The Kurdish and Armenian Genocides
Desmond Fernandes
Apec Förlag
Turkeys repression of the Kurds has been widely documented - and is acknowledged as a major obstacle to Turkey’s accession to the European Union. But what lies behind such repression? Fernandes confronts the issue head on, forcing the reader to probe a question that many in Turkey and elsewhere would rather avoid: does the systematic repression of the Kurds amount to genocide? Open discussion of this issue is critical if a long-term resolution of the Kurdish issue is to be achieved - Nicholas Hildyard, Policy Analyst.
The book is an exceptionally important read for anyone with a broad interest in human rights and social justice. It has a scholarly account of the historical background to the present awful situation of Turkish Armenians and Turkish Kurds. In particular, the book provides a powerful comparative analysis of the policies of the US, Israel and Turkey in terms of their rationale for labelling human atrocities as genocide — Dr. Julia Kathleen Davidson, Research Fellow, Faculty of Education, University of Glasgow and Membership Secretary of Scotland Against Criminalising communities (SACC).
In this important book, Desmond Fernandes exposes the details of the sordid and largely hidden role of Israel and the US Israel Lobby in preventing Congress from recognizing the Turkish genocide of the Armenians - Jeff Blankfort, Former Editor, Middle East Labour Bulletin.
Among its Cold War victories the United States certainly succeeded in its ambition to make the world safe for nationalism. As identity politics is reprocessed as a function of global capital, and rehabilitated as its natural ally, Desmond Fernandes documents the fractured consequences of the ready-made social fantasy - Variant: Cross Currents in Culture.
Fernandes’ painstaking investigation sheds much needed light on the collusion between the Turkish State and the Israel lobby in preventing recognition of one of the darkest episodes of the past century, the genocide of Ottoman Turkey's ethnic Armenians - Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, Spinwatch.
Desmond Fernandes writes for those who spoke the truth and were murdered, those who spoke 200 days ago and are still imprisoned, and for those who live in terror and in silence, or who meet in nameless buildings, so that the words ‘Genocide’, ethnic cleansing, or the Turkish military word ‘Temizleme’, may be heard as a siren call for the muted victims of the Turkish state - Diamanda Galas, Composer and Performer of Songs of Exile, Vena Cava, Schrei X, Plague Mass and Defixiones, Will And Testament.
Desmond Fernandes is a policy analyst and former Senior Lecturer in Human Geography and Genocide Studies at De Montfort University, England. He has published widely in a number of journals and is co-author of Genozid an den Kurden in der Ttirkei? - Verfolgung, Krieg und Zerstdrung der ethnischen Identitat (2001, Medico International, Frankfurt). Forthcoming titles by the author include The Kurdish Genocide in Turkey and US, UK, German, Israeli and NATO ‘Inspired’ Psychological Warfare Operations against the ‘Kurdish Threat’ in Turkey and Northern Iraq, due to be published by Apec Press, Stockholm.
FOREWORD
These two articles by Desmond Fernandes are important for three main reasons. They document meticulously how and why Turkey’s continued oppression of the Kurds means that the country does not qualify for membership of the EU. Secondly, the articles draw attention to the courageous action of people of Turkish nationality who rank their loyalty to historical truth and present-day realities higher than obedience to those Turkish laws that manifestly do not live up to universal human rights standards. Thirdly, the articles demonstrate the complicity of individuals and government representatives in Western countries in condoning Turkish state terror and in falsifying the historical fact of the Armenian genocide. This malign hypocrisy masquerades as scholarship or political ‘realism’ in countries that claim to respect the rule of law and human rights principles. Turkey is of vital importance in NATO, in Middle East politics, and to the European Union. There is therefore a real need for in-depth analysis to be presented faithfully and dispassionately.
