The political implications of this situation are worrying intellectuals everywhere. Armenian-Turkish dialogue is already fragile and beset with nationalist propaganda launched continuously from both sides.
Elif SAFAK
We, a group of Turkish intellectuals, are sending a letter to Armenian President Robert Kocharian. The letter concerns Yektan Türkyýlmaz, a Turkish citizen and academic in the United States who has been held by the National Security Service, which is still referred to as KGB headquarters, in Yerevan since June 17.
Türkyýlmaz is doing his Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at Duke University. He can speak Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, French, English and Armenian. He has received several prestigious awards for his academic work, including the John Hope Franklin Institute Fellowship and the International Dissertation Field Research Program Award from the Social Science Research Council. Most recently he was undertaking research in the Armenian National Archives and significantly, he was the first Turkish citizen to have been given access to these archival sources. He had ventured to study a very difficult and thorny theme by undertaking critical ethnographic and archival research on Anatolian culture and demography. He particularly focused on a highly turbulent period extending from the 1900s to the 1940s by managing to stay equally distant from and objectively independent vis-à-vis the competing nationalist projects that had once pummeled the region and are still alive today. By using Armenian, Turkish and English sources, his research was developed upon a multilingual, multicultural and interdisciplinary ground, nourished by the crossroads of the disciplines of anthropology, geography and history.
Needless to say, very few Turkish scholars have hitherto dared to delve into similar subjects. Even when they did, very few went this far. More importantly, though he has chosen a highly politicized and polarized theme as his dissertation topic, Türkyýlmaz is first and foremost an independent scholar and an objective researcher.
As part of his academic work Türkyýlmaz had been collecting books, both as a researcher and a bibliophile. He would buy books from second-hand bookstores, an entirely and unquestionably legal purchase. Apparently, this passion for books was to become an unforgivable sin. Failing to realize he would need permission to take books out of Armenia, he was arrested at Yerevan Airport. In addition to the books in question, all his research material and CDs were confiscated.
Türkyýlmaz unknowingly violated an old law. He did not know it was a crime to take books out of Armenia; no one had warned him about this. He did not know that he had to “declare” all books over 50 years of age at customs. Armenian authorities could have confiscated his books or asked him to pay a fine, but instead he is being held in prison and treated like a nuclear weapons smuggler. Below is Article 215 of Armenian Criminal Code that forms the very basis of Türkyýlmaz’s arrest and indictment.
“Contraband of narcotic drugs, neurological, strong, poisonous, poisoning, radioactive or explosive materials, weapons, explosive devices, ammunition, fire-arms, except smoothbore long barrel hunting guns, nuclear, chemical, biological or other mass destruction weapons, or dual-use materials, devices, technologies that can also be used for the creation or use of mass destruction or missile delivery systems thereof, strategic raw materials or cultural values for the transportation of which special rules are established, is punishable with imprisonment of between four to eight years, with or without confiscation of the relevant property…”
Understandably, Türkyýlmaz made a mistake by failing to get special permission for the books in his suitcase. But obviously he is not a drug dealer or nuclear weapons smuggler. He is a scholar, an independent-minded researcher whose only mistake was to take the research material he was studying along with him on his flight back from Armenia. Even if he did make a mistake, he did so unknowingly, there is a huge disproportion between the crime he committed and the price he is being asked to pay.
The political implications of this situation are worrying intellectuals everywhere. Armenian-Turkish dialogue is already fragile and beset with nationalist propaganda launched continuously from both sides. Against this delicate background there are very few scholars who have been able to put critical, objective research in front of ideological or political agendas. There are not many people capable of bridging the tormenting gap between Armenian and Turkish cultures. I sincerely hope and respectfully urge Armenian authorities and the Armenian president to intervene in order to bring this sad and unexpected episode to an amicable end.
Armenian-friendly Turks and Turk-friendly Armenians have already had their share of sorrow. We have already had enough grief in our common history. We all need Türkyýlmaz to be freed.
Yorumlar kapatıldı.