Dear Asli,
Every now and again, Turkish ministers and diplomats go on what appears to be a search for the historical soul of Anatolia. Calls are made, invitations are written, conciliatory public overtures are carefully recorded and published, and superfluous historical commissions are proposed—all, ostensibly, in the name of repairing relations with Armenians. That each of these heart-wrenching gestures happens to occur with the approaching of April 24th, or some other small threat to the feelings of Turkish conservatives, should not betray a small amount of calculation on the part of Turkey. In fact, the gestures are timed atomically, their sunrises and sundowns, with the events. They are designed as a means to obfuscate and distract, to purchase time. And often enough, they are done so successfully. For hypnosis seems to affect thousands of Armenians and liberal-leaning Turkish intellectuals who get sucked in each time as if never before.
In your Turkish-language editorial in the July 7 issue of Milliyet, you expressed the hope that Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu’s three-step plan, if properly implemented, will result in a road toward pan-Anatolian reconciliation. Are you affected by this hypnosis, too, Asli? Make no error in judgment, the man is not sincere, and this three-phase plan is nothing more than a bigger carrot dangling from a bigger stick that will disappear by magic on April 25, 2015. It is nothing more than a way to ensure indefinite suspension of Armenia’s pain, all the while looking good and proactive for Hilary Clinton, Obama, and other Turkish houseplants.
If this sounds cynical, go and review the last 10 years’ worth of diplomatic overtures and pay close attention to the wording. Each one is reservedly conciliatory, highly generalized—often to the point of meaninglessness, and ultimately self-serving on Turkey’s part. Each is an offer for Armenia and its diaspora to come forward to meet under the frame of equitable symmetry, and yet the symmetry can never be equitable.
And each has as its goal to tailor a brand new suit for Armenia—one too tight to fit any remuneration in its pockets, one so shiny as to distract from the deterioration of its religious monuments in Anatolia, and one chained to a pocket dictionary of acceptable terms for the events of 1915-17.
Davutoglu knows well what is at stake. Let him make a concrete proposal for reparations, and dispense with abstractions about prodigal children coming home, and from these vampiric invitations for fireside chats about pain over common foodstuffs. Turkey has actually very little to lose by opening the border; or by allowing Armenia access to the Trabzon port; by rebuilding and returning our religious sites to the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul; by compensating the descendants of deportees and genocide victims; by returning confiscated properties to the descendants of their owners, etc. These are small gestures. But any attempt to forge a new language of obfuscation will fail, both among Armenians who will accept nothing without the word “genocide,” and among Turkish nationalists who will smear it down the walls of the court.
Turkey will not be genuinely forthcoming about these things. I do not, therefore, even begin to share your optimism in the approach of 2015, Asli. Nor do I hold out for anything from a country that speaks of redefining “diaspora” while Kurds are still by many referred to as “Mountain Turks,” and where Article 301 continues to thrive not as a government conspiracy but as public imperative. Turks everywhere still revere Talat and Enver, Nihal Atsiz and Alparslan Turkes as national heroes. And do not forger the “Ittihat” (union) in Ittihat ve Terakki. Your country is founded on it. Davutoglu simply cannot be taken seriously if he means to challenge the Ittihatists; if he is serious, his family has my advance condolences.
And what could he possibly mean by “kapilarini acacak”? (opening the doors) Who is invited, and to what would they come back? Falsified textbooks, murdered newspapermen, throngs of football hooligans chanting the name of an assassin (they are all Oguns, indeed), and dead churches? What is Akhtamar now? A museum. What do you put in museums? Dead things. Who prays at Ani? Only the Nationalist Action Party. We are invited to join them in this? Delightful. Why not invite Zulus to a reenactment at Blood River? Why not invite German Jews home to celebrate Kristallnacht with skinheads?
Davutoglu is at least right about one thing: Turkey is not Germany. Turkey has no Willy Brandt to fall on his knees in the Warsaw ghetto. It has only hidebound intellectuals and the own-tail-chasing of nth-generation Ittihatists. They are the meningitis in your country’s spine. Imagine Germany attempting a presumption as self-serving as Davutoglu’s “just memory” Does “adil hafiza” (just memory) mean doubly “obfuscation”? Does recognition of the Shoah sideline the losses of German life? Why do the Hutus not ask for “just memory”? Why does only Turkey seek to share its culpability over baklava? These are questions I would very much like to see Minister Davutoglu own up to.
