1915 beyond ‘genocide’

Anyone who wants to close the debate on what happened to Armenians in 1915 should start by describing the events as genocide. They are, of course, free to speak as they wish. But if Turks are expected to be part of this debate, then a more constructive approach is needed. This requires avoiding language that closes the debate when in fact a lively discussion has already been going on.

Last week, for instance, a group of intellectuals issued a statement commemorating the “great catastrophe” that was inflicted upon the Armenians of Turkey in 1915. The same group had signed, two years ago, a petition apologizing for what happened to Armenians in 1915. On Saturday, hundreds of people in İstanbul remembered the massacres of Armenians, saying, “This is our pain, too.”

For the last couple of years, a debate has been opened in Turkey. Conferences have been held, public gatherings have been organized and articles and commentaries have been published discussing different aspects of the Armenian massacre. Even the Turkish prime minister declared last May that “through fascistic approaches, we forced many to leave this country,” and he asked, “Did we do any good?”

As Turkey proceeds along the path of democratization, it has become common to debate Turkey’s past, including the Armenian question. An authoritarian regime with a monopoly on the interpretation of history and with its control of civil society does not allow free research and free debate. The past is presented in a way to legitimize the position of the established regime. This is fortunately changing. The democratization of Turkish politics and the liberation and diversification of civil society is allowing the emergence of plural ideas on the past including the Armenian massacre.

This process will certainly continue. But the critical point is that if debating 1915 is reduced to naming the events genocide, it may block the whole process. Such a strategy provokes Turkish nationalism, preventing the Turkish masses from being attentive to the thesis that contravenes the dominant view in the country. Thus to unlock the hearts and minds of the Turks at large necessitates abandoning the attitude of categorical accusation against the Turks over the 1915 events.

Of course, the belief of Armenians should be respected, but they should also understand that the genocide claims make the reconciliation efforts between the Turks and Armenians almost impossible to attain. We can get out of the imprisonment of the past atrocities, not by labeling but disclosing it. Calling it genocide is the shortest way to close the debate. I think both societies should learn more about the time when disasters hit both the Armenians in Anatolia and the Turks in Anatolia and the Balkans. Thus the first thing to do is to let the sides share their stories without a language of accusation, to create empathy, understanding. This is possible.

As the time of nation-states is passing, it is a pity for the Turks and Armenians that we are still locked into the animosities created a century ago to create nation-states. If we want reconciliation and dialogue among those who survived 1915, the Turks and Armenians, the way forward is to go beyond the “genocide” quarrel.

In this, the approach of American President Obama is rather constructive: call the events of 1915 a “great catastrophe” (meds yeghern), but also “salute the Turks who saved Armenians in 1915” and encourage the process of normalization between Turkey and Armenia.

If the matter for Armenians is not to take revenge for 1915, it is time to work together toward learning, sharing and reconciling past agonies without categorical accusations of genocide. But if what they are interested in is taking revenge, then, I am sorry to say that they will never be able to enjoy this.

26 April 2010, Monday

Remembering the architect of change: Turgut Özal

It has been 17 years since Turgut Özal passed away, leaving behind a country that was squarely placed on the path of civilianization, democratization and global integration. He was even the architect of the current process of change.

Özal was an exceptional political leader in the history of modern Turkey. He first emerged as the person behind an economic reform program in the early 1980s that transformed Turkey’s development strategy and laid the groundwork for opening up the Turkish economy to global competition with a transformative effect on social and political conduct.

He took center stage as the leader of a newly formed political party, the Motherland Party (ANAP, now ANAVATAN), which won two consecutive elections in 1983 and 1987. He then became the first truly civilian president of the Republic of Turkey in 1989, shaking the very image of the presidency as a post belonging to the Kemalist state elite. As the prime minister from 1983 to 1989 and as president until his death in 1993, Özal was the single political figure who, with his ideas, projects and “vision,” shaped Turkish politics and initiated a process of Turkey’s transformation in the economic, political and social spheres.

The state-society relationship, shaped by the centralizing and homogenizing mindset of the Kemalist state elite, was set to change under Özal’s leadership simply because it was no longer sustainable in a market economy, an open society, and a democratic polity, and in a country that was economically, socially and politically integrated with the world.

As such, Özal’s uniqueness was his ability to set forth the social and economic dynamics of change. As a result, the top-down patronizing modernization path of the Kemalist bureaucratic elite appeared ineffective, unproductive and undemocratic and thus anachronistic. In other words, he did not confront the Kemalist-bureaucratic regime radically. Instead, he quietly sowed the seeds of the great transformation that was destined in the long run to liberate the country from the tutelage of the bureaucratic/Kemalist elite.

His reformist mind as well as his controversial ideas and style set the stage for Turkey’s transformation in his time and initiated many grand debates shaking conventional wisdom in numerous areas. Özal managed to build a new political alliance bringing personalities from different political backgrounds, thus blurring the traditional boundaries between opposing political movements of the left and the right, of Islamist and secularist. Coming to power under the shadow of a military regime, Özal led Turkey’s transition to a civilian government during which the military’s influence in the political process had been significantly reduced.

It was Özal who introduced the ideas of “scaling down” the state, global competition, a market economy, and privatization when the wave of the “new right” was high in the US and the UK. He was also effective in popularizing political liberalism with his ideas of the “three liberties,” namely, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and conscience, and freedom of enterprise. He also pushed for a “service state” instead of a “father state,” challenging the tradition and raison d’être of the bureaucratic Kemalist state.

His understanding of Islam and secularism differed both from pro-Islamic groups and secularists. For him, while Islam was an individual and social phenomenon with no preset political model, secularism was not a lifestyle that could be imposed on people by the state. He was conservative, or even religious, yet modern, pro-Western and liberal.

Özal held “unconventional” views about the Kurdish question that made him enemies and new friends. The Kurds of Turkey and Iraq found in him a brave and visionary politician who sincerely yet unsuccessfully tried to solve the problem. Many link his death to his attempt to find a solution to the Kurdish question.

It was Özal who led Turkey through the challenging times of international turmoil and transformation at the end of the 20th century, such as the end of the Cold War, the demise of the Soviet Union, the Gulf War and the Bosnian War. His leadership was recognized during this period of crisis in international politics during which his influence expanded beyond Turkey and left a mark on the wider Eurasian geography. In these challenging times, he was the architect of Turkey’s emerging regional role with his style of leadership. He believed that economic cooperation, trade, and social interaction would reduce political disagreements between states, leading to international peace and stability.

Yes, he was a pragmatic politician with no ideological dogmatism, but he was committed to the notion of a liberal and democratic Turkey integrated with the Western world with a market economy. That is to say, Özal was a unique political leader who held liberal views on the Turkish state tradition, market economy, the Kurdish question, secularism, civilian-military relations, and foreign policy.

His enormous impact on Turkey’s transformation in civilianization, democratization, integration with the world economy and the political institution is indisputable. He was the leader who paved the way for the current process of change that is undoing the Kemalist authoritarian state apparatus.

For this the Kemalist state elite and its civilian allies have never forgiven him. What matters for Özal, though, is that the people at large have never forgotten him.

19 April 2010, Monday