Gunaysu: The Impossibility of Discussing Giro Manoyan’s Comments in Turkey

On Fri., Sept. 4, the daily Taraf, the beloved newspaper of the democratic, anti-militarist, and liberal opposition circles in Turkey, including myself (despite several objections on certain issues and the language it uses from time to time), published an interview with Giro Manoyan, one of the top leaders of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun (ARF), with the headline, “Armenians have their own Bahceli,”referring Manoyan and his stance on the steps towards a détente between Turkey and Armenia. At first—and superficial—glance, one can see why Manoyan was compared to Devlet Bahceli: The latter is Turkey’s ultra-nationalist leader who violently opposes both the process of finding a “resolution” to Turkey’s so-called “Kurdish Question” and the signals given by the government to normalize relations with Armenia. However, Bahceli is also the leader of the Nationalist Action Party, which represents the Turkish version of the neo-Nazi spirit, with its endless hatred of non-Muslims and Kurds, and its history of violence—murders, massacres (of Alevis), kidnappings, tortures, the throwing of bombs on groups of students. The analogy drawn between Manoyan and a politician like Bahceli, in a newspaper that is the most courageous opponent of the Ittihadist state tradition in Turkey, should be considered in the context of the general Turkish mindset about anything related to Armenians.

Taraf later changed the title of the article in its online version.
Taraf later changed the title of the article in its online version.

What was crucial in Manoyan’s interview were his words about the Turkish-Armenian border. Manoyan said that the Armenian-Turkey border is disputable, as it was drawn between the parties (the Bolsheviks and Kemalists) who were not then recognized by the international community. Therefore, according to Manoyan, the border issue is still to be decided. In short, he implied that he does not recognize the present border, or at least, finds its validity questionable.

But at this point I don’t want to discuss what Manoyan said because I am more interested in the intellectual environment of Turkey that makes it possible for a liberal newspaper editor to equate Manoyan’s objection to this specific “normalization” project with a Turkish ultra-nationalist party leader who had recently threatened to resort to violence against any step to resolve the Kurdish Question. This is an environment that unconditionally excludes any discussion on a comment by a Dashnaktsutiun leader, leave alone his questioning of the validity of the border.

It’s a widely known fact that in Turkey, anything—any comment, any step—that would supposedly lead to “a partition” of the country, to a potential restoration of the Sevres Agreement (which provided for the foundation of independent Armenia and Kurdistan in 1919), and to a threat to the territorial unity of the country, is utterly unacceptable. Anyone who does not think so is unquestionably regarded as the enemy of the country. This is the most visible reason why Turkish people see in Manoyan’s word a declaration of hostility and ill-will.

But there is another equally important factor that makes it possible for a liberal Turkish newspaper editor to make such an equation: It is the real ignorance in Turkey about anything related to Armenians and their history in this country. Many would believe that the average Turk denies the genocide knowingly, which is not the case. I know that it seems impossible to think that the extermination of such a significant part of the country’s population, such an apocalyptic period with such enormous, widespread consequences that changed the social, economic, and demographic landscape of the whole country, can be wiped off from the collective memory of a nation. But, as a result of a combination of very complicated processes, this is exactly what happened. The overwhelming majority of Turkish people, therefore, don’t even know the most basic truths about their country’s Armenian past.

Even many Turkish people who have broken themselves free of the official ideology and history, who sincerely recognize the Armenian Genocide in their hearts, don’t really know the real extent of the strong Armenian presence in the Ottoman Empire before 1915. They are not aware that the Armenian presence was not limited to the eastern provinces of the empire, that there were significant Armenian communities in, for example, Ankara, or Eskisehir in central Anatolia, or Izmit, or Tekirdag in the Marmara region in the west. Many of these Turkish people of conscience don’t know that at the turn of the century, one in every five persons living in Asia Minor was a non-Muslim, and they really think that the so-called “deportations” were limited to the eastern provinces of the empire. If this is the case with a handful of Turkish people (compared to 70 million) who share the painful memory of the genocide, one can imagine the situation with the vast majority. Unbelievably, they don’t even know that Armenians are the native children of this land who had settled in Asia Minor long before the Turks. My Armenian friends often tell anecdotes of how people, upon hearing their Armenian names, ask them where there are from, as if they are foreigners. People asking these questions are not Armenian haters or necessarily Turkish nationalists. They just really don’t know.

But how did this happen? How could this happen? How can an entire nation be made ignorant of such obvious historical facts? I’m not a historian, or a sociologist, or an anthropologist who studies the mechanisms and processes that make up the collective mindset of nations. However, it’s easy to see that the first generation who directly witnessed or took part in the massacres and plunder concealed the truth out of guilt. Huge properties had illegally changed hands and the new owners did everything to legitimize the plunder. Then came the reconstruction of a new nation, which helped this first generation to pretend that nothing had happened. Unlike the example of Germany, where the Nazis were caught red-handed, the victorious Kemalist movement was successful in covering up the evidence of the mass exterminations and was backed by the Great Powers’ efforts to secure an international balance of power that would best suit themselves. In the meantime, the Soviets’ support of the so-called “national liberation movement” against the “imperialist powers” came like a bonus, as it proved very helpful in positioning non-Muslims within this context as the supporters of the imperialist powers even in the eyes of the mainstream Turkish Left.

