ASTARJIAN: A QUADRUPLE HISTORIC BYPASS
By Dr. Henry Astarjian on February 2, 2015
Special for the Armenian Weekly
Major occurrences have studded the globe and civilizations– events,
some good (such as the three monotheistic religions, though some argue
to the contrary), and some evil (like the Great Flood which engulfed
land, sparing the peaks, thus creating the Mediterranean islands like
Santorini). These events have impacted mankind, and stored them in
its collective memory.
History has not bypassed them; they are embedded there and will stay
there till time immemorial.
In the past century, four distinct events have also impacted peoples
and nations. They have extended in time to the present, and therefore
become subjects of scrutiny.
A glance would show that despite their initial impact, they are
transient, they could not endure. History is in the process of
bypassing them as we speak.
It is imperative to look back in order to ascertain the present,
and anticipate the future.
Map of the Sykes-Picot Agreement between the British and the French.
(Royal Geographical Society, 1910-15. Signed by Mark Sykes and Francois
Georges-Picot, 8 May 1916.)
To do that one is to start from the end of World War I, when Paris of
1919 was the epicenter of political activity. Together with Great
Britain and the victorious Allies, the defeated Ottoman Empire
(“The Sick Man of Europe”) was on the dissection table, and the
sections were defined by Mark Sykes of Britain and George Picot of
France, two bureaucrats of their foreign ministries. They had begun
their work some two years before, apportioning what did not belong
to France to France, and what did not belong to Britain to Britain,
thus mandating Syria to France, and Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Cyprus
to Great Britain. Lebanon, which administratively was part of Syria,
became a separate entity under France.
A treaty signed on Aug. 10, 1920 in Sèvres, France, was labeled the
“Treaty of Peace with Turkey.” It legitimized the Sykes-Picot plan.
The thrust of this treaty was to divide the eastern Mediterranean land,
and so it happened.
This division of land created more problems than anticipated. Borders
between Syria and Iraq were arbitrarily drawn with an ordinary ruler
into straight lines, thus dividing Shammar (a major Arab tribe; Syrians
call them Muhjimms) into Syrian and Iraqi portions. The Hashimite King
Faisal, who was crowned King of Syria, was victimized in a power and
land duel between Britain and France; he was deposed by the French
after six months of monarchy. In lieu of his family’s contribution
(with Lawrence of Arabia) to the war on the side of the Allies,
the British had to find a throne for him. After lengthy bargaining
and arm twisting, they found a throne for him in newly formed Iraq,
which included the disputed oil rich Mosul. He was crowned as King
Faisal I of Iraq. His brother Emir Abdullah, later King of Jordan,
was enthroned in East Jordan while Israel was being created to realize
the Sykes-Picot treaty and the Balfour Declaration.
Through some British arrangements, Abdullah Bin Hussein Al-Hashimi
became King of Jordan, which was carved out of Palestine.
All this mess created by the Sykes-Picot treaty lasted for about a
century, and the wars being waged now in the eastern Mediterranean,
in one form or another, indicate the dismantling of what the
Sèvres Treaty had proscribed. It is the death of the Sykes-Picot
arrangements. History has bypassed Sykes-Picot.
***
The dismantling of the Ottoman Empire also dismantled the caliphate
system of governance. The Arab Islamic world, which was an unwilling
part of the Ottoman Caliphate, felt liberated of the oppression the
system had brought. They had participated in the war against the
Ottomans, with the help of Lawrence of Arabia.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
In Turkey, events gave birth to an army officer named Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk. He launched a military campaign (some say instigated
by European powers) to establish a modern, secular republic. He
was successful in conqueringvilayet after vilayet, through mass
executions, beheadingMullahs, and subjugating the peoples of Turkey
to his regime. The most memorable are his massacres of the people of
Dersim (now Tunceli), and setting fire to the city of Smyrna with its
majority Greek population. Eyewitnesses have told the story of Smyrna
in horrific terms. According to them, the people jumped en masse into
the sea to escape being burned alive. That was their only choice,
since the city was being besieged from the east, the north, and the
south by Mustafa Kemal’s forces. There were no routes of escape,
but the hope of being rescued by the British Navy which was moored
at harbor. They got no help, since it was 4 o’clock tea time for the
officers, who were being serenaded by the British Navy violinists.
Thousands of men, women, and children drowned. The British Navy could
have helped, but did not.
Kurds also bore the brunt of the massacres, since they were not
considered a “minority” to be protected by the Lausanne Treaty of
1923-24. This treaty, coined by Ismet Inonu, representing Kemal and
the newly established Turkish Republic, and Lord George Curzon of
Britain, countered the Sèvres Treaty, and did not recognize Kurds
as a minority akin to the Christians and the Jews whose protection
became mandatory by the same treaty.
