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Akcam: Turkey and the Armenian Ghost
Posted by Taner Akcam
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/12/15/akcam-turkey-and-the-armenian-ghost/
December 15, 2012
The Armenian Weekly publishes the full text of a talk delivered by Dr.
Taner Akcam (Clark University) during a panel on `Overcoming Genocide
Denial' organized by Fordham Law School's Leitner Center for
International Law and Justice on Dec. 4. Speakers included Akcam,
Gregory Stanton (George Mason University), and Sheri Rosenberg
(Cardozo Law School).
Empty chairs in Mush (Photo by Khatchig Mouradian)
`Why do we Turks continue to deny the genocide?'
Or, stated another way, Why do we Turks feel like lightening has
struck our bones whenever the topic is brought up?
I've been dedicated to researching the subject of the Armenian
Genocide since 1990, more than 20 years. This question keeps getting
asked over and over again with unerring consistency. The question is a
simple one, but as the years have passed my response to it has
changed. At first, I tried to explain the denial through the concept
of `continuity,' namely, governmental continuity from the Ottoman
Empire through the Turkish Republic. Another way of formulating this
thesis might be by titling it, `The Dilemma of Making Heroes into
Villains.' The argument is very simple: The Turkish Republic was
actually established by the Union and Progress Party (Ittihat ve
Terakki), the architects of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The
founding cadres of Turkey were essentially Union and Progress members.
And so, a significant number of the founding cadres of Turkey were
either directly involved in the Armenian Genocide or they enriched
themselves by looting Armenian properties. But these individuals were
also our national heroes - they are the founding fathers of our nation.
If Turkey acknowledges the genocide, we would have to accept that a
number of our national heroes and founding fathers were either
murderers, thieves, or both. This is the real dilemma.
Those individuals, as we were taught in school, were men who `created
our nation and the state out of nothing.' They define who we are. This
is true not only for the early generation of the Turkish nation, but
also for the opposition movements of the country, including the
largest wave of a democratic-progressive movement Turkey had ever
seen: the 1968 student protest movement. The representatives of this
wave and its political organizations strongly identified themselves
with the founding cadres of the republic. They called themselves, in
analogy with the founding fathers, the second `Kuvayi-Milliyeciler' or
`national front,' a specific term that we use only to define our
founding cadres. This strong identification with the founding fathers
was not particular to the progressive `68 generation. It has been true
for any of the groups active in Turkey: nationalist, Islamicist, or
other right wing circles.
In other words, in order to accept the genocide, in our present state,
we would have to deny our own national identity, as it exists today.
That is a very difficult task, an almost impossible one, and very
destructive. Instead of dealing with the identity crisis and the
emotional and political fallout that will result from accepting the
genocide, think about it: Wouldn't it be so much simpler to just deny
it?
I started to modify my response to the question `Why do Turks deny the
genocide?' over time. I added one more reason for Turkish denial. It
is also a very simple argument. If Turkey accepts that the genocide
took place, it will be obligated to pay reparations. The argument has
some wider consequences than whether the events of 1915 should be
termed `genocide.' Let's assume that 1915 was not genocide, and
imagine that the Union and Progress Party had deported the Armenians
from a cold, mountainous, and infertile area to a sunny warm and
fertile region; pretend, in other words, that the Armenians had been
dispatched to Florida. However, everything that these people owned was
confiscated in the process and not a single penny was paid back to
them. Even if you refuse to accept the events of 1915 as genocide, you
have to accept the fact that the country of Turkey today was formed on
the seizure of Armenian assets, and now sits on top of that wealth. As
a result, if you accept and acknowledge that something unjust happened
in 1915 in Turkey, you have to pay back compensation. Therefore, in
order to avoid doing that, denying genocide outright makes a whole lot
of sense.
I have continued to add some additional factors to explain Turkish
denials, such as the phenomenon that occurs when you repeat a lie.
Even in ordinary daily life, how easy is it to reverse yourself once
you've told a lie? The lie about genocide has a history of decades and
has become calcified. A state that's been lying for 90 years can't
simply reverse course. Even when you know you're telling untruths,
they acquire the veneer of reality after so many years.
