Turks’ Apology to Armenians Should Include Justice

A few weeks ago, over 200 Turkish intellectuals and academicians initiated “We apologize to Armenians” campaign, further weakening the decades-old taboo on openly discussing in Turkey one of the darkest pages of its history.

The text of the online petition reads: “My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers and sisters. I apologize to them.”

Besides Turkish, the “Apology” campaign text was also available in Arabic, Armenian, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Italian, Kurdish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

As of Monday December 30 midnight Los Angeles time, there were:
– 25829 signatures gathered on the www.ozurdiliyoruz.com website;
– 244 worldwide websites on google search engines mentioning the campaign; and
– 371 on Yahoo!
– Several major world media carrying “Apology” campaign-related news items and articles.

The campaign ignited an unprecedented nationwide public debate in Turkey.

While the petition organizers deserve acknowledgment for their integrity and courage for having taken the first step in coming to terms with their own history, they need to be encouraged not to let the ultra nationalists hijack their plans for comprehensive justice for the Armenians.

In my opinion, the “Apology” shall not lack follow-up action. And the level of the intended righteous deeds should be commensurate to the magnitude of the crime of the Genocide with all its ramifications: 1) The loss of over 1.5 million innocent lives of indigenous Armenians; 2) The forcible occupation of the lands of Western Armenia and Cilicia; 3) The personal property losses resulting from systematic usurpation of the victims’ real and personal properties.

Anything short of this will surely be qualified as incomplete or insincere efforts by Turks.

In order to make this petition worthwhile, both the petitioners and their opponents shall muster all the courage to equally recognize that they are the descendants of both the perpetrators of the crime and of the numerous righteous Turks who risked their own lives in order to save many Armenians from death. Armenians around the world gratefully remember these good-hearted members of the Turkish Holy Islam in Konya and elsewhere in Turkey.

They should also recognize that inheriting today’s Turkey from its Ottoman predecessor makes them proprietors of both the assets and liabilities of the Ottoman Empire.

How could one overlook current Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul‘s unwitting confession of Turkey’s guilt in the Armenian Genocide? Gonul made a scandalous public statement on Armenians and Greeks in Brussels on November 10. He said: “If Greeks continued to live in the Aegean and Armenians continued to live in many places in Turkey, I wonder whether there would be today’s nation-state.… I don’t know how to tell you about the importance of this exchange. But if you look at the old balances, the importance of this would very clearly arise.”

To the Turkish opponents and proponents of “We apologize” campaign, the online petition represents one of the rare opportunities to convert the liabilities of the genocide to national assets by genuinely bringing justice to the victims: the Armenians.

I am sure that millions of Turks would much prefer to “travel light,” free of the heavy “luggage” full of dark pages of their collective memory. They would also appreciate seeing their nation getting off the list of the pariah states of this planet.

It’s not an easy task to inherit the wholesale loot robbed from defenseless Armenian victims. No human logic would allow the Turkish heirs to say on the one hand “the crime was not committed by this generation, therefore we’re not responsible,” and on the other hand continue possession of the properties obtained secured through criminal activity.

The ownership of today’s Turkish state comes with both assets and liabilities