THE ARMENIAN QUESTION: A SNAPSHOT

Huffington Post
e-armenian-question-a-s_b_185846.html
April 13 2009

Betwa SharmaSharma is a freelance journalist who writes on human
rights and international relations

Taner Akcam is one of the first scholars of Turkish origin to speak
and write about the killing of one and half million Armenians by the
Ottoman government during the First World War. Many academics and
historians have been charged under Law 301 – which makes insulting
"Turkishness" a crime.

Last year, the Turkish government, driven by its desire of European
Union membership, amended the law and eased restrictions on free
speech. Recently, at an event organized by Columbia University’s
Armenian Students Association, Akcam said, "After decades of
suppression the lid has blown off the Armenian genocide in Turkish
society."

Akcam told the emotionally charged audience that the record should
be set straight: "You cannot solve ethnic problems without facing
history." Turkish denial of the events is attributed to years of
government propaganda. The subject, though less taboo today, remains
shrouded. On a visit to Turkey, President Barack Obama did not use
the word ‘genocide.’ Clearly, the matter is far from resolved.

The moderator at the Armenian Students Association meeting, Andrea
Kannapell, pointed out that the panel discussion was for people who
believed that genocide had taken place. It was not to debate its
occurrence. A student from Columbia Law School, who asked not to
be named, said that for "academic integrity, the panel should have
included a historian with an opposite view."

After the event, the president of the Turkish Initiative at the
School of International and Public Affairs, Tolga Turan said that
"They said that this would be an academic discussion. But they
presented only one view." He was shocked at being asked to step
away from the microphone by a security guard. According to Turan,
"Nobody denies that Armenians were killed but there is no archival
material that proves a centrally planned massacre."

An Armenian student from Columbia’s engineering department said,
"Turks use these different ideas to justify what happened," he
said. "It did happen. You can’t deny it." The student did not want
to be named because he has received death threats in the past.

The word ‘genocide’ sticks out like a sore thumb. The conversation
can’t seem to move past this label. Turkey contends that the deaths
resulted from civil war and that their numbers were exaggerated.

A common sentiment on both sides was to open up the Armenian archives
in Boston and Paris. "Even if we don’t use the word ‘genocide’ you
can’t justify killing of a million people," said the Armenian student.

The audience was also addressed by Mark Geragos, a trial lawyer who
led Federal Class Action law suits against New York Life Insurance and
AXA Corporation for insurance policies issued during the time of the
killings in Turkey. The cases were settled for 37.5 million dollars.

Geragos, an Armenian himself, said that his legal battles had shifted
from recognition to reparation. "Restitution is a fundamental right
of a victim." This means possibly getting back the Armenian land and
money, which was confiscated by Turkish officials.

Already, Geragos said that he was collecting land deeds. This could
result in future action. Individual deeds could not be used to claim
land because the case has to be presented in Turkey, which was a
problem. The lawyer caused quite a stir to the Turkish part of the
audience when he said that Mount Ararat, where Noah’s Ark lodged
after the great deluge, should be given back to the Armenians.

The highest peak in Turkey, holy for the Armenians, lies to the
extreme northeast and 20 miles south of Armenia. Someone in the
audience responded, "How fair is it to displace the people who live
there now?" He added, "Half of this country should be given back to
the native Americans." Akcam warned that it was unwise to mess with
the territories and boundaries in the Middle East. "Ararat should be
open to everyone," he said.

The scholar also noted that it was important to support Turkey’s
bid for a position in the European Union and encourage diplomatic
relations with Armenia. "Language" was the key to moving the Armenian
question forward in Turkish society. "Change our language," he
said. "The language of conflict is different from the language of
reconciliation." In September, President Abdullah Gul became the
first Turkish leader to visit Armenia.

On April 24, the Armenian Diaspora remembers the night in 1915 when
around 250 Armenian leaders and intellectuals were rounded up in
Constantinople. They were taken to a prison in Anatolia and executed.

Obama called the killings that lasted from 1915 to 1918 genocide
during his presidential campaign. Turkey is militarily strategic to
Washington. Will he call it genocide on April 24?

A journalist in New York, Kahraman Haliscelik, is from Sanliurfa in
South East Turkey.

"Sanli" means great. The city was given the title "great" for the
heroic fight it put up against French occupation. "I did not grow up
with propaganda. I grew up with stories," he said. These were stories
that his great grandmother told him of how the Armenians sided with
the colonizers and killed the Turks.

Haliscelik compares the march of the Armenians to the desert in
Syria to the internment of Japanese in the US during the Second
World War. The memories of the past have been passed on through the
generations on both sides of the conflict. The talk of peace and
reconciliation is difficult to achieve. "In our village it was the
Armenians who killed their Turkish neighbors," he said. "They would
not be welcome back in the village."

Photo: Genocide memorial at the Armenian Church is Khartoum.