Gunaysu: Kurds Challenge Turkish Nation-State

On Dec. 20, 2010, Turkish members of parliament, including the ultra-nationalist MHP, Islamist AKP, nationalist CHP, and others, were listening to the tall woman addressing the session during the budgetary discussions for the Ministry of Tourism and Culture. “Rafael Lemkin says genocide is not only about the extermination of the representatives of a nation but also annihilation of its cultural and national values,” she was saying. “Today, of the 913 Armenian monuments remaining after 1923, 464 have been totally destroyed, 252 left to a state of dilapidation, and 197 in urgent need of restoration. Many of the Armenian religious buildings are being used as stables or storehouses, and many of the Armenian churches have been turned into mosques. Armenians in 1915 were driven out of their own homeland. Suffering, exile, and destitution all combined into Armenian people’s painful outcry.” She went on to quote Armenian singer Aram Tigran’s words: “A storm blew away our nest, leaving us orphans, exiled, longing for our nest even if it is made of stone.” She concluded: “Turkish governments’ refusal of Aram Tigran’s last wish to be buried in Diyarbakir is proof that the punishment imposed on Armenians does not end even after their death.”

The speaker was Pervin Buldan, a member of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party from Igdir, one of the places that suffered worst during the Armenian Genocide. She is also the widow of Savas Buldan, a Kurdish businessman, who was one of the victims of the infamous unsolved murders of the 1990’s. Savas Buldan’s dead body was found on the roadside in 1994 after being kidnapped by “unidentified” persons shortly after then-Prime Minister Tansu Ciller declared that she knew the identities of the Kurdish businessmen financially supporting the PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party) and would do away with them. One year later, a parliamentary commission prepared a report on these unsolved murders, but was never published; the commission had explicitly stated that the state’s secret forces had been involved in the murders.

Ten days before Pervin Buldan’s parliamentary speech, on Dec. 10 at a workshop on the Kurdish Question organized by the Socialist Democracy Party in Istanbul, Galip Enserioglu, the chairman of the Diyarbakir Chamber of Industry and Commerce, was addressing the audience, telling them that Armenians were massacred “at the hands of Kurds.” “We, Kurds, are now paying for our past sins,” he stated. “The Ittihadists had decided to found this nation-state and we, the Kurds, let alone watching as bystanders what they did to Armenians and other non-Muslims, we actively became their tool. Armenians were massacred by our own hands.”

Alliance against the common foe

 

These speeches were delivered at a time when a surge of national indignation dominated the Turkish political scene in response to Kurds declaring “democratic autonomy” and the start of a de facto “bilingual life”—with Kurdish appearing in the written form in every aspect of life, from price labels at traditional open-air marketsto the official sphere, such as on signs at municipality buildings in Kurdish provinces. During trials of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), the alleged urban extension of the outlawed PKK, suspects, among them some BDP mayors and chairpersons of local branches of the Human Rights Association, had asked to be able to defend themselves in Kurdish, a demand rejected by the court. When some of the defendants submitted their defenses in Kurdish, the president of the court said the suspects spoke in “an unknown language.” In order to protest this, the BDP started to hold its parliamentary group meetings partially in Kurdish.

This move met with outrage equally vehement on both wings of power in Turkey: the Turkish military and its hate figure AKP government, revealing the fact that the two are allies against the Kurds, whether they are engaged in an armed movement or in peaceful political activity. The speaker of parliament, AKP Deputy Mehmet Ali Sahin, recalled that to speak in another language in parliament was cause to disband a political party, and urged public prosecutors to start legal action against the BDP. Simultaneously the Turkish General Staff issued a statement in which it condemned the BDP’s attempt at a bilingual life, stating that such debates were against the founding philosophy of the Turkish Republic and therefore created “great concern.” The statement predictably included a sentence that, as everyone in Turkey knows, meant threat of military intervention. “The Turkish Armed Forces,” it said, “have always and will continue to stand for the protection of the united, secular nation state that is indicated in the constitution.”

The much-resented Democratic Autonomy is described by the Democratic Society Congress (DTK)—an organization of Kurds comprising intellectuals, representatives from civil society organizations, politicians, and members of the BDP—as the organizational model going from bottom to top, and encompassing village, neighborhood, district, and provincial parliaments on the basis of confederations. At the top of this organizational structure will be the DTK, which will send representatives to the Turkish Parliament.

Now a few words about the KCK case: The first wave of arrests in April 2009 focused mostly on BDP (then DTP) activists. Subsequent operations steadily climbed up the political hierarchy and began to encompass former mayors and elected city council members. Finally, amid complete international silence, the arrests peaked on Dec. 24, 2009, with the arrests of elected mayors Hatip Dicle and Muharrem Erbey, chairman of the Diyarbakir IHD branch. The 7,587-page indictment dealing with the most senior suspects targeted in the KCK operations reveals that these people were being persecuted for peaceful political activities. As Emin Aktar, chairman of the Diyarbakir Bar Association, has pointed out, no one is being accused of using weapons or bombs, only of organizing civil protests; people’s participation in funeral services for fallen PKK guerrillas is also repeatedly presented as criminal. Erbey’s offenses include participation in a commission of legal experts established under DTK auspices to study Turkey’s constitution and make proposals for its amendment. Significantly, despite every legitimate reason, the court declined the repeated demands for release of those defendants who have been in jail for more than a year without any court ruling establishing their guilt.

