“The poor speak at length of the rich man’s possessions, but it benefits them not.” (Zenginin malı fukaranın çenesini yorarmış). So goes the Turkish expression, and thus is it is with the Turkish Prime Minister’s recent comments on the events of 1915. No doubt, they will be discussed and debated at length, because no Turkish Prime Minister before Mr. Erdoğan has ever given such a speech. But are his words really that earthshaking?
I’m not at all enthused about the prospect of
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talk is cheap, didn’t cost Erdogan a kurus, he got all those world leaders off his back,
if he returns the church owned properties that’s a start article 301 you know what to do with it, you can’t have a foot in Europe and still act like a sultan
I have absolutely no faith in anything uttered by any representative of the Turkish government. For the government of Turkey to admit any kind of culpability to the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians would open the door to reparations both monetary and otherwise. It would brand the Turks as the perpetrators of the first genocide of the twentieth century which we all know to be the truth. I have little faith in any of this.
at least we have one odar genuinely on our side.
How can this Turkish Republic recognize this Genocide, when it is basically founded on that ideology? Exterminating all others; establishing a mere racist Turkish Republic; and expanding Pan-Turanism to the east, is the core reason that did away with the Armenians, the Assyrians, the Pontic Greeks, the Alevis, the “mountainous Turk” Kurds… Is Turkey ready to shake its own foundations? Is Turkey dropping the super-race Turkish ideology? How can Germans blame Hitler, yet still embrace his super-race ideology? And please. Enough of this opening of borders and normalcy issues. That is not a bargaining chip: That is merely a by-product of dropping racism.
I read too many interpretations regarding a note from Erdogan. And so many demands, bargaining chips for normalcy. Normalcy, normal human relations, normal racial relations can be achieved between equals only. Normalcy can never reign in an area, borders open or close, where attitudes and perceptions are of superiors and inferiors. Since when raya kafir Armenians be equals to “superior genuine pasha” race of Turks? So long as that “superior and the rest” ideology lives, any Armenia is a thorn pierced to Pan-Turanism, a mere purulent wound, a cancer on their path of that “ultra-race”…. Why to even discuss opening of borders, let alone recognition and reparations???
Thank you, Taner Akcam, for a very thorough evaluation of where we are. Thanks you for your work and for its continuation!
AKPs position on the Armenian genocide has been clearly more conciliatory than past regimes. Just like they’ve been better about improving minority rights for Kurds and Alevis. But they should get no credit for this. The bar was set so low by past regimes that you could even argue that there was no bar. We’re talking about a country that a singer was exiled from for merely stating he wanted to make a Kurdish music video…… In 1999. So yeah, compared to the DSP/MHP coalition of that time they’re much better. But not good enough. Not nearly good enough. They’ll never be good enough. And its not entirely their fault. As powrful as AKP are I’m not so sure they can stay in power if they recognize the Armenian genocide.
And I find it unsurprising that even the Left was hateful towards you when you first returned in 1993 Mr. Akçam. In 2011 when Erdogan apologized for the Dersim massacre, the leader of CHP, Kurdish Alevi from Dersim, harshly criticized Erdogan for apologizing for the events. That’s the Turkish left.
Genocide is not an event that happened 99 years ago. Genocide is not an event to recognize and claim responsibility. Genocide is not an event to compensate for what was lost. Even sitting in my living room in the U.S.A. and typing this; even though I enjoy the liberty of being a free human being; Genocide does not belong to my past – I am not here to collect dues for my past. The Armenian Genocide belongs to my everyday life; it is present in me; it is happening now. Enough talking of recognizing past events, and requesting unjust losses in the past. Talk in the present tense. I am still living its consequences. My progeny are born into this Genocide. Yes, they are born free Americans: But they are still living through this extermination of whatever is Armenian in them. THE GENOCIDE IS NOT OVER. IT DOES NOT BELONG ONLY TO THE PAST. I DID NOT OPT TO ERASE MY “INFERIOR” ARMENIANNESS WITH AMERICANISM. Day by day, I am forced in erasing my Armenianness. No wonder, when perpetrators were asked what will become of those who somehow “survived” the physical annihilation, they merely replied: The diaspora will dissolute the left-overs of them!!!!
Turkish government can say all they want, my grand-parent’s souls will not rest until crimes commited against our nation are fully accepted and apologized for, and our rightful lands returned to their rightful owners
Genocide Acknowledgment without Accountability is hollow and meaningless – it is worse than denial.
No amount of apology or acknowledgment will ever be sincere or enough – it is Genocide Acknowledgment with *Accountability* that matters.
Accountability for land, reparation and restitution.
