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ARMENIAN ISSUE AND FRANCE
by ERGUN BABAHAN
Today's Zaman
Dec 19 2011
Turkey
As the year 2015, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Forced
Migration, draws near, Turkey will find itself pushed into a tight
corner. France has already sparked the process.
A bill that the French parliament is expected to pass introduces
fines and sentences to those who assert that the Armenian genocide
did not happen.
Everyone may entertain different positions about genocide, but I
believe it is wrong to introduce penalties for any act of expressing
or defending any view, idea or opinion.
If you do not have the power to distort or manipulate all history
textbooks -- which no one has today -- how can you try to prevent
anyone from interpreting history?
If Turkey passes, say, a bill that penalizes those who question the
existence of God, all Western countries will raise objections to
it, harshly criticizing Turkey. This is because such a bill means
a serious breach of freedom of though and faith. However, France
is urging everyone, including academics, to restrict their thoughts
and beliefs to the confines set by the French parliament and to work
within these boundaries or conceal their findings or ideas that do
not fall within this framework. So if a historian concludes that the
incidents of 1915 cannot be classified as genocide, then s/he will
not be able to express it or share it with his/her students. It does
not sound good for the sake of freedom of thought and science.
Let us be fair in our criticisms and engage in self-critique as well.
Turkey's official policy has long been to deny those incidents and
penalized those who refused to deny them. For many years in the past,
people couldn't even refer to those incidents, let alone depicting
them as genocide. The 1915 incidents were rather described as treason
at the Eastern Front during World War I. The general public in Turkey
didn't know how Armenians living on these lands had suffered for
centuries. They couldn't question why these people suddenly disappeared
from Anatolia. They were prevented from learning that many historic
structures in eastern and southeastern Anatolia belonged to Armenians,
and these structures were destroyed knowingly.
The republican regime tried to keep itself from the 1915 incidents,
but it aligned its policies with those incidents. Indeed, almost
all of the leading figures of the new republic were members of the
Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). These figures chose to turn a
blind eye to the 1915 incidents out of their loyalty to their former
leaders and in order not to defame the state. Actually, they were
ready to launch a similar crackdown on their own people, though not
of the same magnitude. A regime that committed the Dersim massacre
could not be expected to question the 1915 incidents.
But today things have changed. Taboos are being destroyed in Turkey.
The country learned from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan what
happened in Dersim.
We learned that the regime in this country had slaughtered everyone
indiscriminately in order to reshape the demographic to its own
liking. It may be painful to learn and face the past. The process of
confrontation and self-critique that started with the Dersim incidents
will certainly continue. But this will be done by the Anatolian people,
and its framework cannot be set by France or the US.
by ERGUN BABAHAN
Today's Zaman
Dec 19 2011
Turkey
As the year 2015, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Forced
Migration, draws near, Turkey will find itself pushed into a tight
corner. France has already sparked the process.
A bill that the French parliament is expected to pass introduces
fines and sentences to those who assert that the Armenian genocide
did not happen.
Everyone may entertain different positions about genocide, but I
believe it is wrong to introduce penalties for any act of expressing
or defending any view, idea or opinion.
If you do not have the power to distort or manipulate all history
textbooks -- which no one has today -- how can you try to prevent
anyone from interpreting history?
If Turkey passes, say, a bill that penalizes those who question the
existence of God, all Western countries will raise objections to
it, harshly criticizing Turkey. This is because such a bill means
a serious breach of freedom of though and faith. However, France
is urging everyone, including academics, to restrict their thoughts
and beliefs to the confines set by the French parliament and to work
within these boundaries or conceal their findings or ideas that do
not fall within this framework. So if a historian concludes that the
incidents of 1915 cannot be classified as genocide, then s/he will
not be able to express it or share it with his/her students. It does
not sound good for the sake of freedom of thought and science.
Let us be fair in our criticisms and engage in self-critique as well.
Turkey's official policy has long been to deny those incidents and
penalized those who refused to deny them. For many years in the past,
people couldn't even refer to those incidents, let alone depicting
them as genocide. The 1915 incidents were rather described as treason
at the Eastern Front during World War I. The general public in Turkey
didn't know how Armenians living on these lands had suffered for
centuries. They couldn't question why these people suddenly disappeared
from Anatolia. They were prevented from learning that many historic
structures in eastern and southeastern Anatolia belonged to Armenians,
and these structures were destroyed knowingly.
The republican regime tried to keep itself from the 1915 incidents,
but it aligned its policies with those incidents. Indeed, almost
all of the leading figures of the new republic were members of the
Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). These figures chose to turn a
blind eye to the 1915 incidents out of their loyalty to their former
leaders and in order not to defame the state. Actually, they were
ready to launch a similar crackdown on their own people, though not
of the same magnitude. A regime that committed the Dersim massacre
could not be expected to question the 1915 incidents.
But today things have changed. Taboos are being destroyed in Turkey.
The country learned from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan what
happened in Dersim.
We learned that the regime in this country had slaughtered everyone
indiscriminately in order to reshape the demographic to its own
liking. It may be painful to learn and face the past. The process of
confrontation and self-critique that started with the Dersim incidents
will certainly continue. But this will be done by the Anatolian people,
and its framework cannot be set by France or the US.