Written by William Foreman
ANN ARBOR—When Fatma Muge Gocek came to the U.S. for
graduate school, she was introduced to a student who was Armenian. He smiled
and asked where she was from. When Gocek said, “Turkey,” the grin disappeared
and his face became full of intense hatred. His next question was: “Why did you massacre my
grandparents?” A bit shocked, she responded, “I have not massacred
anyone to my knowledge. Neither have my parents.”
(An Armenian refugee found dead in a field in Syria during the genocide.)
The exchange left Gocek feeling uneasy and perplexed. She
had no idea what the man was talking about. The Turkish history books she grew
up with made no mention of any massacres of Armenian civilians. And they still
don’t.
She could have reacted the same way many other Turks do:
shrugging off the Armenian allegations as the crazy rantings of enemies of
Turkey. But Gocek was different. She began to question whether the version of
history she was taught was missing something major.
“I had to come here to the U.S. to learn my own history,”
said Gocek, now a sociology professor at the University of Michigan.
Fatma Muge Gocek, U-M professor of sociology, has written
a new book about the Armenian genocide.
The angry Armenian man was referring to the mass killing,
rape and deportation of Armenians that began 100 years ago on April 24, 1915
throughout the Ottoman Empire. At least 1 million people—mostly Armenians—died
in the state-sanctioned violence, one of the first acts of genocide in the 20th
century.
Gocek said Turkey still argues it wasn’t a genocide. Its
official position is that reciprocal massacres killed 100,000 to 400,000
Armenians and at least 1.5 million Turks.
But Gocek said that the 1.5 million Turkish deaths were
mostly soldiers killed during World War I. In other words, Turkey is equating
the deaths of civilian Armenians by their own state with the wartime deaths of
Turkish soldiers by enemy soldiers, she added.
Turkish authorities have worked hard to try to cover up
the genocide. During her graduate school years, Gocek said she received letters
from Turkey’s Ministry of Education offering her a full scholarship if she did
a dissertation proving Turkish innocence with the Armenian issue.
“I said, ‘What kind of job would I have after that?’” she
said. “I just threw it to the side.”
As Gocek learned more about the genocide, she became
interested in why states and societies deny violence. She tackles the question
in her new book, Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present and
Collective Violence Against the Armenians 1789-2009.
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199334209.do
Writing a book about such a politicized, highly charged
issue involves a lot of hardship, sacrifice and risk for a Turk. Gocek has lost
friends and received death threats. She could be sentenced to prison for three
years in Turkey because it’s illegal to challenge the state’s position on the
Armenian issue.
Her research has also prompted people to question her
ethnicity.
“The Armenian side tells me I must have some Armenian
blood in me unbeknownst to me. They say, ‘Deep down you are a very civilized
person, so there must be some Armenian blood in you that makes you so
civilized,’” she said.
“The Turkish nationalists have the same reaction,” she
added. “They say there must be something wrong with you. You cannot be pure
Turkish. Your blood must be tainted by Armenian blood, and that is why you are
saying the things you’re saying.”
Although she does not believe she is personally guilty of
genocide, Gocek feels responsible for it.
“I am responsible in that the Turkish state and society
to which I belong still does not acknowledge what went on and because of that I
personally apologize to all those Armenians,” she said.
Gocek’s book argues that a number of events and factors
make up a complex “collective layer of denial” that keeps Turkey from
acknowledging the genocide. The events include land disputes, failed Ottoman
reforms, the humiliating loss in the First Balkan War and a willingness to view
Armenians as proxies for enemy Western powers.
“This continues until this day,” Gocek said. “If
something unsettling happens in Turkey, the first culprits are always in the
West.”
When she began working on her book 15 years ago, Gocek
was certain that the Turkish state would acknowledge the genocide. There has
been some progress. More liberal Turkish scholars have taken a stand against
the denial, and the Kurdish minority in Turkey has publicly acknowledged its
role in the genocide.
Gocek’s next project will be researching the violence
against the Kurds. After the Turkish state annihilated the Armenians, she said,
they used the same people and methods against the Kurds.
Next year, she also plans to teach a course about
terrorism, torture and violence.
“People argue that denial is the last stage of genocide
in the sense that by denying what happened, you prevent healing from
happening,” she said. “We need that healing to happen not only for the
Armenians but for the Turks by taking responsibility.”
Related links:
Fatma Muge Gocek’s bio
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/soc/people/faculty/ci.gekfatmamge_ci.detail
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/soc/people/faculty/ci.gekfatmamge_ci.detail
Armenian Studies Program at U-M
http://www.ii.umich.edu/asp
http://www.ii.umich.edu/asp
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