“Aztag” Daily Newspaper
P.O. Box 80860, Bourj Hammoud,
Beirut, Lebanon
Fax: +961 1 258529
Phone: +961 1 260115, +961 1 241274
Email: [email protected]
First Conference on the Armenian Issue Organized in Istanbul, Turkey
>>From the 25th to the 27th of May, Istanbul will be the host of
a conference dedicated to the Armenian genocide. However, unlike
most conferences dedicated to the “Armenian issue”, this conference,
entitled “Ottoman Armenians during the Decline of the Empire: Issues
of Scientific Responsibility and Democracy”, features scholars whose
views do not echo the denialist rhetoric of the Turkish state.
A number of Turkish scholars, mostly from outside Turkey, have been
quite vocal on the issue of making their country face its past. The
fact that three private universities in Turkey and a large number of
scholars living in the country are involved in this conference is yet
another indication, that the wall of silence is gradually crumbling.
Below is the English translation of the press release and conference
program provided to us by professor Muge Gocek, Associate Professor
of Sociology and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan and
a member of the Consulting Committee of the conference.
——————————————————–
During 25-27 May 2005, there will be a conference organized at Bogazici
University. The hosts of the conference are the Comparative Literature
Department of Bilgi University, the History Department of Bogazici
University and the History Program at Sabanci University. The title of
the conference is “Ottoman Armenians during the Decline of the Empire:
Issues of Scientific Responsibility and Democracy.”
Only Turkish scholars will participate in this conference which is
not international in character. As a consequence, the working language
of the conference will be entirely in Turkish. Only an invited group
of people will be able to attend the conference because of limited
space and the vast interest expressed in the proceedings.
The Organizing Committee of faculty members from the three
participating universities are, in alphabetic order, Murat Belge
(chair, Comparative Literature Department, Bilgi), Halil Berktay
(coordinator, History Program, Sabanci), Selim Deringil (chair,
History Department, Bogazici), Edhem Eldem (History Department,
Bogazici), Hakan Erdem (History Program, Sabanci), Çaglar Keyder
(Sociology Department, Bogazici), Cemil Kocak (History Program,
Sabanci), and Aksin Somel (History Program, Sabanci).
In addition, the Consulting Committee of academics from Turkey and
abroad comprises, in alphabetical order, of Fikret Adanir (Bochum
Ruhr University, Germany), Engin Akarli (Brown University, USA),
Taner Akcam (University of Minnesota, USA), Ayhan Aktar (Marmara
University, Turkey), Seyla Benhabib (Yale University, USA), Ustun
Erguder (Director of Istanbul Policy Center at Sabanci University,
Turkey), Fatma Muge Gocek (University of Michigan, USA), Nilufer Gole
(Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France), Cemal Kafadar
(Harvard University, USA), Metin Kunt (Sabanci University, Turkey),
Serif Mardin (Sabanci University), Oktay Ozel (Bilkent University,
Turkey), Ilhan Tekeli (Middle East Technical University, Turkey),
Mete Tuncay (Bilgi University, Turkey), Stefan Yerasimos (Universite
Paris VIII, France). The schedule of the conference already contains
more than thirty papers to be delivered at ten sessions, a number of
panels and a round table discussion. The organizers of the conference
regretfully note that they have been unable to include many valuable
suggestions that would have made the schedule much richer because of
the large number of interested participants and the need to contain
all the proceedings in three days.
According to the conference organizers, it is time today, ninety
years after 1915, this tragic event in the history of our country,
for Turkey’s own academics and intellectuals to collectively raise
their voices that differ from that of the official [state] theses
and put forth their own contributions. Turkish society that has
grown, differentiated within itself, and opened to the world has
accumulated both qualitatively and quantitatively an impressive amount
of independent and critical thought. This accumulation already
covers a rather large spectrum, achieves breadth and depth along
the intellectual circles of historians, social scientists, writers,
publishers, lawyers, journalists and independent intellectuals,
and now wants to make its own voice heard and thus come of age as
an intellectual generation with its own free and autonomous ideas.
The conference organizers express the common denominator of this new
formation to be the recognition of a responsibility of conscience.
This is not solely a responsibility in reference to scientific truth or
world citizenship, but also a responsibility toward our own country,
society and democracy. It is once again Turkey that would benefit
the most from the emergence of different, critical and alternative
voices and the portrayal of multiplicity of ideas contained in
Turkish society.
————————————-
Program
25 May 2005 Wednesday
Session 1. 09:30-10:50 A Collective View of the Issues
Introductory Note by Selim Deringil
Serif Mardin, Session Chair
Halil Berktay “What Does the Official Narrative Comprise?”
