Sorry My Dear Grandaunt, No Apology To You

My Dear Grandaunt H,

This is my first letter to you, after I came to know that once you lived in this World, through a whisper into my ear at the age of 64, one year ago. You surely did not deserve to be buried into hearts  that deeply, and let to be forgotten. But unfortunately this is our reality.

Last April my aunt's husband had an operation and I paid a visit to say get well soon at the hospital. My aunt and three cousins, all the family  had gathered in the small hospital room.  On the third day of the operation he had already recovered a great deal and this gathering turned to an opportunity for chattering. They know that I keep two blogs on the Armenian Question and appreciate my efforts. My aunt asked how I was doing with them. I said my original intention was writing about  real life experiences, but I usually write literature based posts. Our talk took such a direction that at one point my aunt stood up came close to me and whispered into my ear:"My father's sister was raped and killed by Armenians." She was very emotional as she looked deep into my eyes. I was stoned. I didn't know how to react for a while. She was talking about you, Grandaunt. I have come to the age of 64 without knowing anything about you, and at that moment I heard about you for the first time. I later asked my mother if she knew about you. She said "I 've heard that our father had a sister who had died at young age, but I don't know when and how she died."

Since the moment I heard about you, you are with me somewhere inside. Hundred years' family secret...  Thinking of the number of Muslims killed by Armenians during this conflict many many other Muslim families in Eastern Anatolia must have been affected similarly. I wonder if they all kept such events as a secret like our family. Since that day, whenever I come across the call to face our history and admit that our ancestors committed a genocide I want to cry out that you were raped and killed by Armenian Tashnak chetes, and that the war has aspects to be faced by everyone involved. Particularly ARF should admit they carried out an ethnic cleansing although it was for a short while in between Russian retreat and Ottoman take over its results were horrendous. All through the year I asked myself: But if my family kept this as a secret for hundred years do I have the right to make it public?

At the end of one year I have overcome my hesitations and my answer is whether I have the right to do this or not, and no matter how hard it is to do so, I should do it, I can't help it.

So this letter is addressed to you but it is open to be read by anyone interested, my dear Grandaunt.

In the The Black Dog of Fate, Peter Balakian quotes from his grandmother: “No, it wasn’t a world where people went public about such things (p.185).” You actually belonged to the same culture as people of the same land and same time, despite different ethnicities and different religions. You may get angry with me for revealing the facts concerning you. But Grandaunt believe me it is high time you are known. Because when we give numbers of people who were subject to atrocities and were massacred, people do not take it into heart. They do not consider that there is a human being under each number, precious to own family members and friends, and perhaps was loved by someone.  And they do not understand how the loss of the beloved burns all these people inside and also makes those who can understand sad.

You know Grandaunt, Djemal Pasha (Cemal Paşa) said “let it be stated that the number of Turks and Kurds killed on this occasion far exceeded one and a half millions. If the Turks are to be made responsible for the Armenian massacres, why not the Armenians for the massacres of the Turks? Or are the Turks and Kurds of no more value in the eyes of humanity, or of such politicians as Mandelstamm and Morgenthau and their like, than flies ?” (Memories, p.281) I want it to be known that you are not as worthless as a fly!

Jeremy Salt says “The causes of death among the Ottoman Armenian population included combat, exposure, malnutrition and disease. Far more Armenians died from these other causes than actual massacre. What is never mentioned in the standard narrative is that probably between two and 2.5 million Ottoman Muslim civilians died in this war from the same range of causes. They are the ghosts never talked about because the news correspondents, consuls and missionaries were only interested in the suffering of Christians. The Muslims have disappeared from history as if they never existed.”

I am writing this letter to you my dear Grandaunt to let the World know that you are no ghost either. You were a young girl like any young girl in any part of this world. I don’t know what was the color of your hair, or eyes; I don’t know whether you were fair or dark, tall or tiny, I don’t know whether you were a cheerful or a nervous person; I don’t know whether you were smart or standard. I don’t know anything about you. But I know you came to life and was able to have a very short life which ended in an unacceptable way. I don't want to associate your memory with any of the outrageous atrocities perpetrated about which I read in Lieutenant-Colonel Twerdokhleroff's diary, Kazım Karabekir Pasha's books, in archival documents etc. I don't know how it happened. I don't know how painful it was.  I am probably better off not knowing. However I guess that it happened while your brother who had left his school and joined the army was fighting in Batumi, perhaps on the day he saved his skin drawing zigzags when he found himself under a heavy gunfire. Maybe your family had not chosen to flee away to be close to him while he was fighting there, although almost all who could flee had done so, leaving only elderlies, sick or disabled people together with their relatives who were looking after them.

I mentioned you in the footnote of a book chapter which I have completed recently to invite secret keepers to reveal personalized sufferings of their own families so that their grandchildren will not intend to apologize while they deserve an apology themselves. I hope you understand me.

The grandchildren of the culprits who raped and killed you and great powers who encouraged them to do so are not ready to apologize to you yet. On the contrary they will call us to apologize! But I don't lose my faith and continue to believe that the day will come for them to apologize! So rest in peace my dear Grandaunt. We know that we defended our land, we did not commit genocide.

Selma

Your brother's grandchild

cc. all interested and all concerned