The Turkish state remains accountable for the crime of genocide for lands of Armenia acquired-by-way-of genocide, reparations for wealth of the Armenians acquired-by-way of genocide, and restitution for property of Armenians destroyed-by-way of genocide.
The Turkish state and its predecessor Sultanate, has not only murdered humans, destroyed an ancient culture, civilization and rewritten history, the Turkey continues to legitimize the act as well as the racist ideology that led to the act of genocide.
For example: Artsakh is land.
Nakhichevan is land.
Ararat is land.
Ani is land.
Kars is land.
Ardahan is land.
Artvin is land.
Genocide Acknowledgment with Accountability.
The great irony in Erdogan’s rhetoric and wish to “embrace ….memory” and “collective suffering” is that clearly the Ottomans being the rulers, historically subjugated and deliberately tortured and disenfranchised its own citizens. The citizens — Christian, Armenian, Bulgarian — may have participated in, but were not in control of the Ottoman military “machinery.” When they did fight and inflict injury on Turks, it was in self defense, self preservation! There’s no way to see or seek a “balance” that Mr. Erdogan mysteriously anticipates.
And one more point, while many survivors do rely on memory, and have recorded their experiences, the fact IS that there are “living” documents — government and personal — that speak louder than any Grandmotherly memoir, and plenty of scholars have had access to those facts. All I can say, and I think so do many others, is that Mr. Erdogan needs a serious reality check.
There are several contradictions in Dr. Akcam’s interpretation. One of them is that he spends an entire article on a subject he declares to be boring and unproductive. How can that be, especially when Erdogan’s statement is a key tactical move on his part just one year before the Centenary and was followed up by him by his notable appearance on the Charlie Rose show in which he denied the Genocide in the crudest possible manner? Another contradiction: that there was nothing “historic” about the statement, and yet Dr. Akcam tells us it marked the end of an era, i. e., the era of Yusuf Halaçoğlu, Şükrü Elekdağ and Gündüz Aktan. Which is it? I wish it were true, but in the light of
Erdogan’s Charlie Rose appearance, it doesn’t seem those individuals can be counted out yet. Then we have the matter of Dogu Periincek, one of the deniers who blames the Armenians for their victimhood and believes that Talat gave them what they had coming, still being defended in his case against Switzerland by the Turkish government. We are still waiting to see of the ECHR will exonerate him of all charges. That is the unfortunate context in which Erdogan’s statement needs to be assessed.
The “Armenian Weekly” publishes the most pertinent articles for those of us, Greeks and Armenians, who care deeply about the extermination of the Armenians, Greeks, Syrians, Kurds, and all other minorities from Asia Minor. More than anything, the Armenian Genocide needs to be acknowledged by the Turkish government, and all the property stolen from Armenians and my Greek ancestors needs to be restored. I applaud Prof. Akcam’s astute article.. I wish Greeks and Armenians in the diaspora would work together to bring about justice.
There is no question freedom of expression and opinion has followed a very tortuous road in Turkey and there is a lot more to go. In any case, at least there is room in Turkish society, however grudgingly and however small, for contrary opinions, even when they are very unpopular. Brave men and women, though I do not always agree with what they say, voice such opinions here and many other places. My question is where are the Armenian contrarians, where is their Akcam, where is their one lone voice which dares to deviate from the official line and dogma, where, where?
The answer is why would there be a need for an Armenian ‘Akcam’ ?
Unlike you denialist Turks, we are not hiding anything.
The reason there are Turks like Akcam is your (plural) entire existence is based on lies and manufactured reality.
You subscribe to the fallacy that “the truth is always ‘somewhere in the middle.'”
A legal and historical conclusion shared by the vast majority of world historians and admitted to *by the perpetrators themselves* (see Istabul trials 1919-1920) is not “dogma”. It is the truth. Objectivity does not require crediting a lie as a legitimate counterpoint to the truth.
I guess Israel is the most dogmatic state in the world. No “contrarians” there regarding what happened to the Jews.
Murat,
You can find many Turkish intellectuals in a Midnight Express jails, where penal code 301 is written on top of their foreheads!
There is diversity among Armenians, quite a but. But the percentage of Armenians who question the Genocide is 0. Just the same as the number of Jews who question the JG.
Your question, in regard to “where is their Akcam,” is extremely pointless, just like all of your other remarks. It’s just like asking the Turks, where’s your Serj Tankian?
Weren’t you actually aware that Mr. Akcam doesn’t live in Turkey? Because if he did, he would be in jail now, for all of the factual evidence he’s uncovered in regard to the Armenian Genocide. For your own education, Turkey happens to have the highest number of jailed writers and journalists, out of any country in the world today.
“Weren’t you actually aware that Mr. Akcam doesn’t live in Turkey? Because if he did, he would be in jail now.”
Or killed, like Hrant Dink.