This wave of arrests came after last year’s Kurdish “opening” fiasco. The government had first declared that they would take steps to bring about a solution to the Kurdish Question. Right after, a group of guerrillas left their arms and turned themselves into Turkish security forces with enthusiastic mass demonstrations by the Kurds welcoming them. The nationalist front in Turkey rose up in protest of this peace initiative and the government immediately made a U-turn, arresting the guerillas, and following with these mass arrests and the KCK case targeting the peaceful Kurdish political movement.

Kurds: The first to recognize Armenian Genocide

 

It is no coincidence that it was the Kurds, the main, unyielding, and massive opponent of the system in Turkey since the foundation of the Republic, particularly for the last three decades of armed struggle, who first publicly pronounced their recognition of the Armenian and Assyrian Genocide of 1915-16, long before Turkish intellectuals.

Recep Marasli was the first. A Kurdish intellectual, writer, and political activist, Marasli was one of the victims of the torture house of Diyarbakir Prison. He was one of the defendants in in the famous Rizgari–Ala Rizgari case trialed by the Diyarbakir Military Court after the 1980 military coup (Rizgari was one of the major Kurdish national movements in Turkey). Marasli was an inmate in the Istanbul Alemdag Military Prison in 1982 when “Armenian organizations,” as he calls them, began a series of attacks on Turkish diplomats. Racist hatred dominated the headlines of the newspapers, and prisoners suspected to be of Armenian origin were particularly subjected to even more barbaric tortures in Diyarbakir Prison. Marasli, together with a friend, prepared a brochure about the Armenian Genocide, challenging the official history and giving an account of the crimes against humanity committed against the Ottoman Armenians. The brochure was secretly circulated among the prisoners, and later formed a part of Marasli’s legal defense submitted to the military court, The defense was published as a book by the Komal Publishing House in Duisburg and Istanbul in 1986, and covered the topic of the Armenian Genocide between pages 286 and 292. From 1982 on, every year until his release, on April 24 Marasli’s small group commemorated the genocide in various ways, depending on the circumstances–sometimes putting a hand-made poster on the wall of the ward, sometimes organizing a seminar, sometimes circulating a leaflet.

This is how he recalls his first acquaintance with the fate of the Armenians in Turkey and his steps to raise awareness of it, in the preface of his book on the Armenian Genocide published in Turkey in 2008.1 Since 1982, Marasli has devoted much of his time to learning more about the Armenian Genocide and the above-mentioned book was the result of his work of many years.

It seems that Turkish prisons played a great role in the awakening amongst Kurds of the truth about Armenians. Naci Kutlay, another well-known Kurdish writer and intellectual, refers to an even earlier stage in Turkey’s recent history–the military intervention in 1971, when he and his Kurdish socialist comrades were tried at military courts. He recalls that during the hearings, court records revealed the Armenian origins of many of the Kurdish defendants, which was a total surprise to many of their friends. This was when he was first faced with the truth that Kurds had massacred Armenians, not only because of government lies that made them believe the Armenians would establish a state and persecute Kurds, and not only because of religious hatred, but also because of their greed for Armenian wealth.2

Naci Kutlay and Recep Marasli are not the only Kurdish dissidents who have acknowledged the truth. For the past few decades, many Kurdish intellectuals have publicly expressed their shame over the Kurds’ role in the genocide and have apologized in interviews published in various magazines and newspapers. One of them is Orhan Miroglu, a Kurdish intellectual and another victim of the Diyarbakir Prison who was shot and seriously wounded during the assassination of the legendary Kurdish writer, poet, and activist Musa Anter in Diyarbakir in 1992. In an interview with a journalist from the daily Birgun, in response to what he thought of the “Armenian Genocide allegations,” Miroglu said: “The Armenian Genocide is not an allegation. It is a fact even acknowledged by the Turkish Republic’s founding ideology of Kemalism [in the past]. Even Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was quoted in General Harbord’s report on the Armenian Question to have said ‘we guarantee that no other Turkish atrocity will take place against Armenians.’ The CUP (Committee of Union and Progress) planned a genocide targeting Armenians. Kurds were the accomplices of this genocide. Kurds should apologize to Armenians for the genocide in the name of friendship and peace. I, as a Kurdish intellectual, apologize to Armenians. In order to come to terms with our past we have to apologize [to Armenians].”

Kurds on forefront of struggle for democratic Turkey

 

Now Kurds are struggling for their national identity, and also for a more democratic Turkey, against a block of allied forces in defense of the nation-state, i.e. the Turkish military, the nationalist front in general, and the ruling AKP that had asked (and succeeded to some extent) to get the votes of the left-wing, democratic, progressive sections of the population, swearing that they stood for democracy and human rights against the militaristic Kemalist establishment.

