“In actuality, how Turks and Armenians, as the
owners of this common history, can together,
through dialogue and empathy, reach a just memory
of the tragic events of 1915, which occurred during
the great human sufferings of World War I, is already
being examined thoroughly and in all its dimensions.
In this context, our proposal to establish a Joint
Historical Commission, also reflected in the Turkish-
Armenian Protocols, remains on the agenda.”
The quotation is from the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s
press release regarding the US Senate Foreign
Relations Committee’s recent resolution on the
Armenian genocide. In the wake of its centenary, this
is the uttermost point reached by the Turkish state in
the perception of the annihilation of the Ottoman
Empire’s Armenian citizens: A “just memory” and a
“joint historical commission”. The just memory is a
euphemism to recall revenge killings of Muslims in
some areas by Armenian avengers once their people
were decimated by the state and their neighbours.
And the commission is a sort of face-saver to equate
the pains.
In 2009 though, the above-mentioned Protocols came
as a brave project aiming at normalising Turkish-
Armenian relations. For the first time in almost a
century, it meant that the Turkish state took the
initiative to follow a different approach than the
eternal enmity based on the denial of the “genocide”.
Hopes were high for a new era. However in the final
tally, Turkey’s superior energy needs and the
overwhelming nationalist rhetoric forced the state to
choose Armenia’s arch-enemy, the Turkish-speaking
and oil-rich Azerbaijan and to revert to its traditional
policy over normalising relations with Armenia. So
came to a grinding close Turkey’s first innovative
Armenia policy before it even began.
The Azeri factor
Before the Protocols, Azerbaijan was asking for a
clear reference in the text to the solution of the
Karabakh stalemate which didn’t occur. But following
the failure of the Protocols, the Azeri factor emerged
compellingly on the Turkish political and public
scenes. Now it is the determinant in Turkey’s
Armenia and Armenian policy overall.
Today, three patterns emerge in Turkey’s traditional
policy towards the events of 1915. First, denialist
lobbying activities abroad and efforts to influence the
lawmakers, especially in the US are now co-
sponsored by Azeris. Secondly, denials cloaked in
scientific covers aimed at persuading the Western
academic world have become prominent, replacing
the vulgar denialism. And thirdly, there is a clear
attempt to substitute other events for 1915.
Dardanelles battle victory in the west and the
military debacle of Sarikamis in the east, are being
flogged in the official narrative as the historical
substitutes to what occurred to Armenians in 1915.
Despite these endeavours, Turkey has long lost the
battle of truth. The destruction of the Armenian
population on its ancestral land is a sheer fact,
whatever else you might call it.
April 24, 1915 was the dark day when the decision to
erase Armenians from Anatolia began to be
implemented by the Ottoman government of Young
Turks, or the Ittihadists. The rationale behind it was
to engineer a homogeneous population composed of
Muslims designated to form the backbone of the “yet
to be invented” Turkish nation. Thus, there was no
place for Christian populations despite their historic
presence on those lands.
According to the report commissioned in May 1919
by the Ottoman government that came to power in
1918 after the demise of the Young Turks, the
number of Armenian citizens who had lost their lives
was 800,000. A book published in 1928 by the
Turkish General Staff detailing losses during World
War I notes: “800,000 Armenians and 200,000
Greeks died as a result of massacres, forced
relocations and forced labour.”
When one adds those who died after 1918 in the
Caucasus region due to hunger, illness and
massacres, the figure surpasses one million. The
“cleansing” work of Ittihadists was completed by
Kemalists by obliging those throughout Anatolia
whose lives were spared to take shelter in Istanbul
and simultaneously by suppressing their places of
worship and schools throughout Anatolia.
In Turkey, thorough knowledge of what really
happened and the consequences of the countrywide
disaster is cruelly lacking. The memory was
scrupulously distorted and minimised by the state.
For the sake of comparison, there is over 26,000
volumes published abroad on the genocide against
less than 20 serious accounts in Turkey.
No one is capable of evaluating the consequences to
human, political and economic relations throughout
Anatolia once the Armenians were eliminated. It is,
however, quite certain that the effects of such a
wide-reaching elimination operation were enormous.
Denialist paradigm vs empowered society
Today, there is an ever growing awareness regarding
the bad as well as the good memory. Public actions,
perhaps not so numerous, but certainly momentous,
are building up at all levels. So far unhampered by
the authorities, they primarily rely on voluntary
citizens’ initiatives. These memory works take place
in four major areas: academia and publishing;
individual and collective memory search; public
awareness and visibility; religious and cultural
discovery.
Regarding academic interest, following pioneering
publishers, many publishing houses now produce
works in connection with the painful memory, but
also in relation to the rich cosmopolitan past of the
Ottoman Empire.
On the individual and collective memory search,
many people proudly seek, discover or rediscover
ancestors of non-Muslim origin in their families.
Public awareness and visibility is growing by the day.
Non-Muslims literally discover themselves and are
“discovered” by the society.Since 2010, April 24 is
commemorated in more and more cities. Moreover,
accounts on righteous people who saved their
neighbours’ lives, descendants of Armenians who
had to convert to Islam to save their lives are made
public.
On religious and cultural area, remnants of
monuments that survived are painstakingly taken
care of, masses are celebrated again in Anatolia and
the cultural heritage is dealt with.
It should be noted that the emergence of this process
wasn’t due exclusively to the external push and the
government’s early reformism. The society has paid a
substantial price for it, probably symbolised by the
murder of Armenian Turkish journalist Hrant Dink.
Social maturation and empowerment is Turkey’s key
to facing the challenges of the aching past.
Thus, even the slow and lengthy process –
understandably forcing the limits of one’s patience
waiting for a due recognition of century-old crimes –
in the development of policies growing out of a
painstaking, yet convulsive societal recollection, is a
healthy and perennial endeavour.
The genie is out of the bottle. When and how it will
affect state policy is difficult to predict. But the
civilian activism and awareness remains the sole
sustainable asset before any normalisation of
relations. Although the road for civil activism is
mostly clear, the ‘state highway’ is much obstructed
by structural roadblocks.
Cengiz Aktar is Senior Scholar at Istanbul
Policy Center. As a former director at the
United Nations where he spent 22 years of his
professional life, Aktar is one of the leading
advocates of Turkey’s integration into the EU.
Source : Aljazera
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