Ayse Gunaysu at the Genocide Conference in Stockholm

[Yervant1]

PRESS RELEASE

March 25, 2009

Armenica - Sweden

Email: vahagn.avedian@armenica.org

Web: http://www.armenica.org

Uppsala, Sweden

 

 

 

`DEATH WELLS' AND THE CONTINUATION OF BLOODSHED

 

By Ayşe Günaysu, İstanbul.

 

For the conference `Legacy of the 1915 Genocide in the Ottoman Empire'

Stockholm, 23rd March 2009

 

Before everything else, I would like to thank the organisers for inviting

me to this conference. I am very sorry that I cannot be in Stockholm in

person, and am also grateful to them for accepting to share my message

with the participants. I wish fruitful exchanges on a subject which

matters very much to me and send from Istanbul my greetings.

 

`All suppressed truths become poisonous,' wrote Friedrich Nietzsche in his

`Thus Spoke Zarathustra.'

 

Suppressed truth poisons the suppressor, it also poisons those who are

deprived of the knowledge of the truth. Not only that: suppressed truth

poisons the entire environment in which both the suppressor and those who

are subjected to that suppression live. So it poisons everything.

 

Nearly a century after the genocide of Armenians and Assyrians/Syriacs as

well as other Christian peoples of the Asia Minor, Turkey is still being

poisoned by the suppression of the truth. And because the suppressed truth

concerns a crime, because the suppressors are those in power, and those

deprived of the truth are the whole nation, it is the very future of that

nation which is also poisoned.

 

If you are a ruler suppressing a truth, you have to suppress those who

seek the truth as well. The poison feeds you with self-glorification in

order to evade guilt, hatred to justify your lying and cruelty to sustain

the lie at all costs. Bits of truth may be known to some of the people you

rule. So you either have to make them join your self-deception by offering

excuses for the crime you committed to persuade them there was no other

choice or declare them traitors and carry on an endless war against those

who resist persuasion.

 

But people tend to be persuaded; so in Turkey the great majority of people

sincerely believe that if it is a question of life or death for the

`fatherland' the state machinery may rightfully resort to unlawful methods

- in other words, that the so-called `national interests' justify all

means. This is how the suppressed truth and the methods of that

suppression poison minds generation after generation.

 

So, it is no surprise that for nearly a century Turkey saw no real

democracy, no real peace, no real well-being. Violence has always been

part of our lives. Military coups followed one another and in the absence

of an actual military rule, there has always been sometimes overt,

sometimes covert, threat of it. Since the foundation of the Republic, the

Kurdish uprisings and their violent repression continued. In the last 30

years the land which was once the homeland of Armenians and Assyrians as

well, has been suffering from what the authorities call the `fight against

terrorism'. Evacuated villages, forced migration, people under custody

going missing and unsolved murders became the characteristics of the

region.

 

The bloodshed has never stopped since 1915.

 

It's not only the violence. Permit me to borrow here what I had written on

the occasion of the 91st anniversary of the Genocide, which Khatchig

Mouradian quoted in his article published by Znet on April 23, 2006:

 

`A big curse fell upon this land [in 1915]. The settlements where once

artisans, manufacturers, and tradesmen produced and traded goods, where

theatres and schools disseminated knowledge and aesthetic fulfillment,

where churches and monasteries refined the souls, where beautiful

architecture embodied a great, ancient culture; in short, a civilized,

lively urban world was turned into a rural area of vast, barren, silent,

uninhabited land and settlements marked by buildings without a history and

without a personality.'

 

Nowadays an excavation is going on in Silopi, Şırnak, at the

facilities of Turkey's national pipeline corporation Botaş, to

investigate the allegations that in the 1990's the dead bodies of persons

who went missing under custody by security forces had been dumped there.

So far some bones, hair and pieces of clothing have been found - what was

left after the clean-up operations - and sent to forensic laboratory for

analysis.

 

This is one of the places which has suffered most from the suspension of

rule of law in the region for the sake of the so-called `unity of Turkey'.

 

And it is the same place where, 96 years ago, masses of mostly

Assyrians/Syriacs but Armenians as well, though in smaller number, were

either massacred outright or driven on foot to the mountains where death

was certain as a result of starvation, destitution and exposure to harsh

weather conditions without any shelter. This was what happened in many

places to Armenians throughout Asia Minor during that reign of terror.

 

Now the `death wells' represents the continuation of the bloodshed and

suppressed truths. After 96 years there are still unburied dead bodies to

be searched for by means of excavations.

 

Yes, `All suppressed truths become poisonous,' said Nietzsche many, many

years ago, but he continued: `- And let everything break up - which can be

broken up by our truths! Many a house is still to be built!'

 

This is the only way that would bring justice to our lives - I mean

recognition of the damage done and making amends.

 

--

Ayşe Günaysu is a member of the Human Rights Association of Turkey,

Istanbul Branch. She is a founding member of the Committee Against Racism

and Discrimination.

 

 

 

[Yervant1]

TURKISH INTELLECTUALS WHO HAVE RECOGNIZED THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: AYSE GUNAYSU

By MassisPost
Updated: September 8, 2014

By Hambersom Aghbashian

Ayse Gunaysu is a Turkish Human rights advocate, feminist and a
professional translator. She has been a member of the Committee Against
Racism and Discrimination of the Human Rights Association of Turkey
(Istanbul branch) since 1995, and is a columnist for Ozgur Gundem(
Free Agenda). Since 2008, she writes a column titled "Letters from
Istanbul," for the Armenian Weekly. Her research Interests are Space
and Place, Turkish and Middle East Studies, Kurdish Question in Turkey,
Turkish Nationalism, Middle East Studies, and Modern Turkey.

She is also involved in Genocide issues, specially the Armenian
Genocide and its consequences and continuation till current days.

Through her articles, researches, interviews and active participation
in Genocide commemoration events and conferences, she is working very
hard with many other intellectuals to change the official Turkish
view and position, demand and get the Armenian Genocide recognized
by the Turkish government.(1)(2).

On March 23, 2009, at the Genocide Conference "Legacy of the 1915
Genocide in the Ottoman Empire" in Stockholm, Ayse Gunaysu said "
Nearly a century after the genocide of Armenians and Assyrians/Syriacs
as well as other Christian peoples of the Asia Minor,Turkey is still
being poisoned by the suppression of the truth. Suppressed truth
poisons the suppressor, it also poisons those who are deprived of
the knowledge of the truth. Not only that, suppressed truth poisons
the entire environment in which both the suppressor and those who
are subjected to that suppression live. So it poisons everything.(3)

According to " hyeforum.com, Aprl 30, 2009", on April 24,2009, the
Istanbul branch of the Human Rights Organization of Turkey organized
an event commemorating the Armenian Genocide in Istanbul. Ayse Gunaysu
, one of the organizers quoted Lawyer Eren Keskin saying "Today is
the 24th of April, the 94th anniversary of the arrests in Istanbul
which started the Armenian Genocide in 1915." She added, "The official
history [in Turkey] denies the genocide, but we know what happened and
we believe it's important to tell people the truth. So, today we will
commemorate the most brilliant intellectuals of the Ottoman Armenians:
the poets, writers, physicians, lawyers, and members of parliament,
who were taken away on the 24th of April,1915 and murdered."(4)

At the invitation of the Armenian Council of Europe & Surb Khach
Tebrevank, Ayse Gunaysu, representative of the League of Human Rights
in Turkey, and Ara Sarafian, a historian and President of the Komitas
Institute in London , gave a lecture on April 27, 2012 at the Alex
Manoogian Cultural Centre (AGBU) in the Rue de Courcelles in Paris. In
her lecture , Ayse Gunaysu said " I want you to know that for me to be
here is an honor. I am proud. But I also have a sense of shame. The
origin of this shame that I have today is because I come from that
State. That State who is the author of this genocide. "she said.

Continuing on to say that " if there was no genocide in 1915, the
Armenian population would rise to 17 million today. At that time, one
in five was not a Muslim, which the Armenians. Today they represent
only a drop in the ocean. That is why today I have this feeling
of shame."(5)

In a review of "Rifat Bali"s book titled " Devlet in Ornek
Yurttaslari -Cumhuriyet Yýllarýnda Turkiye Yahudileri 1950-2003," ,
" The Model Citizens of the State-Jews of Turkey in the Republican
Period 1950-2003.", Ayse Gunaysu wrote on how Turkey threatened and
manipulated Turkish and other Jews. She said " In his 670-page book,
Rifat Bali gives a detailed account of the Turkish government's efforts
to mobilize its Jewish subjects to win the support of the Jewish
lobby in the United States against the Armenian campaigners. At the
same time, Bali shows, how the Turkish authorities played the Israeli
government against U.S. policymakers for the same purpose. The book
also offers rich material about how Turkish diplomats and semi-official
spokesmen of Turkish policies, while carrying out their lobbying
activities, threatened both Israel and the U.S. by indicating that if
the Jewish lobby failed to prevent Armenian initiatives abroad--Turkey
might not be able to guarantee the security of Turkish Jews. But
this is not all. Rifat Bali throughout his book unfolds the entire
socio-political setting of the process of making the Jewish community
leaders active supporters of Turkish governments' struggle against the
"Armenian claims" in the international arena.(6)

In an interview (January 19, 2014), concerning Hrant Dink's
assassination, (hetq.am/eng/news/32061), Ayse Gunaysu mentioned that
their committee knew of him since the first issue of Agos in 1996, and
they were in close contact since then. Hrant Dink was the person who
was able to change the perception of Armenians in the eyes of a large
section of Turkish society , she said . Her Answer to a question "why
do you think Hrant Dink was killed? was "I think it's because genocide
is not something that happened and finished between 1915 and 1923. It
still continues with an aggressive, crude, and gross denial."(7)

According to http://artsakhpress.am (April 24, 2014), The American
Jewish Committee issued a commemorative address on the 99th anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide. Also a number of French, Turkish and Armenian
public figures, intellectuals and artists called Turkey to commemorate
the 99th anniversary of Genocide in coming a step closer to justice and
democracy, Le Monde daily said. Among those undersigned are: Charles
Aznavour, singer; Bernard-Henri Levy, French public intellectual and
author; Bernard Kouchner, ex-foreign minister of France; Adam Michnik,
editor-in-chief of Poland's largest newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza; Paul
Morin, executive director of the European Grassroots Antiracist
Movement(EGAM); Ayse Gunaysu, the president of the Istanbul branch
of the Human Rights Association of Turkey; and many others.(8)

On March 11, 2014, The Armenian Mirror- Spectator wrote " Relics from
the Armenian genocide will be unveiled during a conference focusing on
the heroes and survivors of the genocide at the Ararat-Eskijian Museum
on March 22. Filmmaker Bared Maronian along with British journalist
Robert Fisk, Prof. Vahakn Dadrian, Dr. Hayk Demoyan, Ayse Gunaysu,
Missak Keleshian, Shant Mardirossian, Dr. Rubina Peroomian and Prof.

Vahram Shemmassian will take part in the daylong conference honoring
those who aided in the rescue of survivors of the genocide from 1915
through 1930.(9)

In an interview with Egyptian Al-Ahram weekly (April 30, 2014)
concerning Erdogan's "condolences" to Armenians, Ayse Gunaysu, was
sure that Erdogan had "changed his communications consultant because
this is new language." Gunaysu said that although Erdogan's statement
was the first of its kind "we in Turkey are so used to the worst that
a little bit less worse surprises us and almost give us hope."(10)