Tweet
OUR DEFINITION EXTENDING TO ISLAMICIZED ARMENIANS
EDITORIAL, OPINION | NOVEMBER 24, 2013 8:45 PM
By Raffi Bedrosyan
The conference organized by the Hrant Dink Foundation about
"Islamicized Armenians" at the Istanbul Bosphorus University in early
November broke one more taboo in Turkey. A hidden reality, a secret
known by many but which couldn't be revealed to anyone, whispered
behind closed doors but also filed in government intelligence offices,
finally broke open into the public.
The late Hrant Dink would be elated to see this conference become
a reality, eight years after the first conference about "Armenians
during the late Ottoman Empire era and the 1915 events" held at
Istanbul Bilgi University, when protesters hurled insults at the
conference participants and government ministers labeled them "traitors
stabbing Turks in the back." That conference had also broken a taboo,
but Hrant was already a marked man for revealing the identity of the
most famous "Islamicized Armenian, Sabiha Gokcen, Ataturk's adopted
daughter and the first female Turkish combat pilot, to be in fact an
Armenian orphan of 1915 in the name of Hatun Sebilciyan.
It is a known fact that in 1915 tens of thousands of Armenian
orphans were forcibly Islamicized and Turkified, tens of thousands
of Armenian girls and young women were captured by Kurds and Turks
as slaves, maids or wives, tens of thousands Armenians converted
to Islam in order to escape deportations and massacres, and tens of
thousands of Armenians found shelter in friendly Kurdish and Alevi
villages but lost their identity. What happened to these survivors,
or living victims of the 1915 genocide? Hrant was obsessed with them:
"We keep talking about the ones 'gone' in 1915, let us start talking
about the ones who 'remained.'"
These remaining people survived, but mostly in living hells. And what's
remarkable, their children and grandchildren are now "coming out,
no more hiding their Armenian roots. One of the first was the famous
Turkish lawyer Fethiye Cetin, who revealed that her grandmother was
Armenian, in her book, My Grandmother. This was followed by another
book edited by Aysegul Altinay and Fethiye Cetin, The Grandchildren,
about dozens of Turkish/Kurdish people describing their Armenian roots,
without revealing their real identities. Then came the reconstruction
of the Surp Giragos Armenian Church in Diyarbakir, which became a
destination for many hidden Armenians in Eastern Anatolia to come out.
On average, more than 100 people visit the church daily, most of them
hidden Armenians. Some come to pray, get baptized or married, but most
just visit to feel Armenian, without converting back to Christianity.
This has created a new identity of Moslem Armenians, in addition to
the historical and traditional identity of Christian Armenians. In a
country where only Moslem Turks can work for the government, where
being non-Moslem is sufficient excuse for persecution, harassment
and attacks, where the word Armenian is used as the biggest insult,
it takes real courage for someone to reveal that he is now an Armenian
and no longer a Turk/Kurd/Moslem. People can easily lose their jobs,
livelihoods or even lives for changing their identity. Just to give an
example of the level of racism and discrimination, an ultra-nationalist
opposition member of parliament accused the Turkish President Abdullah
Gul of having Armenian roots in his family from Kayseri. Gul sued
her for defamation for being labeled an Armenian; the courts sided
with him, ordering her to pay compensation for such an insult.
It is difficult to estimate the number of Islamicized Armenians,
and even more difficult to predict what proportion of them are
aware of their Armenian roots, or how many are willing to regain
their Armenian identity. Based on independent studies of the 1915
events, one can conclude that more than 100,000 orphans were forcibly
Islamicized/Turkified, and that another 200,000 Armenians survived
by converting to Islam or by finding shelter in friendly Kurdish and
Alevi regions. It is therefore conceivable that 300,000 souls survived
as Moslems. The population of Turkey increased seven fold since then.
Using the same multiple, one can extrapolate that there may exist
2 million people with Armenian roots in Turkey today, originating
from the 1915 survivors. There were even more widespread conversions
to Islam during the 1894-1896 massacres, when entire villages were
forcibly Islamicized. A couple centuries previously, Hamshen Armenians
were Islamicized in northeast Anatolia. The Moslem Hamshentsis,
numbering about 500,000, speak a dialect based on Armenian, but never
identified themselves as Armenian - until recently. Adding all these
forced conversions prior to and during 1915, one can conclude that
the number of people with Armenian roots in present Turkey reaches
several million; numbers are difficult to accurately estimate, but
in any case, easily exceed the present population of Armenia.