The international visibility of eminent novelists like Orhan Pamuk and Elif Safak ensures that their subtle criticism of Turkish legal practices and political culture reaches a wide international public. What is also needed for an understanding of Turkey is detailed historical analysis and scholarly insight into the perceptions and myths that contribute to the identity and beliefs of key actors on the Turkish scene and in the wider population. This is precisely w hat is provided by Fernandes, both in his own w ork analysing the denial of Armenian genocide and in his useful presentation of the significance, nationally and internationally, of the work of Ahmet Kahraman. His book and the cases cited by Fernandes show how the nationalist Kemalist cause is being ruthlessfy promoted not only in Turkes’ but also by the Turkish state elsewhere. In particular in the United States and the United Kingdom, ‘anti-terrorist’ measures are being used to restrict freedom of expression. Machinations, covert and overt, of a fundamentally unethical and reprehensible kind are being increasingly exposed, initially for a Turkish readership in the case of Kahraman's book and now for an international public. 1 feel honoured to write a few words of introduction.
I have followed Kurdish issues for decades. 1 have recently visited the Kurdish regions of both Turkey and Iraq. I was for many years on the board of the Danish Centre for Human Rights. Perhaps most relevant of all, when endorsing scholarship that is critical of the established order, my own experience of writing controversial books and articles tells me how demanding and uphill such a struggle is. The powerful are perfectly capable of misrepresenting w hat one has w ritten, using not-so-subtle ‘peer group' pressure, and by resorting to many forms of symbolic violence that ultimately aim at silencing one and depriving one of one's livelihood. This is what Fernandes has experienced at the hands of both those whose actions he is critically analysing, and, more surprisingly, also those who ought to be making common cause, political and academic, with him. This is still the reality for those bold enough to defy the massive psychological and physical pressures that the Turkish state imposes not only on its own citizens but also on others who expose the violations of human rights perpetrated by the Turkish state. In the case of Ahmet Kahraman, suppression has meant victimisation, death threats, court cases, and exile.
Some of my work has necessitated coming to grips with aspects of the past and present that those in power would rather keep secret. My experience confirms the conclusions drawn by Mark Curtis in Unpeople: Britain’s secret human rights abuses (London: Vintage, 2004):
1) the culture of lying and misleading the electorate is deeply embedded in British policy-making;
2) by contrast the secret record of official files is quite open about goals that differ markedly from what is made public. Foreign-policy making is so ‘secretive, elitist and unaccountable that policymakers know they can get away with almost anything’;
3) humanitarian concerns do not figure at all in the rationale behind British foreign policy.
Tony Blair’s lying about the Iraq war provides a vivid example of these three, in tandem with similar behaviour by George W. Bush. The denial by the Danish Prime Minister, after taking his country to war for the first time since 1864, of responsibility for the Danish cartoon crisis fits into the same mould. The efforts of Amnesty International and International PEN (especially their ‘Writers in Prison’ thrust) are thus needed worldwide. They are particularly needed in relation to Turkey because of the inhuman treatment of not only individuals but also the attempted linguistic and cultural genocide, elimination of the cultural and linguistic
identity of a major ethnolinguistic group, the Kurds (see Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove & Fernandes, Desmond, in press. 'Kurds in Turkey and in [Iraqi] Kurdistan - A comparison of Kurdish educational language policy in two situations of occupation'. Genocide Studies and Prevention 3:1). Fernandes’ articles in this monograph go a long way tow ards explaining w hy a fundamental change of policy is needed, an admission of past wrongs, and a clear road map for a more just social order - Professor Robert Phillipson, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.
Acknowledgements
My thanks in particular to Iskender Ozden for his inspirational support and invaluable critical feedback during the course of the writing of this book.
I would also like to thank Anter Anter, Yasar Kaya, Hiiseyin Yildinm, Nejdet Buldan, Kemal Burkay, Mahmut Kilinç, Selahattin Celik. Sabri Atman, Serhat Bucak and Ahmet Kahraman for allowing me to interview them. 1 treasure my discussions and critical debates with Tove Skutnabb Kangas, Geoff P, Mik, Andrew P, Khatchatur, Richard, Natalia, Margaret Close, Chris Krissimos. E. Francis, David W, Nicky G, Mohanraj, Bub, Mary Thomas, Anthony Tingle, Joan Farries, Robert M, Zinur, Leigh, Bob S, Mizgin, Ali, Eddie, Cesar T, Ahmet and Ray Sibbald.
For their moral support, 1 would dearly like to thank Maria, "Bushu". Nigel. Owen T. Nick, Craig, Billy S, Leo, Andy M, Nigel S, Martin, Norman, Evin, James M, Temo. Seda. Shivakumar, Anita, Florence, Anna, F. Dussaigne, S. Eugenius, the CAMPACC collective, Adrienne C. Siobhan, Pam, Mustafa, Paul, Patrick M, Arzu, Margaret, Vehbi Ozden, Noam, Melek Ozden, Caro, Miranda, Andy H, Pratima, Kala, Kamala, Janet, Indu, Uma, Prabhu, Melwin, Shankar, Gareth, Hovhanness, Karam, Agatha, Vivi G, Tine D, Ian N, Suna, Ben, Helen, Evelyn, Zelka, Irene, Chris A, Birte N, Anne S, Gorka. Sandra, Ander, Alistair Q, Sean G, Gavin, Vanessa, David, Steve H, Colin, Alex, Vaughan, Iain, Rico. Pio, David, “M", Rochelle, Amanda, Naomi, Nick K, Mark C, Ingmar L, Helen. Luke, Enrico, Jan, John P, Sophie, Sandy, Terry, Natesh, Chris, Ian, John H, Richard Smith, Jude and Thomas M.
Manoharapushpaayai
You just set your feet on the cement,
And the cement turned into green fields.
You looked up, and laughed,
At the gate of my cage, roses blossomed,
And when your eyes dampened in grief,
It seemed the thread stringing your beads snapped ...
My den, wide like my heart, and free
Turned glorious like freedom ...'
¹ Excerpt from Nazim Hikmet's “You're Welcome”, as reproduced in Pilikian, K. (2005) UNESCO Laureates - Nazim Hikmet and Aram Khatchaturian: For The Green Memory of Pablo Neruda. Taderon, Reading, p. 31. Translated into English by Hovhanness I. Pilikian, from the original Eastern Armenian translation of Gevork Emin.
Udach’Kuqaxa’a’ch’²
² “A sound that calls people from afar” - As translated ftofn Eyak into English - Kolbert, E. (2005) ‘Letter from Alaska: Last Words: A Language Dies’, The New Yorker, 6 June 2005, p, 46.
An internationally respected human rights lawyer, Esber Yagmurdereli, was, in 1996, awaiting a decision to see if he would “be imprisoned until 2018 because of a speech he gave, referring to Turkey’s Kurdish minority, in Istanbul on Human Rights Day, 1991”3
³ Amnesty I ntemational (1997) No Security Without Human Rights. Amnesty International, London (Accessed at: http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/turkey/turkl .htm).
Zealous prosecutors armed with a wide ranging penal code have put over 110 people behind bars for saying or writing something contrary to official views, mainly about the Kurds, said Turkey’s Modem Journalists Association ...
Their crimes? Baskaya, ... a 55 year old Economics professor schooled in France, ... wrote a book critical of Turkey’s socio-economic development and its ideological underpinnings,... and Odabasi wrote poems ...
Consider the couplets that got Odabasi four months behind bars:
What an unjust place
I am in;
I say I am a Kurd;
My songs are full of pain;
I am a melody of pain;
Kurdistan.⁴
…..
⁴ Excerpts from a Reuters dispatch, dated 6 March 1995, as reproduced from Fernandes, D. (2001) ‘From the Windows of Tomorrow: Text to an Exhibition of Works by Desmond Fernandes’, The Lounge Art Exhibition, Leighton Buzzard Theatre, Leighton Buzzard, 30 January 2001 - 24 February 2001.