Today, Jan. 13, 2011, the KCK trial resumed in Diyarbakir and now I’m listening on the TV to the news agencies’ reports about the violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces in the city, as well as in other Kurdish provinces, such as Hakkari, Cizre, Nusaybin and Batman, as thousands of people demand justice for the KCK defendants. It’s being reported that during the hearing the microphone was turned off when the first defendant started to speak in Kurdish.

It is clear enough that no progress can take place in Turkey without Kurds first gaining ground in their struggle for the recognition of their rights and for democracy in Turkey. The future of Turkey depends to a great extent on the success of the Kurdish political movement, backed by dynamic masses rising for their rights, in making the Turkish nation-state finally accept to abandon the old ways of ruling and take a new road towards a future with greater justice for all.

As for the nature of the Kurdish reality in the past and in the present, it should not be considered as a paradox that Kurds were at the same time both perpetrators and saviors in 1915 (especially the Alevi Kurds in Dersim) because there has never been a single uniform Kurdish (or other) identity completely independent of individual, or regional, or social, or cultural differences. Similarly it is not a paradox that a group in a specific period in history acted as the perpetrators of a crime against another group, but also became the victim of their common oppressor. And thirdly it is not a paradox when members of a group that had been the perpetrators at the time later became the first to acknowledge the guilt and apologize—especially if it has also suffered. It’s just that one cannot put life and its actors into ready-made compartments. That’s why life is much more complicated, much more contradictory, and holds much more hope for the better despite the prevalence of injustice and suffering.

But it should not be unexpected that the same land—the homeland of Armenians and Kurds —continues to bleed. Because it is the crime scene. No good can grow in the soil of a crime scene until justice is served. Only then can the dead, the Armenian and Assyrian victims of the genocide who are denied a gravestone, be duly and respectfully buried in the hearts of the living; can the dead’s suffering spirits be freed of their agony and be able to retreat to their eternal peaceful sleep. Only then can the soil of the crime scene start to be fertile again, for the Kurds and for us all, bearing fruit again and feeding its children.

1.      Recep Marasli, Ermeni Ulusal Demokratik Hareketi ve 1915 Soykırımı (The Armenian National Democratic Movement and 1915 Genocide), Peri Publishing House, Istanbul: 2008.

2.      See http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jic4Agcy2egJ:www.radikal.com.tr/ek_haber.php%3Fek%3Dr2%26haberno%3D6710+K%C3%BCrtler+ve+Ermeniler&cd=1&hl=tr&ct=clnk&gl=tr.

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.

41 Comments

  1. Excellent  article Ms. Gunaysu: lots of interesting details, previously unknown to me. Takes some effort to go thru it, but well worth it.
    I recommend all the Armenian Weekly visitors read it fully and in detail.
    Courageous woman that, Ms. Pervin Buldam. Thank God she wasn’t attacked by the wolves.
    We Armenians should consider Kurds as natural allies at this time in our history, and work together against the racist and imperialist policies of the Turkish state.
    Undoubtedly, many amongst us have negative feelings towards Kurds, due primarily to the fact that many Kurdish bands were used by Ottoman Turks to massacre Armenians. However, modern Kurds have expressed remorse for the actions of their ancestors – even though they themselves are clearly not at fault. Plus, it is also true that combined Armenian-Kurdish units successfully fought against Ottoman Turk military units.
    Some Armenians say that since Kurds are now living on ancestral Armenian lands, how can we be allies ?
    I personally don’t see a big problem there: we have no historical enmity, and neither party is or has been an existential threat to the other – like the Turks are to both Armenians and Kurds.
    Whatever differences there are, can be resolved at the negotiating table, with the knowledge that we can be neutral neighbors. The important thing is to combine our efforts in order to weaken and eventually dissolve the imperialist, racist state of Turkey.

  2. “Whatever differences there are, can be resolved at the negotiating table, with the knowledge that we can be neutral neighbors. The important thing is to combine our efforts in order to weaken and eventually dissolve the imperialist, racist state of Turkey.”

    Then lets hold hands and sing kumbayya!

    What is amazing is that some people still expect Turks to simply ignore and accept this sort of thinking and not react at all. 

    Even more entertaining when you think that majority of the fighting was between Kurds and Armenians.

    I wonder what is the next step for these enlightened Kurds who have come to terms with their crimes against Armenians?  What part of their “Kurdistan” will they offer and more as reperations?  I am dying to find out!

  3. Murat:

    It’s pretty simple, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  As you may well know, in politics there are no friends, just interests.  For now, it is in the interest of Armenians and Armenia to work with the kurds anc vice versa.

