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"It would certainly be wiser for the Turkish government to come to
terms with its history."
Turkish Scholars and the Armenian Question
An Interview with
Dr. Fatma Muge Gocek
By Aris Babikian
In the last few months many righteous Turks have began to challenge the
Turkish Government policy of denial on the Armenian Genocide. The Istanbul
Conference, in Bilgi University, was a turning point in breaking the taboo
of discussion on the Armenian Genocide in Turkey. By challenging their
government, these Turkish historians and intellectuals have provided an
opportunity for the Turkish people to hear a more balanced version of their
history, very different from what successive Turkish Governments have
maintained.
Those courageous and honourable Turkish intellectuals have been vilified,
threatened, blackmailed, intimidated and labelled traitors by some
nationalists, paramilitary and governments circles. Among the pioneering
intellectuals are Elif Shafak, Taner Akcam, Halil Berktay, Orhan Pamuk,
Ragip Zarakolu and others.
Dr. Fatma Muge Gocek is another one of these honest and righteous Turks who
have stood up to the might of the Turkish Government and establishment. We
had the opportunity to meet her and provide our readers some of her
thoughts, feelings, and insights on the Armenian Genocide, the
Armenian-Turkish dialogue and how to bring reconciliation to our nations.
Aris Babikian - Can you tell us about your background?
Fatma Muge Gocek - I was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. After
receiving my B.A. and M.A. at Bogazici University and spending some time at
the Sorbonne learning French, I came to the United States for my Ph.D. I
received another M.A. and a Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University and
then started to teach at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; I received
tenure some time ago. I specialize on social change in the Middle East in
general and historical sociology of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish
Republic in particular.
AB - What motivated you to get involved in the Armenian Genocide issue? To
be such an outspoken person and to take a stand against the Turkish
Government's policies?
FMG - There are two trajectories that led me to focus on the Armenian
question, one intellectual and the other personal. Intellectually, my
initial academic work was on the history of Westernization in the Ottoman
Empire. My dissertation analyzed the inheritance registers in the Ottoman
archives with the intent to trace the eighteenth and nineteenth century
diffusion into the empire of Western goods, ideas and institutions. That
analysis alerted me to the significance of the Ottoman minorities (Greeks,
Jews and Armenians) in the empire in negotiating relations with the West; it
also emerged that these minorities formed the first Ottoman bourgeoisie.
Yet because they were structurally separated from the Muslims in such a way
that it was difficult for them to cooperate in forming this news social
class: my subsequent work on the dynamics of nationalism revealed how those
minorities were then tragically replaced by a Turkish Muslim bourgeoisie.
Personally, I was most struck by how, when I was in Turkey, I had not even
been aware there was an Armenian question; we were not taught anything about
it in school. When I came to the United States for my dissertation work, the
opposite held true: I was constantly confronted by Armenians who were often
hostile to me for having killed their ancestors. The sociologist in me
wondered why there was so much silence on this issue in one country and so
much voice in the other. Then this question combined with another, namely
why there existed in Turkey so much prejudice against the minorities (that I
had personally witnessed throughout my life there) and so much state
rhetoric that this was not the case as all Turkish citizens were equal
regardless of religion..
All these factors combined and led me to the study of the Armenian question.
Historical sociology enabled me to study how past events played themselves
out in the present, so I decided to focus on the Armenian question both as
it transpired in the past -- especially in 1915 - as well as how it played
itself out in the present. As I studied the available archival documents
and memoirs, I realized that the official Turkish stand had many problems
and discrepancies all of which suggested that the work done had not been
academic but rather political. Hence I did not set out to take an explicit
stand against the Turkish state; such a stand emerged as my research
findings contradicted those reached by the state. My outspokenness in the
context of the Armenian question thus emerged gradually as I attempted to
communicate what I had found; I think what I did was to merely take an
ethical and scientific approach to the Armenian question as opposed to a
political one.
AB - Can you tell us about the recent developments in the aftermath of the
Istanbul Conference? What effect did it have on the Turkish society and
intellectuals?
FMG - The Istanbul Conference was symbolically very significant because it
challenged the official stand of the Turkish state on the Armenian question
for the first time in Turkish Republican history. It did so by bringing
together a group of like-minded scholars and intellectuals of Turkey who had
formulated an alternate reading and interpretation of the Armenian question.
The immediate effect of the conference was its ability to demonstrate that
there had developed in Turkey a significant civil society, one able and
willing to challenge the hegemonic interpretation of the state.
AB - Did the organizers achieve what they were aiming at?
FMG - The main aim of the organizers was to demonstrate that they could
indeed hold such a conference in Turkey and that they could bring together
an adequate number of scholars to develop an alternative narrative on the
Armenian problem. The organizers were indeed able to create such an
academic space and create a community of like-minded people of Turkish
origin. I think they succeeded in both of these endeavors, but it took a
lot of political struggle to get the conference off the ground: it was
postponed the first time and it was almost not held the second time due to
pressures from nationalist segments of the state and the government.
AB - During the last year we have witnessed an unprecedented activism by a
number of Turkish intellectuals, writers and journalist who have challenged
successive Turkish governments' line on the Armenian Genocide. What drove
these people to stand up to the establishment within Turkish Government, the
military, and the intelligence apparatus?
FMG - The increased level of education in Turkey, the growth of civil
society especially after the 1980s as well as the visions of the generations
of the 1960s all coalesced around the aspiration to make Turkey a more
democratic country, one where human rights superseded the concerns of the
state. Even though there had always been such intellectuals throughout
Turkish Republican history, the intellectuals who led this movement finally
reached a critical mass that the state could not suppress -- the end of the
Cold War and the subsequent shift of focus from national security and
stability to democracy also supported their stand. As a result of all these
developments, the stronghold of the state over society started to fracture.
AB - We have noticed that even though righteous Turks are speaking against
the Government line they still refuse to use the term "Genocide" to describe
what happened to the Armenians in 1915. How do you explain this
contradiction?
FMG - The term genocide has become an increasingly politicized term; it is
so politicized at this point that I think it does not foster research and
analysis but instead hinders it. The sides polarize their positions as they
either employ or refuse to employ the term. The Armenians rightfully insist
on its usage as they believe this term that best reflects the tragedy they
experienced in the Ottoman Empire especially around 1915. Yet the Turks not
only refuse to use the term, but they have also suppressed the dissemination
of the tragic events of 1915 as a consequence of which there formed
generations of Turkish youth whose experiences and knowledge were totally
devoid of 1915. Given this dramatic epistemological discrepancy in relation
to what happened in 1915, even though what happened in 1915 certainly fits
the definition of genocide as defined by the 1948 United Nations convention,
I find it more heuristic and strategically more prescient to employ instead
the term kital (large scale massacres) that the Ottomans themselves employed
when referring to this tragedy. I personally think that both Turkish
society and the state would be more willing to listen and engage in
constructive dialogue that would eventually lead to recognition if what
happened in 1915 was discussed at first in and of itself.
AB - I have noticed that the Turkish Diaspora is more hardline on the issue
of the Armenian Genocide than Turks in Turkey. This phenomenon is puzzling
since Turks outside of Turkey in contrast with their compatriots in Turkey
are free of intimidation and pressure to pursue the truth and speak their
mind. Do you have any thoughts on this puzzling situation?
FMG - The more conservative stand of the diaspora in relation to those in
the country of origin has puzzled scholars for some time. The explanation
in the literature is that those who migrate to a new country bring with them
the political framework of their country of origin at that particular
juncture: hence time in their country of origin freezes for them at the
moment of their departure. Unless the immigrants are scholars who have the
chance to update their political standpoint, they get stuck at that
particular time in the past. Even though these immigrants may indeed
experience no intimidation and pressure to pursue the truth and speak their
mind, they are incapable to apply these principles of their host society to
their society of origin. Another factor that fosters this conservative
stand of the diaspora is positively correlated to the degree of anxiety and
insecurity they feel in the host society: the diaspora tries to compensate
for this insecurity and lack of self confidence by adhering to the norms and
values with which they have arrived.
In the case of the Turkish diaspora, these norms and values are often
nationalist ones that they had been socialized into by the state. Starting
at their point of arrival, the members of the Turkish diaspora reproduce
these norms and values of the Turkish state at a level of intensity that is
directly related to the degree of their unsuccessful social and cultural
adaptation to the host country. In my personal interaction with the Turkish
diaspora, I have often been struck by two things: (i) how their image of
Turkey is totally out of date in that they think Turkey is socially still
like when they had left it, and (ii) how unaware they are of the social
conditions of the host country, in this case the United States, that they
live in. Let me give you an example: When my colleague Ron Suny then at the
University of Chicago and I organized in the year 2000 the second
Armenian-Turkish workshop at the University of Michigan where I teach, a few
organizations of the Turkish diaspora came together and wrote a letter to
the president of my university protesting our workshop because they had
heard that the term 'genocide' was employed by some of the workshop
participants. It turns out the Turkish Consulate in Chicago had contacted
them and asked that they protest; they enthusiastically did as they were
told without even bothering to contact me first, a Turkish citizen living in
the diaspora like themselves, to find out what was going on.
One could argue that by writing the letter of protest, they were exercising
their right to freely express their views; they indeed were, but the content
of the letter also demonstrated how out of touch with the U.S. academia they
really were. In the letter, they went on to instruct the president of the
University of Michigan as to who should have been invited to the workshop
instead. Anyone who knows anything about universities in the United States
is aware that the faculty has total intellectual independence in organizing
workshops -- they invite whoever they wish to talk on whatever topics they
want to discuss - and that this intellectual independence from social and
political pressure is held sacred by all, especially the university
administration.
Why did the conservative Turkish diaspora engage in such self-destructive
behavior? The universities in Turkey often function as extensions of the
state apparatus; faculty is often treated like civil servants of a state
that finds in itself the right to control the thoughts and actions of
faculty. The Turkish diaspora organizations took this Turkish reality and
assumed that is how things worked in the United States as well: this shows
how out of touch with American society and educational institutions they
really are. Needless to say, not only were they totally ineffectual, but I
as a Turk was embarrassed by what they had done because the university
administration rightfully formed a very negative impression of them. I know
that many of their efforts to promote the Turkish state view in the United
States are just as ineffectual. Interestingly enough, rather than blaming
their own actions for this failure, they keep blaming others, namely either
the Armenian diaspora which they claim is so strong that it renders the
Turkish one ineffectual or, in a very nationalistic move that reifies their
rigid stands even more, that American society and/or the West is out to get
Turkey and is therefore unwilling to understand what Turkey is all about. I
have been trying to get them to be self critical but have had no luck
whatsoever, especially with the older generations.
AB - In a follow-up to my earlier question, we have witnessed that outspoken
Turks like Elif Shafak, Taner Akcam, Halil Berktay, yourself and many others
have been threatened and labeled traitors. Do you think this attitude is
widespread in Turkish society?
FMG - The threats and stigma we all experience is a natural consequence of
the nationalist rhetoric that dominates and hegemonizes Turkish society and
state. The media, public opinion as well as popular culture in Turkey have
all been very successfully controlled by the state up until now. It is hard
to know how many individuals and groups go along with this control because
of their personal beliefs along the same lines; my hunch is that many do so
because they do not know otherwise and they have often not had the option to
think otherwise. Yet the internet is a very significant mode of
communication that enables such conditions to alter dramatically, and it has
indeed started to do so among especially the Turkish youth. It is hard to
know how widespread this critical stand against the hegemony of the Turkish
state is, but I can tell you that it is definitely on the rise.
continued
terms with its history."
Turkish Scholars and the Armenian Question
An Interview with
Dr. Fatma Muge Gocek
By Aris Babikian
In the last few months many righteous Turks have began to challenge the
Turkish Government policy of denial on the Armenian Genocide. The Istanbul
Conference, in Bilgi University, was a turning point in breaking the taboo
of discussion on the Armenian Genocide in Turkey. By challenging their
government, these Turkish historians and intellectuals have provided an
opportunity for the Turkish people to hear a more balanced version of their
history, very different from what successive Turkish Governments have
maintained.
Those courageous and honourable Turkish intellectuals have been vilified,
threatened, blackmailed, intimidated and labelled traitors by some
nationalists, paramilitary and governments circles. Among the pioneering
intellectuals are Elif Shafak, Taner Akcam, Halil Berktay, Orhan Pamuk,
Ragip Zarakolu and others.
Dr. Fatma Muge Gocek is another one of these honest and righteous Turks who
have stood up to the might of the Turkish Government and establishment. We
had the opportunity to meet her and provide our readers some of her
thoughts, feelings, and insights on the Armenian Genocide, the
Armenian-Turkish dialogue and how to bring reconciliation to our nations.
Aris Babikian - Can you tell us about your background?
Fatma Muge Gocek - I was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. After
receiving my B.A. and M.A. at Bogazici University and spending some time at
the Sorbonne learning French, I came to the United States for my Ph.D. I
received another M.A. and a Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University and
then started to teach at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; I received
tenure some time ago. I specialize on social change in the Middle East in
general and historical sociology of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish
Republic in particular.
AB - What motivated you to get involved in the Armenian Genocide issue? To
be such an outspoken person and to take a stand against the Turkish
Government's policies?
FMG - There are two trajectories that led me to focus on the Armenian
question, one intellectual and the other personal. Intellectually, my
initial academic work was on the history of Westernization in the Ottoman
Empire. My dissertation analyzed the inheritance registers in the Ottoman
archives with the intent to trace the eighteenth and nineteenth century
diffusion into the empire of Western goods, ideas and institutions. That
analysis alerted me to the significance of the Ottoman minorities (Greeks,
Jews and Armenians) in the empire in negotiating relations with the West; it
also emerged that these minorities formed the first Ottoman bourgeoisie.
Yet because they were structurally separated from the Muslims in such a way
that it was difficult for them to cooperate in forming this news social
class: my subsequent work on the dynamics of nationalism revealed how those
minorities were then tragically replaced by a Turkish Muslim bourgeoisie.
Personally, I was most struck by how, when I was in Turkey, I had not even
been aware there was an Armenian question; we were not taught anything about
it in school. When I came to the United States for my dissertation work, the
opposite held true: I was constantly confronted by Armenians who were often
hostile to me for having killed their ancestors. The sociologist in me
wondered why there was so much silence on this issue in one country and so
much voice in the other. Then this question combined with another, namely
why there existed in Turkey so much prejudice against the minorities (that I
had personally witnessed throughout my life there) and so much state
rhetoric that this was not the case as all Turkish citizens were equal
regardless of religion..
All these factors combined and led me to the study of the Armenian question.
Historical sociology enabled me to study how past events played themselves
out in the present, so I decided to focus on the Armenian question both as
it transpired in the past -- especially in 1915 - as well as how it played
itself out in the present. As I studied the available archival documents
and memoirs, I realized that the official Turkish stand had many problems
and discrepancies all of which suggested that the work done had not been
academic but rather political. Hence I did not set out to take an explicit
stand against the Turkish state; such a stand emerged as my research
findings contradicted those reached by the state. My outspokenness in the
context of the Armenian question thus emerged gradually as I attempted to
communicate what I had found; I think what I did was to merely take an
ethical and scientific approach to the Armenian question as opposed to a
political one.
AB - Can you tell us about the recent developments in the aftermath of the
Istanbul Conference? What effect did it have on the Turkish society and
intellectuals?
FMG - The Istanbul Conference was symbolically very significant because it
challenged the official stand of the Turkish state on the Armenian question
for the first time in Turkish Republican history. It did so by bringing
together a group of like-minded scholars and intellectuals of Turkey who had
formulated an alternate reading and interpretation of the Armenian question.
The immediate effect of the conference was its ability to demonstrate that
there had developed in Turkey a significant civil society, one able and
willing to challenge the hegemonic interpretation of the state.
AB - Did the organizers achieve what they were aiming at?
FMG - The main aim of the organizers was to demonstrate that they could
indeed hold such a conference in Turkey and that they could bring together
an adequate number of scholars to develop an alternative narrative on the
Armenian problem. The organizers were indeed able to create such an
academic space and create a community of like-minded people of Turkish
origin. I think they succeeded in both of these endeavors, but it took a
lot of political struggle to get the conference off the ground: it was
postponed the first time and it was almost not held the second time due to
pressures from nationalist segments of the state and the government.
AB - During the last year we have witnessed an unprecedented activism by a
number of Turkish intellectuals, writers and journalist who have challenged
successive Turkish governments' line on the Armenian Genocide. What drove
these people to stand up to the establishment within Turkish Government, the
military, and the intelligence apparatus?
FMG - The increased level of education in Turkey, the growth of civil
society especially after the 1980s as well as the visions of the generations
of the 1960s all coalesced around the aspiration to make Turkey a more
democratic country, one where human rights superseded the concerns of the
state. Even though there had always been such intellectuals throughout
Turkish Republican history, the intellectuals who led this movement finally
reached a critical mass that the state could not suppress -- the end of the
Cold War and the subsequent shift of focus from national security and
stability to democracy also supported their stand. As a result of all these
developments, the stronghold of the state over society started to fracture.
AB - We have noticed that even though righteous Turks are speaking against
the Government line they still refuse to use the term "Genocide" to describe
what happened to the Armenians in 1915. How do you explain this
contradiction?
FMG - The term genocide has become an increasingly politicized term; it is
so politicized at this point that I think it does not foster research and
analysis but instead hinders it. The sides polarize their positions as they
either employ or refuse to employ the term. The Armenians rightfully insist
on its usage as they believe this term that best reflects the tragedy they
experienced in the Ottoman Empire especially around 1915. Yet the Turks not
only refuse to use the term, but they have also suppressed the dissemination
of the tragic events of 1915 as a consequence of which there formed
generations of Turkish youth whose experiences and knowledge were totally
devoid of 1915. Given this dramatic epistemological discrepancy in relation
to what happened in 1915, even though what happened in 1915 certainly fits
the definition of genocide as defined by the 1948 United Nations convention,
I find it more heuristic and strategically more prescient to employ instead
the term kital (large scale massacres) that the Ottomans themselves employed
when referring to this tragedy. I personally think that both Turkish
society and the state would be more willing to listen and engage in
constructive dialogue that would eventually lead to recognition if what
happened in 1915 was discussed at first in and of itself.
AB - I have noticed that the Turkish Diaspora is more hardline on the issue
of the Armenian Genocide than Turks in Turkey. This phenomenon is puzzling
since Turks outside of Turkey in contrast with their compatriots in Turkey
are free of intimidation and pressure to pursue the truth and speak their
mind. Do you have any thoughts on this puzzling situation?
FMG - The more conservative stand of the diaspora in relation to those in
the country of origin has puzzled scholars for some time. The explanation
in the literature is that those who migrate to a new country bring with them
the political framework of their country of origin at that particular
juncture: hence time in their country of origin freezes for them at the
moment of their departure. Unless the immigrants are scholars who have the
chance to update their political standpoint, they get stuck at that
particular time in the past. Even though these immigrants may indeed
experience no intimidation and pressure to pursue the truth and speak their
mind, they are incapable to apply these principles of their host society to
their society of origin. Another factor that fosters this conservative
stand of the diaspora is positively correlated to the degree of anxiety and
insecurity they feel in the host society: the diaspora tries to compensate
for this insecurity and lack of self confidence by adhering to the norms and
values with which they have arrived.
In the case of the Turkish diaspora, these norms and values are often
nationalist ones that they had been socialized into by the state. Starting
at their point of arrival, the members of the Turkish diaspora reproduce
these norms and values of the Turkish state at a level of intensity that is
directly related to the degree of their unsuccessful social and cultural
adaptation to the host country. In my personal interaction with the Turkish
diaspora, I have often been struck by two things: (i) how their image of
Turkey is totally out of date in that they think Turkey is socially still
like when they had left it, and (ii) how unaware they are of the social
conditions of the host country, in this case the United States, that they
live in. Let me give you an example: When my colleague Ron Suny then at the
University of Chicago and I organized in the year 2000 the second
Armenian-Turkish workshop at the University of Michigan where I teach, a few
organizations of the Turkish diaspora came together and wrote a letter to
the president of my university protesting our workshop because they had
heard that the term 'genocide' was employed by some of the workshop
participants. It turns out the Turkish Consulate in Chicago had contacted
them and asked that they protest; they enthusiastically did as they were
told without even bothering to contact me first, a Turkish citizen living in
the diaspora like themselves, to find out what was going on.
One could argue that by writing the letter of protest, they were exercising
their right to freely express their views; they indeed were, but the content
of the letter also demonstrated how out of touch with the U.S. academia they
really were. In the letter, they went on to instruct the president of the
University of Michigan as to who should have been invited to the workshop
instead. Anyone who knows anything about universities in the United States
is aware that the faculty has total intellectual independence in organizing
workshops -- they invite whoever they wish to talk on whatever topics they
want to discuss - and that this intellectual independence from social and
political pressure is held sacred by all, especially the university
administration.
Why did the conservative Turkish diaspora engage in such self-destructive
behavior? The universities in Turkey often function as extensions of the
state apparatus; faculty is often treated like civil servants of a state
that finds in itself the right to control the thoughts and actions of
faculty. The Turkish diaspora organizations took this Turkish reality and
assumed that is how things worked in the United States as well: this shows
how out of touch with American society and educational institutions they
really are. Needless to say, not only were they totally ineffectual, but I
as a Turk was embarrassed by what they had done because the university
administration rightfully formed a very negative impression of them. I know
that many of their efforts to promote the Turkish state view in the United
States are just as ineffectual. Interestingly enough, rather than blaming
their own actions for this failure, they keep blaming others, namely either
the Armenian diaspora which they claim is so strong that it renders the
Turkish one ineffectual or, in a very nationalistic move that reifies their
rigid stands even more, that American society and/or the West is out to get
Turkey and is therefore unwilling to understand what Turkey is all about. I
have been trying to get them to be self critical but have had no luck
whatsoever, especially with the older generations.
AB - In a follow-up to my earlier question, we have witnessed that outspoken
Turks like Elif Shafak, Taner Akcam, Halil Berktay, yourself and many others
have been threatened and labeled traitors. Do you think this attitude is
widespread in Turkish society?
FMG - The threats and stigma we all experience is a natural consequence of
the nationalist rhetoric that dominates and hegemonizes Turkish society and
state. The media, public opinion as well as popular culture in Turkey have
all been very successfully controlled by the state up until now. It is hard
to know how many individuals and groups go along with this control because
of their personal beliefs along the same lines; my hunch is that many do so
because they do not know otherwise and they have often not had the option to
think otherwise. Yet the internet is a very significant mode of
communication that enables such conditions to alter dramatically, and it has
indeed started to do so among especially the Turkish youth. It is hard to
know how widespread this critical stand against the hegemony of the Turkish
state is, but I can tell you that it is definitely on the rise.
continued
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