Mustafa Kemal changed the Arabic letters, including that of the Koran,
to the Latin alphabet. He passed revolutionary laws, some cosmetic, the
most laughable being “Shapka Kanunu” (The Law of Hats), which mandated
the change of the traditional Turkish fez with a European-style fedora
hat, or a cap with a visor.
Mustafa Kemal established some degree of democracy by instituting
a one-man, one-vote system for the first time. He established the
Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP; the Republican People’s Party) which
dominated the political life of the country for over a half century.
Ulus, the official party organ, advanced their revolution by advocating
the ideals of the new republic.
Two decades or so later, in an inner struggle, the CHP managed to
convict the president of the country, Calal Bayar, and the prime
minister, Adnan Menderes, to death; the life of the first was spared
because of age, but the second was hanged in public. They were
convicted for corruption. Additionally, they character-assassinated
Prime Minister Menderes by claiming to have found a female garment
in his safe.
The Republic of Turkey was part of the Baghdad Pact, an alliance
between Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan. The U.S. participated as an
observer. The strategy was to contain the southern border of the Soviet
Union. The pact had followed the Portsmouth Treaty of 1948, which
had had the same gall and which had dissolved after a short existence.
Turkey then joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The
senior partners of NATO accepted it into their organization because
of its geographical location.
Turkey could now boast of being a secular, democratic, and sovereign
country. Sovereign it was; democratic it was, up to a point; but
secular it was not. Its democracy extended to one-man, one-vote
elections; however, it was terribly short on human rights, women’s
rights, freedom of speech rights, and civil rights. Journalists were
incarcerated for allegedly defaming Turkey, or some such excuse,
as were novelists and writers. Carrying all this baggage, they had
the chutzpah to apply for membership of the European Union. All these
shortcomings and brutality continues as we speak.
Shapka Kanunu changed the headgear of the Turks, but could not change
what was underneath it–the mentality.
Time, events, and fanatic religiosity gave birth to the most recent
political setup, which in an attempt to institute a modern-era
reactionary Islamic Caliphate, propelled fanatic political fervor into
the overwhelming Turkish majority of the country. Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not have to push hard. People were ready.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greeted Azeri President Ilham
Aliyev on Jan. 15, in the presence of 16 soldiers dressed in ceremonial
costumes representing various Turkic people in history.
(Photo: Official website of the President of Turkey)
The newly formed Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP; Justice and
Development Party) was briefly headed by Abdullah Gul, who became
president of Turkey. He was followed by a shrewder politician, Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, who served as prime minister, and now president,
elected by democratic, transparent elections. This election–with its
impressive majority, and of a person who has the Islamic Caliphate as
his raison d’etre–reflects the reactionary mentality, orientation,
and psychology of the electorate.
Erdogan has pursued policies that are designed to bury Kemalism, and
establish an Ottoman-style Caliphate. Now, he has invited presidents of
all countries, including the Armenian president, to attend celebrations
of the Turkish military victory over Great Britain in the Battle of
Gallipoli (Canakkale) on April 24, 2015, the very day that Armenians
commemorate the start of the Armenian Genocide. This is more proof
of his desire to advance the ideas of an Ottoman Caliphate. He has
succeeded. Kemalism is dead. History has bypassed it.
Erdogan has pursued policies that are designed to bury Kemalism, and
establish an Ottoman-style Caliphate…. He has succeeded. Kemalism
is dead. History has bypassed it.
***
While this is going on in Turkey, other events are disrupting the
region. Characterized as the Arab Spring, the events started with
revolutionary fervor from Tunis, when an ordinary man, a street
vendor, set himself on fire and died in protest of the corrupt and
oppressive government of Tunis. This was the kindling that started an
uncontainable fire which engulfed the super-flammable Arab countries.
Sparks soon started major fires in Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Yemen.
Iraq was in a state of disarray since Saddam Hussein’s demise in 2003.
Sunni-Shia enmity and armed conflicts continue. These two sects have
not been able to solve their differences since Hussein’s (Prophet
Muhammad’s grandson) murder around one and a half millennia ago. War
between them was waged by proxy, Iran promoting its geopolitical
interests in the Arab countries through the Shia communities in
Lebanon, Syria, and of course Iraq; and Saudi Arabia financing
Sunni causes.
