Tweet
TURKEY AND THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: CONTEMPORARY REFLECTIONS
by By Dr. Harry Hagopian
www.newropeans-magazine.org
April 24 2007
Today, on 24th April, Armenians will commemorate the 92nd anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide. They will remember their forbears - well
over one million Armenian men, women and children - who were killed
in various odious ways by Ottoman Turkey under cover of WWI.
The serious academic world is well beyond 'researching' the Armenian
Genocide. Many international associations and individual experts
specialising in the history let alone psychology of genocide have
established time and again the unarguable veracity of this event.
However, the modern-day Turkish establishment and its cohorts continue
relentlessly to deny this genocide with rehearsed and glib arguments
that are truly farcical were they not also shameful. Simply put,
Armenians were almost wiped off the Ottoman map during the period 1915
till 1923 in a dual policy that blended a Turkish Ottoman desire for
dominion over a pan-Turkic region with vengefulness for its bitter
defeat in WWI. One need only read Donald Bloxham's thoughtful The
Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism and the Destruction
of Ottoman Armenians or Taner Akcam's trenchant A Shameful Act:
The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility
that uses Ottoman Turkish state documents and contemporary Turkish
statements to corroborate that the genocide against Armenians was
a gripping historical reality. The city of Trabzon for example,
where Hrant Dink's killer purportedly originated from, is simply one
example amongst countless others of "killing members of a group" or
"deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part" (according
to Art II [a] & [c] of the Genocide Convention 1948) where Turkish
authorities in 1915 herded thousands of Armenians on boats, set them
off into the Black Sea and later drowned them with sheer impunity.
Given this sobering reality, I believe that Turkish contemporary
refusal to admit the guilt of its predecessor regime of the crime of
genocide is due in part to a psychological phenomenon of individual and
collective defensiveness against the perception of being accused by its
enemies (Armenians) and by its non-friends (supporters of the Armenian
efforts for recognition). As was written in an editorial I read only
last week, if Turkey were to be candid about its past rather than hide
behind threats, intimidation and obfuscations, it would recall that the
Sultan tried to distance himself in 1916 from the actions of the CUP,
the 'state within the state', and reassured the British Government
that the perpetrators of those egregious crimes would be punished -
as was the case with the four trials whose proceedings were included
in the government gazette.
Today, this phase of denial intensifies once more despite the
encouraging initial steps adopted by Turkey when negotiations for its
possible accession to the EU started formally in 2005. Now, however,
instead of moving forward, Turkey shows perceptible signs of regression
as it passes laws such as Articles 301 or 312 of the Turkish Penal
Code that have prosecuted Turks and non-Turks alike, those living
in the country or abroad, either for "defaming Turkishness" or for
"insulting Ataturk". Those who have suffered the brunt of such
laws include the likes of Orhan Pamuk, Perihan Magden, Murat Belge,
Ismet Berkan, Hasan Cemal, Elif Safak, Semih Sokmen, Ibrahim Kaboglu,
Baskin Oran, Halil Altindere, Murat Pabuc, Eren Keskin, Ragip Zarakolu,
Ahmet Onal, Fatih Tas, Rahmi Yildirim, Erol Ozkoray, Osman Tiftikci
and Sirri Ozturk, Osman Pamukoðlu, EU Commissioner Joost Lagendjik,
HH Karekin II, Michael Dickinson, Ipek Calislar, Abdullah Dilipak
and Mehmet Sevki Eygi, Yalcýn Ergundoðan and Ibrahim Cesmecioglu,
Attila Yayla, Belma Akcura, Cuneyt Arcayurek, Tuncay Ozkan, Taner
Akcam, Attila Tuygan and Mehmet Ali Varýþ. In fact, merely defining
the Armenian deportations in 1915 as "genocide" is interpreted as
"defaming Turkishness". One such instance occurred when Erhan Akay was
convicted to five months of prison for his article in Cagri entitled
Time to Confront the Armenian Question After 90 Years.
