‘I APOLOGIZE TO ALL ARMENIANS’
ORHAN KEMAL

Today’s Zaman
April 7 2010
Turkey

When I was a child we used to go CeÅ~_me for summer holidays. Cesme
is in the far west of Turkey, 100 kilometers from Ä°zmir on the
west coast.

It is right across from the Greek island of Chios. As soon as you
enter the town you can feel the Greek touch. The narrow roads, the
architecture of the old buildings, they are all Greek. But there are
no Greeks in this town any more. Only their belongings.

I remember my mother told us the same story a couple of times. I
understood she was very moved by this story. One day she saw a Greek
"tourist" who was embracing the columns of a house, stroking the walls,
in CeÅ~_me. My mother immediately understood that this old lady was
the former owner of the house that she was trying to embrace with
both her arms. My mother told us this story with tears in her eyes. I
could not fully understand the significance of the story back then.

I just remembered the following lines from Nazım Hikmet while I was
writing the above anecdote:

"To the Bosporus a ship starts its trip / Nazım gently stroke the
ship / And his hands burn."

If Nazım, who was desperately homesick in Varna, Bulgaria, since he
had to leave Turkey after being declared a traitor in his homeland
because of his political views, could have touched this ship, his
hands would be really burned with his unexplainable longing for his
country. I cannot think of anyone who would tell us what this Greek
woman might be feeling when she was stroking the walls of her house
better than Hikmet would tell us. These kinds of things can only be
told by the language of art, which can get past our daily guards and
can reach our souls.

In the Balkans, in Turkey, in our region, there are too many tragedies,
there are too many sorrows. There are too many stories that wait to be
narrated. I wrote all this after reading a very short article in the
Taraf daily on Monday. I am moved by it. It is very short, very honest
and very humane. Its title is "I apologize to all Armenians." Let’s
read it:

"I hate to brag, but I’m originally from Antakya [How happy is he who
calls himself an Antakyan]. We love our cuisine, which is influenced
by Aleppo and we also love ourselves. These Armenian discussions have
taken me down memory lane, to my forgotten childhood memories.

Let me share:

En route to Samandagı, Hatay, there is an old Armenian village called
Bityas. Its name was later changed to Batıayaz. By Armenian village
I mean Armenians used to live there. Then they were forced to migrate.

My uncle’s daughter’s husband was the governor’s chauffeur. I don’t
know if it was favoritism or not, but he purchased a village home from
there. Don’t mind me calling it a village home; it was more becoming
than the home in which we lived in the city.

The two families, my uncle’s family and ours, along with all
the children, spent a summer in this house. It was a unique and
entertaining vacation. I get a warm feeling inside each time I recall
that summer. Of course this all took place about 65 years ago. My
calculations would say that a large portion of Taraf employees were
not born yet.

Now that I think of it, the owners of this village home had to leave
it so reluctantly, under such difficult conditions…

I would like to apologize to all Armenians, beginning with my brother
Hrant and the Armenians I know through Taraf, [Etyen] Mahcupyan and
[Markar] Esayan.

Necat Yardımcı

Former district governor of Dicle.

I would like to finish this article with another poem from Nazım
Hikmet

"The grocer Karabet’s lights are on.

This Armenian citizen has not forgiven

The slaughter of his father in the Kurdish mountains.

But he loves you,

Because you also won’t forgive

Those who blackened the name of the Turkish people."