“The great Turk is governing in peace twenty nations from different religions. Turks have taught to Christians how to be moderate in peace and gentle in victory.”Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and other advocates for a congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide are taking a new tack this year, seeking both a genocide recognition vote and approval of a measure condemning religious discrimination against Armenian Christians in Turkey.
A strategic ally that allows the U.S. to operate a key military base on its soil, Turkey has been an implacable foe of official U.S. recognition of the death of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks from 1915-23. Schiff has tried for several years to get such a measure passed.
On Tuesday, Schiff and Rep. Robert Dold (R-Ill.) reintroduced the genocide resolution. Separately, Schiff co-sponsored a resolution by Reps. Howard Berman (D-Valley Village) and Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) demanding that Turkey return property that once belonged to the Armenian Church and to end religious discrimination against Christians.
Armenian Christians represent about 1% of the population in Turkey.
“We’re taking a little different approach this year,” Schiff said. “I think this improves our chances of making progress.”
The second resolution may draw support from more lawmakers than the genocide measure has, he added.
Last year, Congress approved a resolution by Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) calling for greater religious freedom in Cyprus. The Turkish military, which occupies about one-third of Cyprus, has been accused of desecrating churches and restricting access to religious sites.
“We think having more than one iron in the fire will be a productive strategy,” Schiff said.
Lincoln McCurdy, president of the Turkish of Coalition of America, said the new resolution is “totally distorted” and that the genocide recognition measure has a smaller chance of passing than it did in the last Congress.
“This is a completely new Congress, more domestically focused,” McCurdy said. “I think our efforts in trying to have balanced dialogue are paying off, and the leadership is not as passionate about it as [former Speaker Nancy] Pelosi was.”
McCurdy said the Turkish resolution fails to recognize historic persecution or disenfranchisement of Muslims in the region, including Armenia and Greece.
“Our position is, we wish there was more effort to bring the Turkish and Armenian people together,” he said.
Schiff said passing the genocide recognition resolution remains a high priority, not only for his Armenian American constituents, but for the United States’ human rights record.
“This is too important a cause to give up,” Schiff said. “We’ll keep fighting for recognition until we’re successful, and we will be.”
Congressman honors Armenian church leader
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) on Thursday honored Archbishop Vatche Hovsepian, former Primate of the Armenian Church of North America, by reading into the Congressional Record comments on Hovsepian’s 60th year in the priesthood.
A native of Lebanon, Hovsepian came to the United States in 1956, and later led the Armenian church in Canada . He became Archbishop of the church, which now has its Western Diocese headquarters in Burbank, in 1971, and launched several Armenian schools in Southern California.
Schiff commended Hovsepian “for his selfless dedication and commitment to the Armenian community.”
Assemblyman takes heat for ‘Soprano’ remark
via Political Landscape: Schiff still fighting for genocide resolution – Burbank Leader.
The Armenian Weekly conducted an interview today with the ANCA executive director Aram Hamparian. The interview focuses on H.Res 306, the Return of Churches resolution, introduced today. Below is the interview.
Aram Hamparian
Alongside the Armenian Genocide Resolution, there was a new resolution recently introduced in the House of Representatives calling upon Turkey to respect the rights of Christians and to return their stolen churches. Can you tell us more about it?
Well, to begin with, we’re very encouraged by the introduction H.Res. 306—the Return of Churches resolution—by two of the most senior members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce and Howard Berman, and gratified by the broad, bipartisan support it has garnered.
This religious freedom measure was launched with several dozen original cosponsors, including the co-chairs of the Human Rights, Hellenic, and Armenian caucuses, and, notably, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
A reading of the resolution’s text shows that it calls, very simply, upon the government of Turkey to honor its international obligations to return confiscated Christian church properties and fully respect the rights of all Christians, among them, of course, Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Pontians, and Arameans (Syriacs) who have lived for thousands of years in what is present-day Turkey.
This legislation speaks to us powerfully as Americans—committed, as we are, to the principle of religious liberty; as Christians—who seek for ourselves and all people the right to worship in freedom; and as Armenians—who are working for a truthful and just resolution of the Armenian Genocide that morally and materially makes whole the victim of this horrific crime. There’s no better place to start this long overdue process than with Turkey returning stolen churches.
