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Turkey should reconcile with its own past - Edward Nalbandian
11:37 ¢ 06.09.14
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian's article was published in
the French Le Figaro with slight abridgements
Below is the full version
In international relations there are, unfortunately, cases of missed
opportunities. The statement of Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an, followed by the
comments of other Turkish senior officials on the eve and after the
commemoration of the 99th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide are
such cases. The fabricated notions of "common pain", `just memory' and
the appeal to the Turks and Armenians to `follow Erdogan's lead' are
misleading. Ahmet Davutoglu declares `that the main goal of Erdogan's
statement is prevention of worldwide efforts of the Genocide
recognition'. Instead of concrete steps towards reconciliation one can
find calls to complicity. I mean complicity against the international
recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
It is hard to find a nation nostalgic towards its centuries-old
suppression in its ancestral homeland. Any oppressed nation cannot
share the nostalgia towards the Ottoman Empire. Like other empires,
the Ottoman Empire was built upon and forcefully sustained through
suppression of the basic rights and freedoms of many of its citizens.
Mr Davutoglu's differentiation of the Western and Turkish perception
of sufferings by Christians and Muslims is astonishing. The Armenian
Genocide is not only part of Armenian or western memory and history,
but also of the memory of the Muslim world. One of the earliest
references to the Armenian Genocide belongs to Muslim witness Fayez El
Ghossein, who in 1916 published his work entitled `The Massacres in
Armenia.' Sharif and Emir of Mecca Husayn ibn Ali was one of the
prominent Islamic leaders, who acted against the program of physical
annihilation of the Armenians and called on his subjects to defend
Armenians as they would defend themselves and their children. In
1919-1921 the large-scale extermination of Armenians were referred
such Turkish public figures as Refi Cevat, Ahmet Refik Altinay. Many
Muslim historians refer to the massacres of Armenians as genocide,
while Arab historian Moussa Prince used the term `Armenocide',
considering it as `the most genocidal genocide.'
For the sake of `just memory' artificial political actions and calls
are not needed, while those, who dare express their opinion freely are
killed like Hrant Dink, or exiled like Orhan Pamuk, or taken to
custody, like Ragıp Zarakolu.
Davutoglu is playing the same old tune of founding a commission of
historians `in order to find the truth'. One of the most competent
international institutions on genocide studies, the International
Association of Genocide Scholars, in answer to the same proposal, made
an appeal to the Turkish government to accept what had been proven
long ago. Instead of repeating decade-old re-worded or rephrased
appeals we need genuine and concrete steps. Ratification of the Zurich
Protocols, normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations, opening of the
borders could pave the way to the difficult path of reconciliation
between our peoples. The sub-commission on historical dimension, as
envisaged by those Protocols, could implement a dialogue with the aim
to restore mutual confidence between the two nations. It would be
impossible to do by putting under question the reality of the Armenian
Genocide.
Led by an apparent desire to deny the fact of the genocide, as defined
by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide, Erdogan's message yet again underlined that what happened
in 1915 `was regardless of religion or ethnic origin.' It seems that
the 1919 Turkish Military Tribunal's Indictment, which proved by
undeniable facts that the deportations and large-scale massacres of
the Armenians were a state policy, and sentenced its main masterminds
to death, has been forgotten in Ankara. It seems that Rafael Lemkin's
development of the concept of `genocide' has gone unnoticed in Ankara.
I have to remind that 99 years ago on May 24, 1915 Russia, France and
the Great Britain issued a special declaration by which they warned
the perpetrators of the atrocities against the Armenian people of
their personal responsibility for `these new crimes of Turkey against
humanity and civilization.' It is beyond any doubt that the Armenian
Genocide was organized with genocidal intent. Meanwhile an attempt is
made by the Turkish officials to equate the losses of the war and the
systematic annihilation of Armenians, as a result of which millions of
my predecessors lost their lives, homes, lands, properties. There was
an attempt to strip millions of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire of
their right to life, as well as their past ` more than 2000 cultural
and religious monuments were destroyed and the survivors were driven
off the lands they had inhabited for many centuries, before Turks came
to this region. In 1915 one of the chief masterminds of the Armenian
Genocide, then Interior Minister Mehmed Talaat Pasha confessed to
Germany's Consul General that `there is no Armenian question, because
there are no more Armenians.' He was wrong, but the nature, magnitude
and the consequences of that horrible crime are far beyond the
definition of `suffering.'
In one of the interviews Erdogan rhetorically asked `if such a
Genocide occurred would there have been any Armenians living in this
country?' Today a large number of Jews live in Germany, but no one
would dare put under question the reality of the Holocaust. Or, how
can one speak of `relocation', when 1.5 million of people died or were
killed? Planned marching people to the dessert, starving them to
death, killing most of them en route is not a relocation, it is a
`death march,' it is a genocide.
The denial of the genocide, the atmosphere of impunity paved the way
for the repetition of new crimes against humanity. Genocide denial is
considered by scholars as the last phase of the crime of genocide.
Even though there are still few who continue to deny, but this does
not mean that there is a `dispute' about it. On the one hand, there is
the fact of genocide that nobody doubts in the world, the pain of
which every single Armenian family anywhere in the world bears until
now, and on the other hand, there is an official and imposed denial of
the genocide by the Turkish government. Turkey is in dispute with
itself.
Is it possible to make the descendents of genocide survivors, spread
all over the world, a part of the complicity of genocide denial? Is it
possible to equate perpetrators and victims of genocide by such
clichés as `common pain'? It is appalling to imagine that the
perpetrators of Holocaust, of genocides in Cambodia, in Rwanda, and
other crimes against humanity, can be equated with the victims. Is it
even possible to consider genocide survivors' descendants as `Turkish
diaspora', which some Turkish politicians are trying to do today?
As Rwanda Genocide survivor Esther Mujawayo recently mentioned at the
UN Human Rights Council High Level Panel Discussion in Geneva
dedicated to the Genocide Prevention Convention, `Today is the fourth
generation of Armenians who are still waiting". Not only Armenians,
the whole international community for almost 100 years has been
waiting for Turkey to recognize the Armenian Genocide. The genuineness
of the desire for reconciliation must be proven through recognition
and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide. The Turkish government must
not refrain from genuine reconciliation. Thousands of Turkish citizens
have opted for that path already.
Davutoglu mentions Armenian composer Komitas as an example of
Armenians' creative activities in the Ottoman Empire. ''Just memory''
should have shed some light on the life of Komitas, who was a witness
of the Genocide. He had seen all the sufferings, the horror that
befell the Armenians and said that "nobody knows all the wounds of our
tragedy... this distress will drive us mad!" And from 1916 onwards,
for 20 years he spent his life in a psychiatric hospital.
On April 24, 2003 when we were unveiling the Komitas statue in Paris,
I expressed hope that this memorial to the Armenian Genocide victims
could symbolize the sufferings and memory of the victims of all
genocides perpetrated in the 20th century, that it would become a
mourning site for all those who consider tolerance and respect to
human life and dignity as a continuous process, that there would bow
not only the descendents of those who suffered physically and
spiritually, but also the descendents of those who caused those
sufferings. I believe that the route to reconciliation is not a path
of denial, but that of conscious memory, because true reconciliation
does not mean forgetting the past or feeding younger generations with
the tales of denial. Turkey should reconcile with its own past to be
able to build its future.
The President of Armenia has invited the Turkish President to visit
Armenia on April 24, 2015, on the occasion of the commemoration of the
100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. We hope it will not be a
missed opportunity and Turkey's President will be in Yerevan on that
day.
Edward Nalbandian
Foreign Minister of Armenia
http://www.tert.am/en/news/2014/09/06/Nalbandian-lefigaro/
11:37 ¢ 06.09.14
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian's article was published in
the French Le Figaro with slight abridgements
Below is the full version
In international relations there are, unfortunately, cases of missed
opportunities. The statement of Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an, followed by the
comments of other Turkish senior officials on the eve and after the
commemoration of the 99th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide are
such cases. The fabricated notions of "common pain", `just memory' and
the appeal to the Turks and Armenians to `follow Erdogan's lead' are
misleading. Ahmet Davutoglu declares `that the main goal of Erdogan's
statement is prevention of worldwide efforts of the Genocide
recognition'. Instead of concrete steps towards reconciliation one can
find calls to complicity. I mean complicity against the international
recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
It is hard to find a nation nostalgic towards its centuries-old
suppression in its ancestral homeland. Any oppressed nation cannot
share the nostalgia towards the Ottoman Empire. Like other empires,
the Ottoman Empire was built upon and forcefully sustained through
suppression of the basic rights and freedoms of many of its citizens.
Mr Davutoglu's differentiation of the Western and Turkish perception
of sufferings by Christians and Muslims is astonishing. The Armenian
Genocide is not only part of Armenian or western memory and history,
but also of the memory of the Muslim world. One of the earliest
references to the Armenian Genocide belongs to Muslim witness Fayez El
Ghossein, who in 1916 published his work entitled `The Massacres in
Armenia.' Sharif and Emir of Mecca Husayn ibn Ali was one of the
prominent Islamic leaders, who acted against the program of physical
annihilation of the Armenians and called on his subjects to defend
Armenians as they would defend themselves and their children. In
1919-1921 the large-scale extermination of Armenians were referred
such Turkish public figures as Refi Cevat, Ahmet Refik Altinay. Many
Muslim historians refer to the massacres of Armenians as genocide,
while Arab historian Moussa Prince used the term `Armenocide',
considering it as `the most genocidal genocide.'
For the sake of `just memory' artificial political actions and calls
are not needed, while those, who dare express their opinion freely are
killed like Hrant Dink, or exiled like Orhan Pamuk, or taken to
custody, like Ragıp Zarakolu.
Davutoglu is playing the same old tune of founding a commission of
historians `in order to find the truth'. One of the most competent
international institutions on genocide studies, the International
Association of Genocide Scholars, in answer to the same proposal, made
an appeal to the Turkish government to accept what had been proven
long ago. Instead of repeating decade-old re-worded or rephrased
appeals we need genuine and concrete steps. Ratification of the Zurich
Protocols, normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations, opening of the
borders could pave the way to the difficult path of reconciliation
between our peoples. The sub-commission on historical dimension, as
envisaged by those Protocols, could implement a dialogue with the aim
to restore mutual confidence between the two nations. It would be
impossible to do by putting under question the reality of the Armenian
Genocide.
Led by an apparent desire to deny the fact of the genocide, as defined
by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide, Erdogan's message yet again underlined that what happened
in 1915 `was regardless of religion or ethnic origin.' It seems that
the 1919 Turkish Military Tribunal's Indictment, which proved by
undeniable facts that the deportations and large-scale massacres of
the Armenians were a state policy, and sentenced its main masterminds
to death, has been forgotten in Ankara. It seems that Rafael Lemkin's
development of the concept of `genocide' has gone unnoticed in Ankara.
I have to remind that 99 years ago on May 24, 1915 Russia, France and
the Great Britain issued a special declaration by which they warned
the perpetrators of the atrocities against the Armenian people of
their personal responsibility for `these new crimes of Turkey against
humanity and civilization.' It is beyond any doubt that the Armenian
Genocide was organized with genocidal intent. Meanwhile an attempt is
made by the Turkish officials to equate the losses of the war and the
systematic annihilation of Armenians, as a result of which millions of
my predecessors lost their lives, homes, lands, properties. There was
an attempt to strip millions of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire of
their right to life, as well as their past ` more than 2000 cultural
and religious monuments were destroyed and the survivors were driven
off the lands they had inhabited for many centuries, before Turks came
to this region. In 1915 one of the chief masterminds of the Armenian
Genocide, then Interior Minister Mehmed Talaat Pasha confessed to
Germany's Consul General that `there is no Armenian question, because
there are no more Armenians.' He was wrong, but the nature, magnitude
and the consequences of that horrible crime are far beyond the
definition of `suffering.'
In one of the interviews Erdogan rhetorically asked `if such a
Genocide occurred would there have been any Armenians living in this
country?' Today a large number of Jews live in Germany, but no one
would dare put under question the reality of the Holocaust. Or, how
can one speak of `relocation', when 1.5 million of people died or were
killed? Planned marching people to the dessert, starving them to
death, killing most of them en route is not a relocation, it is a
`death march,' it is a genocide.
The denial of the genocide, the atmosphere of impunity paved the way
for the repetition of new crimes against humanity. Genocide denial is
considered by scholars as the last phase of the crime of genocide.
Even though there are still few who continue to deny, but this does
not mean that there is a `dispute' about it. On the one hand, there is
the fact of genocide that nobody doubts in the world, the pain of
which every single Armenian family anywhere in the world bears until
now, and on the other hand, there is an official and imposed denial of
the genocide by the Turkish government. Turkey is in dispute with
itself.
Is it possible to make the descendents of genocide survivors, spread
all over the world, a part of the complicity of genocide denial? Is it
possible to equate perpetrators and victims of genocide by such
clichés as `common pain'? It is appalling to imagine that the
perpetrators of Holocaust, of genocides in Cambodia, in Rwanda, and
other crimes against humanity, can be equated with the victims. Is it
even possible to consider genocide survivors' descendants as `Turkish
diaspora', which some Turkish politicians are trying to do today?
As Rwanda Genocide survivor Esther Mujawayo recently mentioned at the
UN Human Rights Council High Level Panel Discussion in Geneva
dedicated to the Genocide Prevention Convention, `Today is the fourth
generation of Armenians who are still waiting". Not only Armenians,
the whole international community for almost 100 years has been
waiting for Turkey to recognize the Armenian Genocide. The genuineness
of the desire for reconciliation must be proven through recognition
and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide. The Turkish government must
not refrain from genuine reconciliation. Thousands of Turkish citizens
have opted for that path already.
Davutoglu mentions Armenian composer Komitas as an example of
Armenians' creative activities in the Ottoman Empire. ''Just memory''
should have shed some light on the life of Komitas, who was a witness
of the Genocide. He had seen all the sufferings, the horror that
befell the Armenians and said that "nobody knows all the wounds of our
tragedy... this distress will drive us mad!" And from 1916 onwards,
for 20 years he spent his life in a psychiatric hospital.
On April 24, 2003 when we were unveiling the Komitas statue in Paris,
I expressed hope that this memorial to the Armenian Genocide victims
could symbolize the sufferings and memory of the victims of all
genocides perpetrated in the 20th century, that it would become a
mourning site for all those who consider tolerance and respect to
human life and dignity as a continuous process, that there would bow
not only the descendents of those who suffered physically and
spiritually, but also the descendents of those who caused those
sufferings. I believe that the route to reconciliation is not a path
of denial, but that of conscious memory, because true reconciliation
does not mean forgetting the past or feeding younger generations with
the tales of denial. Turkey should reconcile with its own past to be
able to build its future.
The President of Armenia has invited the Turkish President to visit
Armenia on April 24, 2015, on the occasion of the commemoration of the
100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. We hope it will not be a
missed opportunity and Turkey's President will be in Yerevan on that
day.
Edward Nalbandian
Foreign Minister of Armenia
http://www.tert.am/en/news/2014/09/06/Nalbandian-lefigaro/