Reconciliation Through The Arts: Armenia and Turkey
NewsBlaze.com
Published: December 18, 2009
By Barney Yates
Following is a conversation between Barney Yates, an American
journalist, and Nora Armani, an international actor, playwright and
festival producer, about prospects for healing old wounds between
Armenia and Turkey through the "soft diplomacy" of cultural exchange.
Q: There are ongoing negotiations toward protocols for opening the
borders between Turkey and Armenia for the first time in a long
time. Why has this peaceful development been so difficult to achieve?
A: Well, there are many unresolved issues between Armenians and Turks,
the most important of which is the recognition of the Armenian
Genocide. Opening borders is a wonderful thing, as it is important for
all nations under the sun to live peacefully with their neighbors and
have normal exchanges on the economic, social and human
levels. However, opening up the borders under the conditions Turkey is
pushing for would not create the sort of peaceful atmosphere that is
so desirable between neighboring countries. It would result in
resentment and further mistrust.
By pressuring Armenia to accept the protocols with conditions
attached, and by sliding over the important issue of the recognition
of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey is not engaging in a peaceful act but
an act of denial. It is much like denying the Jewish Holocaust during
World War II.
Let’s ask ourselves why these centuries-old neighbors have not been on
‘talking terms.’ If the issue that caused the conflict is not resolved
at its root, and amends are not made by Turkey as the perpetrator to
its victims of the Genocide and their offspring, you can open as many
borders as you want, but that will not create peaceful coexistence.
This is why the Armenian majority in the Diaspora (yes, there are more
Armenians in the Diaspora than in Armenia today) is totally opposed to
the protocols. They are not opposed to dialog with Turkey as such, but
they are opposed to the way Turkey is approachi e of talks. This is
not an egalitarian relationship and the gain is totally for Turkey
here as Armenia presents a market for Turkish goods, excellent
craftsmen/women for Turkish factories, a source of skilled artisans
(as it has been in the past, throughout centuries) and more.
There may be individual gains for some Armenians engaged in this
commerce, but as a nation the protocols do not do anything but harm to
the Armenian nation and the offspring of the survivors of the Genocide
as well as to the memory of its victims.
Armenians cannot be blamed for being suspicious about Turkey’s
dealings coming from their experience of centuries of duplicity and
intrigue in the way Turkey has treated Armenians.
Q: Do you think that the barriers to Turkish acceptance of the
Armenian genocide are more based on ethnic prejudice, or are they more
based on financial concerns like reparations, payment of old insurance
claims etc?
A: I sincerely believe that the issue here is much more based on
economic concerns and the "can of worms" Turkey is afraid to open by
accepting responsibility for the deeds of its ancestral Government for
the harm done to Armenians. .
It is true that Armenians and Turks are racially different, but
through habits, traditions and even cuisine, their daily lives have
much in common. I am not talking about Armenians living in Switzerland
compared to Anatolian Turks, but about Armenians living across the
border from Turkey and Turks living on ancestral Armenian lands that
are currently occupied by Turks. These peoples are more similar than
they think. Like Arabs and Jews in Israel and Palestine, Armenians and
Turks have shared the same part of the world, the same mountains, they
have trod the same earth and have drunk from the same water for
centuries. The conflict here is not on the personal human level I
think, but on the larger political level.
Q: I know the memory of the 1915 massacre is most alive in Armenia. Is
there a corresponding memory in Turkey, is there a myth?
A: Modern Turkey is the creatio rk in 1923. Ataturk was one of the
Young Turks at the end of the First World War, when Ottoman Turkey was
defeated and breaking up into its respective countries, much like it
happened later in the century with the Soviet Union. Ataturk came to
power and revolutionized Turkey by trying to modernize it and even
went to the extent of changing the Turkish alphabet (Ottoman Turkish
used Arabic script) to the Latin alphabet. This is really a huge
change. His maxim was (and still is in Turkey today), "How lucky is
the one who says I am Turkish." It is this nationalistic and elitist
attitude that gave the defeated Turks a new identity to forge ahead
with. Of course accepting the responsibility of the Armenian Genocide
and the ethnic cleansing done to the Armenians (who were Ottoman
citizens) would have marred this idealistic take on Turkish identity.
In the more recent years, as a form of self-defense, against the
increasing acceptance and recognition of the Armenian Genocide by many
governments of the world, Turkey began to react by spreading the rumor
that Turks too were killed during the 1914-1918 war and that it was
the Armenians who massacred the Turks and not the other way
round.. But how could this happen when it was a known fact that
Armenians living under Ottoman rule were not allowed to bear arms, and
at the onset of WW I, they were stripped of all ammunition and weapons
and were left completely helpless and easy to prey on?
Q: Is the animosity between Turks and Armenians ancient or modern?
A: The animosity itself goes very far back with constant marauding
crowds and raids on Armenian villages and farmers by Turkish and
Kurdish tribes. However, it was not on the organized Government level
until later in the 19th century going back to Sultan Hamid II, the Red
Sultan, who in the late 1880’s and 90’s started sanctioning the
freedoms that Armenians had as citizens of the Ottoman Empire.
Armenians up to that point were highly respected members of the
community and had contributed in many positive ways to the deve d even
in Turkish encyclopedias that Armenians lay the foundations of Modern
Turkish theatre, that Armenian actresses were the first to start an
acting tradition for women (as Moslem women were not allowed on
stage), in other areas, the famous Architects Balian built of many of
the beautiful mosques and palaces of the Ottoman Sultans. Another name
that comes to mind is Sinan, whose Armenian identity is documented
extensively, in the music department we have Dikran Tchouhadjian whose
operettas were huge hits and are in the cultural tradition of Turkey
even to this day. The most important interpreters and high officials
in the Porte were Armenians for long centuries.
The beginning of the 20th century, and the deterioration of the
Ottoman Empire and the loss of its power in the world through ethnic
resurgences (Balkans, Egypt, etc.) and the separation of its many
Vilayets (the Governorates), coincided with its changing politics
towards the Armenians who were also at that time concerned about
gaining independence as a nation and liberating the occupied Armenian
lands in Eastern Turkey.
My paternal great grandmother, feeling unsafe for her four daughters
and herself following the death of my great grandfather (from an
infection to his tailbone as a result of traveling on horseback for
days on end from Egypt to Kaiseri – Ceasaria – in central Turkey) sold
everything and following her husband’s footsteps moved to Egypt. She
was spared for the 1915 Genocide. However, my maternal grandmother,
who was the daughter of a priest in Kaiseri, was deported together
with her three sisters and mother, after my great grandfather was
hanged.
Up until the point when Sultan Abdul Hamid II (the Red Sultan) started
sanctioning their freedoms, Armenians were highly respected Ottoman
subjects. They were the best craftsmen, architects, intellectuals,
merchants, politicians and interpreters for the Sultans and the
Sublime Porte (The Ottoman Empire).
The inherent conflict was always present, resulting from jealousies,
economic and social inequalities, marauding Turkish and Kurdish tribes
in the Eastern Provinces where the life of the local Armenian
population had become more and more unbearable over the centuries.
Conflict theories of sociology postulate that any society has an
inherent degree of conflict even in the most peaceful of times. In
fact, such conflict is even a healthy ingredient for the well being
and functi my Masters Degree thesis, using the conflict model of
social theory that postulates that conflict is an inherent and even a
necessary ingredient to any healthy social structure, I argue that
there are certain conditions under which otherwise harmless conflict
levels can escalate to potentially violent levels giving way to
Genocide, civil war and other extreme forms of expression of
conflict. Some of these conditions are economic inequality, some are
political instability, and in the case of Ottoman Turkey and the
Armenian Genocide, there is a certain degree of both.
In my thesis I draw the parallels between the Armenian Genocide and
the Jewish Holocaust in the light of the conflict theories. In both
cases the minority that was victimized was one of high visibility,
success, a certain economic stability, even in the villages as in the
case of the Armenians. This type of situation triggers jealousy, envy
and frustration, which when released turns into anger and
aggression. Add to that the wonderful opportunity of the backdrop of a
war, and you have the perfect ingredients for conflict to escalate and
turn into Genocidal violence, specially that in these situations it is
often ‘legitimized’ through orders by the the powers that be.
Suffice it for the threatened ruling elite to ‘give the order’
legitimizing the act, that you have the spark needed to start a major
Genocide. The examples are abundant in the ethnic cleansing that
characterized Eastern Europe in more recent decades. The parallels
here can be stretched further to cover the situation in Rwanda as
well, where one group is victimized by the other and such
victimization was somehow legitimized through orders coming from
‘above.’
We have to remember that the Ottoman Empire was already deteriorating
during the Hamidian Massacres, during the 1906 Adana Massacres and
during the 1915-18 mass Genocide, and the only way the Turks could see
a redemption for themselves and a preservation of their power, was the
substitution of their multi-ethnic and culturally dive ic and cultural
unity, therefore their Par-Turanistic Ideals of a Turkic Empire
Extending from The Bosphorus all the way to the Central Asian Turkic
Republics was nourished.
Of course, there were many obstacles to such a plan, one such ‘minor’
obstacle being the Armenians who were in the middle of it, and who in
turn had begin to entertain ideas of independence. This ‘minor’
obstacle could be handled through Genocide. The bigger obstacle was
Communism and that is what really decapitated the Turks and put an end
to their Imperial dreams.
Armenian ideals of independence did not exit during the Hamidian
era. They were a much more rencent culminating of reactions to the
unbearable conditions of the Armenian peasants in the Eastern Turkish
provinces and an inevitable necessity to securing better living
conditions. But Turkey had a war to fight, a deteriorating Empire to
patch up, and a new Pan Turanistic dream to chase. In all respects
Armenians were in the way.
And since fear breeds agression as is widely postulated in the body of
sociopsychological theories, the fear of defeat and loss caused the
escalation of the inherent levels of conflict attainging the levels of
violence characteristic of any Genocide.
If we were to ask whether this could have been foreseen and prevented,
let me respond by ask whether the Jewish Holocause could have been
foreseen and prevented. You know that Adolf Hitler, on the eve of his
Invasion of Poland said, "I have given orders to my Death Units to
exterminate, without mercy or pity men, women and children belonging
to the Polish speaking race. It only in this manner that we can
acquire the vital territory which we need. After all who remembers
today the extermination of the Armenians?"
It is only by remembering and doing something about it that Genocides
and Holocausts can actually be prevented. Not by ‘eradicating the
causes,’ and certainly not by denying them or covering up for the
denialists for whatever reason and regardless for what gain.
Q: How can cultural exchange between T ated?
A: Over the last few years, more than ever before, it has become
common to see Armenian films, film makers and prizes at Turkish film
festivals, and vice versa. The same is also happening in the fields of
music and theatre. This is a natural process because, as I explained
above, there is more in common between these peoples than not. One of
the most well known figures of Turkish Operettas (a style) is Dikran
Tchouhadjian Armenian composer 1860 c. whose first opera, Arsace II
had a World Premiere 130 years after its composition, at the San
Francisco Opera in 2001, to a great extent thanks to Gerald Papasian’s
efforts. Tchouhadjian’s other operetta, "Leblebidji Hor Hor" (Hor Hor
the chick pea vendor) was so successful that it has infiltrated the
Turkish repertory and even today, you find older actors or artists who
remember some of these tunes. Currently, Gerald is working on a French
version of this operetta and collaboration with Turkish theatres
around this project is not impossible.
I would love to take the theater piece I developed with Gerald
Papasian, "Sojourn at Ararat," or my one-woman show, "On the Couch
with Nora Armani," to Turkey in the near future. An Armenian colleague
from France has already taken his one-man show to Diarbekir
(predominantly Kurdish populated town in Turkey). Now this is possible
even more than before.
I think the two countries should make an effort to facilitate this
type of exchange before even thinking of the border issues or the
protocols. It is only through mutual acquaintance that conflict issues
may be resolved.
Q: Is there any discussion of cultural exchange in the negotiations
leading to the protocols for opening the borders?
A: Personally for me, I find it hard to imagine negotiations, any
negotiations, between nations without accompanying cultural
exchange. The Soviets were really good at this and they infiltrated
into the Western World (almost) in a way through Russian (and to a
lesser extent Soviet) art. The US does the same thing through its
cinema. Why do you think the whole world is dying to come to the US
and believes in the American dream? What they see in the movies makes
them think that this is the land of milk and honey. Of course, you and
I know the difference between normal American life and a Hollywood
film set!!!
Q: Will there be a language barrier to cultural exchange between
Turkey and Armenia?
A: I don’t know about Turks, but myself included, most Diaspora
Armenians specially those who come from Turkey (or whose ancestors do)
speak Turkish already. Maybe it’s a bit antiquated and Ottoman, but
it’s Turkish. Let me tell you an anecdote. I was being interviewed on
Turkish radio RFI (‘Radio France Internationale’ in Paris) and I was
speaking such good Turkish that the host was surprised and asked how
come. I said I had learned it from my grandmother, who was, of course,
100% Armenian. She spoke Armenian normally and only spoke Turkish when
she needed to say something the children were not supposed to children
ended up learning it. We then coined an interesting term, "grandmother
tongue." So, I can say my mother tongue is Armenian, and my
"grandmother tongue" (symbolically, of course, as she came from
Turkey) is Turkish!!!
In another historical incident, Gerald Papasian’s maternal great
grandfather was Mihran Damadian, who was the ‘one day president’ of
the French Mandated Armenia in Cilicia (Southern Turkey) right after
the First World War. The French had promised Armenians a homeland
(much like the British did for Israel) so in 1919, many Armenians
picked up and went to Adana to establish the new home rule under the
French mandate. Gerald’s grandmother was 17 at the time and
accompanied her father. In her eyewitness account, she used to tell us
how overnight the Turkish local merchants had learned Armenian
sentences to cater for the newly returning Armenian population.
Q: What kinds of Turkish art are Armenian people exposed to now?
A: As I mentioned earlier, throughout the centuries Armenians have had
a major influence on the development of art and culture in Turkey. But
as a result of the Genocide, this development was
interrupted. Unfortunately, the lack of proper channels of artistic
communication at the present day, go both ways. Armenians are not
exposed to the best of Turkish art, and all they get is pop music and
the B-grade TV series that they can pick up due to the proximity of
the border. A dialogue of the cultural kind should be engaged in two
ways. I am sure there are a lot of good writers, such as Orhan Pamuk,
the Nobel Prize winning author of "Snow." Another incident comes to
mind: I was reading "Snow" and was amazed how the descriptions of Kars
in Eastern Turkey, the town where the main part of the action takes
place, resembles the villages and towns right across the border in
Armenia. It was inevitable to see that the traditions and life styles
(minus of course the Moslem elements, as Armenians are Christian) were
so very similar between the two peoples.
But there is a certain degree of ignorance even among most educated
Armenians. I was visiting with friends in Los Angeles, who are
originally from Armenia and intellectuals, and they were so
dismissive; they could not accept that there is a similarity. To go
even further, they were surprised that I was even reading a Turkish
author. But Orhan Pamuk is not a Turkish author in the narrow sense,
just like our play in not an Armenian play, but one with a universal
message. Pamuk’s work is universal, and in fact he is even persecuted
in Turkey for having spoken against the Turkish identity in 2005 and
for saying a million Armenians had died. In his novel, "Snow" Pamuk
mentions the pre-Genocide Armenian presence in Kars indirectly every
time he gets an opportunity to describe the Armenian craftsmanship in
the architecture and ironworks, etc. There has to be a mutual interest
of knowing more about the other. When I met Orhan Pamuk at PEN, he
asked me about the Armenian Diaspora. On the intellectuals’ level
there is more proximity than we think. Other Turkish intellectual, who
defend the cause of the Recognition of the Armenian Genocide, are
Taner Akcam and Recip Zarakolu. One of the first Turks to break the
taboo was the historian Halil Berktay. Fethiye Cetin, the Turkish
lawyer talks about her grandmother’s Armenian identity in My
Grandmother openly. I am not mentioning the Armenian intellectuals,
because they are far too many to cite.
Q: When the soft diplomacy of cultural engagement is carried on in
foreign capitals, does it have any effect on the home countries of
Armenia and Turkey?
A: Of course. In today’s world, heavily governed by communications, it
is inevitable that the effects of one rub off on the other. So the
more there are efforts of rapprochement on the cultural and artistic
levels, the more the effects of this are felt both in the two
Homelands and in the respective Diasporas.
Q: Wallace Shawn writes "Artists who create works of art that inspire
sympathy and good values do not change the life of the poor." Will
political art be polarizing, neutral or healing in this context?
A: I do not know much about radical and militant political art,
because that is not what I do. Militancy usually preaches to the
converted and is marginalized by the mainstream. I am not interested
in preaching to converts. Otherwise, I would perform in Armenian for
Armenians. I am quite well known in Armenia, having done may films and
plays there as well as TV appearances. It is so easy for me to spread
a message there, but who would I be telling these things to? To people
who already know it and are in agreement with me. The trick is to
reach uninitiated people and change the way they think.
I think what Wallace Shawn is saying, if I am not mistaken (and taken
out of context this sentence can be interpreted in many ways), is that
the change comes not from sympathy but from actual knowledge and
wanting to do something about a situation. Although, I must confess
that sympath g. Because if we are not sympathetic to a cause we are
not even inclined to listen to it, let alone do anything about it.
Forms of political art that are too crude can be polarizing. You can
fall into a trap of fundamentalism and extremism; before you know it,
polarization is created. Neutral is not good either, because it is
sitting on the fence, neither here nor there. I think political art,
if it is to be really effective, should have a healing and
instructional (educating) effect on the audiences. The strength of
"Sojourn at Ararat" lies in the fact that it is based on poetry, which
in itself is an art form with much healing capacity. Then the way
these poems are put together brings forward messages that have healing
effects particular to specific themes and issues.
Q: Your show "Sojourn At Ararat" seems to make great works of
literature speak for themselves, but that raises another issue. Why
would we expect Armenian literature have credibility in Turkey or vise
versa. Would you expect Turkish literature to have credibility in
Armenia?
Yes, the credibility is very easy to establish once the two sides hear
about their respective literatures because deep inside they are
soooooooo similar! In another show called "Nannto Nannto" (the last
line from a Japanese Haiku), I have used works from Nazim Hikmet, one
of the (if not the) greatest Turkish poet of the 20th century, and
juxtaposed it with Gevork Emin’s work. He is a poet from Soviet
Armenia who died recently. The particular poems were called
"Memleketim" (My country in the case of Hikmet) and "Yes Hay Em" (I am
Armenian). In the case of Emin, and when you hear his descriptive
passages, you would think either it is the continuation of a Hikmet
poem, or at best that both poets were inspired and wrote about the
same thing, place… their homeland!!!! It was eerie!
Q: Don’t events of today sort of "call the question" of this play?
A: Of course, now more than ever it is time to hear this play out. The
play is an answer to the negationists in Turkey and its al d deny the
very fact of the Armenian Genocide, just as there are those who would
deny the World War II Holocaust against the Jews.
But the sad truth is that Armenians have not yet had their
Nuremburg. Turkey owes Armenians an apology, in order for normal
relations to be established and survive.. Turkey needs to apologize
for its own peace of mind and for the well being of the future
generations. There are lots of young progressive Turks and slightly
older progressive intellectuals in Turkey as I mentioned earlier who
favor rapprochement on the human and intellectual level. These people
are all severely persecuted in Turkey and even killed, as was the case
with the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink a couple of years ago. He was
gunned down in mid day in front of his office. There is a whole
generation in Turkey that is conscious of the burden of the Genocide
and wants to get rid of it by coming out and accepting responsibility
for it, by making amends and proceeding to a peaceful existence. It is
the powers that be, and the dirty political considerations that are in
the way of all this. Also, it is not easy to reverse decades of denial
and suddenly say, "OK, OK we did it!!!" Although when you owe a person
an apology, sometimes the simplest thing to do is just to say, "I am
sorry."
Just as "Schindler’s List" speaks eloquently against denial of the
Jewish Holocaust, we hope that plays like ours can deflect denial of
the Armenian Genocide now, at this crucial time, when normalization of
relations between Turks and Armenians seems a real possibility. The
more the world is educated, the more it is difficult to feed it lies
and at some point or another the truth has to emerge..
ABOUT NORA ARMANI
Nora Armani is an actor and playwright who has represented the
Ministry of Culture of Armenia in Cinema (from 1991-93) and organizes
events with International Film festivals as a guest curator, promoting
Armenian Cinema wordwide (at AFI film fest, Kennedy Center Washington
D.C., Portland, Denver, Paris, London, other parts of the UK.). She
and Gerald Papasian are the authors and performers of "Sojourn to
Ararat," the world stage’s leading performance of Armenian poetry in
English.
See:
Armani is also author-performer of a one woman show, "On the Couch
with Nora Armani," which also deals with issues of Armenian history
though grandmother’s story. See:
ry/20091218171644jnyc.nb/topstory.html