Why this resolution now?
This measure is urgently needed to confront—and eventually reverse—the vast destruction visited upon religious sites during the Armenian Genocide as well as Turkey’s official and ongoing, post-genocide destruction of church properties, desecration of holy sites, discrimination against Christian communities, and denial of rights to Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Pontians, Arameans (Syriacs), and others.
It’s adoption would add the powerful voice of the U.S. Congress—and the full moral authority of the American people—to the international defense of religious freedom for the Christian nations residing within the borders of present-day Turkey.
Can you briefly describe the communities and churches this legislation seeks to protect?
Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Pontians, and Arameans (Syriacs) have long lived in what is present-day Turkey. Many thousands of years before the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, these nations gave birth to great civilizations and established a rich civic, religious and cultural heritage. They were, upon these biblical lands, among the first Christians, dating back to the time of the travels through Anatolia by the Apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew. Armenia, in 301 A.D., as is well known, became the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion.
As students of religion worldwide know, the territory of present-day Turkey is home to many of the most important centers of early Christianity—most notably Nicaea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Constantinople. These lands contain a remarkably rich legacy of Christian heritage, including thousands of religious sites.
And, of course, the Armenian Genocide nearly wiped out these Christian nations.
It’s true. The Armenian Genocide of 1915 and, more broadly, Ottoman Turkey’s genocidal drive to eliminate its entire Christian population, represents a terrible watershed in the histories of the Christians of these lands, marking, as it does, a genocidal shift from the Turkish leadership’s ongoing policy of violence and oppression to one of an outright, systematic, intentional and state-implemented campaign of race extermination.
And so, during the World War I-era, after centuries of growing intolerance and persecution, Ottoman Turkey perpetrated a government-sponsored campaign of genocide against its Armenian and other Christians subjects, resulting in the murder of over 2,000,000 Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Pontians, Arameans (Syriacs), and the exile of hundreds of thousands others from their homelands of thousands of years.
The Republic of Turkey, heir to the Ottomans, continued these genocidal policies against the remaining Christian population, through ethnic-cleansing, organized massacres, destruction of churches and religious sites, illegal expropriation of properties, discriminatory policies, restrictions on worship, and other means. As a result only a small fraction of the vast Christian population that once populated Anatolia remains today in modern Turkey.
What is the situation today of remaining Christians within Turkey?
The endangered Christian communities within Turkey’s present-day borders, in addition to all the crimes visited upon them and their holy sites throughout their histories, continue, to this day, to endure oppressive restrictions imposed by the government of Turkey on their right to practice their faith in their historic places of worship. These endangered sites are, nearly all, still today in Turkish hands as a direct result of genocide.
What does the U.S. government—Turkey’s ally—have to say about religious freedom in Turkey?
The State Department, which often goes to great and frequently unreasonable lengths to excuse Turkey’s conduct, has criticized the persecution of Christians in Turkey, including the improper confiscation of their properties.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, established by Congress, recently designated Turkey as one of a handful of countries on its watch list for a third consecutive year.
All this reflects the sad reality faced by the remaining Christians in Turkey. They are, all too often, prevented from praying in their historic churches, which have been desecrated, sometimes used as storage sheds—and in some cases, even turned into barns. In very rare instances—such as the Akhtamar Church—Turkey has undertaken repairs, but refused to these return religious properties to their rightful church owners, instead converting them into museums, where prayer, as a rule, is prohibited.
Has Congress taken action on these types of religious freedom issues in the past?
The United States, as a nation that was, quite literally, founded upon a belief in religious liberty, has a long and proud tradition of actively promoting and defending freedom of faith around the world.
Our own Bill of Rights safeguards religious freedom for Americans, and our longstanding leadership in championing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international covenants has helped protect freedom of faith across the globe.
America’s enduring commitment to religious freedom was powerfully reaffirmed in the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, and has been underscored in countless pieces of specific legislation. Here are a few examples:
Just last year, the U.S. House passed H.Res.1631, which called for the protection of minority religious communities and places of worship in the illegally-occupied portion of Cyprus.
S.Res.705, adopted by the U.S. Senate during the 110th Congress, reaffirmed U.S. support for the preservation of religious and cultural sites, and, in particular, called upon the government of Lithuania to halt and, if necessary, reverse the desecration of a Jewish cemetery located in the Snipiskes area of Vilnius.
H.Res.562, passed by the House during the 105th Congress, cited the confiscation of property by foreign governments as a means of victimizing minority populations, and, specifically, urged foreign governments to return wrongfully expropriated properties to religious communities.
H.Res.191, which was adopted by the U.S. House during the 109th Congress, called upon the government of Romania to provide fair, prompt, and equitable restitution to all religious communities for church properties that had been previously stolen by the government.
H.R.3096 from the 110th Congress, put the U.S. House on record pressing the government of Vietnam to respect freedom of religion and to return properties confiscated from churches.
H.Con.Res.371, passed by the House during the 110th Congress, called on foreign governments to return looted and confiscated properties to their rightful owners or, where restitution was not possible, to pay equitable compensation, in accordance with principles of justice and in an expeditious manner that is just, transparent, and fair.
What type of opposition do you expect to this resolution?
Sadly, if history is any guide, we can look to the Turkish government to stridently oppose this effort to end faith-based discrimination, promote religious tolerance, and secure the rightful return of Christian churches.
This bipartisan measure speaks openly and honestly about the real situation in Turkey today, which inevitably runs up against the many Ottoman and Kemalist myths about Turkey as a model of tolerance and pluralism. So, we’re likely to hear that this measure is unnecessary or even counter-productive given all the great strides that the Turkish government is supposedly making. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear the Turkish Embassy trying to spin that its adoption would somehow upset the fragile Turkey-Armenia Protocols process.
What can our readers do to help move this legislation forward?
The quickest and easiest first step is for folks to send a free ANCA WebMail asking their U.S. Representatives to support the Return of Churches resolution (H.Res.306) and work for its adoption.
Another great way to help is to spread the word to friends, family, work colleagues, and people you know who attend churches, mosques, synagogues, and other places of worship – basically anyone concerned about religious freedom and human rights. Send them the link www.anca.org/return or just explain in your own words what this effort is all about.
There are so many ways to engage, from getting involved with your local ANCA chapter and visiting with your local legislators to meeting with the editors of your community newspapers, volunteering for supportive candidates, and building coalitions with friendly groups.
There are as many ways to help as there are people who want to be helpful. If people need a hand, we’re here for you. Just send us an email, call, or post a note to our Facebook page.
TEL AVIV // A plan by Israel’s parliamentary speaker to move the country closer to recognising the 1915 killing of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide worries foreign ministry officials because it threatens to worsen ties with Turkey.
Members of the Jerusalem Armenian community hold placards as they march during commemorations for the 96th anniversary of mass killings of their ancestors under the Ottoman Empire, at Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem's Old City. Gali Tibbon / AFP Photo
The decision by Reuven Rivlin, a member of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, is a break with the years-long Israeli policy to take no stance on the massacre.
On Monday, Mr Rivlin said that the 120-member parliament will begin holding an annual session to mark the massacre.
“It’s my duty as a Jew and an Israeli to recognise the tragedies of other nations,” said Mr Rivlin, in an indirect reference to the Holocaust. “Diplomatic considerations, as considerable as they are, will not allow us to deny the catastrophe of others.”
Israel, like the US, has never acknowledged that the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks was genocide, saying that the historical dispute should be settled between Turkey and Armenia. Its long-held view, however, is widely attributed to its desire to maintain good relations with Turkey, which has vehemently denied that genocide had taken place.
The Israeli stance has been supported for years by pro-Israel Jewish organisations in the US, which have pressured the US Congress and successive presidents to defeat congressional resolutions marking the killing of the Armenians. Turkey is a key ally that has supported the US in confrontations from Afghanistan to Iran.
