Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Commentary:Why Is The Armenian Genocide Still A Taboo?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Commentary:Why Is The Armenian Genocide Still A Taboo?

    COMMENTARY:WHY IS THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE STILL A TABOO?
    By Erol Ozkoray

    http://hetq.am/en/region/29407/
    2010/03/2 9 | 20:58

    region

    I heard about the Armenian genocide for the first time in Paris
    during the 70s, and the very logical question I asked myself and also
    expressed in my writing at that time (university papers, a reader's
    letter I sent to Le Monde newspaper, etc.) was the following: if the
    Republic of Turkey is based on a rejection of the Ottoman Empire, then
    why is the 1915 Armenian genocide not being dumped on the Ottomans?

    Why is the Turkish Republic assuming responsibility for this scandalous
    event, which is the 20th century's first crime against humanity and
    that century's first genocide? Later, in my career as a journalist,
    this question always remained on my agenda.

    I am generally known as the journalist who explained Armenian terrorism
    (ASALA) to Turkey during the years 1980 - 1984. I was a socialist,
    but I was also opposed to terrorism, and my articles even lead to a
    deterioration of relations between Francois Mitterrand's socialist
    government (which I supported) and Turkey.

    Both myself and my family and friends suffered a lot from ASALA:
    my friend Nazan Erez's father, Turkey's Ambassador to France Ismail
    Erez was killed on duty in Paris; my friend Gokberk Ergenekon was
    wounded in Rome; my name was put on ASALA's hit list and removed only
    after I met with ASALA's then lawyer Patrick Devedjian, who is now
    France's Minister in charge of the Economic Recovery Plan (in 1982,
    I did not see these events as genocide, but I did not accept Turkey's
    official version either); my cousin Sitki Sencer was caught up in
    the shooting during ASALA'S attack on the Ankara Esenboga airport
    and was shot 8 times by Turkish policemen (miraculously, he survived)
    whereas my mother and her sisters, also present, came away uninjured
    by the skin of their teeth.

    In reality, the list is much longer, but the purpose in my mentioning
    these is to indicate that I have worked a lot on the Armenian question,
    I know quite a lot about it and I have suffered because of it,
    and therefore I have the moral right to say the things I'm about
    to say. In other words, the things I say here are the conclusions
    an intellectual has reached after 35 years of engagement with this
    issue and after repeated reassessments of his position.

    If we go to the beginning... as the years passed, my reading
    progressed and new documents and books came out, it was revealed
    that the question I have been asking (to blame the genocide on the
    Ottomans) was the product of sophistry and devoid of any meaning,
    due to at least three reasons.

    Firstly, even though Mustafa Kemal did not get along with the
    triumvirate of Talat-Enver-Cemal and he did not take any part in the
    Armenian genocide on account of being engaged in the fighting on the
    Gallipoli front at the time (in a sense, these helped him be later
    designated a leader), the genocide that had already been accomplished
    served him very well structurally, because he based the Republican
    regime on the Turkish race. During the years 1926 - 1927, discourse
    on the Turkish race constituted the principal nationalist ideology of
    the State (Turkish race = Turkish nation), and therefore Anatolia had
    to be 'cleansed' of all Christian and foreign elements (Armenians,
    Greeks, Assyrians and Kurds). These policies of ethnic, cultural,
    economic and social cleansing were actively implemented through seven
    genocides executive during the Republican period. No Armenians,
    no Greeks and no Assyrians were left in Anatolia. Only the Kurds
    resisted, and despite four genocides, they could not be exterminated.

    Just for this reason, every person in Turkey must respect the
    Kurds' struggle for their lives and their rights. Thus, there was
    a continuity inherited from the Ottomans with regards to 'Massive
    Annihilation'. In 95 years, 10 genocides were carried out on these
    lands (see the archives at www.Kuyerel.com ). Among the founders
    of the Republic, there were murderers who had been involved in,
    organized and implemented the Armenian genocide.

    Secondly, there is another line of continuity from the Ottomans to the
    Republic, as money and goods confiscated from the Armenians played a
    determining role in the financing of the War of Independence. Apart
    from monetary and weapons help received from Lenin, the biggest
    financial source for the War of Independence was money appropriated
    through the Armenian genocide. With this money, weapons were purchased,
    an army was set up and its logistics provided. The persons involved
    in these came to form a new social class that owed its wealth to
    the Armenians' property (for instance, the porter Haci Omer Sabanci
    is the ancestor of today's Sabanci family, and grocer Vehbi Koc the
    progenitor of today's Koc family), and thus the social bases of the
    movement emerged.

    The reasons for the Armenian genocide becoming a taboo are hidden in
    these three observations. Otherwise, it would have been very easy
    to solve the problem by putting the blame for the genocide on the
    Ottomans. The person who put these issues on the agenda by producing
    major works that influenced Turkish intellectuals on the matter of
    the Armenian genocide is Taner Akcam.

    Because of the reasons I have enumerated, whenever the expression
    'Armenian genocide' is uttered, people lacking good sense in Turkey
    go berserk. What I'm saying here is that, unlike the official history
    thesis, the Turkish Republic was not founded after an anti-imperialist
    war (in the War of Independence, the Army only fought against the
    Greeks, but not against France or England, which were the imperialist
    powers of the era), rather, it was founded on the Armenian genocide.

    This reappraisal means that what you and everyone have been told and
    taught would be sent to the trash bin. This is the real reason why
    there is a big trauma whenever anybody says 'Armenian genocide'.

    Everything has been a lie since 1923. In other words, the situation
    is not as simple as the state hiding the reality of the genocide,
    as certain intellectuals are now saying.

    Today, when one talks about recognizing the Armenian genocide,
    practically everything has to be put on the table: the Republic,
    Kemalism, the State, the State's ideology, those who founded and
    governed the Republic, Turkey's regime, this country's political
    system, its army, its universities, its educational programs, its
    press, its elite, its businessmen (the sources of certain capital
    accumulations), the courts, the political parties, etc.

    It is self-evident that no one can cope with such a gigantic
    confrontation. Especially in the kind of crypto-fascist and
    crypto-totalitarian regime where we are living, it is very difficult -
    not to say impossible - to settle accounts with the things enumerated
    above even in one's dreams!

    This traumatic situation, in its historical, political and intellectual
    dimensions, goes miles and miles beyond the capacity of our current
    Islamist government. Nothing can be accomplished with the protocols
    signed between Turkey and Armenia. In any event, didn't the invisible
    forces in Ankara make the Armenia Protocols null and void within 24
    hours, and through the very hand of the Prime Minister? This State,
    in its current structure, will repulse any solution, as there is no
    solution that it could accept.

    The problem can be solved - like the other problems of the country
    - only by a statesman with the highest intellectual credentials,
    who has internalized the culture of democracy, come to power through
    elections and formed public opinion in this direction. It is impossible
    for ordinary small persons to overcome Turkey's gigantic problems. We
    need politicians and statesmen on the level of Mitterrand, Allende and
    [Felipe] Gonzales in order to resolve these gangrenous problems. In
    other words, we need Big Men.

    Kuyerel.com
Working...
X