The reality is that the secrets of Armenianness whispered for three
or four generations after 1915, are now becoming loud revelations of
new identities. As evidenced in the recent conference, even Hamshen
Armenians have started exploring and reclaiming their long-lost roots.
During the reconstruction of the Surp Giragos Church and in my travels
in eastern and southeastern Anatolia, one out of every three Kurds
that I met had an Armenian grandmother in the family. This fact,
hidden until recently, is now revealed openly, often leading young
generations to reclaim Armenian identities, but without giving up
Islam. One interesting observation is that the hidden Armenians were
aware of other hidden ones and all attempted to intermarry, resulting
in many couples who ended up having Armenian roots from both parents.
The conference attracted numerous academicians, historians and
journalists from within and outside Turkey, as well as dozens of
presenters of oral history. One of the most dramatic presentations
was about Sara, a 15-year-old Armenian girl from Urfa Viranshehir,
who was captured by the Turkish strongman of the region, Eyup Aga. Eyup
wanted to take Sara as his third wife. When Sara refused, Eyup killed
her mother. When Sara refused again, Eyup killed her father. When Eyup
threatened to kill Sara's little brother, Sara couldn't resist any
more, and married the killer of her parents, on condition that her
brother would be spared and she would keep her name. But her brother
was also eventually killed. As she resisted Eyup's advances, she was
repeatedly raped and got pregnant 15 times, giving birth to 15 babies,
all of whom died prematurely. Eyup constantly tortured her, even
marking a cross in her body with a knife. The family also mistreated
her as an outcast, and she led a hellish life to the end. At the end
of the story, the presenter, a Turkish academician, revealed that Eyup
and the family who committed these crimes against Sara, was her own
family. Her final statement was even more dramatic than the story:
"We always hear stories told by the victims, it is now time for the
perpetrators to start talking about and owning their crimes."
There are new revelations about how the Turkish government kept tabs on
Islamicized Armenians. Apparently, the government kept records of every
Armenian village or large Armenian clan which was forcibly Islamicized
in 1915. It was recently discovered that the identification cards of
hidden or known Armenians had a special numbering system to identify
them secretly. There are anecdotes that a few Turkish candidates for
air force pilot positions were turned away even though they qualified
after rigorous tests, when government records revealed that they come
from Islamicized Armenian families.
It is of greater concern to us how the Islamicized Armenians are
being dealt with by Armenians. It seems that the Istanbul Armenian
community and more critically, the Istanbul Armenian Patriarchate
are unable or unwilling to accept the hidden Armenians coming out as
Armenians, unless these people accept Christianity, get baptized and
speak Armenian. But it is unrealistic to expect the new Armenians to
comply with these requirements. Since Armenians in Turkey are all
defined as belonging to the Armenian Church, if the newcomers are
rejected by the Patriarchate, they become double outcasts, not only
from their previous Moslem Turkish/Kurdish community, but also outcasts
from the Armenian community, cannot get married, baptized or buried by
the Church and cannot send their children to Armenian schools. If they
have made a conscious decision to identify themselves as Armenian,
a risky and dangerous initiative under the present circumstances,
they should be readily accepted as Armenians, regardless whether they
stay Moslem or atheist or anything else. Relationships get even more
complicated as there are now many families with one branch carrying
on life as Moslem Turk/Kurd, another branch as Moslem Armenian and
a third branch as Christian Armenian. The Echmiadzin Church is more
tolerant, which has issued the following statement: "Common ethnicity,
land, language, history, cultural heritage and religion are general
measures in defining a nation. Even if one or more of these measures
can be missing due to historic reasons, such as inability to speak the
language, or practice the religion or lack of knowledge of cultural
and historic heritage, should not be used to exclude one's Armenian
identity." But Chales Aznavour's approach is the most welcoming when
he states: "Armenia should embrace the Islamicized Armenians and open
its doors to them."
After Armenia, Karabagh and the Diaspora, there is now an emerging
fourth Armenian world, the Islamicized Armenians of Turkey. Accepting
this new reality will help both Turks and Armenians understand better
the realities and consequences of 1915.
(Raffi Bedrosyan is a civil engineer and concert pianist, living
in Toronto, Canada. He has donated concert and CD proceedings to
infrastructure projects in Armenia and Karabagh, in which he has also
participated as an engineer. He helped organize the reconstruction of
the Surp Giragos Diyarbakir/Dikranagerd Church and the first Armenian
reclaim of church properties in Anatolia after 1915. He gave the
first piano concert in the Surp Giragos Church since 1915.)
