TURKEY CHANGES COURSE ON ARMENIA
By Caleb Lauer
Asia Times Online
Feb 3, 2010
Middle East
ISTANBUL – Though genocide scholars around the world agree that more
than one million Ottoman-Armenian civilians were deliberately killed
during World War I when Turkish Ottoman authorities forced them to walk
out of Anatolia into the Syrian desert, Turkey has always officially
denied this was genocide. Ankara has insisted that a commission to
study this tragic history be a pillar of its now fizzling peace deal
with neighboring Armenia.
The idea of the commission has caused much controversy. Armenia,
bowing to Turkish pressure and eyeing the prospect of an open border
with its much richer European Union-candidate neighbor, has committed
itself to something that suggests the
facts of the genocide are insufficiently known. But for Armenians,
the genocide carried out against them is a fundamental aspect of their
modern identity. And likewise for the Turks; denial of the genocide
is intimately intertwined with the story of modern Turkey’s founding
in 1923.
Suat Kiniklioglu, the governing AKP’s (Justice and Development Party)
deputy chairman of external affairs and spokesman for the Turkish
parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said in an e-mail that the
Turkish government insisted on a historical commission to "have a fresh
look at the evidence [and] documentation surrounding the unfortunate
events of World War I. The events of 1915 cannot be understood without
situating them in an appropriate historical context."
This context, said Kiniklioglu, includes " … the ethnic cleansing
of millions of Turks and Muslims from the Balkans, the Caucasus,
and other parts of the crumbling [Ottoman] empire".
Many Armenians, genocide scholars and others say this just rationalizes
denial of the genocide and is an extension of Turkey’s policy of
lobbying abroad to prevent its recognition. Some also say it is an
affront to historical research and the lessons drawn from it.
Roger W Smith, a former president of the International Association
of Genocide Scholars and current chairman of the academic board of
directors at the Zoryan Institute in Toronto, wrote in a September
30, 2009 open letter to Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian that the
proposed commission "in effect dismisses all of the extensive research
that has already been conducted for decades and implies that none of
it was impartial or scientific". He also wrote that genocide scholars
have no confidence "that a politically organized commission would not
compromise historical truth, especially considering the imbalanced
power relations between Armenia and Turkey". He also argued such
a commission would show "how easily genocide can be relativized,
especially by the powerful".
But some doubt the commission will be effective enough to warrant
fear. Cengiz Aktar, a retired United Nations official and now chair of
the European Union Relations department at Bahcesehir University in
Istanbul, dismissed the idea that a commission was a threat, saying
such a commission would have so little credibility, and would be so
dysfunctional, it would be simply impracticable. "It is ridiculous
to think for even a second that [such a] commission could even meet,
let alone decide about anything [historical]."
Any equally weighted, government-run commission, Aktar imagines, would
consist of one side of "denialists" and one side of genocide scholars.
"These guys are not capable of even shaking hands," he said.
Aktar is also the creator of an online "I apologize" proclamation
addressed to Armenians, so far joined by more than 30,000 Turks. He
suggested that unsealing relevant archives in Ankara, Jerusalem and
Boston would be a more constructive goal of the commission.
But the prospect of a commission has a significant inverse; it may
be a sign of, and end up promoting, Turkey’s increasing openness to
a less categorical and dogmatic view of its own official history.
Turkish schools teach that the genocide never happened; Turks who
publicly say otherwise have risked prosecution by the state and
vilification in the media.
But the current AKP government, in power since 2002, has been steadily
pushing the old guard – especially the military – out of the center of
the Turkish state. With major electoral support, there is no doubt that
the government’s democratic reforms have helped it consolidate power;
still, thanks in part to this new environment, many long-sacred taboos
of Turkish public life are being challenged and more and more Turks,
in newspaper articles, books, and academic conferences, have been
questioning the conventional denialist view of the genocide.
Professor Taner Akcam of Clark University in Massachusetts,
a leading genocide scholar and one of the few Turkish historians
to unequivocally affirm the Armenian genocide, rejects the Turkish
government’s argument that more context is needed to understand what
happened in 1915 and says Turkey must understand that the historical
debate "is over". Still, Akcam argues that the significance of the
moment should not be overlooked.
"Nobody understands enough the importance of Turkey’s readiness for
negotiations. For 100 years Turkey denies everything. And now after
100 years, Turkey officially says – ‘OK, let’s negotiate about our own
history’ … There is something seriously changing in Turkey," he said.
"The Turkish republic was established by the same military and
bureaucratic elite which organized the Armenian genocide," said Akcam.
"We know [from historical study] that a change in the ruling elite
is the precondition for facing history."
"There is a huge process of transition in Turkish society from
an authoritarian system [of rule] to one more democratic and more
European. And within this system, Turkey will, and has to, face its
own history."
The Turkish government may use the commission as a "face-saving
operation", that is, to minimize blame as much as possible while
communicating unknown, and unwelcome, facts to the Turkish public,
said Akcam. "After 100 years of denial, you cannot suddenly say: ‘Yes,
it was a genocide.’ Or, ‘Yes, it was a crime.’ You need a transition."
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 during Armenia’s
war with Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan. Once the Armenian and Turkish
parliaments ratify the protocols signed by their foreign ministers
last autumn in Switzerland, the two countries will open their common
border and establish normal relations. (Though lately it seems Turkey
is willing to let a dispute over the Armenian-controlled province of
Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan put the whole deal at risk.)
It is expected bureaucrats from Armenia, Turkey and Switzerland,
which mediated the peace deal, will comprise the commission, and,
according to the protocols, will carry out " … an impartial
scientific examination of the historical records and archives to
define existing problems". Despite protests against the commission
and other aspects of the peace deal, poor, land-locked Armenia has
a clear interest in an open border with Turkey, which could join the
European Union in the next decade.
In the end, however, Akcam believes real reconciliation between the two
countries cannot come through commissions or legislation. He recalls
the words of Hrant Dink, an Armenian-Turkish newspaper editor whose
prosecution for comments made about Turkish-Armenian reconciliation
made him a target of ultranationalists. He was assassinated outside
his newspaper office in Istanbul on January 19, 2007.
"My dear friend Hrant was always saying: when the Armenian and
Turkish people come together, see each other, talk to each other,
the genocide problem will be solved automatically."
Caleb Lauer is a Canadian freelance journalist based in Istanbul.
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