Abdulhamit Bilici – Today’s Zaman
Contrary to what he promised during his election campaign, Obama used the term "Meds Yeghern" or Great Tragedy, which is what Armenians use to describe the incidents that occurred in 1915, giving Turkey another sigh of relief this year.
Indeed, this word truly gives consolation. That is because when Obama visited Turkey in 2009, he clearly indicated that his views on the issue had not changed. Like earlier presidents and many members of the US congress, Obama sees the incidents as genocide but, as always, the US administration will not or cannot risk losing Turkey in its foreign policy, so it chooses to provide some other interpretation of the events.
Of course the US administration's stance does not satisfy Armenian lobbies, or Turkey for that matter. Armenians in America accused Obama of betraying his own principles. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu accused Obama of distorting history, criticizing his biased perspective. Davutoğlu called on Washington from Çanakkale, the city where the Ottomans battled Western forces around the same time the Armenian incidents occurred and said, "We would have expected him to remember the pain Turks suffered as well."
Actually, April 24 is not directly linked to the incident during World War I, when thousands of Ottoman Armenians living in Turkey were relocated as a precaution, which certain groups are trying to define as genocide. On April 24, 1915, Armenian committees that had played a role in various riots against the state were shut down and 2,345 people managing these committees were arrested for engaging in activities against the state, but this detail is not given much attention. For one reason or another, this date symbolizes a painful event for Armenians.
A remarkable new development in the usual April 24 routines occurred, not in France or America, but in Turkey. On Sunday, groups of people, including some Turkish journalists and intellectuals, organized events in Ankara and İstanbul to mark April 24. Of course there is nothing strange about this in a normal democracy. In fact, there's nothing more normal than people expressing their views without resorting to violence. The striking part is not remembering the pain of the Armenians, who we have lived with peacefully together for centuries, but the rapid increase in the number of literate and conscientious people in Turkey who are viewing Armenian arguments with more open minds. Circles that are sensible are acknowledging humanitarian grievances and displaying stances that politely put down those who consider genocide allegations questionable.
The intolerant and insulting messages that started pouring in on Twitter when I attempted to question the genocide allegations on Sunday evening were kind of like evidence of these disturbing new situations. On one hand were neo-nationalists who declared anyone who uttered the word Armenian "traitor" without listening to the rest of the comment and on the other were progressive liberals who said, "If you don't refer to the events as genocide, then there's no point in talking."
I don't know the exact numbers but there's no doubt that more and more people in Turkey are accepting genocide allegations. The way things are going, I would not be surprised if accepting the genocide allegations becomes a precondition to being an intellectual very soon. It brings to mind how politicians with Turkish roots are excluded from parties in Europe because they don't call the event genocide. If imposing the acceptance of genocide claims reaches such a level in Turkey, what right will we have to criticize Europeans?
In my opinion, there are three reasons for this change that should be taken seriously. First of all, official theses that don't rely on solid evidence have been discredited, jeopardizing confidence in every opinion of the state. Second, the events of 1915 have not been explained as thoroughly and objectively as possible. People are affected by the facts they learn in their 40s and 50s. The views and publications of people who are more inclined towards the Armenian view have filled this gap. Third, there is a very limited number of experienced, democratic and respectable people who can voice national arguments.
Getting angry is not a solution. If Turkey, which unfortunately has lost the approval of the American and European public due to bad strategies, does not want to lose the approval of the Turkish public, it must set up a non-partisan commission comprised of respected Turkish and foreign historians without waiting for Armenia's participation and expose the facts about 1915 and present a fair point of view. It would be wise to do this at once.
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