Selim Deringil “Archives and the Armenian Question: ‘Grabbing the Document
by the Throat'”
Murat Belge “Armenian Problem from the Viewpoint of Democracy”
Coffee Break 10:50-11:10
Session 2. 11:10-13:00 What the World Knows and Turkey Does Not Know
Mete Tuncay, Session Chair
Osman Koker “Armenian Presence in the Ottoman State before the Deportation”
Fikret Adanir “Massacre, Genocide and the Historical Profession”
Fatma Muge Gocek “The Chicago-Salzburg Process as an Accumulation of
Knowledge”
Nazan Maksudyan “The 1915-1916 Events according to the 20th century and
world historians”
Lunch 13:00-14:00
Session 3. 14:00-15:40 The ‘Old Order’ before 1914: inequalities, pressures,
rebellion and massacres
Hakan Erdem, Session Chair
Aksin Somel “Armenian Schools and the Regime of Abdulhamid (1876-1908)”
Oktay Ozel “Locals, Refugees and non-Muslims: some observations on the
boundaries of social harmony in the Black Sea Region during the late Ottoman
period”
Edhem Eldem “The Istanbul Armenian Incidents of 1895-96”
Meltem Toksoz “Armenians of Adana and the 1909 ‘Disturbance'”
Coffee Break 15:40-16:00
Session 4. 16:00-18:00 The Breaking Point
Halil Berktay, Session Chair
Stefan Yerasimos “Approaching 1915: Armenian Autonomy and the Zeytun and Van
Incidents”
Nesim Seker “The Armenian Question and ‘Demographic Engineering'”
Rober Koptas “The Unionist-Tashnak Negotiations and the 1914 Armenian Reform
from the pens of Krikor Zohrab, Vahan Papazyan and Karekin Pastirmaciyan”
Elif Safak “Zabel Yesayan and the list of ‘marked Armenian intellectuals'”
26 MAY 2005 THURSDAY
Session 5. 09:30-11:10 Deportation and Massacres
Taha Parla, Session Chair
Fuat Dundar “The Settlement Policy of the Union and Progress(1913-1918)”
Taner Akcam “The Intent and Organization of Genocide, with the survivors and
the destroyed, among the leaders of the Union and Progress in light of
Ottoman documents”
Cemil Kocak How Do You Know the Special Secret Organization (Teskilât-i
Mahsusa)?”
Coffee Break 11:10-11:30
Session 6. 11:30-13:00 Tales of Tragedy and Escape
Ferhunde Ozbay, Session Chair
Sarkis Seropyan “Landscapes of conscience from within a Painful History”
Fethiye Cetin “From Heranus to Seher, the tale of a ‘liberation'”
Aykut Kansu “Thinking through the Tales of Those Who Survived the
Deportation”
Lunch 13:00-14:00
Session 7. 14:00-15:40 Witnesses and Memories
Ayse Oncu, Session Chair
Hulya Adak “The Armenian Question in Memoirs”
Ahmet Kuyas “What Do the Unionists Say?”
Cevdet Aykan “The Meaning of Memories and The Responsibility of Politics and
the Times”
Gunduz Vassaf “Armenians and 1915 in the Educational Calendar (Saatli Maarif
Takvimi)”
Coffee Break 15:40-16:00
Session 8. 16:00-17:40 From the Threshold of the First Confession to the
Formation of Taboos
Metin Kunt, session chair
Ayhan Aktar “The Armenian Question in the Ottoman Assembly,
November-December 1918”
Erol Koroglu “Examples of Remembrance and Forgetting in Turkish Literature:
the Different Breaking Points of Taciturnity”
Baskin Oran “The Roots of a Taboo: the Historical-Psychological Suffication
of Turkish Public Opinion on the Armenian Problem”
27 MAY 2005 FRIDAY
Session 9. 09:30-11:10 States of Being an Armenian
Nukhet Sirman, session chair
Hrant Dink “The New Sentences of Armenian Identity in Turkey and the World”
Ferhat Kentel “Societies of Turkey and the Armenian Republic: Boundaries and
Prejudices”
Karin Karakasli “To Be an Armenian in Turkey: community, individual,
citizen”
Ferhat Kentel, Gunay Goksu Ozdogan, Fusun Ustel, Melissa Bilal “An Identity
Trapped In Between the Past and Present: the Experience of Being an Armenian
in Turkey”
Ayse Gul Altinay “Two Books and an Exhibit: The Rediscovery of Turkish
Armenians”
Coffee Break 11:10-11:30
Session 10. 11:30-13:30 Armenian Problem and the Turkish Democracy
Murat Belge, session chair
Ali Bayramoglu “Views and Approaches to the Armenian Question in Turkey”
Etyen Mahcupyan “The Connection of Historical Perception and Mentality as a
Founding Factor of the Turkish National Identity”
Ahmet Insel “The Armenian Question and the Concept of the Enemy Within in
Turkish Politics”
Murat Paker “Turkish Armenian Issue in the Context of a Psychoanalytic
Evaluation of Turkey’s Dominant Political Culture”
Sahin Alpay “What Can Be Done to Reinstitute Turkish-Armenian Friendship?”
Lunch 13:30-14:30
Session 11. 14:30-16:00 The Armenian Problem and the Freedom of the Press
Ismet Berkan, session chair
Round Table: Ahmet Hakan, Oral Calislar, Kursat Bumin, Fehmi Koru
Coffee Break 16:00-16:20
Session 12. 16:20-18:30 Today and the Future
Ustun Erguder, session chair
A Reconciliation Analyst: Esra Cuhadar Gurkaynak
A Politician: Cem Ozdemir
A Diplomat: Ilter Turkmen
A Lawyer: Turgut Tarhanli
A Historian: Mete Tuncay
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