I am back in Los Angeles but a part of me is still under the wafting tear gas clouds that were fired indiscriminately at civilians in Taksim Square. Protesters, senior citizens, schoolchildren, street vendors, and tourists were all fair game. Everyone was fodder and none walked away from these streets unaffected by what they witnessed. On the heels of returning from the majesty of Historic Armenia, I had returned to a seemingly business-as-usual Bolis that exploded into a national movement against the policies of Prime Minister Erdogan and his administration.
***
I haven’t had time to digest what I saw this past week on
the heels of my first journey to the womb of Armenian civilization:
Van/Vaspurakan. Dikranakert. Kharpert, the fabled green villages of Bitlis, and
the hinterlands of Palu and Sakrat. My fellow travelers, now brothers and
sisters for life, trekked across these majestic and cruel roads that hold many
secrets. The stubborn rocks jetting from the earth gave us anchor. The
mud-covered ruins inside the Armenian cemetery in Edremit in Van, though, put
holes in our hearts as we stood before it, bulldozed and abandoned, next to the
fresh asphalt of a curving street. It was not development. It was erasure. Rest
assured that the bones, now dust, still silently scatter on spirits like us who
wander through these roads seeking ancestral root. Not politics, nor the
millions spent on genocide denial, can change what remains in the crevices of
these stones, where our dead lie buried and anonymous but never forgotten.
Perhaps that is the last defense of a people that has been erased from its
historic cradle—to hold a flame to memory and preserve what remains of a
civilization that flourished once upon a time in Historic Armenia.
A snapshot from Taksim (iPhone photo by Eric Nazarian)
We had gone in search of our ancestral past and found
unbelievable gifts, including a heartbreaking encounter with the last Armenian
survivor of the genocide in Chunkush. And just days after these encounters on
the road, something happened in Bolis that may or may not signal a seismic shift
in the public awakening and politics of Turkey. I wish I could be more exact,
but it’s a very brittle transitional phase “over there”; the effects of this
uprising have yet to be defined once the smoke and mirrors clear, and deals
start being negotiated between the powers-that-be and the opposition—saddled
with grievances and proofs of injustice that can surely be stacked as high as
Musa Dagh in the wake of what world news has broadcast this past week.
I am back in Los Angeles but a part of me is still under
the wafting tear gas clouds that were fired indiscriminately at civilians in
Taksim Square. Protesters, senior citizens, schoolchildren, street vendors, and
tourists were all fair game. Everyone was fodder and none walked away from
these streets unaffected by what they witnessed. On the heels of returning from
the majesty of Historic Armenia, I had returned to a seemingly
business-as-usual Bolis that exploded into a national movement against the
policies of Prime Minister Erdogan and his administration.
The Revolution Will Be Tweeted
I was there at the Divan Hotel, just off Gezi Park, on
the day the straw broke the camel’s back. The protesters had been kicked out of
the park, and construction fences—stamped with Polis in dark blue—now cordoned
off one of the last patches of green in Istanbul. Behind the fence were
uniformed paramilitary police officers strapped with tear gas and pepper spray,
and giant trucks with water canons where the turret of a tank would be.
Slowly fumes wafted toward the hotel. Two women dropped
from the smell; even though there was no time to do a Q&A, they were
showing all the signs of asthmatics suffering from asthma attacks no doubt
aggravated by the tear gas. We surrounded the first lady and carried her in. In
a blink, despite the growing number of civilians passing out by the
indiscriminate tear gas, several more projectiles were fired directly at the
crowd. The protesters scattered as a projectile pounded a well-known
investigative journalist, Ahmed Sik, right in the head. Blood-covered, he was
hurried to the hospital.
A simple protest in the park soon went viral and
international. The seeds of the uprising, now spread to cities across Turkey,
was sparked and aggravated by a disregard for civilians by men hired to uphold
the peace. Perhaps we will never know why these protesters were subjected to
such violence. Regardless of what may or may not change the political dynamics
in Turkey, nothing will change the story of the cook that held claim to this
very plot of land now crawling with well over 200,000 people chanting cries of
justice, and expressing rage against the machine of Erdogan that was slowly
eroding their freedoms.
