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TURKEY AND ARMENIANS
Daily Sabah, Turkey
Sept 26 2014
Markar Esayan
26 September 2014, Friday
Turkey has been experiencing significant political developments
for the last 12 years and the Armenian community is also a part of
this process. Currently, about 60,000 Armenians live in Turkey, and
this transformation affects not only them, but also the Armenians
with Anatolian origins living in Armenia and the Armenian diaspora
worldwide. Consequently, the notion of being an Armenian is also
undergoing a transformation during this political process. People in
Turkey are in a convenient phase of reviewing what has been led by
recent political developments.
They get to know not only other people, but also themselves again
- and they are aware of the fact that a braver and more impartial
interpretation of history is obligatory to do that. While they are
stepping out of official history and searching for their own roots
by using various free sources they also encounter "the others." For
instance the religious groups who wonder about the stories of
the religious leaders executed in Independence Courts during early
Republican Era in 1925 and try to re-acquire the reputation of their
losses, discover that Armenians went under even more tragic incidents
in 1915 and that they also occupy a place in the big picture.
For the West, it was not easy to understand the state of terror
targeting minorities, religious groups like Alevis and Kurds both
during the 1915 genocide and Republican history, or it simply did
not interest them. Turkey, founded on a much smaller territory than
the Ottoman Empire - the strongest representative of the East - was
expressing the peak of a great victory through the Western model
it chose. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's political choice meant Western
civilization putting its flag on the peak of the East, and this
metaphor was quite true. Through Turkey's existence, it was officially
proved that the West won the civilization war in a physical sense.
Of course the fascist conjuncture prevailing in the world until 1945
and Turkey's participation in NATO during the Cold War period played
a role in exculpating the violent acts of the Turkish state. This is
the realpolitik side of the issue. An ally that had the second greatest
army of any NATO country had a considerable strategic importance that
could not be criticized due to the shortcomings of its democracy. It
was not needed and Turkey was being ruled as the West wished.
Thus, Kemalist nationalist elites first dissolved ethnic minorities
and suppressed the religious ones then killed the Kurds and Alevis and
economically condemned large masses to poverty. A small elite group -
called White Turks in a sociological context - dominated the media,
academia, politics, economy, and public sphere in the country. While
Armenians could not even be assigned to the lowest positions in this
social hierarchy, state institutions were off-limits to religious
people and Kurds. Alevis, meanwhile, were stuck in between state
massacres and Sunni fear.
So, this elite and unconscionable state model has been revised and
reformed with a gradual and peaceful public revolution for the last 12
years thanks to the support of the social groups I mentioned above. In
2002, when the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) became the
ruling party for the first time, this elite status quo was angry
but self-confident. The presidency, judiciary, chambers, media, NGOs
and more importantly, the army, were backing them. They were giving
the AK Party a very short lifetime and a coup resembling the Feb. 28,
1997 post-modern coup was expected at any moment. Attempts to overthrow
the government had started. The army, pro-coup juntas within the army,
the media and judiciary took immediate action to achieve it.
But they could not succeed. Reforms were gradually implemented and
pro-coup elites found themselves in a more democratic country. So,
the non-political struggle methods had to become more democratized and
nuanced. The most functional method developed today is bringing down
the reform process through the traumas of minorities like Kurds and
Alevis. The elite intellectuals obsessed in overthrowing Recep Tayyip
Erdogan are concerned about how to manipulate the delicate issues
such as the 1915 incidents to undermine the government. They also
receive much support from international circles since they perform
their activities under a Western guise. They might even manipulate
diaspora populations in this sense.
