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Today's Zaman, Turkey
May 4 2012
A Headscarved Woman at the April 24 Commemoration
The Armenian issue has been a periodically recurring problem for all
governments of the Turkish Republic so far.
It has become a habit for us to react and voice national concerns via
our Foreign Ministry when parliaments of foreign countries pass bills
on recognition of the genocide, or as April 24 looms. Meanwhile, we
have tended to market it as a victory when we manage to make some
Western countries backpedal thanks to Turkey's commercial and military
importance. The critical point was that the Armenian issue tended to
be defined as a "foreign policy" matter in the eyes both of
governments and of society. It was as if these incidents had occurred,
not in Anatolia but during a conflict with another country along the
country's geographical borders. In support of this perception, the
official accounts of the country's history advocated that during the
forced relocation, the country was at war with foreign forces that
sought to divide Anatolia, and therefore, internal territories should
be considered as a sort of boundary. From this perspective, Armenians
could no longer be seen as an ancient nation (millet) of the Ottoman
Empire, and they could be defined an aggressive tribe warring against
the state. This was how the forced relocation could be expanded to
include all Armenians...
This perspective further called on the community in Turkey to lend
support to their state, and the community complied with this
invitation despite its internal diversity. On the other hand, there
were natural connections with the Armenian issue and the Republican
regime because the founders of the new regime were no one but the
pro-Community of Union and Progress (CUP) circles. Moreover, Kemalists
held no different ideas about non-Muslims than the CUP. Indeed,
several years after the establishment of the republic, non-Muslims
started to witness increased pressures on them through laws and
deliberate practices. Eventually, society was feeling indebted to the
state that had saved them from the domination of foreign powers, and,
as a result, they unquestioningly adopted the official position with
regard to the Armenian issue.
When the genocide debate flared again after 1980, the state, in line
with the mindset of the Sept. 12 regime, started to tell its citizens
more openly how they should think about this matter. And those who
stepped outside the state's official discourse were seen as traitors,
and they were crushed by criminal laws. The general public was feeling
that they were in a big conflict that was growing bigger and bigger,
and they thought that the "right" thing they could do was to side with
the state...
This picture started to change in the mid 1990s. Secular groups were
showing signs of division, with democrats distancing themselves from
the state with respect to nationalism and secularism. The first broad
contact occurred in this period between the democrats of the secular
groups and the intellectuals of the Islamic groups that were in the
grips of change, and with the coup of Feb. 28, 1997, the division
inside the secular groups ran deeper. In this stretch of time, the New
Democracy Movement started to shake the state's official discourse in
many respects, the intellectuals of the Armenian community launched
the Agos newspaper and a "progressive" opposition emerged out of the
Islamist Welfare Party (RP).
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) served as a silent revolution
that directed this fragmented change to a single melting point. In
addition to being significant in terms of making sense of the Islamic
groups, this movement is acting as the mediator of society and the
state's need for "reform." This change is progressing so fast that
Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek, who had said, referring to the
Armenian conference in 2005, "They are stabbing us in the back," now
felt the need to touch on the Armenian issue in the context of the
initiative to draft a new constitution and stressed that the country
has to confront its past to the end. The AKP is not the driving force
behind this striki ng change... The real change is going on inside the
Islamic community, and the energy coming out of this change is going
beyond the government's reticence.
This year, a headscarved woman read the press release concerning the
commemoration of April 24 in the name of all participants. Many
intellectuals and columnists from Islamic groups expressed their
respect for the sorrow resulting from the forced relocation of
Armenians, and they condemned the pro-CUP mentality. The Association
of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER), the
most important human rights association among the Islamic groups,
issued a press release that was extremely respectful for the lost
lives, that underlined the historical reality and that refused to use
pro-state jargon. In this respect, Turkey is about to pass the
threshold... The policy of denial is now being perceived as a
ridiculousness that sticks only to neo-nationalist (ulusalci) TV
channels. The government is very unlikely to remain indifferent to the
mental liberation of the Islamic groups. But the West should refrain
from raising this issue as a "foreign policy" matter once again...
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
May 4 2012
A Headscarved Woman at the April 24 Commemoration
The Armenian issue has been a periodically recurring problem for all
governments of the Turkish Republic so far.
It has become a habit for us to react and voice national concerns via
our Foreign Ministry when parliaments of foreign countries pass bills
on recognition of the genocide, or as April 24 looms. Meanwhile, we
have tended to market it as a victory when we manage to make some
Western countries backpedal thanks to Turkey's commercial and military
importance. The critical point was that the Armenian issue tended to
be defined as a "foreign policy" matter in the eyes both of
governments and of society. It was as if these incidents had occurred,
not in Anatolia but during a conflict with another country along the
country's geographical borders. In support of this perception, the
official accounts of the country's history advocated that during the
forced relocation, the country was at war with foreign forces that
sought to divide Anatolia, and therefore, internal territories should
be considered as a sort of boundary. From this perspective, Armenians
could no longer be seen as an ancient nation (millet) of the Ottoman
Empire, and they could be defined an aggressive tribe warring against
the state. This was how the forced relocation could be expanded to
include all Armenians...
This perspective further called on the community in Turkey to lend
support to their state, and the community complied with this
invitation despite its internal diversity. On the other hand, there
were natural connections with the Armenian issue and the Republican
regime because the founders of the new regime were no one but the
pro-Community of Union and Progress (CUP) circles. Moreover, Kemalists
held no different ideas about non-Muslims than the CUP. Indeed,
several years after the establishment of the republic, non-Muslims
started to witness increased pressures on them through laws and
deliberate practices. Eventually, society was feeling indebted to the
state that had saved them from the domination of foreign powers, and,
as a result, they unquestioningly adopted the official position with
regard to the Armenian issue.
When the genocide debate flared again after 1980, the state, in line
with the mindset of the Sept. 12 regime, started to tell its citizens
more openly how they should think about this matter. And those who
stepped outside the state's official discourse were seen as traitors,
and they were crushed by criminal laws. The general public was feeling
that they were in a big conflict that was growing bigger and bigger,
and they thought that the "right" thing they could do was to side with
the state...
This picture started to change in the mid 1990s. Secular groups were
showing signs of division, with democrats distancing themselves from
the state with respect to nationalism and secularism. The first broad
contact occurred in this period between the democrats of the secular
groups and the intellectuals of the Islamic groups that were in the
grips of change, and with the coup of Feb. 28, 1997, the division
inside the secular groups ran deeper. In this stretch of time, the New
Democracy Movement started to shake the state's official discourse in
many respects, the intellectuals of the Armenian community launched
the Agos newspaper and a "progressive" opposition emerged out of the
Islamist Welfare Party (RP).
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) served as a silent revolution
that directed this fragmented change to a single melting point. In
addition to being significant in terms of making sense of the Islamic
groups, this movement is acting as the mediator of society and the
state's need for "reform." This change is progressing so fast that
Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek, who had said, referring to the
Armenian conference in 2005, "They are stabbing us in the back," now
felt the need to touch on the Armenian issue in the context of the
initiative to draft a new constitution and stressed that the country
has to confront its past to the end. The AKP is not the driving force
behind this striki ng change... The real change is going on inside the
Islamic community, and the energy coming out of this change is going
beyond the government's reticence.
This year, a headscarved woman read the press release concerning the
commemoration of April 24 in the name of all participants. Many
intellectuals and columnists from Islamic groups expressed their
respect for the sorrow resulting from the forced relocation of
Armenians, and they condemned the pro-CUP mentality. The Association
of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER), the
most important human rights association among the Islamic groups,
issued a press release that was extremely respectful for the lost
lives, that underlined the historical reality and that refused to use
pro-state jargon. In this respect, Turkey is about to pass the
threshold... The policy of denial is now being perceived as a
ridiculousness that sticks only to neo-nationalist (ulusalci) TV
channels. The government is very unlikely to remain indifferent to the
mental liberation of the Islamic groups. But the West should refrain
from raising this issue as a "foreign policy" matter once again...
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress