PRESS RELEASE
March 25, 2009
Armenica – Sweden
Email: vahagn.avedian@armenica.org
Web:
Uppsala, Sweden

`DEATH WELLS’ AND THE CONTINUATION OF BLOODSHED

By Ayşe Günaysu, İstanbul.

For the conference `Legacy of the 1915 Genocide in the Ottoman Empire’
Stockholm, 23rd March 2009

Before everything else, I would like to thank the organisers for inviting
me to this conference. I am very sorry that I cannot be in Stockholm in
person, and am also grateful to them for accepting to share my message
with the participants. I wish fruitful exchanges on a subject which
matters very much to me and send from Istanbul my greetings.

`All suppressed truths become poisonous,’ wrote Friedrich Nietzsche in his
`Thus Spoke Zarathustra.’

Suppressed truth poisons the suppressor, it also poisons those who are
deprived of the knowledge of the truth. Not only that: suppressed truth
poisons the entire environment in which both the suppressor and those who
are subjected to that suppression live. So it poisons everything.

Nearly a century after the genocide of Armenians and Assyrians/Syriacs as
well as other Christian peoples of the Asia Minor, Turkey is still being
poisoned by the suppression of the truth. And because the suppressed truth
concerns a crime, because the suppressors are those in power, and those
deprived of the truth are the whole nation, it is the very future of that
nation which is also poisoned.

If you are a ruler suppressing a truth, you have to suppress those who
seek the truth as well. The poison feeds you with self-glorification in
order to evade guilt, hatred to justify your lying and cruelty to sustain
the lie at all costs. Bits of truth may be known to some of the people you
rule. So you either have to make them join your self-deception by offering
excuses for the crime you committed to persuade them there was no other
choice or declare them traitors and carry on an endless war against those
who resist persuasion.

But people tend to be persuaded; so in Turkey the great majority of people
sincerely believe that if it is a question of life or death for the
`fatherland’ the state machinery may rightfully resort to unlawful methods
– in other words, that the so-called `national interests’ justify all
means. This is how the suppressed truth and the methods of that
suppression poison minds generation after generation.

So, it is no surprise that for nearly a century Turkey saw no real
democracy, no real peace, no real well-being. Violence has always been
part of our lives. Military coups followed one another and in the absence
of an actual military rule, there has always been sometimes overt,
sometimes covert, threat of it. Since the foundation of the Republic, the
Kurdish uprisings and their violent repression continued. In the last 30
years the land which was once the homeland of Armenians and Assyrians as
well, has been suffering from what the authorities call the `fight against
terrorism’. Evacuated villages, forced migration, people under custody
going missing and unsolved murders became the characteristics of the
region.

The bloodshed has never stopped since 1915.

It’s not only the violence. Permit me to borrow here what I had written on
the occasion of the 91st anniversary of the Genocide, which Khatchig
Mouradian quoted in his article published by Znet on April 23, 2006:

`A big curse fell upon this land [in 1915]. The settlements where once
artisans, manufacturers, and tradesmen produced and traded goods, where
theatres and schools disseminated knowledge and aesthetic fulfillment,
where churches and monasteries refined the souls, where beautiful
architecture embodied a great, ancient culture; in short, a civilized,
lively urban world was turned into a rural area of vast, barren, silent,
uninhabited land and settlements marked by buildings without a history and
without a personality.’

Nowadays an excavation is going on in Silopi, Şırnak, at the
facilities of Turkey’s national pipeline corporation Botaş, to
investigate the allegations that in the 1990’s the dead bodies of persons
who went missing under custody by security forces had been dumped there.
So far some bones, hair and pieces of clothing have been found – what was
left after the clean-up operations – and sent to forensic laboratory for
analysis.

This is one of the places which has suffered most from the suspension of
rule of law in the region for the sake of the so-called `unity of Turkey’.

And it is the same place where, 96 years ago, masses of mostly
Assyrians/Syriacs but Armenians as well, though in smaller number, were
either massacred outright or driven on foot to the mountains where death
was certain as a result of starvation, destitution and exposure to harsh
weather conditions without any shelter. This was what happened in many
places to Armenians throughout Asia Minor during that reign of terror.

Now the `death wells’ represents the continuation of the bloodshed and
suppressed truths. After 96 years there are still unburied dead bodies to
be searched for by means of excavations.

Yes, `All suppressed truths become poisonous,’ said Nietzsche many, many
years ago, but he continued: `- And let everything break up – which can be
broken up by our truths! Many a house is still to be built!’

This is the only way that would bring justice to our lives – I mean
recognition of the damage done and making amends.

—
Ayşe Günaysu is a member of the Human Rights Association of Turkey,
Istanbul Branch. She is a founding member of the Committee Against Racism
and Discrimination.