Mr Rivlin’s move to conduct an event that would publicly question Turkey’s denial is probably a result of the deteriorating ties between Israel and Turkey.
The allies’ relations have suffered amid Turkey’s growing condemnation of the Jewish state’s approach towards the Palestinians and after Israeli commandos’ killing of nine Turkish activists aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla last year.
Yossi Sarid, a former education minister, said the parliament’s approval of Mr Rivlin’s initiative was due to Israel’s anger at Turkey’s support of an upcoming international aid flotilla that aims to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza’s airspace, territorial waters and all but one of its border crossings.
“The Israelis no longer favour the Turks and are willing to give up the charms and temptations of Antalya,” he wrote in the Haaretz newspaper yesterday, referring to the Turkish resort city that in the past was a major tourism destination for Israelis.
Mr Rivlin’s announcement has also stirred speculation in the Israeli and Turkish press that Israel intended to pressure Turkey to stop the Gaza-bound flotilla expected as soon as this month.
On Monday, a coalition of 22 activist groups aiming to take part in the new flotilla said at a news conference aboard the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, the ship on which last year’s confrontation took place, that 15 ships would be in the new convoy.
Their briefing came a day after Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, warned Israel against launching another raid of the aid flotilla. “We are sending a clear message to all those concerned: the same tragedy should not be repeated again,” he told the Reuters news agency.
Muslim Turkey accepts that as many as 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman forces but denies the act amounted to genocide, a term employed by many Western historians and some foreign parliaments.
The Israeli government has expressed opposition to Mr Rivlin’s initiative, with Danny Ayalon, deputy foreign minister and a member of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, saying this week it was “impossible” for Israel to officially recognise the genocide.
Mr Rivlin’s announcement comes after the parliament’s vote last week to hold an open, public debate on the Armenians’ massacre.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
via Israel may recognise Ottoman Armenian genocide – The National.
It is because of my admiration for Turkey that I find it difficult to understand its insensitive position on the Armenian issue. After all, it was not this generation that spilled the blood 100 years ago.
By Yossi Sarid
I have achieved a great success: Finally the Knesset plenum has enabled its Knesset Education Committee to conduct a public discussion of the genocide of the Armenian people. This is the discussion that was prevented for decades. For generations our governments firmly opposed it.
And this, of all governments, is the one that agreed. All the MKs present voted in favor, nobody was opposed, a unanimous decision that exudes a bad smell: too late, too ugly, yuck.
Zahava Gal-On, who returned to the Knesset with renewed strength, made a very nice speech. That is how she assumed her place in the relay race and the mission of her movement, the only one in Israel to avenge the honor of the Armenian people and demand that the historical lesson be learned from an orphaned genocide – victims without murderers. Ahead of time I wished her success where her predecessors – the heads of Meretz – had failed; and my wishes came true.
But it was not my wishes that changed the parliamentary decision, and the reason for the reversal is clear: The Israelis no longer favor the Turks, and are willing even to give up the charms and temptations of Antalya; that’s how angry they are. Now we will demonstrate to you what happens to a country that Israel no longer favors – we will seat it in the low chair; revenge against the gentiles. Now we’ll show them who’s boss.
So we showed them, and how do we look: All the past explanations in favor of the Turks suddenly sank to the bottom of the glass of anger, for which Israel is famous. These, as we recall, were profound explanations from the Sea of Marmara, to which our leaders lent an ethical character, even accompanying them with historiosophical insights.
Eleven years ago, on the 85th memorial day, I went to the Armenian church in Jerusalem, and as “a human being, as a Jew, as an Israeli and as the minister of education of the State of Israel” – that is how I introduced myself – I spoke about the historical justice that must be done, about the special commitment of the Jewish people to the Armenian people, and about my plan to teach our students the universal significance of genocide.
The scandal erupted immediately. My prime minister objected sharply, and Ehud Barak was swiftly joined by Shimon Peres: “These events,” he said, “should be left to historians and not to politicians.”
He was struck dumb last week, when the right thing was done for the wrong reason, and the voice of Shimon was not heard.
At the time the Turks declared me a persona non grata. They, like me, sometimes get confused between rivals and friends, and I consider myself their friend. Turkey is today a developing world power, an example of economic prosperity, which conducts its affairs in the regional and international arena wisely. It is also proof that an Islamic regime is not necessarily Iranian, and that Europe is bitterly mistaken when it locks the gate to Ankara instead of opening it.
The bad guy – Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan – is good for the Turks, and was reelected by an increasingly large majority. This week he said that he tried to convince Hamas to recognize Israel, and will continue to do so.
It is just because of my admiration for Turkey that I find it difficult to understand its insensitive position on the Armenian issue. After all, it was not this generation that spilled the blood 100 years ago; many countries have accepted responsibility for crimes committed in their name a long time ago. Only this week Queen Elizabeth II visited the Irish Republic and offered her hosts regret and identification with all the Irish people who ever suffered at the hand of England. It is not clear why Turkey alone remains intransigent.
But it is quite clear why Israel supported it all these years. In addition to security and financial interests, there is something else concealed here: If everyone begins to acknowledge the tragedy of the other – his own part in the Nakba – what will become of us?
via Too late, too ugly – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.
The Knesset is preparing to give the Turkish government a smack across its arrogant face. With Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan making false accusations against Israel, the Knesset looks like it will finally fight back. After years of succeeding Israeli governments avoiding giving it recognition, the Knesset is on the verge of officially recognizing the Armenian genocide (Hat Tip: Joshua I).
Shortly before the one year anniversary of the Free Gaza Flotilla that marked a low point in Israel-Turkey relations, the Knesset made history Wednesday afternoon when it held its first open discussion on recognition of the Armenian genocide.
With a number of Armenian religious and lay leaders watching in the visitors’ gallery, MKs ranging from Shas to Meretz took the stand to speak in favor of officially recognizing the series of massacres and deportations that killed an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in the years during and shortly after World War I.
For years, consecutive governments had blocked attempts by MKs to raise the subject of recognizing the genocide out of concern that such recognition could damage relations with Ankara. This year, however, the government did not block the hearing.
MKs voted by a unanimous vote of 20-0 following the hearing to refer the subject for a further hearing to the Knesset’s Education Committee, a hearing that will also be broadcast, at least via Internet. In contrast, any previous discussions concerning the genocide had been held exclusively behind the closed doors of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Isn’t this great? In one move, we’re doing the right and moral thing and b**ch-slapping a government that has become a bitter rival.
Here’s hoping the Mavi Marmara sinks the day after Israel officially recognizes the Armenian genocide.
Labels: Armenian genocide, Mavi Marmara, Turkish obsession with Israel
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:23 PM
via Israel Matzav: Knesset preparing to slap Turkey across the face.
Gunaysu: Snapshots from the Fragmented Landscape of Turkey
By: Ayse Gunaysu
This time my column will have no structural integrity. It will be fragmented just like life itself and just like my thoughts wandering around, coming and going at unexpected times, intertwined to form strange, disconnected images in my mind, culminating in absurd dreams at night.
Sevag Sahin Balikci
Yesterday, on the 13th of May, a very young, very intelligent, bright-eyed, energetic, and warm-hearted journalist from Yerevan interviewed me. While talking, I suddenly found myself wishing I had a daughter like her. She asked me questions about the prospects of normalization between Turkey and Armenia. I told her what I think very briefly: How can anyone believe Turkey really wants friendly relations with Armenia while it, at the same time, displays such an unreservedly aggressive denial of the genocide (I mean, not just saying “We didn’t do it,” but saying “They deserved it”)? Official statements about taking steps for good relations with Armenia were all part of a marketing campaign to sell the “Turkey” brand to the world, as a country evolving into a more democratic system, eliminating its taboos, and seeking good relations with its neighbors. Among thousands, I gave only one very recent example.
That same day, journalist Ozgur Gundem reported how in Diyarbakir’s Dicle University, the history exam included the question: “The Ottoman state did not commit Armenian genocide. Deportations took place on the suggestion of Germany because of the treachery of Armenians who stabbed the Ottoman army in the back. During deportations some of them died of hunger, diseases, and cold weather. True or False?” Gundem called the professor who had prepared the exam question, and the latter confirmed he had prepared it knowingly, to ensure that his students learned the truth and were not mislead by unfounded allegations.[1] This is the country that is supposedly taking steps towards good relations with Armenia.
While we sat and talked in Uskudar by the sea, convoys of political parties were campaigning for the upcoming general elections with their unbearably high-volume songs and slogans filling the air, making it difficult for us to hear each other. At the same time, mass arrests were happening in the cities against Kurdish students, activists, and their supporters; military operations were intensifying in the Kurdistan mountains, with an unprecedented number of Kurds joining the funerals of guerillas; and nationalist mobs were attacking the Kurds’ Peace and Democracy Party offices in the west before the eyes of security forces.
That same day, on the 13th of May, before I met the young journalist, an e-mail had reminded me that it was also the day when Armenak Bakirciyan, the legendary guerilla leader of one of the oldest Marxist-Leninist armed movements in Turkey, was shot dead in an ambush by the military in Elazig (the old Armenian city of Harpert) in 1980.
Armenak, the son of an Armenian family from Diyarbakir, was named after Armenak Ghazarian, popularly known as Hrayr Tjhokhk, one of the heroes of the second Sasun resistance in 1904. More than a century later and carrying his name, Armenak Bakirciyan was Hrant Dink’s close friend at the Surp Hac Tibrevank Armenian School in Uskudar. He and Hrant Dink, together with other schoolmates, worked selflessly to find Armenian children in the remote villages of Anatolia, the grandchildren of genocide survivors who were unable to learn their mother tongue, and bring them to Istanbul to attend Armenian schools, where they could study in their own language. Some of these volunteer teachers of the Armenian language and culture joined the armed revolutionary organization TKP/ML-TIKKO in Turkey, waging an armed struggle, mainly in the southeast of Turkey, especially Dersim. Armenak was one of them, like Hayrabet Hancer, Nubar Yalimyan, and Manuel Demir, hiding in the mountains and punishing merciless army officers who made life hell to the villagers with arbitrary arrests and beatings in the village squares and market places, terrorizing them in every way. Armenak became a hero in the eyes of the local Kurds. He was caught wounded in a raid to the house he was hiding in and taken to prison in Izmir. Two years after his arrest, he managed to escape with the help of his comrades, fleeing to the mountains once again. On May 13, 1980, he was shot dead in an ambush in Elazig, Karakocan. The military, refusing to return his body to his family, buried him in the cemetery of the nameless. His comrades managed to secretly take his dead body out and bury him in the village of Farach, in the Mezgert (Mazgirt) District of Dersim to fulfill his last wish. During the small ceremony, the imam—in fact a secret Armenian—read lines from a poem written for Armenak: “Sing songs to me Armenak! / Let the darkness fall apart with your melody / Let your voice wake up mountains from sleep / And let life keep going with you.”
Armenak, despite his admirers and followers for more than 30 years now, was just as lonely as the others that Armenian Weekly contributors Talin Suciyan and Ayda Erbal referred to in their recent article “One Hundred Years of Abandonment.”[2] The armed illegal organization he joined as an Armenian communist was the most radical movement of its time, refusing to abide by the laws of the Republic of Turkey and waging an armed struggle against its security forces. However, the movement was also part of Turkish Marxism-Leninism, according to which Turkey’s historical backwardness was due to imperialism (that evil responsible for everything awful in Turkey) and not the Armenian Genocide which, alongside the ethnic cleansing of the Greeks, fatally destroyed the newly developing commercial bourgeoisie and the flourishing economic infrastructure, with its entire system of production and trade relations, thus putting the country 100 years back economically as well. Directing one’s anger to another, to a common enemy, to the wicked imperialism, rather than directing it to one’s self, has always been much more convenient and relieving.
