ANOTHER TABOO FINALLY ADDRESSED: MUSLIM(IZED) ARMENIANS OF TURKEY
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Nov 4 2013
4 November 2013 /CUMALÄ° ONAL, Ä°STANBUL A recent conference held in
Turkey dealt with a topic which, though it has been widely discussed
on a private level, has not received much open focus: Muslim Armenians.
Many academics from abroad and within Turkey attended the “Islamized
(Islamicized) Armenians” conference held at Ä°stanbul’s Bogazici
University in partnership with the Hrant Dink Foundation and the
Association of Philanthropic Malatya Armenians (HAYDER).
Speaking to Today’s Zaman, many academics noted that while the topic of
Armenians who were forced to convert to Islam in one way or another
is an important aspect of the tragedy of 1915, it is not a topic
which has been widely discussed or debated.
AyÅ~_egul Altınay, the director of the Hrant Dink Foundation and one
of the organizers of the conference, said that Muslimized Armenians
in fact played a very important role in the re-shaping of Turkish
society at the start of the century. Altınay, who is also one of the
authors of the book “Torunlar” (Grandchildren), a work which focuses
on Turkish families with Armenians in them, maintained that Turkey has
remained deaf and blind to this important topic for the past century.
Another conference organizer, HAYDER head Hosrof Köletavitoglu,
noted that while the topic of Muslimized Armenians is one which many
have wanted to confront, it is a topic which has not been faced. “This
society needs to throw off some of this baggage so that it can run,”
Köletavitoglu said.
The three-day conference dealt with topics such as the HemÅ~_in
Muslims, the Hamidiye massacres and mass religious conversions,
assimilation, the problem of Arabized Armenians and stories from the
actual unfolding of the tragedies in 1915. Attendees also heard from
people who were forced to convert to Islam and those who had spoken
directly with such people about their experiences. In addition, there
was some focus on topics like Armenian food, literature and music.
Altınay noted that some historians say the number of Armenians who
became Muslim through marriages, adoptions or after being taken under
protection by other families and were thus saved during the forced
relocations of 1915 could be around 200,000.
She said that even if these numbers were only around 100,000, keeping
in mind all the children who have since been born to these Armenians
in the meantime, the numbers would now be in the millions.
Simply mentioning that there was an Armenian in one’s family was for
many years a significant factor in people being excluded, Altınay
said. “We saw how for years, having an Armenian mother or grandmother
meant that people would lose their jobs or cause more difficulties
for them during their military service. For example, one well-known
pious name from society was going to join this conference but decided
not to at the last minute.”
Ethnically Armenian Sami Boyacı joined this conference as an attendee.
He noted that widespread fear that Armenians were going to be targeted
around the time he was born was what caused his parents to give him
the Turkish-sounding name “Sami.” He noted that many people around the
time gave their otherwise Armenian children Turkish names. Boyacı
spoke about how his grandfather and his grandaunt in fact survived
the tragedies of 1915 but, like so many others, it was only through
the help of Muslim neighbors that they were able to do so.
Conference participant Ishkhan Chiftjian, who attended this conference
from Germany, has roots that go back to Adana. He noted that, for
Armenians, this Bogazici University conference was extremely unusual.
Chiftjian, a professor at Hamburg University, maintained that the
whole topic of Muslimized Armenians is a very different and new area
for Armenians.
In the meantime, Sarkis Saropian, one of the founders of the well-known
Armenian-language Agos newspaper, noted that “there ought to have been
more Muslims in attendance at this conference.” He underlined that,
in terms of the topic, the conference carried off a first in the world.
Saropian, noting that it is impossible to actually determine the number
of Muslim Armenians living in Turkey, said: “Since we don’t even know
how many Armenians are living in this country, figuring out how many
Muslim Armenians there are is really impossible. During census counts
taken after the 1930s, asking people about their ethnic roots was
forbidden. So even the state — which labeled us as non-Muslims —
does not know the number of people with Armenians in their family.”
Saropian said that while he had made a request to gain access to code
numbers allegedly used by public agencies to tag individuals according
to their ethnic background, in order to learn how many Armenians
there were in Ä°stanbul, no response had been given. Saropian also
added that one of the heads of one of Turkey’s most famous football
clubs was Armenian but that he had never publically acknowledged this.
Altınay noted that while she had spoken to many people while doing the
research for her book “Torunlar,” most of the people had not wanted
their names and locations included in the book. She added that some
factors, such as there being as of yet no result from the Hrant Dink
murder case and some people still receiving death threats, underscore
just some of the problems that Armenians still face in this country.
Altınay, who noted that Dink was personally called into the governor’s
offices and threatened in the wake of his announcement that Sabiha
Gökcen was in fact an Armenian orphan, said that 2004 marked the
starting point of work on the important topic of Muslim Armenians.
Within this framework, Altınay noted that in the wake of Dink’s
murder, people throughout Turkey began to feel more and more
responsibility for this topic.
Altınay also spoke about allegations made by the former head of the
Turkish Historical Society (TTK), Yusuf Halacoglu, that some Kurdish
Alevis were in fact Armenians, noting that these are not realistic
assertions. She said that in talking to the descendants of Armenians
throughout Turkey, very few of them are in fact now Alevi Muslims and
that, in addition, very few actually converted back to Christianity
after discovering their true ethnic roots.
Noting that Turkey is now carrying on its shoulders a very heavy legacy
where this is all concerned, Altınay said: “There are currently very
many Muslim Armenians. While some deny their true identity, others
describe themselves as ethnically Armenian but Muslim. These are things
which completely overturn our entire perception of identities. We are
actually shouldering a very heavy legacy here. And the most important
thing here is to explain this legacy well. While listening to old
stories, we are hearing stories not only of pain and violence, but
also of vital interaction. In sharing this legacy, we are contributing
to the normalization of this entire period.”
Köletavitoglu, the founder of HAYDER, noted that his own ideas about
Muslim Armenians were formed when he went to find his grandmother’s
gravesite in Hekimhan, Malatya province, in 2001. It was only after
the local mayor had announced that one or two of the local villages
were actually Armenian originally and later, when an Armenian from
France did a study on the topic of Muslim Armenians in Turkey, that
Köletavitoglu decided to move into action and organize a conference
on the matter.
Köletavitoglu, who said that after HAYDER was formed, many people had
come to the organization wanting to share how their ethnic roots were
actually Armenian, noted: “These types of conferences and meetings
need to continue. We have made an important start with this one. When
everyone is able to talk openly about their roots, it will give people
great confidence.”
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