A New Kind of Armenian-Turkish Reconcilation
Feb 23 2012
by Jennifer Manoukian
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[image: [Cover of] [Cover of “Les petits-enfants”]
In October 2011, the newly renovated Sourp Giragos Armenian Apostolic
Church reopened in Turkey’s southeastern province of Diyarbakir. Among the
hundreds gathered to celebrate its first mass in over ninety years were
localmen
and women who had chosen the occasion to be baptized into the Armenian
Apostolic Church. Raised as Sunni Muslims, these men and women were the
children and grandchildren of Armenians who had converted to Islam to
escape persecution in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.
Living in a society that glorified cultural homogeneity and in a country
that still bore the scars of its Ottoman past, the first generation of
converts often kept their Armenian heritage hidden from their children.
They integrated into the communities around them and adopted, at least
outwardly, a new
language,
religion, culture, and identity.
Less encumbered by the fear that silenced their parents and grandparents,
the grandchildren of these Armenians have recently begun to dig into their
family histories and to discuss their backgrounds with a kind of pride
uncharacteristic of previous generations.
This growing trend in Turkey that values multicultural identities-and, in
the process,
exposes the absurdity of purity as a cultural ideal-rails against the
Turkish nationalist model of identity that has become familiar to those who
follow Turkish politics. But it is not the government that is fostering
change; it is members of the civil society who are taking the matter of
identity into their own hands.
These themes have been most notably explored through personal accounts of
the grandchildren of converted Armenians. In examining the impact that the
discovery of Armenian ancestry has had on their own identity construction,
the grandchildren attest to the possibility of multiple belongings. This is
a concept that unhinges the common adversarial depiction of Armenian and
Turkish nationalism advanced by states and leaders and inspires a more
fluid, inclusive understanding of identity, where both Turkish and Armenian
elements can coexist within an individual.
Crypto-Armenians: Then and Now
While the international community is well acquainted with the plight of
Armenians driven from Anatolia in 1915, it has only been in the past decade
that attention has been focused on the Armenians who stayed in Turkey=80’known
as `crypto-Armenians,’ `Islamicized Armenians,’ or, more disparagingly, as
`leftovers of the sword.’
Although a small fraction of the pre-1915 Armenian community preserved its
language and culture in Istanbul after Turkey’s founding in 1923, most
Armenians who remained in Turkey faded into the social fabric of rural
towns and villages across Anatolia. But, in recent years, these men and
women are being pulled from obscurity with increased momentum, thanks in
part to the 2004 publication of Fethiye Ã=87etin’s memoir, Anneannem [My
Grandmother
].
In this groundbreaking text, Ã=87etin-a Turkish human rights activist and
lawyer best known abroad as legal counsel for the family of slain
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink-recounts her grandmother’s personal
history. Her grandmother, born Heranoush to an Armenian family, was taken
from her mother and siblings by a Turkish gendarme during the death marches
in 1915. She was renamed Å=9Eeher, was raised as a Turk, and repressed
all
memory of her Armenian past until the very end of her life.
Ã=87etin’s pioneering account reverberated across Turkey, resonating
particularly with families who had uncovered similar stories in their own
personal histories. In some cases, My Grandmother prompted these families
to discuss their Armenian ancestry openly and without shame, leading to the
publication of another unparalleled work, written with AyÅ=9Fe Gül Altınay,
Torunlar [The Grandchildren], published in French as Les
petits-enfants
.
Les petits-enfants is a series of personal accounts by twenty-five
grandchildren of converted Armenians, originally published in
Turkishin 2009 and
translated into French by Célin Vuraler in 2011. In these
interviews, the grandchildren piece together what
they know about their grandparents’ childhoods and families, explain
how their grandparents were integrated into Sunni or Alevi communities, and
describe their relationship with them.
The startling, often brutal way that the grandchildren discovered their
grandparents’ Armenian ancestries, rattling whatever clear conception they
had of their identities up until that point, is a key feature of each
account. For example, one grandchild, the celebrated poet Bedrettin Aykin,
remembers first learning of his family’s past unexpectedly when a friend’s
mother referred to his mother as `the young infidel,’ leading him to
question his mother about their origins. Having been treated as a secret
within their families and a source of shame within their society, the
discovery of Armenian heritage often came as a shock to these grandchildren
and forced them to reevaluate the way they understood themselves and their
relationships to their communities.
These painful recollections are nevertheless interspersed with bittersweet
indications-obvious only in hindsight-of the past their grandparents kept
hidden from view. One granddaughter recalls that her grandmother preferred
to be called Satenig rather than Süreyya, the Turkish name on her identity
card; only when talking about her grandmother to an Armenian friend did she
realize that Satenig was, in fact, an Armenian name. Another grandchild
remembers coloring eggs with her grandmother every year in the early
spring, entirely unaware, at the time, of the insight it gave into her
grandmother’s Christian upbringing.
Grappling with Latent Armenian Identity
The grandchildren-raised as Turks, Kurds, or Alevis, speaking Turkish,
Kurdish, or Zaza, and practicing, to varying degrees, Sunni Islam or
Alevism-reacted to the news of their grandparents’ Armenian heritage in
ways representative of the diversity among them. Most took the opportunity
to read more about Armenians; a great number of grandchildren cited the
work of novelists Migirdiç Margosyan, Elif Shafak, and Kemal Yalçin as
fundamental in humanizing an unfamiliar yet vilified group of people. Many
also began to read about Ottoman Armenian history, and in the process,
challenged the depiction of Armenians as wicked traitors, which had been
instilled in them at school and in their larger society from an early age.
Some grandchildren were intrigued by the religious piece of their Armenian
ancestry, which prompted them to study the intersections between
Christianity and Islam or, like those baptized at Sourp Giragos last
October, to convert to the faith in which their grandparents were raised.
Although the conclusions that each grandchild drew from his or her
discovery varied considerably, each was compelled to reflect on his or her
identity and how this new revelation would impact it. For some, their
grandparents’ past had no effect on how they conceived of their identity.
One grandchild reflects: `I was born in Turkey. I am Turkish. I am
Muslim.
Should I, all of a sudden, become Armenian and go to Yerevan?’ Or:
`Up until today, I have never felt Turkish, Kurdish, or Armenian, even after
learning of my family’s history. I don’t identify with any of these
nationalities. I don’t want to be attached to anywhere.’
The absence of a single, dominant identity and the significance of
multiculturalism are themes repeated in a significant number of accounts.
After an initial period of crisis and uncertainty, many of the
grandchildren came to value belonging to an eclectic mix of communities:
`I have Armenian, Kurdish, and Turkish cultures. I know all of them well and I
am the product of what they represent. But I don’t know how to respond when
one asks me if I am Turkish, Kurdish, or Armenian. I am a bit of all
three.’ This emphasis on multiple affiliations illustrates a flexible, more
inclusive understanding of identity-a break with the prevailing nationalist
conceptualization that so often attempts to place people into neat
categories that do not represent reality.
Hybrid Identities
There is something hopeful to be said about a generation that can see
beyond artificial constructs of nationhood and has the confidence to
formulate identities based on its own individual experiences. After
successful attempts by their grandparents to assimilate into the dominant
culture, and desperate attempts by their parents to conceal any suggestion
of their otherness, these grandchildren are bravely rejecting their
society’s taboos by acknowledging and, in many cases, embracing their
Armenian ancestry. In his interview, one grandchild eloquently comments on
the dangers of identity suppression so common in past generations:
I don’t wish for anyone to hide their true identity or to mask past errors.
I think that people become much more extremist when they hide their pasts
and protect themselves by diverting attention. [Bülent] Ecevit, wanting to
erase his Kurdish origins, became a Turkish nationalist politician; my
uncle, hoping to make people forget his Armenian ancestry, immersed himself
fervently in Islam. People who are sure of themselves would not exist in
such contradiction.
The shift towards self-acceptance is promising because it indicates that
identities no longer need to be understood as mutually exclusive. One
granddaughter, who considers herself a devout Muslim and has chosen to wear
hijab, celebrates the fact that she is not a `pure Turk’ and credits her
converted Armenian grandmother with teaching her about the faith. She shows
us that a variety of seemingly irreconcilable identities can coexist
harmoniously with one another.
