filmmaker,
there are three major stumbling blocks: an absolutist sense of honor;
decades-long brainwashing; and a deeply rooted collective consciousness
Turks have inherited from their Ottoman/Moslem past.
There are terms in the Turkish lexicon which are firmly embedded in the
Islamic consciousness of the Turkish people, Mr. Torosyan explained,
and when certain terms are so entrenched in the mindset of a nation,
people can't help but develop certain attitudes.
"They are afraid of having to make reparations, of course, but it's
mostly their sense of honor that prevents them from accepting what
happened. I lived in Turkey for 27 years, so my roots are from there,
and if there's one thing I know about Turkish people, it's that honor
is everything to them. In Greek, when you have a glass of wine, you
say, 'Stin ygeia sou (to your health).' In Armenian, you say,
'Genatsut.' In English, it's 'Cheers.' One of the most beautiful
expressions is the Jewish expression, 'L'Chayim (To life).' The Turks
say, 'Sherefe,' which means, 'For honor.' There isn't a single Turk who
wants to believe his grandparents were murderers. They can not believe
their ancestors could do such dishonorable things," Mr. Torosyan said.
"And most Turks today can not read Old Turkish, so whatever has been
written in the Latinized New Turkish, they believe in that. Since the
1930's, history has been rewritten in Turkish schoolbooks," he said.
"Moslem rule does not tolerate non-Moslems. If you study the Koran
itself, you will find that there are orders to kill non-Moslems. In my
presentations, I go back to 1071, the year the Seljuks took over and
started conquering Anatolia little by little. From then on, there have
been rules and regulations in place that today still use words like
shariah, jihad and jizya, words that are rooted in the Moslem religion.
Words like that have a lot of weight behind them. Jizya is a special
tax for non-Moslem minorities only. They had to pay this tax because
they were lucky enough to be alive," he said.
"So certain words are used as a tool. The Young Turks, for example,
were atheists. None of them supposedly believed in God. They had
visions of the French Revolution in mind. The Armenians were so excited
about the prospects of freedom and democracy, and wanted to join with
them, but the Young Turks saw that the Armenians were looking for their
own independence, so the they inflamed Moslem sentiments against
non-Moslems. They said, 'Let's kill them.' It was, 'Join us under our
terms, or die.' They gave up their atheistic approach, and used the
Moslem religion as a cover to inflame the public. The public was told
that Armenians and Greeks, who were non-Moslems, were traitors, and
according to the book (the Koran), if they kill non-Moslems, Moslems go
to heaven," he added.
Even today, Mr. Torosyan said, Turkish people still retain such
attitudes from their Moslem heritage. Ottoman mindsets and structures
still pervade the Turkish consciousness and system of governance, he
said, so in a way, the Turks are unable to escape their own sense of
revisionist history and accept historical facts because of their
Ottoman heritage and extreme sense of honor.
Apo Torosyan: ...If you really want to know history, just take one page
of history, and cut that out of a book. Look at it; change the date;
change the names; and incredibly, you will find another page just like
it from another country and another culture.
...Oral history is more powerful than anything else, as far as telling
a story is concerned.
...Just because my ancestors were Greeks or Armenians, does that make
me so different as a human being?
"That hasn't changed. This belief is still facing us today, and it's
just incredible how it has penetrated the civilized world. In Europe,
there are riots going on right now under the Moslem banner. Europeans
are afraid of their Moslem populations," he said.
Mr. Torosyan is a second-generation Armenian Genocide survivor. Born
the son of a Greek mother and an Armenian father in Constantinople
(present-day Istanbul) in 1942, he witnessed, as a boy, the terrifying
events of the 1955 pogrom against the city's Christians, during which
Orthodox priests were hanged and Greek businesses were destroyed all
over Constantinople.
He graduated from Istanbul's Academy of Fine Arts in 1968 with a
Master's Degree, and immigrated to the United States the same year,
settling in the Boston area.
His films include "Discovering My Father's Village - Edincik (2003),"
"The Walk (2004)," "Witnesses (2005)," "The Gates (2005)," "Water
(2006)" and "Voices (2007)," and have been shown in film festivals, on
television and at colleges, universities and lecture halls.
