TURKISH INTELLECTUALS LAUNCH CAMPAIGN OF APOLOGY TO ARMENIANS
Vatan
Dec 4 2008
Turkey
A group of intellectuals, which includes university faculty members
and journalists, is launching a signature campaign regarding the
Armenian deportations of 1915. The name of the campaign, which will
begin on the internet at the new year, is "I apologize."
The things that took place during the 1915 Armenian deportations,
which the Armenians term the "Medz Yeghen", or "Great Catastrophe,"
are coming onto the agenda once again with the signature campaign. Led
by Professor Ahmet Insel, Professor Baskin Oran, Dr Cengiz Aktar, and
journalist and writer Ali Bayramoglu, the campaign, which will begin
on the internet with the new year, is named "I apologize." The text of
the campaign includes the following: "My conscience does not accept
indifference towards the Great Disaster that the Ottoman Armenians
suffered in 1915, nor its denial today. I reject this injustice, share
for my own part the feelings and the pain of my Armenian brothers,
and I apologize to them." A different path from the usual campaigns
will be followed in the campaign, upon which agreement was reached only
after lengthy debate. The goal is to secure as much participation as
possible on the internet over a year. Professor Insel, from Galatasaray
University, describes the campaign as an individual stance in the face
of historical responsibility. Professor Insel said: "We citizens have
the right, independent of official policy, to express our own views
regarding the history of Turkey. The campaign should not be turned
into grist for politics." Dr Cengiz Aktar, a faculty member in the
Economic and Administrative Sciences Faculty of Bahcesehir University,
also spoke with Vatan regarding the campaign.
[Q] How did the campaign come about?
[A] We set out on the basis of the view that the time had come, and
indeed was overdue, for a campaign that stressed the individual, and
individual sensitivity. We aim at making it a very broad campaign,
probably at the new year.
[Q] What is the goal of the campaign?
[A] The things that befell the Armenians are phenomena that are very
little known in Turkey, but were incited, and then people have been
made to forget them. Turks have generally heard about these issues
from their elders, from their grandparents. But the issue has never
been able to become an objective historical narrative. For this
reason, a great many people in Turkey today believe in complete good
faith that nothing happened to the Armenians. The view that this
was a very secondary issue, and indeed proceeded in the form of
reciprocal massacres, and was a sort of "normal affair" explained
by the conditions of World War I, has been repeated endlessly for
years now by official history. But the realities are, unfortunately,
very different. Perhaps there is one sole fact, and that is that,
in the final analysis, there are no longer any Armenians in Anatolia,
but the other elements, the Turks and the Kurds, are still here. The
subject of this campaign is individuals. This is a voice coming from
the conscience of the individual. Those who are sorry will apologize,
while those who are not will not.
[Q] Why is an apology being made?
[A] An apology is being made because throughout all this time, and
it will be almost 100 years, it has been impossible to mention this
topic or speak of it openly.
A First From France: Armenian Draft Not Being Brought Before Senate
The government in France has, for the first time, openly come out
against a draft law being put onto the agenda of the Senate that would
count rejection of the Armenian claims regarding the 1915 events
as a crime. The Minister Responsible for Local Administrations,
Alain Marleix, responding to an oral parliamentary question from
Socialist Party Deputy Rene Rouquet in the Assembly, said that the
government does not want to put the draft law, which was passed in
the Parliament in 2006, onto the agenda of the Senate. The French
Minister called for "parliamentary deputies to avoid interfering in
the work of historians" and pointed out that Turkey would react if
the draft were to be adopted.