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Ekklesia
Jan 8 2015
>From 1915 to 2015: the challenge of the Armenian Genocide centenary
By Harry Hagopian
8 Jan 2015
"Another bird cannot prosper in an abandoned nest; the one who
destroys a nest cannot have a nest; oppression breeds oppression."
I had never heard this maxim before, but I learnt last week that it
comes from Yasar Kemal, a leading Turkish author of Kurdish origin
whose publications include the Ince Memed tetralogy. He was quoted in
a powerful and challenging article entitled 'Entering 2015' in Zaman
by Cengiz Aktar, a Senior Scholar at Istanbul Policy Centre who has
also worked for long years at the United Nations. His piece is one of
the sharpest and clearest indictments of Turkish denial of the
Armenian genocide on its centenary anniversary in April 2015.
I read and re-read this piece not simply because it said all the
things that most Armenians would wish to hear, but rather because he
said it as a sign of concern for what denial of this crime is doing to
Turkish society. In that respect, he reminded me of Ragip Zarakolou, a
human rights activist and publisher, who often told me that his
campaign for the recognition of the Armenian genocide was also due to
his concern about the impact of denial on Turkey.
Having read Aktar's article, and being the recipient of much
e-correspondence regarding the centenary, I was led to wonder where
Turks and Armenians find themselves today? After all, it has been 100
years since the genocide, 50 years since the lobbying efforts started
in earnest across the Armenian Diaspora, and just under a decade since
I stopped running the Campaign for Recognition of the Armenian
Genocide (CRAG) in the UK.
So let me start off with a negative statement: the Turkish political
establishment has not shifted its position regarding the Armenian
genocide. In fact, and as Cengiz Aktar reflects in his own piece,
Turkey still resolutely maintains its denial. It distorts and
minimises memory by blaming the deaths and deportations of well over 1
million Anatolian Armenians on a concatenation of political upheaval,
collaboration (with the enemy Russia) and victimisation of Turks (who
were seemingly killed by Armenians). But running parallel with this
official denial is also an ignorance (because it has been erased from
Turkish mass consciousness), a negligence (they are uninterested in
events that occurred a century ago and prefer not to make links with
modern-day Turkey) and an avoidance of the disastrous consequences of
what really occurred during 2015 (largely because of an innate and
somewhat overzealous nationalism by quite a few Turks whose pride
disallows them from doing a German act of recognition let alone
contrition). Just imagine that there are over 26,000 volumes published
abroad on the genocide against less than 20 serious accounts in
Turkey!
So it is quite true that things look bleak at this stage and I truly
doubt - much like Cengiz Aktar did - whether 2015 will witness any
seismic changes in Turkey regarding recognition.
However, despite all those Turkish encumbrances that can be wedded to
an Armenian Diasporan singular focus on their own genocide, I still
think that there are slower and less proactive signs of hope that
herald subtle changes overtaking Turkish society. These are not
occurring necessarily because of a sense of mea culpa by Turkish
politicians and their mouthpieces or hirelings. Rather, they are
happening almost beneath the radars of many people, and I would opine
that one key catalyst which shook up many beliefs and introduced this
sobering nudge was the murder of Hrant Dink in Istanbul on 19 January
2007. It seized the conscience of Istanbul and some other parts of
Turkey and galvanised sections of the Turkish civil society to
question a country that kills its citizens for the sake of preventing
the truth coming out. Besides, and despite his reputation as a
prominent Turkish intellectual, I suspect that Cengiz Aktar would
still have been charged under the infamous (and unconstitutional)
Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code for 'insulting Turkishness' had
he written his candid piece about the repercussions of genocide denial
a few years earlier.
There are other small telltale signs too. One such sign is the
re-opening of some Armenian churches - such as the St Guiragos
Armenian Orthodox Church in Diyarbakir that was renovated from its
dilapidated ruins - or the restoration of some Armenian cultural
monuments. There are also the commemorative events taking place across
Turkey today - from Istanbul to Diyarbakir and Mardin - that are
testimony of an incipient realisation by local officials that Turkey
must come to terms with its own history - for its sake as much as that
of Armenians - and are therefore not necessarily being clamped down
upon. Otherwise, and in a greyer Turkey, Project 2015 or the Gomidas
Institute (to mention just two examples) will not have managed to plan
commemorative events in Turkey in 2015 let alone publicise them.
Recently, Catholicos Karekin II, the supreme head of the Armenian
Orthodox Church, issued a pontifical encyclical declaring that the
Church will canonise as saints all the Armenian victims of the
genocide. Much as I am ambivalent about wholesale canonisations, what
other events will characterise Armenian commemorations in 2015? Will
they simply be endless wakes - concerts, conferences, marches,
recitals, vigils or defiant and high-decibel talks - for our murdered
forbears or will they also walk the next step to celebrate our
collective achievements as a people and a nation despite a genocide
that almost annihilated a whole race? Is this not ample testimony to
the fact that the erstwhile Ottoman killing machine failed to snuff
out the pulse of Armenians worldwide? Does it not prove that there is
more than grief that characterises the Armenian being, and that we
should care as deeply about the 10 million living Armenians worldwide
today as we do about our departed relatives?
