Zaman, Turkey
April 19 2015
An elegy to Meds Yeghern
GÃ`NAL KURÅ?UN
April 19, 2015, Sunday
I will leave a discussion of whether or not the events were genocide
to my next column on April 24, but, in this article, I would like to
discuss the dissolution of culture that took place during the Armenian
deportations 100 years ago.
A section of eastern Anatolia was part of the ancestral homeland of
Armenians, whose culture and heritage were targeted by the Ottoman
government. The Union and Progress Party (Ä°ttihad ve Terakki Partisi)
confiscated or demolished at least 2,000 churches and monasteries
before 1915. In my opinion, this shame alone is enough to tarnish our
relations with Armenians.
There was a law justifying this confiscation. The law of Emval-i
Metruke (Law of Abandoned Properties) dealt with the properties the
Armenians left. Most were given to Muslim migrants or asylum seekers
who had fled their homelands in the Balkans and migrated to Anatolia
during, or after, the Balkan Wars. This law prescribed or gave
authority to governors to confiscate abandoned houses and buildings
and offer them to the newcomers. Some of these properties were also
turned into military barracks, schools, prisons and hospitals.
Today, the biggest obstacle to an official recognition of genocide,
which would require compensation, is this policy of confiscation. This
explains the government’s policy of denial and the stubbornness of the
public. The question of what will happen to the confiscated,
Muslim-owned properties remains unanswered.
It is a known fact that there is an economic component to every
genocide, and this was no exception. It was a relay of capital, from
Armenian hands to Turkish and Kurdish hands. However, I still believe
that the economic issue it is a small part of the problem, to which
international institutions such as the United Nations, the European
Union, the United States, Russia and other countries can contribute
possible solutions.
The biggest devastation is on the cultural front, presenting losses
that can never be compensated by money. Hagop Baronian, Atom Yarjanian
(Siamanto), Vahan Tekeyan, Levon Shant, Krikor Zohrab, Sargis
Mubayeajian (Atrpet) and Rupen Zartarian are some of the poets,
writers, lawyers and activists who lost lives, suffered or migrated.
The identity of architecture in Turkey changed, thanks to the
contribution of many Armenian architects. Music, painting and theater
in Turkey would be unrecognizable without Armenian contribution. Not
only did Armenians read Armeno-Turkish, but so did the Turkish elite.
The Armenian script was used alongside the Arabic script on official
documents of the Ottoman Empire. The first novel produced in the
Ottoman Empire was Vartan Pasha’s 1851 `Akabi Hikayesi,’ written in
the Armenian script. The Armenian alphabet was also used for books
written in the Kurdish language of the Ottoman Empire from the end of
the 19th-century. As of today, renowned polymath Sevan NiÃ…?anyan has
estimated that around 3,600 Armenian names of geographical locations
or place names have been changed.
These are all examples of the biggest cultural losses. It was also a
self-mutilation of culture on the part of the Ottomans, from which we
still suffer today.
Are we really sure that we want to establish a life on the ashes of
our neighbor? Is it really the only solution? Did our collective
conscience die? Can we not see what we have lost by deporting a whole
nation? I remember thousands of Turkish people shouting, `All of us
are Armenians, all of us are Hrant Dink’ during Dink’s funeral.
Really, can’t we realize that we Turks are somehow Armenians as well,
and that we killed a part of ourselves in 1915?
An Armenian song `Arakil” (Stork) says, `I am not homeless, or a
foreigner; I have a haven, I have an asylum.’ A century has passed,
and the time has come for every stork to find an honest and fair way
to rest. It is the Turkish responsibility to show them the righteous
path they deserve.
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist/gunal-kursun/an-elegy-to-meds-yeghern_378415.html