- See more at:
http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2013/11/24/our-definition-extending-to-islamicized-armenians/#sthash.1QsG64q3.dpuf
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
EDITORIAL, OPINION | NOVEMBER 24, 2013 8:45 PM
By Raffi Bedrosyan
The conference organized by the Hrant Dink Foundation about
"Islamicized Armenians" at the Istanbul Bosphorus University in early
November broke one more taboo in Turkey. A hidden reality, a secret
known by many but which couldn't be revealed to anyone, whispered
behind closed doors but also filed in government intelligence offices,
finally broke open into the public.
The late Hrant Dink would be elated to see this conference become
a reality, eight years after the first conference about "Armenians
during the late Ottoman Empire era and the 1915 events" held at
Istanbul Bilgi University, when protesters hurled insults at the
conference participants and government ministers labeled them "traitors
stabbing Turks in the back." That conference had also broken a taboo,
but Hrant was already a marked man for revealing the identity of the
most famous "Islamicized Armenian, Sabiha Gokcen, Ataturk's adopted
daughter and the first female Turkish combat pilot, to be in fact an
Armenian orphan of 1915 in the name of Hatun Sebilciyan.
It is a known fact that in 1915 tens of thousands of Armenian
orphans were forcibly Islamicized and Turkified, tens of thousands
of Armenian girls and young women were captured by Kurds and Turks
as slaves, maids or wives, tens of thousands Armenians converted
to Islam in order to escape deportations and massacres, and tens of
thousands of Armenians found shelter in friendly Kurdish and Alevi
villages but lost their identity. What happened to these survivors,
or living victims of the 1915 genocide? Hrant was obsessed with them:
"We keep talking about the ones 'gone' in 1915, let us start talking
about the ones who 'remained.'"
These remaining people survived, but mostly in living hells. And what's
remarkable, their children and grandchildren are now "coming out,
no more hiding their Armenian roots. One of the first was the famous
Turkish lawyer Fethiye Cetin, who revealed that her grandmother was
Armenian, in her book, My Grandmother. This was followed by another
book edited by Aysegul Altinay and Fethiye Cetin, The Grandchildren,
about dozens of Turkish/Kurdish people describing their Armenian roots,
without revealing their real identities. Then came the reconstruction
of the Surp Giragos Armenian Church in Diyarbakir, which became a
destination for many hidden Armenians in Eastern Anatolia to come out.
On average, more than 100 people visit the church daily, most of them
hidden Armenians. Some come to pray, get baptized or married, but most
just visit to feel Armenian, without converting back to Christianity.
This has created a new identity of Moslem Armenians, in addition to
the historical and traditional identity of Christian Armenians. In a
country where only Moslem Turks can work for the government, where
being non-Moslem is sufficient excuse for persecution, harassment
and attacks, where the word Armenian is used as the biggest insult,
it takes real courage for someone to reveal that he is now an Armenian
and no longer a Turk/Kurd/Moslem. People can easily lose their jobs,
livelihoods or even lives for changing their identity. Just to give an
example of the level of racism and discrimination, an ultra-nationalist
opposition member of parliament accused the Turkish President Abdullah
Gul of having Armenian roots in his family from Kayseri. Gul sued
her for defamation for being labeled an Armenian; the courts sided
with him, ordering her to pay compensation for such an insult.
It is difficult to estimate the number of Islamicized Armenians,
and even more difficult to predict what proportion of them are
aware of their Armenian roots, or how many are willing to regain
their Armenian identity. Based on independent studies of the 1915
events, one can conclude that more than 100,000 orphans were forcibly
Islamicized/Turkified, and that another 200,000 Armenians survived
by converting to Islam or by finding shelter in friendly Kurdish and
Alevi regions. It is therefore conceivable that 300,000 souls survived
as Moslems. The population of Turkey increased seven fold since then.
Using the same multiple, one can extrapolate that there may exist
2 million people with Armenian roots in Turkey today, originating
from the 1915 survivors. There were even more widespread conversions
to Islam during the 1894-1896 massacres, when entire villages were
forcibly Islamicized. A couple centuries previously, Hamshen Armenians
were Islamicized in northeast Anatolia. The Moslem Hamshentsis,
numbering about 500,000, speak a dialect based on Armenian, but never
identified themselves as Armenian - until recently. Adding all these
forced conversions prior to and during 1915, one can conclude that
the number of people with Armenian roots in present Turkey reaches
several million; numbers are difficult to accurately estimate, but
in any case, easily exceed the present population of Armenia.
The reality is that the secrets of Armenianness whispered for three
or four generations after 1915, are now becoming loud revelations of
new identities. As evidenced in the recent conference, even Hamshen
Armenians have started exploring and reclaiming their long-lost roots.
During the reconstruction of the Surp Giragos Church and in my travels
in eastern and southeastern Anatolia, one out of every three Kurds
that I met had an Armenian grandmother in the family. This fact,
hidden until recently, is now revealed openly, often leading young
generations to reclaim Armenian identities, but without giving up
Islam. One interesting observation is that the hidden Armenians were
aware of other hidden ones and all attempted to intermarry, resulting
in many couples who ended up having Armenian roots from both parents.
The conference attracted numerous academicians, historians and
journalists from within and outside Turkey, as well as dozens of
presenters of oral history. One of the most dramatic presentations
was about Sara, a 15-year-old Armenian girl from Urfa Viranshehir,
who was captured by the Turkish strongman of the region, Eyup Aga. Eyup
wanted to take Sara as his third wife. When Sara refused, Eyup killed
her mother. When Sara refused again, Eyup killed her father. When Eyup
threatened to kill Sara's little brother, Sara couldn't resist any
more, and married the killer of her parents, on condition that her
brother would be spared and she would keep her name. But her brother
was also eventually killed. As she resisted Eyup's advances, she was
repeatedly raped and got pregnant 15 times, giving birth to 15 babies,
all of whom died prematurely. Eyup constantly tortured her, even
marking a cross in her body with a knife. The family also mistreated
her as an outcast, and she led a hellish life to the end. At the end
of the story, the presenter, a Turkish academician, revealed that Eyup
and the family who committed these crimes against Sara, was her own
family. Her final statement was even more dramatic than the story:
"We always hear stories told by the victims, it is now time for the
perpetrators to start talking about and owning their crimes."
There are new revelations about how the Turkish government kept tabs on
Islamicized Armenians. Apparently, the government kept records of every
Armenian village or large Armenian clan which was forcibly Islamicized
in 1915. It was recently discovered that the identification cards of
hidden or known Armenians had a special numbering system to identify
them secretly. There are anecdotes that a few Turkish candidates for
air force pilot positions were turned away even though they qualified
after rigorous tests, when government records revealed that they come
from Islamicized Armenian families.
It is of greater concern to us how the Islamicized Armenians are
being dealt with by Armenians. It seems that the Istanbul Armenian
community and more critically, the Istanbul Armenian Patriarchate
are unable or unwilling to accept the hidden Armenians coming out as
Armenians, unless these people accept Christianity, get baptized and
speak Armenian. But it is unrealistic to expect the new Armenians to
comply with these requirements. Since Armenians in Turkey are all
defined as belonging to the Armenian Church, if the newcomers are
rejected by the Patriarchate, they become double outcasts, not only
from their previous Moslem Turkish/Kurdish community, but also outcasts
from the Armenian community, cannot get married, baptized or buried by
the Church and cannot send their children to Armenian schools. If they
have made a conscious decision to identify themselves as Armenian,
a risky and dangerous initiative under the present circumstances,
they should be readily accepted as Armenians, regardless whether they
stay Moslem or atheist or anything else. Relationships get even more
complicated as there are now many families with one branch carrying
on life as Moslem Turk/Kurd, another branch as Moslem Armenian and
a third branch as Christian Armenian. The Echmiadzin Church is more
tolerant, which has issued the following statement: "Common ethnicity,
land, language, history, cultural heritage and religion are general
measures in defining a nation. Even if one or more of these measures
can be missing due to historic reasons, such as inability to speak the
language, or practice the religion or lack of knowledge of cultural
and historic heritage, should not be used to exclude one's Armenian
identity." But Chales Aznavour's approach is the most welcoming when
he states: "Armenia should embrace the Islamicized Armenians and open
its doors to them."
After Armenia, Karabagh and the Diaspora, there is now an emerging
fourth Armenian world, the Islamicized Armenians of Turkey. Accepting
this new reality will help both Turks and Armenians understand better
the realities and consequences of 1915.
(Raffi Bedrosyan is a civil engineer and concert pianist, living
in Toronto, Canada. He has donated concert and CD proceedings to
infrastructure projects in Armenia and Karabagh, in which he has also
participated as an engineer. He helped organize the reconstruction of
the Surp Giragos Diyarbakir/Dikranagerd Church and the first Armenian
reclaim of church properties in Anatolia after 1915. He gave the
first piano concert in the Surp Giragos Church since 1915.)
- See more at:
http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2013/11/24/our-definition-extending-to-islamicized-armenians/#sthash.1QsG64q3.dpuf
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress