WHAT NEXT?
Today’s Zaman
Jan 24 2012
Turkey
It happened again. Turkey is being cornered once more by international
actors for not developing a strategy to reconcile with its past. The
French Senate endorsed a bill penalizing the denial of genocidal
crimes. Now the French courts can penalize any expression or claim
disavowing genocide even outside French national territory.
The French Senate ruled that Armenians were subjected to genocide
by Ottoman authorities usurping the power of an international court
of law. Secondly, a legislative body has generated a penalty and
forsaken the principle of the separation of powers. Thirdly, the
French Parliament has passed judgment on a historical controversy
that it did not take part in. None of what I have stated is original;
many people have said this verbatim.
What is more important is the fact that the ghosts of yesterday
are haunting Turkey. For most Turks, the past with Armenians is a
fiction that they never learned officially. Armenians exist in the
mind of the common Turk as “aliens” and traitors. What they learned
about their past was mainly glorification of the republic and the
imperial grandeur of their forefathers who could do no wrong. Hence
any falsification of this ideal portrait ends in public uproar and
denial, if not legal action.
Turkey’s past historiography (official history) is a kind of good
bedtime story. The republic is “virtuous” (in fact, the term republic
is equated with “virtue” in Turkish secondary education) and the
Ottoman period is an example of tolerance and solidarity among
nations under the imperial flag. There is no room for criticism in
this historiography, for there is no controversy or injustice. Turkish
history is an ideal example of collected and collated legends.
The problem is not with history or writing history. The problem is
with the “others” who tell us different (opposing) stories about our
“glorious history.” Why do they do this? They claim they shared a
long history and the same motherland with us. As we come to grips
with these realities, they attach a demand: They want to return to
the history and the lands they were rejected from.
We, Turks, have found this demand too unrealistic and ill-willed.
After all, Turkish independence was not just won against invading
Westerners but their internal accomplices as well. Armenians were
labeled betrayers and plotters, among others. In fact, the Turkish
national identity was shaped by animosity and suspicion against ethnic
and religious minorities that were labeled “non-national.”
The Armenians, not the French
The Turkish government declared a long list of reprisals when the
genocide denial bill was introduced in the French Parliament. It is
expected that the dose and number of these reprisals will increase,
but for what purpose? The French (and the expediency of the French
politicians preparing for the upcoming presidential race) are not part
of the controversy concerning Armenians and Turks. The two peoples have
to reconcile their differences. But the history told on both sides is
so ideological, emotional and distant to each other that they have to
be brought together so they can at least see each other face to face.
If the call to face history is honest and there is a consensus that
history must be written by historians rather than politicians, let
us do so. I propose the following: Let us choose events such as the
assassination attempt on Sultan Abdulhamid II, the Van uprising,
which Armenians call “the defense of Van”; the Musa Dag resistance,
which Turks call an uprising; and Armenian soldiers fighting in and
against the Ottoman army during World War I. A human inventory of
the deportation of Armenians and its economic ramifications must
also be made. Let there be three groups of historians — Armenians,
Turks and international experts.
After a thorough study of such events, we will have rich historical
accounts of the same incidents. Then an authoritative assembly of
experts elected from all three groups can collate the accumulated
data and write a consensual final version. Only then will we have
an acceptable history that leaves no concerned party out and does no
injustice to either. The role of third parties may be revealed too;
otherwise we will be humming the same nationalistic songs laden with
hatred and defamation.