Harun İlhan
Jan Devletoğlu, who has been practicing journalism for a
long time now, has attracted attention with his recent memoirs, “İyi Kötü
Ermeni” (good-bad Armenian). Our first question was about the title of the
book. He noted that the title can be traced back to his childhood, when he was
working in a small store: “My boss Jule sent me to a state office so that I
would give bribe money to a manager there. The director took the envelope and
told me that Jule is a good Armenian. This influenced me greatly and made me think.
I concluded that Armenians are generally bad but that Jule was not one of those
bad Armenians. He was a good-bad Armenian.” (Jan Devletoğlu)
The many incidents of discrimination he faced form the main
theme and subject of the book. He does not, however, define the book as merely
a personal biography, saying: “The name of the book will not change if you
narrate the stories of any people who have been discriminated against,
regardless of their identities. As I noted in the preface of the book, I am
sick of being a good-bad Armenian in my own country.”
We kept talking about discrimination; at some point, we
started chatting about his son, Rafi, a name that has its own story. Devletoğlu
picked this name to protect his son against discrimination in case he ever
chose to live and study in Turkey, because Rafi is a popular name in Islam as
well as in other religions. He says: “Given that the state does not consider
stopping its discriminatory practices or taking the religion section off ID
cards, I needed to take a measure of protection and make sure that the religion
of my son would be recorded as Islam. I needed to protect a young individual
against biases, stereotypes, discrimination and religious pressure. For me,
religion is a personal thing, a decision that should be made by the individual.
I believe that what I did was right. I made efforts to do this in the
consulate. You cannot have your rights without a fight.”
‘My religion was recorded as Islam on my ID; I was as happy
as if I had won the lottery’
Devletoğlu's religion was mistakenly changed to Islam on his
ID when he went to get a new one. He felt as if he had won the lottery, because
on his previous ID card the religion section read “Armenian” and “Catholic.”
For a brief period of time, Islam superficially eliminated the sense of being
part of a lower class or of a minority. According to Devletoğlu, the state had
profiled him on the ID card, and for this reason, he was humiliated all the
time: “This mistake saved me from discrimination for a while. Now I can take a
copy of my ID card and use it in official places and hotels instead of my
passport which I preferred, as a more secular ID, in the past.”
‘You cannot publish a report abroad without verifying it
through at least two sources’
Of course, I wanted to take the opportunity to ask this
veteran journalist about the current state of affairs of Turkish media. He
said: “In order to attain the truth in Turkish media, I have to read at least
three papers, and throw at least 50 percent of what I read away. So you do the
math.”
Devletoğlu maintained that it is quite different to be a
journalist abroad, explaining: “You cannot publish a report without verifying
it through at least two reliable sources. If you do, and it turns out that the
report is falsified, you can no longer do that job. A journalist has to comply
with the principles of the profession. When you do not, you become an outcast.
The best-selling paper in the UK had to shut down because it violated
journalistic principles.”
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