MINUTES OF ANKARA SYMPOSIUM ON GENOCIDE, CONSEQUENCES
By: Armenian Weekly Staff
armenianweekly.com
Wed, May 5 2010
ANKARA, Turkey (A.W.)–On April 24, as genocide commemoration events
were being held one after the other in different locations in Istanbul,
a groundbreaking two-day symposium on the Armenian Genocide began
at the Princess Hotel in Ankara. It was the first time a conference
on the Armenian Genocide that did not host any genocide deniers was
held in Ankara.
Moreover, the conference did not simply deal with the historical
aspect of 1915; for the first time in Turkey, a substantial part of
the proceedings was dedicated to topics such as confiscated Armenian
property, reparations, and the challenges of moving forward and
confronting the past in Turkey.
The poster of the symposium Below are the minutes from the symposium,
prepared by Yucel Demirer and read at the closing. The minutes are
translated from Turkish by the Armenian Weekly staff.
***
After two days of intense, tiring, but productive meetings, we are
at the end. I want to start by thanking every contributing person,
institution, and group, especially Sait Cetinoglu and Mahmut Konuk,
and by emphasizing the somber excitement we felt at the vigil for
the victims of the genocide in Ankara on April 24, 2010.
It is important to say a few words about the situation our organizers
found themselves in when they were preparing the meeting, in order to
understand the process. Our meeting was organized by volunteers. In
November 2009 we made a reservation for a hall, and in December paid
the sum. However, a week before the meeting, we were informed that
they wouldn’t let us use the space because they were "repairing"
it. That must have made Teoman Ozturk, in whose name the hall is
called, turn in his grave. We faced a similar difficulty regarding the
hall we are in today. First we had to announce that we had canceled
the meeting. Then we started it again, and yesterday we were before
you with the participants that we could gather.
I felt I had to say this to underline the continuity in state policies,
rather than to complain.
Our meeting was important, as Fikret Baskaya pointed out, in virtue of
bringing the subject to the level of its real owners–ordinary people
like us. It has been a modest but significant step for contributing to
the common honorable history of peoples against the official historian,
whose mission is to darken and polish.
As Baskin Oran stated in his talk, there are complex but inter-related
aspects of the issue. Even though we are only at the start of the
process of understanding and interpreting the slaughter and raid
that advanced by a domino effect–as Oran expressed, by "whoever was
struck in Anatolia, struck the Armenians"–the Ankara symposium was
also important because it pointed to critical academic and social
opportunities.
As it has been stated in the two-day long meeting, to understand the
process, internal and external factors must be examined calmly and
separately. The shameful "one-way passport" example that Adil Okay
referred to should not be seen merely as a problem of the past, in
Mahir Sayin’s words; it must be studied in all the aspects that damage
our collective psychology. What underlies this is the necessity today
of keeping our Kurdish brothers away from what the Armenians faced
in the past…
In the second session, Ismail Besikci drew attention to the archive
fetish, and stressed a crucial methodological point by his deduction
that the order for two prison massacres in the 1990’s would not be
found in the archives in 2080.
Sait Cetinoglu took the unending issue of continuity and discontinuity
in the Ottoman and the Turkish Republic mentalities, which is usually
discussed on an abstract level, to the level of continuities in the
officials with the examples he provided.
Tuma Celik, from the European Assyrian Union, spoke of the past and
present victimhood of people other than Armenians, and deeply moved us
when he told us how he had to change his name to Tuna at high school.
Besikci’s note regarding how the concept of an archive is used
and abused by official history writing was answered in the third
session in the afternoon by young researchers Mehmet Polatel and Asli
Comu. Polatel discussed how emval-i metruke (abandoned properties)
were plundered, to whom they were distributed, and how the capital
was Turkified. Comu discussed, on the basis of archive material, how
and to whom the Armenian properties were distributed in the cases of
Adana, Tarsus, and Mersin.
