ARMENIAN ETHNIC CLEANSING AS ‘DE-ISLAMIZATION’
Hurriyet
April 25 2012
Turkey
Yesterday was the 97th anniversary of what Armenians call the “Great
Catastrophe,” or the ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Armenians from
Anatolia, their historical homeland, in 1915. Those who commemorated
the tragedy included some Turks, such as the group that gathered in
Istanbul’s Taksim Square.
With the slogan, “Let’s meet with the common hope that comes out of
common sorrow,” these were a group of liberal activists who defy both
the anti-Armenian enmity of Turkish nationalists, and the anti-Turkish
bias of the Armenian Diaspora. And, most notably, they included
not only secular liberals, who have always been at the forefront of
“revisionism” on “the Armenian issue,” but also some Islamic figures.
One such figure was Hilal Kaplan, a young veiled lady who has
degrees in sociology and writes an influential column in Yeni
Å~^afak, a mainstream Islamist daily. She not only joined the Taksim
commemoration, but also called on fellow Muslims to do the same in
a significant piece she wrote the day before.
Titled “1915 as a move of de-Islamization,” Kaplan’s piece defined
the ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Armenians as a part of secular
Turkish nationalism’s onslaught against Islam. Islam, she reminded,
was the very reason why Armenians had lived safely under Ottoman
rule for centuries, for Islamic law had defined Christians as
“People of the Book” with inalienable rights. That is why in 1915,
when the nationalist Young Turk government decided to expel almost
all Armenians to Syria, some Islamic opinion leaders, such as the
famous mufti of Bogazlıyan, Abdullahzade Efendi, defied Istanbul’s
orders and tried to protect the Armenians.
The “Turkism” of the Young Turks, Kaplan reminded, yearned for not a
plural nation of many faiths and ethnicities, but an exclusive “Turkish
homeland.” This led not only to the destruction of Armenians, but other
tragedies of the Republican period, such as the ethnic cleansing of
other Christian groups, or the Kurdish massacres in Dersim.
In her piece, Kaplan also called on all conservative Muslim Turks
to revisit their respect for “our forefathers.” “Isn’t it worth
asking,” she wrote, “whether your forefathers are those who formed
and protected the multi-religious [Ottoman] structure, or those who
brutally wasted it?”
In fact, Kaplan’s piece was only one example of a new rhetoric
that is emerging among a new generation of liberal-minded Islamic
intellectuals: They see the ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Armenians,
along with all the oppression that non-Muslims of Turkey have faced in
the past century, as an abomination against Islamic values. And they
argue for what one can dub as “neo-Ottomanism,” which is basically
a call for a pluralist Turkey of many faiths and ethnicities.
Of course, the historic accuracy of this argument can be debated. What
is perhaps more important, however, is its political promises. For one
of the reasons why liberal pluralism did not flourish in modern day
Turkey is that its supporters remained an elite group of Westernized
secular liberals, who often had the best of intentions, but also
lacked the cultural connections with the common Turk.
However, Islamic liberals such as Hilal Kaplan speak within the Islamic
values that are engrained in large segments of Turkish society. And
that is why their message is more promising for building a more
democratic, self-critical, and, I would say, virtuous Turkey.