Akcam: Turkey and the Armenian Ghost

[Yervant1]

Akcam: Turkey and the Armenian Ghost

Posted by Taner Akcam

 

http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/12/15/akcam-turkey-and-the-armenian-ghost/

December 15, 2012

 

 

The Armenian Weekly publishes the full text of a talk delivered by Dr.

Taner Akcam (Clark University) during a panel on `Overcoming Genocide

Denial' organized by Fordham Law School's Leitner Center for

International Law and Justice on Dec. 4. Speakers included Akcam,

Gregory Stanton (George Mason University), and Sheri Rosenberg

(Cardozo Law School).

 

 

 

Empty chairs in Mush (Photo by Khatchig Mouradian)

`Why do we Turks continue to deny the genocide?'

 

Or, stated another way, Why do we Turks feel like lightening has

struck our bones whenever the topic is brought up?

 

I've been dedicated to researching the subject of the Armenian

Genocide since 1990, more than 20 years. This question keeps getting

asked over and over again with unerring consistency. The question is a

simple one, but as the years have passed my response to it has

changed. At first, I tried to explain the denial through the concept

of `continuity,' namely, governmental continuity from the Ottoman

Empire through the Turkish Republic. Another way of formulating this

thesis might be by titling it, `The Dilemma of Making Heroes into

Villains.' The argument is very simple: The Turkish Republic was

actually established by the Union and Progress Party (Ittihat ve

Terakki), the architects of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The

founding cadres of Turkey were essentially Union and Progress members.

And so, a significant number of the founding cadres of Turkey were

either directly involved in the Armenian Genocide or they enriched

themselves by looting Armenian properties. But these individuals were

also our national heroes - they are the founding fathers of our nation.

If Turkey acknowledges the genocide, we would have to accept that a

number of our national heroes and founding fathers were either

murderers, thieves, or both. This is the real dilemma.

 

Those individuals, as we were taught in school, were men who `created

our nation and the state out of nothing.' They define who we are. This

is true not only for the early generation of the Turkish nation, but

also for the opposition movements of the country, including the

largest wave of a democratic-progressive movement Turkey had ever

seen: the 1968 student protest movement. The representatives of this

wave and its political organizations strongly identified themselves

with the founding cadres of the republic. They called themselves, in

analogy with the founding fathers, the second `Kuvayi-Milliyeciler' or

`national front,' a specific term that we use only to define our

founding cadres. This strong identification with the founding fathers

was not particular to the progressive `68 generation. It has been true

for any of the groups active in Turkey: nationalist, Islamicist, or

other right wing circles.

 

In other words, in order to accept the genocide, in our present state,

we would have to deny our own national identity, as it exists today.

That is a very difficult task, an almost impossible one, and very

destructive. Instead of dealing with the identity crisis and the

emotional and political fallout that will result from accepting the

genocide, think about it: Wouldn't it be so much simpler to just deny

it?

 

I started to modify my response to the question `Why do Turks deny the

genocide?' over time. I added one more reason for Turkish denial. It

is also a very simple argument. If Turkey accepts that the genocide

took place, it will be obligated to pay reparations. The argument has

some wider consequences than whether the events of 1915 should be

termed `genocide.' Let's assume that 1915 was not genocide, and

imagine that the Union and Progress Party had deported the Armenians

from a cold, mountainous, and infertile area to a sunny warm and

fertile region; pretend, in other words, that the Armenians had been

dispatched to Florida. However, everything that these people owned was

confiscated in the process and not a single penny was paid back to

them. Even if you refuse to accept the events of 1915 as genocide, you

have to accept the fact that the country of Turkey today was formed on

the seizure of Armenian assets, and now sits on top of that wealth. As

a result, if you accept and acknowledge that something unjust happened

in 1915 in Turkey, you have to pay back compensation. Therefore, in

order to avoid doing that, denying genocide outright makes a whole lot

of sense.

