THIS PAIN IS NOT OURS
Serhat Uyurkulak
hetq
00:53, June 2, 2011
I’m thankful that I haven’t witnessed as many deaths close by. But
in most visits of condolence, I came across a similar scene. As the
suffering had soared up to an almost tangible degree, someone would
suddenly burst into tears and moan that they so wanted to bring the
deceased back from the tomb to the extent of declaring a willingness
to go into the grave instead. Under the gaze of the surprised family
members, people would secretly ask each other who that person might be.
And, often, it would turn out that the ‘grief-thief’ was someone who
had pangs of conscience for they would feel indebted to the deceased
in one way or the other. The strangest thing would be the family’s
almost forgetting their own grief to make grief-thief feel better.
The real torment would begin when it befell on them to console that
person with ill conscience. I do wish to be a person without a blemish
on my conscience and life, and I try to do my best to live like one.
Being persons with ‘clear consciences’ was an expression in the
declaration of the ‘This Pain is Ours’ initiative that more frequently
appeared on social and other media as April 24th drew near. The
declaration claimed that what had been done to the Armenians who were
Ottoman subjects in 1915 must be called a crime against humanity.
Moreover, the authors called all of us who were ‘united on the basis
of the fundamental values of humanity’ to declare that 1915 was the
‘common pain’ of each and every person living inTurkey.
One wonders whether the road to hell really is paved with stones of
good will. For instance, I’m not exactly sure what kind of a response
I’d get from Armenians had I told them with the intention to be a
person with a clear conscience that I take what they lived in 1915
as my own pain too.
I’m not sure because I know that I belong in a ‘constitutive element’
that has been privileged by a republic which has chosen to espouse the
polity that carried out the genocide (call it the forced exile or the
Great Catastrophe if you like) rather than severing its ties with it.
Even though I don’t see myself as such, this is who I am historically
and structurally. Doubtless, it’s very hard to accept the situation
as is, but sometimes facts override intentions. No matter how keenly
do we think that we are radically different from the ruling elites
and even the ordinary people of the 1915 period, this doesn’t change
much in the picture.
Besides, regardless of how peaceful and sharing, individual
good-will and conscience cannot solve the main problem where peace and
collaboration can be achieved only through justice. Beyond intentions,
it’s necessary to recognize what happened and justice served.
Unfortunately, the compassion of good-willed people that means little
more than petting the back of the ‘other’ cannot replace real justice.
In this country resembling a gigantic wake-house, the victims are
expected to console and comfort everyone else, especially those with
ill conscience. That’s precisely the reason why I cannot help but
say that this pain doesn’t belong to all of us but the Armenians. I
don’t think that saying so would make a person heartless or inhuman.
On the contrary, I believe that it’s more humane not to appropriate
even the suffering of those who have been wiped off the face of
the country I’m a citizen of and whose properties I’ve been using,
whose houses I’ve been living in, and whose wealth I’ve been taking
advantage of even if structurally speaking.
What is needed is not that fashionable sentiment called empathy but
to assume the responsibility of what happened and to work for justice
despite this may be hard or even unbearable to admit. Finally, if 1915
has been our common suffering all along, why did we wait to feel and
declare it so until Hrant Dink was assassinated? I really wonder why.
From: Baghdasarian
http://azadalik.wordpress.com