THE MEANING AND POWER OF MEMORY ARE AT THE HEART OF ‘THERE WAS AND THERE WAS NOT’
PopMatters
Nov 21 2014
By Hans Rollman 21 November 2014
Contributing Editor
In a world that seems caught up in ever-growing waves of violence,
with conflicts where tens and hundreds of thousands suffer persecution
and death on the basis of ethnic or religious origin, one might be
forgiven for thinking the events of 100 years ago would lie long
forgotten outside of the history books where, it seems, the memory
of terrible events goes to die.
But the Armenian genocide is not forgotten. The memory lingers
powerfully among the more than three million Armenians in Armenia,
and even more powerfully perhaps among the estimated eight million
Armenians living in diasporic communities around the world (the
majority of ethnic Armenians live outside of the country, which today
comprises a mere sliver of the lands they formerly inhabited).
The meaning and power of memory, and the truths and doubts which drive
it, are at the heart of Meline Toumani’s new book There Was and There
Was Not. Comprised of equal parts reportage, memoir, travelogue and
history, it achieves a perfect balance of these elements, and offers
a moving and powerful exploration of the fraught and tragic history
of the Armenian genocide, and the struggles and conflict its memory
stokes today.
Between 1909 and 1923 (and with greatest intensity during the years
of the First World War) the millions of Armenians living in Turkey
(then known as the Ottoman Empire) experienced an unrelenting wave
of persecution, dispossession, deportation, imprisonment, terrorism,
and mass murder, orchestrated both by government authorities as well
as non-government groups and individuals inspired by the regime’s
open persecution of Armenians. Scholars argue over exact figures,
but it is estimated between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians died
as a result of this violence.
It was, in fact, the Armenian experience that inspired Polish-Jewish
jurist Raphael Lemkin to develop the definition of ‘genocide’ that was
adopted by the United Nations after the Second World War: “Genocide
does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation… It
is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions
aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of
national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.”
Of course, Turkey – the country which rose from the ashes of the
Ottoman Empire – denies that a ‘genocide’, as such, took place. And
so the struggle continues to this day, over what precisely happened
and how it ought to be acknowledged and remembered by the world.
Toumani’s book offers a powerful and thorough consideration of
the complicated motivations, attitudes and realities surrounding
‘recognition politics’ (efforts by Armenian groups to gain official
recognition of the genocide by as many governments and other official
bodies as possible). But it also offers a useful and insightful
introduction for those who are unfamiliar with the subject, and
uncertain where to start in their efforts to learn more.
She chronicles her childhood growing up in Armenian diasporic
communities in the United States, traveling as a journalist to Turkey
and Armenia, and then eventually moving to Turkey to conduct the
more in-depth research which resulted in this book. Her style is
professional and accessible; her prose is compelling and presents
a well-constructed and vivid narrative comprised of interviews,
first-hand reportage, and historical analysis coupled with revealing
anecdotes and incidents from politics and everyday life in both
Armenia and Turkey. The book packs a powerful punch, and leaves the
reader grateful for Toumani’s skilled and gentle guidance through a
complex social history.
Indeed, Toumani deserves credit for producing such a powerful and
comprehensive text out of such a complicated and fraught history.
Although she’s been widely published as a journalist, this is
her first book, and her talented writing impresses. Her forays
into memoir are rich and full of perspective, yet never dip into
personal irrelevancies. She renders a complicated web of historical
events accessible in clear and moving prose, and the well-constructed
narrative flows smoothly and keeps the reader’s interest hooked from
the first chapter.
Reconciling Past and Future
For many – especially those outside of Armenian and Turkish communities
– there inevitably arise questions around what point there could
be behind the fervent, passionate, and sometimes fatally violent
efforts to either secure recognition of, or to deny, the genocide. In
the ’80s there was a wave of fatal attacks on Turkish targets by
Armenian terrorists, which in turn stoked violence against Armenian
communities in Turkey. Even today violence erupts: one of Toumani’s
own informants, an Armenian newspaper editor, was shot and killed by
a Turkish nationalist while she was doing the research for this book.
Amidst the violence the question lingers: what is the point of dwelling
on events, however tragic, that took place 100 years ago?
