| About a hundred people, adults and children, gather around a monument on a bright Sunday afternoon, with the sun shining over the peak of Mt. Agri (Ararat), just 60 kilometers away. The monument is probably the only symbol in the world that deeply divides two nations that lived together in peace for centuries.
The Genocide Memorial Monument in Yerevan stands quietly on a hill — so static. But it sends signals at many wavelengths — so dynamic. “Lest we forget” is no doubt what’s in the collective memory of all Armenians, homeland and Diaspora. That’s all understandable. What’s less clear is for how many more centuries the Turks and Armenians will be living under the huge symbolic shadow of one monument, with the Turks increasingly wary of an unpleasant Ottoman heritage and the Armenians economically isolated under a Turkish blockade.
The Armenians claim that the Ottoman Kurds, under orders from the empire in 1915-18, systematically massacred 1.5 million of their ethnic kin living in eastern Anatolia. (Well, realists move the figure down to 700,000, but do the figures really matter? It would be equally tragic if 100,000 people died.)
The Turks claim that the Armenians collaborated with the empire’s Russian enemies during World War I and waged guerrilla warfare against the empire, in return for the Russian promise of a homeland. The Ottomans, they argue, had no alternative other than to order a forced exodus during which thousands of Armenians died from cold weather, starvation and disease. In fact, according to Turkish theories, armed groups of Armenians systematically killed hundreds of thousands of Turks. So, in 2004, there are two nations, once friends, accusing each other of a genocide that is said to have taken place 90 years ago and are locked over the dispute, perhaps forever.
The Armenian mindset is deeply fractured. Diaspora Armenians think the genocide issue is their “raison d’etre.” As for a possible deal with the Turks, they believe they should represent the entire Armenian population. Are they not, after all, the ones who financially keep the Armenian state alive? Ostensibly, they are a breed raised with rather archaic symbolism and hatred: They will not “buy goods made in Turkey” nor will they ever “stand under a Turkish flag.” But their initially hostile looks may quickly turn first to a suspicious friendliness, then to a genuine one — they are the children of the world, after all. Will the Cypriot-British Armenian not understand that she does not have to “forget” to exchange good wishes with a Turkish friend? Or will the Canadian Armenian gentleman not ask himself why 65,000 or so Turkish Armenians have been living in peace over the last 80 years?
Not all the Diaspora is happy with the deadlock. Nishan Atinizian, a Boston-based businessman and a Turkish Armenian, thinks it would be grossly stupid if Turks and Armenians lived in hostility forever. For Mr. Atinizian, it is the historians’ job to find out what really happened 90 years ago. He seems quite fed up with “the others” benefiting from the deadlock — the genocide industry. “How many eyes do we need to be able to see how the [American] politicians have abused us by queuing up to request donations for their election campaigns and promising to pay [us] back in genocide memorials? I don’t care if the Americans or the French recognize genocide. This is an issue between Armenians and Turks. What more should I ask from the Turks if they opened their archives so that Turkish Armenians could trace their family roots?”
Homeland Armenians, quite strangled under a de facto economic blockade from a closed border gate with Turkey, the only plausible export route for the Armenian economy, have a pragmatic way of thinking. They agree with Mr. Atinizian that trade could be the best catalyst if Turks and Armenians are not to live in hostility forever.
There is truth in that. It would be mutually beneficial if Ankara opened up the border — there is quite a potential for border trade and tourism. This is common sense, no doubt. But this is only half the picture, and the other half is a little bit sour. Ankara, within its own dynamics, expects a friendly neighbor and trade partner not to have land claims in any form, symbolic or otherwise — here and there, a reference to eastern Anatolia as “western Armenia.” Do nations normally use a mountain located in a foreign country as a logo on government stationary and all that — no matter how historically important it could be? A Turkish banknote depicting the siege of Vienna is certainly not a good idea. Such symbolism is not a good starter if there is going to be a breakthrough. How can you trade, asks a Turkish diplomat, with someone who claims your wife is actually his woman?
But most homeland Armenians talk sense when it comes to the most sensitive issue. For David Atinizian, a Yeveran businessman, for example, (a) injecting hatred into the minds of generations of Turks and Armenians reflects an archaic thinking that should have no place in the 21st century; (b) the genocide was masterminded by the Ottomans and carried out by the Kurds; (c) it happened because the Russians had engineered an Armenian uprising against the Ottoman Empire; (d) some 350,000 Turks died as well as a result of Armenian atrocities in 1915-18; (e) the Turkey of today cannot be held responsible for the genocide; and (f) it is totally pointless, against international law and unrealistic if some Armenians dream of any part of eastern Anatolia as part of Armenia. That’s quite daring. No doubt, Mssrs. Atinizian are realists.
Some Armenians privately admit there is some kind of hypocrisy in putting the entire genocide blame on the Turks when the atrocities were masterminded by the empire against which the founders of modern Turkey fought and were committed by the Kurds. It’s bizarre to make friends with the actual perpetrators of a crime solely on the basis of a “common enemy” and foes with a nation which, demographically speaking, was not within the “scene of crime.” Has any Armenian ever been curious enough to know how many Turks actually lived in eastern Anatolia in 1915-18 and, if by any chance there were a few, could those few physically have been capable of massacring 700,000-1.5 million others?
The only neighboring country with which Turkey has no diplomatic relations has a difficult task: It must maintain an extremely delicate balance between what reality dictates and what its Diaspora sponsors impose. Its leaders should be able to understand that good neighborly ties with a country heading, hopefully, for membership in the European Union will only benefit its 3 million or so population. The Diaspora, on the other hand, must see that hatred cannot be the raison d’etre of nations. A handshake, a friendly glance or loud laughter over drinks will not mean “forgetting.” If, one day, the Diaspora is able to see the “missing link” between the tragedy and modern Turkey, the future will be much brighter.
If Turkey wins a date from the EU to start formal membership talks in 2005, it will be expected, at some point during the negotiations, to shake hands with the Armenians. It should do so, not only because the Turks are increasingly wary of a sometimes unpleasant Ottoman heritage, but also because Turkey cannot prosper on deep historical hostilities surrounding its territory.
The Turks and the Armenians are like adversaries in a court case paying, financially and morally, armies of lawyers, ending up nowhere. It’s only the lawyers who gain. Perhaps, if the analogy is right, the worst private deal would be better than the best court result.
YEREVAN /25 May 2004, Copyright © Turkish Daily News |
Akgün Medya