Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Recognising Genocide: Part Two

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Recognising Genocide: Part Two

    RECOGNISING GENOCIDE: PART TWO

    Neos Kosmos - The Hellenic Perspective, Australia
    June 2 2014

    Obstacles for recognition of genocide in Modern Turkey

    To date, other than the extremely brave Turkish scholars such as
    Taner Akcam, Selim Deringil and some journalists who lament the demise
    of a multicultural Turkey, there have been few efforts by Greece to
    actively engage Turkey in a rational discussion on the Genocide.

    However, popular opinion in Turkey is gradually shifting, especially
    with regard to the genocide against the Armenians. Recently, the
    grandson of Jemal Pasha, one of the three army officers who instigated
    the genocide, suggesting that "Turkey, as a state, should apologize to
    the Armenians." Such public calls for recognition are becoming larger
    in number, with prominent businessman Ishak Alaton commenting that:
    "Apology is a sign of maturity and it is time for Turkey to grow up...

    There is little time left until 2015 when Turkey will face a huge
    campaign by the Armenian lobby, which claims it will be the 100th
    year of Armenian genocide." There appears to be at least a tacit
    acknowledgment by sections of the Turkish media, that, despite their
    own interpretation of events, the Armenians have managed to convince
    the world of the righteousness of their cause.

    Hurriyet journalist Mehmet Ali Birand, for example, observed the
    following in an article strangely entitled: "Now the Armenians
    are making us walk the Deportation March": "Armenians are almost
    approaching the end in their genocide claims. They have made the world
    accept their claims by working continuously like industrious ants
    for 100 years. While they were explaining their pain and what they
    had to live through, we did not even discuss among ourselves what had
    happened. We buried our heads in the sand and have reached these days.

    We could not reply in a persuasive manner. We lost the case."

    While some sympathy exists for the Armenians among the Turkish
    intelligentsia, and while some Turkish journalists stress the need to
    tactically address the Armenian Genocide in order to enhance the global
    image of Turkey, this does not seem to extend to a consideration of
    the genocide against Greeks in Pontus and the rest of Asia Minor. Last
    year, when the Diatribe wrote about this Genocide, an incendiary
    letter was received from a Turkish nationalist, making accusations of
    racism and incitement of racial hatred. This is something echoed by
    many Turks I have spoken to over the years: that the victim's (our)
    discourse about the genocide, (which usually involves exhibiting
    statistics of the death toll and reading contemporary newspaper
    articles that describe crimes of murder and torture in harrowing
    detail), is that it is a natural consequence of the actions of a race
    which is by its very nature, inhumane and barbaric. According to this
    view, the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks are using the Genocide to
    vilify the entire Turkish nation and deny its humanity.

    I profoundly disagree with this point of view, which does not take into
    account (a) the inherited trauma of the brutality of genocide and (b)
    frustration at the continued Turkish denial of this crime. I believe
    that the enormity of the crime, as contained in newspaper accounts of
    the time is so horrific as to need no further embellishment. However,
    I concede that the disturbing gleefulness with which some Greek
    ultra-nationalists and for want of a better word "genocide-peddlers"
    take it upon themselves to present historical incidents of Turkish
    brutality against Christians, the gorier the better, sometimes does
    seem to be more than just reporting of facts and rather, calculated
    to a) enhance their own self importance and b) incite feelings of
    disgust and anger at the entire Turkish race, despite their vocal
    protestations to the contrary.

    Both in Greece and in Australia, the Genocide discourse is thus
    being played out, mostly for domestic consumption, with a schematic
    and highly narrow presentation of facts to the already converted,
    that focuses mainly on the mechanics of the slaughter. There is
    no consideration of the broader social, historical and political
    framework which enabled the Genocide to take place and certainly no
    dialogue with, or consideration of the discourse from the Turkish
    point of view, which is necessary, if we are to reach some type of
    recognition by them of the Genocide and an apology to the victims.

    Further, if our only contribution to the discussion is the internalised
    list of crimes, it is axiomatic that when faced with a perceived
    onslaught of racial denigration, that the immediate Turkish knee-jerk
    reaction is to dismiss all accusations put by us and wallow in rage,
    just as post-war Germans turned their heads away from the screen
    when forced by the Allies to watch footage of the Nazi extermination
    camps. At that stage, the time for listening or dialogue is past and
    any attempts to engage with Turks in order for them to appreciate
    the enormity of the crime of Genocide committed by their ancestors,
    are rendered futile.

    Another major problem with unseasoned Genocide campaigners' approaches,
    it their pseudo-legalism, where, in their quest to forensically 'prove'
    the genocide, they try to selectively fit the events of the genocide
    into the various legal definitions of genocide that exist, some of
    which have changed or are no longer as broad as they should be, or are
    too broad. For example, the UN definition is now extremely broad but
    does not cover all instances of cultural genocide or violence against
    women. As a result, the whole debate becomes a nit-picking exercise
    between would be-lawyers, obfuscating the main point - which is that
    a State took it upon itself to incite its subjects to commit horrible
    crimes against subject minorities, with a view to exterminating them,
    from within its borders and even worse, that the State in question,
    the Ottoman Empire and its successor, deny that it ever happened,
    despite a multitude of eyewitness and independent evidence verifying
    it. In this case, legally 'proving' what the world already knows
    is a useless exercise, especially since nation states can 'opt out'
    of being bound by international court decisions.

    In his book With Intent to Destroy: Reflections on Genocide, Colin
    Tatz argues that Turkey denies the genocide so as not to jeopardize
    "its ninety-five-year-old dream of becoming the beacon of democracy
    in the Near East". In the light of recent developments in the region,
    this argument seems unconvincing. On the other hand in their book
    Negotiating the Sacred: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural
    Society, Elizabeth Burns Coleman and Kevin White present a list of
    reasons explaining Turkey's inability to admit the genocides committed
    by the Young Turks, being: a) a suppression of guilt and shame that
    a warrior nation, a 'beacon of democracy' as it saw itself in 1908
    (and since), slaughtered several ethnic populations. Democracies, it
    is said, don't commit genocide; ergo, Turkey couldn't and didn't do so.

    b) A cultural and social ethos of honour, a compelling and compulsive
    need to remove any blots on the national escutcheon. c) A chronic
    fear that admission will lead to massive claims for reparation and
    restitution. d) To overcome fears of social fragmentation in a society
    that is still very much a state in transition. e) A 'logical' belief
    that because the genocide was committed with impunity, so denial
    will also meet with neither opposition nor obloquy and f) An inner
    knowledge that the juggernaut denial industry has a momentum of its
    own and can't be stopped even if they wanted it to stop.

    Notwithstanding the above dealing with the genocide on a bilateral
    basis, the largest problem the Greek people face has to do with the
    nationalist hysteria referred to earlier and the fact that our history
    with Turkey is different to that of Armenians or the Assyrians. In
    striving to explain how we are the innocent victims of genocide, we
    shy away from exploring how it was that the Turks could be incited
    to commit genocide in the first place - a topic of vital importance
    if our intention is to ensure that genocide never takes place again,
    rather than achieve an ascendancy over the Turks.

    We also airbrush out our own history in the region. In particular
    we ignore the role played by Turkish refugees from the Balkans, who,
    dispossessed and resentful, were easily manipulated into taking out
    their frustrations against the Greeks of Asia Minor. We also forget
    that the Greek army, assisted by native Greeks in Anatolia, during
    the Asia Minor campaign, also took part in massacres, though on an
    extremely smaller scale and in markedly different circumstances.

    We are silent on these, though need to examine them and put them in
    perspective, for the Turkish response to our claims is always that
    we also committed massacres and or genocide, so that if they did
    perpetrate the genocide, we are no better than they and thus, all
    things are equal. Once we have examined our own role, and understand
    the motivation behind it, we can then condemn all acts of racial
    violence and brutality wherever these are committed, including our
    own, separating these and not linking them to the Genocide committed
    by the Ottoman Empire against the Christian of Asia Minor.

    Next week, we will examine the massacres the Greek army committed in
    Asia Minor and consider how these impact upon Turkish views of the
    Greek Genocide.

    * Dean Kalimniou is a Melbourne solicitor and freelance journalist.

    Part 1 can be read at
    http://neoskosmos.com/news/en/recognising-genocide-part-one

    http://neoskosmos.com/news/en/recognising-genocide-part-two


    From: Baghdasarian
Working...
X