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ANKARA: Exit From A Well 1,915 Meters Deep

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  • ANKARA: Exit From A Well 1,915 Meters Deep

    EXIT FROM A WELL 1,915 METERS DEEP

    Today's Zaman, Turkey
    April 25 2013

    by Markar Esayan

    As Turkey is putting an end to its denial policy or at least going
    through a significant change in this regard, it is impossible to
    stick to the red lines of the old ideological mentality concerning
    the 1915 forced relocation of Armenians. The democratic progress
    made and reforms implemented during the last 10 years have already
    produced a serious curiosity and urge for understanding about this
    issue. Every sane person has asked the following question: Now that
    the official version of the past is not true, how could its account
    of the 1915 incidents be true? Why should we not question it?

    The banishment of Armenians from their lands through massacres and
    exiles in 1915 is not a problem specific to Armenians. It is one of
    the main reasons why the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) and its
    supporters forced the country to join World War I so as to endanger
    the entire country and make an impact on its fate. Unfortunately,
    this ideological preference was inherited by the newly established
    republic, paving the way for the emergence of a number of serious
    problems such as the Kurdish, Alevi, Armenian and deep state issues.

    The violence to which the Armenians had been subjected came to be
    imposed on Kurds, non-Muslim religious minorities who chose to stay in
    the country, Alevis, Muslims and all dissident groups, albeit with a
    changing magnitude depending on the conjuncture. This practice helped
    preserve the totalitarian nature of the regime, and democracy couldn't
    flourish in this country.

    Thus, people not only refrained from questioning the sins of the
    pro-CUP ideology but also glorified the logic and ethics of these
    sins. The tendency to cover up these sins made it possible to overthrow
    a democratically elected government once every 10 years and inject
    hatred and animosity into social groups. Certain segments of society
    even long regarded the execution of a prime minister and two ministers
    during the military coup of 1960 as a democratic achievement thanks
    to this polarization.

    After about a century, Turkey is now facing the sins of its past. The
    prime minister has made an official apology for the massacres of
    Alevis and Kurds in Dersim between 1937 and 1938. And the pressures
    backed by the law on non-Muslim religious minorities are being eased.

    Not everything is perfect, but there is certainly positive progress.

    Most importantly, the state is quickly stripping itself of the old
    state's mentality. Society is becoming freer and people are starting
    to ask questions and bad things do not happen to them as they seek
    to find answers to these questions. This is because everyone in
    this country has problems with the past. These problems signify the
    injustices suffered. People realize a new order won't be permanent if
    these injustices are not redressed through confrontation and remedies.

    The Great Tragedy (Meds Yeghern) Armenians suffered in 1915 is part of
    this story, and it is perhaps the starting point of this story. If the
    confrontation with 1915 had occurred during the establishment of the
    republic, i.e., if the offenders of the massacre had not been employed
    in the civilian and military bureaucracy of the state, then the story
    would probably be very different. Thus, a problem that is today causing
    tensions for Turkey would have been settled at that time. But we would
    also not be experiencing other problems stemming from this mentality.

    There is also the Armenian side of the story. As a people who have
    been banished from their homeland with a great trauma under whatever
    pretext was found for it, Armenians have been trying to tell everyone
    that they have suffered from a great injustice for the last 98 years.

    Therefore, they couldn't start to mourn for their losses and they
    remain stuck in 1915. But as Hrant Dink put it, this was a gross evil
    done by the CUP supporters to the entire country. To get rid of this
    disease, Turks need Armenians and vice versa.

    I am not talking about state policies. Rather, I say, it is high time
    both nations shared their common sorrows and healed each other. They
    must jettison the radical tendency to see Turks as genocidal and
    Armenians as anti-Turk. They must share this sorrow and exit together
    from the wrong path we took at the start. I think this is the only
    correct formula.

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