  4. Murat and Robert…. the arrogance continues to ooze from your comments. It amazes and disappoints me that Turks continue to have this imperial and psuedo-superior complex over any minorities. Let look at your record the last hundred years with “minorities”…. those you did not systemically murder(Greeks, Assyrians, Armenians). you continue to oppress into the 21st century. What is the origin of your smug attitude toward the inalienable rights of others? After all you barged into the neighbor relatively late(11th century) and weren’t exactly peaceful. The Turkish authorities have not yet learned that they will continue to fail in their attempt to extinguish Kurdish nationalism. The source of their nationalism lies in part in their natural right to exercise thier culture in freedom and partly due to to a reaction to Turkish oppression. All oppressors fuel the national interests of the oppressed. Your ancesters did the ame to the Armenians. What you call rebellion was self defense against an institutionally discriminatory and corrupt structure that denied the Armenians human dignity. You invade people lives and when they react, you call them “disloyal” How ignorant. What do you think the Kurds of Turkey are thinking as they observe the semi-autonomous success of their brethren in Iraq after years of violent oppression.
    I would say it gives them hope and that is the foundation for success.

  5. “Then lets hold hands and sing kumbayya!” Yes, Murat and Robert, and what an inconvenient anthem that would be for the self-mythologizing Turkish state!

  6. Kurds butchered their Armenian neighbours whose tables they had eaten from. They butchered the children their own had played in the mountains with. They stole their neighbour’s property and posessions. They raped young Armenian girls and forced them to convert. And Avery thinks that “neither party is or has been an existential threat to the other”? oh, really?

  7. Murat and Robert.
    You may be “dying to find out” how Armenians and Kurds may find ways to coexist with each other, but I’m afraid you may never find how, because your small brains cannot go that far. Yes, the Kurds had a major role in carrying out the genocidal policy against Armenians, but it was a policy designed by the Turkish government at the head of which stood “Committee of Union and Progress” and was implemented at all levels of the Turkish State. Kurds were merely tools. If Turks like you get mature enough, like the Kurdish intellectuals whom you redicule, you may realize that finding ways to live side by side peacefully, despite the sad events in the past, shoud not be impossible.

  8. Thank you Ayse Guyansu for another superb article. I always look forward to your reporting. It breaks my heart to learn about Armenians who were forced to become Kurds, but who in their way still fought to get the truth out about what was done to their people. Now that’s courage! I wonder if there is any way to find out how many Armenians have converted to Islam, and became Turk or Kurd.
    Murat, you are inching closer and closer into admitting to what the Turks have done to the Armenians. “Most of the fighting was between the Kurds and the Armenians”, “what is the next step with these enlightened Kurds who have come to terms with their crimes against the Armenians”. Wow, so far we were all hallucinating that there were “crimes” committed against Armenians, now it was the “Kurds” who did it! Mind you who was ruling the country, the Kurds or the Turkish Ottomans. And if the Kurds were massacring the Armenians on their own, why did the Ottoman government allow them to massacre all these Armenians and did not stop them? Hmmmmmmm…. Kumbaya indeed….

  9. Perouz:
    Sorry you disagree: just the same, I stand by what I said above.
     
     
    I know what Kurds did to us: it’s no secret – read Ms. Gunaysu’s article above, again, in detail. In there, today’s Kurds fully acknowledge their ancestors’ participation in Turk-instigated, Turk-organized, Turk-managed Armenian Genocide.
     
     
    The term Existential Threat has a very specific meaning. I know these days everything is called a ‘Genocide’ for dramatic effect. However, butchery, mass murder, massacre, pogrom, etc, etc are fundamentally different from a Genocide: the extinction or attempted extinction of a genus.
     
     
    Having participated in massacres is not the same as having the ability or the nationalistic intent to exterminate another nationality: Turks do; Kurds don’t.
    Read Sevan’s comment: you might see what I was trying to convey in my original post.
     
     
    Many Armenians seem to think we are supermen and have infinite resources: we’re not, and we don’t.
    There are only about 10 million of us – Worldwide. Even superpowers, from ancient to modern times, have been defeated when fighting on too many fronts.
    Would you rather have 20 million Kurds inside Turkey as allies – or as disinterested bystanders at best, and enemies at worst ?
     
     
    Even the most powerful nations in the world, throughout human history, have sought and worked hard to gain allies, even small countries, against a common enemy or adversary.
     
     
    Turks and Turkey have many enemies – some obvious, some not so obvious. Why shouldn’t Armenians and Armenia combine efforts with them against a common foe ?

  10. This is another wonderful piece. “denied a gravestone”. That metaphor sums up so much of post-genocide.
     
    To Robert and Murat,
    “The Ittihadists had decided to found this nation-state and we, the Kurds, let alone watching as bystanders what they did to Armenians and other non-Muslims, we actively became their tool. Armenians were massacred by our own hands.”
    Did you read the above from the article? Do you understand what that means? It was not fighting. It’s right there in front of you and you keep resisting. You keep posting here and arguing with Armenians because you don’t want to accept it. You’re not convincing anyone.

  11. Avery;
    what was done to the Armenians by Turkey was not an “Existential Threat.” It was Genocide, as defined by Lemkin. No other term applies. If you have a lot of spare time, go into google and read some of the current applications of “Existential Threat.”  No one has stated that Kurds intendend, or committed genocide in their acts of brutality and murder and pillage against the Armenians. Some Kurds acted in good faith in their efforts to save their Armenian neighbours. Unfortunately, they were the minority. 

