99 - all you should know about the Genocide April, 2014 | Page 97

Empire almost throughout the 19 th century, and
was considered the treasure of Eastern Armenia.
But now it is part of the lands which remain lost
in Western Armenia. How did that happen?
Ani provides the answer to my question. Despite
the fact that there are many similarities between
the Armenians and the Turks, despite the fact
that friendly relations are possible between
Armenians and Turks on an individual level, there

To this day, the Turks and
their books cannot accept
the fact that an organized
Armenian massacre occurred
from 1915 to 1917. It is
possible that the reason
for this is that those same
murderers and thieves were
also the heroic founders
of the modern Republic of
Turkey. One of the main
obstacles to public discussion
is a sense of collective
amnesia. This universal loss
of memory in Turkey is due
to the dull ing of the historic
self-awareness of the Turks, a
process which occurred over
a number of decades. Ataturk
damaged the lines connecting
the people to their own past.
From the moment of its
creation, each nation state
looks to its past, on which
it bases its legitimacy. If it
does not find anything there,
it makes things up, which is
what has occurred in the case
of Turkey.

is a radical difference between us. We would
never conceive of converting a mosque into a
church, we realize that a mosque is sacred to
another nation. We cannot think of converting it
into a church. The Turkish mentality is radically
different in this sense, converting any nonTurkish value or structure into a Turkish one is

Taner Akcam
Historian, author of a number of
books on the Armenian Genocide