"Voices" was recently shown at the Arpa Film Festival in Hollywood, and
was presented as part of the Genocide Documentary Program. In "Voices,"
Mr. Torosyan interviews three survivors of the Armenian Genocide and
one survivor of the Greek Genocide. Yeghsapet Giragosian remembers how
her mother died of thirst and her brother from starvation. Luther
Eskijian helped Armenian freedom fighters in Ainteb, Turkey at the age
of 6. Of Hovhannes Madzharyan's family of ten, only three survived the
desert of Der el Zor. And Sossos Delis was born in Asia Minor. Members
of his family were massacred in Smyrna (present-day Izmir) in 1922.
In addition to the Arpa Film Festival, Mr. Torosyan has made
presentations to the Brandeis University Coalition for Tolerance;
Channel 26 TV in Glendale, California; Community Access TV, Channel 22,
"Witnesses," in Peabody, Massachusetts; the Connecticut State House in
Hartford; "Facing History and Ourselves" in Berlin;
Fresno University; the Flaten Art Museum in Northfield, Minnesota; the
Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg; Fordham University; the
Holocaust Center Boston North in Peabody; Horizon TV in Glendale; the
Human Rights Conference in Paris; the Human Rights Center in Istanbul;
the International Association of Genocide Scholars at Florida State
University; and the International Genocide Conference in Salzburg,
Austria.
Asked how his presentations and films have been received by Turkish
Americans, Mr. Torosyan said he has gotten a mixed response,
emphasizing that he is a big believer in public forums and enhancing
dialogue.
"When I e-mailed my press release, I also e-mailed Turkish groups -
Turkish newsmen, Turkish scholars, Turkish activists, even presidents
of Turkish associations here in Boston. Some of them are totally
against the Armenian Genocide, but somehow, none of them told me to
stop sending them any information," he said.
"What I'm doing is creating a dialogue. I met one gentleman, a Turkish
Ph.D from Harvard, during a presentation in Boston, after I got into an
exchange with Michael Gunter, who was denying all genocides except the
Jewish Holocaust. In that presentation, Mr. Gunter talked about how the
Armenians were traitors - there was a war; what happened to the
Armenians was not genocide; the routine rhetoric. So I said, 'Sir. You
are quite aware of the word, genocide. You've been using it throughout
your presentation. Let me read this paper from Raphael Lemkin (the
Polish-Jewish legal scholar who first coined the term). This paper
tells the world in 1944 that what happened to the Armenians was the
first genocide of the 20th Century.' Mr. Gunter's reaction, of course,
was not to give me the time to read it. He knew what was coming," he
said.
"But this Turkish gentleman I was telling you about, his wife was
attacked by some hardline Armenians. And the poor girl was crying.
So I told her, 'Listen. Not every Armenian is like that, so don't judge
all Armenians by the actions of a few.' And her husband came over, and
told me he would like to stay in touch with me because he thought I had
more knowledge and reason than rhetoric. I just received an e-mail from
him, and he writes, 'I understand the Armenian Genocide. But what is
this about the Greek Genocide?' I told him, 'It's impossible for me to
give you all the historical facts and details about it, but I hope
someday we can have a gathering. You create the gathering, and I'll be
glad to bring the artillery - people of high caliber who can discuss
history - not with feelings; not with fighting; not with hate; not with
rhetoric; with facts. And let's share our pain.' He was grateful for my
response. He's said he's going to try to help organize something like
that. It's time to let history be presented as it is, not as it has
been produced by the Turkish Government," Mr. Torosyan added, noting
that genocide is a universal, albeit tragic, human experience.
"That's how I believe reconciliation can be achieved - through
recognition first - between any peoples. Genocide is an enormous
danger. It is all around us. It is like fire. It can happen anytime
just because we have oxygen. If you have the right political and
military circumstances and the right people, genocide will occur. I
believe we should be able to communicate instead of attacking each
other. But of course, we can not communicate in an uncivilized manner.
We have to put aside our feelings, no matter how much we feel hurt by
the facts," he said, adding that it has not been so easy to convince
some Turkish Americans because of their unconscious tendencies to
discriminate.
"I had a group of Turkish friends, almost 15 of them. They were fairly
well-to-do, but unfortunately, they were not as well educated as I
hoped they would be, so they were limited in their outlook. We would
have discussions, and they would tell me, 'Look how we're treating you.
