3095) TESEV Panel Notes by Sukru Aya: Recent Developments In Turkish – Armenian Relations - Istanbul-Turkey 28 May 2010

Turkey – Armenia: Moving on?
28 May 2010, Friday, 09.30-13.00 / TESEV, Bankalar Cad. No:2 Kat:2 Karaköy
There will be English-Turkish simultaneous translation throughout the event.

On Friday May 28th, the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) and the Yerevan-based Caucasus Institute will jointly organize a panel on the recent developments in Turkish – Armenian relations. . .

The panel will also discuss their recent publication “Turkey-Armenia Dialogue Series: Assessing the Rapprochement Process” written by Aybars Görgülü from TESEV Foreign Policy Programme, and Alexander Iskandaryan and Sergey Minasyan from the Caucasus Institute.

The panel will start with opening remarks from Can Paker, TESEV Chairperson, and will be chaired by Dr. Mensur Akgün, TESEV Foreign Policy Programme Adviser. Erdal Güven, Thomas De Waal, Cengiz Aktar, David Hovhannisyan and Sabine Freizer will also take part.

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Programme:
09.30 - 09.45 Registration

09.45 -10.00 Opening remarks: Can Paker - TESEV Chairperson

10.00 – 11.15 Panel I: Turkish-Armenian Relations: Quo Vadis?
Chairperson: Mensur Akgün – TESEV Foreign Policy Programme
Speakers: Aybars Görgülü – TESEV Foreign Policy Programme
Alexander Iskandaryan – Caucasus Institute
Erdal Güven – Radikal Newspaper

11.15 - 11.30 Coffee break

11.30 – 13.00 Panel II: Will Challenges Halt Rapprochement?
Chairperson: Markar Esayan – Taraf Newspaper (tbc)
Speakers: Thomas De Waal – Carnegie Endowment
Cengiz Aktar – Bahçeşehir University
David Hovhannisyan – Retired Ambassador
Sabine Freizer – International Crisis Group

RSVP: Nurgül Çelebi, +90-212-292 8903 (ext 111), nurgul@tesev.org.tr

*TESEV Foreign Policy Programme would like to thank the Consulate General of Sweden Istanbul, Black Sea Trust Fund, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Association Turkey Office and its High Advisory Board Members for their support towards this project.

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Action No. 2 - Free Workshop and hospitality for selected guets, (who pays ?)

THURSDAY, MAY 27

17:00-18:30 Opening Event: Reflections on Art, Language, and Memory
Moderators: Osman Kavala (Anadolu Kültür), Banu Karaca (Sabancı University)
Silvina Der-Meguerditchian: “The Texture of Absence”

Helin Anahit (Middlesex University): “Fading Voices: A Project Based on Anatolian Polyglot Folk Tradition of Coffee Cup Readings”

19:00 RECEPTION


FRIDAY, MAY 28

9:30-10:00 COFFEE / TEA

10:00-12:00 I. Belonging and Otherness in Literature
Chair: Jale Parla (Bilgi University)
Discussant: Marc Nichanian (Sabancı University)
Arlene Avakian (University of Massachusetts Amherst): “Baklava as Home: Exile and Arab Cooking in Diana Abu-Jaber’s Novel Crescent”
Alparslan Nas (Sabancı University): “Mıgırdiç Margosyan: Togetherness of Autobiography and the Novel on the Road to ‘Minor Literature’: Toward Becoming-Minor in Turkey”

Efe Çakmak (Columbia University): “Literature is Guilty: Edib, Humanism, Colonialism”
Sema Bulutsuz (Istanbul University): “Places and Symbols of Collective Memory in Leyla Erbil”

12:00-13:30 LUNCH BREAK

13:30-15:30 II. Political Translatability

Chair: Bülent Bilmez (Bilgi University)]
Discussant: Umut Azak (Okan University)
Sanem Salgırlı (Marmara University): “Internal Colonialism at Large: Medical Language in the Construction of the Turkish Nation-State”
Kelda Jamison (University of Chicago): “Public Kurdish and the Politics of Legitimate Language in Turkey”
Armen Grigoryan (Analytical Center on Globalisation and Regional Cooperation, Yerevan) “Language of Politics, Intellectuals and Nation-Building”
Phil Gamaghelyan (Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation, Boston): “Including the Other: De-Constructing the ‘Us vs. Them’ Dichotomy in Turkish-Armenian Conflict”

15:30-16:00 COFFEE / TEA

16:00-18:00 III. The Roles and Discourses of Intellectuals
Chair/Discussant: Fikret Adanır (Sabancı University)
Seyhan Bayraktar (University of Zurich): "Politics, Memory, Language: Changes, Continuities and Breaks in the Discourse about the Armenian Genocide in Turkey"
Ayda Erbal (New York University): “MeaCulpas, Negotiations, Apologias: Revisiting the ‘Apology’ of Turkish Intellectuals”
Bilgin Ayata (Johns Hopkins University): “Critical Inquiries on Reconciliation Discourses in Turkey”
Ferhat Kentel (İstanbul Şehir University): “Facing Turkey's Past: Healing and Ailing”


SATURDAY, MAY 29
9:00-10:30 IV. Linguistic Multiplicity
Chair: Erol Köroğlu (Boğaziçi Üniversitesi)
Discussant: Valentina Calzolari (University of Geneva)
Alice von Bieberstein (University of Cambridge): “Intimate Abject: The Turkish Language within the Armenian Diaspora in Berlin”
Nona Shakhnazarian (Kuban Social and Economic Institute): “‘In Russia we are Muslims, in Turkey - Gyavurs…’ Black Sea Frontier Zone, Soviet Era Deportations, and the Language of Marginalization”
Christine Allison (University of Exeter): “Works of Memory in Kurmanji: Contemporary Turkey and Soviet Armenia”

