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Gunaysu: My Views on Post-Genocidal Turkey

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  • Gunaysu: My Views on Post-Genocidal Turkey

    Gunaysu: My Views on Post-Genocidal Turkey

    by Ayse Gunaysu

    http://www.armenianweekly.com/2013/01/02/gunaysu-my-views-on-post-genocidal-turkey/
    January 2, 2013


    Below is the full text of a speech delivered by Armenian Weekly
    columnist Ayse Gunaysu during a panel discussion at the Grotowski
    Institute in Wroclaw, Poland on Nov. 10. For more about the event,


    A scene from the panel discussion
    I thank the Grotowski Institute for inviting me, and for their
    generous hospitality. And I thank you, dear audience, for taking the
    time and coming to listen to us. I feel privileged to be here with
    you.

    I'm a Muslim Turk by birth. In other words a descendant of the
    perpetrators of the Genocide of Ottoman Armenians, Assyrians and
    Greeks. I'm not a historian, not a scholar, or a writer. Just a human
    rights activist. So I can only share with you my feelings and my views
    about post-Genocidal Turkey.

    Now... I ask you to imagine that I am a German woman, coming from Germany.

    But imagine that Germany was not defeated in the WWII, on the contrary
    it was the victorious side and therefore was not caught red-handed in
    the crimes it committed. The world didn't have the chance to see the
    films of gas chambers and the heap of dead bodies. And imagine that
    Germany used all the technology and industrial power it had to cover
    up and deny the Holocaust. Imagine the Holocaust/Shoah is denied in
    Germany officially, publicly, socially, culturally, in every sense.

    Of course denial is not only to say `no, that did not happen.' Imagine
    that the whole state apparatus and the social life is organized around
    this denial. The text books, the mainstream media, the academia, the
    civil society, internet all say the same thing, trying to justify the
    extermination of Jews and others. They say it was not without reason.
    It was inevitable. We had to do that for the survival of our nation.
    Moreover it was not us who butchered them. They butchered us.

    Imagine museums, encyclopedias, exhibitions in Germany all tell these
    lies and what's much more terrible, almost all German people believe
    the government wholeheartedly, with no doubt at all.

    Imagine that the remaining Jews are targeted by German racists, and
    hate speech against Jews is a normal thing in Germany. Imagine Jews
    live under such conditions in Germany.

    A question: With such a Germany and such a denial of the Holocaust,
    would Europe be the same? Would Poland be the same? Would there be a
    Grotowski Institute?

    I asked you to imagine this to once again think on how a denial of
    Genocide would change life itself.

    In such a life objective reality means NOTHING. Just nothing.
    Objective reality doesn't count at all. What determines life is the
    subjective reality - i.e. what people sincerely believe.

    This is exactly the case with Turkey in the context of Armenians and
    the Armenian Genocide. This is the Turkey where I come from.

    Recognition, repentance humility, feeling shame make one a human. In
    the absence of this, a people, a country is liable to commit new
    crimes, to normalize violence, in fact makes violence a way of life -
    just is the case with Turkey. In the absence of these there is no room
    for a sort of catharsis, repentance and cleaning oneself off the
    guilt. This is the case with Turkey since the Genocide. The successive
    governments went on and still go on committing new crimes.

    Now a few words about me. I hope my story will offer some kind of
    insight into the reality of Turkey. I was a Marxist-Leninist, a
    Communist, a secret member of the outlawed Communist Party of Turkey
    between 1970-1985.

    We were devoted anti-imperialists, particularly anti-American. For us
    Turkey was under imperialist oppression and exploitation. So national
    independence of our country was one of our top priorities. In other
    words the `evil' was outside of us. We didn't see the evil within our
    country. The enemy was far away, so cursing and shouting slogans
    against the far-away enemy was much more easy and convenient than
    fighting the evil right beside us.Despite our outspoken
    internationalism, we were surely nationalists without being aware of
    it.

    We were anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist believing in class
    struggle but we became anti-fascist, only after the para-military,
    government-backed ultra-nationalist mobs started to kill us in the
    street, in our homes, in factories, at schools in the late 1970's.

    But fascism was for us an anti-communist movement. We never woke up to
    see that fascists were racist Turks as well reflecting the racist
    essence of the Turkish state, the extension of the Genocidal Ottoman
    Empire.

    Oh yes, we, the Turkish left, were - undoubtedly, surely and
    vehemently anti-racist.

    But which racism? The racism in the United States and in the South
    Africa - again far away from us. Racism had nothing to do with our
    country! We were totally blind to the very racist environment we were
    living in. Denial of Genocide, hate speech against Armenians and
    non-Muslims in general, discrimination, portraying non-Muslims as
    potential traitors were all around us and we didn't see it! We were
    like fish living in a sea of racism without being aware of it.

    Our blindness was so much so that we didn't even think of campaigning
    against the Nazi-like `oath' children were made to chant every morning
    at school. Generations of children started and are starting today
    classes every morning with that `Oath,' chanted together as loud as
    they can: that we were proud of being Turks and we were ready to
    sacrifice our own existence for the sake of the existence of
    Turkishness! Every morning! Together with a handful of our non-Turkish
    and non-Muslim class-mates: Jews, Armenians, Greeks, Kurds!

    This went on and on for decades. Non of our `international',
    Marxist-Leninist selfless comrades - including myself - initiated a
    campaign against this Nazi-like practice at schools.

    OK, we were `internationalists' But what kind of an internationalism was it?

    We would give our lives for the national liberation wars in Africa and
    Asia. We sang Latin American revolutionaries' songs, memorized their
    slogans, we shed tears for Angola. But we were unaware of what was
    happening under our nose. We knew nothing and said nothing about the
    Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians - tiny communities, the children of
    the genocide victims doomed to live in a racist environment. And Kurds
    in Kurdish provinces who were subject to practically different
    legislation - under a permanent state of emergency law.

    We were masters of the history of the Soviet Communist Party in every
    detail, Trotsky's fight against Stalin, the history of the Vietnamese
    fight against America, but we didn't know the true history of our own
    country. But why?

    Because of a very successful disinformation and manipulation of
    Turkish republic's founding ideology and the founding myths. The
    history re-written by the Kemalist leadership, in a totally misleading
    way. Let's not go into details - it will take a lot of time.

    What happened to Turkey after 1915? Turkey found no peace ever after,
    no real democracy, no real development. Once the developed urban West
    Armenia with colleges, theaters, rich cultural life became a barren
    land, a land of blood and tears. Kurdish uprisings followed one
    another repressed with huge bloodshed and forced displacements.

    Military interventions followed one another. The one in 1980 was a
    disaster. Tens of thousands of people were jailed, unimaginable
    methods of torture was used, many died in prison and 36 people were
    executed. Despite formal restoration of democratic institutions the
    Constitution in force today is essentially the Constitution adopted by
    the military rule.

    Now a war is going on in the southeast Turkey, the historical Western
    Armenia and Kurdistan. It is estimated that 50 thousand people died,
    most of them Kurds. Now 10 thousand Kurdish human rights activists,
    municipal workers, politicians, people engaged in a total peaceful
    struggle are in jail. And a massive hunger strike is under way.

    Genocide denial is the destruction of all collective values, all
    ethics, all sense of justice, in one word the hearts and minds of the
    entire nation.

    You may hear that things are cha

    nging in Turkey as regards the Armenian `issue' as they say. Yes, but
    very slowly, very irregularly and very disappointingly.

    Thank you for listening to me.

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