Only recently, the prominent barrister Geoffrey Robertson, QC,
published his new book An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers The
Armenians? (Biteback Publishing, 2014) in which he applied his legal
prowess to provide the world with a tapestry of answers about the 1915
events and prove that there was a genocide committed against Armenians
in accordance with the UN Convention of 1948. He also asked - quaintly
- that Turkey undertake a CBM (confidence-building measure) toward
Armenia by shifting the borderline a tiny bit to include Massis (or
Mount Ararat, the preeminent national symbol and talisman for
Armenians, and the location of Noah's biblical ark) into Armenia. I
would not hold my breath, and I do not think that the QC does either,
but would it not be a brilliant move that could bridge the yawning
chasm between two peoples?
There have been far too many victims of this genocide already, with
men, women and children who lost their lives - or in the case of
someone like Gomidas, a priest and the father of Armenian liturgical
music, his manuscripts as well as his mental faculties (when
witnessing the suffering of Armenians). But there are other victims
too: they include those older Armenians who are still afraid to share
their memories, their younger counterparts who feel alienated and
unrepresented by their elders, or those who have been carrying history
on their backs for decades let alone those who would genuinely wish to
see a closure of this open sore that would help Armenians and Turks
begin a process of reconciliation that could eventually help them both
overcome this chapter of suffering and begin a healing process.
On this centenary, can Turkey show good will - commensurate with good
faith - to repair and repopulate the destroyed Armenian nest that had
been assembled over many centuries, so that its legal denial of a
human truth does not breed further oppression, but challenges it
instead?
* More from Ekklesia on the Armenian Genocide:
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/armeniangenocide
------------
(c) Harry Hagopian is an international lawyer, ecumenist and EU
political consultant. He also acts as a Middle East and inter-faith
advisor to the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England & Wales and as
Middle East consultant to ACEP (Christians in Politics) in Paris. He
is an Ekklesia associate and regular contributor
(http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/HarryHagopian). Formerly an Executive
Secretary of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Committee and Executive
Director of the Middle East Council of Churches, he is now an
international fellow, Sorbonne III University, Paris, consultant to
the Campaign for Recognition of the Armenian Genocide (UK), Ecumenical
consultant to the Primate of Armenian Church in UK & Ireland, and
author of The Armenian Church in the Holy Land. Dr Hagopian's own
website is www.epektasis.net Follow him on Twitter here:
@harryhagopian
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/21272
From: A. Papazian
Jan 8 2015
>From 1915 to 2015: the challenge of the Armenian Genocide centenary
By Harry Hagopian
8 Jan 2015
"Another bird cannot prosper in an abandoned nest; the one who
destroys a nest cannot have a nest; oppression breeds oppression."
I had never heard this maxim before, but I learnt last week that it
comes from Yasar Kemal, a leading Turkish author of Kurdish origin
whose publications include the Ince Memed tetralogy. He was quoted in
a powerful and challenging article entitled 'Entering 2015' in Zaman
by Cengiz Aktar, a Senior Scholar at Istanbul Policy Centre who has
also worked for long years at the United Nations. His piece is one of
the sharpest and clearest indictments of Turkish denial of the
Armenian genocide on its centenary anniversary in April 2015.
I read and re-read this piece not simply because it said all the
things that most Armenians would wish to hear, but rather because he
said it as a sign of concern for what denial of this crime is doing to
Turkish society. In that respect, he reminded me of Ragip Zarakolou, a
human rights activist and publisher, who often told me that his
campaign for the recognition of the Armenian genocide was also due to
his concern about the impact of denial on Turkey.
Having read Aktar's article, and being the recipient of much
e-correspondence regarding the centenary, I was led to wonder where
Turks and Armenians find themselves today? After all, it has been 100
years since the genocide, 50 years since the lobbying efforts started
in earnest across the Armenian Diaspora, and just under a decade since
I stopped running the Campaign for Recognition of the Armenian
Genocide (CRAG) in the UK.
So let me start off with a negative statement: the Turkish political
establishment has not shifted its position regarding the Armenian
genocide. In fact, and as Cengiz Aktar reflects in his own piece,
Turkey still resolutely maintains its denial. It distorts and
minimises memory by blaming the deaths and deportations of well over 1
million Anatolian Armenians on a concatenation of political upheaval,
collaboration (with the enemy Russia) and victimisation of Turks (who
were seemingly killed by Armenians). But running parallel with this
official denial is also an ignorance (because it has been erased from
Turkish mass consciousness), a negligence (they are uninterested in
events that occurred a century ago and prefer not to make links with
modern-day Turkey) and an avoidance of the disastrous consequences of
what really occurred during 2015 (largely because of an innate and
somewhat overzealous nationalism by quite a few Turks whose pride
disallows them from doing a German act of recognition let alone
contrition). Just imagine that there are over 26,000 volumes published
abroad on the genocide against less than 20 serious accounts in
Turkey!
