Yeni Safak
25 May 2005
page 4

Ali Bayramoglu

`To Remember and to Forget’

Among my pieces, the ones that attract the most reaction are those
pertaining to the Armenian issue.

The piece I penned in relation to the Armenian Symposium that is going
to commence today was likewise received with a similar `interest.’

It is possible to understand, to a certain degree, the sensitivity and
the defensive and at times belligerent reactions.

The taboos that are challenged cause problems.

And those who challenge the taboos are not received genially.

If, one top of it all, the taboo topic is located at the center of
different [groups] of nationalists, turns national identity into a basis
for debate, conjoins the [issues of] the past and the present, warms
fears, defenses, self-interests, and expresses a complicated issue that
the world has also delved into, then it becomes easier to comprehend
these reactions.

The Armenian question is such a question…

It is a question located right at the center of `a state of mind’
inherited from the Ottoman Empire, the `bifurcation [experienced]
between inferiority and being oppressed’, and the `ebbs and flows
between the states of tyranny and oppression.’

Memory records that which has been suffered, not want it has made [other
people] suffer…

While the wave of terror created by the Armenian committees in East
Anatolia during the 1915 Van Rebellion and the 1917 Russian occupation
is still so fresh in societal memory, attempts to remind people of
situations that were just the opposite, let alone remember them, puts
into action feelings of injustice and being wronged and is [therefore]
received with anger and [negative] reaction. Every tragedy connected to
you that you are reminded of brings to life the tragedy you yourself
have lived through. It is difficult to be declared the grandchild of
the perpetrator when you yourself feel related to the deceased [victim].

One dimension of the issue is, of course, social psychological.

Another dimension is political.

The debates on the Armenian issue, the Kurdish issue and indirectly the
Cyprus issue that have been put on the agenda within the framework of
[Turkey’s] post December 17th Europe Union membership and [the ensuing]
intense relations with the West all pull the societal state of mind back
to the 1915’s and 1920’s.

The anxiety over fragmentation, defensive reflexes and the feeling of
being wronged all become politicized within this framework.

These are serious issues.

Within this frame of mind, there is always the risk that even if the
Anatolian lands that have, in terms of mentality, been rendered as the
West’s `other’, that has not yet coalesced, has not been able to solve
the problems generated by history and by its own social fabric would not
end up being fragmented, it would [nevertheless] at least undergo a
serious upset.

Yet the way out of these issues is not to turn inward, express
[negative] reaction alone and solely shout.

The way out of these issues is to strengthen. And it is only possible
to become strong by keeping up with the times, by getting rid of your
baggage, by maturing in a democratic manner…

It is for this reason that many people who take the oppositional,
critical mind seriously, including the writer of these lines, are after
[accomplishing] such strengthening.

In order to become strong, individuals and society first need to talk
among themselves as they did in relation to 28 February [when the
Turkish military intervened in the democratic process, MG].

If Turkey today is able to make some progress, can breathe the climate
of political stability, it is partially able to do so because of its
democratic maturation, its ability to break the taboos that extend from
the military to the state, its capacity to question official history,
and its ability to establish peace between state and society.

Why should the Armenian question be any different…

The main problem in relation to the Armenian issue does not reside
solely in what was experienced before and after 1915, in, for instance,
the Adana events where 17,000 Armenians were killed or the tens of
thousands of Muslims killed afterward in 1917, but rather in the bloody
deportation that was applied by Talat Pasha from May 1915 on.

He who is able to morally account for this will also [one day] be able
to seek the moral accounting of the violence he himself was subjected
to.

But what is most important is one’s maturation through reason by [being
able to] put some distance from himself.

The road to nationalism and patriotism does not consist of screams and
shouts, defiance and insults.

It consists of reason.

The aforementioned symposium that is going to take place today will
provide us with the opportunity to debate these issues for a couple of
more days.

Translated from Turkish

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress