TURKEY, ARMENIANS AND THE WORD "GENOCIDE"
Nichole Sobecki
Global Post
421/armenia-genocide-turkey-anniversary
April 23 2010
As Armenians stop to reflect on Ottoman-era mass killings, a survivor
quietly moves on.
VAKIFLI KOYU, Turkey — From the window of 97-year-old Avadis Demirci’s
living room, the view stretches out onto a solitary cobbled road and
the long view of history.
Unlike surrounding villages bustling with activity, here only the
sound of birds and the occasional labored footsteps of another elderly
resident interrupt the quiet.
Demirci’s walls are covered in the framed paintings of his artist son
and portraits of his grandchildren. But his son no longer lives here.
Like most others under the age of 50 he has left.
Perched on top of Musa Dagh, or Mount Moses, Vakifli is Turkey’s last
surviving Armenian village — a relic of eastern Turkey’s once large,
prosperous Armenian community, which was decimated by the deportations
and massacres of 1915 to 1918. And Demirci might well be the last
Armenian survivor of this brutal history left on Turkish soil.
On April 24, groups will gather in town squares and city parks around
the world to commemorate this first genocide of the 20th century,
when more than a million Armenians were killed as the Ottoman Turk
government purged the population. But in lonely Vakifli, the day will
pass without ceremony. No candles will be lit, no speeches read. And
Demirci will sit where he always does and quietly ponder all the
memories that stretch out across the landscape.
Ninety-five years ago, when Demirci was only 2 years old, Turkish
police units marched up to the village. The people from the seven
villages around Musa Dagh took refuge on the mountain, armed with
hunting rifles and pistols. There they stayed for almost two months,
until rescued by an allied French warship which happened to be cruising
the Mediterranean coastline when it spotted two large banners the
Armenians had hoisted. After swimmers went out to meet the ship, the
French called for back-up, transporting the entire population to an
allied refugee camp in Egypt.
Musa Dagh was one of only four places where Armenians managed to
organize an armed defense against forced deportations and slaughter
by the Ottomans.
"I grew up hearing this story," said Demirci. Light from the window
sharpens the delicate web of lines around his eyes, unexpectedly
piercing when compared to the shrunken frailness of his body. "I was
there, even if I was too young to remember."
For those of Demirci’s generation, stories of the brave ascent to
Musa Dagh were legends passed down from their parents. The novel "The
Forty Days of Musa Dagh" — written by the Austrian Franz Werfel 18
years after the villager’s armed resistance — kept the story alive
for later generations.
Armenians worldwide observe the 24th as Genocide Memorial Day, and
the killings are recognized as genocide today by more than a dozen
countries. But while the rest of the world begins to acknowledge the
memories that Demerci carries with him daily, Turkey still vigorously
rejects the claim.
Read about how the efforts of a small but effective Armenian lobby
helped bring the U.S. and Turkey to diplomatic blows.
The politically delicate position of this isolated community has left
them guarded when it comes to the mention of their ethnic origins.
While proud of their identity, most would prefer not to make it a
public issue.
Turkey has long been engaged in an aggressive campaign of forgetting,
keeping any mention of the events of 1915 out of schools and official
narratives and attacking those who choose to speak out.
Roger Smith, co-founder of the International Association of Genocide
Scholars, believes that Turkey’s denial of the genocide is, for many
Turks, more emotion than a question of facts. "They can’t acknowledge
that the country of their forebears did such awful things … That
their polity has as its basis the crime of all crimes: genocide."
The vote by a U.S. congressional committee on March 4 to recognize
the killings of 1915 as genocide has once again placed the Armenian
issue squarely in the center of U.S.-Turkish relations, and prompted
a furious mix of debate and dissent across Turkey.
It can be difficult to understand the degree to which denial of the
genocide is ingrained in Turkish identity, where the killings are
officially considered accidents of war.
"Every Turk is offended by being accused of the worst kind of crime
imaginable," said Kemal Cicek, head of the Armenian Research Group
at the Turkish Historical Society. "They are also offended because
the Turkish people are not racist, and genocide is a crime that only
racists can commit."
A similar line of reasoning was used recently by Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to defend Sudanese President Omar
al-Bashir against charges of genocide in Darfur. Erdogan heralded
Bashir’s innocence, pronouncing: "A Muslim cannot commit genocide."
Here in Turkey, it is the absence of any reminders of what was once
a thriving Armenian community that is most striking.
Successive governments have worked to destroy any evidence of Armenian
existence — from the obliteration of their churches, libraries
and institutes to the crude altering of official Turkish maps and
schoolbooks. UNESCO, in a 1974 study, found that out of 913 Armenian
historical monuments found after 1923 in Eastern Turkey, 464 had
vanished completely, 252 were in ruins and 197 were in need of repair.
Where memorials should exist there are instead open fields.
A trip to the "Hall of Armenian Issue with Documents" at the military
museum in Istanbul reveals walls of photographs showing the mutilated
bodies of Ottoman Turks, yet none of dead Armenians. Images of the
long lines of Armenians being herded out of the country, or killed
along the way, have no place in this museum.
"There are nasty stories in war times, just as you hear from Iraqis and
Afghan people now. However we cannot write history only by relying on
personal experiences," said Cicek. "We should remember all casualties
of the war, not only the Armenians."
When denial is the official policy, speaking against the preferred
version of history can come at a price. The shocking assassination of
Hrant Dink, beloved newspaper editor and voice for Turkey’s Armenians,
by a 17-year-old Turkish nationalist in 2007 had many in Turkey
pondering a choice between living in silence and living in fear.
Why, almost a century after the fact, is Turkey so persistent in its
refusal to acknowledge a genocide?
"I think that the reason is a mixture of fear of the past, a reluctance
to acknowledge guilt on behalf of your fathers and a general concern
about the historical effect of such acknowledgment onto the legitimacy
of the state," said Guenael Mettraux, the author of "The Law of Command
Responsibility" and representative of defendants before international
criminal tribunals. "The very foundation of the state, its legitimacy,
is at stake."
There is, perhaps, an easier explanation: after 95 years of denial
it will take real political capital to come forward about both the
truth and the cover-up. "It is a web of the government’s own spinning,
and they may well feel caught in it," said Smith.
But while Armenians can hardly be expected to set aside their bitter
memories, many in the international community are beginning to question
the tactic of congressional campaigns. The long-dormant debate over the
crimes of Turkey’s past is pushing its way to the surface more strongly
than it has at any time since the modern republic was founded in 1923.
Last December, a group of Turkish intellectuals circulated a petition
that apologized for the denial of the massacres. "My conscience
does not accept the insensitivity showed to, and the denial of,
the Great Catastrophe that the Armenians were subjected to in 1915,"
the brief statement said. "I reject this injustice and for my share,
I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers and
sisters. I apologize to them."
Just last week, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met with
Turkey’s Washington-based diplomats to relay orders for the envoys
to start "opening dialogue" with certain Armenian Diaspora groups in
the United States and Canada.
With Turkey’s budding civil society beginning to question the state’s
version of the events, some worry that pressure from Congress could
make the truth more elusive by stiffening the resolve of nationalists.
"The attempt to write history with the law is a false illusion that
might, if pursued, undermine the quality of justice," Mettraux said.
Mettraux argues that international criminal law provides for ways to
criminalize the conduct of individuals who have taken part in mass
atrocities, not for passing judgment on history.
Still, Demirci remembers. Turning towards the window filled with
bright sunshine, his movements seem suddenly tired. "I will be here,
like always," he said simply.