On the second day, in the panel titled "The Armenian Question:
What to Do and How to Do It?", Khatchig Mouradian began his talk
by stating that it was not possible to define the Turkish people as
a monolithic bloc, and emphasized that the 1915 genocide should be
discussed as an issue of justice rather than an issue of democracy. He
noted that, contrary to customary opinion, apology and reparation
are not divisive of peoples, but rather constitute the beginning of
a healthy relationship.
Ragip Zarakolu started by talking about the people from Maras and
Diyarbakir whom he met in Sao Paulo, and stated that the Diaspora
Armenians, who are always seen as a problem in Turkey, in fact reflect
well on Turkey and refute false generalizations. Zarakolu stated that
in Turkey, the institutions and committees that are interested in the
Armenian Question are kept a secret, and that they should be brought
to light.
Henry Theriault referred to the many examples of confrontation and
apology in the world, and discussed the negative effects of genocide
denial on large sections of the society. He argued that it was wrong
to take the politically influential Armenia and Turkey as equals,
and that the only way to make real political progress was through
reparations for the victims of the genocide.
Eilian Williams discussed the process of public opinion formation
in the smaller European countries, and stressed the prejudices that
were entrenched in, and could be traced from, culture and folklore,
which was an important reminder for future research.
Sevan Nisanyan objected to Theriault’s opinion about reparations,
and stated that, as a tax-paying citizen of Turkey, compensation
to great-grandchildren would not be a solution. Drawing attention
to the principle that crime is personal, Nisanyan argued that such
demands would not be conducive to the process, but rather would hurt
the chances of living together in this country. Nisanyan suggested,
instead, that symbolic and moral endeavors such as renaming the
Halaskargazi Street as Hrant Dink Street be taken. He stated that real
understanding could be achieved through a socio-economic reading of
the process.
Temel Demirer began his talk with Arat Dink’s words–"a hundred years
ago we were prey, now we are bait"–and claimed that the reality of
massacre was a standing preference in the history of the state and
could be only dealt with by confronting the official ideology. He
stated that the republic was founded by the Malta exiles, and that
at the foundation of the capital reserves lay genocide plunders. He
described the denial as an ongoing pro-Ittihad attitude of the Turkish
Republic, and concluded that the source of the solution would be a
radical confrontation and the mutual support of the peoples.
Harry Parsekian, the son of an immigrant to the U.S. in 1911, said
that he didn’t blame the people of Turkey and that mutual understanding
was necessary, but that without an official apology the process would
come to a halt.
Sarkis Hatspanian, who is in prison in Armenia, said in his
statement that it was appropriate to view the genocide on the basis
of destruction and denial, and that the genocide was the elimination
of the idea of Armenia, which was seen as an obstacle to Turkish
expansion.
Recep Marasli discussed the role of the Kurds in the Armenian Genocide
in his poster statement. Even though the Kurds did not participate
in the planning and decision-making process, he said, they were not
mere collaborators, but part of a strategic alliance with the genocide
committers, an alliance that had a historical background.
In a statement by Garbis Altinoglu, it was emphasized that the
Turkish-Armenian problem had deep and highly complex roots, and
that it would be impossible to confront the perpetrators of the
genocide without objecting to and fighting with the manifestations
of persecution on the national basis and social injustice.
In the closing session, Tayfun Isci, Ali Ulger from the Kizilbas
Journal, Zeynel Sabaz from the Kaldirac Journal, Barista Erdost from
the Socialist Democracy Party, Partizan representative Kenan Ozyurek,
Cemal Dogan from the Federation of Democratic Peoples, Mustafa Kahya
from the Socialist Party, Nur Yilmaz from Alinteri Journal, Yasar
Batman, Huriye Sahin, and Mahmut Konuk from the Ankara Freedom of
Thought Initiative, spoke.
In these two days, even though there have been those who characterized
the massacre of the Armenians as something other than genocide,
the majority of the symposium organizers and speakers described it as
genocide, and stressed the need for decriminalizing the genocide label,
for the state to face this reality and fulfill its responsibilities,
and for a democratic constitution that can end single-minded approaches
and treat all differences on an equal basis.