Taksim (iPhone photo by Eric Nazarian)
At the risk of sounding Orientalist, when a friend of
mine asked what Istanbul felt like I could only think of the slabs of meat that
in the U.S. we call shawarma. In Istanbul they call it doner. It’s quite a
sight to behold: a fast-food cook hauling a massive gob of pressed, ground, and
oily chicken or beef, marinated, put on a vertical spit, and slow roasted. Like
the doner slab, Istanbul is nothing if not a massive mash-up of Roman,
Byzantine, and Ottoman civilizations. At the center of this historic city
stands a park in Taksim, and under it lies another spicy layer of the city’s
labyrinthine history.
The Armenian Cook Who Saved Suleiman’s Life
This story is well known and still often told in Bolis.
In the 16th century, there was a plot to assassinate Suleiman the Magnificent.
The assassins got to the sultan’s cook, an Armenian from Van, with an offer to
kill the sultan. The cook refused, informing Suleiman and saving his life. For
his loyalty, Suleiman asked the cook to choose a gift, and it would be granted.
The cook asked for land where Armenians could bury their
dead. The sultan officially decreed a sizable plot of real estate in Bolis
where Armenians could build a final resting place for their families. That real
estate became the Surp Hagop Armenian Cemetery, which at this very moment lies
buried under the Divan and Intercontinental Hotels and Gezi Park. In the crowd
at Gezi now are Armenians and Turks standing shoulder-to-shoulder, carrying
placards that read, “Nor Zartonk” (New Awakening), highlighting through the
magic marker that Gezi was once an Armenian cemetery. A photo posted on
Facebook shows a cardboard grave erected in Gezi with the words Surp Hagop
Ermeni Mezarligi [Armenian Cemetery] 1551–1939. Below it on a yellow sheet are
the English words: “You captured our graveyard, but you can’t capture our park!
Armenians from Turkey NOR ZARTONK.” This prime stretch of real estate, which
was private Armenian property officially decreed by Sultan Suleiman, was
confiscated in 1939.
Istanbul is ripe with the ironies and cruelties of
history. The story of the cemetery’s confiscation after hundreds of years of
existence is but another example of the forced erasure that my friends and I
witnessed in the ravages of the cemetery in Edremit, overlooking the timeless
Aghtamar Island. In Edremit, there were the weather-beaten and toppled
gravestones. In Taksim, there are the voices of the young Zartonk Armenians
combating oblivion by telling stories, making and circulating images, and being
heard and seen online.
Today in the park stand many different people from all
factions of life who don’t necessarily agree with those who initially stood
their ground to save the park. Will the protesters ever know what’s buried
under Gezi and Divan Hotel? Will it matter to them in the long run? How will
this movement affect Armenian-Turkish relations, and to what extent when the
noise dies down? It’s all too soon to tell.
iPhone Guerrillas
Imagine if Armin Wegner had an iPhone 5 during the
Armenian Genocide that could record video? This past Saturday, we went for a
very long walk on the same boulevard where we saw the pangs of this movement
and the asthmatic woman, whose name, or fate, I probably will never know. Away
from the smoke and chaos, I kept wondering about the questions that ran through
Wegner’s mind when he documented the genocide. The need to document injustice,
atrocity, and the erasure of a cultural past is also the fundamental role of
those who stand on the side of human rights. In the thick of the parade on the
streets, I was irritated by the sight of vendors selling gas masks and surgical
face masks for the price of an arm, and the newly married couple driving up and
down the street with their video entourage filming as thousands cheered them
on.
My mind wandered back to the soggy graves in Van where we
photographed the abandoned remains of gravestones that will likely not be there
the next time we return. Even if the nameless and faceless powers-that-be
continue to destroy them, any act of resistance we can initiate can hopefully
help preserve that piece of our cultural heritage.
As I watched the wedding entourage cruise through the
boulevard where the late Hrant Dink was murdered, I wrote in my notebook: I
want to not live in fear, come what may. Regardless of landscape or country, to
bear witness to injustice, even if I can’t stop it, is something worth doing if
it can make a lasting difference for the good.
In the morning, the fight was about the park. By late
afternoon, it had spiraled into a conscientious battle for freedom and human
rights. A generation woke up armed with Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube against
the guns. The protest continued peacefully for the most part, minus the
jackasses throwing up ugly graffiti on school walls and bus stops. The well-intentioned
protest (to a certain extent) became a bit of a Mardi Gras-style parade
Turkish-style minus the jazz. The boulevard was peppered with thousands of
crushed water bottles, shattered glass, and youth sipping Tuborg, Efes, or
Bomonti beer, mock-saluting Erdogan in defiance of his ban on the public
consumption of alcohol.
En route to Munich, I read a quote in the Lufthansa
in-flight magazine from “Sunshine” Sonny Payne, an American radio show host,
who said of American blues music, “Real blues should be taken in small
sips…it’s just like learning to drink whisky. Take small sips, or else the
blues will knock you down.” There are no truer words to describe the feeling of
both bearing witness to the ancient remains of Historic Armenia and the current
political tinderbox in Bolis.
10 Comments to “Graves in the Park: Notes from the
‘Bolis’ Uprising”
Diran // June 9, 2013 at 10:08 am // Reply
Thank you for one of the most electrifyingly eloquent
pieces I have ever read.
Karekin // June 9, 2013 at 11:06 am // Reply
Gezi Park sends a very sad and highly a symbolic message
about Turkey overall – that it is the gravesite of not just many thousands of
Armenians over hundreds of years, but of Armenia itself. When that cemetery,
gifted to us by the sultan, was taken and destroyed by republican Turkey, I
believe that was the exact message these new post-Ottoman leaders were sending.
Happily, Armenians are still present in Turkey, albeit in much smaller numbers,
to remind Turks of their past.
Greg Arzoomanian // June 9, 2013 at 7:55 pm //
Reply
Thanks for the article. I had some trepidation with
answering the calls for action on Gezi Park from Amnesty International: the
last time Armenians helped Turks fight oppression was when Krikor Zohrab hid
Talaat Pasha.
Rifat // June 10, 2013 at 12:53 am //
The people in Turkey are brave enough to stand up for a
better democratic future for their country, via protest. Why don’t you guys do
the same in your motherland, to overthrow Serj Sarkisian and his corrupted
oligarchs who is robbing Armenia bankrupt?
john // June 10, 2013 at 8:42 am //
yeah, and was beheaded by him
john // June 10, 2013 at 8:46 am //
Right! The people in Turkey were brave enough to
slaughter unarmed and defenseless women, children, and the elders. The people
in Turkey were brave enough to disarm men and kill them en masse. The people in
Turkey were brave enough to gang rape young girls. The people in Turkey were
brave enough to crush newborns’ heads against the walls. The people in Turkey
were brave enough to rip off mothers’ wombs and destroy fetuses. What a “brave”
nation the Turks are!
Avery // June 10, 2013 at 9:22 am //
Rifat:
Last thing we need is advice to us Armenians from a
denialist Turk such as yourself about RoA.
Pretty much every problem Armenian people have, can be
traced to the cursed day when Seljuk Turks showed up uninvited at the Eastern
edges of Asia Minor, Armenian Highlands.
Instead of giving us advice, sit down with your denialist
buddies and figure out how to pay for all the damage you Turks have caused and
are causing Armenia and Armenians.
.
As to Pres. Serj Sargsyan:
There was a protest on April 9th, 2013 against his election
on inauguration day.
About 8,000 people showed up: an insignificant number.
The President was elected 58% vs 37%.
In recent Yerevan municipal elections Pres Sargsyan’s RPA
Party got 56%.
Good or bad, people of Armenia freely elected to stay
with RPA.
.
One last thing:
Go watch the videos of the April 9th, 2013 protest in
Yerevan.
Compare how reserved Armenian cops behaved with the
savagery dished out to peaceful Turkish protesters by your savage Turkish cops.
No doubt on orders of megalomaniac Erdogan.
Then go and give advice to your people on how to
overthrow the fascist Islamist – if they can.
(no they can’t: Erdogan was popularly elected and has
very strong backing from about 50%+ Islamist electorate of Turkey).
elpasohye // June 9, 2013 at 8:09 pm // Reply
The demonstrations at the Gazi Park located in Taksim
Square are very mild today compared to what will be a very major one two years
from now on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. If
Turkey does (people cheering) or does not (people jeering) acknowledge the
Genocide at this time there will be a demonstration there. To convert it to
shopping mall and a former Turkish army barracks would be a way to diminish the
amount of people gathering in one spot to protest. There will be more thinking
ahead of what Turkey must do to prevent extremely huge protests in the future
concerning the Armenian Genocide. There will be demonstrations the world over
in April 2019 and Turkey will stick it’s head in the sand and pretend it never
happened and will try to contain any demonstrations in Turkey as much as
possible. Eliminating the Gazi Park is one way to do this.
RVDV // June 9, 2013 at 9:10 pm //
The sun does not rise and set over Armenia.
john // June 10, 2013 at 8:29 am //
yes, RVDV, but this is an Armenian online forum, in case
you didn’t notice…
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