Thirty years after Armenak’s death, on April 24, 2011, a young Armenian man, Sevag Sahin Balikci, not fighting against the Turkish Army—on the contrary, doing his military service for Turkey—was shot dead on the 96th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. The military authorities issued an official statement saying that he was shot while joking around with his “close friend” in the same unit.[3] The “close friend” however, proved to be a Turkish ultra-nationalist, evident from his likes and dislikes on his Facebook page, which were soon removed.
The Human Rights Organization of Turkey has filed a complaint with the court demanding that legal action be taken against the Turkish General Staff for misleading the public and attempting to cover up the crime.
Sevag’s funeral was turned into a military show and ceremony of Turkification, with such a high number of army officers and government officials that they filled up the Surp Vartanants Church and left others in the garden, unable to go in. The soldiers loudly warned people to “step back” for the army generals to pass, and the coffin was adorned by the Turkish flag that, hours later, was held out to Sevag’s father by an army officer to kiss.
Now I take the liberty to quote in full what Talin Suciyan wrote in the May 6th issue of Agos, in response to the Turkish minister of EU affairs’ words about Sevag’s “representing the colors of Anatolia,” because nothing can express better what Armenians in Turkey were subjected to with the whole affair:
“First you made me into a tessera in your mosaic of cultures just to be able to put up with me. But soon you found that too static and resorted to the image of ebru.[4] Whether an ebru or a tessera, you all agreed that I was ‘a color of Anatolia.’ Yet, I’m neither your ebru nor your tessera, nor am I a color of your Anatolia. I know that I can acquire a color only if I’m dead and gone, mute and traceless; more colorful I become as you further destroy my history.” ‘What are you then?’ you might ask. I’m the child of the remnants of sword; the daughter of women whose bodies have been ravaged; the daughter of a people that many times have been forced to exile and whose traces have been erased throughout the last century from the land it lived on for millennia. I’m the daughter of a people that has been captivated, alienated from itself, subjugated, and whose existence as well as extermination have been denied, and temples, schools, foundations, even the hearts and minds of its members have been turned inside out. They call me a Turkish Armenian.”
“On April 24th, an Armenian died (shot dead) in barracks. The Armenians knew from their guts what that meant. But the minister for EU Affairs, Egemen Bagis, says that ‘our brother Sevag represents the colors of Anatolia.’ Bagis is right: A dead Armenian is always ‘our brother’! And yes, we do represent a color: A deep, bottomless black. An infinite black!”
“Sevag’s pitch-black eyes are staring at us; Sevag is draped in the blackest of all colors. Will you be able to look into those eyes without that gibberish about food, folk songs, and brotherhood? Don’t try to feel the suffering that has lasted a century. But you can understand the oppression we were subjected to at Sevag’s funeral ceremony; how the church has been taken away from its congregation and the funeral from its rightful owners. And just by looking at the archbishop’s post-service speech, you can understand how the Armenians remaining in Turkey have been sentenced to pay a perennial price for their survival. Don’t expect us to talk any longer, for words stand in front of us and laugh mockingly as we try harder to tell. Share in this loneliness.”[5]
The young journalist from Yerevan was looking at me sadly. She had just finished the frustrating story of her days in Turkey, contacting various people from all walks of life. “I will not come to Turkey again, I don’t want to,” she said, lowering her eyes. “Maybe I would as a journalist for professional reasons, but not as a visitor.”
“Then I will come to Yerevan,” I said. “We will meet there.”
[1] See www.ozgur-gundem.com/haberID=11382&haberBaslik=Bebekten%20katil%20yaratan%20soru&action=haber_detay&module=nuce
[2] See https://armenianweekly.com/2011/04/29/erbal-and-suciyan-one-hundred-years-of-abandonment/
[3] See http://www.armenianweekly.com/2011/05/01/istanbul-armenian-soldier-shot-dead-on-the-96th-anniversary-of-armenian-genocide/
[4] Both ebru (traditional Muslim art of paper marbling) and mosaic Suciyan refers to here are the metaphors widely used in Turkey in eulogizing the so-called pluralistic cultural making of Anatolia.
[5] For the online version of the article, see https://azadalik.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/im-neither-an-ebru-nor-a-tessera%e2%88%97-nor-am-i-a-color-of-anatolia/#more-78.
