ARMENIAN LIFE RETURNS TO DIYARBAKIR
13:21, October 18, 2013
By Vicken Sheterian
The following article was originally published in Arabic in the
London-based Al-Hayat newspaper. It was then translated into English
and reprinted in the news website Al-Monitor on October 16, 2013.
It was on a hot Sunday in the summer when I visited St. Giragos
Church, located within the historic walls of the city of Diyarbakir. A
small crowd gathered inside the building, which had recently been
renovated. That morning, I not only got the chance to meet new people,
but was also acquainted with new ways of self-identifying.
I met Ramzi Demir, a construction-equipment vendor and Kurdish Muslim
who is well aware of his Armenian roots. I also met Chetin Yilmaz,
an ethnic Turk from the city of Gallipoli. Yilmaz was sent to the
southeast of the country to teach Turkish “to help Kurds be good
Turkish citizens. However, they opted for the Christian religion
instead,” as he put it.
A group of young people visiting the church included Nisreen and Habon,
who decided to come after they discovered their Armenian origins. I
also met Armin Demerjian, the deacon of the Church of St.
Giragos. He was once called Abdur Rahim Zorusselan, before he returned
to his original religion. Armin welcomed me with a joyful grin and
told me in Armenian, “Welcome, my little brother!”
Demerjian is in his mid 50s. He was born in the town of Liga, north of
Diyarbakir, from where his ancestors hail. His family was exterminated
during the massacres of 1915, but a five-year-old child named Hocep
survived, saved by influential Turkish tribal leader in the region,
Haji Zubair.
When Hocep grew up, his name was changed to Abdullah. He converted
to Islam and married the daughter of Haji Zubair. He became a famous
baker in the town of Liga. Everyone saw him as a good Armenian man.
I walked with Armin around the church. The building, which was
meticulously built seven centuries ago, has been renovated, adding
a touch of beauty to the impoverished neighborhood. We went to a
hall where the walls were decorated with photographs of the Armenian
way of life in Diyarbakir before the great massacre. There hung a
photo of two Armenian schools, one for boys and one for girls, and a
photo of the newspaper Independent Tigris with pictures of craftsmen,
coppersmiths, jewelry makers, weavers and a brass band. There was also
an old postcard in French portraying the Armenian neighborhood and the
high church bell towers. The black-and-white photographs created a sad
memorial, not only because they brought back memories of the past, but
because they remind us that an entire way of life has been wiped away.
There was once a large Armenian community in Diyarbakir. Most of its
members were craftsmen and traders. In 1915, when the Committee of
Union and Progress, the powerful party that pushed the Ottoman Empire
to fight in the First World War, decided to get rid of the Armenians
living in the empire. Approximately 120,000 Armenians in the province
were sent outside the city walls and massacred. The survivors, mostly
women and orphans, went to camps in the Syrian Desert. In the 1920s
and 1930s, the Armenians living in villages and towns in the province
moved to Diyarbakir to form a new, small community. More left the
villages after the war broke out in the southeast of the country
between the Kurdistan Workers Party and the Turkish army. Today,
a descendant of the survivors is forming a new Armenian community in
this historic city.
When I started to take pictures, Armin grabbed an Armenian-language
instruction book and held it to his chest in front of the camera.
Armin’s son, Hassan Zor Aslan, recently finished his university
education and wants to become a teacher. He is fluent in English and
Turkish, and his mother tongue is Kurdish. When coffee was served,
Hassan did not take a cup. It was Ramadan, and Hassan was fasting.
While his father was forced to rediscover his Armenian past and deep
Christian roots, Hassan, 21, found his path through Islam.
“We are Muslims, but we know that we are Armenians,” he told me. In
2006, when the students of Diyarbakir revolted against the Turkish
police and the army there, Hassan was sent to his uncle’s house in
the town of Bursa in western Turkey to continue his education away
from the trouble.
Hassan continued, “I faced an identity crisis there. There,
I decided to be a Muslim.” It was there that he also decided to
become a professor. When asked how he sees his father, who returned
to the Armenian Apostolic Church, he said, “I am happy to see my
father getting back in touch with his Armenian identity. However,
I am afraid not only of the state but also of militant groups.”
Gafur Torqay is the one who pushed for the renovation of the church.
His story is no different from those of the others. His father is
called Ba Ohanian, and he hails from the mountainous area of Sason,
northeast of Diyarbakir. During the genocide, everyone there was
killed, and only three children survived: a girl and two boys. The
girl became a refugee in Syria and emigrated from there to Armenia,
while the boys remained in Turkey and converted to Islam.
He proudly stated, “Thanks to the two boys, the number of our family
members reached 500. These boys spoke Kurdish at home, but when they
were sent to school they were prohibited from speaking the Kurdish
and Armenian languages and forced to communicate in Turkish.” Gafur
criticized Turkish naturalization policies, saying, “After being
forced to become a Kurd, we were taught how to become Turks.”
Furthermore, with the emergence of the Kurdish national identity in
the past decade, Armenian descendants who had changed their religion
claimed their right to the Armenian identity regardless of religious
affiliation.
Gafur recalls the first time he visited St. Giragos Church in the
1980s. Back then, there were 30 families living in the vicinity
of the Armenian church in the Sur District of Diyarbakir, known as
the Infidels District. This is also the title of a novel written by
Mgrdich Margossian, who wrote about the life of the Armenian community.
In this city, Gafur met his wife and his family. He believes that the
renovation of the church – which was destroyed after the departure
of the last Armenian family – is the most important step yet. The
church has been renovated thanks to the efforts of a small group
of people who exerted tremendous efforts to collect the necessary
funds. The municipality of Diyarbakir, controlled by the Kurdish Peace
and Democracy Party, paid a third of the renovation costs. The church
was reopened in October 2011, with thousands of Armenians coming from
all over the world to participate in the event.
Today, the Diyarbakir municipality has begun organizing classes to
teach the Armenian language. In 2012, 35 students were registered in
language classes and in the following year this number rose to 65.
Gafur pointed out that 80% of the students are Muslim Armenians,
while there is a Christian or Kurdish Armenian minority.
Gafur recalled how his neighbors found out he was of Armenian descent
and how they thought that he and his family had converted to another
religion. Families with Armenian roots try to arrange marriages
among themselves, he added, stressing, “We are the third generation
after the genocide. The second generation knew nothing about Armenian
heritage. They were afraid. If we do not act to revive the Armenian
identity here, we will lose it.” He hopes that the young people of
Armenian descent rediscover their original identity and Armenian
culture without questioning their Islamic religious identity.
>From there, Gafur took me to St. Sarkis Church. At the entrance, we
could see that a Kurdish family had taken residence in the few rooms
that remained undestroyed. The architectural style is reminiscent of
St. Giragos with its beautiful domes, though wrecked. Projects are
in the works for the renovation of this church, too.
At the altar, Gafur pointed to a hole and angrily said, “They are
trying to find gold. I was here two weeks ago; this hole was not
there.” Similar holes can be found in Armenian churches across eastern
Turkey as residents still search for old Armenian gold after 98 years.
Then we headed to the Armenian cemetery. Years ago, the famous musician
Aram Dikran wanted to be buried there after his death, but the Turkish
state did not allow it. Today, two stones are placed as a sign for
the chosen cemetery of Aram Dikran.
http://hetq.am/eng/articles/30094/armenian-life-returns-to-diyarbakir.html