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Monday, November 12, 2012

God is the same even though He has a thousand names


I have read Paulo Coelho's By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept recently. The main character Pilar's boyfriend who has become a spiritul teacher says "The Buddists were right, the Hindus were right, the Muslims were right, and so were the Jews. ... I chose the Catholic Church because I was raised in it. ... If I had been born Jewish, I would have chosen Judaism. God is the same, even though He has a thousand names; it is up to us select a name for Him."[1] I think he is quite right. Those who are interested in holy books know that events depicted in  Abrahamic religions are all the same, and so the values they elevate and cultivate such as friendship, peace, solidarity, compassion. In other words we can say that all religions share the same human values.  As Karen Armstrong, who was one of TED Prize winners in 20082 with her wish for the creation, launch and propagation of a Charter for Compassion3, -- based on the fundamental principles of universal justice and respect-- emphasizes, all three of these religions dictate not to treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated.

Nevertheless so many wars  have been fought in the name of religion, and sometimes sects of a religion. Bacon identified five causes for holy war which are in a Christian context, but equally relevant for any faith:
  • to spread the faith
  • to retrieve countries that were once Christian, even though there are no Christians left there
  • to rescue Christians in countries that were once Christian from 'the servitude of the infidels'
  • recover and purify consecrated places that are presently being 'polluted and profaned'
  • avenge blasphemous acts, or cruelties and killings of Christians (even if these took place long   ago)”4
Whatever cause is asserted, war in itself is controversial to human values. I tend to think that actually, religious causes are good pretences to cover materialistic interests that trigger a war, and perhaps make it easier to persuade people to fight. However, it may also be more probable that those who fight are usually aware of the real reasons, yet prefer to join the game, expecting something out of it in their hearts.

To put this view in context let’s have a look at what happened in Eastern Anatolia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Armenians have almost throughout their history, been under suzerainty of a more powerful state or were ruled by vassals, and were not independent except for 30 years from BC 95 to 66.  During the Ottoman Empire they had a partial autonomy and lived with Turks from the 11th century to the 18th in peace. They were not in majority in any province. Even in the provinces of Bitlis and Van, where they were most densely populated, they formed only 31 and 26 percent respectively5.  Yet as Louise Nalbandian tells in the chapter on national awakening in her book titled Armenian Revolutionary Movement, the clergymen, religious schools and churches played an important role together with missionaries in the conflict to start6

Bilal N. Şimşir ‘s book titled British Documents On Ottoman Armenians comprises a number of reports sent about revolutionary activities of Armenians written by British Consuls in Eastern Anatolian cities 7. Şimşir covered this topic briefly in a paper he submitted to a symposium in 1986 referring to reports sent by Palgrave in Trabzon and Taylor in Van 8. The separatist movement in Van was started by Mgerditch Khrimian, who later became Catholicos Khrimian Hayrik and received the title of father of the Armenians.  Missionaries helped rebels helping them communicate with their friends abroad, hide their weapons and ammunitions etc.
According to Bible “Love of neighbour cannot be separated from love of God, because it is an expression of our love for God.”9 During the Second Van Revolt, which started on 15 April 1915 and continued with massacres of 3 May, Muslim side of the city was devastated and 80.000 people fled terrorized as if they were not neighbors the day before. Their fate was the same with Armenians who were deported soon after the revolt on 27 May facing hunger, illnesses and attacks. Few of those who fled away could reach their destinations and those who could return when peace was restored was even less. Justin McCarthy offers a map which shows forced displacements of 5 million Muslims and 1.9 million Christians from 1770-1923 in the Ottoman Empire10

Testimonies of witnesses compiled in Armenian Atrocities and Terrorism are spine chilling11. Which religious or human value can support aspiring to rule a region where a community holds less than 30 percent of the population?  How come 25-30 percent can think of wiping out 70-75 percent through ethnic cleansing?  Isn’t it amazing how the West could be that indifferent to the sufferings of the Muslims but sympathized with Armenians and saw them as victims. 

Doesn’t honesty require to be open about what you have done while you tell what have been done to you? Some Armenians today still talk about “cause”. Ask them what they mean by “cause”.  Is it sensible to be longing for a land where you never had majority just because the geographic name is somehow associated with you, to put aside the fact that historically your name was something else  such as Hayks living in Hayestan? 

