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"Turkey and the Armenian Ghost: On the Trail of the
Genocide", by Laure Marchand and Guillaume Perrier and published
in English in March, investigates the aftermath of one of the
20th century's greatest tragedies.
Armenians say 1.5 million of their ethnic kin were slaughtered
by Ottoman Turks in what amounted to genocide.
Turkey denies the massacres were an orchestrated campaign to
annihilate Armenians and says many Muslims also died in the
turmoil of a global war and the subsequent collapse of the
Ottoman Empire. A much more ethnically homogeneous Turkish
Republic was founded in 1923 on the empire's ashes.
Marchand and Perrier, who worked as Istanbul correspondents for
a decade for France's Le Figaro and Le Monde newspapers,
respectively, accept the premise that genocide was committed, as
do most Western scholars. They focus their work on examining the
impact its denial has left on both sides.
"In Turkey, 1915 does not belong to the past but to the present
because history has not been confronted. The Armenian issue is
alive, like a ghost walking the country," Perrier said.
Q: Why does a 100-year-old historical event still haunt
both Turks and Armenians?
Marchand: Turkey's inability to face its past still has
consequences, whether it's in diplomacy or its treatment of
minorities today, like the Kurdish issue. Turkish people are
forced to share this big secret upon which their country was
founded. Confronting the past ... is a key point in the
democratization of Turkey.
For Armenians around the world, their identity is based on
genocide, constructed by a diaspora that had nothing when it
left ... Their grandchildren carry the same ideas about Turkey,
even though they did not live it.
Q: Turkey argues that the genocide is not a legal or
historical reality but Erdogan has offered his condolences over
the loss of life. Why does Turkey refuse to call it a genocide?
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Perrier: Turkey is now a rich, confident country, it can face these
charges. In the end, it is symbolic. As a new country, Turkey was
built on the genocide, the economy was built on confiscated
property. It was the founding event.
Marchand: We met the family of the owner of the land and vineyard
house at the (former presidential) palace of Cankaya (in the capital
Ankara). This helps us understand how deeply rooted this is in the
Turkish state. Cankaya, the symbol of the republic, was property
that used to belong to an Armenian.
Q: Are you seeing movement in Turkish civil society toward
reconciliation?
Marchand: It is easier to talk about this issue today than 10 years
ago. We couldn't have found a publisher in Turkey before. The book
is meant to accompany an ongoing debate.
Perrier: The Kurdish (political party) HDP is targeting
voters who have been excluded by the state for their identity. They
recognize the suffering of Armenians because of their own suffering.
People in (the mainly Kurdish city of) Diyarbakir speak quite freely
now about their Armenian origin.
Q: What are the ghosts you refer to in your title?
Perrier: The ghosts are Islamicized Armenians, descendants of
those who converted (from Christianity) to survive the genocide. The
Kurdish issue is a ghost. The killing of Armenian journalist Hrant
Dink in 2007 and his murderers' links with the state. All of the
churches. When you travel into Turkey, it is surprising how easily
you can find the ruins of churches. Along the border with Syria,
where you find refugee camps today, are the same sites where camps
for the deportation of Armenians stood, in exactly the same places.
These are the ghosts.
(Editing by Daren Butler, Michael Roddy and Gareth Jones)
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