AZG Armenian Daily #076, 28/04/2005

Armenian Genocide

‘TURKISH SOCIETY HAS LOST ITS MEMORY’

“If I had not come to Germany, I would not probably have become a writer and
would not have written a book with an ending featuring Yerevan, the Memorial
of Armenian Genocide of 1915. And I could not find courage and strength to
stand today before the Ararat and speak”.

“When I came to Germany in 1991, I left behind a country that had more human
rights violations than it has today. There was a civil war between the
Turkish state and Kurds. And there was not even a single book that would not
falsify the Armenian Genocide. I knew that the Turkish society, to whom I
belonged, has lost its memory”.

These are the words of Turkish writer Dogan Aqhanlə who attempts
through his activities and literature to evoke the historic memory of his
nation.

Dogan Aqhanlə is now resident of Cologne and works at Cologne’s Appeal
Against Racial Discrimination organization. After the military coup in
Turkey in 1980, Aqhanlə was thrown to Istanbul jail as a political
prisoner and underwent torture and humiliation. He was expatriate to Germany
in 1991 for his political views. Istanbul’s Belge publishing house put out
his “The Disappeared Seas” trilogy in 1998-99. The first two books are
delineation of the last 3 decades of Turkey’s history and the lost
generation; the third one entitled “The Judges of Doomsday” deals with
Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of sultan Abdul
Hamid II and the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Sevnem Hatun, protagonist of the
book, is a pregnant woman clad in man’s clothes who is a Christian survivor
of Turkish massacres who brings her son up in the spirit of Islam to secure
his future. The latter meets another genocide survivor — Anahit.
Developments of the novel bring them to Yerevan, to the Memorial of Genocide
Victims.

During the meeting at the Writers’ Union on April 25 Dogan Aqhanlə
presented his political views, mainly concerning the Armenian Genocide.
Grigor Janikian told the writer that his ancestors were from Western Armenia
and he is homesick for the forefathers’ land and asked whether the Turkish
writer did not want to return to his birthplace. Dogan Aqhanlə said
that there can be no comparison between Armenians who were extirpated from
their motherland and him who was forced out for his political views. Kurdish
writer Karlen Chachan appreciated that the guest recognizes the fact of the
Armenian Genocide, emphasized that no other nation treated Kurds as
Armenians did and said that today’s Turkey implements anti-Kurdish policy.
Turkish writer accepted that he is a protector of human rights first of all
and finds that the Turkish intelligentsia is in shame cap-a-pie. He
considers important that young Turks that live today in Germany, which has
committed genocide, acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.

As a German citizen, Dogan Aqhanlə feels shame that this country has
not so far recognized the Genocide. He says that German archives are open
before every researcher. As regards Turkish archives, they are in chaotic
condition and there is no document containing mitigating circumstances.

“My deeds are not those of a hero, I merely establish the truth. We should
do this earlier and on a wide-scale level. It’s not my business whether the
Turks will recognize or not. I am concerned with working among the younger
generation. Younger classes of Turkish society have something to do for the
Armenians”.

By Melania Badalian