How come to recognize the Armenian genocide when is the little son of Djemal Pasha, one of the three organizers with Talat Pasha and Enver Pasha Company extermination? How to make this gesture when ADDITION your grandfather was the victim of a commando vigilante Armenian? These are the birth pangs of this intellectual, both very intimate and very symbolic of the bad conscience of his own country, came to talk with Hasan Cemal Friday evening in Paris. The man who was on the platform of Alex Manoogian AGBU center had another life before move toward recognition of the Armenian genocide. He was columnist for Milliyet, well known journalist in Turkey. Considered one of the opinion leaders in the country, he in addition, the ear of the authorities. Social status who suffered the consequences of the publication of his book event in 1915: the Armenian genocide, which was released in 2012.

This book has sparked controversy and he came to explain the genesis echoes the personal questioning that begins to engage Turkey on this crime founder erected in real national taboo. Prohibits a state that has started to crack in the years 70-80, with the emergence of the Armenian cause in the international news, and that has been eroded by the work of early scholars and publishers Turkish historians on the issue in the 90s, but that was largely undermined by the action of Hrant Dink. Work, words, and the tragic assassination of Armenian journalist of the seat in front of Agos newspaper in Istanbul in January 2007 was the catalyst for free speech on the Armenian genocide, he explained.

Hasan Cemal posed in front of a packed a very deep series of questions about taboos, scourges of nationalism, racism, Holocaust denial, but also the function of intellectuals in his country. How can we live in an environment that forces to hide its origin? If he asked, referring to the case of two of its illustrious confreres columnists, Mehmet Ali Birand and Ilhan Celik, which had to wait for death to learn that was the first Kurdish mother and second mother Armenian. Secret they had hidden throughout their lives. These are banned, generated by, which has so long imprisoned his own thought, Hasan Cemal has shelled before an audience Turkish-Armenian who drank in his words Turkish dominant ideology.

Referring to “the fear of history” to which Turkey is facing, he told the process that brought nationalism to theorize and put into practice the unity of its people, trying to merge in a share of the Turkishness differences among Sunni Muslims and by, secondly, the elimination of non-Muslims.
“Do you have any taboos? “Hasan Cemal launched in the room. “Mine is genocide. And it is also that of my country. “ And yet, “we can not escape history” he exclaimed denouncing nationalism as a disease. “We need to move the stones.” Even though the year was it painful. For Hasan, who has the most “moving stones” to lose his life is Hrant Dink, with whom he says he forged an imaginary dialogue, inside the genocide memorial in Yerevan on this day in the summer of 2008 where it was collected. A tribute to his friend close this fine speech writing, that simultaneously translated Kirkor Adjéranian and the content will be published in the Turkish press on 25 October.

The evening was followed by questions from the audience. Hasan Cemal to specify particular he has little family. Just two cousins ​​who have not criticized his book. He referred to the little son of Enver Pasha, who worked in Turkey for an American firm weapon and daughter of Talat Pasha, chemist, that chance led him to work for a time with his father, eldest son of Djemal Pasha, in a cement company. He has no contact with them. On the issue of reparations, Hasan Cemal said he was not an expert in the field and returned the book to the public, showing all the same knee-jerk reactions aroused by the mention of this problem in Turkey … However, he thinks that Turkey will eventually recognize the genocide. Citing the difficulties of France to confront the war in Algeria and even those from Germany (he said that 65% of Germans had expressed hostile gesture Willy Brand, who was kneeling at Auschwitz) he believes that Turkey is not the only country in the world to back the dark pages of its past, even though he fought this attitude. He also qualified as a crime against humanity that the Armenians were uprooted from their land which he thinks they keep nostalgia.
The meeting ended with the signing of the book Cemal. A book in Turkish awaits translation into French.

The intellectual was accompanied by Ozararat Samson, who runs with Kirkor Adjéranian SOS Armenia-Cote d’Azur, co-organizer of the meeting with AGBU ile-de-France.

Alexis Govciyan, President of AGBU Europe, who introduced and closed the meeting by announcing that it rightly was exceptional, said, aptly, the words of Raymond Aron: “Men are the history, but they do not know the story they do. “The flower of the Turkish elites seems all fine and well if his eyes open at the same time his heart on this terrifying episode that marked the birth of the Republic. Comments that led Antoine Bagdikian, president of the ANACRA (Armenian veterans and resistant) to proclaim from the ranks of the public he saw Hasan Cemal “the honor of Turkey.” A widely shared by the audience that evening feeling.

Photo Krikor Djirdjirian

Saturday, October 25, 2014,
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