Dark heritage: a derelict Armenian church in Diyarbakir. All photos courtesy of the author.<\/i><\/p>\n
<\/em>Most of the coverage of the 100th Below the din of the angry debate, many Ara Sarafian holds a forget-me-not flower at the site of a massacre of \u201cIn the morning, the government ordered Inside the remains of the monastery, 30 Sheltering by a fire inside St Alberik monastery.<\/i><\/p>\n On the way down the hill, a young Kurdish Sarafian organised this goodwill mission With some Armenian nationalists demanding Recognition of the genocide is still a For those still unwilling to accept the Interestingly, another 23% favour Comparing the suffering of different On the way to Dudan (\u2018waterfall\u2019 in Military police stop the group\u2019s convoy en route to Dudan.<\/i><\/p>\n Dudan is the site of a massacre by Turkish The Dudan crevass, where up to 10,000 Armenians were killed by Ottoman Firat, a Kurd from the city of Batman, The landscape of the Kurdish region is Not all Kurds collaborated in the The progress made in highlighting and The upcoming election is also vital to If it succeeds, it is unlikely that the All of Turkish society wins or loses For diaspora Armenians, there is much Sarafian\u2019s work is calling those from the A lot of work Like us on Facebook<\/strong>\u00a0to follow the latest openSecurity articles, and tell the editors Dark heritage: a derelict Armenian church in Diyarbakir. All photos courtesy of the author. Most of the coverage of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide has concentrated on the Turkish government\u2019s continuing refusal to recognise the organised massacre of over 1m Armenians as such. The centenary has arrived and the US has once again…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nanniversary of the Armenian genocide has concentrated on the Turkish
\ngovernment\u2019s continuing refusal to recognise the organised massacre of over 1m
\nArmenians as such. The centenary has arrived and the US has once again refused
\nto call it genocide, though Germany and many others now have. Yet, after the
\ninternational media attention passes, what can be done to seek reconciliation
\nand recognition for the suffering of those who died?<\/p>\n
\nTurks, Kurds and Armenians are working together to heal the wounds of 100 years
\nago. I followed Ara Sarafian, an Armenian-British-Cypriot historian, who is
\nattempting to create spaces for communities to reconcile in the towns and
\nvillages where the massacres happened.<\/p>\n
\nArmenians near Batman.<\/i><\/p>\n
\nus to kill them, and in the evening we shared their houses, fields, lands,
\nmoney. Why did our ancestors kill them? They said \u2018it\u2019s only money\u2019.\u201d Barzan,
\nour Kurdish guide in Bitlis, recounted this story as he pointed to a tree
\noutside St Alberik Armenian monastery on the remote slopes of the windy Kurdish
\nhighlands in eastern Turkey. Gold-diggers have dug all the way under the roots
\nfrom one side to the other, looking for money they believed Armenians had
\nhidden as the massacres spread out across Anatolia.<\/p>\n
\nor 40 people sheltered from the intemperate weather, as locals who had come
\nwith us made a fire and Armenian women from the diaspora began a hymn which
\nmade the Kurds fall silent. The smoke from the fire stung the eyes, and the
\nscene transported me temporarily to a time when members of diverse ethnic and
\nreligious groups had lived and worked together in this rugged landscape. <\/p>\n
\nman helped one of the older Armenian women down the muddy slopes. \u201cIn my life I
\nnever thought a Kurdish man would be helping an Armenian like me\u201d, she said as
\nthe young man sang Turkish love songs. <\/p>\n
\nto Turkey\u2019s Kurdish region to commemorate the 1915 tragedy. He told me he
\nwanted to be a partner for Kurds who wanted to draw reconciliation from the
\nlegacy of the genocide and he hoped the example could inspire others to visit
\nthe lands of their ancestors.<\/p>\nBroken bridges<\/h2>\n
\nreparations in the form of lands or money, Sarafian wants clarity on why
\nrecognition of the genocide is sought. If the goal is to end the pain of denial
\nfor the descendants of the victims, then this depends on a shift in internal
\nTurkish politics. Those who retain the deeds of their lost lands should be able
\nto go to court and receive compensation or the return of the lands they own,
\nbut there are also important Armenian sites which continue to crumble and
\nrequire conservation. The latter would benefit everyone: the local population
\nwho could gain from tourism, Armenians who would see that the state took their
\nsuffering seriously and Turkey itself, which could mend its broken bridges with
\nthe Armenian state and people.<\/p>\n
\nfundamental goal, but Sarafian believes that this will come only after a
\nprocess of healing within Turkey which involves Armenians, Kurds, Turks and
\nother minorities who suffered persecution. \u201cIf we can\u2019t influence the
\n[Armenian] diaspora by the example of being here, to take Turkey more
\nseriously, to think about the issues more seriously and to take on the burden
\nof engaging with these issues and opportunities, then we\u2019ve failed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\nterm genocide, there is little that will convince them otherwise. But slowly a
\nyounger generation of people in Turkey is coming to a fuller understanding of
\nwhat happened: 9% of Turks favour a formal apology
\nand the admission of genocide, another 9% favour an apology without using the
\nterm and 12% favour expressing regret for the Armenians who died. <\/p>\n
\nexpressing regret for all those who died, including Muslims who fled from the
\nBalkans in the late 19th century due to the rise of European nationalism. Many
\nTurks are descended from Balkan Muslims and, while understanding the
\nethno-nationalist violence of the period, feel that the concentration on
\nArmenian suffering ignores their own narrative. <\/p>\n
\ngroups feels wrong and the systematic nature of the massacres of Armenian (and
\nAssyrians, Pontic Greeks and Chaldeans) was on a horrific scale hard to compare
\nwith the persecution of Ottoman
\nMuslims in Europe. Remembering the terrible suffering of 1915 does not mean we
\ndon\u2019t care about the suffering of other people; the persecution of Balkan
\nMuslims was one of the factors which led to the genocide in the first place.<\/p>\nLegacy of oppression<\/h2>\n
\nTurkish), there was a reminder of the legacy of political oppression in the
\nKurdish region when the military police decided to stop our convoy of cars and
\ndemanded to see our passports. Luckily, we had lawyers from the Diyarbakir Bar
\nAssociation with us, who managed to convince them to let us pass without
\nincident. <\/p>\n
\nsoldiers of 10,000 women, children and elderly people in July 1915. A chasm
\nopens there into which a stream gushes and it is impossible to see the bottom.
\nAfter murdering the men and boys, the soldiers brought the remaining Armenians
\nhere and slit their throats before pushing them into the hole\u2014some chose to
\njump.<\/p>\n
\nsoldiers.<\/i><\/p>\n
\nwho works with Sarafian\u2019s Gomidas Institute, told me why Kurds who lived in
\nthis area felt the need to push for recognition of the genocide within Turkey:
\n\u201cNow, people feel the pain that happened at that time. They tried to kill the
\nKurds also in this region, but they couldn\u2019t because Kurds resisted against the
\nstate, but at that time Armenians were weaker and it was wartime. Now Kurdish
\npeople feel that pain like Armenian people. People in this region, they know the
\ntruth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nlush and dramatic, its people open and eager to begin a new chapter of their
\nhistory after the suffering of the past half century. A common Armenian phrase
\nis \u2018we were the breakfast; you will be the lunch\u2019. Now Kurds are fighting to
\nstop the Islamic State dinner party ravaging the Levant;
\nthey are keen to make amends for not defending their Christian brothers and
\nsisters in 1915.<\/p>\n
\ngenocide, however. When we visited a small village near the city of Batman to
\npay respects at the grave of a local leader who refused to carry out the
\nmassacres ordered by the local governor in 1915, residents were touched to have
\nso many people come to honour their ancestor. These exchanges are important,
\nand could be the first step towards more people making a cultural pilgrimage to
\nwhere their ancestors lived for millennia and died a century ago.<\/p>\nPolitical freedom<\/h2>\n
\nrecognising the genocide, especially in the Kurdish region, is dependent both
\non the Kurdish peace process and the level of political freedom in the country
\ngenerally. Ten years ago, authors like Orhan Pamuk were being prosecuted for
\nusing the word \u2018genocide\u2019; now it is commonly used by writers and politicians
\nwithout any consequences.<\/p>\n
\nthe fortunes of genocide recognition in Turkey. A party must gain 10% of the
\nvote to win any seats at all under the electoral system , so small parties
\noften stand candidates as independents. This time, the pro-Kurdish HDP party is
\ngambling that it can get over the threshold. <\/p>\n
\npresident, Recep Tayyip
\nErdo\u011fan, will gain the seats he needs to install the executive
\npresidency he craves, to cement his hold on power for another generation. But
\nif it fails, there could be violence in the Kurdish region should people think
\nthat his Islamist AKP government used fraudulent means to shut the HDP out. <\/p>\n
\ndepending on the health of its political system. The authoritarian
\nregime Erdo\u011fan
\ndesires would put the religious conservative faction in a position of power
\nwhich it would inevitably start to abuse even more than it already does. <\/p>\n
\nthat can be done beyond criticising the Turkish government once a year.
\nDiyarbakir is a beautiful city which in 20 years will probably be a major
\ntourist destination. It has a beautiful old part and a progressive
\nadministration eager to work with Armenians to bring investment and tourism.<\/p>\n
\ndiaspora to come back to the lands of their ancestors, to see where they lived
\nand to work with Kurds to save the Armenian cultural legacy that remains. There
\nis so much opportunity to build a new, inclusive Armenian identity in touch
\nwith its roots, rather than carrying around the pain of the genocide and simply
\nwaiting for the Turkish government to decide one day to recognise that pain.<\/p>\n
\nremains. On the eve of the genocide anniversary, the bells of Sourp Giragos
\nbegan to ring but were then cut short. Someone had told the church authorities
\nto stop ringing their bells. Inside, hundreds of Kurds and Armenians had
\ngathered to pay their respects. Little by little, it is becoming harder to deny
\nwhat happened\u2014but when recognition does come, it will be because Turks and
\nKurds have sought the truth for themselves, not because they have been forced
\nto admit it.<\/p>\n
\nwhat we should publish next<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"