Zaman, Turkey
March 11 2005

Faithful Nation

Uncle Kevork was the only grocer selling alcoholic beverages in our
neighborhood. Hence, my late grandfather wouldn’t go his store for
shopping; however, Uncle Kevork never sold the beverages openly. You
could never see the beverages on the shelves. He used to sell them
under the counter, wrapping them with paper. I cannot recall his
spouse’s name well; but I can still remember that she used to prepare
the traditional dishes of Malatya [an Eastern Turkish city], like
“sour meatballs” and “analý kýzý” (translated literally as “with
mother and daughter”) very well.

She used to serve the soup with yogurt cold. Having that soup cold
was traditional, too. Since there were no refrigerators in those
days, yogurt used to turn sour and become the elusive joy of the
summer days with its soda-like taste. We had two Armenian friends in
my school: Lucie and Arusyak. I think they also experienced the most
beautiful days of their childhood and youth in Malatya.

Aysegul Sonmez of Milliyet [a Turkish daily], had written about an
incident on June 8, 2001 that our photography editor Selahattin Sevi
witnessed, while he was working for the same paper: 150 Americans of
Armenian origin, following the footsteps of Gregorian, arrived in
Kayseri [a city in Central Turkey], yesterday. The aim of the group,
which couldn’t have a good night sleep due to enthusiasm, was to find
where their families used to live and re-live in the past. Mariyen
Sanag is one of them. Mariyen, 42, becomes impatient on seeing her
birthplace. Walking, we try to find her house in Bahcebasi. While
walking in the narrowest streets of Kayseri, someone shouts,
“Mariyen.” This is Aunt Sabiha, who is the daughter of “Butcher” Ali.
She is elderly in her 70s. Mariyen’s mirrored eyeglasses do not
prevent us from seeing the tears she could not control after the
encounter. When Mariyen found her house, she was as devastated as her
house was. Her house she left 32 years ago is now in ruins. She
points at the house, saying: “I used to drink hand-made sour cherry
juice during the hot afternoons. Here is my bedroom.” Some frescos on
the walls still attract attention. Matiyen sighs and says, “Our house
was beautiful, very beautiful.”

In fact, the Ottomans called them the “faithful nation.” We lived on
the same lands for centuries. Nowhere in the world has people of two
different religions been so close to one another. Is there any place,
anywhere where members of two different religions feed from the same
culture, eat the same foods and sing the same songs? I don’t know.

It was towards the end of the Ottoman era. On, one side, a state
collapsing, a nation sending its sons to one front after another, and
on the other side, there was another a community taking part in the
Russian provocation. Russia had occupied our eastern provinces,
taking some nationalist Armenians to its side. Nationalism, Russia
and the Union and Progress Party split two communities, which had
been living together for hundreds of years. Mutual afflictions,
sorrows and troubles occurred after that… Looking at the issue from
the point of “Your losses are less than ours” is a complete mistake.
War and chaos bring equal grief to all.

Even 70 years after experiencing this grief, Uncle Kevork, Lucie, and
Arusyak were part of our lives in Malatya. We shared life in the same
high school and same neighborhood. We miss the humanitarian dimension
of the Armenian issue. The leading Diaspora Armenians bring the
political dimension of the issue to the agenda, not the humanitarian,
and try to make gains out of it. This is the mentality between us and
the Armenians.

All Armenians living in Anatolia did not emigrate from these lands.
Professor Salim Cohce, the head of the History Department at Inonu
University, said only in Malatya, there are 3,500 families of
Armenian origin and they have continued to live there by changing
their names.

Not only the Armenians experienced all the hardships on these lands.
At least the Turks also suffered as much as the Armenians did. I do
not know if there is greater grief than losing an anchient friend.

March 10, 2005

–Boundary_(ID_I937y+ju5GQLQCBgkBa4bg)–