TURKS & NEO-OTTOMANS
By Vicken Gulvartian, USA
21 September 2009
Never in my life have I seen the faces of so many Turks on the
front pages of Armenian newspapers as I have these past three
months: Erdogan, Babacan, Gul, Davutoglu, Mehmediarov, Aliyev and
others. Mustachioed, neo- Ottomans in dapper suits.
Turks are on the move from Central Asia to Europe en route from their
true origins to what they aspire to become, and the little country
of Armenia is caught in the middle of the most ambitious national
aspiration in modern times: Turkey’s transformation into the world
of the civilized.
If the key to what the Turks are seeking, namely, honor,
respectability, and modernism, lies with us the Armenians then we
must be ready to walk the walk.
But first, some facts:
Turkey is an Asian nation of 72 million inhabitants. It is a muslin
state (not secular), inhabited by peoples of Turkic stock. 99% of
Turkey’s land mass is situated in the Asian continent. The country
holds no natural resources, and a great percentage of the population
live off the land in medieval settings. Ethnic divisions are acute,
especially against a Kurdish minority of 15 million who do not speak
the same language, and do not share the lexicon of unity that emanates
>From Ankara.
The global economic boom of the past decade has been good for Turkey,
as Europe sought cheap labor to manufacture shirts and underwear,
and hotel rooms on beaches serving all-you-can- drink cocktails to
sun-deprived Scandinavians, and hard-drinking Brits. Much similar to
countries such as say, Vietnam, 80% of Turkey’s economy is based on
soft industries – textile, tourism, food packing, wireless telecom
and finance. Industries that foreign investors will easily move out
of the country in case of political turmoil or economic instability,
and there’s been quite a few of those these past 20 years – coup
d’états and financial meltdowns, defaults on foreign loans, and
currency devaluations.
Turkey’s much publicized million-strong army is well trained
to suppress the Kurds, and preserve an image of a democratic
(that’s a joke), secular (false) , modern (more like a rural-urban
hodge-podge), and European (Euro-Asian identity crisis) state. It can,
more appropriately, scare neighboring minnows like Kurds, Armenians
or Syrians, but has never been tested against a credible military
challenge. The notion that Turkey has one of the most formidable
armies in the world is yet another myth.
Modern Turkey is the direct successor of the Ottoman Empire – the
same entity that massacred 1.5 million of its own Armenian citizens,
expelled million others, and forcefully converted generations of
Armenians and Greeks through servitude and assimilation. An empire
built on religious fanaticism, brute20force, cruel taxation and a
dismal human rights record. Name one thing that can be attributed
to the Ottoman Turks that survives to this day as their lasting
contribution to civilization. Nothing, absolutely nothing!
Leave it to the Turks to position themselves as big players on
the world stage these days. Look at various regional conflicts and
Turkey’s self-suggested involvement as mediators, and you see no
effective solutions, and no genuine contributions: Azerbaijan-Armenia,
US-Iraq, Iran-Saudi Arabia, Syria-Israel. I know of no world conflict
– political, social or economic- that Turks have yet been able to
solve or put to rest! None. But that has not diminished from Turkey’s
belief in its own lies: That it has actually arrived on the world
scene, without the burden of its past, or the moral responsibility
of the present.
Worst yet, Turks see themselves as uniquely positioned as an "emerging
economy" to confront their distracters, especially those who keep
bringing up "this issue of the Armenians". In reality, they are
burdened by the knowledge that any admission to crimes against humans
(Genocide) would be a direct betrayal of the "principals" upon which
Mustafa Kemal founded their new nation in 1923- as a shining country
of a very happy and homogeneous population, at peace with its Ottoman
past, and ready to take on the challenges of a modern future built o
n universal values of democracy. A fiction of Mustafa’s imagination
conceived possibly at one of his "better moments" (he eventually died
of alcohol-induced cirrhosis at the age of 57). In reality, modern
Turkey has not and cannot progress beyond his idea of greatness as long
as it is held in place by an army that meddles in all affairs of the
state, suppressing the press and the multitude of historians, authors,
journalist and scholars relentlessly, meticulously and heartlessly,
and assassinating some of them at intervals. The people of Turkey, on
the other hand, have fear as their greatest motivation to… not talk!
Which bring us to 2009 and the current negotiations between Turkey
and Armenia, and possibly the opening of the border for the first
time since Armenia became independent in 1991. While Armenia must
negotiate for the opening of the border as a gesture of good neighborly
relations and for commercial reasons, it is continuously reminded to
do so without pre-conditions of Turkish admission to the Genocide.
Under pressure from the US and occasionally Europe (led by Turkey’s
only true historic friend – the British) the Turkey-Armenia issue
is getting to look more like a classics case of a crisis between
a weaker party forcefully stripped of the only right it possesses
for negotiations – the legitimacy of human rights, and the stronger
party pretending to promote what9s best for everyone, as long as the
best serves their own grand ambitions. Enter into this mess at the
eleventh-hour the mushy obama-esque style of US mediation in disputes
of the world, and the debate takes the bizarre new twist of "Let’s
not forget, but let’s forgive", or even better yet, "Let’s forget
and forgive".
The key to the puzzle rests, of course, in Yerevan, where a corrupt
government run by a president known for his gambling prowess not
in the corridors of power, but rather in the halls of Monte Carlo
runs the show. As shrewd as he thinks he may be, his counterpart is
Tayyip Erdogan, himself, a risk-taker who has a string of successes
in his build-up of a private financial empire worth in the billions
of dollars. Mr.Sarkissian, take note!
Can the government in Yerevan be trusted? And is the Armenian acuity
to eventually make a good deal out of a bad situation enough to make
this a risk worth making? I don’t think so. Turkey needs nothing of
Armenia except for an indefinite suspension of the Genocide issue,
or for at least the next 15 years until Turkey becomes, dadaaa
… European. The Turks believe that the absence of a debate is the
absence of the problem itself.
It is essential for Armenia to advance good relations with all its
neighbors, including Turkey. This means open borders, and negotiations
on all issues of interest to countries with shared borders, and
that’s exactly where the potential entanglement lies: What to do
about the Genocide?
Do not misunderstand. My whole argument is not about what Turkey will
do or must do, nor what the US can impose or must not. But rather
what we, Armenians must not do, and cannot do.
What Armenia must not and cannot do is to allow the Genocide to be
a topic for discussion. It is certainly a critical issue and a very
vital topic…
but not for discussion. Not by anyone, not anywhere, and not at
anytime.
In other words, the notion of "Let’s forget" is not possible, nor
any suggestion that the Genocide is "a topic" that is for future
historians to discuss, dispute and conclude. The Genocide is a
fact, a historically documented fact. Facts are not negotiable,
nor revised. Period!
The message that goes to Turkey is loud and clear: There is no hope for
their image as a genuinely modern country until all disputes of their
past are settled. Mistakes of fathers have a tendency to stick with
the permanence of an asterisk in most unlikely places. Mustafa Kemal
knew that, but at the end he lacked the European-ness he desperately
aspired to solve the case of the Ottomans right at the beginning.
The Republic of Armenia faces its biggest challenge so far because
the very history leading to its creation and existence will be questio
ned at each step of the way should Armenia participate in a bilateral
commission of historians that will be created to, supposedly, study the
Genocide. The process is nothing more than a cover for years of empty
talk in light of "new archives" that Turkey will put on the table for
endless discussions with no conclusions. Open-ended talks will surely
stall as Turkey will insist on the inclusion of yet another "new "
(fabricated) evidence of atrocities by Armenians. The same argument
that has been at the core of their strategy in denying the Genocide.
There can be only one outcome to the Turkish stance on the Genocide:
Admission. That, however, is a course that the people of Turkey might
eventually elect to take. It will be a good idea for them to start
where it’s easiest- With the more that million Turks amongst themselves
whose roots are to be found in their Armenian grandmothers who in
1915 were forcefully converted after their families were massacred
during the Genocide.
Then what are we Armenians to do, while we wait for Turkey to open,
modernize and be civilized by forces from inside, from places yet
unknown?
We are all missing the point if we make Turkey or the US the frontline
of our decision to a plan of action. It is time to collect our senses,
wave all politicians goodbye and work on the continuity and prosperity
of Armenian entities everywhere in the world as a constant reminder
to Turkey as to who may be losing the battle today, but can win the
war eventually. That is the course of history, and no one understands
that better than the exact same mustachioed neo-Ottomans in dapper
suits I have listed in the beginning of this column.
An article in the July issue of The Economist about Turkey concludes
with a notation by "a Western official" saying, " when it comes to
Turkey and Armenia, Turkey wins every time". The person in question has
failed to notice that we Armenians are not out to defeat Turkey. They
have their own people to do that for us.