It seems that with the 100th anniversary of 1915 the pain of Armenians
will be manipulated in a sovereignty fight. If the diaspora community
is searching for an influential and legitimate addressee for this
pain to be acknowledged and respected, it should be the sociological
actors of this reform rather than those attempting to end the reform
period in which Armenians feel equal and secure for the first time
in Turkey's Republican history. The formerly dominating groups are
about to become a thing of the past and have lost their character of
being an addressee.
http://www.dailysabah.com/columns/markar_esayan/2014/09/26/turkey-and-armenians
Daily Sabah, Turkey
Sept 26 2014
Markar Esayan
26 September 2014, Friday
Turkey has been experiencing significant political developments
for the last 12 years and the Armenian community is also a part of
this process. Currently, about 60,000 Armenians live in Turkey, and
this transformation affects not only them, but also the Armenians
with Anatolian origins living in Armenia and the Armenian diaspora
worldwide. Consequently, the notion of being an Armenian is also
undergoing a transformation during this political process. People in
Turkey are in a convenient phase of reviewing what has been led by
recent political developments.
They get to know not only other people, but also themselves again
- and they are aware of the fact that a braver and more impartial
interpretation of history is obligatory to do that. While they are
stepping out of official history and searching for their own roots
by using various free sources they also encounter "the others." For
instance the religious groups who wonder about the stories of
the religious leaders executed in Independence Courts during early
Republican Era in 1925 and try to re-acquire the reputation of their
losses, discover that Armenians went under even more tragic incidents
in 1915 and that they also occupy a place in the big picture.
For the West, it was not easy to understand the state of terror
targeting minorities, religious groups like Alevis and Kurds both
during the 1915 genocide and Republican history, or it simply did
not interest them. Turkey, founded on a much smaller territory than
the Ottoman Empire - the strongest representative of the East - was
expressing the peak of a great victory through the Western model
it chose. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's political choice meant Western
civilization putting its flag on the peak of the East, and this
metaphor was quite true. Through Turkey's existence, it was officially
proved that the West won the civilization war in a physical sense.
Of course the fascist conjuncture prevailing in the world until 1945
and Turkey's participation in NATO during the Cold War period played
a role in exculpating the violent acts of the Turkish state. This is
the realpolitik side of the issue. An ally that had the second greatest
army of any NATO country had a considerable strategic importance that
could not be criticized due to the shortcomings of its democracy. It
was not needed and Turkey was being ruled as the West wished.
Thus, Kemalist nationalist elites first dissolved ethnic minorities
and suppressed the religious ones then killed the Kurds and Alevis and
economically condemned large masses to poverty. A small elite group -
called White Turks in a sociological context - dominated the media,
academia, politics, economy, and public sphere in the country. While
Armenians could not even be assigned to the lowest positions in this
social hierarchy, state institutions were off-limits to religious
people and Kurds. Alevis, meanwhile, were stuck in between state
massacres and Sunni fear.
So, this elite and unconscionable state model has been revised and
reformed with a gradual and peaceful public revolution for the last 12
years thanks to the support of the social groups I mentioned above. In
2002, when the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) became the
ruling party for the first time, this elite status quo was angry
but self-confident. The presidency, judiciary, chambers, media, NGOs
and more importantly, the army, were backing them. They were giving
the AK Party a very short lifetime and a coup resembling the Feb. 28,
1997 post-modern coup was expected at any moment. Attempts to overthrow
the government had started. The army, pro-coup juntas within the army,
the media and judiciary took immediate action to achieve it.
But they could not succeed. Reforms were gradually implemented and
pro-coup elites found themselves in a more democratic country. So,
the non-political struggle methods had to become more democratized and
nuanced. The most functional method developed today is bringing down
the reform process through the traumas of minorities like Kurds and
Alevis. The elite intellectuals obsessed in overthrowing Recep Tayyip
Erdogan are concerned about how to manipulate the delicate issues
such as the 1915 incidents to undermine the government. They also
receive much support from international circles since they perform
their activities under a Western guise. They might even manipulate
diaspora populations in this sense.
It seems that with the 100th anniversary of 1915 the pain of Armenians
will be manipulated in a sovereignty fight. If the diaspora community
is searching for an influential and legitimate addressee for this
pain to be acknowledged and respected, it should be the sociological
actors of this reform rather than those attempting to end the reform
period in which Armenians feel equal and secure for the first time
in Turkey's Republican history. The formerly dominating groups are
about to become a thing of the past and have lost their character of
being an addressee.
http://www.dailysabah.com/columns/markar_esayan/2014/09/26/turkey-and-armenians