In 1915, the destruction was deliberate and systematic, just as it was in Nazi Germany and Rwanda and Kosovo and Cambodia. And in none of these places was there an absence of internal threat—real or imagined—to the integrity of the state. There is no need for a new word to describe the events of 1915-17.
When the smoke has cleared and the mirrors have shattered, and the hypnotist’s coin has been stored away, perhaps you will see that your foreign minister’s overtures are a Queen’s Gambit and a thin sham: He offers nothing but what he offers himself.
Aram Yardimyan
Tbilisi, Georgia
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Void & null! Has Davutoglu forgotten the embargo?Before proposing anything they should lift the embargo & claim openly of non interference in Artsakh issues.Then we might take him a bit more seriously but always with a pinch of salt.
Aram, you have the ability to express your thoughts in black and white. Not many people have that ability. Such a gift!
Thank you Aram, for this amazing piece. Sharp, clear and insightful
I agree with rest: one of the best pieces to appear @AW.
Really well thought out and expressed in lucid, crisp Master-level English.
I will save this one together with the couple of other classics from Messrs Hamparian and Sassounian.
One thing AW could do: an English translation of the original article to accompany this. Also, some background on Ms. Aslı Aydıntaşbaş: who is she ? is she an ethnic Armenian ?
(Google machine translation is poor).
Well, my English is better than my Turkish, but I’ll give the translating thing a go…
Title: “From Davutoglu to the Armenians: I don’t deny your pain/suffering, let us talk.”
So the first paragraph essentially, she was on a plane with Davutoglu, they were discussing Syrian, and somehow they ended up at the “Armenian issue.”
“Now don’t say, ‘what does the Armenian issue have to do with this?’ The Armenian problem, the issue of what happened in 1915, and what to call it continues to paralyze Turkey. Look at Hrant Dink, the relations with France which are almost at a breaking point, and the millions spend each year in the US so Congress won’t call it a “genocide.””
“From what I understood from the FM, there is a subtle “outreach” as the Armenian Events of 1915 enter their 100th year- an strategy with 3 parts to it.”
“First- ‘sentiment’ (as in compassion)… For years Turkey has denied the Armenian Events or, with regard to events like the “Khojaly Massacre” displayed an official tone of “well if it happened to you, it happened to us as well.” By doing so, Turkish officials have belittled the sufferings of Armenians. For this reason, I found Davutoglu’s words meaningful in this regard”
Davutoglu: “There isn’t a Turkish foreign minister before the Armenians saying that ‘nothing happened in 1915.’ I don’t regard the events as a genocide, however for those who do- that’s their choice. We need to find a way to better communicate with regard to this issue. We don’t deny your pain, we understand, and whatever needs to be done- let’s do it together. But this is not a one-sided declaration of guilt.”
“Davutoglu has come up with an idea/approach called ‘Fair Memory’. An approach based the the notion to feel compassion to the Armenians pain, and to not try and shut them up when they describe what they went through.”
Davutoglu quote: “We are not like the Germans, there is no ethnic cleansing or genocide in our past, there is no “Ghetto” mentality. In the Balkans and Caucasus, Muslims have worries, fears, and losses. With (the Muslims- I’m guessing Turks here) the paranoia of “they’re (presumably Christians) going to drive me from Anatolia” certain things transpired. But this paranoid reaction did not entail the ideology of trying to destroy an entire ethnic group. This mentality and psychology is likened with the ideas of the Nazis, you cannot equate this idea with a “killer race” (as Turks often are.) “You cannot have a one-sided declaration of guilt.”
“I look at things as the glass half full. Even if it’s late, for him (Davutoglu) to say: “I hear your pain, we will listen to the Armenians” is important.”
