What about the murdered Muslim Turks?

Saturday, October 1, 2005

So the Armenian conference came to an end, and many critical papers were presented in public. Unlike what some feared, Turkey didn’t collapse, nor did the world stop. The conference was a significant step to speak the unspeakable and to confront a taboo subject. However, more importantly, it was a collective effort. 

  So the Armenian conference came to an end and many critical papers were presented in public. Unlike what some feared, Turkey didn t collapse, nor did the world stop. The conference was a significant step to speak the unspeakable and to confront a taboo subject. However, more importantly, it was a collective effort. We, as the people of this land, are used to expecting all kinds of social change from “deified individuals.” Our modernization was imposed from above, just like our democracy and our military coups. That s why we are used to such impositions from above. However, real social transformations are those that start from the ground up. The most important aspect of the conference is the fact that it has allowed a burgeoning of critical opinions in a non-hierarchical collective effort. At all panels, both the speakers and the listeners were part of the debate.

  The speakers did not agree on every issue. There were differences of opinion and differences of emphasis among us. In other words, contrary to some claims made in the media, it was not a “chorus with a single tone.” However, we listened to and learned from each other. Most importantly, we opened the gates of an extensive scholarly text that has hitherto remained unknown in Turkey but is well established in the West and thus causes a huge epistemological rift between the two.

  The ruling Justice and Development Party s (AKP) positive approach regarding the conference and freedom of expression was highly important for the whole process. The question I am frequently asked here in the United States is, “Was the AKP government really sincere or did it act that way just to look nice in the eyes of the West?” I give the same answer each time: “Yes, the AKP government was sincere. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül played a crucial and positive part in the affair.” And then I add, “Oftentimes Western journalists concentrate solely on the government; however, it might be more plausible to concentrate on the state, that is, the state machinery. The AKP government is also a government restricted by the state institutions. Seeing the conference as “intellectuals versus the government” would be a mistake. It would be more appropriate to see it as “intellectuals and the government despite the state institutions.”

  I receive hundreds of messages from American Armenians, American Turks, Americans and Turks. The overwhelming majority of these are sincere, heartwarming, and sad but friendly. I owe a debt of gratitude to those who share their family stories and secrets with me. However, there are some hate-filled messages that come from time to time. Although they are merely one-tenth of the messages I receive, their content is poisonous. They are presumptuous, ultranationalist, sexist messages like, “Mrs. Şafak. Since you taint your pen with the Armenian question, you must have some Armenian blood in your veins.” Then they complain: “What about the murdered Muslims? Why don t you talk about them?”

  The debate on 1915 resembles going into a house in mourning. When you enter a house in mourning, you don t ask, “Why are you crying? What right do you have to cry? So and so had also died last year.” One death cannot be used to erase the mourning of another death. The expression, “I cannot talk about the pain Armenians went through. I can only talk about the pain Turks went through,” only means “My heart is so shallow that there is only room for mourning a single tragedy.”

  Our minds shall be so broad that we will never compare and contrast one pain with another with the intention of seeing which one weighs heavier. Our conscience needs to be so profound that there will be enough room in it to mourn the pain both Armenians and Turks went through. Both at the same time and both together. This is why, when Turkish nationalists/conservatives object to us by pointing out to the pain Muslim Turks went through, my answer is simple: Yes, let s also talk about the pain Muslim Turks might have suffered at the hands of Armenian rebels, but let s not try to substitute the right to speak on Armenian people s pain with speech on another people s pain. This is not a zero-sum game. We do not have to choose sides at the expense of ignoring the pain of the other. Otherwise, if you cannot find it in your heart to embrace the pain of both peoples at the same time, it makes no difference which side you support.