The Kurds in the Turkish–Armenian Reconciliation Process: Double-Bind or Double-Blind?

Abstract

A century after the Armenian Genocide and its ongoing denial by the Turkish state, there has emerged a notable and unprecedented interest in the Armenian past and present both in civil society discourse and scholarship in Turkey, accompanied by various reconciliation iniatives at the state and society levels. Observers have suggested that this increased engagement with Turkey's suppressed past is an outcome of its EU candidacy, the democratization reforms of the early 2000s, and the shockwave among liberal segments of Turkish society caused by the 2007 assassination of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. I argue that this shortsighted analysis, which completely ignores the Kurdish movement's transformative challenge to Turkish denialism since the 1980s, echoes the key fallacy of present discussions of Turkey's engagement with its past: compartmentalization and disjunction of interlinked state crimes.

‘We did commit these crimes’: Post-Ottoman solidarities, contested places and Kurdish apology for the Armenian Genocide on Web 2.0

“…In contrast, however, to the official Turkish position of denying that a genocide took place, there has been growing recognition of the Armenian Genocide – and Kurdish complicity – by many Kurdish politicians, activists and novelists, including the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Öcalan and the Kurdish Parliament in Exile (Ayata, 2009, 2015; Çelik, 2016, 2020; Galip, 2016). In the process of recognising Kurdish participation, Kurdish activists frequently draw parallels between Armenian suffering and contemporary persecution of the Kurds: the landmark statement issued by the Kurdish Parliament in Exile, for instance, drew an analogy between the Hamidiye cavalry implicated in the massacres of the 1890s and the contemporary Village Guards, paramilitaries recruited (primarily) from the Kurdish population to resist PKK activity (Asbarez.com, 1997; see also Ayata, 2009, 2015: 810). An informal oral memory recognising Kurdish involvement in the genocide is also in evidence amongst Kurds on local levels, as shown by Biner (2010: 77–79) in Mardin and Çelik (2016, 2020) in Diyarbakır Province (both southeastern Turkey).…”

The politics of memory and commemoration: Armenian diasporic reflections on 2015

“…9. Ayata (2015) argues for the neglected role that parts of Kurdish civil society have played in confronting the Armenian genocide, where "reconciliation initiatives are strongly shaped by the violence and injustice to which they were subjected by the state." This is by no means a uniform development, crucially centering on how Kurdish actors position themselves as active and complicit perpetrators of the genocide, but at least offers an alternative reading to "reconciliation."…”

The Uncanny Medium: Semiotic Opacity in the Wake of Genocide

“…The Mothers' actions suggest historical links between forms of state violence not commonly viewed within one analytical frame. Ayata (2015) argues that many civil society organizations and intellectuals in Turkey, even those that are ostensibly critical of state violence, tend to treat violence against Armenians as a problem of the past and the Kurdish conflict as a problem of the present. This temporal disconnection often tacitly orients political action.…”

“…While these gatherings have been precariously established in Turkey-in fact, the Mothers stopped assembling altogether in 1999 due to police pressure, only resuming their gatherings 10 years later-they have nonetheless been globally visible, supported by organi-2. For critiques of how this narrative has emerged among Turkish intellectuals and civil society groups, see Ayata (2015); Bayraktar (2015); Erbal (2012).…”