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Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations
Turkish historians invited to look at archives in Armenia
Thursday, April 22, 2010
VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU
YEREVAN - Hürriyet Daily News
At the center of the Armenian capital of Yerevan, 30 meters below Abovyan Street, lies a subterranean historical archive covering an immense 7,000 square meters.
The underground repository is one of three different locations, including the National Archives building, holding archival documents related to the country.
The documents most valuable to Armenians are, without a doubt, those that shed light on the painful events of 1915, when up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed shortly after World War I under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Yerevan insists the events constituted genocide, but Turkey fiercely rejects the label, saying civil strife caused many deaths on both sides.
Turkish-Armenian relations
Turkey cool to Armenia's decision to halt ratification of protocols
Armenian statement
Read the full text of the Armenian coalition's statement.
In a rare interview with a Turkish newspaper, Dr. Amatuni Virabian, the director of the National Archives of Armenia, invited Turkish historians to carry out research in the archives. “We are ready to help them in whatever way we can,” Virabian told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
“The documents in Turkey’s national archives are all in the Ottoman language,” Virabian said. “However, ours are in Armenian, as well as in Russian, English, German and French. This makes things easier for researchers.”
The director also noted that 12,000 documents in the archives have been transferred to the digital medium.
Reflecting on Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s suggestion that a committee of Turkish and Armenian historians could be formed to seek out the truth about the 1915 events, Virabian said he believes this might happen very soon.
“But this should not be done under the title of a committee. And the first attempt should not come from officials,” he said. “We must move gradually.”
Virabian added that he was in touch with associate professor Yusuf Sarınay from Turkey’s General Directorate of State Archives.
Responding to a question on why the Armenian archives in the U.S. city of Boston and in Jerusalem had not been opened yet, Virabian said the Boston archive belongs to Dashnaks and the documents there are currently being catalogued. “The archive at the Jerusalem Patriarchate is kept closed for some stupid reason based on enmity between some individuals,” he said.
Focus on Germany’s role
One argument frequently voiced in Turkey is that opening these archives might uncover the connection between the Committee of Union and Progress, the ruling party of the Ottoman Empire between 1908 and 1918, and Armenian Dashnaks. It is also said that such an action might shed light on whether Dashnaks attacked the Muslim population in eastern provinces of Turkey.
“Yes, a cooperation of some sorts might be found out,” Virabian said. “Of course Armenians also attacked Muslims; I cannot deny this as a historian. But the reason for those attacks was avenging the massacres of 1896 and 1915.”
Armenian historians have recently been focusing on Germany’s role in the events of 1915. “In the Armenian archives, there are documents from the archives of Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and the United States,” Virabian said. “These documents lay it bare that Germany had a part in the events. Being an ally of the Ottoman Empire, it could have stopped [the events] if it wanted to. German military officers themselves attended the killings.”
On June 15, 2005, the German Bundestag passed a resolution on the events of 1915 that deplored “the inglorious role of the German Reich in the face of the organized expulsion and extermination of Armenians, which it did not try to stop.”
The National Archives of Armenia is preparing to display historical documents on the 1915 events at its building in Yerevan on April 23.
“We have recordings dating back to 1916 of the survivors of the genocide, in addition to detailed documents and even films about the districts and provinces in eastern Turkey,” Virabian said. “We also have letters sent by the Armenian Patriarchate in Turkey to Echmiazin, the religious center of Armenians.”
“I want to ask something to those who say [the events of 1915] were not genocide,” Virabian added. “What has happened to the Armenians of Anatolia? Have they run away somewhere? If so, what is their address?”
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Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations
U.S., France Praise Armenian Move On Turkey
The United States and France praised Armenia on Friday for not annulling the Western-backed agreements to normalize its relations with Turkey despite Ankara’s refusal to implement them at this juncture.
The U.S. State Department insisted that the normalization process has not collapsed and that the Turkish-Armenian protocols may still be put into effect “over the long term.”
“We note President [Serzh] Sarkisian’s announcement that Armenia will suspend the discussion of the protocols in its National Assembly,” Philip Gordon, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said in a statement circulated by the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan.
“President Sarkisian’s announcement makes clear that Armenia has not ended the process but has suspended it until the Turkish side is ready to move forward,” he said. “We applaud President Sarkisian's decision to continue to work towards a vision of peace, stability, and reconciliation.
“We continue to urge both sides to keep the door open to pursuing efforts at reconciliation and normalization,” added Gordon.
U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley likewise said Washington is satisfied with Sarkisian’s decision not to withdraw Yerevan’s signature from the agreements. “This is something that the Armenians had hinted to us that they were prepared to do, so we're not surprised by the announcement,” he told a daily news briefing late on Thursday.
“We are actually encouraged that, both in the case of Armenia and Turkey, both sides have taken pains to make sure the process doesn’t collapse. That gives us some reason for optimism that over the long term we can find ways to come back to it and try to push forward the protocols again,” Crowley said.
In a televised address to the nation earlier on Thursday, Sarkisian said he and his governing coalition have chosen not to scrap the protocols for the time being at the request of the United States, Russia and other foreign powers. He mentioned in that regard his recent talks with the U.S., French and Russian presidents.
Sarkisian and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington early last week. According to Crowley, Obama conveyed the following message to the Armenian and Turkish leaders: “Keep the process going; if you don’t think that this is the right time, that’s fine, we’ll step back and reevaluate how to move forward.”
The U.S. reaction to the Armenian decision was echoed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. “President Sarkozy welcomes by the Armenian president’s readiness to adhere to the process of normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations, despite difficulties which the two sides have encountered in the process of ratifying the protocols signed in Zurich on October 10,” the French Embassy in Yerevan said in a statement on Friday.
The statement said France is urging Armenia and Turkey to “maintain the dialogue” and “multiply efforts” to implement the protocols.
Azerbaboon: 9.000 Google hits and counting!Comment
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Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations
An optimistic one :
Glass not fully empty in Turkish-Armenian ties
Another “April 24” has come and gone with all its suffering, accusations, counter accusations and cross-vilifications. In the meantime, ugly scenes took place in Yerevan and Beirut, where Turkish flags and effigies of Turkish leaders were burned by hard-liners. It did not take long for hard-liner Turks to reciprocate, and the next day Armenian flags were burned in Istanbul, which also frequently witnesses the burning of Israeli, American and Chinese flags, to name but a few.
Looking at all this, it is clear that the proverbial “glass” is not yet “half full” in terms of reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian nations. But neither can it be said to be totally empty. This year there were unprecedented developments that cracked the hard shell of hatred between the two peoples. These can be expected to continue.
Armenian President Serge Sarkisian, for example, had kind words for President Abdullah Gül in his speech, in which he explained to his nation why Yerevan was only suspending the Turkish-Armenian protocols and not annulling them. He also thanked those Turkish intellectuals who have started to openly share the pain of the Armenian people.
It was noteworthy in this respect that two commemorative events took place in Istanbul on April 24 to sympathize with Armenians who suffered in 1915. The numbers of those attending were not great perhaps. But one of the organizations was the Human Rights Association, or IHD, which is well known and has branches all over Turkey. The other was by a group of intellectuals comprising academics, journalists, lawyers and businessmen etc., including some who are household names around Turkey.
These events were preceded by heated debates on television, where things never pronounced before concerning 1915 were said and where the term “genocide” was used without qualifiers, such as “so called” or “alleged.” Put another way, the infamous “article 301” of the penal code holds no sway over this debate anymore despite the existence of overzealous nationalist prosecutors.
In the meantime, one of the most notable articles in the mainstream Turkish press on the topic came from Hasan Cemal of Milliyet.
“Some may call it deportation, some a tragedy, some may say genocide, while some may refer to the great disaster. But you cannot deny it.” Cemal said going on to indicate he shares the suffering of the Armenian people. What makes Cemal's words important is that he is the grandson of the infamous Cemal Pasha who was implicated in the mass deportations of the Armenians in 1915.
Last year Cemal, while in Armenia, also met the grandson of the killer of his grandfather, who was gunned down by a vengeance-seeking Armenian nationalist in Tbilisi in July 1922. The meeting was later described by witnesses as “a civilized and highly emotional event.”
There was also something new in President Obama’s April 24 statement this year. Of course, he displeased Armenians because he did not use the term “genocide,” but his remarks and the concrete number he used for Armenian losses in 1915 were sufficient to show what he believes happened then.
But what was new in his statement was that he thanked Turks who had saved Armenians in 1915, a dimension of the whole issue that is not dwelled on in any great length when this subject is debated.
Even the great Austrian writer Franz Werfel acknowledges this important fact in his masterpiece “40 Days on Musa Dagh.” Those who have read this amazing piece of work know one of the “righteous” characters in the novel is a certain “Rifat Bereket Agha” from Antakya, who actually existed in real life.
Meanwhile, Turkish papers have become abound with human interest stories about Armenians. Contacts are increasing between Turkish and Armenian citizen groups, professional organizations and academicians. In addition to this, Turkish reporters are traveling both to Armenia and places like Beirut, where Armenians live in large numbers and are reporting on what they hear and see.
These reports indicate clearly that Armenians will never forget what happened to them in 1915, and no one has a right to expect this from them. But they also indicate a very lively curiosity about Turkey, as well as certain nostalgia, which is normal given that Turks and Armenians have much in common culturally.
So the proverbial glass is not yet half full by a long shot. But the developments of the past two years, including the two protocols signed by the foreign ministers in Zurich, have galvanized something between the two nations that did not exist before.
Hard-liners on both sides will try and nip this in the bud, of course. But many seeds have been and are being sowed presently. And anyone who works in a garden knows no matter how inhospitable the soil may be, some seeds will insist on growing.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.p...ies-2010-04-26Comment
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Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations
Apart from calling them seeds, I would also call them fractures in the Turkish wall of denial.Comment
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Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations
I don't see any prospects as far as the protocols are concerned. Both Armenian and Turkish presidents simply played along just for the amusement of Big powers backing the deal. That is also why our president simply froze the protocols rather than completely getting rid of it, as it just puts the ball in the Turkish side, and shifts the burden of failure on them. It will probably go back and forth a few times, but in the end, it will remain frozen just as the Karabakh conflict. We've been fooled by Turks too many times, and it appears our governing body is finally coming to terms with the current format of the diplomatic games.
It's ironic how diplomacy has simply become a game of "smile to their faces, but sh1t on their backs when they're not looking". And political correctness has somehow given journalists, such as the author of the above article, self-granted righteousness to see (fake)"universal truths" in ultra-sensitive liberal values, that in the end take one to the exact point where the values were born: weakness, and inability to comprehend that nobody gives a sh*t, unless you make them.
Why does the author of the article feel that it's appropriate to label those who have extreme mistrust of Turkey as "extremists"? If our history provides any clues, Turks will always remain Turks, and trusting them on any level will not bring us any good, so long as they have more money, and a larger military then we do.Comment
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Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations
The Author doesn't know that reconciliation had nothing to do with the protocols.
Well said Levon.Originally posted by levon View PostB0zkurt HunterComment
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Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations
Do we have to defend the actions of the Committee of Union and Progress?
by
Ümit Kardaş*
The term “genocide,” defined as the “crime of crimes” in the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Rwanda decision, was first coined by Raphael Lemkin, a xxxish lawyer from Poland.
He was particularly known for his efforts to draft the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which cast genocide as an international crime in 1948.
Dealing with the case of Talat Paşa being murdered by an Armenian youth in Berlin in 1921, Lemkin started to compile a file about what happened in the Ottoman Empire in connection with the case. As he discussed the case with his professor, he learned that there was no international law provision that would entail the prosecution of Talat Paşa for his actions, and he was profoundly shocked when his professor likened the case of Talat Paşa to a farmer who would not be held responsible for killing the chickens in his poultry house.
