Today’s Zaman, Turkey
June 21 2009
Time to recall the story of the Tuzla Armenian children’s camp: a
story of seizure
Article 38 of the Lausanne Treaty says, `The Turkish Government
undertakes to assure full and complete protection of life and liberty
to all inhabitants of Turkey without distinction of birth,
nationality, language, race or religion.’
And Article 42 of the same treaty says: `The Turkish Government
undertakes to grant full protection to the churches, synagogues,
cemeteries and other religious establishments of the above-mentioned
minorities. All facilities and authorization will be granted to the
pious foundations, and to the religious and charitable institutions of
the said minorities at present existing in Turkey, and the Turkish
Government will not refuse to provide, for the formation of new
religious and charitable institutions, the necessary facilities which
are guaranteed to other private institutions of that nature.’
The time now seems ripe to reread the treaty in order to decide
whether the aforementioned articles are being fairly implemented as
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an has recently become
Turkey’s first head of government to acknowledge publicly that a
`fascist approach’ had been displayed in dealing with minorities in
the past.
`For years, these things were done in this country,’ ErdoÄ?an
said. `People of other ethnicities were driven from the country. Did
we gain anything because of that? This was the result of a fascist
approach.’
A March report by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation
(TESEV) revealed clearly that non-Muslim Turks still face
`anti-democratic practices.’
`Only a short while after the Treaty of Lausanne, it became obvious
that the state did not intend to implement the rights it was supposed
to give,’ lawyer Kezban Hatemi, a co-author of the report, then said,
citing other discriminatory laws and practices. The most detrimental
one was the 1936 Declaration, in which non-Muslim foundations were
given the status of `affiliated’ foundations and placed under the
guardianship of the Directorate General for Foundations (VGM), which
`played a crucial role in implementing repressive policies’ imposed on
non-Muslim foundations.
`More than 30 [pieces of fixed property] of the Armenian community
were seized, on the unlawful basis that they were acquired after
1936. The Tuzla Armenian Children’s Camp is one of the most striking
and heartbreaking examples of the seizure of properties from the
Armenian non-Muslim foundations,’ Hatemi said then, pointing out that
Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist murdered in 2007, was among
the first group of children who built the camp, which he later managed
with his wife for many years.
`Humanity is continuity’
`¦ If there was a continuity of that thing which was created ¦
if it served a purpose, I wouldn’t grieve this much. All in all,
humanity is continuity; a human being can utilize what another human
being created. Nay, there is no such thing, either. They left it just
like that, as a wreck,’ says Dink in a 2007 documentary titled
`Swallow’s Nest,’ which explains the story of the Tuzla Armenian
Children’s Camp — an actual story of confiscation.
The elegiac documentary shot by Bülent Arınlı
shows Dink walking around the wreckage of the camp where this
chivalrous man and his wife Rakel grew up. The couple once took over
the administration of the Tuzla Children’s Camp and began looking
after countless Armenian children. The camp underwent difficult times
under the accusation of `breeding Armenian militants’ and was finally
confiscated by the state in 1983. Following the closure of the camp,
Dink was taken into custody and arrested three times due to his
political views.
Since then, ownership of the camp has changed hands five times, and
nothing new has been built on the land where the wreckage of the camp
stands. Apparently, Dink had started feeling like an exile in his own
country after this camp was seized by the state.
Rakel’s dear Chutak
Lawyer Fethiye Ã?etin, also representing the Dink family in the
ongoing murder trial, underlines that a certain camp tries to
legitimize the wrongful approach towards non-Muslim minorities by
referring to the founding members of the Turkish Republic.
`This is definitely not true. Until the 1970s, non-Muslim foundations
were somehow able to maintain properties. The mentality surviving in
the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s [CHP] petition to the
Constitutional Court against amendments on the Law on Foundations is
based on the infamous 1974 decision of the Supreme Court of Appeals
that upheld this discriminatory policy and provided it with legal
legitimacy,’ Ã?etin told Sunday’s Zaman.
Now the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is facing yet another
test of sincerity after ErdoÄ?an’s recent remarks.
`In order to get rid of this shame, the state can expropriate the land
of the camp; build a nice orphanage; and name it after Hrant Dink, and
we will do our best to help the state in such situation,’ Ã?etin
said, when asked what could be done to honor this chivalrous man.
In a preface written for a book titled `Armenian Children’s Camp of
Tuzla: A Story of Seizure,’ the second edition of which was published
last year, Rakel Dink asks whether it is Armenians’ fate to have their
belongings seized by others, to be made unable to live in a place they
themselves had built, inhabited and given life to.
`How can anyone’s heart bear this? Neither the tears shed, nor can the
suffering of the heart fully describe this injustice. In the Holy
Bible, Zacchaeus, known to be the collector of unfair taxes, says to
Jesus, `If I have taken anything more than the law allows or if I’ve
defrauded anyone I will restore four times as much.’ Then Jesus
answers: `Salvation has come to this house today.’ Salvation will come
to Turkey the day it confronts its past and says no to discrimination;
that day will be the day when it will prosper and roses will grow
there instead of thorns,’ says Rakel Dink.
`We couldn’t see our grandchildren eat the fruits of their own trees
and those who, for this reason, decided not to plant trees any
more. Can this story of seizure make any sense to anybody?’ asks Rakel
Dink. `My dear Chutak [violin in Armenian], you say `I am not dead
yet,’ in the documentary titled `The Swallow’s Nest,’ telling the
story of our Tuzla camp. You may be taken away from us physically but,
yes, you aren’t dead and you will never be. You are born anew in many
people’s hearts and in their aspirations and will continue to be so,’
she tells her Chutak, Hrant.
`They ruthlessly cut short the epic telling the story of the corridor
where we played five stones, the stones that we painted together, the
so-called `soup of ninety-nine foods’ we used to make with the remains
of various foods to economize and many more precious memories. They
didn’t give us the chance to watch our children running down the same
corridor and to be happy together there. They didn’t give us the
chance to have our hair grow grey on the same pillow either. No, they
didn’t. ¦’
Hrant Dink (L) a Turkish-Armenian journalist murdered in 2007, was
among the first group of children who built the camp, which he later
managed with his wife for many years.
***
Tuzla Children’s Camp underwent difficult times under the accusation
of `breeding Armenian militants’ and was finally confiscated by the
state in 1983.
***
Photo: Hrant Dink (L) and his wife also worked to repair the
children’s camp.
21 June 2009, Sunday
EMÄ°NE KART ANKARA
View photos at
d=detay&link=178656&bolum=100
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
