I submitted this a few minutes ago in the space Ara Sanjian had generated but it seems not to have gone through. So here we go again.
Here my take on Erdogan's remarks. We should not allow the issue to be buried. These are opening salvos. Let me preface my submission with my profound condolences to all the families who suffered such terrible loss in the recent Turkish mining disaster.
Eddie
Erdogan’s condolences to the Armenian people – fine words butter no parsnips
A sideways glance at Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 23 April 2014 statement of ‘condolences to the grandchildren’ of the Armenian dead of 1915 could be readily welcomed and applauded. Some Armenians could even feel better, less bitter, less entrenched in anti-Turkish sentiment on hearing the Prime Minister of a resurgent imperial Turkey speak so about the Armenian dead, in such an unprecedented and compassionate manner.
But the deeper truth of the Turkish Prime Minister’s pronouncement reveals a disappointing pedestrianism. It lacks any novel, radical or courageous dimension. Albeit laced with touching humanist sentiment, Erdogan appears engaged in no more than an opening gambit to undermine what in 2015 will be powerful global commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. His remarks appear designed particularly to ease what will likely be huge pressure on Turkey from both Europe and America where significant Armenian lobbies are insistently urging recognition of the Genocide on its up-coming 100th anniversary.
Erdogan’s statement that has been translated into numerous languages is worth examination. Its employment of fine humanist turns of phrase are significantly revealing both of denied truths and of the limits and the actual designs of his statement.
‘It is our hope and belief’ says Erdogan, ‘that the peoples of an ancient and unique geography, who share similar customs and manners, will be able to talk to each other about the past with maturity and to remember together their losses in a decent manner.’
A fine sentiment and in the context of Armenian-Turkish relations a moving and indeed unprecedented one for the explicit Turkish state/elite recognition that the Armenian people are indeed and contrary to much shameless historical fabrication, one of the ‘peoples’ of the ‘ancient and unique geography’ enclosed today within the borders of a modern Turkish Republic.
But fine words butter no parsnips.
Action alone, not words, can produce conditions necessary for ‘mature’ and ‘decent’ discourse between Armenian and Turk. And the fact is Turkish state/elite actions prohibit such discourse.
I
Erodogan’s statement contains no hint, even of the slimmest kind of any action, of any change in Turkish state policy that blocks and even punishes mature and decent discourse. And here, be clear, we do not talk of land claims or reparations for 1915. We refer only to the necessity for greater freedoms and democratic rights for all the peoples who ‘share’ ‘customs’, ‘manners’ and a ‘unique and ancient geography.’
Where are proposals to halt the widespread denigration of Armenians in Turkey? Where even a hint to root out embedded extreme nationalist Turkish hostility to Armenians that leads to the murder of a Hrant Dink or to the ugly sight of Turkish politicians insulting an opponent for allegedly having Armenian ancestry. Where a hint of a friendly invitation into the open public sphere for Armenians forcibly converted to Islam, to the tens of thousands of hidden Armenians, who fear being engulfed in tidal wave of xenophobic Turkish nationalism?
The ‘compassion and mutually humane attitudes to one another’ that Erdogan expresses hopes for demands that the national rights of all the peoples of this ‘ancient and unique geography’ be protected; the right to schooling in their own languages, the freedom for their educational institutions to function without unending obstruction, the freedom of their social and welfare organizations from endless hostile pressure and threats that come often with calls to confiscate their properties.
For ‘decent’ and ‘mature’ discourse and relations, due respect has to be accorded to the cultural and historical legacy of the different peoples of the region. Not words but concrete proposals for action alone can signal honest intent. Where the hint for the need to properly protect Armenian architectural and other monuments surviving within Turkish state borders, the call to reverse the systematic destruction and to properly identify the Armenian origins of those that survive? Where a suggestion that the ceaseless destruction of a rich cultural legacy, a destruction that is part of the falsification of the history of the region, where the suggestion that this will be brought to an end?
Where the acknowledgement of the Armenian contribution to the cultural and economic development of this ‘unique and ancient geography’ during the era of the Ottoman Empire? Where even the faintest note of Armenian enrichment of the Turkish state’s economic, social and cultural history?
Erdogan raises no sound against the ceaseless falsification and distortion of Armenian history that striving to wipe them out of the region or diminish them there a humiliate them altogether demonizing them before the Turkish masses and so strangling all prospect of ‘decent’ and ‘mature’ discourse.
‘Decency’ and ‘maturity’ be furthermore cannot be sustained in the face of the Turkish state’s blockade of Armenia and of its collaboration with a hostile and aggressive Azerbaijani elite intent on demolishing the last remaining portions of an Armenian homeland, home indeed to a large segment of the grandchildren of 1915.
All these are vital ingredients for equal and humane relations in, let us not fear repetition here, this ‘shared’ ‘unique and ancient geography’.
II
Let us be clear!
It is not the case of greedy and ungrateful Armenians seizing upon an unprecedented and generous Turkish declaration to table unreasonable extremist demands. No! All the above flows directly from Erdogan’s words that, correctly and explicitly, put an equal mark between Turk and Armenian and between ‘all ethnicities’ that ‘lost their lives’ during the period 1914-1918. But this equal sign mean nothing if there is no enlargement of national, cultural, historical and democratic space that would allow all ‘ethnicities’ who share ‘customs and manners’ and a ‘unique and ancient geography’ to walk tall and proud.
Yes! Compassionate and humane relations must be mutual. Armenian pundits, intellectuals and politicians, social and national leaders and Churchmen have their obligation and responsibility to cast aside Armenian variants of chauvinist dismissal of the history of the Turkish people, so manifest in ugly everyday discourse, in the Armenian media, on the Armenian social media, discussion lists as well as text and history books.
First and foremost it is beholden on Armenians to abandon claims of collective Turkish responsibility for the 1915 Genocide, to abandon claims that the Turkish common people today can be held responsible for and accountable for the historical crimes of Ottoman Empire’s elites, of the Young Turks and the Turkish state.
Whilst Armenians are responsible for clearing up Augean stables of their own making, it requires stating in bold that much of their prejudice and bigotry is reaction to relentless hostile machination and denial by the Turkish state and its elite that has taken not a single step to ease the pain of a people so ‘inhumanely’ uprooted (‘relocated’ in the words of Erdogan’s mealy mouthed speech writers) and denied any right of return or compensation, even moral compensation, let alone material!
III
A Turkish politician does not speak as Erdogan did without calculation. He is in deep trouble and these troubles will mount in the run up to 2015. Even as his remarks may ease pressure from Europe and America, they risk raising the ire of extreme Turkish nationalism that remains a dominant force in Turkish society. But the benefits perhaps outweigh potential losses.
Erdogan has to cope with the challenge of the formidable Gulenists (who have their own stand on the Armenian question), steer clear of their damaging corruption charges, resolve debilitating internal elite battles and negotiate increasingly difficult economic waters, as well deal with the Kurdish Question. Here his remarks on the Armenian Genocide can serve to dam up troubles from other sources.
Erdogan can hope to at least begin to dim the chances of a potentially dangerous European and American succumbing to the Armenian lobby. Europe and the USA have of course never been concerned with the plight of Armenians, nor will they ever be. But in the run up to 2015, even a genuflection in that direction official Genocide Recognition could offer a declining Europe and America a new stick with which to meddle in the affairs of resurgent Turkey. Erdogan’s speech can begin to neutralize this stick.
Erdogan can also hope to neutralize an already immobile Armenian state. In the run up to 2015 Armenian elites too will come under immense pressure to more actively take up the many existing long term consequences of the Genocide, something that it has obstinately refused to do. Hints and suggestions of conciliatory official Turkish regret will suffice to embolden these elites in their flagrant refusal to go beyond words, in their flat failure to table significant issues for discussion with the Turkish state.
* * * * * *
It is clear that Erdogan’s 23 April 2014 statement has no genuine intent to encourage ‘compassionate and humane’ relationships between Turk and Armenian. The existing status quo in Turkey is not conducive, by any standard, to flourishing ‘compassion and mutually humane attitudes’ between the many different nationalities inhabiting the region and the statement has nothing to indicate that this status quo is designed to change.
It’s alas the same old story underlined again by the fact that Erdogan is once again advancing the notion of ‘a joint historical commission’ of scholars and researchers to establish the truth of 1915. What better way to package away all the continuing consequences of the Genocide, to store it out of sight, in the world of ivory tower academia, as far away from concrete, wide, open democratic discussion that would actually deal with historical consequences and generate the mature and good relations between us all that we all desire.
Prove us wrong and we will be delighted.
Orhan Dink, brother of murdered Hrant, made his own wise evaluation. Though ‘some might say’ that it came late’ Erdogan’s statement and his condolences are ‘a first step’, a ‘most basic brick’ to ‘build democracy in Turkey’. Genuine condolences are indeed a first and necessary step to democracy. Prove to us then Mr Erdogan that yours are genuine. Extend, enhance and multiply democratic rights in Turkey, rights that accord equality and respect, freedom and dignity to all national groups in within your jurisdiction. Carry through the tranche of measures indicated above, measures that have been tabled many times over the years.
Then and only then, can we together begin the process that, as Orhan put it, to bring ‘both societies to normalization.’ Only then will the idea of a historical commission acquire positive quality, only that is, after taking the concrete measures to overcome the still painful legacies of 1915.
Eddie Arnavoudian
