Newropeans Magazine
Nov 26 2004

Turkey: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow?
– 2nd Part –

© Newropeans Magazine

An exhibition currently at the German Historical Museum on the Unter
den Linden in Berlin entitled Myths of the Nations has attracted
considerable attention with its displays of how people from different
nations have formed and reformed the narratives of their experiences
both of WWII and the Holocaust over the past sixty years. The purpose
of the exhibition is to impress upon the visitor that national memory
is really the past continuously re-interpreted through the present.

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For example, the report implied that if the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 –
the basis of the Turkish State and its foreign relations – had been
fully implemented after WWI, the bloodshed between Turks and Kurds
might well have been avoidable. To justify this argument, which is
volatile in Turkey however mild it might be perceived elsewhere, the
report cited article 39 of the treaty that allows Turkish nationals
to use “any language they wish in commerce, in public and private
meetings and all types of press and publication”. It added that those
articles supposedly protecting non-Muslim minorities have been read
too narrowly: as well as covering Jews, Armenians and Greeks, these
articles should have been applied, for example, to Syrian Orthodox
Christians. More controversially, still, it suggested replacing the
term “Turk” with a more inclusive word to cover all ethnicities and
faiths such as Turkiyeli [of Turkey].

This report provoked a furore within the Turkish establishment. The
Turkish authorities have gone so far as to investigate whether the
board members who drafted this report committed treason, and there is
every possibility that both authors of the report might end up being
prosecuted under article 305 of the new penal code approved in
September 2004 providing for up to ten years’ imprisonment for those
who engage in unspecified “activities” against Turkey’s “national
interest”. But what might such activities be? In a footnote, this
discriminatory law deems “anti-national” anyone who describes as
“genocide” the killing of Armenians in 1915 [during the Armenian
Genocide] or advocates a withdrawal of Turkish troops from Cyprus.

A long road of improvements lies ahead of Turkey with respect to
civil liberties and fundamental rights. If it wishes to become member
of the Club of 25, and to be seen as a democracy wherein human and
minorities’ rights are not squelched systemically, it is imperative
that Ankara proceed in its reforms and commitments to include ipso
facto the recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and the
lifting of the economic blockade against Armenia. Instead of
legislating laws in its penal code that would outlaw any mention of
the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by its predecessor Ottoman regime,
it should move forward to recognise this genocide as much as adopt
the recommendations of the panel it set up.

Despite its aspirations toward democracy and its manifestations
toward reform, Turkey still refuses to admit that internal repression
and external emancipation are contradictory dual facets of the same
coin. They create tensions and lead to conflict. Much like the poster
at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, Armenians cannot simply
expunge their collective memories and national sacrifices for the
sake of political expediency. Turkey would be wrong to insist upon EU
membership without coming clean on this chapter, much as the EU would
also be complicit in applying double-standards by obfuscating the
truth and editing history if it goes along with this strategy for the
mere sake of creating an expedient south-eastern EU-drawn insular
zone. Indeed, it is almost axiomatic that nowhere in the world can
human rights be stifled forever since history has a way of unmasking
the truth eventually. For instance, an international conference In
History and Beyond History – Armenians and Turks: a thousand years of
relations organised by The Institute for Venice & Europe of the
Giorgio Cini Foundation took place in Venice from 28-30 October 2004.
Eminent scholars from different countries focused on the placement of
the Armenian case within the frame of the genocides of the 20th
century, the sense of guilt associated with this genocide and how
best to explain this genocide to the Turkish public opinion after
years of denial and amnesia.

Some commentators have recently opined that Turkey’s adhesion to the
EU would constitute a message of hope, peace, prosperity and
democracy. I welcome hope, peace, prosperity and democracy, and I
hail those lofty ideals anywhere in our broken and polarised world.
Nor, for that matter, am I impermeable toward Turkish membership of
our European Union.

However, I simply cannot accept such membership that is spun at the
expense of another people or their history. To make the point
clearer, let me refer to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the
European Parliament that examined last week a brief seven-page
provisional report (to be voted on in Brussels on 22 November 2004)
entitled Turkey’s progress toward accession. Presented by the Dutch
MEP Camiel Eurlings, the report calls upon the Governments of Turkey
and Armenia to start a process of reconciliation [] in order to
overcome the tragic experience of the past. It also requests the
Turkish government to reopen the borders with Armenia as soon as
possible. Currently under review are 483 amendments to the Eurlings
Report that were tabled by five different groups at the European
Parliament. They include demands for the explicit recognition of the
Armenian Genocide in accordance with the European Parliament
resolution of 18 June 1987 (Doc. A2-33/87) that called upon Turkey to
recognise the Armenian Genocide as a pre-condition to its European
candidacy.

In one of his first articles entitled Vous êtes formidables that
addressed French colonialism in Algeria, the philosopher and
existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in 1956 that crimes committed
in our name imply by necessity our personal responsibility since it
will have also been in our power to stop them. As far as the Armenian
Genocide of 1915 is concerned, Ottoman Turkey was capable of stopping
those massacres. It did not do so, and thereby bears responsibility
for them. I therefore hope that Turkey will no longer shirk away from
this onus when it is knocking at the EU doors and when Armenians
across the world are preparing to commemorate in 2005 the 90th
anniversary of their sorrowful tragedy.

Dr Harry Hagopian, Ecumenical, Legal & Political Consultant
Armenian Apostolic Church – London

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress