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The Kurds in the Turkish–Armenian Reconciliation Process: Double-Bind or Double-Blind?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2015

Bilgin Ayata
Bilgin Ayata*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Sociology, Basel University, Basel, Switzerland; e-mail: bilgina@yahoo.com
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Extract

A century after the Armenian Genocide and its ongoing denial by the Turkish state, there has emerged a notable and unprecedented interest in the Armenian past and present both in civil society discourse and scholarship in Turkey, accompanied by various reconciliation iniatives at the state and society levels. Observers have suggested that this increased engagement with Turkey's suppressed past is an outcome of its EU candidacy, the democratization reforms of the early 2000s, and the shockwave among liberal segments of Turkish society caused by the 2007 assassination of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. I argue that this shortsighted analysis, which completely ignores the Kurdish movement's transformative challenge to Turkish denialism since the 1980s, echoes the key fallacy of present discussions of Turkey's engagement with its past: compartmentalization and disjunction of interlinked state crimes.

Type
Roundtable
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , November 2015 , pp. 807 - 812
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

NOTES

1 For an excellent analysis of how this power asymmetry shapes this Turkish–Armenian reconciliation discourse, see Theriault, Henry, “Genocide, Denial, and Domination: Armenian–Turkish Relations from Conflict Resolution to Just Transformation,” Journal of African Conflict and Peace Studies 1 (2012): 1–16.Google Scholar

2 For instance, in a recent, important self-critique by Erik Zürcher on the role of historians in Armenian Genocide denial, Kurds are mentioned only in passing. See Erik Zürcher, “The Role of Historians in the Study of the Armenian Genocide,” Research Turkey, 9 May 2015, accessed 10 July 2015, http://researchturkey.org/the-role-of-historians-of-turkey-in-the-study-of-armenian-genocide/.

3 Prominent scholars such as Baskın Oran and Ahmet Insel who are engaged as public intellectuals in the reconciliation debates have criticized the Armenian diaspora for having too many “unreasonable” demands. See, for example, Sefa Kaplan, “Sira Diasporada,” Hürriyet, 26 September 2005, accessed 10 July 2015, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/index/ArsivNews.aspx?id=352920. For a brief analysis of the treatment of the Armenian diaspora in Turkish public discourse, see Talin Suciyan's op-ed “Diaspora Kim?,” Taraf, 20 October 2009, accessed 10 July 2015, http://arsiv.taraf.com.tr/haber-diaspora-kim-42547/

4 The prominent journalist Cengiz Çandar has addressed this problem self critically in his column in the Turkish daily Radikal. See “Tertele Dersim,” Radikal, 26 November 2010, accessed 10 July 2015, http://www.radikal.com.tr/yazarlar/cengiz_candar/tertele_dersim-1030290.

5 Behzat Bilek, “An Open Letter to the Public,” Seyfo Center, 19 May 2009, accessed 6 July 2015, http://seyfocenter.com/index.php?sid=2&aID=59. Berzan Boti's real name is Behzat Bilek, a fact he only revealed after the transfer of the title deeds.

6 Erbal, Ayda, “‘Mea Culpas, Negotiations, Apologias: Revisiting the ‘Apology’ of Turkish Intellectuals,” in Reconciliation, Civil Society, and the Politics of Memory: Transnational Initiatives in the 20th and 21st Century, ed. Schwelling, Birgit (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 51–94.Google Scholar

7 Bilgin Ayata, “Critical Interventions: Kurdish Intellectuals Confronting the Armenian Genocide,” Armenian Weekly, Special Insert, 29 April 2009, accessed 10 July 2015, http://armenianweekly.com/2009/04/29/kurdish-intellectuals-confronting-the-armenian-genocide/.

8 Bayraktar, Seyhan, “On Remembering the Armenian Genocide,” Testimony 120 (2015): 61–69.Google Scholar

9 For an in-depth analysis of the official and public discourse on the restoration of the church, see Ayata, Bilgin, “Tolerance as a European Norm or Ottoman Practice?,” KFG Working Paper Series 41 (2012): 1–26.Google Scholar

10 See Mamdani, Mahmood, When Victims Become Killers (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.