FACING HISTORY

Ottawa Citizen
y/1103406/story.html
Dec 22 2008
Canada

The online petition by a group of Turkish intellectuals, apologizing
for the Ottoman massacres of Armenians in 1915, shows just how far
Turkey has come in the last few years — and how far it has yet to go.

Writers have paid with their careers and their lives for talking openly
about history. Journalist Hrant Drink was prosecuted for "insulting
Turkishness" and then shot to death by a Turkish nationalist in
January 2007. The Nobel-prize winning writer Orhan Pamuk was also
prosecuted, only three years ago, simply for saying that a million
Armenians had died.

So this new petition is a remarkably brave act on the part of its
authors. What’s even more remarkable is that thousands of members of
the public have also signed the petition. This might be a sign that
among ordinary Turks, there is a willingness to break the old taboos
and start talking honestly about what happened a century ago. Frank
talk is important; humanity stands no chance of preventing future
genocides and war crimes if it cannot acknowledge and universally
condemn those of the past.

"I reject this injustice, share in the feelings and pain of my Armenian
brothers, and apologize to them," reads the online petition.

All the same, its authors were careful not to use the word
"genocide." They call it, instead, the "great catastrophe" — a phrase
that might just as easily be used to describe an impersonal natural
disaster as a wilful mass murder.

There is already a nationalist backlash building against the
petition. Imagine what the reaction would have been if the authors
had dared to use the word many parliaments, including Canada’s,
have used in their condemnations.