But it is even more disgraceful in the institutional politics of denial
pursued by Turkey when international organisations that are meant to
uphold International law and speak out against genocide kow-tow to the
political pressures of denial. I cite here how the UN, under its new
leadership, bowed recently to Turkey's demands and blocked a scheduled
opening of an exhibition at UN headquarters commemorating the 13th
anniversary of the Rwandan genocide solely because it had mentioned
the mass murder of the Armenians. Ankara was offended by a sentence
that explained how genocide came to be recognised as a crime under
international law: "Following World War I during which one million
Armenians were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged
the League of Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international
crimes." The British-based organisers of this exhibition were willing
to omit the words "in Turkey", but this was clearly not enough for the
UN aficionados, and the exhibit has been put on hold. Nearer to our
own European shores, I also cite the [heretofore successful] Turkish
pressures exercised over Germany, as current President of the Council
of the European Union, to remove the case of the Armenian Genocide
as an illustrative example (the other two are the Jewish Holocaust
and Rwandan Genocide) for a pan-European law that is currently being
drafted to outlaw genocide denial in all twenty-five EU countries.
When will Turkey decide to follow a post-nationalist attitude
to history? When will it realise that every time it strives to
curtail any discussion of the Armenian Genocide, it only draws wider
attention to the subject and links today's Turkey with the crimes
of its predecessor regime? When will certain elements within Turkish
society realise that their campaign of vilification, libel, lies and
smut on different Internet websites against prominent Turkish and
foreign scholars or journalists the likes of Taner Akcam, Robert Fisk
or Mike Joseph is not only scurrilous but depicts Turks in the least
favourable light? Should Turkey not underline - rather than undermine -
its Eurocentric credentials as it seeks to join the EU fold?
Indeed, it should revise the Turkish Criminal Code and stop applying
its Anti-Terror Law (TMY). It should also stop confiscating books,
suspending or trying writers, journalists, publishers, intellectuals,
translators and human rights activists, muzzling the press and
discriminating against its different minorities instead of protecting
them.
Once those rudimental changes are implemented and begin to take
root, when Turkish judicial chauvinism expires, and when the Turkish
establishment listens to some of its own academics and comes clean on
the genocide by recognising it, Armenians would then express their
responsibility by showing a necessary measure of soul-searching and
dealing politically with their ninety-two-year-old emotional pain.
Who knows, such a devolution might well lead toward neighbourliness
let alone prosperity and ultimately forgiven friendships between
Armenians and Turks - as was the case largely before the heinous
pogroms of the late 1800's and the subsequent genocide.
--Boundary_(ID_KNVRuOqzCz8mu9pSpql5cw)- -
by By Dr. Harry Hagopian
www.newropeans-magazine.org
April 24 2007
Today, on 24th April, Armenians will commemorate the 92nd anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide. They will remember their forbears - well
over one million Armenian men, women and children - who were killed
in various odious ways by Ottoman Turkey under cover of WWI.
The serious academic world is well beyond 'researching' the Armenian
Genocide. Many international associations and individual experts
specialising in the history let alone psychology of genocide have
established time and again the unarguable veracity of this event.
However, the modern-day Turkish establishment and its cohorts continue
relentlessly to deny this genocide with rehearsed and glib arguments
that are truly farcical were they not also shameful. Simply put,
Armenians were almost wiped off the Ottoman map during the period 1915
till 1923 in a dual policy that blended a Turkish Ottoman desire for
dominion over a pan-Turkic region with vengefulness for its bitter
defeat in WWI. One need only read Donald Bloxham's thoughtful The
Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism and the Destruction
of Ottoman Armenians or Taner Akcam's trenchant A Shameful Act:
The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility
that uses Ottoman Turkish state documents and contemporary Turkish
statements to corroborate that the genocide against Armenians was
a gripping historical reality. The city of Trabzon for example,
where Hrant Dink's killer purportedly originated from, is simply one
example amongst countless others of "killing members of a group" or
"deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part" (according
to Art II [a] & [c] of the Genocide Convention 1948) where Turkish
authorities in 1915 herded thousands of Armenians on boats, set them
off into the Black Sea and later drowned them with sheer impunity.
Given this sobering reality, I believe that Turkish contemporary
refusal to admit the guilt of its predecessor regime of the crime of
genocide is due in part to a psychological phenomenon of individual and
collective defensiveness against the perception of being accused by its
enemies (Armenians) and by its non-friends (supporters of the Armenian
efforts for recognition). As was written in an editorial I read only
last week, if Turkey were to be candid about its past rather than hide
behind threats, intimidation and obfuscations, it would recall that the
Sultan tried to distance himself in 1916 from the actions of the CUP,
the 'state within the state', and reassured the British Government
that the perpetrators of those egregious crimes would be punished -
as was the case with the four trials whose proceedings were included
in the government gazette.
Today, this phase of denial intensifies once more despite the
encouraging initial steps adopted by Turkey when negotiations for its
possible accession to the EU started formally in 2005. Now, however,
instead of moving forward, Turkey shows perceptible signs of regression
as it passes laws such as Articles 301 or 312 of the Turkish Penal
Code that have prosecuted Turks and non-Turks alike, those living
in the country or abroad, either for "defaming Turkishness" or for
"insulting Ataturk". Those who have suffered the brunt of such
laws include the likes of Orhan Pamuk, Perihan Magden, Murat Belge,
Ismet Berkan, Hasan Cemal, Elif Safak, Semih Sokmen, Ibrahim Kaboglu,
Baskin Oran, Halil Altindere, Murat Pabuc, Eren Keskin, Ragip Zarakolu,
Ahmet Onal, Fatih Tas, Rahmi Yildirim, Erol Ozkoray, Osman Tiftikci
and Sirri Ozturk, Osman Pamukoðlu, EU Commissioner Joost Lagendjik,
HH Karekin II, Michael Dickinson, Ipek Calislar, Abdullah Dilipak
and Mehmet Sevki Eygi, Yalcýn Ergundoðan and Ibrahim Cesmecioglu,
Attila Yayla, Belma Akcura, Cuneyt Arcayurek, Tuncay Ozkan, Taner
Akcam, Attila Tuygan and Mehmet Ali Varýþ. In fact, merely defining
the Armenian deportations in 1915 as "genocide" is interpreted as
"defaming Turkishness". One such instance occurred when Erhan Akay was
convicted to five months of prison for his article in Cagri entitled
Time to Confront the Armenian Question After 90 Years.
But it is even more disgraceful in the institutional politics of denial
pursued by Turkey when international organisations that are meant to
uphold International law and speak out against genocide kow-tow to the
political pressures of denial. I cite here how the UN, under its new
leadership, bowed recently to Turkey's demands and blocked a scheduled
opening of an exhibition at UN headquarters commemorating the 13th
anniversary of the Rwandan genocide solely because it had mentioned
the mass murder of the Armenians. Ankara was offended by a sentence
that explained how genocide came to be recognised as a crime under
international law: "Following World War I during which one million
Armenians were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged
the League of Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international
crimes." The British-based organisers of this exhibition were willing
to omit the words "in Turkey", but this was clearly not enough for the
UN aficionados, and the exhibit has been put on hold. Nearer to our
own European shores, I also cite the [heretofore successful] Turkish
pressures exercised over Germany, as current President of the Council
of the European Union, to remove the case of the Armenian Genocide
as an illustrative example (the other two are the Jewish Holocaust
and Rwandan Genocide) for a pan-European law that is currently being
drafted to outlaw genocide denial in all twenty-five EU countries.
When will Turkey decide to follow a post-nationalist attitude
to history? When will it realise that every time it strives to
curtail any discussion of the Armenian Genocide, it only draws wider
attention to the subject and links today's Turkey with the crimes
of its predecessor regime? When will certain elements within Turkish
society realise that their campaign of vilification, libel, lies and
smut on different Internet websites against prominent Turkish and
foreign scholars or journalists the likes of Taner Akcam, Robert Fisk
or Mike Joseph is not only scurrilous but depicts Turks in the least
favourable light? Should Turkey not underline - rather than undermine -
its Eurocentric credentials as it seeks to join the EU fold?
Indeed, it should revise the Turkish Criminal Code and stop applying
its Anti-Terror Law (TMY). It should also stop confiscating books,
suspending or trying writers, journalists, publishers, intellectuals,
translators and human rights activists, muzzling the press and
discriminating against its different minorities instead of protecting
them.
Once those rudimental changes are implemented and begin to take
root, when Turkish judicial chauvinism expires, and when the Turkish
establishment listens to some of its own academics and comes clean on
the genocide by recognising it, Armenians would then express their
responsibility by showing a necessary measure of soul-searching and
dealing politically with their ninety-two-year-old emotional pain.
Who knows, such a devolution might well lead toward neighbourliness
let alone prosperity and ultimately forgiven friendships between
Armenians and Turks - as was the case largely before the heinous
pogroms of the late 1800's and the subsequent genocide.
--Boundary_(ID_KNVRuOqzCz8mu9pSpql5cw)- -