The Pioneer (India)
December 16, 2012 Sunday
Forgotten genocide
India
India, Dec. 16 — John D Balian’s Gray Wolves and White Doves recounts
his youth as an Armenian Christian, who nearly became a terrorist. He
chatted with Shana Maria Verghis
There is a biblical reference to Noah’s Ark, which supposedly
contained all the planet’s beasts and birds. When author-medic, John D
Balian was a child, growing in the rural hamlet of Anatolia among
Kurds and fellow Armenian Christians, at the border of Turkey and…,
he learnt that his people were very proud about Mt Ararat, which is
where the Ark is believed to have landed after the Great Flood.
Mt Ararat is in Armenia, the world’s first Christian state.
>From the 16th century, after the Turk invasion, Armenia was part of
the Ottoman Empire.
When it disintegrated, Armenians and Arabians remained in bondage
under a Sultan.
Until a new generation sought political reform during the late 1900s,
in tandem with the rise of the Young Turks. However, the latter had
their own agenda. And the Armenians, labelled as ‘infidels,’ were soon
victims of repeated atrocities. In the manner of the Jewish pogroms in
Nazi Germany.
>From 1914, entire populations were murdered in what Balian, who was
born much later-but grew up hearing survivor stories-described as the
‘forgotten genocide’.
He remarked, “In Turkey’s school textbooks, there is no mention of
Armenians. As if they never lived. Turks themselves found out these
issues after travelling abroad. They have been heard to ask, ‘How come
you never told us there were Armenians in Turkey, and they were driven
away?”
So the issue of a public apology remains. However, he is positive.
“I believe they will make an announcement. Till some years ago, no one
thought of the genocide. But now, groups of historians have been
writing about it. Orhan Pahmuk is one of them. And recently, two
professors wrote about the annihilation of an entire population.”
Balian’s Gray Wolves and White Doves (Tranquebar), is a fictional
account of the genocide, weaving in the writer’s own story. He was
born into a poor peasant family, and inherited his storytelling genes
from his father. He by all accounts, was a master at creating yarns.
He often began tales with a narrative that described three apples
appearing at various junctures. Apparently this is part of tradition.
There is a book called Three Apples of Heaven by an Armenian.
In this book, Jonah is the voice for Balian. We first encounter him at
an airport in Turkey, where he appears to be a sixteen-year-old on a
suicide mission. Then the story goes into flashback and to the village
where Jonah spent his early years. Through his grand-uncle, who had
witnessed the genocide, he is initiated into his people’s story. But
owing to various circumstances, eventually migrates to live for
several years at an orphanage, (like Balian did), in the Armenian
Quarter, at the Holy City of Jerusalem. From there, schooled in his
heritage, he has all the mark-ups of an Armenian nationalist, until a
benevolent benefactor intervenes, and completely transforms his life.
He migrates to the US, and eventually studies to be a doctor at
Columbia University.
Balian explained that the genocide has not been extensively recorded
in Armenian literature, although there is the odd book, published in
the Middle East.
Incidentally, there is an Indian connect with Armenian christians.
Many had operated here as traders, operating successful business in
states like Kerala and Kolkata. As for those who survived the genocide
in Turkey, many had migrated to the US. That fine American writer,
William Saroyan was the child of genocide survivors. And more
recently, so was the father of the Kardashian sisters. .
From: Baghdasarian