The ever-opportunist Erdogan, advancing his plans for a misogynist
caliphate, acted as the champion of the Arab world by promoting his
stance as the defender of Palestine. He accused Israel of killing
civilians in Gaza, and pointed out their inhumane treatment of the
Palestinians, while continuing to deny the Armenian Genocide, which
his predecessors had committed. He unconditionally supported the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and their leader, now deposed Mohamed
Morsi. Egypt, with its newest administration, retaliated by bringing
up the Armenian Genocide as proof of Turkey’s criminality, and inhuman
treatment of its minorities.
Erdogan dashed out of an international conference in Davos in 2009,
protesting the unequal allotment of his time in favor of Israel. In an
attempt to provoke Israel by breaking its embargo of Gaza, he sent the
Mavi Marmara ship loaded with so-far-unknown cargo, which was blocked
by the Israeli Navy, resulting in the deaths of nine Turkish sailors.
Looking at the Arab world today, it is certain that the Arab Spring
is dead. History has bypassed it.
***
In my study hangs a framed, full-paged interview conducted by a
journalist for the newspaper Ozgur Politica, dated April 30, 1996. He
had titled it, “The Armenian and Kurdish Causes Are Interrelated.” He
was echoing my speech in the Kurdish Parliament in Exile, in Brussels,
where I had emphasized our rights to Western Armenia according to
the provisions of Section VI, Article 88-93 of the Sèvres Treaty and
President Woodrow Wilson’s map.
The speech was timely because of the behind-the-scenes political
activities advanced by Germany, Turkish President Turgut Ozal, and
Professor Dogu Ergil to formulate some sort of autonomy within the
boundaries of Turkey, for the Kurds. That meant incorporating Western
Armenia–the sixvilayets as specified by the Sèvres Treaty–into the
proposed Kurdish territories. This was unacceptable, and I was there
to say so.
Abdullah Ocalan
The Kurdish cause had turned into a liberation struggle through
military operations in 1984, headed by Abdullah Ocalan. His party, a
Marxist-oriented party, was called the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The war had claimed some 35,000 casualties from both sides, and
was a major destabilizing situation for Turkey as a country, and
its chauvinist Turkic regime. After all, Mustafa Kemal and his new
republic had denied the national identity of the Kurds, labeling them
“Mountain Turks.”
The Kurdish struggle for self-rule had started in the mid-19th
century by Prince Badrkhan, who had waged a war against the central
Ottoman Caliphate by recruiting some 40,000 Armenians and Kurds. He
had failed. Successive rebellions by some sheikhs and chieftains like
Sheikh Sa’id and Sheikh Obeidullah were crushed. In the first decades
of the 20th century, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk committed genocide against
the Kurds, especially the people of Dersim. He literally snatched
children from the bosom of their mothers, and placed them in remote
places to be raised as Turks. His regime made it illegal to speak
or sing in Kurdish. He made it illegal to celebrate the most popular
celebrations of Newroz.
Some 3,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed. Three million Kurds were
displaced and became refugees, most settling in shanty towns around
Istanbul.
Failing in the battlefield, Turkey brought the fight to the villages
and communities. The government formed the Village Guards (Korucu)
from loyal Kurdish tribes, to brutalize their fellow Kurds. They
killed and raped, and brutalized the men, women, and children. In
one incident they snatched a bride, made her strip bare, and raped
her in front of her parents and the villagers.
The Erdogan regime, having failed to defeat the PKK, turned to the
“Ver Kurtul” (Pay and be free) policy. They negotiated with Ocalan,
who was captured in Kenya, and imprisoned in the Island of Imrali.
They allowed the celebration of Newroz last year, and gave the Kurds
a radio station. They allowed the formation of a legal political
party, the Halkin Democratic Partisi (HDP; Peoples’ Democratic Party),
which opened offices in Washington. The head of the party, Selahattin
Demirtas, ran for the office of Turkey’s presidency against Erdogan.
He scored 10 percent of the vote. Kurds did not vote for him, and
Erdogan won with the help of the Kurdish politician Masoud Barzani,
who had shared the podium with him in Diyarbakir.
Abdullah Ocalan is praising Kurdish participation in the Battle of
Gallipoli as proof of Kurdish loyalty to the very government that has
caused his people so much death and destruction. From all indications,
it is evident that the Kurdish Revolution is dead…
Meanwhile Abdullah Ocalan is praising Kurdish participation in the
Battle of Gallipoli as proof of Kurdish loyalty to the very government
that has caused his people so much death and destruction.
>From all indications, it is evident that the Kurdish Revolution is
dead, and may be replaced by evolution. It becomes the fourth bypass
in the history of the past century.
Are the Armenian and Kurdish causes tied together? That is for the
future to tell!
http://armenianweekly.com/2015/02/02/astarjian-bypass/#prettyPhoto