ABOUT ARCHIVES ONCE AGAIN
Shahan Kandaharian
Aztag Daily
June 5 2008
Lebanon
For all those who are following the development process of the
Turkish-Armenian relations the name Basken Oran must be a familiar
one. That’s the name of a political scientist who makes his bold
ideas heard in public opinion panels and who is specially known
for his refusal of the rejectionist stances of the government. This
scholar has made for himself an impressionable name that symbolizes
a certain line of convictions.
Lately, Oran made a public statement in the media about Turkish State
Archives. In his criticism Oran pointed out that he has researched
the 1915 state archives twice but in both times he has never seen any
indictments issued against Armenian intellectuals who were arrested
that year.
That statement in itself underlines the fact that the Armenian
intellectuals were arrested and executed without any criminal
accusations. This in turn indicates that the first and foremost purpose
of the Ottoman government was to eliminate the Armenian intellectual
process. And Basken Oran’s statement serves at least as an evidence or
a revelation to this hypothesis. However, how is a statement like this,
which was issued through the media, received by the forces backing
article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code or, to say it more clearly,
what counter-steps is it making them take. The issue is that faced
with such a revelation the rejectionist mechanism has its reasons to
immediately get into action.
It’s obvious that the respective department of the Turkish government,
that boasts of keeping the archives open to everyone, has work to
do. Alarms have set off in the inside, and it’s imperative that the
necessary steps are taken immediately. The reserved approach is not
a surprising or an extraordinary one for those who have appraised
the objectivity and authenticity of the Turkish State Archives. The
historians who have worked and are working with the archives do not
hide their conviction that the archives are "arranged", trying to
use the mildest expression.
Oran’s statement on the one hand underlines the essence of the
genocide policy and on the other hand, perhaps unwillingly, hints
to the necessity of performing a new arrangement in the Turkish
Archives. Indeed, there’s no need to be surprised if in the future
a foreign historian while researching about the above mentioned era
comes across documents indicting Varoujan, Zartarian and Zohrab. This
process of destroying and inventing archives undoubtedly will go on
as long as rejectionism or the denial policy continues.
At this point we unwillingly think of the challenging proposition of
Yousouf Halachoghlu, the head of the Turkish Historian’s Committee,
about the Archives of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF)
party. He promised $20 million for the opening of the Boston Archives.
It’s tempting to write about this; to shed a light on that "genius"
idea, which wavers between ridiculousness and absurdness. Is it worth
it? No, it’s not. The promised $20 million must remain in the budget
of the overall mission of destroying/inventing archives.