Historian Taner Akcam is one among the growing ranks of Turkish
academics who refuses to accept the state-sanctioned denial of the
Armenian genocide. In his 2004 book A Shameful Act, he offers a
useful reflection on why this type of work is so important; on why
it is so important that these events not be forgotten, swept under
the historical carpet, or sacrificed in the name of social cohesion
and of ‘moving on’:
…all studies of large-scale atrocities teach us one core principle:
To prevent the recurrence of such events, people must first consider
their own responsibility, discuss it, debate it, and recognize
it. In the absence of such honest consideration, there remains the
high probability of such acts being repeated, since every group is
inherently capable of violence; when the right conditions arise this
potential may easily become reality, and on the slightest of pretexts.
There are no exceptions. Each and every society needs to take a
self-critical approach, one that should be firmly institutionalized
as a community’s moral tradition regardless of what others might have
done to them. It is this that prevents renewed eruptions of violence.
Toumani possesses a gift for conveying the power of those subtle roots
which lie below the surface and give rise to the tangled, confused
contradictions of the present. Interviewing an elderly Turkish
philanthropist who’s trying to bring Armenians and Turks together
through music, yet who dismisses recognition of the genocide and
sagely preaches that there are two sides to every story, she reflects:
“…[his] words weren’t so far off from my own. I had written that the
genocide recognition campaigns were hindering diplomatic relations
between Armenia and Turkey. I had started to question the value of
repeating the same sad stories over and over. But coming from him,
the message sounded very different.”
She may be trained as a journalist, but Toumani possesses the skill
of an anthropologist when it comes to discerning the complex power
relations conveyed through words and action; even her own. It’s one
thing for her to challenge her Armenian community on their historical
traditions; quite another for the Turkish establishment to do so.
But it works both ways. After publishing an article on a famous
Armenian musician – in which she deliberately did not insert the word
‘genocide’ – she was criticized by some Armenians for failing to use
the term. “And that was part of the problem: genocide had become a
term, a phrasing to be allowed or disallowed,” she writes.
“As a writer…I resented the requirement to use a word as a political
statement, especially when I was writing about music, the one little
corner of my Armenian life that had been safe shelter from politics,
lobbying, hatred, nationalism, protests, the one private Armenian
pleasure from which I had never felt alienated.”
The incident provokes a profound reflection for Toumani, which leads
her to question what identity means when it becomes irrevocably
associated with political agendas.
“How much texture and complexity are sacrificed, lost when we
retreat to our trenches? We produce a press release instead of a
poem or novel. This shrinks us, in the end, makes us less alive. If
survival, the future, the avenging of a genocide should be manifested
in the flourishing of a people, what makes the soul flourish? Let it
all live.”
And yet, such sentiments are mediated by the inevitable presence
of power. Ironically, it is after talking with a Turkish sociology
professor that she comes to this realization.
Yes, it was all about power, but not about governmental power, and
not about brute force: the issue was the disparity of power between
individuals. This was how I came to understand why I had not become
genuine friends with Turks who didn’t acknowledge the genocide:
because if they believed a story in which Armenians were not the
persecuted but persecutor, they were doomed to discount the current
oppression that Armenians in Istanbul lived with every day. If a
Turk didn’t acknowledge what happened in 1915 he was also denying an
entire complex of discrimination and power dynamics that defined the
minority experience in Turkey.
There’s a message here that reaches beyond the Armenian genocide.
Toumani has tapped into an issue at the heart of reconciliation
struggles the world over. Some, of course, have a lengthier and
bloodier heritage than others, but ultimately that familiar barrier
inevitably arises: how to move forward? What importance should be
attached to recognition of an atrocity by its perpetrator?
In Canada, the conundrum evokes the plight of aboriginal and First
Nations peoples. Fewer and fewer Canadians these days would deny the
terrible heritage the Canadian state has wrought in its dealings
with indigenous peoples. Fewer and fewer would deny the immense
material deprivation and ongoing discrimination that many First
Nations communities still face.
Yet when terms such as ‘settler’, ‘colonialism’, or even – increasingly
– ‘genocide’ are invoked, the response is a defensive flurry from
the mainstream press and politicians, denouncing such language
as inflammatory and not constructive in the process of working
toward a reconciliation. Coming from majority white commentators,
paternalistic denunciations of this sort tend to inflame feelings
more than assuage them.
There Was and There Was Not