But these points are only useful for explaining why the state has
continued to deny the genocide. As the years passed, I started to
write that the term `Turkish denial' was inadequate for fully
explaining the situation. I questioned the validity of the use of the
term `Turks' to reflect a homogeneous entity that defines not only the
people of Turkey but the state of Turkey, as well. I suggested making
a distinction between state policy and the attitude of the people of
Turkey towards genocide. I argued that the term `denial' was adequate
in explaining state policy, but not that of society. The attitude of
society should more accurately be portrayed as one of ignorance,
apathy, fatalism, reticence, and silence, rather than denial.
Turkish society is not a monolithic block, and can be considered
analogous to a train. It's made up of lots of different cars, and each
car represents a different sub-cultural ethnicity with a different
attitude towards what happened in 1915. I've stated many times that a
large portion of Kurds, Dersimians, and Alewites have accepted the
reality of what happened in 1915, and that the real problem is that
these different groups have not been able to express their thoughts on
it in a way that was forceful, firm, and especially written. I used
the terms silence and avoidance not only in the sense of a single
attitude that is jointly held by all segments of society, but also to
mean not openly taking a stance toward the official state narrative.
One has to accept that all of these distinctions are important, and
perhaps vital, to understanding the development of civil society in
Turkey today, but that they are still not enough to explain why
denialism is such a dominant part of the cultural landscape in Turkey.
So, my thinking has begun to change, yet again, recently. I don't mean
to say that my previous explanations were necessarily incorrect. Just
the opposite: I still believe that these factors play a major role in
the denial of the Armenian Genocide. However, I have now started to
think that the matter seems to have roots in something much deeper and
almost existentialist, which covers the state as much as the society.
The answer to the question seems to lie in a duality between existence
and non-existence - or, as Hamlet would say, `to be or not to be.' I
believe our existence as a state and a society translates into
their - Christians in Anatolia - non-existence, or not-being. To accept
what happened in 1915 means you have to accept the existence of
them - Christians - on Turkish territory, which is practically like
announcing our non-existence, because we owe our being to their
non-existence. Let me explain.
In order to provide more clarity, I would like to introduce Habermas
to the topic. Habermas points out that within the social tissue and
institutions of societies resides a `secret violence,' and this
`secret violence' creates a structure of communication that the entire
society identifies with.[1] Through this way of `collective
communication,' the restrictions and exclusion of certain topics from
public discourse are effectively institutionalized and legitimized.
What is meaningful to note here is that this structure is not imposed
on the society by the rulers, but is accepted and internalized by
those who are ruled. There is a silent consensus in the society.
I would like to borrow another term from author Elias Siberski to shed
some light on this condition-`communicative reality' (die
kommunikative Wirklichkeit). Siberski uses this term to describe a
very important characteristic of secretive organizations.2 According
to Siberski, secretive organizations create an internal reality
through a method of communication that is totally different from the
real world. The situation in Turkey today resembles this very closely.
As a society, we are like a secret organization. Since the
establishment of our republic we have created a `communicative
reality,' which sets out our way of thinking and existence over `state
and nation.' It gives shape to our emotions and defining belief
systems, or, in other words, our entire social-cultural net of
relations. In sum, the things that make us who we are or at a minimum
who we think we are. What is important to note is the gap between this
`communicative reality' and actual reality.
In the end, this `communicative reality' has given us speakable and
unspeakable worlds, and has created a collective secret that covers
our entire society like a glove. It has created one big gigantic black
hole. We are, today, a reality that possesses a `black hole.' This
existence of a huge `black hole,' or the possession of a `collective
secret,' or creation of a `coalition of silence' - these are the terms
that define who we are... We simply eradicated everything Christian from
this reality. This is how we teach Ottoman history in our schools,
this is how we produce intellectual-cultural works about our society.
My opinion is that the secret behind the denial of the Armenian
Genocide, or the unspeakableness of it, lies somewhere in here. What
happened in 1915 is Turkish society's collective secret, and genocide
has been relegated to the `black hole' of our societal memory. Since
the founding of the Republic of Turkey, all of us, rightists and
leftists, Muslim, Alewite, Kurds, and Turks, have created a collective
`coalition of silence' around this subject, and we don't like being
reminded of this hidden secret that wraps around us like a warm, fuzzy
blanket. The reminders have an annoying irritating quality and we feel
confronted by a situation that leaves us unsure of what to do or say.
Because, if we are forced to confront our history, everything - our
social institutions, mentalities, belief systems, culture, and even
the language we use - will be open to question. The way a society
perceives itself is going to be questioned from top to bottom. As a
result, we don't appreciate the `reminders.' We view reminders as
`force,' and react quite negatively to them. All of us, rightist and
leftist, search for excuses, but we together seem to be crying out, as
if in chorus, `Here we are minding our own business, not bothering
anyone, when you appeared out of nowhere. Where did you come from?' It
is as if we, as a nation, are making this collective statement: `If
you think we are going to destroy the social-cultural reality we
created with such great care over 95 years, with one swipe of a pen,
think again!'
The Armenian Genocide is a part of a more general framework that is
directly related to our existence. The republic and the society of
Turkey today have been constructed upon the removal of Christians - the
destruction of an existence on a territory that we call our homeland.
Since we have established our existence upon the non-existence of
another, every mention of that existence imparts fear and anxiety in
us. The difficulty we have in our country with speaking about the
Armenian issue lies within this existence-non-existence duality. If
you're looking for an example that comes close to this, you don't need
to look far: The history of the Native Americans in the U.S. bears
similarities.
So, I think we have to reverse the question: The central question is
not why Turkey denies the genocide, but whether we the people of
Turkey are ready, as a state and as a society, to deny our present
state of existence. It seems that the only way we can do that is by
repudiating how we came to be and by creating a new history of how we
came to exist. Are we capable of doing that? That's the true question.
Notes
[1] Jurgen Habermas, `Die Ütopie des guten Herrschers,' in: Habermas,
Kultur and Kritik (Frankfurt a.M., 1973), p. 386-7.
2 Elias Siberski, Untergrund und Offene Geselschaft, Zur Fragen der
strukturellen Deutung des sozialen Phaenomens (Stutgart, 1967), p. 51.
From: Baghdasarian
Posted by Taner Akcam
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/12/15/akcam-turkey-and-the-armenian-ghost/
December 15, 2012
The Armenian Weekly publishes the full text of a talk delivered by Dr.
Taner Akcam (Clark University) during a panel on `Overcoming Genocide
Denial' organized by Fordham Law School's Leitner Center for
International Law and Justice on Dec. 4. Speakers included Akcam,
Gregory Stanton (George Mason University), and Sheri Rosenberg
(Cardozo Law School).
Empty chairs in Mush (Photo by Khatchig Mouradian)
`Why do we Turks continue to deny the genocide?'
Or, stated another way, Why do we Turks feel like lightening has
struck our bones whenever the topic is brought up?
I've been dedicated to researching the subject of the Armenian
Genocide since 1990, more than 20 years. This question keeps getting
asked over and over again with unerring consistency. The question is a
simple one, but as the years have passed my response to it has
changed. At first, I tried to explain the denial through the concept
of `continuity,' namely, governmental continuity from the Ottoman
Empire through the Turkish Republic. Another way of formulating this
thesis might be by titling it, `The Dilemma of Making Heroes into
Villains.' The argument is very simple: The Turkish Republic was
actually established by the Union and Progress Party (Ittihat ve
Terakki), the architects of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The
founding cadres of Turkey were essentially Union and Progress members.
And so, a significant number of the founding cadres of Turkey were
either directly involved in the Armenian Genocide or they enriched
themselves by looting Armenian properties. But these individuals were
also our national heroes - they are the founding fathers of our nation.
If Turkey acknowledges the genocide, we would have to accept that a
number of our national heroes and founding fathers were either
murderers, thieves, or both. This is the real dilemma.
