K.M. Greg Sarkissian, President, Zoryan Institute
From: “Executive Director, Zoryan Institute” <gshirinian@zoryaninstitute.org>
George Shirinian, Executive Director Zoryan Institute
255 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite 310
Toronto, ON
Canada M3B 3H9
Tel: 416-250-9807 Fax: 416-512-1736
The Centennial Commemoration Is About Truth, Memory and Justice, Not Hatred
K.M. Greg Sarkissian, President, Zoryan Institute
January 5, 2015
It is 2015. Soon, we will start commemorating the centennial of the Armenian
Genocide and pay tribute to the memory of some 1.5 million victims of the
Young Turk regime of the Ottoman Empire. We will also pay tribute to the
memory of those few Turks, Kurds, Arabs and others who risked their own
lives to help Armenians escape certain death.
There are several reasons why we should remember especially those courageous
Turks who, first and foremost, objected to the mass deportation and murder
of their Armenian neighbors by their own government and countrymen. Second,
they did not become by-standers, and swayed by religious piety and their
respect for human life and dignity saved some of the Armenians, with
compassion and care. Third, it gives a more positive basis for Turks and
Armenians to look together at 1915 as part of their shared history.
No one knows how many individual acts of courage and humanity occurred
during that period of horror and death. One such person, Haji Khalil, a
devoted Muslim and a righteous Turk, was my grandfather’s business partner.
He had promised my grandfather he would care for his family in case of
misfortune. When the disaster greater than anything either of them could
have imagined struck, my grandfather, Krikor, was hung just for being an
Armenian. But Haji Khalil kept his promise. He hid my grandmother, her
sister and their seven children in the attic of his house in Urfa for almost
a year. He fed and cared for them and saw them to safety to Aleppo. He did
this knowing well that whoever saved Armenians could have shared their fate
of death and destruction.
Some twenty years ago, in April of 1995, I shared the story of Haji Khalil
from the podium at an International conference entitled, “Problems of
Genocide” in Yerevan, which the Zoryan Institute had co-sponsored with the
Armenian government. I concluded my speech by saying,
I want to extend my hand to the people of Turkey, to ask them to remember
that though at one time their state was led by mass murderers, they also had
their Haji Khalils, and that it would honor the memory of the latter to
acknowledge the overwhelming truth of the Genocide, to express regrets, so
that the healing process may begin between our two peoples.
As a result of my speech, one of the scholars participating in the
conference, Taner Akçam, approached me with tears in his eyes, hugged me and
started telling me things in Turkish that I could not understand. But, I
could feel his warmth and his sincerity in trying to tell me that he
acknowledged and shared the trauma and the pain that I was experiencing at
that moment. The next day we attended a memorial service in Etchmiadzin, the
Holy See of Armenian Church. There, I took him by the hand and asked him to
join me in lighting two candles, one in memory of my grandfather lit by him,
and another, which I lit in memory of Haji Khalil. Then we embraced and
promised each other that we would do everything possible to bring our
peoples together by preserving the legacy and the memory of that righteous
human being, Haji Khalil, and through him, undermine denial and promote
truth and justice.
Since that encounter in 1995, Dr. Akçam has written many well respected and
influential books and articles, published in several languages, about the
Armenian Genocide and the violence perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks. His
works demonstrate how the Ottoman Government, led by the Union and Progress
Party, inspired by the ideology of pan-Turanism and dreams of imperial
expansion, carried out the planned destruction of their own fellow citizens,
the entire Armenian population in its ancestral homeland for three
millennia.
During the next ten years, from 1995 to 2005, numerous tentative contacts
were made between Turks and Armenians. Some on an individual basis, some in
academic forums, where research and scholarship was shared and exchanged
between Turkish and Armenian scholars. Some, such as the Workshop on
Armenian-Turkish Studies or WATS, used virtual communication to facilitate
dialogue between Armenians and Turks. Some Turkish scholars visited various
research centres, such as the Zoryan Institute and the Armenian Studies
Chairs, to learn about the research conducted and/or to view oral history
testimonies of the survivors of the Genocide. Some 15 Turkish students have
attended the Comparative Genocide Course run by the Zoryan Institute with
the University of Toronto some continued their studies to become recognized
specialists of the Armenian Genocide.
Some businessmen organized official forums, such as the Turkish Armenian
Business Development Council, to promote trade between the two countries,
hoping that trade would be the best way to bring these two peoples together.
