Is it money that keeps Turkey denying what happened to Armenians?

ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ

When the conversation on Turkey reaches a certain level of sophistication, I always get the same questions from intelligent American and European friends. They say: “Every nation has dirty things in their history, why is it such a big deal for Turks to confront the Armenian genocide? Is it because of its possible financial consequences?”

In my opinion, money/compensation is a secondary issue. Let us assume that the European Union has just created a special fund to help Turkey compensate the families of Armenian survivors and this fund would cover most of the financial burden on Turkey in the case of “recognition;” do you think this would automatically lead Turkey to the acceptance of the 1915 events as genocide? You would be mistaken if you thought so.

So what prevents Turkey from confronting its past? Why on earth do Turks find it so difficult to talk about what happened in this country almost a century ago? Why is it relatively easier for an American to talk about slavery or the massacres of Native Americans, or for other nations for what they did in the countries they colonized, whereas Turks have created such a big taboo out of their past with Armenians? What makes the Turkish case so different?

Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was a constant irritant in the eyes of the Turkish deep state. He was constantly talking about what happened in Anatolia in the past and he spoke from the bottom of his heart. However, no matter how irritating, it was not his words about genocide or other things that brought him to his death. It was one particular allegation that moved mountains and the deep state unleashed all its evil upon Dink.

These were his remarks about Sabiha Gökçen, Atatürk’s adopted daughter and the first woman fighter pilot in Turkey. Dink claimed that Gökçen was indeed an Armenian orphan, a survivor of the Armenian massacres. It was this linkage that he made that took him from this life in 2007. He threatened the very foundations of the status quo in Turkey by making a reference to the relationship between an Armenian orphan and the founder of the Turkish Republic.

What happened in Turkey in 1915 is not only a past atrocity, like it is for Americans or Europeans in their history, it is still at the center of Turkish identity; it is a knowledge that should be kept in the dark corners of the social subconscious in order to maintain the status quo. Confronting the past is not only coming face-to-face with some shameful acts, but also being willing to witness the shattering of so many national myths and taboos. This confrontation means questioning the identity of the founders of the Turkish Republic, the Turkish War of Independence, modernization, the Ottoman past and so many other things.

By making all these analyses I am not suggesting that we are far from questioning these things. The Ergenekon case destroyed the “killing capacity” of the deep state. The Turkish military’s unquestionable place was shattered some time ago. Kemalism and so many other taboos are now being questioned in Turkey. Therefore, we are now able to hear the allegations of some historians in the mainstream media about the possessions of Armenians. This week in the media, the allegation that the presidential palace and some other well-known buildings had actually belonged to Armenian families was able to find its place in the news.

This of course, like Dink’s claim, touches a nerve in the Turkish identity. And in the last three years Turkey has come to this juncture where this kind of allegation can be made without being threatened by a deadly deep state attack.

It will of course take a long time to come to a full realization about the meaning of the 1915 massacres and the expulsion of non-Muslims from Anatolia. However, as long as Turkey’s progress in the direction of democratization continues, I am hopeful that we will be increasingly confronting our past and our realities.

Turkey and Turks will have to look at every ingredient in their identity in order to get rid of the unhealthy and add more healthy elements to it. Turkey’s confrontation with its past is not only necessary for justice for the victims of past atrocities but also for the Turks to establish a real identity which is a living one, which frees itself from the chains of illusions, which is able to mature and which orients itself to its own reality. Then we will all be free.

zaman