So disconnected from reality is an article I just read from a Turkish source, that I thought I had found the explanation for why we no longer (since the 1970’s) hear about the opium from Turkish poppies being shipped to the west—the Turks are smoking it all, with none left for export.
A friend who had attended the ANCA-Western Region’s Grassroots Conference during Thanksgiving weekend met a Turkish participant, Bahar Senem Çevik-Ersaydi, who is an assistant professor at Ankara University. She’s the author of the article, “The Armenian Diaspora and the Need for the ‘Other’” (published in September 2011 issue of “Gazi Akademik Bakış”) that betrays where the bulk of Turkish intellectuals (let alone society) are stuck when it comes to Armenian issues, and particularly, the genocide.
This article, based partially on discredited Freudian psychological theories, posits that the Armenian Diaspora uses “Turks” as the “other,” which serves as a “reservoir all bad elements.” Why? Because, according to Çevik-Ersaydi, this is at least one of the main ways (if not the way) the diaspora sustains its identity. We allegedly teach kids to hate Turks for this reason.
It seems to escape our “learned” author that any human learning of the type of horrors inflicted by the Turks would, as a first reaction, hate the perpetrator if her/his family were the victim.
It is precisely the unimaginable horror and magnitude of the crime that leaves the Turks of today unable to even consider that their families could have been guilty. Yet, not only consider, but accept it they must.
The article is laced with the usual Turkish denialist narrative. Not once is the term “genocide” used. It is “events,” “historical enmity,” “sense of being victimized”, etc. Then we have the usual attempt to equate the Armenian and Turkish experiences, perhaps best manifested by this sentence from her conclusion: “These two groups which are so much alike in terms of eating-drinking habits, dressing, culture and music have identified each other as their archenemy due to past experiences with each other and various external provocations.”
Of course you’ll notice the attribution of Armenian-Turkish antagonism to “external” factors. Naturally, the de rigueur reference to Armenian terrorism is present, and taken to the laughable extent of somewhat anachronistically describing Ashod Yergat (whose 1870 birthdate she notes), one of our revolutionary-period heroes, as a “terrorist.” This is all standard-issue Turkish jargon used to discredit our efforts to restore justice to our nation.
Then we have the attempt to give this “polite” denialism the veneer of legitimacy. The article is a study in “political psychology” published in an academic journal. The author references Armenian sources—Hrant Dink, Viken Yacoubian, Donald E. and Lorna Touryan Miller, even “Haytoug,” the AYF-Western Region’s publication, along with others. Various sources are cited in the first half of the article where a theoretical construct is assembled to help explain away, and minimize, Armenians’ responses to the genocide.
My friend, who had mentioned me to Bahar Senem Çevik-Ersaydi, suggested I talk to her before writing this piece. After reading her article, I’m glad I did not, because she is still far too lost in the jungle of denialism for me to give her a hand into the land of human decency.
Nevertheless, I would not object to meeting with her, as long as our discussion was recorded, since I would not want to be misquoted or cited out of context. I also laud her attendance at the Grassroots Conference, though I am a bit suspicious of her motivation and the prism through which she perceived what was presented and discussed there.
Instead of trying to explain away Armenian attitudes through abused psycho-babble (“chosen trauma” is what she calls the genocide, a farcical term in all but her extremely narrow context), Çevik-Ersaydi should perhaps first attempt to discern what motivates her to engage in “polite” denial of the Armenian Genocide. Let’s all help her if she asks for it.
Garen Yegparian
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Garen you’re OK in my books, you kick ass, I’m unfortunately born & raised in NYC where Armenians in the Tristate area don’t give a shit. I envy all you West coast Armenians on the EVE of 100 years.
Yes, we kick ass, brother. A proud Armenian in Glendale, the only place on earth where we Armenians have our OWN democracy. We are trying to spread it to Burbank and elsewhere.
Are denialists being invited to Diaspora gatherings such as the ANCA Grassroots Conference as a quid pro quo for the activities that Diaspora Armenians have been allowed to attend in Turkey?