“Part two of the outreach deals with the new interpretation of the word “diaspora ” by Davutoglu. The FM minister stated in letter to all Turkish consulates that “Everyone who has left/immigrated from these lands, not just Turks, are our diaspora. Armenians, Jews, Greeks, the “el Turcos” in Latin America, and the Arabs in Argentina included. In short, those people whose culture and language resembles ours.” From here on out, consulates will open their doors to those who were once Ottoman subjects, they will get in contact with them, and invite them to important holidays. Contact with the Armenian diaspora has long since started.”
“This is an important evolution to the republican Turkish efforts to transform the [Ottoman] Empire’s difficult, but important heritage into that of a “homogenous” Turkish state. Think of this in the words of Tayyip Erdogan: ‘our history does not begin in 1923.'”
“Lastly, sensitive diplomacy with Armenia. Davutoglu reminded me over and over again that the ill fated protocols with Armenia were still on the table. Hillary Clinton went to Armenia last month. Sargsyan was re-elected. What was wanted from him, was to first give back only a small portion of Azerbaijani territory Armenia was occupying. Then, Turkey would open its borders to Armenia, then business and investments would begin, and Turkey would “enliven Yerevan like it did Erbil.”
“For Armenians, an attractive offer. For Turks, a move that means nothing economically, but has sentimental value. Davutoglu says “I wish the protocols went into effect. It still bothers me, we could have done it so easily, but we didn’t/couldn’t due to psychological factors.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not too late after all. Maybe it will come true.”
Not a word for word translation, but it’s not really possible to have a word for word Turkish to English translation. Hope that helps.
Thank you very much RVDV.
That helps a lot.
Asli is a Turkish reporter who strays about a micron from the denialist hard line and wishes to be seen as open minded for her rebelliousness.
“Turks everywhere still revere Talat and Enver, Nihal Atsiz and Alparslan Turkes as national heroes.”
Sorry I cannot agree here. Other then the ultra-nationalist minority, no one reveres Atsiz and Turkes. Turkes was the spokesman for the 1960 coup d’etat- where Adnan Menderes, a now revered Turkish leader cleared of all charges, was hung- despite the last minute cancellation of the execution order. Nihal Atsiz was a strong opponent and critic to modern Turkey’s 2 most revered leaders- Inonu and Ataturk.
RVDV,
What if anything do younger Turks think of Talat and Enver?
Is there any cultural consensus that their decision to declare war on Russia was a disaster for Turks?
Younger people today worldwide are less aware of history than in the olden days, like maybe 1995. If a society taught the young a state authorized history, maybe that is a good thing.
Do you have any sense what Turkish citizens are taught now about WWI and the reasons Turkey became involved?
Final Jeopardy Question: we know there are thousands of Turkish liberals in this country. Do they have a public platform or internet presence? Without them the face of your Diaspora is the ATAA and the porcine Nazis like Ergun Kirlikovali. Hint, hint. All I have ever seen was an article once in the Canadian periodical Yeni Safak which opposed racism against minorities bravely.
Why is your Diaspora so quiet?
Thanks jda, for raising these questions. I have encountered many Turks at Armenian sponsored lectures about what happened in 1915 and the denial campaign since then. These Turks vary from those who appear to have graduated from the ‘Kirlikovali School of Hateful Turkish Propaganda’, to those who look like a deer caught in headlights, shocked and unable to speak. I have met only one Turk willing to say to me, an Armenian, that they acknowledge the genocide and are willing to work toward a proper compensation for the crimes of the Turkish nation.
I know there must be more out there…I believe there are. I wish to hear more from them, but they seem unable or unwilling to reveal themselves.
jda: “What if anything do younger Turks think of Talat and Enver?”
To answer your first question I must address your 3 point about state authorized history. In 1926, remaining members of the CUP planned an assassination of Ataturk. This is what Ataturk said about the CUP and the former Young Turks after the attempt (it may surprise you)-
“These left_overs from the former Young Turk Party, who should have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the republican rule. They have hitherto lived on plunder, robbery and bribery and become inimical to any idea, or suggestion to enlist in useful labor and earn their living by the honest sweat of their brow.
Under the cloak of the opposition party, this element, who forced our country into the Great
War against the will of the people, who caused the shedding of rivers of blood of the Turkish
youth to satisfy the criminal ambition of Enver Pasha, has, in a cowardly fashion, intrigued against my life, as well as the lives of the members of my cabinet.
I would have more respect for them had they planned an armed revolution, taking the field in a manly fashion, to overthrow my government. But being conscious of the fact that they could
not muster out even one regiment to give battle to the zealous adherents to, and upholders of, the glorious republic, they have resorted to beastial methods of assassination. They have hired murderers and even debauched women to commit their murderous acts.”
He calls them murderers, cowards, and Enver pasha a criminal. But I know for a fact that the one quote of Ataturk that ALL Turks know- which he made right after assassination attempt: “My mortal body will turn into dust, but the Republic of Turkey will last forever.”
That first quote never makes it into state approved history books. What if the said state authorized history is based lies? Good idea then?
jda: Your second question is much easier to answer.
“Is there any cultural consensus that their decision to declare war on Russia was a disaster for Turks?”
During WW1? I’d say no. WW1 destroyed the Ottoman Empire- it laid the foundation of modern Turkey and Turkish nationalism though. But regardless of that- there would probably not be a consensus on that. We don’t like Russians, Russians don’t like us. Never have, never will.
“Do you have any sense what Turkish citizens are taught now about WWI and the reasons Turkey became involved?”
The Russians, French, British, and Italians had all broken off pieces of the Ottoman Empire, and the Ottomans were in huge debt to the British and French especially. Germany was really the only country which had not harmed the Ottoman Empire. So you have your mortal enemy- Russia, and two countries that basically own you- Britain and France on one side. I’d side with Germany too.
Finally- why are the liberal members of my diaspora so quiet on the Armenian genocide? I’ll give you a direct answer- the center-left of Turkey is dominated by a party called the CHP. The party of the founders of Turkey…… very patriotic…. were in power during the Dersim Massacre…. The same CHP whose current Alevi and Kurdish leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu criticized PM Erdogan for offering an apology for Dersim.
So, why is my diaspora so quiet? In my opinion, it’s because they genuinely don’t care.
The quote from Ataturk was indeed a surprise.
Unfortunately, he also continued the extermination policies of his predecessors. (his infamous order to General Kiazim Karabekir re Armenia )
Regarding liberal Turkish Americans’ failure to counter Denialists here in US:
I frankly don’t have strong feelings about it.
It must be very difficult for liberal TAs to cross the invisible line and go to the ‘other’ side.
Their community is not large, and there must be reluctance to alienate your friends, colleagues etc.
You’d be highly visible in the small TA base, and possibly shunned by the rest in your community, if you ‘collaborated’.
At least that’s the way I see it from outside.
However:
One of the most vicious displays by young (presumed) Turkish-American hatemongers on American soil was their dancing and singing in front of the Turkish Embassy in Washington DC on April 24, 2010: that image is far more disturbing to me than all the Anti Armenian babblings of repellent Kirlikovali.
(Although, admittedly, Kirlikovali is the elected president of a TA Association, so presumably represents their views at large).
There was not a peep of condemnation that I know of from any Turkish American organizations.
Even assuming you (denialist Turks) believe your own propaganda that many Armenians just ‘died’ as a result of some unintended ‘calamity’,
how is it possible for young people living in USA to publicly celebrate the deaths of so many ?
Avery makes good point about how difficult it is for more liberal Turks to speak up against the propaganda out there, but I agree that it is hard to understand why no Turkish group or individual reached out to Armenians to apologize or distance themselves from the group of Turks who danced and celebrated the death of Armenians at the 2010 Washington DC commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. This seems like a no-cost/no-brainer for any fair minded Turk. Yet they remain silent.
The illuminating quote from Ataturk comes from a 1926 interview in the Los Angeles Times, which of course denialists have called into question, as they do pretty much everything.
Although Ataturk is responsible for Genocidal campaigns against Armenian and Greek civilians in Smyrna, and in the Caucasus, he also had some kind of relationships with Armenians around him. One saved his life and another carried out his wish to create a Latin alphabet.
I think Atataurk made these comments in a Christian nation for a Christian audience – Americans. Unfortunately, he also had architects and killers of Christians all around him.
Game on. Thank you.
Correction: Los Angeles Examiner had the interview and quote.