THE ECONOMIST WAS IT GENOCIDE?

April 16 2015

As the centenary of the Ottoman empire’s slaughter of the Armenians
approaches, the truth is still contested

Apr 18th 2015 | ISTANBUL

“ON ALL the roads we traversed between Yozgat and Kayseri, about
80 per cent of the Muslims we encountered (there were no Christians
left in these parts) were wearing European clothes, bearing on their
persons proof of the crimes that they had committed. Barefoot peasant
boys wore formal clothes; men sported gold chains and watches.” Thus
wrote Grigoris Balakian, an Armenian Orthodox priest who witnessed
the aftermath of the mass slaughter of his ethnic brethren by Ottoman
forces in 1915-16. On April 24th 1915, scores of Armenian intellectuals
were rounded up in Istanbul and most were later murdered. But as the
centenary approaches, what followed is still bitterly contested.

Turkey claims that around 500,000 Armenians died of hunger and disease
en route to the Syrian desert. They were being deported, it says,
because Armenian revolutionaries were siding with Russia against the
Ottomans during the first world war. Survivors and their scattered
descendants put the toll as high as 1.5m, insist the deaths were
largely intentional rather than a regrettable side-effect, and want
the events recognised as genocide. A growing number of academics and
governments agree and use the term. But Turkey is mounting a vigorous
counter-campaign. “I refuse to let my forefathers be equated with
Hitler,” fumes a Turkish diplomat.

Disagreeing with the official version can be interpreted as a crime
in Turkey, and brings other risks, too. Hrant Dink, an intrepid
Turkish newspaper editor of Armenian extraction, was shot dead by
a nationalist teenager in 2007 after revealing that Sabiha Gokcen,
the adopted daughter of Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founder, was an
Armenian who had been orphaned during the genocide. There is mounting
evidence that rogue security officials orchestrated his killing.

The particular power in labelling an atrocity “genocide”

The crime proved a surprising turning point. Over 100,000 people,
many of whom had probably never heard of Mr Dink before, attended
his funeral. The wall of denial began to collapse. Books cataloguing
the horrors endured by the Armenians, such as “Black Dog of Fate”
by Peter Balakian, Grigoris Balakian’s great-nephew, are now
available in Turkish. The government has begun, albeit slowly, to
hand back confiscated Armenian church properties. A year ago Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, the president, became the first Turkish leader to
acknowledge Armenian suffering under the Ottoman empire when he offered
condolences. Three big political parties, including Mr Erdogan’s own
Justice and Development party (AK), are fielding Armenian candidates
for winnable seats in the election on June 7th, a first.

Turkey’s Kurdish leaders have formally apologised for their people’s
role in the massacres. In the Kurdish-dominated province of Diyarbakir,
where Armenians once made up almost half the population, the district
of Sur is offering free Armenian lessons. In the neighbouring province
of Sirnak, some “hidden Armenians”, whose ancestors converted to Islam
to avoid being killed, celebrated Easter this year with other locals,
both Christians and Muslims.

Both in Armenia, where nearly half the population is descended from
Ottoman Armenians, and in the diaspora, long-nursed grievances are
beginning to give way to curiosity about the “old country”. Hundreds
are coming to Istanbul and Diyarbakir for commemorative events around
the centenary. Khatchig Mouradian, an ethnic Armenian born in Lebanon
who now lives in America, organises “pilgrimages” for far-flung
Armenians to “Western Armenia” (their name for eastern Turkey). Armed
with long-guarded hand-drawn maps, they seek out their ancestors’
homes and pray at ruined monasteries for their souls.

Not even past

But the thaw goes only so far. In previous years Turkey has
commemorated the allied landings at Gallipoli in 1915 on April 25th.

This year it is shifting events to April 24th, some say to distract
from the centenary of the Armenian massacres. An art installation
planned in Geneva to mark the Armenian centenary has been blocked by
the Swiss government–because of Turkish pressure, insiders say.

In Syria, Turkey is accused of standing by or even helping Islamist
rebels to take cities including Kobane and the mainly Armenian border
town of Kassab, which fell last March. Kassab has since come back
under the control of Bashar Assad’s regime, allowing residents to
return. But the episode revived bitter memories of the final spasm
of violence in 1916, when tens of thousands of Armenians camped in
the desert province of Deir ez-Zor were slaughtered. It will take
more than condolences to heal such deep wounds.