  12. Perouz,

    What you are saying is absolutely true. However, I agree with Avery. Armenians and Kurds are allies because, at least now, our incentives are aligned. Our numbers are small and instead of fighting against multiple enemies we should try to join forces with our allies–Kurds, Greeks, Assyrians, in our struggle of restoration of justice.
    Although Kurds actively participated in the extermination of Armenians, somehow their willingness to talk about it openly, admit their guilt, and show remorse help improve our relationship with them. Also, we all know that Turks were the masterminds of the annihilation of Armenians, not Kurds, although Kurds were very willing executioners.
     

  13. Ms Gunaysu:
    You write: “…shortly after then-Prime Minister Tansu Ciller declared that he knew the identities of the Kurdish businessmen financially supporting the PKK…”
    To my knowledge, Tansu Ciller was Turkey’s first female Prime Minister and has still not changed sex.

  14. Dear Ms. Gunaysu,

    Thank you for your insightful article. I had to read it several times to really absorb it all. An absolute gem!

    However, I must admit that I feel quite cynical about it all. I am wondering if the Armenian case is again being used as a means to another nation’s self promotion as was the case at the end of the 19th century, beginningof 20th. This time by the Kurds. Furthermore, there had been animosity between Kurds and Armenians at least since the 1870’s when raids to Armenian villages were most common and what is commonly referred to in Turkish textbooks as “Armenian rebellions” were in fact Armenians defending themselves against these Kurdish armed attacks. At that time a lot of Armenians (including women and children) lost their lives. I only bring this up not because we as Armenians have long memories (which we do), but I want to dispel the notion that Kurds and Armenians were always good friends were it not for the fact that the Turks made the Kurds do nasty things. This is not the full picture. Kurds were responsible for their own actions.

    While I appreciate the Kurdish moves towards admission of guilt during the Armenian Genocide, and admire their courage for this, I sincerely believe that we have a lot more discussions to have until all the facts are known and we can get some peace. One cannot live happily on “haram” land. I fully agree with your conclusions. You are a brave lady, and may peace be with you!

  15. Perouz:
    Re: “ what was done to the Armenians by Turkey was not an “Existential Threat.” It was Genocide, as defined by Lemkin. No other term applies “

    You seem to have misunderstood what I wrote in my previous posts.
    First, though: I know quite well what was done to us by Turks, and know the difference between ‘Genocide’ and ‘Existential Threat’ (without Googling), and I don’t need Lemkin’s or anybody else definition to know that when 80% of the Armenian population was exterminated, most of the rest were forcibly converted, and only a small percentage escaped – it’s as full an implementation of extinction of a genus as it gets. If Lemkin did not exist, would we call what happened in 1915 a mere tragedy ? Of course not. If he had not coined the word ‘Genocide’, would it matter to us ? Of course not. “A rose by any other name is still a rose”.
    Next: my late maternal Grandmother used to tell us about witnessing Turk soldiers putting rifles under the chins of Armenians hiding in the church and pulling the trigger. Even though she was just a little girl at the time, she still vividly remembered it in her 80s, as if it was yesterday. She also vividly remembered what happened to the human being after the trigger was pulled … and what materialized on the church ceiling … which I am not going to repeat here. Her eyewitness testimony was taped, and is on file at UCLA in Dr. Richard Hovannisian’s archives.
    So, I can assure you that I know exactly what the Turks, and only the Turks, did to our people.
    On what I meant by  I know these days everything is called a ‘Genocide’ for dramatic effect.” Clearly, if you had carefully read what I wrote, you would not assume I was referring to the AG. What I was referring to was this: Anglo-American and European hypocrites have no problem calling it ‘Bosnian Genocide’, when out of a population of about 2.5 million roughly 40,000 were murdered, and have no problem charging Serb leaders with ‘Genocide’. Anglo-American and European hypocrites have no problem calling it ‘Genocide’, when out of a population of about 3 million, roughly 300,000 are murdered in Darfur, and have no problem charging Sudan’s leader Bashir with ‘Genocide’. Yet when it comes to Armenians – where Turks nearly succeeded in extermination the Armenian genus – it somehow becomes a matter of discussion and debate.
    On ‘Existential Threat’: although the definition can apply to individuals or groups, in common use today, it is meant to convey a threat to the existence of a nation or country. For example, the current hyperbole of  “… Iran is an existential threat to Israel … “, according to Neocon propaganda.
    Back to the Kurds. Let me re-phrase: Kurds simply do not have the large scale military or organizational skills to be an existential threat to the Armenian nation. Plus, they have no history of exterminating other nationalities – Turks do. Without the infrastructure, material support, weapons, leadership, etc provided by the Turks, Kurds could not have possibly massacred as many Armenians as they did. Whatever they were able to do was because the Turkish state disarmed and neutralized most fighting-age Armenian men. Frankly, with their huge population numbers, if Kurds did have the large scale military and organizational skills, they would have had an independent nation long ago.
     