Then came the second generation, which was raised as the “children of the young republic,” a republic that rewrote the history in the spirit of a victorious national state and reinforced a patriotism based on an ethnically, religiously, and culturally monolithic country. The physical traces of Armenian civilization in Asia Minor were systematically erased. Armenian monuments were destructed, at times even with dynamites. Armenian, along with Greek, Assyrian, and Kurdish names of places were changed. No mention is made of the ancient Armenian kingdoms and kings. This cleansing of an Armenian trace is not restricted to the government’s publications; it applies to private institutions and organzations as well, as this denial of Armenian existence is internalized by the Turkish public at large.

Moreover, the republican myths of foundation have been taken over by the mainstream Turkish Left, which upheld the ideals of the Turkey’s “War of Liberation” and valued it as a victory against imperialists and naturally did not question how the nationalist state came into being by bringing the Turkification of the land to its successful end. And thus, Turkish society was sadly deprived of a structured criticism from the Left of the founding paradigm of the republic.

As for the ARF-Dashnaktsutiun, the sincere belief that Dashnaks are simply haters of Turks is the common denominator of the Turkish Left and Right. I will not discuss what the Dashnaktsutiun now represents because I am really not familiar with its program, nor its political line or practice. But, I know that in general, the people of Turkey know absolutely nothing about its history. They don’t know that the Dashnaktsutiun was once the closest ally of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), who were shortly afterwards the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide. They don’t know that the Dashnaktsutiun campaigned for “Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood” for all Ottoman people regardless of ethnic origin or religious affiliation against the Abdulhamidian tyranny. They don’t know that in 1908 in Van (a symbol for the denialists), like elsewhere, Dashnaktsutiun leaflets were distributed that called for solidarity between Muslims and Christians for justice and welfare for the poor and freedom for everyone. They don’t have any idea that the two parties (CUP and ARF) even signed four written agreements between 1907-14 around these principles, that even the atrocities of the 1909 Adana massacres didn’t prevent Dashnak leaders from deciding, at their fifth Congress, to continue their alliance with the CUP in the hope of a better future, despite objections from the Hunchak Party and the Armenian Patriarchate.

Totalitarian regimes know that knowledge is dangerous for them. So they do everything to bar their subjects from knowing and understanding. But there is another side to this: We, as human beings, instinctively—sometimes subconsciously, sometimes half-consciously—choose what to learn and what to know; or, to put it the other way round, we choose what not to learn and what not to know. This is because we instinctively go after what will give us peace of mind and keep us free of any inner unrest. So, although it is mainly a matter of the regimes’ obscuring and suppressing of the truth, there is also the question of our individual decision to always search for the truth, and chase it and find it at the cost of losing our peace of mind.

Ayse Gunaysu

Ayse Gunaysu

Ayse Gunaysu is a professional translator, human rights advocate, and feminist. 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. Since 2008, she writes a column titled "Letters from Istanbul," for the Armenian Weekly.

10 Comments

  1. Dear Ayse (if I may), every time I read your columns, I wonder what can be done so that the millions of Turks listen to you?

  2. Dear Ayse, as usual my hat’s off to you.  What a bright, intelligent, inquisitive, EDUCATED, and most of all COURAGEOUS journalist!  The Ottoman Empire was losing the war (WWI) and lots of countries and lands that it was ruling.  In its desperation to hold on to the lands most adjacent to it, ie Armenian lands, it massacred their native population and annexed their lands.  Turks and the whole world must come to know this unbelievable injustice dealt to my people.

  3. Dear Ayse.
    Systemic Therapy has shown that denial preserves from a devastating truth. Governments use denial to protect their citizen from becoming crazy when they realize what they have done. But facing the reality is the only way to peace.
    Love
    Chiara Hayganush
     

  4. Whit out a reasonable doubt we ( the Turks ) did commit the most hideous crime possible against the Armenians. I came to this conclusion quite recently, because of my education system and the set of propaganda I was exposed to. I was raised to see Armenians as traitorous backstabbers. Once I started to see Armenians, not as Armenians but as humans my hole basis for seeing Armenians as an enemy changed and I started to see their frustrations and anger.

    However, I feel no responsibility for the actions of my great grandfather who was a very prominent figure in the city of Nigde in 1915 and even though I can not be a hundred percent sure on this he probably had a hand in massacring and deporting the Armenians of Nigde.I can not change what happened no matter how much I desire to.

    There is a very slow transformation taking place in Turkey. People are starting to question the governments policy of denying the Armenian Genocide. I wouldn’t be surprised if in 15 to 20 years the Republic of Turkey would recognize the Armenian Genocide.

