A Storyteller's Quest
By Khatchig Mouradian
ZNet
March 14, 2006
"Anatolia has always been a mosaic of flowers,
filling the world with flowers and light.
I want it to be the same today"
Yasar Kemal
The Anatolia Yasar Kemal, arguably the greatest Turkish author of the 20th century, wants to see and the Anatolia he can actually see today cannot possibly be considered the same region of Turkey. What was a century ago a mosaic of ethnic and religious groups (Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Turks, Kurds, etc.) is now almost homogenized through blood and destruction, and the memory of many of the peoples that once dwelled in the region of Eastern Turkey is being negligently allowed to pass into oblivion.
A number of Turkish intellectuals are striving to push Turkey to face its past and recognize the "mosaic of flowers" that Anatolia once was. Will their vision one day become reality? Much depends on the changes currently taking place in Turkey. Novelist Elif Shafak, one of the courageous intellectuals struggling today for the preservation of memory and recognition of cultural diversity, spoke to me of Turkey today and the Turkey she would like to see tomorrow.
The Two Faces of Turkey
"I feel connected to so many things in Turkey, especially in Istanbul. The city, the people, the customs of women, the enchanting world of superstitions, my grandmother's almost magical cosmos, my mother's humanism, and the warmth, the sincerity of the people," Shafak tells me, speaking of her native country. "At the same time I feel no connection whatsoever to its main ideology, its state structure and army," she notes.
Turkey is the country of opposites which oftentimes, defying the laws of physics, repel one another. Eastern and Western, Islamic and secular at the same time, the country is torn between democracy and dictatorship, memory and amnesia. These dualities, bordering on schizophrenia, are unsettling for Shafak, an author of five published novels. "I think there are two undercurrents in Turkey, both very old. One is nationalist, exclusivist, xenophobic and reactionary. The other is cosmopolitan, Sufi, humanist, embracing. It is the second tide that I feel connected to," she says.
Not surprisingly, the first tide she mentions is not at all happy with her line of conduct. Hate-mail and accusations of being a traitor to her country have become commonplace for the young writer.
"The nationalist discourse in Turkey-- just like the Republicans in the USA-- is that if you are criticizing your government, you do not like your nation. This is a lie. Only and only if you care about something you will reflect upon it, give it further thought. I care about Turkey. It hurts me to be accused of hating my country," she explains.
However, Elif Shafak, who spent most of her childhood and adolescence in Europe and later moved to Turkey to pursue her studies, is anything but wrong when she points out that her country has come a long way in the last few years. "There are very important changes underway in Turkey. Sometimes, in the West, Turkey looks more black-and-white than it really is, but the fact remains that Turkey's civil society is multifaceted and very dynamic. Especially over the past two decades there have been fundamental transformations," she says.
"The bigger the change, the deeper the panic of those who want to preserve the status quo," she adds.
A cornered tiger is the fiercest, however, as an Eastern proverb says. This is why the prospect of membership to the European Union (EU) is deemed necessary by the country’s cosmopolitan undercurrent, which is struggling against the status quo. For decades, those, who have dared to challenge the official rhetoric on a wide spectrum of issues, have faced oppression, persecution, and imprisonment, and they know well that the only way not to take the country back in time is to keep it going in the direction of the EU. Shafak herself believes that Turkey's bid to join the EU "is an important process for progressive forces both within and outside the country". She adds: "Definitely the whole process will reinforce democracy, human rights and minority rights. It will diminish the role of the state apparatuses, and most importantly the shadow of the military in the political arena."
Dealing with the Turkish Society's 'Underbelly'
"For me, the recognition of 1915 is connected to my love for democracy and human rights," says Shafak. 1915 is the year when the Turkish government embarked on a genocidal campaign to exterminate the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. This topic remained the greatest of all taboos in Turkey until very recently.
Although the Armenian genocide is acknowledged by most genocide scholars and many parliaments around the world, the Turkish government's official stand maintains that the Armenians were not subjected to a state sponsored annihilation process that killed more than a million and a half people in 1915-16. The Armenians were, the Turkish official viewpoint argues, the victims of ethnic strife or war and starvation, just like many Muslims living in the Ottoman Empire during WWI. Moreover, according to the official historiography in Turkey, the number of the Armenians that died due to these "unfortunate events" is exaggerated.
Like a growing number of fellow Turkish intellectuals, it is against this policy of denial that Elif Shafak rages. "If we had been able to face the atrocities committed against the Armenians in Anatolia, it would have been more difficult for the Turkish state to commit atrocities against the Kurds," she argues.
"A society based on amnesia cannot have a mature democracy," she adds.
Why did she choose to tackle this very sensitive issue, knowing well that harassment and threats were inevitable? "I am a storyteller. If I cannot "feel" other people's pain and grief, I better quit what I am doing. So there is an emotional aspect for me in that I have always felt connected to those pushed to the margins and silenced rather than those at the center", she notes. "This is the pattern in each and every one of my novels; I deal with Turkish society's underbelly."
Her upcoming novel, "The Bastard of Istanbul", is no exception. The Turkish translation of the novel, titled “Baba ve Pic” was released in Turkey on March 8, 2006. The original novel in English will be released in the U.S. in January 2007 out of Penguin/Viking press. "The novel is highly critical of the sexist and nationalist fabric of Turkish society. It is the story of four generations of women in Istanbul. At some point their stories converge with the story of an Armenian woman and, thereby, an Armenian-American family. I have used this family in San Francisco and the family in Istanbul as mirrors," she explains. "Basically, the novel testifies to the struggle of amnesia and memory. It deals with painful pasts both at the individual and collective level," she adds.
The Turkey she would like to see in 2015, a century after the Armenian genocide, stands in deep contrast to the Turkey the world has known for the better part of the past century. It is "a Turkey that is part of EU, a Turkey where women do not get killed on the basis of "family honor", a Turkey where there is no gender discrimination, no violations against minorities; a Turkey which is not xenophobic, homophobic, where each and every individual is treated as valuably as the reflection of the Jamal side of God, its beauty."
It would be hard to disagree with Shafak that only in the Turkey she envisions can cosmopolitism overshadow nationalism and remembrance emerge victorious over denial.
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Sunday, June 3, 2007
An Interview with Peter Balakian
An Interview with Peter Balakian
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
November 13, 2003
"Aztag Daily" contacted Peter Balakian while he was on tour in the United
States, promoting "The Burning Tigris". The acclaimed author agreed to do an
interview by phone. During our one-hour talk, we discussed issues related to
"The Burning Tigris", the Armenian Genocide and the human rights movement it
engendered in the USA , Turkish-Armenian dialogue, and much more...
Aztag- In "The Burning Tigris" you argue that the Armenian genocide
triggered the first human rights movement in US history…
Peter Balakian- The effort to rescue the Armenians in the 1890s from Sultan
Hamid's massacres, which took the lives of around 200000 Armenians before
1896 was over, engendered the first human rights movement in the US. During
the 1890s some 300,000 dollars were raised by Americans and in the genocide
period (from 1915 to 1920) 110 million dollars were raised by what was first
called the "American committee on Armenian atrocities", which became later
"Near-East relief".110 million dollars in today's terms is about 2.5 billion
dollars. It is important to note that both of these movements were
orchestrated by major American intellectual and cultural elites.
Aztag-You are stressing the humanitarian factor. But during calamities of
this enormity, humanitarian efforts are not enough, are they?
Peter Balakian- It's never enough…
Aztag- So intervention should have gone beyond that…
Peter Balakian- "The Burning Tigris" tells the history of the grid-lock
between American cultural philanthropic and relief efforts and the wall in
the state department in the white house preventing these relief efforts from
becoming active intervention in a military or political way. That's part of
the tragic story of the American response.
Aztag-In this respect, can't we draw parallels between what happened in the
USA back then, and what is happening now?
Peter Balakian- I think the Armenian case inaugurated a modern paradigm for
human right issues in the USA. Which is to say that there can be a great
deal of passionate commitment at the grassroots level and among
intellectuals but we have not figured out how to get beyond the barriers
created by the White House. It is still the same problem we are wrestling
with, that's why the Armenian case has so much to teach us.
Aztag-Samantha Power's award-winning book "A Problem from Hell" also
addresses America's response to the Armenian genocide, as well as other
genocides of the 20th century. What are the differences between your and
Power's approach?
Peter Balakian- Samantha Power wrote a brilliant book about America's
ineffective response to genocide throughout the 20th century. My book deals
with how Americans tried hard to help save the Armenian people and the
obstacles they faced from their government.
Aztag-How can such books help create social change?
Social change is complex; it is not a neat and clean process. It is the
result of decades of proper education. If one studies the evolution of the
African-American human rights movement one will see that it took decades and
decades before blacks and whites could sit in the same restaurant and eat
together.
Aztag-Let us talk about the sources you used. A couple of reviews noted that
you have limited yourself to English-language sources.
Peter Balakian- I have used dozens of foreign office records in the UK. The
French and German sources I used were translations. The same goes for
Turkish sources. I have also used hundreds of US State Department sources.
Aztag-Is "The Burning Tigris" a continuation of "Black Dog of Fate" in terms
of your quest to discover your roots?
Peter Balakian- It is a continuation of my pursuit of historical truth. I
don't want to make a simple comparison, because "Black Dog of Fate" was a
memoir. It was a literary exploration of my coming of age as an Armenian
American. It had history in it and it brought history to the reader but it
wasn't history in the methodological sense. "The Burning Tigris" is a
history and its assumptions and conventions are different.
Aztag-What was your motive for writing this book?
Peter Balakian- As an Americanist, as I began to discover how rich the
American history was, I decided to write a story from that perspective. I
knew I would also write a history of the Armenian genocide. I also felt that
our history has never portrayed in a trade book, so I wanted to do that.
Aztag-How and when did the idea of writing "The burning Tigris "come to you?
Peter Balakian- The idea for "The Burning Tigris" came to me while I was on
Tour with "Black Dog of Fate". It came as a result of reading more about the
Armenian genocide and massacres and finding out about Americans who were
involved. I started working on the book in 1999, and continued for 4 years
without a break.
Aztag-Last year, Egoyan's Ararat created widespread awareness about the
Armenian genocide. Now, your book is doing the same. What do you feel about
the politicization of the book? After all, "Black Dog of Fate" was a memoir,
but with this book you have thrown yourself right in the middle of the war
against denial.
Peter Balakian- My motivation was to write a deep, rich history of this
major event in the 20th century. The rest comes with the terrain. Since
there is denial, anybody who writes about this history enters a degree of
political dimension. But I don't want to overemphasize the denial, because
its only a tiny group of corrupt people who are perpetuating it, and nobody
really listening to them, nobody believes. They are able to coerce and bully
at certain levels and I think we are going to see that go away too.
Aztag- Taking into account the strategic importance of turkey in the region,
and in a context where real politics, the "war against terror", and oil
diplomacy, are having an increasingly heavier role, can we see that change
in the near future?
Peter Balakian- Social and political change are unpredictable, they happen
sometimes very quickly after years of preparing the ground for it. I think
that there is no need to deny the Armenian genocide by anybody. Turks must
come to terms with it. It will help them immensely, making them more
progressive in the eyes of Europe and the West. I think the denial is
untenable for Turkey, and as people become educated, the denial becomes more
absurd. Sooner or later they have to acknowledge that this is a waste of
their time and money.
Aztag- The human rights movement you discuss in your book is less explored
by genocide scholars. Are there any parallels to this story in other
countries?
Peter Balakian- Absolutely, One could write books about the pro-Armenian
movement in Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Russia. My hope is
that my book will spawn ideas for many books.
Aztag- Can you compare the awareness of Americans about the Armenian
genocide back then and now?
Peter Balakian- It's a dramatic reversal. Its ironic! President Hoover, as
he was looking back at those years, said that probably only the word
"England" was more deeply embedded in the mind of the American schoolchild
than the word Armenia. That's how popular Armenia was in American mind in
the first decades of the 20th century. Then, that completely evaporated and
the Armenian genocide fell into the amnesia hole. Americans forgot about
it. Now, it is being revived, so I think it's a very exciting time in that
respect. We are recovering lost cultural memory.
Aztag- What was the reason for that amnesia?
Peter Balakian- There were several factors. First the Turkish government's
denial campaign aimed at wiping Armenia out of popular memory. Mustafa
Kemal's new Turkish republic of 1922 wanted the West to drop Armenia from
the radar screen. The United States, for example, caved into Kemal's wishes
because America was interested in making friends with Turkey in the hope of
obtaining the rights to the Mosul oil fields, which were under Turkish
control in the early 1920s. Other American cultural factors made historical
memory of the 1915 Armenian genocide more difficult to achieve until the
late 1960s when the cultural climate changed. I address this in my book.
Aztag- What do you think about Turkish-Armenian dialogue, which is "en
vogue" these days?
Peter Balakian- I think any true and meaningful dialogue can only happen if
there is truth. We can't have debate without truth. Those who come to
converse around a table must acknowledge the truth about the Armenian
genocide and the moral nature of what genocide is, and then we can move
forward.
Aztag- So, in this respect, the recognition of the Armenian genocide is a
prerequisite for you?
Peter Balakian- Yes.
Aztag- Your book relates to Americans. That helps when you are presenting
atrocities that took place in the Middle East a century ago, doesn't it?
Peter Balakian- Yes, Armenian Genocide often seems like Middle Eastern
history that happened long ago in another place, now Americans and Europeans
have the chance to see how deeply the Armenian catastrophe affected the
west, and in the case of my book, the USA in particular.
Aztag- Do you have any plans to travel to the Middle East?
Peter Balakian- Lebanon and Syria are 2 of the most important places in the
history of the Armenian Diaspora and I want to visit them in the near
future.
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
November 13, 2003
"Aztag Daily" contacted Peter Balakian while he was on tour in the United
States, promoting "The Burning Tigris". The acclaimed author agreed to do an
interview by phone. During our one-hour talk, we discussed issues related to
"The Burning Tigris", the Armenian Genocide and the human rights movement it
engendered in the USA , Turkish-Armenian dialogue, and much more...
Aztag- In "The Burning Tigris" you argue that the Armenian genocide
triggered the first human rights movement in US history…
Peter Balakian- The effort to rescue the Armenians in the 1890s from Sultan
Hamid's massacres, which took the lives of around 200000 Armenians before
1896 was over, engendered the first human rights movement in the US. During
the 1890s some 300,000 dollars were raised by Americans and in the genocide
period (from 1915 to 1920) 110 million dollars were raised by what was first
called the "American committee on Armenian atrocities", which became later
"Near-East relief".110 million dollars in today's terms is about 2.5 billion
dollars. It is important to note that both of these movements were
orchestrated by major American intellectual and cultural elites.
Aztag-You are stressing the humanitarian factor. But during calamities of
this enormity, humanitarian efforts are not enough, are they?
Peter Balakian- It's never enough…
Aztag- So intervention should have gone beyond that…
Peter Balakian- "The Burning Tigris" tells the history of the grid-lock
between American cultural philanthropic and relief efforts and the wall in
the state department in the white house preventing these relief efforts from
becoming active intervention in a military or political way. That's part of
the tragic story of the American response.
Aztag-In this respect, can't we draw parallels between what happened in the
USA back then, and what is happening now?
Peter Balakian- I think the Armenian case inaugurated a modern paradigm for
human right issues in the USA. Which is to say that there can be a great
deal of passionate commitment at the grassroots level and among
intellectuals but we have not figured out how to get beyond the barriers
created by the White House. It is still the same problem we are wrestling
with, that's why the Armenian case has so much to teach us.
Aztag-Samantha Power's award-winning book "A Problem from Hell" also
addresses America's response to the Armenian genocide, as well as other
genocides of the 20th century. What are the differences between your and
Power's approach?
Peter Balakian- Samantha Power wrote a brilliant book about America's
ineffective response to genocide throughout the 20th century. My book deals
with how Americans tried hard to help save the Armenian people and the
obstacles they faced from their government.
Aztag-How can such books help create social change?
Social change is complex; it is not a neat and clean process. It is the
result of decades of proper education. If one studies the evolution of the
African-American human rights movement one will see that it took decades and
decades before blacks and whites could sit in the same restaurant and eat
together.
Aztag-Let us talk about the sources you used. A couple of reviews noted that
you have limited yourself to English-language sources.
Peter Balakian- I have used dozens of foreign office records in the UK. The
French and German sources I used were translations. The same goes for
Turkish sources. I have also used hundreds of US State Department sources.
Aztag-Is "The Burning Tigris" a continuation of "Black Dog of Fate" in terms
of your quest to discover your roots?
Peter Balakian- It is a continuation of my pursuit of historical truth. I
don't want to make a simple comparison, because "Black Dog of Fate" was a
memoir. It was a literary exploration of my coming of age as an Armenian
American. It had history in it and it brought history to the reader but it
wasn't history in the methodological sense. "The Burning Tigris" is a
history and its assumptions and conventions are different.
Aztag-What was your motive for writing this book?
Peter Balakian- As an Americanist, as I began to discover how rich the
American history was, I decided to write a story from that perspective. I
knew I would also write a history of the Armenian genocide. I also felt that
our history has never portrayed in a trade book, so I wanted to do that.
Aztag-How and when did the idea of writing "The burning Tigris "come to you?
Peter Balakian- The idea for "The Burning Tigris" came to me while I was on
Tour with "Black Dog of Fate". It came as a result of reading more about the
Armenian genocide and massacres and finding out about Americans who were
involved. I started working on the book in 1999, and continued for 4 years
without a break.
Aztag-Last year, Egoyan's Ararat created widespread awareness about the
Armenian genocide. Now, your book is doing the same. What do you feel about
the politicization of the book? After all, "Black Dog of Fate" was a memoir,
but with this book you have thrown yourself right in the middle of the war
against denial.
Peter Balakian- My motivation was to write a deep, rich history of this
major event in the 20th century. The rest comes with the terrain. Since
there is denial, anybody who writes about this history enters a degree of
political dimension. But I don't want to overemphasize the denial, because
its only a tiny group of corrupt people who are perpetuating it, and nobody
really listening to them, nobody believes. They are able to coerce and bully
at certain levels and I think we are going to see that go away too.
Aztag- Taking into account the strategic importance of turkey in the region,
and in a context where real politics, the "war against terror", and oil
diplomacy, are having an increasingly heavier role, can we see that change
in the near future?
Peter Balakian- Social and political change are unpredictable, they happen
sometimes very quickly after years of preparing the ground for it. I think
that there is no need to deny the Armenian genocide by anybody. Turks must
come to terms with it. It will help them immensely, making them more
progressive in the eyes of Europe and the West. I think the denial is
untenable for Turkey, and as people become educated, the denial becomes more
absurd. Sooner or later they have to acknowledge that this is a waste of
their time and money.
Aztag- The human rights movement you discuss in your book is less explored
by genocide scholars. Are there any parallels to this story in other
countries?
Peter Balakian- Absolutely, One could write books about the pro-Armenian
movement in Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Russia. My hope is
that my book will spawn ideas for many books.
Aztag- Can you compare the awareness of Americans about the Armenian
genocide back then and now?
Peter Balakian- It's a dramatic reversal. Its ironic! President Hoover, as
he was looking back at those years, said that probably only the word
"England" was more deeply embedded in the mind of the American schoolchild
than the word Armenia. That's how popular Armenia was in American mind in
the first decades of the 20th century. Then, that completely evaporated and
the Armenian genocide fell into the amnesia hole. Americans forgot about
it. Now, it is being revived, so I think it's a very exciting time in that
respect. We are recovering lost cultural memory.
Aztag- What was the reason for that amnesia?
Peter Balakian- There were several factors. First the Turkish government's
denial campaign aimed at wiping Armenia out of popular memory. Mustafa
Kemal's new Turkish republic of 1922 wanted the West to drop Armenia from
the radar screen. The United States, for example, caved into Kemal's wishes
because America was interested in making friends with Turkey in the hope of
obtaining the rights to the Mosul oil fields, which were under Turkish
control in the early 1920s. Other American cultural factors made historical
memory of the 1915 Armenian genocide more difficult to achieve until the
late 1960s when the cultural climate changed. I address this in my book.
Aztag- What do you think about Turkish-Armenian dialogue, which is "en
vogue" these days?
Peter Balakian- I think any true and meaningful dialogue can only happen if
there is truth. We can't have debate without truth. Those who come to
converse around a table must acknowledge the truth about the Armenian
genocide and the moral nature of what genocide is, and then we can move
forward.
Aztag- So, in this respect, the recognition of the Armenian genocide is a
prerequisite for you?
Peter Balakian- Yes.
Aztag- Your book relates to Americans. That helps when you are presenting
atrocities that took place in the Middle East a century ago, doesn't it?
Peter Balakian- Yes, Armenian Genocide often seems like Middle Eastern
history that happened long ago in another place, now Americans and Europeans
have the chance to see how deeply the Armenian catastrophe affected the
west, and in the case of my book, the USA in particular.
Aztag- Do you have any plans to travel to the Middle East?
Peter Balakian- Lebanon and Syria are 2 of the most important places in the
history of the Armenian Diaspora and I want to visit them in the near
future.
An Interview with Thea Halo
Companions in suffering
An Interview with Thea Halo
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
`Memory is the only way home,' says the American author, Terry Tempest
Williams. And memory was Sano Halo's only guide, as she embarked, with her
daughter, Thea, on a journey to Turkey in search of Sano's home, 70 years
after her exile. It also seems that home is the only way to memory; it is
only there, in modern-day Turkey, that Thea `fully embraced' herself. `It
was the first time I felt connected to my heritage,' she says in this
interview. `I didn't have a heritage until I stood on my mother's land and
then on my father's land. For the first time in my life I felt connected to
these people, who were finally my people,' she adds.
A journey is incomplete, I believe, if it does not pave way for another
trek. After Thea Halo had visited her Pontic Greek mother's and Assyrian
father's lands, she embarked on another pilgrimage, that of the mind and the
soul, to discover and help preserve a history much forgotten and a genocide
barely remembered. The culmination of this pilgrimage was `Not Even My
Name,' a book that recounts, through Sano Halo's survival story, the
genocides of the Armenians, Pontic Greeks and Assyrians that took place in
Ottoman Turkey during and in the immediate aftermath of World War I.
However, "Not Even My Name" is also a book about the beautiful things in
life. `I wanted to show the beauty of the Pontic Greek culture, at least in
these three villages, and what they actually lost, because it is only by
seeing the beauty of what was that you can you understand more fully the
tragedy and injustice of what has been taken away,' says Thea Halo.
`Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear,' says Shakespeare.
I dedicate this interview to the memory of the hundreds of thousands of
Assyrians and Pontic Greeks that perished in Turkey almost a century ago,
just about the same time that a million and a half Armenians were marching
to their deaths.
Aztag- You often speak about "the exclusivity of suffering." In an interview
you say, `It's truly unfortunate that many late 20th Century activists, who
work so hard to make the Armenian genocide known to the world, fail to
include their fellow sufferers.' In your opinion, what is the reason for
this `failure'?
Thea Halo- I have many contacts with Armenians and great affection and love
for them. It was an Armenian family who rescued my mother when she found herself
destitute and alone in Diyarbekir, and they took her to safety as their
daughter. My aunt was also Armenian. So I feel a very great affinity for the
Armenian people. That's why I found it truly disturbing when I discovered
that the failure to mention the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians
by many Armenian historians and activists was not just an oversight, but an
actual agenda of exclusion and denial. The Genocide of the Greeks of Asia
Minor are referred to as "an exchange of population," even though these
historians know that by the time of the exchange in 1923, at least one
million Asia Minor and Pontic Greeks had already been slaughtered. The
Assyrians are never mention at all. Someone once explained this behavior by
telling me, "I'm sure you understand that these
Armenian historians feel so personally tied to this history because it was a
Genocide of their own families and people." And of course I do understand,
because it is the story of the Genocide of my family and my people, which
makes their exclusion even more painful when the exclusion comes from those
who should know better. It also makes it more reprehensible, and it should
stop. The inclusion of the Greeks and Assyrians does not diminish the horror
of what happened to the Armenians. Even my mother, who lost her own family
and people, always describes the slaughter of the Armenians as truly
horrific.
I've come to realize that there is a kind of tribalism in the world that is
the cause of almost all the world's misery. When one thinks of tribalism,
one thinks of underdeveloped or backward nations. But I use this word
"tribal" even for the United States. There is the greater tribe that makes
up the country, and then the sub tribes, which are the various ethnicities.
And there is another tribe, and that's the handful of elite who are ruling
the world, almost all of whom do so from behind the scenes, behind the
presidency. The differences of the peoples of the world: language, look,
customs, food, dress, dance, etc., has been something quite exquisite to me
throughout my life. But on the other side of that coin, we have this drive
by the more powerful tribes who think nothing of obliterating others for
their own greed or ideologies. Then we have Genocide. That's what happened
in Turkey in the first part of the 20th century during and after WWI. It's
what happened during WWII. It's what's happening today.
I do think what happened in Turkey was a Christian Genocide. But I don't
think one can simply use that term without differentiating who the
Christians were, because although the Assyrians, Greeks, and Armenians lived
in the same land for thousands of years, their languages, cultures and
histories were unique. It's important to acknowledge that there was an
Armenian, Assyrian, and a Greek Genocide, but overall it was a Genocide of
the Christian of Asia Minor. I even differentiate between the Asia Minor
Greeks: the Ionians, Pontians, and Cappadoccians, first because the Pontians
had their own empire, and second, because I think it's important that we
remember their distinctive historical names and regions in Asia Minor.
One of the reasons I think the Armenians do themselves a great disservice by
failing to mention the Genocides of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians is
because there was a small faction of Armenians in Turkey who were fighting
for an independent state for Armenians... obviously for very good reasons.
These so-called "trouble makers" gave the Turks and their supporters, then
and now, the excuse to blame the victims for their own Genocide, even though
the vast majority of Armenians were simply trying to live their lives. It's
only when one looks at the scope of the Genocides that the Young Turk regime
perpetrated, and Mustafa Kemal "Attaturk" continued, against the Armenians,
Greeks and Assyrians, that we see it was not because some Armenians were
causing troubles. Rather, it was a plan to rid Turkey of the Christian
population to fulfill the edict of "Turkey for the Turks."
Aztag- Why is it that few people have heard about the Genocide of Assyrians
and Pontic Greeks?
Thea Halo- In Greece there are a lot of Pontic Greeks and a number of books
about the Pontic Greek Genocide. They have been working for recognition for
at least 35 years, even here in America. Assyrians have also worked for many
years to get this issue on the table without much success. I blame this
failure mainly on two factors: One, there were no viable books that told the
story of what happened to the Greeks and Assyrians, until my book, Not Even
My Name was published. But perhaps equally or more important, those with the
strongest voices in our society, have traditionally had this tribal
mentality I speak of. They have wanted to portray their own people as being
exclusive in their suffering, and therefore, have failed to even make
mention of the Genocide of other ethnic peoples. Until quite recently,
Jewish historians and activists only focused on what happened to the Jews
during WWII. There was a doctrine that the Holocaust is the definitive
Genocide and therefore one need not look further to understand the phenomena
of Genocide. The study of the Holocaust became a mandatory part of the
curriculum in many, if not all, schools in the US. But the other ethnic,
religious, or social groups slaughtered by the Nazis were not mentioned, and
other Genocides were overshadowed or ignored, even the Armenian Genocide.
Now many Jewish Historians have recognized the Armenian Genocide and
Armenians have finally gained a voice. But in turn the
Armenian historians and activists fail to mention the Genocides of their
fellow sufferers: the Assyrians, the Pontic Greeks, and the other Asia Minor
Greeks, even while including other Genocides, such as those in Rwanda and
Cambodia, in so-called "comparative studies" programs.
Fortunately, not all Armenians believe that the exclusive approach is the
right one.
Aztag- In an interview, you say: `To remember does not mean stirring up
hatred within or without. Hatred destroys what was good and pure in the past
and the present. It simply means to embrace what is ours'. It is not easy to
overcome feelings of hatred, especially for the very victims of genocide and
their immediate descendants, is it?
Thea Halo- My mother lived through this Genocide; she lost everybody and
everything by the age of ten. She had lived side by side with the Turks.
Turkish villages surrounded the Greek villages. My mother said they bartered
together and had no problems. One can't say that no Turk ever attacked a
Greek, Armenian or Assyrian. Of course some did, for various reasons. But
overall, they lived together peacefully. I've heard countless stories from
Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, of how Turks saved the lives of their
families. My mother says that you must put blame where blame belongs, on the
Turkish government. If you begin to single out the people of a country, and
forget that whatever they did was instigated or sanctioned by the
government, you will then never get rid of the hatred. This tribal mentality
takes over and goes on and on until we're all gone, because there are
hatreds that go back thousands of years between almost every tribe on earth.
We must learn to acknowledge the past without living in the past.
We don't understand how the past has affected us. Because I was born and
raised in New York City, I can say it hasn't affected me, but that's not
true. My parents went through this Genocide. They raised me, and we don't
know all the subtle ways that their lives and experiences have affected us.
We are the product of our parents. If we don't acknowledge their past, and
embrace it as part of ours, we never fully embrace ourselves. Only if we try
to understand where we come from, can we really understand who we are.
Aztag- And when did you yourself come to this understanding?
Thea Halo- It was first when I visited Turkey. It was the first time I felt
connected to my heritage. Here in America, nobody knew who the Pontic Greeks
are. And everybody told me that I couldn't be Assyrian, because the
Assyrians don't exist anymore. `How I can be something that doesn't exist?'
I used to think. Consequently, I didn't have a heritage until I stood on my
mother's land and then on my father's land. For the first time in my life I
felt connected to these people, who were finally my people. And after
writing my mother's part of the story, which included the Genocide of the
Pontic Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians, I began to research the general
history for the book, and I realized how important their story really is.
The thought that people who had lived in a land for 3 thousand years and
more, could just be wiped from the face of that land and all memory of them
seizes to exist, not only there, but from the face of the earth, was a
powerful testament. That certainly makes the Genocide complete, when no one
has even heard of your people. People ask me sometimes why I titled the book
"Not Even My Name." The reason was that my mother lost everything, family,
home, language, and country, even her name. But many Pontic Greeks and the
Assyrians tell me that for them the title also has a bigger meaning. It
means that even the names, Pontic Greek and Assyrian, was lost to the world.
It was an interesting revelation for me.
Aztag- Many Armenians attach great importance to the land they lost. For
them the genocide isn't `simply' the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians,
it is also the expulsion of an entire people from its land and the wiping
out of a culture. When you speak about your "father's land" and your
"mother's land", do you have similar feelings?
Thea Halo- Almost every ancient culture has this attachment to the land.
What else is there without a place to call home? When I stood on that land,
for the first time in my life I could actually feel my ancestors, my
grandparents. They became real to me for the first time. They were as much a
part of that land as the trees, the rocks, the grasses. Their blood and
sweat is mingled with the earth for thousands of years. How can one walk
away from that without feeling that a part of oneself is somehow left
behind, somehow missing, like an amputated leg or arm that continues sending
out sensations to the brain, even though it's gone? Just the other day my
mother said to me, "you know, when you are born in a country, there is a
part of you that always feels that that country is your true home."
Aztag- Do you think the recognition of these genocides should be a
prerequisite to Turkey's accession to the EU?
Thea Halo- I don't think that only the recognition of the Genocides is
important,
I think many factors are important for Turkey's inclusion into the EU. But
by recognizing the Genocides they would resolve some of the other important
issues as well. For instance, journalists, publishers, and teachers are
still being jailed for talking about the Genocides. If you recognize the
Genocides, then you don't have to keep jailing your teachers, publishers,
and journalists on this issue. As my father used to say, you kill 2 birds
with one stone. And there are other human rights issues that Turkey has to
deal with. I must tell you, when I went to Turkey I found a very beautiful
land visually, and I found the people to be exceptionally sweet and
hospitable. It's a shame that they can't speak freely and learn what
happened in their own country without fear.
The sad thing is that they lost so much, because the Greeks, Armenians, and
Assyrians had so much culture there. They brought so much vibrancy to the
country that was lost. They were wonderful artisans, intellectuals,
teachers, musicians. At the time, there were Europeans who were saying "What
in the world will Turkey do without the Christians?" After all, it was the
Christians who were the intellectuals and business people, who had the
education to help Turkey progress into the 20th century. When Turkey got rid
of the Christian populations, they set themselves back, way-way back. The
general Turkish population was not well educated at that time, because the
Turkish government didn't bother to educate them the way the Christian
missionaries educated the Christian populations. For the most part, the
government wouldn't allow Muslims to attend the Christian schools, for fear
of conversion, so most Turks of the time remained peasants and farmers.
Consequently, the Turks did themselves a great disservice, because the
removal of the Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians left a great vacuum in
Turkey.
Aztag- What was the impact of your book? To what extent did it help raise
greater awareness about the genocides of the Pontic Greeks, the Assyrians,
and the Armenians?
Thea halo- One of the first emails I got when the book was published was
from a young Pontic Greek girl living in Holland. She said, the Pontic
Greeks lived in Asia Minor for 3 thousand years and I go to school and no
one in Holland knows we ever existed. It really touched my heart. I knew
what she was talking about because no one knew that we exist in New York.
So, of course, it makes a difference. They could then start to teach this
history in schools. My book was picked up by UCLA and they began to teach
high school teachers how to teach Not Even My Name to their students.
Aztag- "Not Even My Name" is already translated to Greek and Dutch. Are
there any plans to translate it to other languages, including Armenian?
Thea Halo- I think it would be important and I would love to see `Not Even
My Name' translated into Armenian. A Turkish publisher also wanted to
publish it and an Icelandic publisher recently contacted me for the rights.
Aztag- You are one of the very few who are speaking out about the Genocides
of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians; with this comes great responsibility. A
Scholar or an author, who deals with the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide
for instance, might be under less pressure, because there are many others in
the field. How do you deal with this pressure?
Thea Halo- I do feel very responsible and when I'm asked to give a lecture,
I do feel I should go, but I also enjoy going out there. I usually bring my mother
with me. She loves doing this because it's something very important to her.
It's nice to see her with some of the older people who have lived through
this. They hug and kiss each other; because my mother's memory helped put
this history on the map. She became a very important person and a symbol,
and she feels this importance. There's an immediate connection between them
when they meet, even with the younger generations, that's just so wonderful
to see. One young Pontic Greek girl in one of our audiences in New York
stood up and said to my mother, "you are our history; our history alive." It
was very moving. So I do enjoy doing this, but I also feel a great
responsibility, and will continue to feel that way, until there is proper
recognition of the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians.
Aztag- What about your mother? She is very much involved in this as well,
isn't she?
Thea Halo- My mother is 94. I was amazed the first time we had a radio
interview on NPR. My mom was on the phone and I was in the studio in Boston.
During the interview she laughed and she cried. Then I found Lisa Mullins'
website on the internet for "The World." Mullins said her favorite
interviewees were Thea and Sano Halo. I was surprised, but I could
understand why. My mother was perfect. Her answers were very sweet and
natural. When I read the passage from the book about her mother giving her
away to save her, my mother began to cry. She had to take a moment to
collect herself. Then she said she never saw her mother again. Soon after
she told a funny story about how people would ask her husband if she was his
daughter, and then she laughed. She had a natural instinct not to allow the
interview to become morbid. When I asked her about it later she said, "a
little bit of laughter and a little bit of tears." I again realized how much
there was about her I didn't know. She always loved to sing, and when we go
on our events, she sings old Greek and Turkish songs for the audience that
she learned as a child. She even sings an old Armenian love song she learned
when living with Zohra and Hagop.
Aztag- During a lecture, speaking about your book you said, `The story is my
mother's but the sunsets are mine.' Can you elaborate on this?
Thea Halo- Well, of course she doesn't remember when the sun came up and
when the sun went down, when it was raining, etc. But I wanted to help
people be there, really experience the story. All the facts are hers; the
story of the village, what happened to the people, the couple who ran away
and married, that's all true. But the part where they stare into the puddle
of water as they stand before their parents, of course, that's part of the
things I added to help the reader enter the story. From what people tell me,
it does help them be there. They feel they were actually walking with my
mother on that harrowing death march to exile.
Aztag- Any plans for another book?
Thea Halo- I do think of many other books. The book that I would like to
write is a collection of interviews with people who have experienced
Genocide, because in that way we will see how similar the suffering really
is. Maybe in this way some of the tribalism will be put away. But it's
impossible to get rid of all the tribalism. Unfortunately, Genocide has
become big business. It's not simply a moral issue anymore, and this is what
I find the most objectionable. Some Armenians have told me that certain
survivors have passed away but they have already been interviewed, and
they'll turn over the tapes to me. Same goes for Assyrians and Pontic
Greeks. So I am hoping that for the ones I can't interview directly, I can
at least access the tapes of their interviews.
I guess my focus in life has always been both the beauty of the world and
the injustices. I think that those two things often go together. If you look
at the various cultures that once inhabited Turkey, for instance, they are
all unique and very beautiful. They created great works of art and
architecture and they developed communities that allowed them to survive and
prosper for thousands of years, at least in the periods when they weren't
being slaughtered and oppressed. And that's why I wrote the book the way I
did. I wanted to show the beauty of the Pontic Greek culture, at least in
these three villages, and what they actually lost. Because only by seeing
the beauty of what was, can you more fully understand the tragedy and
injustice of what has been taken away.
An Interview with Thea Halo
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
`Memory is the only way home,' says the American author, Terry Tempest
Williams. And memory was Sano Halo's only guide, as she embarked, with her
daughter, Thea, on a journey to Turkey in search of Sano's home, 70 years
after her exile. It also seems that home is the only way to memory; it is
only there, in modern-day Turkey, that Thea `fully embraced' herself. `It
was the first time I felt connected to my heritage,' she says in this
interview. `I didn't have a heritage until I stood on my mother's land and
then on my father's land. For the first time in my life I felt connected to
these people, who were finally my people,' she adds.
A journey is incomplete, I believe, if it does not pave way for another
trek. After Thea Halo had visited her Pontic Greek mother's and Assyrian
father's lands, she embarked on another pilgrimage, that of the mind and the
soul, to discover and help preserve a history much forgotten and a genocide
barely remembered. The culmination of this pilgrimage was `Not Even My
Name,' a book that recounts, through Sano Halo's survival story, the
genocides of the Armenians, Pontic Greeks and Assyrians that took place in
Ottoman Turkey during and in the immediate aftermath of World War I.
However, "Not Even My Name" is also a book about the beautiful things in
life. `I wanted to show the beauty of the Pontic Greek culture, at least in
these three villages, and what they actually lost, because it is only by
seeing the beauty of what was that you can you understand more fully the
tragedy and injustice of what has been taken away,' says Thea Halo.
`Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear,' says Shakespeare.
I dedicate this interview to the memory of the hundreds of thousands of
Assyrians and Pontic Greeks that perished in Turkey almost a century ago,
just about the same time that a million and a half Armenians were marching
to their deaths.
Aztag- You often speak about "the exclusivity of suffering." In an interview
you say, `It's truly unfortunate that many late 20th Century activists, who
work so hard to make the Armenian genocide known to the world, fail to
include their fellow sufferers.' In your opinion, what is the reason for
this `failure'?
Thea Halo- I have many contacts with Armenians and great affection and love
for them. It was an Armenian family who rescued my mother when she found herself
destitute and alone in Diyarbekir, and they took her to safety as their
daughter. My aunt was also Armenian. So I feel a very great affinity for the
Armenian people. That's why I found it truly disturbing when I discovered
that the failure to mention the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians
by many Armenian historians and activists was not just an oversight, but an
actual agenda of exclusion and denial. The Genocide of the Greeks of Asia
Minor are referred to as "an exchange of population," even though these
historians know that by the time of the exchange in 1923, at least one
million Asia Minor and Pontic Greeks had already been slaughtered. The
Assyrians are never mention at all. Someone once explained this behavior by
telling me, "I'm sure you understand that these
Armenian historians feel so personally tied to this history because it was a
Genocide of their own families and people." And of course I do understand,
because it is the story of the Genocide of my family and my people, which
makes their exclusion even more painful when the exclusion comes from those
who should know better. It also makes it more reprehensible, and it should
stop. The inclusion of the Greeks and Assyrians does not diminish the horror
of what happened to the Armenians. Even my mother, who lost her own family
and people, always describes the slaughter of the Armenians as truly
horrific.
I've come to realize that there is a kind of tribalism in the world that is
the cause of almost all the world's misery. When one thinks of tribalism,
one thinks of underdeveloped or backward nations. But I use this word
"tribal" even for the United States. There is the greater tribe that makes
up the country, and then the sub tribes, which are the various ethnicities.
And there is another tribe, and that's the handful of elite who are ruling
the world, almost all of whom do so from behind the scenes, behind the
presidency. The differences of the peoples of the world: language, look,
customs, food, dress, dance, etc., has been something quite exquisite to me
throughout my life. But on the other side of that coin, we have this drive
by the more powerful tribes who think nothing of obliterating others for
their own greed or ideologies. Then we have Genocide. That's what happened
in Turkey in the first part of the 20th century during and after WWI. It's
what happened during WWII. It's what's happening today.
I do think what happened in Turkey was a Christian Genocide. But I don't
think one can simply use that term without differentiating who the
Christians were, because although the Assyrians, Greeks, and Armenians lived
in the same land for thousands of years, their languages, cultures and
histories were unique. It's important to acknowledge that there was an
Armenian, Assyrian, and a Greek Genocide, but overall it was a Genocide of
the Christian of Asia Minor. I even differentiate between the Asia Minor
Greeks: the Ionians, Pontians, and Cappadoccians, first because the Pontians
had their own empire, and second, because I think it's important that we
remember their distinctive historical names and regions in Asia Minor.
One of the reasons I think the Armenians do themselves a great disservice by
failing to mention the Genocides of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians is
because there was a small faction of Armenians in Turkey who were fighting
for an independent state for Armenians... obviously for very good reasons.
These so-called "trouble makers" gave the Turks and their supporters, then
and now, the excuse to blame the victims for their own Genocide, even though
the vast majority of Armenians were simply trying to live their lives. It's
only when one looks at the scope of the Genocides that the Young Turk regime
perpetrated, and Mustafa Kemal "Attaturk" continued, against the Armenians,
Greeks and Assyrians, that we see it was not because some Armenians were
causing troubles. Rather, it was a plan to rid Turkey of the Christian
population to fulfill the edict of "Turkey for the Turks."
Aztag- Why is it that few people have heard about the Genocide of Assyrians
and Pontic Greeks?
Thea Halo- In Greece there are a lot of Pontic Greeks and a number of books
about the Pontic Greek Genocide. They have been working for recognition for
at least 35 years, even here in America. Assyrians have also worked for many
years to get this issue on the table without much success. I blame this
failure mainly on two factors: One, there were no viable books that told the
story of what happened to the Greeks and Assyrians, until my book, Not Even
My Name was published. But perhaps equally or more important, those with the
strongest voices in our society, have traditionally had this tribal
mentality I speak of. They have wanted to portray their own people as being
exclusive in their suffering, and therefore, have failed to even make
mention of the Genocide of other ethnic peoples. Until quite recently,
Jewish historians and activists only focused on what happened to the Jews
during WWII. There was a doctrine that the Holocaust is the definitive
Genocide and therefore one need not look further to understand the phenomena
of Genocide. The study of the Holocaust became a mandatory part of the
curriculum in many, if not all, schools in the US. But the other ethnic,
religious, or social groups slaughtered by the Nazis were not mentioned, and
other Genocides were overshadowed or ignored, even the Armenian Genocide.
Now many Jewish Historians have recognized the Armenian Genocide and
Armenians have finally gained a voice. But in turn the
Armenian historians and activists fail to mention the Genocides of their
fellow sufferers: the Assyrians, the Pontic Greeks, and the other Asia Minor
Greeks, even while including other Genocides, such as those in Rwanda and
Cambodia, in so-called "comparative studies" programs.
Fortunately, not all Armenians believe that the exclusive approach is the
right one.
Aztag- In an interview, you say: `To remember does not mean stirring up
hatred within or without. Hatred destroys what was good and pure in the past
and the present. It simply means to embrace what is ours'. It is not easy to
overcome feelings of hatred, especially for the very victims of genocide and
their immediate descendants, is it?
Thea Halo- My mother lived through this Genocide; she lost everybody and
everything by the age of ten. She had lived side by side with the Turks.
Turkish villages surrounded the Greek villages. My mother said they bartered
together and had no problems. One can't say that no Turk ever attacked a
Greek, Armenian or Assyrian. Of course some did, for various reasons. But
overall, they lived together peacefully. I've heard countless stories from
Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, of how Turks saved the lives of their
families. My mother says that you must put blame where blame belongs, on the
Turkish government. If you begin to single out the people of a country, and
forget that whatever they did was instigated or sanctioned by the
government, you will then never get rid of the hatred. This tribal mentality
takes over and goes on and on until we're all gone, because there are
hatreds that go back thousands of years between almost every tribe on earth.
We must learn to acknowledge the past without living in the past.
We don't understand how the past has affected us. Because I was born and
raised in New York City, I can say it hasn't affected me, but that's not
true. My parents went through this Genocide. They raised me, and we don't
know all the subtle ways that their lives and experiences have affected us.
We are the product of our parents. If we don't acknowledge their past, and
embrace it as part of ours, we never fully embrace ourselves. Only if we try
to understand where we come from, can we really understand who we are.
Aztag- And when did you yourself come to this understanding?
Thea Halo- It was first when I visited Turkey. It was the first time I felt
connected to my heritage. Here in America, nobody knew who the Pontic Greeks
are. And everybody told me that I couldn't be Assyrian, because the
Assyrians don't exist anymore. `How I can be something that doesn't exist?'
I used to think. Consequently, I didn't have a heritage until I stood on my
mother's land and then on my father's land. For the first time in my life I
felt connected to these people, who were finally my people. And after
writing my mother's part of the story, which included the Genocide of the
Pontic Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians, I began to research the general
history for the book, and I realized how important their story really is.
The thought that people who had lived in a land for 3 thousand years and
more, could just be wiped from the face of that land and all memory of them
seizes to exist, not only there, but from the face of the earth, was a
powerful testament. That certainly makes the Genocide complete, when no one
has even heard of your people. People ask me sometimes why I titled the book
"Not Even My Name." The reason was that my mother lost everything, family,
home, language, and country, even her name. But many Pontic Greeks and the
Assyrians tell me that for them the title also has a bigger meaning. It
means that even the names, Pontic Greek and Assyrian, was lost to the world.
It was an interesting revelation for me.
Aztag- Many Armenians attach great importance to the land they lost. For
them the genocide isn't `simply' the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians,
it is also the expulsion of an entire people from its land and the wiping
out of a culture. When you speak about your "father's land" and your
"mother's land", do you have similar feelings?
Thea Halo- Almost every ancient culture has this attachment to the land.
What else is there without a place to call home? When I stood on that land,
for the first time in my life I could actually feel my ancestors, my
grandparents. They became real to me for the first time. They were as much a
part of that land as the trees, the rocks, the grasses. Their blood and
sweat is mingled with the earth for thousands of years. How can one walk
away from that without feeling that a part of oneself is somehow left
behind, somehow missing, like an amputated leg or arm that continues sending
out sensations to the brain, even though it's gone? Just the other day my
mother said to me, "you know, when you are born in a country, there is a
part of you that always feels that that country is your true home."
Aztag- Do you think the recognition of these genocides should be a
prerequisite to Turkey's accession to the EU?
Thea Halo- I don't think that only the recognition of the Genocides is
important,
I think many factors are important for Turkey's inclusion into the EU. But
by recognizing the Genocides they would resolve some of the other important
issues as well. For instance, journalists, publishers, and teachers are
still being jailed for talking about the Genocides. If you recognize the
Genocides, then you don't have to keep jailing your teachers, publishers,
and journalists on this issue. As my father used to say, you kill 2 birds
with one stone. And there are other human rights issues that Turkey has to
deal with. I must tell you, when I went to Turkey I found a very beautiful
land visually, and I found the people to be exceptionally sweet and
hospitable. It's a shame that they can't speak freely and learn what
happened in their own country without fear.
The sad thing is that they lost so much, because the Greeks, Armenians, and
Assyrians had so much culture there. They brought so much vibrancy to the
country that was lost. They were wonderful artisans, intellectuals,
teachers, musicians. At the time, there were Europeans who were saying "What
in the world will Turkey do without the Christians?" After all, it was the
Christians who were the intellectuals and business people, who had the
education to help Turkey progress into the 20th century. When Turkey got rid
of the Christian populations, they set themselves back, way-way back. The
general Turkish population was not well educated at that time, because the
Turkish government didn't bother to educate them the way the Christian
missionaries educated the Christian populations. For the most part, the
government wouldn't allow Muslims to attend the Christian schools, for fear
of conversion, so most Turks of the time remained peasants and farmers.
Consequently, the Turks did themselves a great disservice, because the
removal of the Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians left a great vacuum in
Turkey.
Aztag- What was the impact of your book? To what extent did it help raise
greater awareness about the genocides of the Pontic Greeks, the Assyrians,
and the Armenians?
Thea halo- One of the first emails I got when the book was published was
from a young Pontic Greek girl living in Holland. She said, the Pontic
Greeks lived in Asia Minor for 3 thousand years and I go to school and no
one in Holland knows we ever existed. It really touched my heart. I knew
what she was talking about because no one knew that we exist in New York.
So, of course, it makes a difference. They could then start to teach this
history in schools. My book was picked up by UCLA and they began to teach
high school teachers how to teach Not Even My Name to their students.
Aztag- "Not Even My Name" is already translated to Greek and Dutch. Are
there any plans to translate it to other languages, including Armenian?
Thea Halo- I think it would be important and I would love to see `Not Even
My Name' translated into Armenian. A Turkish publisher also wanted to
publish it and an Icelandic publisher recently contacted me for the rights.
Aztag- You are one of the very few who are speaking out about the Genocides
of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians; with this comes great responsibility. A
Scholar or an author, who deals with the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide
for instance, might be under less pressure, because there are many others in
the field. How do you deal with this pressure?
Thea Halo- I do feel very responsible and when I'm asked to give a lecture,
I do feel I should go, but I also enjoy going out there. I usually bring my mother
with me. She loves doing this because it's something very important to her.
It's nice to see her with some of the older people who have lived through
this. They hug and kiss each other; because my mother's memory helped put
this history on the map. She became a very important person and a symbol,
and she feels this importance. There's an immediate connection between them
when they meet, even with the younger generations, that's just so wonderful
to see. One young Pontic Greek girl in one of our audiences in New York
stood up and said to my mother, "you are our history; our history alive." It
was very moving. So I do enjoy doing this, but I also feel a great
responsibility, and will continue to feel that way, until there is proper
recognition of the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians.
Aztag- What about your mother? She is very much involved in this as well,
isn't she?
Thea Halo- My mother is 94. I was amazed the first time we had a radio
interview on NPR. My mom was on the phone and I was in the studio in Boston.
During the interview she laughed and she cried. Then I found Lisa Mullins'
website on the internet for "The World." Mullins said her favorite
interviewees were Thea and Sano Halo. I was surprised, but I could
understand why. My mother was perfect. Her answers were very sweet and
natural. When I read the passage from the book about her mother giving her
away to save her, my mother began to cry. She had to take a moment to
collect herself. Then she said she never saw her mother again. Soon after
she told a funny story about how people would ask her husband if she was his
daughter, and then she laughed. She had a natural instinct not to allow the
interview to become morbid. When I asked her about it later she said, "a
little bit of laughter and a little bit of tears." I again realized how much
there was about her I didn't know. She always loved to sing, and when we go
on our events, she sings old Greek and Turkish songs for the audience that
she learned as a child. She even sings an old Armenian love song she learned
when living with Zohra and Hagop.
Aztag- During a lecture, speaking about your book you said, `The story is my
mother's but the sunsets are mine.' Can you elaborate on this?
Thea Halo- Well, of course she doesn't remember when the sun came up and
when the sun went down, when it was raining, etc. But I wanted to help
people be there, really experience the story. All the facts are hers; the
story of the village, what happened to the people, the couple who ran away
and married, that's all true. But the part where they stare into the puddle
of water as they stand before their parents, of course, that's part of the
things I added to help the reader enter the story. From what people tell me,
it does help them be there. They feel they were actually walking with my
mother on that harrowing death march to exile.
Aztag- Any plans for another book?
Thea Halo- I do think of many other books. The book that I would like to
write is a collection of interviews with people who have experienced
Genocide, because in that way we will see how similar the suffering really
is. Maybe in this way some of the tribalism will be put away. But it's
impossible to get rid of all the tribalism. Unfortunately, Genocide has
become big business. It's not simply a moral issue anymore, and this is what
I find the most objectionable. Some Armenians have told me that certain
survivors have passed away but they have already been interviewed, and
they'll turn over the tapes to me. Same goes for Assyrians and Pontic
Greeks. So I am hoping that for the ones I can't interview directly, I can
at least access the tapes of their interviews.
I guess my focus in life has always been both the beauty of the world and
the injustices. I think that those two things often go together. If you look
at the various cultures that once inhabited Turkey, for instance, they are
all unique and very beautiful. They created great works of art and
architecture and they developed communities that allowed them to survive and
prosper for thousands of years, at least in the periods when they weren't
being slaughtered and oppressed. And that's why I wrote the book the way I
did. I wanted to show the beauty of the Pontic Greek culture, at least in
these three villages, and what they actually lost. Because only by seeing
the beauty of what was, can you more fully understand the tragedy and
injustice of what has been taken away.
An Interview with Elif Shafak
On Bruises, Beauties, and Makeup
An Interview with Elif Shafak
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
Says Elif Shafak in this interview, “‘The bruises and the make-up’ is a metaphor I use in order to better depict Turkish modernists' obsession with ‘our image in the eyes of the Western world.’ The elite likes to prove to the Westerners how Westernized, modernized we Turks are. Yet when it comes to critically reading the past, the same elite is indifferent, if not ignorant.”
It is this indifference and ignorance that Shafak, whom “The Economist” considers to be “well set to challenge Mr. (Orhan) Pamuk as Turkey's foremost contemporary novelist,” tries to confront. She does not believe in deceitful “outward appearances” and suggests that Turkey wash away the makeup “to see both the beauties and the bruises underneath.”
Elif Shafak was born in Strasbourg, France in 1971. After spending her teenage years in Spain, she returned to Turkey. She graduated with a degree in International Relations from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. She earned her PhD in 2004 from the Department of Political Science of the same University. She has taught at Bilgi University, Istanbul and at the University of Michigan. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Near Eastern Studies Department at the University of Arizona.
She has published five novels: “Pinhan” (1997), “Sehrin Aynalari” (1999), “Mahrem” (2000), “Bit Palas” (2002), and “The Saint of Incipient Insanities” (2004), her first novel in English.
Although some people in Turkey consider those who attempt to wash the Turkish Republic’s makeup “backstabbers”, it is intellectuals like Elif Shafak who will usher the country to confront its past and face the future.
Khatchig Mouradian - Heraclitus says, “Nothing endures but change”. As a person with "incessant itineraries" who sees life "as a perpetual journey where there is neither a final destination, nor the desire to find one", and as a writer whose heroes are often prone to metamorphosis, how do you explain your commitment to change?
Elif Shafak - At birth we are all born into a certain identity -be it in terms of religion, nationality, gender, etc. Our name is given to us, and so is our habitat, and sometimes even our worldview. The question is the following: living the life we are to live, are we going to die in the same bay, in the same identity? My answer to this question is negative. I am intrigued by metamorphosis. I am not a settler. If anything, I guess I am a nomad. This kind of nomadism was not my choice at the beginning, but then it became something I deliberately, consciously chose.
I was born in France, raised by a single mother, I saw two utterly different grandmothers with two utterly different understandings of Islam, traveled back and forth between different cities and countries, each time the setting changed profoundly, the ground beneath my feet was always subject to change and life a series of sudden ruptures... I spent my childhood in Spain, and traveled back and forth between Amman-Jordan, Cologne-Germany, Ankara, and then Istanbul... Then Boston, Michigan, Arizona... I now live in two places at the same time: Arizona on the one hand and Istanbul on the other hand. The only continuity that existed in my life, the only luggage that came with me everywhere I went was my writing, was fiction.
Transformation and transcendence are at the heart of my fiction.
I think fiction and Sufi thought share something deep in common. For both of them transformation and transcendence play a pivotal role. Fiction, for me, is not the ability to tell your own story to others, but the ability to make others' stories yours and your story others'.
I have roots but I am not rooted. According to the Islamic narrative, there lives a tree in the skies above. Its name is Tuba. This tree is turned upside down and thus has its roots up in the air. Sometimes I think my fiction is a continuous quest for the Tuba tree.
K.M. - Unlike the roots of the Tuba tree in heaven, our earthly roots can be struck by shame and pain, which is why we, human beings, might want to keep them under the soil. We might take pride in our roots but we rarely reveal them entirely. Can fiction bear fruits of transformation, transcendence, and, yes, tuba (beatitude)? Does it make readers less rooted, less uprooted, and more open to their own stories and the stories of others?
E.S. - The clash between representing a particular identity and questioning the very essence of identity politics is one that intrigues me deeply. I am a bit torn in between because I am a nomad but I am a political nomad.
Then there is another dilemma: those who seek to be pastless, memory-free, in other words the future-oriented and then those for whom the past determines the basic parameters, in other words the past-oriented. I do not believe this is an easy dilemma that can be overcome by solely reasoning. Today's international politics does not like ambiguity. Politics does not like ambivalence.
Yet the universe of art, the world of fiction necessitates ambiguities, flexibilities. It has to be fluid. Only then, fiction can bear the fruits of transformation and transcendence. You need to be uprooted in order to feel empathy, if not a rapport, with others' stories, at least until the book is over you need to step outside your zone of existence.
In the USA, for instance, there is a tendency to attribute a function to fiction, as if every book has to have a function. Likewise, if you happen to be "Middle Eastern woman writer" then you are expected to be writing on "women in the Middle East". Your identity walks ahead of the quality of your fiction, which I find very troublesome. In fact, I find this all-encompassing expectation highly detrimental for fiction. Fiction for me is not telling my own story but the ability not to be myself.
At the same time, I should say I am not propagating a fiction devoid of political considerations. To the opposite, the relation between aesthetics and politics is of deep interest to me.
"Politics and aesthetics" is not an easy marriage but as a Turkish novelist, I do not believe I have the luxury to be apolitical in this world. Therefore, fluidity or flexibility does not mean being apolitical; to the opposite it entails a political choice and the proclivity for empathy.
K.M.- In one of your opinion articles, you say: “While it might be true that many Westerners have to take a closer look at Turkey's remarkable achievements and unusual history in searching for an answer to the vital question of how compatible Islam is with Western democracy, many Turks, in return, have to start washing the make-up on their face and start admitting the bruises left in their history”. Can you speak about those bruises?
E.S.-“The bruises and the make-up” is a metaphor I use in order to better depict Turkish modernists' obsession with “our image in the eyes of the Western world.” The elite likes to prove the Westerners how Westernized, modernized we Turks are. Yet when it comes to critically reading the past, the same elite is indifferent, if not ignorant.
Turkey's modernization went hand in hand with the transformation from a multiethnic, multilingual, multifaith empire to a supposedly homogeneous Turkish nation-state. This process is replete with traumas, losses, and painful memories many of which have been somehow erased from our collective memory.
Our family lines, if you trace it back to centuries, might be most probably multiethnic but ethnicity is a source of suspicion if you choose to talk about it in the public arena. You can be whoever you are in the privacy of your house, but in the public domain, you should just be a Turk. This distinction between private sphere and public sphere is of great interest to me.
In the past, this society was ethnically so heterogeneous but right after 1923 we have gotten used to acting and thinking as if we were now a homogenous whole. The interesting thing about Turkish nationalism is that it relies very much on words, rather than on blood or genes or race, as some other types of nationalism do in other countries.
For Turkish nationalism, you can be a Kurd, an Armenian, a Serbian... all the same, as long as you utter the words: How happy is the one who calls himself a Turk! This is a very interesting feature of Turkish national identity. What you say, what you do, in other words always the outer appearance is essential.
It is this concern with the “outward appearance” that I find quite troublesome. Instead, I suggest washing this make-up off to see both the beauties and the bruises underneath, both the beauties and the atrocities of the past. There are stains and scars left from the transition from a multiethnic empire to a supposedly monolithic nation-state. The loss of the cosmopolitan heritage and multiethnic structure is a cultural, social, economic, political and a big moral loss for Turkey and for the next generations growing up without the knowledge of this loss.
K.M.-Is it to regain part of the knowledge of this loss that you are “planning a project on “Women’s Oral Histories vis-à-vis Collective Amnesia: The Narratives of Armenian & Turkish & Greek Grandmothers”?
Why do citizens of the Turkish Republic in the 21st century “need to listen to the suppressed memories of the Turkish grandmother” regarding “the atrocities...Turks have committed against Armenians” a century ago in the Ottoman Empire, for example?
E.S.-The whole debate on the Turkish-Armenian past is deeply politicized and polarized today. It is also obsessed with written documents and archives. However, I think oral culture is just as much valuable. As a storyteller, it is those stories that I am primarily interested in. The stories old women in Turkey still remember. In many families today there are old women who remember the atrocities committed against the Armenians in the past, I think it is especially valuable to bring out that accumulation of knowledge. This is another source of knowledge.
It is not only the atrocities of the past but also the beauties of the past that we can discover in this vein because many of these old women had Armenian neighbors, friends; they have memories. The Armenian Question is the battle of memory against amnesia and I believe we need the memories of the grandmothers more than anything, because they are not as politicized or polarized as historians or politicians are today.
K.M.- In reference to the cancellation of a conference in Istanbul challenging the state’s thesis on the “Armenian issue”, you say in an article entitled “So, Did I Stab the Nation in the Back?”, “If our perceptive politicians had not intervened at the last minute, I would have failed to stop myself from uttering very damaging statements.”
Your presentation was going to be on the Armenian writer Zabel Yeseyan. Would you now give a summary of this "very damaging" and "backstabbing" paper you were going to present?
E.S. - My presentation at the Conference in Istanbul was going to be on Zabel Yeseyan. I am fascinated by her life and work, and I think it is a pity that today Turkish intellectuals do not know anything about her. Likewise, we know almost nothing about the Armenian intellectuals of the late Ottoman era.
More significantly perhaps is the question: why was the Turkish governmental elite so much disturbed by the writing of the Armenian intellectuals? Why did they want to suppress their voices? Why were poets, novelists, journalists deemed to be dangerous? How and why was writing thought to be dangerous? These are the questions I was planning to raise at the conference.
Today in Turkey not many people know that before the deportation begun, a list of around 240 Armenian intellectuals was concocted by the government; a list of dangerous minds! Dangerous pens! Among them were many artists and writers. It was this list that the state wanted to suppress and silence. Zabel Yeseyan seems to be the only woman in the list.
It is an old tactic of power and dominion. If you want to control and constrain a minority population, you first and foremost control and constrain its brainpower, its intellectuals, its thinking minds. The Ottoman elite seems to have taken this step.
If we can understand the list of Armenian intellectuals of 1915, I hope, we Turkish intellectuals of 2005 can better understand, recognize and mourn the injustice done against the Armenian minority, and the power dynamics behind this historical process.
An Interview with Elif Shafak
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
Says Elif Shafak in this interview, “‘The bruises and the make-up’ is a metaphor I use in order to better depict Turkish modernists' obsession with ‘our image in the eyes of the Western world.’ The elite likes to prove to the Westerners how Westernized, modernized we Turks are. Yet when it comes to critically reading the past, the same elite is indifferent, if not ignorant.”
It is this indifference and ignorance that Shafak, whom “The Economist” considers to be “well set to challenge Mr. (Orhan) Pamuk as Turkey's foremost contemporary novelist,” tries to confront. She does not believe in deceitful “outward appearances” and suggests that Turkey wash away the makeup “to see both the beauties and the bruises underneath.”
Elif Shafak was born in Strasbourg, France in 1971. After spending her teenage years in Spain, she returned to Turkey. She graduated with a degree in International Relations from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. She earned her PhD in 2004 from the Department of Political Science of the same University. She has taught at Bilgi University, Istanbul and at the University of Michigan. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Near Eastern Studies Department at the University of Arizona.
She has published five novels: “Pinhan” (1997), “Sehrin Aynalari” (1999), “Mahrem” (2000), “Bit Palas” (2002), and “The Saint of Incipient Insanities” (2004), her first novel in English.
Although some people in Turkey consider those who attempt to wash the Turkish Republic’s makeup “backstabbers”, it is intellectuals like Elif Shafak who will usher the country to confront its past and face the future.
Khatchig Mouradian - Heraclitus says, “Nothing endures but change”. As a person with "incessant itineraries" who sees life "as a perpetual journey where there is neither a final destination, nor the desire to find one", and as a writer whose heroes are often prone to metamorphosis, how do you explain your commitment to change?
Elif Shafak - At birth we are all born into a certain identity -be it in terms of religion, nationality, gender, etc. Our name is given to us, and so is our habitat, and sometimes even our worldview. The question is the following: living the life we are to live, are we going to die in the same bay, in the same identity? My answer to this question is negative. I am intrigued by metamorphosis. I am not a settler. If anything, I guess I am a nomad. This kind of nomadism was not my choice at the beginning, but then it became something I deliberately, consciously chose.
I was born in France, raised by a single mother, I saw two utterly different grandmothers with two utterly different understandings of Islam, traveled back and forth between different cities and countries, each time the setting changed profoundly, the ground beneath my feet was always subject to change and life a series of sudden ruptures... I spent my childhood in Spain, and traveled back and forth between Amman-Jordan, Cologne-Germany, Ankara, and then Istanbul... Then Boston, Michigan, Arizona... I now live in two places at the same time: Arizona on the one hand and Istanbul on the other hand. The only continuity that existed in my life, the only luggage that came with me everywhere I went was my writing, was fiction.
Transformation and transcendence are at the heart of my fiction.
I think fiction and Sufi thought share something deep in common. For both of them transformation and transcendence play a pivotal role. Fiction, for me, is not the ability to tell your own story to others, but the ability to make others' stories yours and your story others'.
I have roots but I am not rooted. According to the Islamic narrative, there lives a tree in the skies above. Its name is Tuba. This tree is turned upside down and thus has its roots up in the air. Sometimes I think my fiction is a continuous quest for the Tuba tree.
K.M. - Unlike the roots of the Tuba tree in heaven, our earthly roots can be struck by shame and pain, which is why we, human beings, might want to keep them under the soil. We might take pride in our roots but we rarely reveal them entirely. Can fiction bear fruits of transformation, transcendence, and, yes, tuba (beatitude)? Does it make readers less rooted, less uprooted, and more open to their own stories and the stories of others?
E.S. - The clash between representing a particular identity and questioning the very essence of identity politics is one that intrigues me deeply. I am a bit torn in between because I am a nomad but I am a political nomad.
Then there is another dilemma: those who seek to be pastless, memory-free, in other words the future-oriented and then those for whom the past determines the basic parameters, in other words the past-oriented. I do not believe this is an easy dilemma that can be overcome by solely reasoning. Today's international politics does not like ambiguity. Politics does not like ambivalence.
Yet the universe of art, the world of fiction necessitates ambiguities, flexibilities. It has to be fluid. Only then, fiction can bear the fruits of transformation and transcendence. You need to be uprooted in order to feel empathy, if not a rapport, with others' stories, at least until the book is over you need to step outside your zone of existence.
In the USA, for instance, there is a tendency to attribute a function to fiction, as if every book has to have a function. Likewise, if you happen to be "Middle Eastern woman writer" then you are expected to be writing on "women in the Middle East". Your identity walks ahead of the quality of your fiction, which I find very troublesome. In fact, I find this all-encompassing expectation highly detrimental for fiction. Fiction for me is not telling my own story but the ability not to be myself.
At the same time, I should say I am not propagating a fiction devoid of political considerations. To the opposite, the relation between aesthetics and politics is of deep interest to me.
"Politics and aesthetics" is not an easy marriage but as a Turkish novelist, I do not believe I have the luxury to be apolitical in this world. Therefore, fluidity or flexibility does not mean being apolitical; to the opposite it entails a political choice and the proclivity for empathy.
K.M.- In one of your opinion articles, you say: “While it might be true that many Westerners have to take a closer look at Turkey's remarkable achievements and unusual history in searching for an answer to the vital question of how compatible Islam is with Western democracy, many Turks, in return, have to start washing the make-up on their face and start admitting the bruises left in their history”. Can you speak about those bruises?
E.S.-“The bruises and the make-up” is a metaphor I use in order to better depict Turkish modernists' obsession with “our image in the eyes of the Western world.” The elite likes to prove the Westerners how Westernized, modernized we Turks are. Yet when it comes to critically reading the past, the same elite is indifferent, if not ignorant.
Turkey's modernization went hand in hand with the transformation from a multiethnic, multilingual, multifaith empire to a supposedly homogeneous Turkish nation-state. This process is replete with traumas, losses, and painful memories many of which have been somehow erased from our collective memory.
Our family lines, if you trace it back to centuries, might be most probably multiethnic but ethnicity is a source of suspicion if you choose to talk about it in the public arena. You can be whoever you are in the privacy of your house, but in the public domain, you should just be a Turk. This distinction between private sphere and public sphere is of great interest to me.
In the past, this society was ethnically so heterogeneous but right after 1923 we have gotten used to acting and thinking as if we were now a homogenous whole. The interesting thing about Turkish nationalism is that it relies very much on words, rather than on blood or genes or race, as some other types of nationalism do in other countries.
For Turkish nationalism, you can be a Kurd, an Armenian, a Serbian... all the same, as long as you utter the words: How happy is the one who calls himself a Turk! This is a very interesting feature of Turkish national identity. What you say, what you do, in other words always the outer appearance is essential.
It is this concern with the “outward appearance” that I find quite troublesome. Instead, I suggest washing this make-up off to see both the beauties and the bruises underneath, both the beauties and the atrocities of the past. There are stains and scars left from the transition from a multiethnic empire to a supposedly monolithic nation-state. The loss of the cosmopolitan heritage and multiethnic structure is a cultural, social, economic, political and a big moral loss for Turkey and for the next generations growing up without the knowledge of this loss.
K.M.-Is it to regain part of the knowledge of this loss that you are “planning a project on “Women’s Oral Histories vis-à-vis Collective Amnesia: The Narratives of Armenian & Turkish & Greek Grandmothers”?
Why do citizens of the Turkish Republic in the 21st century “need to listen to the suppressed memories of the Turkish grandmother” regarding “the atrocities...Turks have committed against Armenians” a century ago in the Ottoman Empire, for example?
E.S.-The whole debate on the Turkish-Armenian past is deeply politicized and polarized today. It is also obsessed with written documents and archives. However, I think oral culture is just as much valuable. As a storyteller, it is those stories that I am primarily interested in. The stories old women in Turkey still remember. In many families today there are old women who remember the atrocities committed against the Armenians in the past, I think it is especially valuable to bring out that accumulation of knowledge. This is another source of knowledge.
It is not only the atrocities of the past but also the beauties of the past that we can discover in this vein because many of these old women had Armenian neighbors, friends; they have memories. The Armenian Question is the battle of memory against amnesia and I believe we need the memories of the grandmothers more than anything, because they are not as politicized or polarized as historians or politicians are today.
K.M.- In reference to the cancellation of a conference in Istanbul challenging the state’s thesis on the “Armenian issue”, you say in an article entitled “So, Did I Stab the Nation in the Back?”, “If our perceptive politicians had not intervened at the last minute, I would have failed to stop myself from uttering very damaging statements.”
Your presentation was going to be on the Armenian writer Zabel Yeseyan. Would you now give a summary of this "very damaging" and "backstabbing" paper you were going to present?
E.S. - My presentation at the Conference in Istanbul was going to be on Zabel Yeseyan. I am fascinated by her life and work, and I think it is a pity that today Turkish intellectuals do not know anything about her. Likewise, we know almost nothing about the Armenian intellectuals of the late Ottoman era.
More significantly perhaps is the question: why was the Turkish governmental elite so much disturbed by the writing of the Armenian intellectuals? Why did they want to suppress their voices? Why were poets, novelists, journalists deemed to be dangerous? How and why was writing thought to be dangerous? These are the questions I was planning to raise at the conference.
Today in Turkey not many people know that before the deportation begun, a list of around 240 Armenian intellectuals was concocted by the government; a list of dangerous minds! Dangerous pens! Among them were many artists and writers. It was this list that the state wanted to suppress and silence. Zabel Yeseyan seems to be the only woman in the list.
It is an old tactic of power and dominion. If you want to control and constrain a minority population, you first and foremost control and constrain its brainpower, its intellectuals, its thinking minds. The Ottoman elite seems to have taken this step.
If we can understand the list of Armenian intellectuals of 1915, I hope, we Turkish intellectuals of 2005 can better understand, recognize and mourn the injustice done against the Armenian minority, and the power dynamics behind this historical process.
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