Open Wounds : Armenians, Turks and a Century of Genocide

The assassination of the author Hrant Dink in Istanbul in 2007, a high-profile advocate of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation, reignited the debate in Turkey on the annihilation of the Ottoman Armenians. Many Turks soon re-awakened to their Armenian heritage, reflecting on how their grandparents were forcibly Islamised and Turkified, and the suffering their families endured to keep their stories secret. There was public debate around Armenian property confiscated by the Turkish state and the extermination of the minorities. At last the silence had been broken. Open Wounds explains how, after the First World War, the new Turkish Republic forcibly erased the memory of the atrocities, and traces of Armenians, from their historic lands -- a process to which the international community turned a blind eye. The price for this amnesia was, Vicken Cheterian argues, a century of genocide. Turkish intellectuals acknowledge the price society must pay collectively to forget such traumatic events, and that Turkey cannot solve its recurrent conflicts with its minorities -- like the Kurds today -- nor have an open and democratic society without addressing the original sin on which the state was founded: the Armenian Genocide. Cover 1 Open Wounds: Armenians, Turks and a Century of Genocide 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgements 10 1: ‘WE ARE ALL HRANT DINK, WE ARE ALL ARMENIAN’: THE SACRIFICE 36 ‘Jesus Christ was the First Socialist’ 40 Agos, a new type of publication 47 The Gökçen Controversy 59 2: CRIME WITHOUT PUNISHMENT 70 The Armenian Plateau without Armenians 73 Failure to Reform 76 Armenians: Merchants and Peasants 83 Internationalisation of the ‘Armenian Question’ 88 3: OBLIVION 98 The Official Turkish Thesis on 1915 100 Nutuk—What Mustafa Kemal said about the Armenians 102 The Forgotten Genocide 106 Denial by Turkish Intellectuals and Leftists 110 Hitler Remembers the Armenians 113 The Negation Industry 117 4: WRITING AS RESISTANCE 126 Fifty Years of Silence 136 From Memory to History Writing 145 German Responsibility 150 The Genocide of the Armenians and the United Nations 153 Encyclopaedic Work 155 5: DECADE OF TERRORISM 158 From Bank Ottoman to Operation Nemesis 160 6: A REVOLUTIONARY ACT 168 The Human Rights Defender 168 Breaking the Taboo 174 An Intellectual Journey 192 7: RE-AWAKENINGTHE STRUGGLE FOR MEMORY AND DEMOCRACY 196 Things Falling Apart 197 EU Association and AKP Coming to Power 201 Timid Dialogue 204 Leaving History to Historians 211 Istanbul Discusses the Genocide 214 Apology campaign 218 8: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF WHISPERS 226 Forced Conversions in the Ottoman Empire 232 Forced Conversions and the Armenian Genocide 235 Survivors, Converts, Crypto-Christians 237 Hemshins, Muslim Armenian-Speakers 239 Dersim 243 Muslim, Christian, Crypto-Armenians 249 Discussing Islamised Armenians 249 9: MEMORIES OF THE LAND 256 Anjar, the Only Armenian Village of Lebanon 261 Aintab 263 Murad’s Story5 264 From Caesarea to Diyarbakir 268 Renovation of Aghtamar 273 Ani, capital of melancholia 275 10: THE OWNER OF THE TURKISH PRESIDENTIAL PALACE 280 Property Confiscation 283 Continuum 286 Confiscated Capital 291 Destruction 293 Return of Property, One by One 294 A new wave of conversions 296 11: KURDS: FROM PERPETRATOR TO VICTIM 298 Kurdish Role in the Genocide 301 ‘Happy is He Who Calls Himself a Turk’ 305 Kurdish Nationalism 308 A New Kurdish Policy 310 12: CONTINUOUS WAR 314 Turkish Responsibility 317 Armenian–Turkish Relations 318 Azerbaijani Identity and State Ideology 321 Destruction of Armenian Monuments in Azerbaijan 323 The Protocols 324 The Gordian Knot between Ankara and Yerevan 329 Erdoğan’s Condolences 331 13: CONSEQUENCES 334 Denial, Historic Research and Freedom of Expression 335 Freedom of Expression 338 Lost in a Deep State 340 NOTES 350 1. ‘WE ARE ALL HRANT DINK, WE ARE ALL ARMENIAN’: THE SACRIFICE 350 2. CRIME WITHOUT PUNISHMENT 353 3. OBLIVION 357 4. WRITING AS RESISTANCE 362 5. DECADE OF TERRORISM 365 6. A REVOLUTIONARY ACT 367 7. RE-AWAKENING: THE STRUGGLE FOR MEMORY AND DEMOCRACY 368 8. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF WHISPERS 373 9. MEMORIES OF THE LAND 377 10. THE OWNER OF THE TURKISH PRESIDENTIAL PALACE 378 11. KURDS: FROM PERPETRATOR TO VICTIM 381 12. CONTINUOUS WAR 382 13. CONSEQUENCES 386 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 390 INDEX 400 "The assassination of the author Hrant Dink in Istanbul in 2007, a high-profile advocate of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation, reignited the debate in Turkey over the annihilation of the Ottoman Armenians. Many Turks with Armenian ancestry soon re-awakened to their heritage, reflecting on how their grandparents were forcibly Islamized and Turkified, and on the suffering their families endured to keep their stories secret. At last, the silence had been broken: there was now a public debate about the extermination and the confiscation of Armenian property. Vicken Cheterian's Open Wounds explains how, after the First World War, the new Turkish Republic forcibly erased the memory of the atrocities, and traces of Armenians, from their historic lands--a process to which the international community turned a blind eye. The result of this amnesia was, Cheterian argues, "a century of genocide." Many Turkish intellectuals now acknowledge that the nation collectively paid a price by forgetting such traumatic events, and that Turkey cannot solve its recurrent conflicts with its minorities--such as the Kurds today--nor have an open and democratic society without addressing the original sin on which the state was founded: the Armenian Genocide"-- Provided by publisher "The assassination of the author Hrant Dink in Istanbul in 2007, a high-profile advocate of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation, reignited the debate in Turkey on the annihilation of the Ottoman Armenians. Many Turks soon re-awakened to their Armenian heritage, reflecting on how their grandparents were forcibly Islamised and Turkified, and the suffering their families endured to keep their stories secret. There was public debate around Armenian property confiscated by the Turkish state and the extermination of the minorities. At last the silence had been broken. Open Wounds explains how, after the First World War, the new Turkish Republic forcibly erased the memory of the atrocities, and traces of Armenians, from their historic lands--a process to which the international community turned a blind eye. The price for this amnesia was, Vicken Cheterian argues, 'a century of genocide.' Turkish intellectuals acknowledge the price society must pay collectively to forget such traumatic events, and that Turkey cannot solve its recurrent conflicts with its minorities--like the Kurds today--nor have an open and democratic society without addressing the original sin on which the state was founded: the Armenian Genocide"-- Provided by publisher The assassination of the author Hrant Dink in Istanbul in 2007, a high-profile advocate of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation, reignited the debate in Turkey on the annihilation of the Ottoman Armenians. Many Turks soon re-awakened to their Armenian heritage, reflecting on how their grandparents were forcibly Islamised and Turkified, and the suffering their families endured to keep their stories secret. There was public debate around Armenian property confiscated by the Turkish state and the extermination of the minorities. At last the silence had been broken.__Open Wounds__