Freeing the Pain: Turkish write/lawyer opens dialogue with `hidden’
Armenians in Turkey
Features | 28.09.12 | 15:52
Fethiye Cetin (right) appeared at the Civilitas Foundation on a
program that also included actress Arsineh Khanjian
By Gayane Lazarian
ArmeniaNow reporter
Turkish lawyer, writer and human rights activist Fethiye Cetin, the
author of the memoir entitled `My Grandmother’, says that when her
70-year-old Armenian grandma Hranush was talking about her roots it
felt like easing the burden she had been carrying on her frail
shoulders for years. She was `emptying her soul’ during the declining
years of her life trusting Fethiye with what she had kept in the dark
depths of her memory. Talking about it soothed grandma Hranush’s pain,
and the legacy inspired her granddaughter’s first book.
`My grandmother got liberated from that burden. Our people used to say
that in order to be free of that burden one has to talk about it. My
Hranush grandma developed also another way, she found women like her,
they’d lock the door and talk for hours. At the end of her life she
told me. Regardless of how difficult the story was, I feel lucky to
have learned the truth,’ Cetin said during a meeting at Civilitas
Foundation last week, as part of `Up the Hill’ Armenian-Turkish joint
project. .
Her grandma had many grandchildren but trusted her story only to
Fathiye for one reason: `I was 24, a socialist, was against the
government policy in many issues and always voiced my objections. I
was saying that I’d fight for rights and justice. Knowing all that she
trusted me.’
Years later her grandmother’s nephews invited her to visit the USA.
She put flowers on her grandma’s parents grave, saying: `I apologize
to you for all those who gave you that pain, who divided your family.’
Cetin, who was also Hrant Dink’s attorney and a political prisoner,
says she feels guilty.
`I wasn’t the immediate participant of the 1915 massacre, but
continued the denialist policy, because I still kept silence even
after having learned a lot. And then I wrote this book. When writing I
cried all along: crying and writing, that process was therapeutic for
me. I wrote and felt more at ease. I wrote and put it aside. For a
long time I was unable to read it, just like a runner who has finished
a marathon is so tired he can’t even see,’ recalls Cetin.
Some time later she heard one of the Turkish politicians speak about
Turkey’s policy of denial and without waiting any longer sent her book
to a publisher. `My Grandmother’ became a reason and a path for many
Turkish citizens to reveal that their grandma or grandpa were
Armenian; it helped them rediscover their Armenian identity.
Cetin’s grandmother, Hranush Gadaryan was born in Harpap, people knew
her as a Turkish Muslim. She was an eyewitness and survivor of the
atrocities of the Armenian Genocide. Before she died she confessed to
her granddaughter that she was by birth an Armenian Christian. She had
been taken away from her parents, who got killed, to be raised as a
Muslim by a Turkish military official and was given a Turkish name
Seher.
Cetin’s parents died early, so she was raised by her grandparents.
`We were a Muslim family, lived in one of the villages of Diarbekir.
My grandmother’s story which had a lot of pages to be ashamed of, I
had not read in any textbook. I entered a law faculty to become an
attorney. I was aware that denying was a grave sin, by which we were
further insulting the holders of that pain. I started believing that
the truth was what my grandma had told me. I realized that there was a
need to fight for the rights of Armenians and other ethnic minorities
in Turkey,’ she said.
Cetin says that she is not afraid to openly speak up for Armenians in Turkey.
`I can say one thing: nothing can be solved by being afraid. If you
are just, and want to fight for justice, you have to also consider the
consequences. What is the worst that could happen? My life will be
taken away. But if you are fighting for justice and have a goal, you
feel that your body is not that important. No big difference whether
it happens now or ten years later. I live with that burden and that
heavy weight, and the right way is to fight,’ she says.
After her book was published, Cetin received a call from a young
lawyer from Harpap village who invited her to go visit. The only
surviving relics left from the Armenians that once populated it were
dried out springs standing out for their unique architectural
solutions.
The springs of Harpap got renovated with Hrant Dink foundation’s
initiative. The Turkish culture ministry pitched in to help finance
the repair.
`Now the springs are alive again, with waters flowing gaily. We did
that for the peace of the souls of those who were either murdered or
displaced from their birthplace. I found my grandma’s house and
planted trees in the courtyard. When digging the earth we kept coming
across stones from the ruins of her house. With every hit of the spade
it felt as if the earth was hurting and moaning. We named the trees:
Hranush, Khoren, Iskuhi, Hovhannes, Armine, Lusine, Zeinab.
Conversations with the villagers opened a road through which we were
able to talk about history, face that history and the pain it holds,
and we shared that pain,’ recalls Cetin.
After the opening of the springs people started telling about their
grandparents who were Armenian by birth. Cetin is convinced that the
Turks should gradually accept the tragic events of the past. It won’t
happen immediately, it won’t be easy at first, because it’s been
denied for almost a century, however the path they have paved, they
hope, will make the process easier.
`I believe that all this will have political consequences. True, right
now we are unable to change the state [policy], but I value highly any
change that has come forth in the society. Even if the government
apologizes, it won’t mean much if the citizen of that country does not
share that pain. I value when people apologize for themselves,’ she
says.
From: A. Papazian