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A new era regarding the Armenian Question
Yeni Safak Newspaper
11/27/2004
Ali Bayramoglu ([email protected])
As the December 17th date (of EU deliberations on Turkey's candidacy --
MG) gets closer, the attitudes regarding Turkey's candidacy become
articulated, sharpened. Especially "Armenian diaspora" in France
has locked its entire energy to the "target of rejecting Turkey."
All the way from the attempts in Marseilles by Dashnak groups attacking
Chirac physically to the declaration yesterday in Paris of an Armenian
organization that, not content with the recognition of the genocide,
demanding (for the first time) physical and material reparations in
relation to the events of 1915 as a precondition of Turkey's membership
in the EU, the bar placed in front of Turkey keeps rising.
The actions, attitudes and timing of these groups make it evident
their intention is not to discuss but to punish.
The most significant glue of the identities of the Armenian diaspora,
that is, Armenians living outside of Turkey and Armenia (they make
up 5 million of the total Armenian population of 8 million) is the
1915 reference and "the fundamentalist struggle against Turkey,
therefore taking a stand against Turkey, even Turkish animosity,
as if there were a state of continuous war."
Still, as we stated yesterday, Turkey's getting closer to EU
membership has livened up Armenian politics and commenced the process
of differentiation among the Armenian communities.
Three different communities or actors of Armenian society with their
different experiences, different relations, and different communal
relations, are quickly getting politically differentiated from one
another.
Armenia, due to its societal-political interests and the geographical
conditions within which it is situated, is pursuing to develop gradual
relations with Turkey that takes as an index not the past but the
present and the future.
Likewise the Armenian community in Turkey, living with the Turks
and sharing the same destiny, problems and concerns with them, and
locked into the same target of elevating the quality of its societal
existence and life and rights, sails in the waters of the "present
time." More importantly, it is escalating its democratic voice and
force through some of its natural leaders and representatives both
internationally and within the Armenian communities every passing day.
As for the diaspora that appears to be the strongest in terms of both
numbers and voice, the diaspora is becoming increasingly fragmented
within domestic Armenian politics. It has suddenly started to find
confronting it "Armenian voices" that it has not been used to hearing.
This situation and contradiction is evident: For the diaspora
Armenians, that which represents "the present and future time" is
their economic, social and emotional lives, the relations they have
in the countries they live. Many of them do not know Armenian, do not
care about Armenia, and for them being an Armenian and the Armenian
problem is an issue defined by history and the past that is located
in a chest and occasionally taken out.
And the past is basically treated in relation to the events of 1915.
For them, the Armenian identity is located on a one-dimensional image
of the "historical Turk." This is a viewpoint that lives the past
as if it were the present, that makes the switch between the past
and the present totally nonexistent. At the meeting in Marseilles,
an Armenian explained the claim that the Turks knew everything about
the 1915 events with the following words:
"Your prime minister made everything public a few days ago."
When we asked in disbelief which prime minister he was referring to,
he replied "Damad Ferit Pasha."
The diaspora which has the "luxury" to live by freezing time, by
living the past Armenian identity in the chest as if it were today
is located, with its atemporal identities and hierachical problems,
right at the center of a definition of "patriarchy."
This definition of the Turk and this exercise in reductionism express
a radical nationalism that feeds on the conception of the other.
What is important today is for the hegemony of the diaspora to become
contested.
For both Turkey and Armenia, this differentiation process opens novel
rational spaces within which to solve an ancient problem.
>>From the viewpoint of Turkey, relations established with Armenia
could enable the politics of today and tomorrow to triumph over the
reflexes of the past.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Yeni Safak Newspaper
11/27/2004
Ali Bayramoglu ([email protected])
As the December 17th date (of EU deliberations on Turkey's candidacy --
MG) gets closer, the attitudes regarding Turkey's candidacy become
articulated, sharpened. Especially "Armenian diaspora" in France
has locked its entire energy to the "target of rejecting Turkey."
All the way from the attempts in Marseilles by Dashnak groups attacking
Chirac physically to the declaration yesterday in Paris of an Armenian
organization that, not content with the recognition of the genocide,
demanding (for the first time) physical and material reparations in
relation to the events of 1915 as a precondition of Turkey's membership
in the EU, the bar placed in front of Turkey keeps rising.
The actions, attitudes and timing of these groups make it evident
their intention is not to discuss but to punish.
The most significant glue of the identities of the Armenian diaspora,
that is, Armenians living outside of Turkey and Armenia (they make
up 5 million of the total Armenian population of 8 million) is the
1915 reference and "the fundamentalist struggle against Turkey,
therefore taking a stand against Turkey, even Turkish animosity,
as if there were a state of continuous war."
Still, as we stated yesterday, Turkey's getting closer to EU
membership has livened up Armenian politics and commenced the process
of differentiation among the Armenian communities.
Three different communities or actors of Armenian society with their
different experiences, different relations, and different communal
relations, are quickly getting politically differentiated from one
another.
Armenia, due to its societal-political interests and the geographical
conditions within which it is situated, is pursuing to develop gradual
relations with Turkey that takes as an index not the past but the
present and the future.
Likewise the Armenian community in Turkey, living with the Turks
and sharing the same destiny, problems and concerns with them, and
locked into the same target of elevating the quality of its societal
existence and life and rights, sails in the waters of the "present
time." More importantly, it is escalating its democratic voice and
force through some of its natural leaders and representatives both
internationally and within the Armenian communities every passing day.
As for the diaspora that appears to be the strongest in terms of both
numbers and voice, the diaspora is becoming increasingly fragmented
within domestic Armenian politics. It has suddenly started to find
confronting it "Armenian voices" that it has not been used to hearing.
This situation and contradiction is evident: For the diaspora
Armenians, that which represents "the present and future time" is
their economic, social and emotional lives, the relations they have
in the countries they live. Many of them do not know Armenian, do not
care about Armenia, and for them being an Armenian and the Armenian
problem is an issue defined by history and the past that is located
in a chest and occasionally taken out.
And the past is basically treated in relation to the events of 1915.
For them, the Armenian identity is located on a one-dimensional image
of the "historical Turk." This is a viewpoint that lives the past
as if it were the present, that makes the switch between the past
and the present totally nonexistent. At the meeting in Marseilles,
an Armenian explained the claim that the Turks knew everything about
the 1915 events with the following words:
"Your prime minister made everything public a few days ago."
When we asked in disbelief which prime minister he was referring to,
he replied "Damad Ferit Pasha."
The diaspora which has the "luxury" to live by freezing time, by
living the past Armenian identity in the chest as if it were today
is located, with its atemporal identities and hierachical problems,
right at the center of a definition of "patriarchy."
This definition of the Turk and this exercise in reductionism express
a radical nationalism that feeds on the conception of the other.
What is important today is for the hegemony of the diaspora to become
contested.
For both Turkey and Armenia, this differentiation process opens novel
rational spaces within which to solve an ancient problem.
>>From the viewpoint of Turkey, relations established with Armenia
could enable the politics of today and tomorrow to triumph over the
reflexes of the past.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress