Under the title “Enter 1915” (1) December 31, 2014, I wrote an article to imagine how the ceremonies of the centenary of the Armenian Genocide could happen, and at the same time, imagine how the Centennial curse our inability to face the facts could change.
At the end of this article, which I reproduce some excerpts below *, I expressed the hope that the centenary could be an historic opportunity to get rid of old habits, understand the “Other” to engage in group therapy. But this hope has remained vain. Instead, the 1915 curse ruled over the whole country. Today, Turkey is suffering from a state of total insanity.
When I say curse, I am referring to any parapsychological observation. I think perhaps that we should not underestimate the weight of the kingdom of dying souls. I would refer rather to the following truth: as long as we refuse to face the facts of this massive crime of genocide and that we’re not absolved, rendering full justice to the little children of the victims, we will pay the price evils that result. This is a fundamental ethical issue. In fact, genocide is a crime of such magnitude that it can not be compared to individual and collective crimes committed ordinarily. But for a company able to “digest” genocide, ordinary crimes are easily accepted. This is how we live evil.
1915 has not been on the national agenda in 2015 as it should be, because of the intensity of the repression that took place last year, and because of the general lack of knowledge in society ; this ignorance is closely linked to our culture of injustice and impunity of a century old.
Let me illustrate this with an example: one of the frequently given explanations about the fate suffered by the Kurds these days is that their persecution was never punished since the installation of the republic. But nobody dares to remember that the Armenians and other non-Muslim groups were persecuted before and that Armenians were particularly oppressed by the Kurds.
A century ago that Turkey is in decline; at the turn of the 21st century, it wallows in the mud and inevitably towards fascism.
“Entering 1915”
“Who knows ? All this evil that haunts us, the endless massacres of mass and our inability to cure illnesses, may be due to an old curse of a century and a lie of the century. Do we ever know ? This is perhaps a spell cast by Armenians – children, women and men civilians – who died, buried still wailing. This is perhaps the storm created by our souls still dying spectra of all our fellow citizens abused, those Greeks and Syriacs including, later, those of Alevis and Kurds.
Perhaps the responsibilities of massacres that have never been sought after 1915 and whose “price” was never paid they are now demanded in different ways by the grandchildren? Curses, launched to the lives taken, stolen lives, homes looted, destroyed churches, schools and extorted seized property … come back they? “May God make you pay for it by you and all your descendants.” Do we pay the price for all the injustices done so far? Payment is it by our refusal to confront our past sins or our cynicism, become common because of our chronic indulgence hypocrisy? It is as if our society was decaying for a century, rotting all around her.
Despite the century-old curse, in 2015 will happen without debate “Are there really was genocide? “Receives a response. We look at how those in power grow every effort to cover this shame and delay any movement towards a confrontation. If it were in their power, they escamoteraient 2015, altogether. The denialist prose which consists of three shriveled arguments, which are summed up in the uprising, collaboration with the enemy, and victimization – it is the Armenians who killed us – will continue to be repeated like parrots repeating in a series of conferences. And we will dance on our own music. On 24 and 25 April 2015, an official ceremony will be held at the Anzac Day in Gallipoli, without any connection with the Genocide. And we will hear abundant stories about heroism in the Dardanelles. But we will not find anyone to listen to our speeches.
How many curses are we still exposed before we are likely:
To recognize the bloody process of building our nation?
To learn and remember how a harmless people, hardworking, efficient, talented and peaceful was destroyed by the people of the warriors of Anatolia and to feel empathy for their grandchildren who remember?
To measure the cruelty suffered by the unfortunate Armenians asking “Our ehir Asdvadz? “(Where were you, God?), In the summer of 1915, as dark and cold as death?
To realize that the population of Armenians who dénombraient million in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 increased to virtually zero today. The Armenians who remain either hid their true identity, or have converted to Islam.
To finish with the question “Was it genocide or not? “And the question” who killed who? “And listen only to our conscience?
To admit, as explained Hrant Dink, that this was a genocide in all its aspects, and a considerable loss of civilization?
To realize that the greatest loss of this country is that the non-Muslim citizens of these lands are gone?
To understand how the genocide – that the Armenians of those dark days denominated Great Catastrophe (Medz Yeghern) – is a disaster that does not belong only to Armenians but to the whole country?
To find that the loss of our non-Muslim citizens were killed, exiled or forced to flee equivalent to a loss of intellectual, cultural, loss of civilization, to a deficit of bourgeois population?
To assess the scourge of goods, confiscated property and abducted children?
To adequately understand the wisdom of the author Yasar Kemal, who wrote: “another bird can not thrive in an abandoned nest, and he who destroys a nest can have nest, oppression called oppression.”
And even realize that those who reject the above points do so only because they lost in the Genocide part of their wisdom?
The Armenian Genocide is the Great Catastrophe of Anatolia, and the mother of taboos on these lands. His curse will continue to haunt us as long as we avoid talking about it, to recognize, understand and evaluate. Its centenary offers us a historic opportunity to rid ourselves of our habits, understand the Other, and start group therapy. “
Zaman
Cengiz Aktar
January 6, 2016
(1) read in full, in English, by the www.todayszaman.com/columnist/cengi-z-aktar/entering-1915_368487.html link
Translation Gilbert Béguian
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist/cengi-z-aktar/re-entering-1915_408938.html