SEMİH İDİZ – Hurriyet Daily News
The Armenian community of North America is disappointed again. This time the object of its ire is outgoing U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Armenian-Americans clearly feel a “golden opportunity” was allowed to slip by, thus preventing them once more from “catching Turkey.”
Put briefly, the anti-Turkish mood in the U.S. Congress over Ankara’s Iran and Israel policies was expected to swing the balance against Turkey this time. The fact that Pelosi has always fervently supported the Armenian cause clearly fuelled expectations further.
Once more it was seen, however, that U.S. national interests carry more weight than constituency considerations, even if there is anger in Congress directed at Turkey. The Turkish media also reported that incoming House Speaker John Boehner was influential in ensuring the Armenian resolution was not passed.
If true, this would mean Boehner did not want U.S.-Turkish relations to sustain any further blows given that the present state of ties is not so great anyway. He probably also felt that a serious blow to these ties would undermine what little chance there may be for a rapprochement between Turkey and Israel.
It is certain, however, that none of this will deter the highly motivated Armenian lobby in the United States – especially in the lead-up to the 100th anniversary of the events of 1915. Put another way, we can expect a similar “Armenian genocide resolution” to come up in the U.S. Congress as early as next spring.
But whether the Armenian community’s hand will be any stronger than it is today remains an open question. There is also a new and increasingly significant phenomenon that has to be factored in by Armenian-Americans.
The Turkish-American community has started displaying much more solidarity and strength, and has been acting much more in unison, and with a clearer focus on its target, than it did a decade or so ago. Many members of this community are professional and influential U.S. citizens who are endowed with the capacity to make themselves listened to, and understood.
Günay Evinch, the president of the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations, and Kaya Boztepe, the president of the Federation of Turkish-American Associations, both expressed their gratitude for this in a joint statement they issued to the Turkish community after Pelosi failed to bring the resolution recognizing Armenian claims of genocide to a vote.
But they also cautioned Turkish-Americans that “the years ahead will continue to be a challenge” in this respect. In other words, there is still much to be done by Turkish-Americans as they rally and organize in order to counter the anti-Turkish initiatives of the Armenian lobby.
Put briefly, after the suspense of the earlier part of this week, we are again at the “I’ve seen this film before” stage as far as this bout of the “genocide resolution” fight is concerned. Neither is there much to indicate that this vicious circle will be broken anytime soon.
Turkey has gained too much critical mass both politically and economically in the international arena, thus making it harder – even for Congressmen or Congresswomen who hate Turkey – to be lackadaisical about the state of Turkish-American ties.
There are, of course, the many lawsuits by Armenians in California against Turkey, Turkish institutions and companies that did business in the Ottoman Empire, as Evinch and Boztepe pointed out in their joint statement.
One of these goes so far as to lay claim to the land occupied by the İncirlik Airbase near Adana, while another lays claim to the Presidential Palace in Ankara. But few legal experts expect these cases to get anywhere in real terms, regardless of what publicity they may ultimately provide Armenians for their cause.
Not withstanding the “I’ve seen this film before” stage, we are also at the “It can’t go on like this” stage as far as sensible people on both sides are concerned. But it is clear that these are not the most popular people among the diehards on both sides of the seemingly unbridgeable divide between Turks and Armenians.
It was these hard-line elements that eventually scuttled the Zurich Protocols signed between Turkey and Armenia, which proposed normalized relations among the two nations. The hardliners on both sides hated these protocols from the start, indicating in so many words that they are prepared to continue with what a Turkish nationalist historian calls “the blood feud of the century,” for another 100 years if need be.
This is why there is a need for more logical and sensible people to try and do their bit in an effort to build bridges between the two peoples that will help chip away at the ossified paradigms of hatred that have been allowed to develop on both sides.
There is a need, in this context, to increase contacts between ordinary Turks and Armenians, a prospect that is not as impossible as it may sound to some people. This is, in fact, already happening silently between Turks from Turkey and Armenians from Armenia. Despite the failure to implement the Zurich Protocols, cultural contacts are increasing.
The fact that the Armenian Surp Haç Church on Akdamar Island in eastern Turkey, near the city of Van, will be open to prayer on holy days will also make a contribution in this respect, especially now that the cross of the church has been put in its rightful place as demanded by Armenian religious leaders.
Van is, of course, central to the bloody Turkish-Armenian experience and any healing process that might start there will have great significance. There is also a need for the Turkish and Armenian communities in the West, and especially in the United States, to try and reach out to each other. The battle lines between the two communities appear so set that there seems little hope for this at first glance.
But there are still sensible people in both communities that realize the present state of affairs between the two peoples can not go on like this forever. Neither is calling for bridges to be built between these estranged people as “utopian” as the hot-heads on both sides would like to make it out to be.
If Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian are doing such a wonderful job (and I would strongly recommend www.theyoungturks.com to everyone) there seems little reason why other Turks and Armenians cannot work out their differences, and learn to work together just like these two young people.
It all comes down to whether we want “an eye for an eye,” or whether we want to try to and understand each other’s pain by exercising strong, and “cathartic,” empathy. Maintaining enmity is always easy. Empathy and understanding is the hard part.
While the odds are stacked to the advantage of the radicals and hot-heads on both sides, there nevertheless exists the possibility for sensible Turks and Armenians to try and chip away at what appears to be a hatred of monolithic proportions.
The only alternative to this seems to be that we will continue to see a repeat of a film that we have seen over and over again for the past 30 odd years.
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