We see this emphasis on coexistence again in the accounts of grandchildren
with extended families whose members belong to communities often understood
to be in perpetual conflict with one another:
I like this diversity very much because my two families, Armenian and
Kurdish, mutually respect each other. For example, when my mother visited
my Armenian family, we would always make them a prayer rug. And my mother,
during Christian holidays, would always make a meal for the occasion. This
proves that it’s completely possible for the two cultures to cohabitate.
Communication and common ground is all that is needed.
Another grandchild shared a similar experience:
In our family, there are Syriacs, Armenians, and Muslims. My aunts-my
mother’s sisters-married Syriacs and live as Syriacs. My sister married an
Armenian. As for my maternal grandparents, they are still Muslim and pray
five times a day. It is a mix of different lifestyles.
These stories are models of exceptionally productive understandings of
identity. Rather than being used as a way to create divisions among people,
these families see identity as a personal code that provides comfort and a
sense of belonging, but that resists politicization and spurns the idea of
boundaries and limitations.
Implications for the Armenian Diaspora
The struggle to formulate identity is not foreign to Armenians living in
the diaspora, who are also exposed to a variety of different cultures and
identities from which to choose. The accounts of these grandchildren are in
fact quite relevant to diasporic experiences and provide an alternative
approach to Armenian identity construction, which encourages a kind of
inclusivity that does not often characterize Armenian communities.
The Armenian diaspora today is composed of descendants of Ottoman Armenians
who, despite having lived in exile for almost a century, still feel a close
connection to their heritage; in some cases, they continue to speak Western
Armenian, a linguistic branch distinct from the one spoken in the Republic
of Armenia today. Scattered in large part across Europe, the Middle East,
and the Americas, the people who comprise the Armenian diaspora have, to
varying degrees, retained aspects of their ancestral culture while at the
same time participating in the societies in which they were raised.
Despite what seems to be fertile ground for the development of dual
identities, Armenians in the diaspora have internalized the idea that
identity fusion makes their Armenian experience somehow inauthentic. A
hierarchy of `Armenianness’- based on the degree to which a person adheres
to a perceived, yet undefined paragon of ethnic perfection-is born
from
these feelings of inauthenticity. This hierarchy is dangerous because there
is no ideal way to understand identity or the factors that influence it;
the sole requirement is for it to have value to the individual. For some,
language may be the most important building block; for others, it may be
food, religion, or music.
Identity is personal, but it becomes public when people create an
environment welcome only to those who subscribe to the same brand of
identity. General feelings of exclusion from the Armenian community are
illustrated in a
commentfrom
Behçet Avci, one of the grandchildren baptized at Sourp Giragos last
October: `We have been ostracized by both Sunni Muslims and Armenians. It
is a very emotional moment for me and I’m a bit upset because unfortunately
we do not belong to either side.’
Understanding that identity is not static, but rather that it is
evolving-constantly being defined and redefined-would encourage others to
see the value in multiple belongings, ease feelings of alienation, and
eliminate the idea that there is a certain kind of ideal Armenian identity
for which to strive.
The accounts of the grandchildren in Les petits-enfants can teach the
diaspora that hybrid identities are not corrosive or threatening; they
enrich one another and, most importantly, they represent reality.
Egyptian-Armenian, American-Armenian, French-Armenian, Syrian-Armenian,
Argentinean-Armenian: hyphenated identities describe lived experiences and
should be appreciated rather than tinged with guilt.
The accounts in Les petits-enfants also implicitly encourage readers to
view each person as an individual with his or her own complex identity, and
not as a representative of a country or a culture. They show us that
prejudices wear away with personal contact, with time, and most
importantly, with knowledge. The grandchildren were forced to come to this
realization abruptly, but by learning from their stories, both Turks and
Armenians can come to this realization more gradually by transcending the
hostility fueled by the nationalist rhetoric on both sides and seeing one
another as individuals above all else.
—
Jennifer Manoukian is a recent graduate of Rutgers University, where
she received her BA in Middle Eastern Studies and French. She is
currently an intern with the Arab Studies Institute, where she does
research for the Forum on Arab and Muslim Affairs. She is interested
in Western Armenian literature and issues of identity and cultural
production in the Armenian diaspora. Her writing on these topics has
appeared in ianyanmag.com and zohrabcenter.com. She also translates
from Western Armenian and has had her translations of writer Zabel
Yessayan featured in araratmagazine.org. She can be reached at
[email protected].
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