yalpa

I am sure Delal Dink saw this picture. Everyone saw this picture. What bothers me is that so many people concentrated on how one of his shoes had a hole and therefore how poor Hrant was. Why? First of all, he was not poor. Not rich, either. He was just a guy who was too lazy to deal with his shoes. I have a pair that has a whole and my wife has been telling me for a year now to buy a new pair. Some people are like that. Why do we have to transform this very brave person into something else in order to feel sorry for him, in order to feel empathy to him? The hole we have to concentrate on is the one he had in his heart, how sad and lonely he felt in his struggle and while living in this country. Shoes? That just shows he did not care about them.

I do not agree that the killers were the ultra-nationalists. We should call them the nationalists. The term ultra-nationalists implies that the majority of the nationalists in Turkey are of the harmless kind, the moderate ones. I believe it is the opposite. Their ideas, the ideas of the ultra-nationalists, make up the majority nationalist opinion in Turkey. It is the moderate nationalists who make up the minority. So, we are really talking about the mainstream Turkish nationalism here. By the way, racism is nothing new in Turkish nationalism. It has always been racist.

Perhaps I do not count as a full Turk, although I am a Turkish citizen. However, my wife would count as one and we have been reading Agos for three years. You should also keep in mind that there are at least four Turks in Agos who write there regularly. So, some Turks read Agos. Most of the protesters did agree with Hrant's ideas. Hrant also wrote in BuGün once a week and appeared in TV regularly. Even my stepfather, who lives in the States, knew about him and called me on the day he died and that was not because of me: He said he liked his ideas. Most of the protestors may not have agreed with Hrant on the subject of the Armenian Genocide, but they did agree with him about the situation of the Armenians in Turkey and why this should end. They did not gather there simply because he was assassinated. Among many things, it was also a protest to defend the rights of the Armenians in Turkey and the groups similar to them.

Admission doesn't mean anything anymore. This time they need to act. They need to take measures. I really do not care for nice words or promises anymore. And my guess is that they will do nothing this time either. They will find no connections, no links and it will one more time be a fault of a fanatic.

It is difficult to tell. There were many people on the first night, few hours after the shooting, and it looks like there will be many more on Tuesday. Hrant was a socialist, too; so many socialists and other types of left wing groups will be at his funeral (I will also be there, but not because he was a socialist). I have witnessed many assassinations in the last thirty years, but this one really hurt me: I am angry and I am feeling very pessimistic. There are people like me who are already positive towards Armenians and their struggle. I am sure the number of these people will increase after this terrible event, but they will still be a very small minority in this country. Hrant’s death will not be forgotten, but I am not sure much will change right a way, either. The Turkish state will still be the same Turkish state. The only thing that has been able to change the Turkish state lately has been the EU.

Fortunately, his sentence no more will be a joke. It is different now, but whatever sentence he gets, it will not be enough in my eyes; what is lost is far too great. The killer is already linked to a far-right wing organization called "nizamı alem ülkü ocağı." However, I would still look for a much bigger plot.

He was a very decent man. I will miss him very much. I read his newspaper and his column every Friday for past three years, since I arrived in Turkey. My wife cried for hours and we were in that march of a few decent people tonight (although not a bad crowd at all, considering that it formed spontaneously). If I am not mistaken, this was probably the first time since 1915 that slogans in Armenian were heard in this land. Too bad he had to give his life for it. I still cannot believe he is dead. I was somewhere else when I first heard the news. I rushed home right a way to turn on my TV in order to see it with my own eyes, wishing that perhaps he was still alive or in coma, but the bastard had shot him from the head. This is a very sad day, for the Armenian people, for this land and for everyone who loved him. I used to say that there was an Armenian genocide, but I think I will start saying that there still is. It is very likely that the perpetrator will be declared to be either an insane person or some fanatic, but in my opinion it was a very calculated plot by a bunch of Ittihadists. I will not forget him.

Shouldn't the 1955 riots be described as the riots aimed at the Greek minority and other groups rather than the way you presented it, since attacking the Greek minority was the main idea? I do agree that Armenians were also harmed in these riots and judging from the existing mentality at the time that it could have easily been Armenians who were targeted, still, shouldn't you state that the riots were anti-Greek at least for the sake of stating the historical facts as objectively as possible?

I am assuming that you are talking about the Turkish nationalists, since there are others (from the non-nationalist bunch) who do have valid arguments. I am not sure if it is wise to take this very nationalistic one sided guy and think that he represents what the opposition is all about.

What do you mean you don’t agree with me? How dare you? What the hell do you know about the Ottomans anyway? Just kidding! But seriously, you need to say more than that the massacres were committed under the reign of an Islamic regime. Is having an Islamic regime enough to bring into the discussion the whole history of the Ottoman Empire? Can we claim that the political and social matrix (even if it is religiously based) that was responsible for the massacres and later the total or nearly total annihilation of Ottoman Armenians and their culture was established in the pre-modern era? We might as well go all the way back to the Arabs since it was their religion to begin with; they were the ones who came up with it. And finally why not bring in Judaism as well, since Islam is almost a replica or a very similar version of it? I don’t think that the pre-modern period of the Ottoman period is connected with the modern period in this respect just because they both used Sharia (Islamic Law) in managing the empire. In fact one of them must have not been an Islamic regime; otherwise what happened would not happen. I will claim, first of all, that the Ottoman state was never a true Islamic regime. They never let Islam have full control of the state. Secondly, I will stick to my original claim that the massacres and the genocide at the end are entirely modern phenomena. And finally I will state that Abdul Hamid was probably the most modern emperor in the Ottoman history. We could even say that he laid the groundwork or established the infrastructure for the modern Turkey. He did put a stop to the constitutional rule or what was to become a constitutional rule during his reign, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that he was anti-modern. This is where I will stop, since I have to get busy with something else now. I will perhaps continue tomorrow, but before I do that, could you briefly explain me what made you state what you stated in your reply to my previous post? Why do you think that being an Islamic regime is important or necessary in understanding the massacres or is linked to them?

Sorry! I forgot to specify how I define the divide between pre-modern and modern is in the Ottoman Empire. I simply assumed that everyone was familiar with this subject and the Ottomans in general. My fault. Although historians are still debating on the subject, it is generally accepted that the nineteenth century is the modern era for the Ottoman history. So, all of those massacres that took place in the nineteenth century had nothing to do with the pre-modern Ottoman period and since I do not deny the existence of massacres aimed at Armenians in this period, those counter-arguments against what I wrote means nothing as far as I am concerned. In fact, they support my point. By the way, I am afraid that none of those sources mentioned are relevant to the subject. If I go back to the subject of when the modern era starts, it is way before 1860’s Quebecer. 1800’s is definitely the modern period and I would look for its beginning in the mid 1700’s. By the way, I am talking about the Ottoman world (with Muslims and Christians), not necessarily about the Ottoman Muslims only. The process of modernization started much earlier for the Ottoman Christians. My whole point is that the Armenian-Turkish/Muslim conflict is a modern phenomenon. It doesn’t exist in the pre-modern era. The life was perhaps not great for Armenians, but in the pre-modern period there were other groups who had it worse than Armenians. The six hundred years of brutality in the form of massacres, rapes and killings is simply a modern myth invented for nation building purposes like other nationalistic myths found in every modern nation-state. We may of course have another separation as in the form of pre-Young Turk era versus the Young Turk era or the era of Turkish nationalism, but that is a different topic. I got to go now.

Actually I don’t think the cultural differences were never really big, except in the areas of religion and language and even in these areas there were significant convergences. The term gavur in the medieval times was essentially a religious term indicative of some form of hierarchical difference (definitely in a discriminative manner) that was assumed to exist in a Muslim society. It was neither used just for Armenians nor did it have the meaning that it was going to have with the modern era. In fact, to discriminate against certain groups and upset the prevailing order was hardly encouraged in the Ottoman Empire. I believe Armenians were definitely singled out for killing, destruction, removal or whatever else, but I don’t think the explanation for this is to be found in the pre-modern Ottoman period. Yes, there were some groups who were killed, tortured and destroyed, but these were not the Armenians. In my opinion, the genocide victims of the pre-modern Ottoman world were Alevis. They were the ones from whose heads mountains were made. The conditions of extreme persecution and brutality eventually pushed Alevis towards a hidden cultural existence, away from the mainstream Muslim ideology. They were never really able to practice their own beliefs in open or claim an Alevi identity. For example, whereas Christians and Jews could practice their own religions, live in their own communities, judged in their own courts and own businesses and lead lives under and with their own identities, Alevis could never do any of these. Even today similar conditions still prevail for them. Whereas the recognized “millet”s of Greeks, Armenians and Jews could take advantage of the products and conditions of the newly arrived modernity in the nineteenth century (beginning at the end of the eighteenth century), Alevis could not. The fact that they had been persecuted for so long and did not have a legitimate religious and cultural existence had simply disabled them in so many ways that they could not take part in this new development as a cultural group. This alone should be enough to show who the real target of the pre-modern Ottoman genocidal policies were. Alevi situation was probably similar to what the Ottoman Armenians found themselves in after 1915. The Armenian community of Turkey is still struggling to come back culturally. But this was not the case for the Ottoman Armenians during the pre-modern and early modern Ottoman periods. Life during these periods was certainly not prefect for Christian subjects of the Ottoman period, but it was hardly in the form of constant rape, killings and etc. The existing evidence simply doesn’t give us this kind of picture. Had the Ottoman Armenians been under conditions of constant brutality and injustice as what Alevis went through, they would have had a hidden existence like them later on. But we know this did not happen. Armenian identity, their existence as a cultural group was recognized by the Ottoman state. Although they were discriminated in accordance with the Islamic principles that prevailed at the time, their situation was very different from some other groups who really suffered. But, of course, this did not last and this time, the victims of the modern period were Christians and particularly Armenians. It is usually easy to end the discussion by declaring that there were nevertheless big differences whatever they might have been, but I believe the real solution will eventually come by looking at the details that are being avoided. It is interesting that nearly every Near Eastern culture (including Balkans) is similar in at least one way: they all despise theory, hard intellectual work and are for being more practical by skipping the details.

I am not so sure about the argument of cultural divide between Armenians and Turks, either. I wouldn’t deny that there are cultural differences between Armenians and Turks, but we should also not forget that in cultural terms Turks are closest to Greeks and Armenians and Armenians are closest to Turks. Culturally they are as close as brothers and sisters would be. We may not like it, but this is a fact very difficult to deny. We may still assume that there are cultural differences between these groups, but when we decide to compare them it won’t be difficult to see that they are closer to each other than they are to any other culture. What about the cultural differences they have? What are we talking about here? There are of course minor differences here and there (excluding the religions and the practices related to them), but when we get down to the scale that families and neighborhoods exist in and interact with each other, it will be very difficult to observe any difference. However, when we change our scale and start looking at these groups as nations we will see some differences. I believe that these differences come from three sources: religion, modernity and the secondary status that Armenians had in the Muslim/Turkish society. Religions these groups had for centuries played an important role in molding the modern national identities they developed for themselves. I believe that both identities are not fully modern, but between modern and medieval or medieval with a modern dress. Perhaps Armenians are a bit more modern in their national identity than Turks. Second source is the process of modernization these two groups went through during the last two centuries of the Ottoman Empire. Here, too, Armenians became part of this process before Turks did, but also the Turkish experience was hindered in some areas. The fact that Armenians had their own “millet” in the Ottoman Empire may have protected them from unwanted interruptions and interferences. Finally, the fact that Armenians were given a status below the Muslims in the Ottoman society must have affected them in ways very different from what the Muslims experienced in the same society. To sum it up, there are cultural differences between these two groups, but not in their daily, person-to-person cultural practices. In this area they are very similar. In fact Anatolian Turks are more similar to Armenians and Greeks than to those Turkish speaking groups in Central Asia. However, they are different in their invented modern identities, histories, national myths and cultural practices (which belong to the scale that is generally outside the daily practices of families and individuals; that is, we cannot learn these cultural differences unless we go through some form of mandatory modern nationalist education).

Armenians may be quite different from the Mongolian Turks, but the Turks of Anatolia are a very mixed group and the so-called Mongolian Turks are a small percentage in this group. Studies on the genetic make-up of Anatolia have so far given a very different picture. It is true that Turkish speaking groups did enter Anatolia during the medieval times, but their contribution was very small. It seems that the ones who committed this horrific crime were mostly natives genetically speaking. If we leave genetics and concentrate on the cultural infrastructure, I am afraid the situation does still change much. There are plenty of examples from the medieval times showing us that the Anatolian cultures and peoples were no strangers to the idea of killing others in a genocidal manner. In fact, Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians did get into many very bloody civil clashes and killings during the Byzantine times. I also don’t think that being civilized makes one less prone to consider genocide as a feasible solution to change the existing situation. The evidence shows that the opposite is the case. The idea of genocide is actually closely related to the development of civilization in the modern era. I believe that deep down we all have this ability, but developing this into a tool to create nations or lands for nations or to make people more “civilized” is one of the achievements of civilization. And as a closing remark, some nations did actually manage to wipe out some cultures and peoples entirely (perfect genocide). For example, many of the native cultures of Americas do not exist anymore. Were not the responsible ones from the most civilized nations of their times? Some of these nations may have redeemed themselves today, but this doesn’t change the fact that the birth of genocide as a practice to build nations or gain territories is related closely to the spread of civilization itself.

Correction: the nametag Turkey is actually not very recent. It was invented by Italians around the 13th century. What is very recent is its use by Turks. To Turks it was Anatolia or the land of Romans (Rums). However, both usages were for the region all the way to Euphrates.