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Ayse Günaysu at the Genocide Conference in Stockholm

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  • Ayse Günaysu at the Genocide Conference in Stockholm

    Ayse Günaysu at the Genocide Conference in Stockholm

    From: "Vahagn Avedian" <[email protected]>
    Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 1:01:55 PDT

    PRESS RELEASE
    March 25, 2009
    Armenica - Sweden
    Email: [email protected]
    Web: http://www.armenica.org
    Uppsala, Sweden


    `DEATH WELLS' AND THE CONTINUATION OF BLOODSHED

    By Ayse Günaysu, Istanbul.

    For the conference `Legacy of the 1915 Genocide in the Ottoman Empire'
    Stockholm, 23rd March 2009

    Before everything else, I would like to thank the organisers for inviting
    me to this conference. I am very sorry that I cannot be in Stockholm in
    person, and am also grateful to them for accepting to share my message
    with the participants. I wish fruitful exchanges on a subject which
    matters very much to me and send from Istanbul my greetings.

    `All suppressed truths become poisonous,' wrote Friedrich Nietzsche in his
    `Thus Spoke Zarathustra.'

    Suppressed truth poisons the suppressor, it also poisons those who are
    deprived of the knowledge of the truth. Not only that: suppressed truth
    poisons the entire environment in which both the suppressor and those who
    are subjected to that suppression live. So it poisons everything.

    Nearly a century after the genocide of Armenians and Assyrians/Syriacs as
    well as other Christian peoples of the Asia Minor, Turkey is still being
    poisoned by the suppression of the truth. And because the suppressed truth
    concerns a crime, because the suppressors are those in power, and those
    deprived of the truth are the whole nation, it is the very future of that
    nation which is also poisoned.

    If you are a ruler suppressing a truth, you have to suppress those who
    seek the truth as well. The poison feeds you with self-glorification in
    order to evade guilt, hatred to justify your lying and cruelty to sustain
    the lie at all costs. Bits of truth may be known to some of the people you
    rule. So you either have to make them join your self-deception by offering
    excuses for the crime you committed to persuade them there was no other
    choice or declare them traitors and carry on an endless war against those
    who resist persuasion.

    But people tend to be persuaded; so in Turkey the great majority of people
    sincerely believe that if it is a question of life or death for the
    `fatherland' the state machinery may rightfully resort to unlawful methods
    - in other words, that the so-called `national interests' justify all
    means. This is how the suppressed truth and the methods of that
    suppression poison minds generation after generation.

    So, it is no surprise that for nearly a century Turkey saw no real
    democracy, no real peace, no real well-being. Violence has always been
    part of our lives. Military coups followed one another and in the absence
    of an actual military rule, there has always been sometimes overt,
    sometimes covert, threat of it. Since the foundation of the Republic, the
    Kurdish uprisings and their violent repression continued. In the last 30
    years the land which was once the homeland of Armenians and Assyrians as
    well, has been suffering from what the authorities call the `fight against
    terrorism'. Evacuated villages, forced migration, people under custody
    going missing and unsolved murders became the characteristics of the
    region.

    The bloodshed has never stopped since 1915.

    It's not only the violence. Permit me to borrow here what I had written on
    the occasion of the 91st anniversary of the Genocide, which Khatchig
    Mouradian quoted in his article published by Znet on April 23, 2006:

    `A big curse fell upon this land [in 1915]. The settlements where once
    artisans, manufacturers, and tradesmen produced and traded goods, where
    theatres and schools disseminated knowledge and aesthetic fulfillment,
    where churches and monasteries refined the souls, where beautiful
    architecture embodied a great, ancient culture; in short, a civilized,
    lively urban world was turned into a rural area of vast, barren, silent,
    uninhabited land and settlements marked by buildings without a history and
    without a personality.'

    Nowadays an excavation is going on in Silopi, to investigate the allegations that in the 1990’s the dead bodies of persons
    who went missing under custody by security forces had been dumped there. So far some bones, hair and pieces of clothing have been found - what was left after the clean-up operations - and sent to forensic laboratory for analysis.

    This is one of the places which has suffered most from the suspension of
    rule of law in the region for the sake of the so-called `unity of Turkey'.

    And it is the same place where, 96 years ago, masses of mostly
    Assyrians/Syriacs but Armenians as well, though in smaller number, were
    either massacred outright or driven on foot to the mountains where death
    was certain as a result of starvation, destitution and exposure to harsh
    weather conditions without any shelter. This was what happened in many
    places to Armenians throughout Asia Minor during that reign of terror.

    Now the `death wells' represents the continuation of the bloodshed and
    suppressed truths. After 96 years there are still unburied dead bodies to
    be searched for by means of excavations.

    Yes, `All suppressed truths become poisonous,' said Nietzsche many, many
    years ago, but he continued: `- And let everything break up - which can be
    broken up by our truths! Many a house is still to be built!'

    This is the only way that would bring justice to our lives - I mean
    recognition of the damage done and making amends.

    --
    Ayse Günaysu is a member of the Human Rights Association of Turkey,
    Istanbul Branch. She is a founding member of the Committee Against Racism
    and Discrimination.

    Link
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