 

I have continued to add some additional factors to explain Turkish

denials, such as the phenomenon that occurs when you repeat a lie.

Even in ordinary daily life, how easy is it to reverse yourself once

you've told a lie? The lie about genocide has a history of decades and

has become calcified. A state that's been lying for 90 years can't

simply reverse course. Even when you know you're telling untruths,

they acquire the veneer of reality after so many years.

 

But these points are only useful for explaining why the state has

continued to deny the genocide. As the years passed, I started to

write that the term `Turkish denial' was inadequate for fully

explaining the situation. I questioned the validity of the use of the

term `Turks' to reflect a homogeneous entity that defines not only the

people of Turkey but the state of Turkey, as well. I suggested making

a distinction between state policy and the attitude of the people of

Turkey towards genocide. I argued that the term `denial' was adequate

in explaining state policy, but not that of society. The attitude of

society should more accurately be portrayed as one of ignorance,

apathy, fatalism, reticence, and silence, rather than denial.

 

Turkish society is not a monolithic block, and can be considered

analogous to a train. It's made up of lots of different cars, and each

car represents a different sub-cultural ethnicity with a different

attitude towards what happened in 1915. I've stated many times that a

large portion of Kurds, Dersimians, and Alewites have accepted the

reality of what happened in 1915, and that the real problem is that

these different groups have not been able to express their thoughts on

it in a way that was forceful, firm, and especially written. I used

the terms silence and avoidance not only in the sense of a single

attitude that is jointly held by all segments of society, but also to

mean not openly taking a stance toward the official state narrative.

One has to accept that all of these distinctions are important, and

perhaps vital, to understanding the development of civil society in

Turkey today, but that they are still not enough to explain why

denialism is such a dominant part of the cultural landscape in Turkey.

 

So, my thinking has begun to change, yet again, recently. I don't mean

to say that my previous explanations were necessarily incorrect. Just

the opposite: I still believe that these factors play a major role in

the denial of the Armenian Genocide. However, I have now started to

think that the matter seems to have roots in something much deeper and

almost existentialist, which covers the state as much as the society.

The answer to the question seems to lie in a duality between existence

and non-existence - or, as Hamlet would say, `to be or not to be.' I

believe our existence as a state and a society translates into

their - Christians in Anatolia - non-existence, or not-being. To accept

what happened in 1915 means you have to accept the existence of

them - Christians - on Turkish territory, which is practically like

announcing our non-existence, because we owe our being to their

non-existence. Let me explain.

 

In order to provide more clarity, I would like to introduce Habermas

to the topic. Habermas points out that within the social tissue and

institutions of societies resides a `secret violence,' and this

`secret violence' creates a structure of communication that the entire

society identifies with.[1] Through this way of `collective

communication,' the restrictions and exclusion of certain topics from

public discourse are effectively institutionalized and legitimized.

What is meaningful to note here is that this structure is not imposed

on the society by the rulers, but is accepted and internalized by

those who are ruled. There is a silent consensus in the society.

 

I would like to borrow another term from author Elias Siberski to shed

some light on this condition-`communicative reality' (die

kommunikative Wirklichkeit). Siberski uses this term to describe a

very important characteristic of secretive organizations.2 According

to Siberski, secretive organizations create an internal reality

through a method of communication that is totally different from the

real world. The situation in Turkey today resembles this very closely.

As a society, we are like a secret organization. Since the

establishment of our republic we have created a `communicative

reality,' which sets out our way of thinking and existence over `state

and nation.' It gives shape to our emotions and defining belief

systems, or, in other words, our entire social-cultural net of

relations. In sum, the things that make us who we are or at a minimum

who we think we are. What is important to note is the gap between this

`communicative reality' and actual reality.

 

In the end, this `communicative reality' has given us speakable and

unspeakable worlds, and has created a collective secret that covers

our entire society like a glove. It has created one big gigantic black

hole. We are, today, a reality that possesses a `black hole.' This

existence of a huge `black hole,' or the possession of a `collective

secret,' or creation of a `coalition of silence' - these are the terms

that define who we are... We simply eradicated everything Christian from

this reality. This is how we teach Ottoman history in our schools,

this is how we produce intellectual-cultural works about our society.

