Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
April 18 2015

Beyond the genocide debate

VERDA Ã-ZER

`Prime Minister ErdoÄ?an’s statement of condolence to the Armenians was
a milestone in Turkey’s history.’

This was the first sentence of my column in daily Hürriyet on April 26
last year.

The then Prime Minister ErdoÄ?an had made an unprecedented move in
Turkish history by issuing an official statement offering condolences
to Armenians on April 24, the 99th anniversary of the Armenian
massacres.

This year, however, April 24 arrives in Turkey in a totally different
atmosphere. The declaration of Pope Francis last Sunday that `the
Armenian Genocide is the first genocide of the 20th century’ and the
resolution adopted by the European Parliament last week urging Turkey
to recognize the genocide have rekindled the longstanding genocide
debate in the country.

In my piece last year, I described ErdoÄ?an’s message of condolence as follows:

`For the first time, Turkey has not denied and has accepted the grief
of Armenians. For the first time it has spoken with its conscience,
saying `mutual history’ and `mutual pain.’ For the first time Turkey
has eliminated third parties and addressed the Armenians directly. For
the first time it has not been defensive and it has taken
responsibility. For the first time Turkey has emphasized a mutual
future with the Armenians.’

Up until then, the official paradigm had been different. The
non-Muslim community in Turkey was eliminated through different ways
during the Republican era. The population exchanges between Turkey and
Greece, the Wealth Tax imposed by the state only on non-Muslims, and
the fact that the assassination of the Turkish-Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink in 2007 was overlooked by various state officials, are only
some of the illustrations of this mentality.

By ignoring the Armenian massacres of 1915 until last year, the state
kept that mentality alive. The message of condolence therefore
signaled the process of confrontation with the issue.

However this was only a phase of a long process. The organization of a
conference titled `Ottoman Armenians During the Decline of the Empire’
in Istanbul in 2006, the online campaign titled `I Apologize,’ which
was launched in 2008 and which collected over 30,000 signatures, and
the protocols signed by Turkey and Armenia in 2009 were the
cornerstones of this process.

But there has also been another process in progress – between the West
and the Armenian diaspora. The European Parliament had also issued a
resolution recognizing the genocide, like the recent one, in 1987.
Pope Francis’ recent message had also previously been issued in a
written statement by Pope John Paul II in 2001.

What we need to recognize is that these two processes are not
independent of each other. Turkey gets distressed and shaken by every
step taken by the West and the diaspora. And this, in turn, runs the
tape back and damages the process of confronting history. Vice versa,
every counter-attack of Ankara affects the diaspora negatively.

Alas, we have been stuck in this vicious circle for decades.

The only way to break this cycle is to continue the confrontation
process in Turkey no matter what, instead of reacting sharply and
reviving the pre-2014 mentality every time the issue arises.

The next step could be issuing an apology to the Armenians, whose pain
we shared last year, and offering to grant Turkish citizenship to the
descendants of Armenians who were displaced or killed.
Only such steps will be able to take us beyond the genocide debate.

What’s more, we should recognize that this has become a very
artificial and hypocritical discussion. Politicians everywhere refer
to the Armenian massacres according to the varying conditions of the
day.

Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan had described the massacres as
genocide in 1981, while President Obama gets through April 24 every
year by avoiding the term `genocide’ and instead using `Meds Yeghern’
(Great Catastrophe). At the same time, however, Obama states that his
personal view – that he recognizes the genocide – has not changed.

Last but not least, it is not enough to expect only the state to
confront the past. Ordinary people themselves also need to face the
traumas.

The public apology issued by the Lebanese artist Rabih Mroue regarding
the Civil War in Lebanon between 1975-90 could serve as a guiding
light:

`I apologize for having thought that my comrades and I were right and
always on the right track. I apologize for not knowing the reasons and
the roots of the civil war, which I claimed to understand.’

It is time to question ourselves: Do we know the reasons and roots of
the traumas of Armenians? Do we think that we are always right?

April/18/2015

From: A. Papazian