A couple of weeks ago Poland showed great sensitivity over Obama's slip of tongue, when he called "Nazi Holocaust site" as "Polish death camps" during the posthumous award of the Medal of Freedom for Jan Karski. PM Tusk demanded apology and Poland succeeded in receiving an apology letter even if it just expressed "regret". Nazi holocaust in Poland is one of the most widely known historical events. Nazi Germany invaded Poland, where the majority of concentration camps were set up and some 6 million European Jews were killed. It was apparent that Obama's expression was just a gaffe. Yet, PM Tusk demanded an apology by saying that: “It’s as if there were no Nazis, no Germany responsibility, no Hitler.” I was impressed and highly appreciated Poland's approach to the issue.
Surprisingly few people and groups have started taking side of allegations in recent years in Turkey. This news item reminded me of one of these people, Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Prize winner novelist from Turkey, who in an interview given to the Swiss newspaper Das Magazin on 6 February 2005, quoted as saying that "thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it". His coverage in the media related to this interview, I think, was unfortunately wider than his valuable literary work. His appearance on 2006 Time 100 List indicates that what he said was important. His attitude offended Turkish people so deeply that they could not feel happy and proud for the award. It was interesting that, the appeal calling for tolerance, contact and cooperation between Turks and Armenians, signed by 53 Nobel laureates of various fields was issued by The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity based in New York, was issued in 2007, next year. 86 writers and academics from Turkey have signed the response to this call.
The search result for PKK (Kurdish terrorist organization) at Istanbul Technical University's student dictionary will show that students were discussing death of thirty thousand people one year before in 2004 with the difference that they held PKK responsible for the deaths and did not make any distinction on the nationality of the dead people. Terrorists kill and get killed. All sensible people wish problems to be solved. However, as some earn from arms sale and where illegal drug traffic seems to be part of it, it is not easy to bring it to an end. I have no intention to broaden the theme of this blog commenting further on this unfortunate issue apart from wishing that it is solved.
As for Armenians, their losses during the WWI and Turkish War of Independence certainly can not be denied as they were fighting together with Turks' enemies against Turks and there were epidemics and lack of food causing starvation because of war. The number of losses on the side of Muslim peoples in Balkans, Caucasus, Anatolia and other parts of the Ottoman Empire during this period folded the losses of Armenians a couple of times. Singling out the sufferings of a particular people who had to be relocated to secure rear of the army in war on Eastern Front, and ignoring the sufferings of others is an approach hard to understand. It should be noted that not all Armenians were sent to Syria as claimed, but to several locations not to exceed 10 per cent of local people to ensure that they would not cause problem where they went.
Pamuk, later explained that his concern was mainly free speech. We should indeed be able to discuss all aspects of any issue so that everyone can be better informed. For instance, if Pamuk had discussed the Armenian Question with his elder brother Professor Şevket Pamuk, he would probably be aware of the thesis for which his brother was a jury member in 2005 at Boğaziçi University (former Robert College) which reads:
"The former U.S. Ambassador to Istanbul, Henry Morgenthau, is a significant personality with regard to his influence on the subject at hand. During his tenure (November 1913- January 1916) he served as an important supporter of the Armenian lobby in the U.S. and Europe and a news source about the Ottoman Empire. By organizing American consulates and missionaries, he realized the continuous flow of information to himself. On the other hand, he covered up news about the attacks and massacres committed by Armenian against Turks. The only important thing for him was news that of supported the pro-Armenian propaganda."
The contrast created by citizens of Turkey taking side of allegations hurts more when compared with Poland's stance.
Harbord Military Mission To Armenia: “ The Story Of An American Fact Finding Mission And Its Effects On Turkish–American Relations ” by Hulusi Akar. Submitted to the Atatürk Institute For Modern Turkish History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Bogaziçi University, 2005.
Auschwitz Camp photo from Wikipedia
PS. Talking about Nobel Literary Prize reminds me one of our great novelists Yashar Kemal. Kemal became famous with his novel "Memed, my hawk", and is acclaimed worldwide for his works such as "They Burn the Thistles", "Iron Earth, Copper Sky", "Legend of Ararat" etc. Yaşar Kemal was born in 1923 in Hemite (now Gökçedam), a hamlet in the province of Osmaniye in southern Turkey. His parents came into Çukurova from Van during the First World War. ... In 1952, Yaşar Kemal married Thilda Serrero, a member of a prominent Sephardi Jewish family in Istanbul. Her grandfather, Jak Mandil Pasha, was the chief physician of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II. If you search for Kemal and Nobel Prize the results you get will include expressions such as "considered a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature", "a front-runner for the Nobel Prize", "a frequent candidate for the Nobel Prize", " has long been a candidate for the Nobel Prize". We were very disappointed that he could not get the prize. When Zulfu Livaneli published his memoirs in Sevdalım Hayat in 2007, he revealed that the reason for this was the lobbying of Kurdish activists against him. Kemal is Kurdish but does not support activists and wants conflict to be solved peacefully. The claims were that he was a fifth class novelist, and Diana Canetti was more famous than him in Turkey. Under this circumstances the jury preferred to give the prize to Patrick White in 1973 who used some of "the money from the prize to establish a trust to fund the Patrick White Award, given annually to established creative writers who have received little public recognition. It is a pity that with the announced 20-percent cut in the award because of the economic crisis this year, it may be difficult for future winners to establish such useful trusts.
(Photo: Cover of They burn the thistles" from http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/they-burn-the-thistles/)
Revised 1 July 2012 with addition of a link to the response of Turkish writers and academics to the call of 2007 issued by Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity
Armenian Holocaust:My Story blog by Selma Aslan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Gayriticari-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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