What does the Armenian visitor to Van mean when he says “A few minutes later, I am alone in the church. I slide my hand on its walls ceremoniously, like I have done with every single church I have visited in historic Armenia. I know it gives me strength. I would like to believe that the church also wants a reassuring hand telling it, “Hang in there! I know in my heart that we will be whole again one day.”12  If he wants to be whole together with us that is fine, he is welcome to live together like Armenian Turks living in Turkey currently, but if he wants to be whole with the church without Turks and Kurds in that region, there is a problem! The third party supporting Armenians should be clear about the “cause” and other reasons for this conflict such as explained below:

Interestingly,in its first forty years the Turkish Republic experienced no recrimination from the Armenian diaspora or from western governments or parliaments. A new strategy, devised mainly for rekindling Armenian national consciousness and religious allegiance, was introduced in the mid 1960s with the assassination of Turkey’s Consul General in San Francisco. For two decades thereafter, as many Turkish diplomats was killed by the terrorist organization ASALA, a relentless propaganda campaign made flagrant accusations against Turkey in order to strengthen the waning Armenian national awareness and to augment church-attendance. By the 1960s, numerous Armenian churches in Manhattan had such sparse attendance that some of them had to close! Some ten years later, all of them reopened - and even a major Cathedral (St Vartan’s Cathedral) was constructed.13

Religion seems to play a somewhat twisted role depending on where the interests lie not only at micro but also macro level: 

In the middle 1870s British society experienced the greatest debate over foreign policy since the early days of the French Revolution: the dispute known as the Eastern question. For two years the British political world was divided by this issue as the country took sides between the Ottoman Empire, the oppressor of the Christian Slavic peoples of the Balkans, and Czarist Russia, the Slavs' protectors. What began as a diplomatic dispute became through its religious dimension a moral, even ideological, issue. Responsibility for this transformation belonged to a strange coalition made up of English radicals, a major portion of the Nonconformist community, and a considerable number of High Church Anglicans. They were joined later by the greatest Victorian exponent of moral force in politics, William Ewart Gladstone. Inexorably the Catholic community in Britain was drawn into this dispute.14

In cases of conflict if peoples remember that God is one and human values are common, perhaps peace may become more sustainable, and an end can be given to denigrations, demonizations, and rootless allegations. 
References 

1)   Coelho, Paulo.  By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept. Translated by Alan A. Clarke. Harper, 2005.  
2)  TED Prize for a wish that can inspire the world. 2008 winners. http://www.tedprize.org/2008-winners/. Accessed on: 01.11.2012 
3) Armstrong, Karen. Charter for compassion. http://charterforcompassion.org/the-charter/#charter-for-compassion. . Accessed on: 28.10.2012 
4)   BBC Ethics Guide : Holy wars. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/war/religious/holywar.shtml. Accessed on: 28.10.2012 
5)  Şimşir, Bilal N. Ermeni Sorunu ve Van [Armenian Question and Van]. Paper submitted at Ermeni Olayları Sempozyumu, Van, Bitlis, Muş, 2-3-4 Nisan 1985. Van: Yüzüncüyıl Üniversitesi, 1986. 
6)     Nalbandian, Louise.  Armenian Revolutionary Movement, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963. The book is freely available on Internet. http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2010/11/3170-armenian-revolutionary-movement-by.html. Accessed on: 11.11.2012 
7)  Şimşir, Bilal N. British Documents On Ottoman Armenians. 4 vols. Ankara: Turkish Historical Society, 1982-1990. 
8)     Şimşir. Ermeni… 
9)     A Common Word. http://www.acommonword.com/. Accessed on: 29.10.2012. 
10)  McCarthy, Justin. Forced Migration and Mortality in the Ottoman Empire: An Annotated Map. http://www.tc-america.org/issues-information/forced-migration-and-mortality-64.htm. Accessed on: 11.11.2012. 
11) Armenian Atrocities and Terrorism. Assembly of Turkish American Associations.  n.d. http://www.ataa.org/reference/Armenian-Atrocities.pdf. Accessed on: 11.11.2012. 
12)  Mouradian, “Khatchig. A Turk, a Kurd, and an Armenian Walk into a Church”. Armenian Weekly,  October 18, 2012. http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/10/18/a-turk-a-kurd-and-an-armenian-walk-into-a-church/. Accessed on 11.11.2012 
13)  Aya, Şükrü Server. The Genoc ide of truth. İstanbul: İstanbul Bilgi University, 2008. http://www.cptstrs.org/THE%20GENOCIDE%20OF%20TRUTH.Vol.1.pdf. Accessed on: 28.10.2012 
14)  John P. Rossi (1982). Catholic Opinion on the Eastern Question, 1876–1878. Church History, 51, pp 5470. doi:10.2307/3165253. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=2224752&jid=CHH&volumeId=51&issueId=01&aid=2224744&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession= Accessed: 24.10.2012
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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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