Attempts were made even by the Armenian government a few years ago, through
the so called `football diplomacy’ for rapprochement with the Turkish
government. This was followed by the signing of the as yet unratified
“Protocols.”
All of these efforts were attempts to bring about a change in the attitudes
of these two peoples, who continued to see each other through the prism of
the events 1915 as unchanging and monolithic enemies. Unfortunately, more
work is needed by both Turkish and Armenian civil societies to raise
awareness about the events of 1915, to encourage the Turkish state to change
its narrative.
There were strong voices that wanted to reclaim history as a legacy that
needed to be recognized, and thus pressed their government to abolish all
obstacles to this process. For example, the series of events since 1995,
described above, led to the first public conference on Armenian issues which
was organized by Turkish academics and intellectuals and took place in
Istanbul on May 25, 2005, entitled “Ottoman Armenians during the Decline of
the Empire: Issues of Scientific Reasonability and Democracy.” Some of the
participants at this conference were scholars and intellectuals who were in
continuous contact with their Armenian counterparts. The conference was
condemned and criticized by the Turkish authorities. Just one day before the
conference, then Turkish Justice Minister Cemil Cicek accused those who
organized and participated in the conference of treason, calling them
traitors to their country, condemning the initiative as a blow to the
government’s attempts to counter a mounting Armenian campaign to have the
killings recognized internationally as genocide. He went as far as stating,
“This is a stab in the back to Turkish nation…” As a result, some of these
Turkish scholars, intellectuals and media representatives were charged,
persecuted and even jailed by Turkish authorities.
Since 2005, the Turkish government has continued its unrelenting denial
policy in spite of civil society wanting to know more about their own
history. The denial policies of the deep state, continued by the current
Turkish government, have led to hatred, discrimination and incitement of
violence towards the remaining Armenians in Turkey. This policy culminated
in the killing of Hrant Dink, the editor of AGOS newspaper, who had openly
challenged the narrative of the government as an obstacle to democracy in
Turkey. Hrant Dink’s murder by a Turkish ultranationalist impacted not only
the Armenian community in Turkey, but also the Kurdish, Yezidi, Alevi and
other minorities, who saw the assassination as a major blow to freedom of
thought and speech and to their aspiration for cultural and religious
freedom.
Those who fear that Turkey will succeed “to neutralize the effect of the
Armenian side’s preparations for the centennial of the Armenian Genocide,”
do not sufficiently believe in the power of historical truth. No matter what
Turkey does through its policy of denial, it cannot avoid the facts of
history. Fear of Turkish “penetration” of Armenian society, in the Diaspora
and/or in Armenia, concern about causing “domestic disagreements” to “take
control of society” reduces Armenians and Armenia to hapless victims rather
than aware, independent adults who are able to articulate and defend their
national interest.
All denial attempts, whether that be by distorting history or cajoling
certain members of Armenian society to cooperate with them, have not helped
Turkey in controlling Armenian society. On the contrary, they have only
strengthened the resolve of Armenians worldwide to mobilize for
acknowledgement and restorative justice because Armenians collectively are
fully aware of their history and the profoundly devastating effects of
genocide on their nation.
“To speak well of the Turks that saved Armenians” actually helps
contextualize and bring home for Turks what the Armenian Genocide was all
about. One cannot talk about Turks who saved Armenians without explaining
what it is they saved the Armenians from. This can only help promote shared
knowledge of history and a past that both societies can talk about to each
other, on a common basis of understanding and without any fear of
persecution. Hopefully this can lead to dialogue and eventually
reconciliation.
We must have hope that the human values, fortified with the knowledge of
historical truth, will eventually empower Turkish civil society to demand
its government more effectively to embrace the facts of history. Without
that, there will be no true democracy and therefore no security for any
individual or collective in that country.
Such empowerment is already evident by the fact that currently, two Turkish
human rights organizations are partnering with the International Institute
for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, (A Division of the Zoryan Institute)
to jointly submit a brief to the European Court of Human Rights in the
Perinçek case – a matter of genocide denial – documenting his discriminatory
and racist activities and statements against Armenians in Turkey and
Switzerland. Such instances of co-operation strengthen contacts between the
two societies and serve as evidence of the power of shared universal human
values.
We cannot be oblivious to the changes happening in Turkey. Armenians have a
role in helping Turkish society learn and understand the indisputable facts
of the Armenian Genocide through education, dialogue and contacts on all
levels of Turkish society. This is a critical process in order to emancipate
both societies from this problem of enmity, prejudice and hatred.
Yorumlar kapatıldı.