{"id":109198,"date":"2014-11-25T10:34:04","date_gmt":"2014-11-25T08:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=109198"},"modified":"2022-11-27T17:01:57","modified_gmt":"2022-11-27T14:01:57","slug":"turkish-scholar-affirms-turkey-has-lost-battle-for-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2014\/11\/25\/turkish-scholar-affirms-turkey-has-lost-battle-for-the-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish Scholar Affirms: Turkey has Lost Battle for the Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In recent years, a growing number of Turkish intellectuals, scholars, journalists and human rights activists have taken bold positions on the Armenian Genocide, in opposition to their government\u2019s denials. Although their number is small and their influence on Pres. Erdogan negligible, the fight for truth and justice has to be carried on two fronts: within and outside Turkey. Hopefully, over time, the ranks of such liberal Turks would enlarge, forcing their government to implement reforms on a variety of issues, including the Armenian Genocide.<\/div>\n
These progressive Turks, however, should not be viewed as activists for the Armenian Cause. Their primary goal is to live in a democratic society that respects the rights of all citizens and acknowledges the dark pages of its past.<\/div>\n
One such righteous Turk is Cengiz Aktar, Senior Scholar at Istanbul Policy Center, who has championed for many years recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government.<\/div>\n
Earlier this year, Aktar wrote two compelling columns, challenging Turkish denials of the Armenian Genocide. The first, published on April 21<\/span><\/span> in \u201cToday\u2019s Zaman,\u201d was titled \u201cThe 99th<\/sup>\u00a0Anniversary.\u201d The second column, posted on \u201cAl Jazeera English\u201d website on April 24<\/span><\/span>, was titled \u201cArmenian Genocide: Turkey has Lost the Battle of Truth,\u201d and subtitled \u201cAn empowered Turkish society is now challenging the state\u2019s denialist paradigm on the tragic events of 1915.\u201d<\/div>\n
In his first article, Aktar described April 24<\/span><\/span> as \u201ca symbolic day for Armenians who were forcibly dispersed all\u00a0around the world. This collective disaster is still not recognized in\u00a0Turkey. Even the fact that Anatolian Armenians were completely wiped\u00a0out from their homeland is not enough for people and the state to\u00a0recognize it.\u201d<\/div>\n
Aktar went on to ridicule Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu\u2019s call for a \u201cjoint historical commission,\u201d because it would be \u201ccomposed of \u2018genocide experts\u2019 on the one side and of denialist professors on\u00a0the other who cannot even convene, let alone arrive at a decision.\u201d<\/div>\n
Ending his column on an optimistic note, Aktar observed: \u201cUnlike the state, Turkish society is today questioning the past and\u00a0searching for appropriate answers. This is the soundest and most\u00a0lasting way to face the truth. Peace will not come to these lands\u00a0without confronting the past. 2015 will be the year when the quest for\u00a0truth and memory will deepen, even if the government does not like it.\u201d<\/div>\n
In the Al Jazeera article, the Turkish scholar divided his government\u2019s denialist campaign on the Armenian Genocide into three categories: lobbying efforts jointly with Azerbaijan, especially in the United States; hiring scholars to give Turkey\u2019s \u201cvulgar denialism\u201d a scientific veneer; and diverting attention away from the Armenian Genocide Centennial by focusing on other events, such as \u201cthe Dardanelles battle victory\u201d and \u201cthe military debacle of Sarikamis.\u201d<\/div>\n
Despite vigorous denialist propaganda, Aktar maintained that \u201cTurkey has long lost the battle of truth. The destruction of the Armenian population on its ancestral land is a sheer fact, whatever else you might call it.\u201d<\/div>\n
Aktar proceeded to describe April 24, 1915 as \u201cthe dark day when the decision to erase Armenians from Anatolia began to be implemented by the Ottoman government of Young Turks or the Ittihadists. The rationale behind it was to engineer a homogeneous population composed of Muslims designated to form the backbone of the yet to be invented Turkish nation. Thus, there was no place for Christian populations despite their historic presence on those lands.\u201d<\/div>\n
The Turkish scholar then referred to a \u201creport commissioned in May 1919 by the Ottoman government that came to power in 1918 after the demise of the Young Turks,\u201d which stated that 800,000 Armenians had lost their lives by that date. Aktar also quoted from a book published in 1928 by the Turkish General Staff which reported that \u201c800,000 Armenians and 200,000 Greeks died as a result of massacres, forced relocations and forced labor.\u201d Aktar concluded: \u201cwhen one adds those who died after 1918 in the Caucasus region due to hunger, illness and massacres, the figure surpasses one million. The cleansing work of Ittihadists was completed by Kemalists by obliging those throughout Anatolia whose lives were spared to take shelter in Istanbul and simultaneously by suppressing their places of worship and schools throughout Anatolia.\u201d<\/div>\n
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The audacious Turkish intellectual ends his powerful article with a note of sober realism: \u201cThe genie is out of the bottle. When and how it will affect state policy is difficult to predict.\u201d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent years, a growing number of Turkish intellectuals, scholars, journalists and human rights activists have taken bold positions on the Armenian Genocide, in opposition to their government\u2019s denials. Although their number is small and their influence on Pres. Erdogan negligible, the fight for truth and justice has to be carried on two fronts: within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4101,"featured_media":774085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3488],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harut-sassounian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}