Those individuals, as we were taught in school, were men who `created
our nation and the state out of nothing.' They define who we are. This
is true not only for the early generation of the Turkish nation, but
also for the opposition movements of the country, including the
largest wave of a democratic-progressive movement Turkey had ever
seen: the 1968 student protest movement. The representatives of this
wave and its political organizations strongly identified themselves
with the founding cadres of the republic. They called themselves, in
analogy with the founding fathers, the second `Kuvayi-Milliyeciler' or
`national front,' a specific term that we use only to define our
founding cadres. This strong identification with the founding fathers
was not particular to the progressive `68 generation. It has been true
for any of the groups active in Turkey: nationalist, Islamicist, or
other right wing circles.
In other words, in order to accept the genocide, in our present state,
we would have to deny our own national identity, as it exists today.
That is a very difficult task, an almost impossible one, and very
destructive. Instead of dealing with the identity crisis and the
emotional and political fallout that will result from accepting the
genocide, think about it: Wouldn't it be so much simpler to just deny
it?
I started to modify my response to the question `Why do Turks deny the
genocide?' over time. I added one more reason for Turkish denial. It
is also a very simple argument. If Turkey accepts that the genocide
took place, it will be obligated to pay reparations. The argument has
some wider consequences than whether the events of 1915 should be
termed `genocide.' Let's assume that 1915 was not genocide, and
imagine that the Union and Progress Party had deported the Armenians
from a cold, mountainous, and infertile area to a sunny warm and
fertile region; pretend, in other words, that the Armenians had been
dispatched to Florida. However, everything that these people owned was
confiscated in the process and not a single penny was paid back to
them. Even if you refuse to accept the events of 1915 as genocide, you
have to accept the fact that the country of Turkey today was formed on
the seizure of Armenian assets, and now sits on top of that wealth. As
a result, if you accept and acknowledge that something unjust happened
in 1915 in Turkey, you have to pay back compensation. Therefore, in
order to avoid doing that, denying genocide outright makes a whole lot
of sense.
I have continued to add some additional factors to explain Turkish
denials, such as the phenomenon that occurs when you repeat a lie.
Even in ordinary daily life, how easy is it to reverse yourself once
you've told a lie? The lie about genocide has a history of decades and
has become calcified. A state that's been lying for 90 years can't
simply reverse course. Even when you know you're telling untruths,
they acquire the veneer of reality after so many years.
But these points are only useful for explaining why the state has
continued to deny the genocide. As the years passed, I started to
write that the term `Turkish denial' was inadequate for fully
explaining the situation. I questioned the validity of the use of the
term `Turks' to reflect a homogeneous entity that defines not only the
people of Turkey but the state of Turkey, as well. I suggested making
a distinction between state policy and the attitude of the people of
Turkey towards genocide. I argued that the term `denial' was adequate
in explaining state policy, but not that of society. The attitude of
society should more accurately be portrayed as one of ignorance,
apathy, fatalism, reticence, and silence, rather than denial.
Turkish society is not a monolithic block, and can be considered
analogous to a train. It's made up of lots of different cars, and each
car represents a different sub-cultural ethnicity with a different
attitude towards what happened in 1915. I've stated many times that a
large portion of Kurds, Dersimians, and Alewites have accepted the
reality of what happened in 1915, and that the real problem is that
these different groups have not been able to express their thoughts on
it in a way that was forceful, firm, and especially written. I used
the terms silence and avoidance not only in the sense of a single
attitude that is jointly held by all segments of society, but also to
mean not openly taking a stance toward the official state narrative.
One has to accept that all of these distinctions are important, and
perhaps vital, to understanding the development of civil society in
Turkey today, but that they are still not enough to explain why
denialism is such a dominant part of the cultural landscape in Turkey.
So, my thinking has begun to change, yet again, recently. I don't mean
to say that my previous explanations were necessarily incorrect. Just
the opposite: I still believe that these factors play a major role in
the denial of the Armenian Genocide. However, I have now started to
think that the matter seems to have roots in something much deeper and
almost existentialist, which covers the state as much as the society.
The answer to the question seems to lie in a duality between existence
and non-existence - or, as Hamlet would say, `to be or not to be.' I
believe our existence as a state and a society translates into
their - Christians in Anatolia - non-existence, or not-being. To accept
what happened in 1915 means you have to accept the existence of
them - Christians - on Turkish territory, which is practically like
announcing our non-existence, because we owe our being to their
non-existence. Let me explain.
In order to provide more clarity, I would like to introduce Habermas
to the topic. Habermas points out that within the social tissue and
institutions of societies resides a `secret violence,' and this
`secret violence' creates a structure of communication that the entire
society identifies with.[1] Through this way of `collective
communication,' the restrictions and exclusion of certain topics from
public discourse are effectively institutionalized and legitimized.
What is meaningful to note here is that this structure is not imposed
on the society by the rulers, but is accepted and internalized by
those who are ruled. There is a silent consensus in the society.
I would like to borrow another term from author Elias Siberski to shed
some light on this condition-`communicative reality' (die
kommunikative Wirklichkeit). Siberski uses this term to describe a
very important characteristic of secretive organizations.2 According
to Siberski, secretive organizations create an internal reality
through a method of communication that is totally different from the
real world. The situation in Turkey today resembles this very closely.
As a society, we are like a secret organization. Since the
establishment of our republic we have created a `communicative
reality,' which sets out our way of thinking and existence over `state
and nation.' It gives shape to our emotions and defining belief
systems, or, in other words, our entire social-cultural net of
relations. In sum, the things that make us who we are or at a minimum
who we think we are. What is important to note is the gap between this
`communicative reality' and actual reality.
In the end, this `communicative reality' has given us speakable and
unspeakable worlds, and has created a collective secret that covers
our entire society like a glove. It has created one big gigantic black
hole. We are, today, a reality that possesses a `black hole.' This
existence of a huge `black hole,' or the possession of a `collective
secret,' or creation of a `coalition of silence' - these are the terms
that define who we are... We simply eradicated everything Christian from
this reality. This is how we teach Ottoman history in our schools,
this is how we produce intellectual-cultural works about our society.
My opinion is that the secret behind the denial of the Armenian
Genocide, or the unspeakableness of it, lies somewhere in here. What
happened in 1915 is Turkish society's collective secret, and genocide
has been relegated to the `black hole' of our societal memory. Since
the founding of the Republic of Turkey, all of us, rightists and
leftists, Muslim, Alewite, Kurds, and Turks, have created a collective
`coalition of silence' around this subject, and we don't like being
reminded of this hidden secret that wraps around us like a warm, fuzzy
blanket. The reminders have an annoying irritating quality and we feel
confronted by a situation that leaves us unsure of what to do or say.
Because, if we are forced to confront our history, everything - our
social institutions, mentalities, belief systems, culture, and even
the language we use - will be open to question. The way a society
perceives itself is going to be questioned from top to bottom. As a
result, we don't appreciate the `reminders.' We view reminders as
`force,' and react quite negatively to them. All of us, rightist and
leftist, search for excuses, but we together seem to be crying out, as
if in chorus, `Here we are minding our own business, not bothering
anyone, when you appeared out of nowhere. Where did you come from?' It
is as if we, as a nation, are making this collective statement: `If
you think we are going to destroy the social-cultural reality we
created with such great care over 95 years, with one swipe of a pen,
think again!'
The Armenian Genocide is a part of a more general framework that is
directly related to our existence. The republic and the society of
Turkey today have been constructed upon the removal of Christians - the
destruction of an existence on a territory that we call our homeland.
Since we have established our existence upon the non-existence of
another, every mention of that existence imparts fear and anxiety in
us. The difficulty we have in our country with speaking about the
Armenian issue lies within this existence-non-existence duality. If
you're looking for an example that comes close to this, you don't need
to look far: The history of the Native Americans in the U.S. bears
similarities.
So, I think we have to reverse the question: The central question is
not why Turkey denies the genocide, but whether we the people of
Turkey are ready, as a state and as a society, to deny our present
state of existence. It seems that the only way we can do that is by
repudiating how we came to be and by creating a new history of how we
came to exist. Are we capable of doing that? That's the true question.
Notes
[1] Jurgen Habermas, `Die Ütopie des guten Herrschers,' in: Habermas,
Kultur and Kritik (Frankfurt a.M., 1973), p. 386-7.
2 Elias Siberski, Untergrund und Offene Geselschaft, Zur Fragen der
strukturellen Deutung des sozialen Phaenomens (Stutgart, 1967), p. 51.
From: Baghdasarian