  16. Avery:
    Please do not refer to “Anglo-Americans” and “Europeans” as “hypocrites” when they speak of genocide without any regard for numbers. Numbers or percentages of population do not define genocide. Intent does. As for your statement that “Yet when it comes to Armenians – where Turks nearly succeeded in extermination the Armenian genus – it somehow becomes a matter of discussion and debate”: while it is a matter of debate for Turkey, it is not a matter of debate for 21 countries and the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and many others. This has been repeated many times in these columns. Your statement “So, I can assure you that I know exactly what the Turks, and only the Turks, did to our people.” is erroneous. A Kurd saved my father’s life, yet it was Kurds who butchered his entire extended family. Kurds’ cattle are still munching in my father’s house. Kurds are still growing their crops on our land. We may be sympathetic to them, but their present difficulties and their cause has nothing to do with ours. One hundred years after the genocide of our people, the Kurds tell us they are sorry for their participation. I applaud them for their integrity in finally doing so. But what difference has it made to our cause? Are we closer to receiving justice from Turkey because the Kurds are now sorry for having been willing participants? We have our own problems in achieving justice; the Kurds have theirs. Different issues. Let’s not get sidetracked. Ani in her letter above has figured it out.

  17. Well, Perouz, we just don’t see things the same way: I did not convince you, and you did not convince me.
    Ani sees things your way – some other commentators see things my way.

  18. Perouz, Ani, and others, I too feel wary of an alliance with Kurds when I think how they turned against us and became tools of the Ittihadists, but we have to remember that for them it was a battle for their survival as well.  It is a measure of Ottoman oppression of minorities, that one group would turn on the other in a desperate attempt to catch the crumbs falling from the Turkish table. The Kurdish crimes against us were a function of the oppression they lived under and the deception they were fed by the Ittihadists.  Can you imagine the impact of living in those times? We were all victims of a common enemy, then.  At least they are trying to deal with their history and can recognize the need to apologize.  That means a lot to me.  We are natural allies at this point in history because we both suffered and are suffering under Turkish superiority and bigotry toward non-turks.

  19. Boyajian;
    I disagree completely with you. The “crumbs” you speak of were the homes and businesses and farms and money of our fathers that Kurdish descendants are still living in. The “crumbs” were the Armenian women and girls Kurds raped and captured and forced into conversion who had to bear their children and whose descendants now live unknowing and hidden amongst them. Kurds brutally butchered inside their own homes, women and children who were their neighbours, whose tables they had eaten on. They then moved into their homes. As for imagining “the impact of living in those times”, please don’t correlate the suffering of Christians of the time with that of Kurds. We are absolutely not “natural allies.” There is no reason for us to be allied with them. There is no reason for us to be involved in their present problems with the Turks. It is detrimental to our cause to be allied with them. It is beneficial only to them. It is not in our interest  to help them “deal with their history” simply because after 100 years they have apologized. If you are looking for “natural allies” turn towards the Greeks and the Assyrians. They shared our fate.

  20. Very well said Boyadjian!
    I would like to add in support of your argument: Should Armenians and Kurds commit in 2011 the same mistakes committed in 1915?
    I would even go as far as making it more inclusive: “Should Armenians, Turks and Kurds commit in 2011 the same mistakes committed in 1915?”
    Antoine S. Terjanian
    to read all my letters from Armenia, open http://lettersfromArmenia.blogspot.com   

  21. Well, Perouz, I don’t completely disagree with what you wrote.  It is true that the Kurds committed atrocities against us and today, many still benefit from what they stole from our ancestors.  I was simply trying to place the events in their proper context.
    Our alliance with Greeks and Assyrians goes without saying; it is obvious.  We should certainly join forces with them.  But can’t you see the potential benefit of cooperation between us and Kurds?  They actually live where our people used to live.  Where are the Anatolian Greeks and Assyrians today?  Simple pragmatism dictates that Kurds figure into the equation if we are talking about land reparations and not merely monetary reparations.
     
    I never meant to suggest that what Armenians lost were ‘crumbs’.  But what the Kurds actually gained in Armenian spoils for their cooperation with Ittihadists was crumbs compared to true equality under the law, full representation in government and self-determination in their own communities.  They allowed themselves to be turned into barbarians; thieves who murder, rape and steal from their neighbors, for what exactly?  There is no honor in this history, but at least they are willing to be honest about it today.  That is honorable.

  22. A quote from “Sevan”, Jan. 23, in this discussion: ‘Yes, the Kurds had a major role in carrying out the genocidal policy against Armenians, but it was a policy designed by the Turkish government at the head of which stood “Committee of Union and Progress” and was implemented at all levels of the Turkish State.’ This is the heart of the matter.

    Historically the Kurds were divided up into a plethora of tribes with different traditions and values. Some of them were as feared for their barbarism by other tribes of Kurds as they were by Armenians and these were the tribes, led by barbarous, greedy leaders, who served the interests of the Ottoman state. If they didn’t do as they were told by the Ottomans, they were poisoned and done away with and others picked out. They had a lot of violence at their disposal, but no real political power.