In 1933, Lemkin used the term “crime against international law” as a precursor of the concept of genocide during the League of Nations conference on international criminal law in Madrid. After Nazi-led German forces devastated Europe and invaded Poland in 1939, Lemkin was enlisted in the army, but upon the defeat of Polish forces, he fled to the US, leaving his parents behind. Later, while working as an adviser during the Nuremberg trials, he would learn that his parents had died in the Nazi concentration camps.
In his book “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe,” published in 1944, he defined genocide as atrocities and massacre intended to destroy a nation or an ethnic group. Coining the term from the Greek genos, meaning race or ancestry, and the Latin cide, meaning killing, Lemkin argued that genocide does not have to mean direct destruction of a nation. In 1946, the UN General Assembly issued a declaration on genocide and unanimously accepted that genocide is a crime under international law, noting that it eliminates the right of existence of a specific group and shocks the collective conscience of humanity. However, Lemkin wished that in addition, a convention should be drafted on preventing and punishing the crime of genocide. This wish was fulfilled with the signature of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948. Lemkin died in a hotel room in New York in a state of poverty at the age of 59 in 1959. Although they left this idealist defender of humanity alone, people were gentle enough to write, “The Father of the Genocide Convention,” as an epitaph on his grave.
1843-1908 period
In 1843, Bedirhan Bey, who commanded the Kurds who were assigned with the duty of massacring the people of Aşita (Hoşud), connected to the sanjak of Hakkari, where the population was predominantly Armenian and Nestorian, persuaded the Armenians and Nestorians who had fled to the mountains to return and hand in their weapons, and then, the people who were massacred were largely thrown in the Zap River. The majority of their women and children were sold as slaves. It is reported that at least 10,000 Armenians and Nestorians were killed in this massacre. In 1877, the Ottoman Army and the Russian Army started to fight again, and availing of this opportunity, Armenia once again became a battlefield, and the soldiers shouted, “Kill the disbelievers.” Circassians and Kurds slaughtered 165 Christian families, including women and children, in Beyazıt. In 1892, Sultan Abdülhamit II summoned the Kurdish tribal chiefs to İstanbul and gave them military uniforms and weapons, thereby establishing the Hamidiye cavalry regiment with some 22,500 members. In this way, Abdülhamit II played with the foreign policy equilibrium between the UK and Russia and organized a specific ethnic/religious group against another ethnic/religious group based on a Muslim vs. non-Muslim dichotomy. The Ottoman administration appointed the worst enemies of Armenians as their watchdogs, thereby creating a force that could crush them even in peacetime. The persecution of Armenians peaked in the Sason massacre in September 1894. Abdülhamit II declared resisting Armenians rebels and ordered that they should be eradicated.
1908-1914 period
Europe and America extensively supported the Young Turks, who were seeking legitimacy. When the Movement Army threatened to launch a campaign against İstanbul, Abdülhamit II declared a constitutional monarchy on July 24, 1908. Without using any discretion, ordinary people were both amazed and pleased. Moved by slogans calling for equality, freedom and brotherhood, Armenians, too, welcomed with joy the government backed and controlled by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).
Britain and France made loans available to the new regime and sent consultants for the treasury and the navy in support. To alleviate the consequences of the massacres of 1895 and 1896, European countries increased their humanitarian assistance. Orphaned children of Christian families were placed in care centers, and schools were opened in eastern Anatolia. The introduction of the second constitutional monarchy was seen as an assurance of the creation of equality among all races and religions. However, on April 14, 1909, a new wave of slaughter started against Christians in Adana. The CUP’s close alliance with the Armenian Dashnak Party was a major reason for the rekindling of these massacres. For the first time, these attacks did not discriminate between Armenians and eastern Christians. Thus, Orthodox Syriacs, Catholic Syriacs and Chaldeans were also killed. Apparently, Armenians had stood apart with their penchant for trade, banking, brokerage as well as for pharmacy, medicine and consulting and other professions; they constituted a wealthy portion of the population. As a result, this and their identity as non-Muslims made Armenians a clear target. As a commercial and agricultural factor, Armenians also served as an obstacle to the Germanification of Anatolia.
After the Adana massacre of 1909, there was a period of good faith that lasted until 1913. Meanwhile, the CUP improved its ties with the militant Dashnak Party. After transforming into a democratic party, this party was represented with three deputies in the Assembly of Deputies (Meclis-i Mebusan) that was renewed in 1912. This assembly also had six independent Armenians members. In 1876, the Assembly of Deputies had 67 Muslim and 48 non-Muslim deputies. However, in January 1913, following the defeat in the first Balkan War, the CUP overthrew the government (known as the Raid of Bab-ı Ali) and started to implement a policy to homogenize the population through a planned ethnic cleansing and destruction and forced relocation.
Talat Paşa prepared plans for homogenizing the population by relocating ethnic groups to places other than their homeland. According to the plan, Kurds, Armenians and Arabs would be forced to migrate from their homeland, and Bosnians, Circassians and other Muslim immigrants would be settled in their places. The displaced ethnic groups would not be allowed to comprise more than 10 percent of the population in their destinations. Moreover, these groups would be quickly assimilated. The Greeks had already been relocated from the western coasts of the country in 1914.
In addition to the regular army, Enver Paşa believed that there must be special forces that would conduct undercover operations. Thus, he transformed the Special Organization (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa), which he had established as a secret organization before the Balkan War, into an official organization. This organization had intelligence officers, spies, saboteurs and contract killers among its members. It also had a militia comprised of Kurdish tribes. Former criminals worked as volunteers for this organization. Talat Paşa created the main body of the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa from gangs of former criminals whom he arranged to be released from prisons. In Anatolia, the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa worked at the disposal of the 3rd Army.
Forced relocations of 1915-1916
The German-backed pan-Islamist policy implied a fatal solution for non-Muslims living within the borders of the empire. The conditions for the forced relocation campaign launched in 1915 were different from previous ones. The two-month campaign covered not only Armenians but also all Christians in eastern Anatolia. These relocations could not be considered a resettlement because the specified destinations were not inhabitable and only very few could make it there. Many people were immediately killed either inside or outside the settlements where they were born or living, and others were murdered on the roads on which they were forced to walk on foot.
Most of those who were immediately killed were men. Women and children formed the largest portion of the groups banished toward the southern deserts. There were continual attacks on these processions, accompanied by rapes of women and kidnappings of children. Provincial officials did not take any measures to provide the convoys with food, water and shelter. Rather, high-level officials and local politicians mobilized death squads against them. These squads would confiscate the goods of the relocated people, sending some of them to the Interior Ministry and embezzling the rest.
Eventually, the forced relocation campaign turned into a series of atrocities which even bothered the Germans. The ongoing campaign was never a population exchange. As noted by British social historian David Gaunt, the purpose of these forced relocation campaigns was to remove a specific population from a specific location. Because it was intended to be performed quickly, this added to the intimidation, violence and cruelty involved. As resettlement was not intended, neither the administration nor the army cared about where the deported population was going or whether they would survive physically. The high degree of the culture and civilization exhibited by Armenians made the atrocities against them all the worse in the eyes of the world. Talat Paşa mistakenly made his last conclusion: “There is no longer an Armenian problem.”
Conclusion and suggestions
The foregoing account cannot duly express what really happened in its scope, dimension and weight. These atrocities and massacres were not only regularly reported on in European and US newspapers, but were also evidenced in the official documents of Britain and the US and even Germany and Austria, which were allies of the Ottoman Empire, and in the minutes of the Ottoman Court Martial (Divan-ı Harbi), the descriptions of diplomats and missionaries, in commission reports and in the memoirs of those who survived them.
No justification, even the fact that some Armenian groups revolted with certain claims and collaborated with foreign countries, can be offered for this human tragedy. It is misleading to discuss what happened with reference to genocide, which is merely a legal and technical term. No technical term is vast enough to contain these incidents, which are therefore indescribable. Atrocities and massacres are incompatible with human values. It is more degrading to be regarded as a criminal in the collective conscience of humanity than to be tried on charges of genocide.
A regime that hinges upon concealing and denying the truth will make the state and the society sick and decadent. The politicians, academics, journalists, historians and clerical officials in Turkey should try to ensure that the society can face the truth. To face the truth is to become free. We can derive no honor or dignity from defending our ancestors who were responsible for these tragedies. It is not a humane or ethical stance to support and defend the actions of Abdülhamit II and senior CUP members and their affiliated groups, gangs and marauders. Turkey should declare to the world that it accepts said atrocities and massacres and that in connection with this, it advocates the highest human values of truth, justice and humanism while condemning the mentality and actions of those who committed them in the past.
After this is done, it should invite all Armenians living in the diaspora to become citizens of the Turkish Republic. As the Armenians of the diaspora return to the geography where their ancestors lived for thousands of years before being forced to abandon it, leaving behind their property, memories and past, this may serve to abate their sorrow, which has now translated into anger. The common border with Armenia should be opened without putting forward any condition. This is what conscience, humanity and reason direct us to do. Turkey will become free by getting rid of its fears, complexes and worries by soothing the sorrows of Armenians.
*Dr. Ümit Kardaş is a retired military judge.
Comment
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Turkey's FM wants Azerbaijan-Armenia peace, warns Israel
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Saturday that Turkey was eager to open its borders with Armenia, because it wanted a full integration with its neighbors.
Davutoglu delivered a speech at a conference titled "Turkish Foreign Policy in Changing World" held by the South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX) and Turkey's Sabanci University at Oxford University in Britain.
Turkey has taken measures before crises in its region and countries should prevent wars and tensions, he said.
Davutoglu said Turkey was a member of the UN Security Council and G20, and it also launched the Alliance of Civilizations initiative. "Turkey is working to contribute to global order in these three formations," he said.
Turkey wanted a secure region and neighbors in Middle East, Caucasus, Balkans and Gulf region, he said.
"Why do we so active regarding Iran's nuclear program? It is not because we defend Iran, but we want a safe region. We don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons and we don't want any military tension in our region," he said.
"Political dialogue and diplomacy are needed for solutions to problems," he said.
"Azerbaijan-Armenia deal"
In regard to relations with Armenia, Davutoglu said Turkey was eager to open its borders with Armenia, because it wanted a full integration with its neighbors.
Davutoglu reiterated that Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute must be healed for stability in the region.
“…Of course we want to open our border because we want full integration with our neighbors. However, it would not be enough to open Turkey-Armenia border. We also want that Armenia-Azerbaijan border is opened so that regional stability could be restored,” said Davutoglu.
"No indulgence on Israel"
Remarking on Israeli actions, Davutoglu said that incidents in Gaza could not be indulged.
The Foreign Minister also reminded that Turkey has cancelled a military exercise previously planned with Israel and stressed that such war games will not be conducted if such military tensions exist.
Replying to a question, Davutoglu said Turkey did not have an anti-Semitic stance and that his country did not want policies against peace in its region.
Meanwhile, Davutoglu said 10 ministers would accompany Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his visit to Greece scheduled to start on May 14 and a joint cabinet meeting would take place between Turkey and Greece.
Comment
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Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations
RISE OF 'TURKISH GANDHI' OFFERS HOPE TO DIVIDED NATION
The Globe and Mail
May 31 2010
Canada
Lurid sex scandal propels reformer into leadership of party founded
by Kemal Ataturk, giving opposition credible shot at power
Doug Saunders
Ankara -- From Monday's Globe and Mail Published on Monday, May. 31,
2010 2:35AM EDT
.Not just for his mild demeanour, his softly bespectacled appearance
and his conciliatory, incorruptible reputation is he known in some
circles here as the "Turkish Gandhi."
As an ethnic minority bidding to lead a nation whose laws have
officially denied that minorities exist, and as a man able to
bridge the increasingly distrustful poles of a divided nation, Kemal
Kilacdaroglu has the potential to change the nature of politics here -
if he has the nerve to seize either opportunity.
In the wake of a lurid sex scandal that drove his long-serving
predecessor, Deniz Baykal, out of office last weekend after Mr. Baykal
was videotaped having an affair with a staffer, the little-known
financial bureaucrat and reformer, Kemal Kilacdaroglu, 61, was
suddenly thrust into the leadership of Turkey's venerable secular
opposition party.
Almost overnight, he has given a credible shot at power to the
beleaguered party founded by Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern
secular Turkey. The CHP (Republican People's Party) was driven
into distant second place after 2002 by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan's Islamic Peace and Justice party (AKP), which has blended
the religious conservatism popular among the poor with a pro-business,
pro-Europe worldliness that has turned Turkey into an economic force.
In his first major interview with the North American media, Mr.
Kilacdaroglu spent an hour in his Ankara office describing how he
would take back the CHP, in part by paying less attention to the rigid
secularism and self-contained nationalism that Mr. Ataturk considered
the cornerstones of Turkish identity.
But he refused abjectly to use his most surprising quality to take on
an Obama-like role of a minority leading a party that spent decades
enforcing laws that made minorities illegal and unmentionable.
He is an Alevi - a member of Turkey's Shiite Muslim minority who have
been brutally repressed under previous CHP governments - and a man who
spent his childhood as a poor villager in a Kurdish-majority region
(neither he nor his party will discuss whether his family background
is Kurdish).
"Since I believe that beliefs should not be the core of politics,
I don't think it should really matter whether I'm Alevi, Sunni or
anything else," he said, uneasily, when asked about whether he would
use his ethnic identity as a new sign of openness.
"My political approach is one in which beliefs and origins, like
ethnicity, are not emphasized, but a human-based politics, where the
core of everything is human."
Mr. Kilacdaroglu did say, however, that he would support efforts -
including a possible constitutional change - to make Turkey acknowledge
that it is not a country with one ethnic group and one language, as
has been the law for decades, but a place with a number of languages,
religions and ethnicities, in which Alevites, Kurds and Armenians
have struggled against campaigns of forced assimilation or outright
cleansing.
"Turkey took the heritage of the Ottoman Empire, and that was a
multicultural, multiethnic community, so we cannot neglect or ignore
these minorities," he said. "On the contrary, we accept them as part
of the richness of our culture."
This statement, which would be a bland platitude in North America
and much of Europe, marks a revolutionary change in Turkey's secular
establishment. It is still illegal to use the letters W, Q or X -
part of the Kurdish, but not the Turkish, alphabet. The CHP has
rigorously backed the law against "insulting Turkishness," which
has been used to imprison dissidents, including Kurds and Armenians,
who have dared suggest that Turkey's past included atrocities.
Much of this has changed under Mr. Erdogan, who has allowed the Kurdish
language to be spoken and opened a Kurdish-language public TV network;
has entered negotiations aimed at normalizing relations with Armenia;
and has sought a rapprochement with the leaders of Cyprus over the
Turkish-occupied province of North Cyprus.
This sense of dynamism inspired many otherwise secular-minded
Turks to back Mr. Erdogan's AKP, despite their discomfort with its
headscarf-wearing female MPs and attempts to restrict alcohol sales.
The CHP has offered little other than secularism, and a closed,
nationalistic culture and economy.
On the need to win people back from the AKP, Mr. Kilacdaroglu mades
his most shocking suggestion: that the party stop talking about
secularism all the time.
"I believe that to those people who have gone to the AKP, especially
the poor, we should not be emphasizing the principle of secularism,"
he said. "Their priority is to be able to feed themselves."
Mr. Kilacdaroglu said he isn't completely willing to move away from the
old ways: He spoke fervently about the need for government subsidies
and a less aggressive path toward European Union membership, But he
would reform the electoral system, allowing parties with less than
10 per cent of the vote to sit in power - a move, though he wouldn't
acknowledge this, whose main beneficiary would be the Kurdish party. It
would also hurt the AKP, which has won a strong Kurdish following.
If Mr. Kilacdaroglu is to have any chance in next year's elections,
he will have to give these new politics a voice. Polls show that
the CHP gained support after he took over the leadership, but still
lags behind. If he is to build on this sense of electoral novelty,
he may discover that his own startling narrative is his most potent
political weapon.Hayastan or Bust.Comment
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