Gallipoli as a litmus paper
12:53, 19 January, 2015
100 days later, when the Armenian people will commemorate the victims
of the one of the crimes of the century – the Armenian Genocide on
April 24, the country, which carried out that crime, will hold a
celebration. By all means, Turkey never used that symbolic date as an
occasion to understand the pain of the other people, reassess the
history or to repent.
But this time, they will openly hold a celebration on the official
level without additional formalities. If it is not so, then how can
one explain the fact that the commemoration of the anniversary of the
Battle of Gallipoli (Çanakkale), which was usually marked on March 18
for years, has been moved to April 24 in the Turkish calendar? But
this is not the question of questions as well…
It is now a fact that modern Turkey does not merely deny the Armenian
Genocide, but also turns the pain of the Armenians into an occasion of
holding a festival referring to the commemoration of the anniversary
of the Battle of Gallipoli, as a justification. Denialism seems to be
a simple game in comparison with this. It was not surprising for any
individual, who has slightest idea about the Armenian-Turkish
relations, that the political elite of Turkey will take all the
startling steps advancing the 100th anniversary of Armenian Genocide.
Unfortunately, there are all bases to assume that this is the
beginning of new provocations by Ankara advancing the Armenian
Genocide centennial.
Undoubtedly, Erdogan’s next step was even more cynical – among the
other world leaders, he sent an invitation to the Armenian President
and received a self-restrained and honorable reply from a country that
mourns the massacre of its 1,5 million sons, but moves forward to the
future. Erdogan’s invitation to Gallipoli sent to over 100 leaders of
the world is now a litmus paper and a unique measuring instrument of
value perceptions.
For the Turkish state, this statement is an elimination and end of the
incomplete and fake condolences offered to the Armenian people in
April of the last year; for those taking an observers position, this
is an opportunity to remove the pharisaical mark of equality put
between the Armenians and the Turks; for us, this is a proof of the
truth enclosed in Homer’s lines saying that “wolves and lambs have no
concord.”
The ruins of Troy are not far from the Greek Gallipoli, which was
renamed to Çanakkale. Those walls witnessed the war, which became a
source of inspiration of ancient poetry. The cause of defeat in that
war was the gift, which was taken inside the gates of the impregnable
city to hold a celebration. The wooden horse – the trap of the
Achaeans, with the enemy’s soldiers hidden inside of it, ruined Troy
and as Virgil states it became a warning: “Beware Danae bearing
gifts.”
Now, Erdogan’s invitation is the horse, and the value basis,
encouraging the denial of the crimes against humanity, are the
soldiers, on which the Turkish President constructs his call. About
the soldiers, by the way… Few weeks after overcoming the threat of
losing the Battle of Gallipoli on March 1915, the Ottoman Empire began
realizing the program of total annihilation of the Armenians.
Erdogan declares that Armenians also participated in the Battle of
Gallipoli. This is a popular historical fact, but he has chosen a
wrong target in this case as well, to remember the Armenian soldiers
of the Ottoman army. I’m not certain how many cases one can encounter
in the history of the organized and mass elimination of the servicemen
of its own army solely because of their ethnicity, but the fact that
the Ottoman army became the cemetery of its Armenian servicemen is
certain not for me alone, but for a number of my colleagues studying
the history of the Ottoman army. The Armenians recruited to the
Turkish army in 1914 were disarmed and stage by stage sent to the
working battalions, where they were brutally murdered. Even the
Turkish archives state that only few hundred out of the tens of
thousands Armenian conscripts survived in the end of the WW I.
The elimination of Armenian soldiers was one of the stages of the
Armenian Genocide, though which the Armenians were even deprived of
the opportunity to protect their lives and dignity. The elimination of
the soldiers was followed by the mass massacres of the Armenian
intellectuals on April 24, as well as of unprotected women, children
and the old people. It is this crime that Ankara doesn’t want to
accept, it is this day of mass murder that Turkey wants to celebrate
hiding behind the Battle of Gallipoli, thus passing to the massive
attempt of destroying the memory of the Armenian people.
I don’t know whether the people, who’ll go to Gallipoli (and there can
be such, as this trap was meant to turn the representatives of at
least Britain, Australia, and New Zealand into a part of denialism),
will remember that on that very hours, the neighboring country marks
the remembrance day of the victims of the genocide carried out by the
Turkish empire, but the thousands of people, who’ll be in Yerevan on
that day, will make a realized choice for the sake of future, human
rights, and prevention of new genocides.
On April 24, the Tzitzernakaberd memorial will become the centre of
magnetic attraction of those people. And avoiding from the Gallipoli
trap will become a litmus paper for many, which will show everything
in a simple and unvarnished way.
Aram Ananyan
Director of Armenpress News Agency
Doctor of History