    If we are talking about genocide, then the actor responsible for it is not this or that person or ethnic group but a state, a government. The Turkish state, the Turkish government was responsible for the Armenian Genocide. The present Turkish government has inherited responsibility for it but won’t acknowledge it and therefore keeps using the same old Ottoman tools-cultural repression and killing– against the Kurds who now occupy the same place the Armenians did. That is what present-day Kurds and Armenians have in common–not to mention a long history of shared culture before they were pitted against each other in the late 19th century to further the interests of the corrupt, treacherous and violent Ottoman government.

  23. Robert and Murat,

    Unfortunately, Armenians will never recognize what Turks and Turkish state gave them.  Their freedom from Crusaders and Brought them to Istanbul.  They rise with in the Turkish Empire in all aspects.

    Bashing Turks, spilling and vomiting hatred is the only way to survive for Armenians unfortunately. 
    History will tell you all . Just read it even Hungarian president says Hungarians were very lucky that Turks ruled them.  They kept their culture and language.  look at north africa, africa, ssouth america.  these are all done by the so called civilized christian europe. 

  24. Kurt,
    Is that why Greece, Bulgaria, Syria and many other regions wanted to separate from the empire? A lot of Turks have such fond memories of the Ottoman era while I don’t see other countries wanted to have any of it back.
    Freedom? Or conquest?
    What were Turks doing in Hungary anyway? Turks are not native to that region. If you read Hungarian history, you’ll see the wars that Turks brought in their goals of conquest had a devastating affect on the Hungarian population. The cultural and religious autonomy is probably the only positive thing in the Ottoman occupation of Hungary. Those who keep touting the tolerance shown by Ottoman Turks are not looking at the totality of it.

  25. Random Armenian,
    Every nation has a history either as a conquerrer and/or conquered.  Turks conquered the Balkans and other parts of the world  as well, from Middle east to North Africa to balkans.
    Empires comes and goes.  TUrks never forced any country to forcefully cahnged their religion like French, Brits, russians and Spanish did.  At least acknowledge that.  After 1000 years The empire fell apart which is normal.  Look at Soviet Union, Russian, British  empires.  Japan was an empire once but today a nation state.
    We as the Turks do not want to go back to Turkish empire times too. everyone seperated and everyone has gone to their own way and no reason to keep them together.
    Egypt: while Turks ruling French invaded and then Brits and Turks expelled French and then again Brits invaded after the Turkish empire fell apart.  Behind the doors, Egypt is ruled by the US.  So, we will see what happens.
    All Armenians would love it if all Turks vanished from the face of the earth. hatred always is very costly.   Open your minds and hearths.  People can not excel if hatred continues.
    Kurt
    Kurt

  26. “All Armenians would love it if all Turks vanished from the face of the earth.”


    Kurt, this is such an outrageous comment and as a frequent visitor to these pages you certainly have read many statements from Armenians who have said the opposite.  Isn’t this “bashing Armenians and spilling and vomiting hatred”?  Speaking for myself, I do not hate Turks, but I do despise your government(s) policies toward Armenia and the acknowledgment of the genocide.  Maybe you should do as Robert, your fellow countryman, says he did elsewhere in these pages:  get a puppy and leave your anti-Armenian paranoia behind.
     



  27. To Kurt (Bozkurt?)
    Whatever the “Turks and Turkish state gave Armenians”, as you claim, it was taken back from them by force and genocide. Tell me Kurt where did the nation whom The Ottoman rulers used to call “Milleti-Sadiqa” (loyal people) go? Where did “Ermeni Velayeti” (Western Armenia now devoid of Armenians) disappear? Kurt, we are not bashing Turks. We know that there are growing number of Turks, like Gunaysu, the writer of this article and many others whom you possibly cannot imagine, who see the truth as it is and are not afraid to acknowledge it. Not only haven’t we any hatred towards them, we respect them as great and courageous human beings. It is you and the likes of you who have to open up their eyes before you are witness, like your forefathers, to further disintegration of your once upon a time empire. 

  28. kurt,
    People don’t like getting conquered, no matter who is doing the conquering. I’m sure that Hungarian president would have preferred if Turks never took over Hungary to begin with. You don’t understand since you’re not a member of a group who was at the receiving end of conquest. And things were not all peachy either, there was discrimination and double taxation on Armenians and other ethnic and religious minorities in the empire. And things got really bad in the 19th century. There were massacres in the 1890s as well. There were attempts at reform and which is why minorities in the empire supported of the Young Turks in the beginning.
    The Sultan did bring Armenians to Constantinople, but why? To piss off the Greeks most likely. An Armenian population in Constantinople would have meant completion.
    As for forcing religion, many Armenians were given the choice to convert during the genocide. Some did and survived. Some did and they were still sent into the death marches. But the genocide wasn’t really about religion.

  29. Kurt,

    And what did Armenians do in Istanbul? They built the most beautiful palaces in Turkey that you proudly show to tourists toady as monuments of Turkish culture. 