 

My opinion is that the secret behind the denial of the Armenian

Genocide, or the unspeakableness of it, lies somewhere in here. What

happened in 1915 is Turkish society's collective secret, and genocide

has been relegated to the `black hole' of our societal memory. Since

the founding of the Republic of Turkey, all of us, rightists and

leftists, Muslim, Alewite, Kurds, and Turks, have created a collective

`coalition of silence' around this subject, and we don't like being

reminded of this hidden secret that wraps around us like a warm, fuzzy

blanket. The reminders have an annoying irritating quality and we feel

confronted by a situation that leaves us unsure of what to do or say.

 

Because, if we are forced to confront our history, everything - our

social institutions, mentalities, belief systems, culture, and even

the language we use - will be open to question. The way a society

perceives itself is going to be questioned from top to bottom. As a

result, we don't appreciate the `reminders.' We view reminders as

`force,' and react quite negatively to them. All of us, rightist and

leftist, search for excuses, but we together seem to be crying out, as

if in chorus, `Here we are minding our own business, not bothering

anyone, when you appeared out of nowhere. Where did you come from?' It

is as if we, as a nation, are making this collective statement: `If

you think we are going to destroy the social-cultural reality we

created with such great care over 95 years, with one swipe of a pen,

think again!'

 

The Armenian Genocide is a part of a more general framework that is

directly related to our existence. The republic and the society of

Turkey today have been constructed upon the removal of Christians - the

destruction of an existence on a territory that we call our homeland.

Since we have established our existence upon the non-existence of

another, every mention of that existence imparts fear and anxiety in

us. The difficulty we have in our country with speaking about the

Armenian issue lies within this existence-non-existence duality. If

you're looking for an example that comes close to this, you don't need

to look far: The history of the Native Americans in the U.S. bears

similarities.

 

So, I think we have to reverse the question: The central question is

not why Turkey denies the genocide, but whether we the people of

Turkey are ready, as a state and as a society, to deny our present

state of existence. It seems that the only way we can do that is by

repudiating how we came to be and by creating a new history of how we

came to exist. Are we capable of doing that? That's the true question.

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Jurgen Habermas, `Die Ütopie des guten Herrschers,' in: Habermas,

Kultur and Kritik (Frankfurt a.M., 1973), p. 386-7.

 

2 Elias Siberski, Untergrund und Offene Geselschaft, Zur Fragen der

strukturellen Deutung des sozialen Phaenomens (Stutgart, 1967), p. 51.

[Yervant1]

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RECOGNITION WILL CONTRIBUTE TO BRINGING UP SANER GENERATION IN TURKEY: ZARAKOLU

 

17:03, 27 March, 2013

 

YEREVAN, MARCH 27, ARMENPRESS. The issue of Armenian Genocide

recognition is an issue of state security for Turkey. This is the

reason that it has been so many years since the denialism atmosphere

reigns in the country. As reports "Armenpress" prominent Turkish

intellectual, writer, and Director of "Belge" Publishing House Ragip

Zarakolu stated this during the press conference, while touching upon

the issue of the preparatory activity ongoing in Turkey advancing

the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

 

Among other things Ragip Zarakolu noted: "The Turkish people living

in Turkey are tired of this issue, just as the people were tired of

the official historiography in the Soviet era. Despite the present

obstacles, the number of intellectuals, who are convinced that it

was genocide, increased."

 

Ragip Zarakolu also laid a heavy emphasis on the fact that if

Turkey officially apologizes for the Armenian Genocide, than the new

generation of the Turkish people will be sounder spiritually. Ragip

Zarakolu emphasized: "While we deny the Armenian Genocide, our deceased

ancestors will remain uncovered in their graves."