Devletyan, Jan. İyi Kötü Ermeni. İstanbul: Doğan Kitap, 2015.
212 pages. 978-605-09-2399-5
I read biographies, to get into the insight of the 1912-1923
period in my country to understand better what happened then. Modern period biographies can carry
trails through tellings of family elderlies, and memories of the past. I was
interested in İyi Kötü Ermeni by Jan
Devletyan in this sense. I could not have
imagined how it would make me cry at some points and burst into laughter
at another
.
Jan Devletyan is a Turkish journalist 8 years older than me. But lifestyle did not
change that swiftly in the 50s and 60s, and so, many things in his story
reminded me of my childhood and adolescence while I read the book. His
persuasion of his father and their tailor in having a jacket with 5 buttons
similar to John Lennon’s, turns to persuading my mother to sew a dress
similar to the one I had fancied for seeing on a celebrity in a
magazine, in my life. His jacket was such a success
that it got displayed in the shop window for a couple of days before it was delivered
to him and when he wore, it received admiration from people who have reacted to
the idea of such a jacket at the beginning. We were lucky to have parents who
cared for what we wanted and respected our choices, and tried to make us happy.
We were valuable to them.
But just family support is not enough and it is not that
easy to be a happy person. He has grasped that he does not belong to the
majority through hurting experiences which have left unpleasant marks in his
memory and his being different was exploited as a means of bullying in his
childhood, and later it has been an obstacle in achieving things he wanted
causing frustration with him quite rightly.
In fact bullying is quite common in all societies and name
calling based on ethnic or religious differences is not the only form of it. Regardless
of such differences, it was possible to observe, quiet and decent boys to be bullied
by naughty and rather heavily built school mates for this or that. The trick to
avoid was the ability to hide your sensitivities, weaknesses and your fear to be bullied. This was of course not
that easy and once picked life could become a nightmare. He had apparently been able to protect
himself changing his circle, but has not forgotten the unpleasant experience.
Negative generalizations concerning certain communities is
another issue. His perception is that Turks think Armenians are bad, but there
are some Armenians who are good. Devletoğlu explains the title of the book as
follows, in his interview with Harun İlhan, who says “He noted that the title
can be traced back to his childhood, when he was working in a small store: “My
boss Jule sent me to a state office so that I would give bribe money to a
manager there. The director took the envelope and told me that Jule is a good
Armenian. This influenced me greatly and made me think. I concluded that
Armenians are generally bad, but that Jule was not one of those bad Armenians.
He was a good-bad Armenian.” (1) Among alternative titles considered from “Letters
to My Son”, “Stories of Being an Armenian”, “Dilemma”, “Squareroot”, to “The
Issue of Being an Armenian”, my choice would probably be Dilemma if I were the editor.
İlhan summarizes that “The many incidents of discrimination
he faced form the main theme and subject of the book.” It is touching to feel his
patriotism, his desire to belong to the majority, and not to be discriminated. I
felt it in my heart, possibly because my husband is from Alevi community which
suffer discrimination and offensive labelling may be even at a worse level. Surely
all communities in the society have the right to demand not to be discriminated
and labelled. However, individual reactions can vary. My husband has grown an
Alawite moustache, to the extend that a toddler in our block, who was startled
by the size of his moustache was once unwilling to share the lift with him!
Devletyan is very careful in the use of the language and he
says that he has mentioned 1915 relocation very briefly, just because his father
is a part of his life, and he had lived through it. Yet, there is something
that hurts me in the way he deals with it, like many other Armenians who are
not on the band wagon of allegers. Similarity to the allegers in their approach
to the topic is the isolation of the relocation from the facts of the war
period and not mentioning the role of Armenian revolutionaries who joined the enemy
armies or supported the enemy through volunteer unions with the hope of
founding Greater Armenia in a region where they formed even less than % 20 percent of the population, on the
grounds that it was their homeland, ruling out that it was a shared homeland.
Talking about the sufferings of Armenians during relocation in isolation,
without giving the reasons that forced the government to take this undesirable
measure and not mentioning that both parties was through a similar bitter
experience is a kind of silent accusation against which you cannot defend
yourself, because there is no open accusation. I find this frustrating. I think, Bercuhi Berberyan who says “the rest [i.e. what has not been written] is
hidden between the lines left to the discernment of sensitive reader” justify
my reaction (2). I also sometimes wonder
if this is possibly a matter of having difficulty in facing the misdeeds of grandfathers. Devletyan uses the expression of “death march”. An Armenian who is a layman does not know, but
I would expect a journalist like Devletyan who has visited Eastern Anatolia
several times, to know that the loss rate in Eastern Anatolian Muslim peoples’
forced migration in fear of Armenian revolutionary bands doubled the losses of
relocation and not use a language which bears such heavy implications.
The book is meaningful since it demonstrates how irremediable
deep scars can be opened in individual
lives and societal life when peoples of the same land fall apart. I think there
are lessons for today in it that is to remain as one avoiding hurting each
other.
References
1) Harun, İlhan.(2015). Armenian journalist: I am sick of being a good-bad Armenian. Accessed on 11.02.2017 at
http://hyetert.blogspot.com.tr/2015/04/armenian-journalist-i-am-sick-of-being.html
http://hyetert.blogspot.com.tr/2015/04/armenian-journalist-i-am-sick-of-being.html
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