  30. Gina, exactly.  Maybe Kurt may be willing to answer as to who were the bravest defenders of both external and domestic threats to Ottoman Turks? I bet they don’t teach this to him and his ilk in their schools. Well, be aware: the Janissaries, forcibly converted to Islam and unreservedly serving the Sultan Armenian and Greek young boys. How can a descendant of Ottoman mass murderers throw to our face “All Armenians would love it if all Turks vanished from the face of the earth” when his own nation has made Western Armenians vanish from the face of the earth? How much cynicism does it take to make such a statement to the victims of his own nation’s genocidal crime?

  31. Kurt, Armenians don’t hate all Turkish people. Stop getting paranoid and full of yourselves, they are not going to shrink our country to the size of Ankara and they are not out to get us. They are not hungry for Turkish blood nor they are out to divide their country. The Ittihat ve Terraki party commited a massacre against 1.5 million people and it is an undeniable fact. You want to bring back the Ottoman Empire, lol, do you want to enslave the planet. What would happen if an Italian says, oh, let’s conquer Jerusalem and then cause a big war there (since the Romans conquer Jerusalem). What would happen if Germans created the 4th Reich. Why do you think the Ottoman Empire fell, because people were getting tired of living like slaves idiot. Why do you think Germany rose to being a superpower? Because they recognized the holocaust. Why do you think Turkey is abandoning progressive secularism layed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and dwindling to primitive religious fundamentalism, because of ignorant swineballs like yourself who are stuck in the past. If Ataturk was still alive, he would be disgusted by genocide denialists, religious extremeists, failed EU bid, destroyed Women’s rights (which Ataturk layed laws protecting women’s rights), 1/2 of our countrymen abroad doing cheap labor worldwide, rebuilding the caliphate (thanks to Gulen and co.) and other taboo issues. He would also be disgusted by Turkey’s justifications of Cyprus, Greece, Armenia and the Kurdish issues. Let’s just recognize all the wrongdoings of our nations and move on. It doesn’t take a rocket science to solve this problem. If this requires sacrificing some soil, so be it. Let the T/C’s and G/C’s live peacefully in Cyprus, give Kurds autonomy, recognize the Armenian genocide and set up the Sevres treaty. I would rather to see a strong Turkey and a Turkish community worldwide, rather then a Turkey that is condemed and spat on and looked down for eternity. Do you want to live with dignity or shame, it’s your choice.

  32. Are you sure the Kurds are living on the farms and the houses? The Kurdish people have been used by other states against other Kurdish people-especially Turkey- you will have heard the term ´Village Guards´- You will have also heard that thousands of villages in the de facto Kurdish-Armenian regions (to give it its proper name ) Corduen /Armenia-Kurdish children made homeless and thousands in prisons- The Kurds have gained nothing from the murderous acts against the Armenian people orchestrated by the Turkish state-  The Kurds have fought against the Kurds -their brethren as they did against the Armenians, also brethren, whether you like it or not- The Kurds have been oppressed and massacred, imprisoned, silenced, left to starve, deprived of aid offers from overseas, and unable to get education and speak their language- Perouz speaks as though the Kurds have made personal gains out of the suffering of the Armenian people. They share the same grief and suffer even worse for being so hopelessly led into crimes against their own brethren. The best policy by a murderous state is to brainwash-and brainwashing hopeless, desperate and sometimes completely exploited and abused people cannot be that hard. The Kurds have nothing against the Armenians and they never did. They are still the only people on earth who now deeply feels the pain and suffering of the Armenian people as their own- They want the whole world to recognise this atrocity-You will have noticed that the world is yet to do so- the paid goes on. 
    Your villification of the Kurds only adds salt to a very very deep injury-They continue to be massacred and have never had proper freedoms and liberties since the establishment of the Turkish Republic.

  33. it is absolutely wrong,saying kurds helped the genocide.not at all ! I think we kurds’ only fault was watching our neighbours dying in the hand of our enemies.of course those years were rough,so some kurds might have played role in it.

    • Kurds are a big nation with many groups. In both the Hamidian massacres and the Genocide of 1915-1923, Kurdish leaders killed and plundered.Other Kurdish leaders protected Armenians.

  34. Moms aunt herself had saved two armenian men.but unfortunately they dyed whilst eating also mom told me that there was a village(We call aznapert)they were all killed and few girls were left.i asked why kurd didnt do anything.she said how could they?

  35. If the Kurds participated in the Armenian Genocide, by being recruited to kill Armenians on the death marches out into the desert. Then take over Armenians homes, which were left abandonded, after the Armenians forced removal. Then now put their past differences aside. Hopefully, this can serve as a role model for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I knew of a Palestinian family that welcomed an Israeli Jewish girl into their home. Instead of it being an exchange of anger, it was more of a social visit on getting to know each other. It goes to show, that the enemy is not out there, but within our own minds about how we think about people.

  36. Armenian genocide is the product of 6 Turks and 424000 Kurds
    The ironic result is all those lands which belonged to Armenians are called “KURDISH GEOGRAPHY” by Kurdish nationalists nowadays.
    If Kurds are really honest, they should tell that Diyarbakir, Van, and Bitlis are Armenian cities.

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