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The Seattle Times, WA
Dec 7 2014
Shadowboxing history of the long-buried Armenian genocide
In her memoir "There Was and There Was Not," Amenian American
journalist Meline Toumani attempts to pierce the veil of unknowingness
that the official record of Turkey throws over the Armenian genocide.
By Melissa Davis, Seattle Times assistant features editor
'There Was and There Was Not: A Journey Through Hate and Possibility
in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond'
by Meline Toumani
Metropolitan Books, 276 pp., $28
Touching stories about reconciliation are not hard to find. Germans
and Jews helping each other, Israelis and Palestinians playing music
together. These types of stories are possible, in part, because both
sides start from acknowledgment of atrocity and understand that
violence slowly kills the perpetrator, too.
It's harder when the crime is not just buried, but purged. How can you
seek reconciliation when your enemy believes, and insists that you do,
too, that there's nothing to reconcile? It's tough, as journalist
Meline Toumani discovered. As an Armenian American, she had nowhere to
turn when she wanted to explore the divide between Armenians and
Turks, still gaping a century after the murder of more than 1 million
Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The
Turkish government has never officially acknowledged a genocide.
Throwing the word around freely violates the country's penal code,
under the charge of "insulting Turkishness." National census records
do not match those of the Armenian clergy. The planned elimination of
an entire group does not exist in textbooks. Rather than continue to
hate, "I wanted to understand what drove Turks to cling to their
view," she states in the book's opening chapter.
Toumani, whose family came to the U.S. from Iran, was steeped in
genocide lore. Her family did not patronize Turkish businesses or eat
Turkish food. "Turk" was a term of derision. In fact, it "was a very
long time" before she realized that none of her grandparents was among
those captured and shot, or among those who perished in the horrific
death marches of 1915. Yet, "The villain, for me, had always been the
Turk. It was time to try to understand him," she decided.
"There Was and There Was Not" is her chronicle of what was intended as
an eight-week trip to Turkey but became a two-year stay in which she
careened from one surreal encounter to another. She spent time with
other outcasts, such as Armenian journalists (one of whom was
murdered) and Kurds. Modern, younger Turks were puzzling to her. A
Turkish acquaintance said he didn't need to know anything about the
Armenian genocide; in his eyes, if the government denied the
slaughter, that meant the opposite -- that it actually happened. And he
didn't need to delve any further. The Museum of Anatolian
Civilizations in Ankara presented an even bigger puzzle. Toumani gaped
at a timeline of 3,000 years of human settlement ... with no mention
of Armenians whatsoever. The trip could no longer be about why
something happened, but whether.
This could have easily become a mawkish more-feelings-than-facts
story. Toumani's reportorial approach, laced with healthy skepticism,
elevates it. She shares a deeply personal point of view, but an
accessible thread of geopolitics and history is woven throughout.
Before setting out on her first trip to Turkey, she makes a naive wish
list: "I would learn to speak Turkish, and I would meet with Turks
from all walks of life, and I believed -- truly believed -- that if I
spoke to them in a certain way ... I would be able to make some sort
of breakthrough."
There is no happy ending here. Toumani is unsparing in her reactions
to Turks and Armenians alike. At the end of her trip, she truthfully
recounts she was weary of what it took to "pass" in Istanbul; rather
than widening her horizons, her background had constricted them. She
couldn't meet people simply as human beings. If they did not deny the
past outright, they were too carefully insisting that she was the same
as they were; there were no differences to overcome.
A disappointment, sure, but one that led her to this humbling insight:
Without the recognition of genocide, what was left to the Armenians?
"Nothing holds us together; we are no longer together at all. Now all
possibilities are available to us, and that is terrifying."
http://seattletimes.com/html/books/2025154372_armeniamelinetoumanixml.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Dec 7 2014
Shadowboxing history of the long-buried Armenian genocide
In her memoir "There Was and There Was Not," Amenian American
journalist Meline Toumani attempts to pierce the veil of unknowingness
that the official record of Turkey throws over the Armenian genocide.
By Melissa Davis, Seattle Times assistant features editor
'There Was and There Was Not: A Journey Through Hate and Possibility
in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond'
by Meline Toumani
Metropolitan Books, 276 pp., $28
Touching stories about reconciliation are not hard to find. Germans
and Jews helping each other, Israelis and Palestinians playing music
together. These types of stories are possible, in part, because both
sides start from acknowledgment of atrocity and understand that
violence slowly kills the perpetrator, too.
It's harder when the crime is not just buried, but purged. How can you
seek reconciliation when your enemy believes, and insists that you do,
too, that there's nothing to reconcile? It's tough, as journalist
Meline Toumani discovered. As an Armenian American, she had nowhere to
turn when she wanted to explore the divide between Armenians and
Turks, still gaping a century after the murder of more than 1 million
Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The
Turkish government has never officially acknowledged a genocide.
Throwing the word around freely violates the country's penal code,
under the charge of "insulting Turkishness." National census records
do not match those of the Armenian clergy. The planned elimination of
an entire group does not exist in textbooks. Rather than continue to
hate, "I wanted to understand what drove Turks to cling to their
view," she states in the book's opening chapter.
Toumani, whose family came to the U.S. from Iran, was steeped in
genocide lore. Her family did not patronize Turkish businesses or eat
Turkish food. "Turk" was a term of derision. In fact, it "was a very
long time" before she realized that none of her grandparents was among
those captured and shot, or among those who perished in the horrific
death marches of 1915. Yet, "The villain, for me, had always been the
Turk. It was time to try to understand him," she decided.
"There Was and There Was Not" is her chronicle of what was intended as
an eight-week trip to Turkey but became a two-year stay in which she
careened from one surreal encounter to another. She spent time with
other outcasts, such as Armenian journalists (one of whom was
murdered) and Kurds. Modern, younger Turks were puzzling to her. A
Turkish acquaintance said he didn't need to know anything about the
Armenian genocide; in his eyes, if the government denied the
slaughter, that meant the opposite -- that it actually happened. And he
didn't need to delve any further. The Museum of Anatolian
Civilizations in Ankara presented an even bigger puzzle. Toumani gaped
at a timeline of 3,000 years of human settlement ... with no mention
of Armenians whatsoever. The trip could no longer be about why
something happened, but whether.
This could have easily become a mawkish more-feelings-than-facts
story. Toumani's reportorial approach, laced with healthy skepticism,
elevates it. She shares a deeply personal point of view, but an
accessible thread of geopolitics and history is woven throughout.
Before setting out on her first trip to Turkey, she makes a naive wish
list: "I would learn to speak Turkish, and I would meet with Turks
from all walks of life, and I believed -- truly believed -- that if I
spoke to them in a certain way ... I would be able to make some sort
of breakthrough."
There is no happy ending here. Toumani is unsparing in her reactions
to Turks and Armenians alike. At the end of her trip, she truthfully
recounts she was weary of what it took to "pass" in Istanbul; rather
than widening her horizons, her background had constricted them. She
couldn't meet people simply as human beings. If they did not deny the
past outright, they were too carefully insisting that she was the same
as they were; there were no differences to overcome.
A disappointment, sure, but one that led her to this humbling insight:
Without the recognition of genocide, what was left to the Armenians?
"Nothing holds us together; we are no longer together at all. Now all
possibilities are available to us, and that is terrifying."
http://seattletimes.com/html/books/2025154372_armeniamelinetoumanixml.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress