Ara Sarafian: The Darling of Denialist Turkish Media
By Appo Jabarian
Executive Publisher
& Managing Editor
USA Armenian Life Magazine -- Issue #1133 Decembere 12-18, 2008
Thursday December 12, 2008
Ara Sarafian, the head of the London-based Gomidas Institute, has become the darling of the denialist Turkish media. The November 24 issue of Hürriyet ("Liberty"), a Turkish secular, conservative-nationalist broadsheet daily newspaper, and notorious for its Armenian genocide denialism, has made a headline of Mr. Sarafian's anti-Armenian comment: "We cannot compare the Armenian genocide with the Holocaust. Those who were banished from their land suffered a lot but survived."
Mr. Sarafian sounds more like a denialist than an Armenian that is devoted to the pursuit of justice for his people. In reality, the Armenian Genocide does differ from the Jewish Holocaust. While Jews were killed en masse in foreign lands -- Germany and Vichy France -- Armenians were systematically annihilated in their ancestral lands in Western Armenia and Cilicia. But sadly, that's not what Mr. Sarafian is pointing out. He is effectively saying that no Genocide occured in Turkish-occupied Western Armenia and Cilicia.
If this is the result of his numerous Ankara-funded trips to the Turkish archives, one can tell what's in store for Armenians through the Turkish-promoted joint commission of Armenian and Turkish historians that Sarafian, a self-proclaimed reconciliator, so enthusiastically proposes in the Hurriyet article.
Mr. Sarrafian and his likes need to be reminded that Ankara has long been willing to recognize the Armenian Genocide provided that the Armenians in Armenia and the Diaspora do not demand the return of the Turkish-occupied Armenian territories.
By "offering" to form a "joint commission" of historians, Turkey is effectively plotting to undermine the political gains achieved in the Diaspora and to reduce the international recognition of the genocide to ''he said, she said'' type of political dead-end which can reverse all the achievements by the Diaspora to the benefit of denialist Ankara. And I am sorry to remark that Sarafian seems to be all too willing to become a tool in the hands of these denialists.
Sarafian also said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's offer to Armenia to establish a commission of historians to resolve the Armenian issue was positive, but Armenia was the wrong address. The solution should start from the diaspora.
Denialist Turkish Officialdom knew that, but what they didn't know and were pleasantly surprised to know that there is a member of that "huge and influential diaspora" who would be willing to sell out his people's Cause.
For some time, Ankara has been working diligently to recruit certain elements of the diaspora that are willing to trade their own lands for a 'horse.'
A few days ago, just before I left for France, I visited with an Armenian beef jerky ("abukhd" or "basturma") manufacturer in Hollywood, California. The " abukhd" ("basturma") maker joyfully said how proud he was because the Consul General of Turkey in Los Angeles had visited his store and bought some beef jerkys and "kissed" his hand. I told him: "If things continue the way they've been evolving in the diaspora, and the Armenians continue to consolidate their political and economic power, he would one day kiss other parts of your body as well. "
It seems like Ara Sarafian has already become one of the few Diaspora recipients of these "kisses."
In contrast to Sarafian's and his denialist handlers' actions, just recently, notable Turkish conservative historians and other professors have publicly apologized for the Armenian genocide of 1915 but have fallen short of calling on the state to do the same.
Even then, righteous historian Ay?e Hür said apologizing is the duty of those who were responsible for the act or for those who share their arguments. "It seems that a very elite group discussed that petition, because I learnt about this petition from the media and I was surprised, I approach these types of events as a scientist, as a historian, not as a member of the Turkish nation. For me, all these events were the fault of Turkish nationalism flourishing at that time, and personally, I don't identify with it, so I do not feel the need to apologize personally." (Daily Zaman, Dec 9).
She also pointed out that the petitioners are concentrating only on 1915; however, she says there were events after and before. "There is a state tradition which legitimizes all these events and prevents any discussion about them. Firstly, the state has to ensure a suitable atmosphere to discuss all these things; then it has to apologize on behalf of the perpetrators and for itself, because it has legitimized their actions through the years."
That is why, first and foremost, Turkey needs to form a joint Turkish-Turkish commission formed by Turkish academicians who already recognize the genocide and by those that deny it. It is after the Turks come to a consensus on the genocide that an Armenian-Turkish joint commission becomes warranted in order to formulate various settlement options regarding the reparation for the immense real and personal losses inflicted on the victims and the return of the lands of Western Armenia by Turkey in compliance with the Treaty of Sèvres.a
|