    Finally, for their to be lasting peace in the region, the validity of current borders must be accepted. Eastern Anatolia or western Armenia, which ever you prefer, has been controlled by Turks since 26 August 1071. I cannot imagine ever parting from it and let’s not forget every parcel of today’s Turkey belonged to someone else before the Turks migrated en mass. I have no desire going back to central Asia. The Turks and Azeries on the other hand should accept Nagorno-Karabakh / Artsakh as being Armenian, because what is the alternative? War, suffering and genocide.

  5. You guys are really funny; this whole article can be re-read as it was the case for establishment of the Armenian nation starting from the early 19th century. Many Armenians today do not know they were the called the loyal people, they do not know the number of Armenian ministers and representatives in the Ottoman  House. They do not know the doctor of many of the Sultans were Armenians, they were rich and respected in the Ottoman community. The Armenian peoples of the Anatolia were living in peace a thousand year with their Turkish neighbours. The person who took after the Ottoman prince in exile was Armenian, etc.
    I met an Armenian girl in France, who was literally having a nervous breakdown after she learnt I was Turkish. Please, think about yourself, your feelings, and how much in hate you guys are? COuld not this cloud your judgement, and your fairness to an entire nation by accusing them to murder the entire Armenians? How about what Armenians did? Did you ever wonder why the deportation took place, and how it happened? How many people died en route, and who exactly killed them? And for what motive?
    I tell you something: Turkish people can be brutal, and I would be, too against 1) people who murder their beloved ones, and 2) people who betray them. Unfortunately Armenians did both.
    Other than that, I had great armenian friends in Turkey, and during my visit to Erivan; however is this a coincidence that I could never be friends, or have a civilised conversation with anyone from diaspora? What exactly is in your minds?
    Is it land you want? I tell you; if you keep on asking for Turkish soil, we are about to develop the idea to get Erivan, which was a Muslim majority before the WW1, back.
    Peace friends,

  6. Mehmet:
    Genocide can exist and does exist if the perpetrators of the Genocide die as well.  In WW II,Approximately 5.5 million German military were killed, anywhere between 1 to 2 million German civilians were killed.  Please now tell me that the Holocaust did not happen.
     
    I find it ironic that you write about “loved ones being killed” and “betrayal” as justification of an attempted extermination of entire people. The reality is most Armenians wish the historic events were closer to your vision then what happened in reality.
     
     
    Your little anecdotal stories are irrelevant, please repeat them to people who are forced to listen to you because they have no choice. (your wife and kids).  Nothing qualifies you to speak about the topic aside from the fact that you are born a Turk.
     
    As for country, you have contributed not one iota of culture to the world.  Your greatest cultural reference point, the Hagia Sophia, is a structure your people didn’t even build and it was originally a church. Your country declared war on Germany and Japan effective March 1, 1945. 2 months before Germany completely surrendered.  Your country put on trial Orhan Pamuk, the only real intellectual your country produced for commenting on the Armenian Genocide.
     
    Your country is known more for killing journalist, military coups, and eradicating entire Kurdish  villages in the countryside.  Nobody in Europe likes you, yet your desperate to join them.  In short your country, and culture is a complete joke.  Plus, Your childish predications are an example of the intellect that country is able to produce.
    It is the land we want, but its not even your land. Nobody speaks Turkish in the lands we want, they are all speak Kurdish.

  7. Centuries ago An Ottoman Emperor said: ” The Land which has been taken by Blood, will be just given by Blood “.
    whtever u guys talk, nothing will change.

  8. Dear Miss Gunaysu, thank you for the well thought article presented here.
    Mehmet, Kemal:
    Contrary to what you two think, Armenians do Not hate Turks. We are mature enough to distinguish between a “people” and a “government.”
    As for myself, my grandfather’s family owned orchards and vineyards in and around the city of Van. I have No desire to get back property lost in 1915. But as an Armenian, whose grandfather “barely” survived the Genocide, I would like to hear some words of courage from the government(s) of Turkey. Accepting responsibility for committing the Genocide, will solve a lot of “unsolved and unresolved” disputes between Armenia on one side, Turkey and Azerbaijan on the other side.
    I have forgiven All Turks, past accomplices and perpetrators of the Genocide, absolutely no bad feeling towards any Turk in Turkey or on this forum. Besides, on my last visit to Turkey, visiting historical Armenia, I had unspeakable, let me put it this way, Monumental difficulty (even) finding ONE ethnic Turk…they all professed to be Kurds. As for your comment about you “acquiring” Yerevan…what about Baku in the 1910s, when the majority of the people were Armenians? What about the “almost the whole country of Azerbaijan” that previously were under Armenian kingdom of Tigranes the II? What about Western Armenia? Come on, I respectfully suggest that you refrain making childish comments here. I understand you to be a mature man, and Not a child driven by emotional outbursts. Wish both of you Turkish commenters good health.
    Preston Bagrationi

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