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Los Angeles Times
Armenia haunts the Turks again
January 23, 2007
The killing of a prominent Armenian journalist last week further
widens the gap between Turkey and Europe. By Hugh Pope, HUGH POPE is
the author of "Sons of the Conquerors: the Rise of the Turkic World."
He lives in Istanbul.
IS THERE A CURSE hanging over Turkey? Each time the country achieves
sustained development, something trips it up. This time it was the
assassination on Friday of Hrant Dink, a newspaper editor, peacemaker
and one of Turkey's most prominent Armenians.
Turkey is trying to rise to the challenge, as its credibility in talks
on membership in the European Union is at stake. Denunciations of the
slaying - from the government, from Islamic leaders, from the army -
fill the airwaves. Thousands of Turks marched through the streets of
Istanbul hours after the editor was shot, shouting, "We are all
Armenians! We are all Hrant Dink!"
Police have arrested a suspect who has confessed to pulling the
trigger, but no murkiness must remain about the people and the
thinking behind the killing. The alleged killer is under 18 and is
close to right-wing nationalists. Dink, who was repeatedly threatened
by such nationalists, was left unprotected, but not just by the
Turkish police. Bad laws, malevolent prosecutions and a growing
nationalist hysteria helped create a lynch mob atmosphere.
What killed Dink, in short, is the Turkish republic's inability to
deal with the Armenian issue - the charge that its predecessor state,
the Ottoman Empire, killed 1.2 million Armenian men, women and
children in a genocide that began in 1915.
Official Turkey is stuck in a rut of denial. Discussing the great
omissions on the subject in Turkey's public education remains
taboo. Efforts to open archives and to "leave it to the historians"
lead to dead ends, partly because a scholarly debate won't assuage
diaspora Armenians who demand formal acknowledgment of the genocide,
and partly because of Turkey's anti-free-speech laws - most
notoriously Penal Code Article 301, with its catchall penalties for
"denigrating Turkishness."
The Turks have reasons to feel victimized. Christian powers don't
apologize much for ethnic cleansing carried out between 1821 and 1923,
when they rolled back the borders of the Ottoman Empire. Millions of
Muslims were killed. In 1915, World War I was raging. Turkey was
again under attack from Russia in the east and Britain and France in
the west. The Armenian leadership openly sided with Turkey's enemies,
demanded a state on Ottoman land and formed anti-Ottoman
militias. Many Turks were killed by these Armenian groups.
Turkey fears an official apology for the Armenian deaths would trigger
claims on its land or on seized Armenian assets. Turks cannot believe
the sincerity of foreign parliaments which, usually ill-informed about
the Turkish case, give in to Armenian diaspora lobbying for genocide
declarations. (One such bill looks likely to pass the U.S. Congress in
April.) Politics often seems to trump history. Would the French
Parliament have made it a crime last year to deny a "genocide" by the
Turks if an unrelated desire to keep Turkey out of the European Union
had not been prevalent?
Dink didn't take this maximal view of Turkish evil. He once wrote that
diaspora Armenians should commit their energy to independent Armenia
and not "let hatred of the Turks poison their blood." Idiotically, it
was that very column that led to his trial for violating Article 301,
on the pretext that he had said Turks were poisonous. The misquote is
the motive the assassin has given to police for his act - yet the
Turkish media keep recycling this libel. Commentators are subtly
shirking responsibility by labeling the murder a "provocation" or
blaming "outside forces."
Brave new Turkish novels, films, exhibitions and conferences have
tried to reassess the Armenian issue in recent years. But the
nationalist upsurge has slowed if not stopped that progress.
Neither Turks nor Armenians should go on like this. Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan could try a grand gesture. He might open the
border with Armenia, closed since the early 1990s. He could advocate
an international conference, where Turkey could argue its case that
there was no centralized attempt to wipe out the Armenians. After all,
Turkey already officially accepts that 300,000 people died. Best of
all, Erdogan could abolish Article 301, which makes intellectuals like
Dink a target.
None of this, however, is likely to happen. Turkey has presidential
and parliamentary elections this year, and ultranationalists pose the
main challenge to Erdogan's centrist, pro-Islamic Justice and
Development Party, or AKP. Europe - whose support is critical in
making a Turkish regime feel safe to reform - seems in no mood to
extend lines of political credit to Turkey. Dink was a rare Armenian
ready to compromise with Turkey, and his assassination will deter
replacements.
So the gap between Turkey and Europe will widen again. Muddled
thinking and inward-looking nationalism will continue to plague
Turkey, and not only in its approach to the Armenian problem. After
all, Dink's death is the symptom of negative currents that persist,
not their cause. And that, of course, is why Turkey's curse keeps
returning to strike with such tragic ease.
Armenia haunts the Turks again
January 23, 2007
The killing of a prominent Armenian journalist last week further
widens the gap between Turkey and Europe. By Hugh Pope, HUGH POPE is
the author of "Sons of the Conquerors: the Rise of the Turkic World."
He lives in Istanbul.
IS THERE A CURSE hanging over Turkey? Each time the country achieves
sustained development, something trips it up. This time it was the
assassination on Friday of Hrant Dink, a newspaper editor, peacemaker
and one of Turkey's most prominent Armenians.
Turkey is trying to rise to the challenge, as its credibility in talks
on membership in the European Union is at stake. Denunciations of the
slaying - from the government, from Islamic leaders, from the army -
fill the airwaves. Thousands of Turks marched through the streets of
Istanbul hours after the editor was shot, shouting, "We are all
Armenians! We are all Hrant Dink!"
Police have arrested a suspect who has confessed to pulling the
trigger, but no murkiness must remain about the people and the
thinking behind the killing. The alleged killer is under 18 and is
close to right-wing nationalists. Dink, who was repeatedly threatened
by such nationalists, was left unprotected, but not just by the
Turkish police. Bad laws, malevolent prosecutions and a growing
nationalist hysteria helped create a lynch mob atmosphere.
What killed Dink, in short, is the Turkish republic's inability to
deal with the Armenian issue - the charge that its predecessor state,
the Ottoman Empire, killed 1.2 million Armenian men, women and
children in a genocide that began in 1915.
Official Turkey is stuck in a rut of denial. Discussing the great
omissions on the subject in Turkey's public education remains
taboo. Efforts to open archives and to "leave it to the historians"
lead to dead ends, partly because a scholarly debate won't assuage
diaspora Armenians who demand formal acknowledgment of the genocide,
and partly because of Turkey's anti-free-speech laws - most
notoriously Penal Code Article 301, with its catchall penalties for
"denigrating Turkishness."
The Turks have reasons to feel victimized. Christian powers don't
apologize much for ethnic cleansing carried out between 1821 and 1923,
when they rolled back the borders of the Ottoman Empire. Millions of
Muslims were killed. In 1915, World War I was raging. Turkey was
again under attack from Russia in the east and Britain and France in
the west. The Armenian leadership openly sided with Turkey's enemies,
demanded a state on Ottoman land and formed anti-Ottoman
militias. Many Turks were killed by these Armenian groups.
Turkey fears an official apology for the Armenian deaths would trigger
claims on its land or on seized Armenian assets. Turks cannot believe
the sincerity of foreign parliaments which, usually ill-informed about
the Turkish case, give in to Armenian diaspora lobbying for genocide
declarations. (One such bill looks likely to pass the U.S. Congress in
April.) Politics often seems to trump history. Would the French
Parliament have made it a crime last year to deny a "genocide" by the
Turks if an unrelated desire to keep Turkey out of the European Union
had not been prevalent?
Dink didn't take this maximal view of Turkish evil. He once wrote that
diaspora Armenians should commit their energy to independent Armenia
and not "let hatred of the Turks poison their blood." Idiotically, it
was that very column that led to his trial for violating Article 301,
on the pretext that he had said Turks were poisonous. The misquote is
the motive the assassin has given to police for his act - yet the
Turkish media keep recycling this libel. Commentators are subtly
shirking responsibility by labeling the murder a "provocation" or
blaming "outside forces."
Brave new Turkish novels, films, exhibitions and conferences have
tried to reassess the Armenian issue in recent years. But the
nationalist upsurge has slowed if not stopped that progress.
Neither Turks nor Armenians should go on like this. Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan could try a grand gesture. He might open the
border with Armenia, closed since the early 1990s. He could advocate
an international conference, where Turkey could argue its case that
there was no centralized attempt to wipe out the Armenians. After all,
Turkey already officially accepts that 300,000 people died. Best of
all, Erdogan could abolish Article 301, which makes intellectuals like
Dink a target.
None of this, however, is likely to happen. Turkey has presidential
and parliamentary elections this year, and ultranationalists pose the
main challenge to Erdogan's centrist, pro-Islamic Justice and
Development Party, or AKP. Europe - whose support is critical in
making a Turkish regime feel safe to reform - seems in no mood to
extend lines of political credit to Turkey. Dink was a rare Armenian
ready to compromise with Turkey, and his assassination will deter
replacements.
So the gap between Turkey and Europe will widen again. Muddled
thinking and inward-looking nationalism will continue to plague
Turkey, and not only in its approach to the Armenian problem. After
all, Dink's death is the symptom of negative currents that persist,
not their cause. And that, of course, is why Turkey's curse keeps
returning to strike with such tragic ease.