You're Armenian, but we're not treating you any differently.' They
didn't realize that, simply by saying that, they were already
discriminating against me. 'Why do you view me as an Armenian or a
Greek, and not as a human being just like you coming from the same
land? Just because my ancestors were Greeks or Armenians, does that
make me so different as a human being? The very fact that you're seeing
me that way means you're discriminating against me, just like my
ancestors were discriminated against,' I would tell them," he said.
"My ancestors did not have a peaceful life under Turkish rule, and I
present that case. I make a historical presentation of the past 1,000
years about how minorities lived under Turkish rule and the oppression
of the Ottoman Empire. Armenians had to wear red. Greeks had to wear
white. Neither Armenians nor Greeks could walk on the same path as
their Turkish overlords. If a Moslem was coming from the other end of
the roadway, Christians had to step aside. They were not allowed to
build their homes higher than Turkish homes. They could not have their
bells ringing too loudly, or ringing at all. There was so much
discrimination. Turkish people say, "No, no, no. You guys didn't
complain.' But how could we complain? If we complained, we would be
dead," he added.
Asked if he felt his efforts to convey the facts about the genocides
perpetrated by Turkish authorities and mobs against Turkey's Greek,
Assyrian and Armenian communities through documentary filmmaking were
penetrating the minds of people who were unaware that these tragic
events occurred, Mr. Torosyan said he felt his efforts were making an
definite impact, stressing that it is important to discuss the events
from the standpoint of genocide as a devastating crime against human
beings in general, not just against individual groups.
"Absolutely. I have thousands of notes from students and faculty - even
from a limo driver, when I had my show at the Florida Holocaust Museum.
The guy who drove me from the airport to my hotel was interested in the
subject. The next thing I knew, he even came and stayed to see my
presentation and my movie. This wasn't even an Armenian or a Greek
person. His name was Lee. I'm talking about people who never even heard
of Armenians or know where Armenia is; who are not even aware that
there is such a thing as genocide, which I try to emphasize more than
anything else because, if I just try to discuss the issue by talking
only about the Armenian Genocide, then I'm just politicizing things.
But if I talk about genocide in general, then what happened to the
Armenians, the Greeks and the Assyrians also makes genocide a tragic
human experience," he said.
Discussions on genocide transcend the Armenian, Assyrian or Greek
nations' experience, Mr. Torosyan said, citing that one can readily
point to Darfur or Rwanda as among today's most poignant examples.
"If you really want to know history, just take one page of history, and
cut that out of a book. Look at it; change the date; change the names;
and incredibly, you will find another page just like it from another
country and another culture," he said.
His most potent weapon? Oral history and tradition, he said, adding
that he wished he could have thought about interviewing actual
survivors sooner than he did.
"Oral history is more powerful than anything else, as far as telling a
story is concerned. It's too bad I jumped on this bandwagon so late.
Survivors of genocides from 90 years ago are dwindling into nothing.
How many people are 100 years old to remember? So there was this great
collection of witnesses to actual events who are no longer around to
tell us what happened on film. Many institutions have records, course,
but not very much on film," he said.
The future for documentary films about the genocides in Turkey now
rests with the descendants of survivors, he added, and those
individuals are still an untapped resource.
Is there any hope in making the issue more poignant for the mainstream,
Mr. Torosyan was asked? Yes, he said, especially among younger people.
"The only people I'm hoping do want to talk are people like this
gentleman from Harvard. He is more interested in learning. That's the
difference between old timers, who are already brainwashed and can't
question or doubt what they were told about history. Doubt is a sign of
intelligence. If you don't question or doubt what you're learning, then
there's nothing more to learn. Younger people today believe in
questioning things. I believe that the human mind can expand because it
has the capacity to learn," he said.
So how does he plan to get through to people of Turkish heritage?
"I haven't had a symposium yet. I still believe that facts, dialogue
and open forums are the answer to this problem and will ultimately
prevail. Younger people are much more open-minded. I have had several
Turkish students tell me they like my message, which is one of hope,
not hate. One Turkish girl recently told me she didn't know about all
the things I was talking about, and said she wants to look into it
further. I think I unlocked her mind by giving her the key of doubt
about her nation's past. There are a huge number of younger Turkish
people who are dying to learn more about their own history. They just
haven't had the opportunity," Mr. Torosyan said.
By Evan C. Lambrou
Special to The National Herald
January 12, 2008