So it is quite true that things look bleak at this stage and I truly
doubt - much like Cengiz Aktar did - whether 2015 will witness any
seismic changes in Turkey regarding recognition.
However, despite all those Turkish encumbrances that can be wedded to
an Armenian Diasporan singular focus on their own genocide, I still
think that there are slower and less proactive signs of hope that
herald subtle changes overtaking Turkish society. These are not
occurring necessarily because of a sense of mea culpa by Turkish
politicians and their mouthpieces or hirelings. Rather, they are
happening almost beneath the radars of many people, and I would opine
that one key catalyst which shook up many beliefs and introduced this
sobering nudge was the murder of Hrant Dink in Istanbul on 19 January
2007. It seized the conscience of Istanbul and some other parts of
Turkey and galvanised sections of the Turkish civil society to
question a country that kills its citizens for the sake of preventing
the truth coming out. Besides, and despite his reputation as a
prominent Turkish intellectual, I suspect that Cengiz Aktar would
still have been charged under the infamous (and unconstitutional)
Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code for 'insulting Turkishness' had
he written his candid piece about the repercussions of genocide denial
a few years earlier.
There are other small telltale signs too. One such sign is the
re-opening of some Armenian churches - such as the St Guiragos
Armenian Orthodox Church in Diyarbakir that was renovated from its
dilapidated ruins - or the restoration of some Armenian cultural
monuments. There are also the commemorative events taking place across
Turkey today - from Istanbul to Diyarbakir and Mardin - that are
testimony of an incipient realisation by local officials that Turkey
must come to terms with its own history - for its sake as much as that
of Armenians - and are therefore not necessarily being clamped down
upon. Otherwise, and in a greyer Turkey, Project 2015 or the Gomidas
Institute (to mention just two examples) will not have managed to plan
commemorative events in Turkey in 2015 let alone publicise them.
Recently, Catholicos Karekin II, the supreme head of the Armenian
Orthodox Church, issued a pontifical encyclical declaring that the
Church will canonise as saints all the Armenian victims of the
genocide. Much as I am ambivalent about wholesale canonisations, what
other events will characterise Armenian commemorations in 2015? Will
they simply be endless wakes - concerts, conferences, marches,
recitals, vigils or defiant and high-decibel talks - for our murdered
forbears or will they also walk the next step to celebrate our
collective achievements as a people and a nation despite a genocide
that almost annihilated a whole race? Is this not ample testimony to
the fact that the erstwhile Ottoman killing machine failed to snuff
out the pulse of Armenians worldwide? Does it not prove that there is
more than grief that characterises the Armenian being, and that we
should care as deeply about the 10 million living Armenians worldwide
today as we do about our departed relatives?
Only recently, the prominent barrister Geoffrey Robertson, QC,
published his new book An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers The
Armenians? (Biteback Publishing, 2014) in which he applied his legal
prowess to provide the world with a tapestry of answers about the 1915
events and prove that there was a genocide committed against Armenians
in accordance with the UN Convention of 1948. He also asked - quaintly
- that Turkey undertake a CBM (confidence-building measure) toward
Armenia by shifting the borderline a tiny bit to include Massis (or
Mount Ararat, the preeminent national symbol and talisman for
Armenians, and the location of Noah's biblical ark) into Armenia. I
would not hold my breath, and I do not think that the QC does either,
but would it not be a brilliant move that could bridge the yawning
chasm between two peoples?
There have been far too many victims of this genocide already, with
men, women and children who lost their lives - or in the case of
someone like Gomidas, a priest and the father of Armenian liturgical
music, his manuscripts as well as his mental faculties (when
witnessing the suffering of Armenians). But there are other victims
too: they include those older Armenians who are still afraid to share
their memories, their younger counterparts who feel alienated and
unrepresented by their elders, or those who have been carrying history
on their backs for decades let alone those who would genuinely wish to
see a closure of this open sore that would help Armenians and Turks
begin a process of reconciliation that could eventually help them both
overcome this chapter of suffering and begin a healing process.
On this centenary, can Turkey show good will - commensurate with good
faith - to repair and repopulate the destroyed Armenian nest that had
been assembled over many centuries, so that its legal denial of a
human truth does not breed further oppression, but challenges it
instead?
* More from Ekklesia on the Armenian Genocide:
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/armeniangenocide
------------
(c) Harry Hagopian is an international lawyer, ecumenist and EU
political consultant. He also acts as a Middle East and inter-faith
advisor to the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England & Wales and as
Middle East consultant to ACEP (Christians in Politics) in Paris. He
is an Ekklesia associate and regular contributor
(http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/HarryHagopian). Formerly an Executive
Secretary of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Committee and Executive
Director of the Middle East Council of Churches, he is now an
international fellow, Sorbonne III University, Paris, consultant to
the Campaign for Recognition of the Armenian Genocide (UK), Ecumenical
consultant to the Primate of Armenian Church in UK & Ireland, and
author of The Armenian Church in the Holy Land. Dr Hagopian's own
website is www.epektasis.net Follow him on Twitter here:
@harryhagopian
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/21272
From: A. Papazian