10:30-11:00 COFFEE / TEA

11:00-12:30 V. Memory Works A
Chair: Haldun Gülalp (Yıldız Technical University)
Discussant: Biray Kolluoğlu (Boğaziçi University)
Yektan Türkyılmaz (Duke University): “When Victims Become Rulers: The Armenian Regional Government in Van Province (May-July 1915)”
Talin Bahçıvanoğlu (Humboldt University at Berlin): “Dersim: A Lived Environment from the Perspective of the Armenian Witnesses”
Ramazan Aras (University of Western Ontario): “Language, Body and Sovereignty: Memories of Incarceration, Corporeal Punishment and Resistance from the Prison of Amed/Diyarbakır in the 1980s”

12:30-14:00 LUNCH BREAK

14:00-16:00 VI. Memory Works B
Chair/ Discussant: Arzu Öztürkmen (Boğaziçi University)
Burcu Yıldız (Istanbul Technical University): “Performing Home Through Performing its Music: Onnik Dinkjian and his Dikranagertsi (Diyarbakır) Music”
Laurence Ritter (Caucasus Institute, Yerevan): “Converted and Hidden Armenians in Turkey: Silent Voices of the Past into the Present Days”
Leyla Neyzi (Sabancı University): “Remembering 1915: Language Use in Postmemories of Turks, Kurds and Armenians in Turkey”
Louis Fishman (City University of New York): “Remnants of the Past/Present: Jews, Greeks, and Armenians as Historical/Living Artifacts”

16:00-16:30 COFFEE / TEA

16:30-18:00 VII. Cultural Translatability
Chair: Hülya Adak (Sabancı University)
Discussant: Şenay Özden (Koç University)
Defne Ayas (Blind Dates Project): “Blind Dates: Challenges and Troves of a Curatorial Process”
David Kazanjian (University of Pennsylvania): “Kinships Past, Kinship’s Futures”
Ruken Şengül (The University of Texas at Austin): “Lost in Translation, Or Found? Contesting Kinship, Community and State in the East through the Institution of Kirvelik”

PARALLEL EVENTS

a) May 28, Friday 19:00 Tütün Deposu
Exhibit Opening: “Talkin Openly” (by Helin Anahit)

b) May 30, Sunday 17:30 Cezayir Meeting Hall
Panel: “Talking Openly: You, Me and the Others” (organized by Helin Anahit)
Moderator: Ayşe Öncü (Sabancı University)
Asuman Suner (Istanbul Technical University)
Ayfer Bartu (Boğaziçi University)
Cengiz Aktar (Bahçeşehir University)
Ferhat Kentel (Istanbul Şehir University)
Zafer Yenal (Boğaziçi University)

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Comments From The Panel by Sukru Server Aya

- Conference was attended in the form of a round table talk, workshop and was carried orderly and timely.

- TESEV speakers said that they will not discuss genocide but will elaborate on the status of protocols and chances of revival.

- However, every TESEV referred to the fact that "genocide " is a fact and that Armenian government will not discuss it. Guest speakers, said nothing new, other than wishful thinking. Almost all Turkish speakers have been to Erivan several times, and more or less they argued that Turkey should not be part in the Karabagh conflict and should open borders and establish diplomatic relations.

- Orhan Cekic, referred to the Armenian constitution and said how an agreement can be established, when Armenian demand on apology for genocide, demand of land and restitution stays valid. TESEV speakers replied that these demands are not mentioned in the protocols and hence they should be neglected. They also said that forty countries' parliaments have acknowledged genocide and Turkey will understand this in time. Orhan Cekic said that European Court of Justice's 2004 verdict contradicts this statement and that there is no judicial verdict and that the Armenian side keeps away from any friendly debates.

- Dr. Mustafa Atac, said that we really do not need delegates from overseas countries to tell us what to do with our neighbors. He said, if they and diaspora would not poke their fingers, there would be no problem with Armenia or Armenians.

- Hikmet Ersoy, from Turkish Forum said that he lived long years in Boston and truly the personal friendly relations are effected when diaspora authorities intervene and avoid any friendship. He said that unless diaspora is kept out, there can be no reconciliation because they have benefit in this dispute.

- Sukru Aya, said that despite the program every speaker referred to genocide as a fact. He said that it is a fact, but that the documents at hand which they can see, prove that it was the Armenians encouraged by super powers, who did the crime, but what has passed has passed and we as Turks have no no problem with Hagop or Harut and Armenians of Turkey or Armenia with whom we lived together for a thousand years. Aya pointed out that protocols were prepared by persons not knowing the subject and had no chance, since they left out Azerbaijan and diaspora. He said that a vehicle or table on two legs cannot stand, it should have had four wheels.

- In the second session Aya said that his book is on the internet for over two years and that the biggest assistance he gets is from "decent Armenians from Turkey" and that we are all struggling for the truth, whatever it may be. Aya told the audience that in the past 6 years the blog site has posted some 60.000 pages of knowledge on this subject, over 200 books in the E-library and has almost three hundred articles. Those interested should read and learn first, but
unfortunately no one does it. Aya also asked what will happen with the demands on genocide, restitution (which was settled in 1937) land and slanders of diaspora will happen. He asked if the genocide museums and monuments will turn into art museums.

Aya said that diaspora made an industry out of it and they will not agree to any settlement which will cut their money circulation. Aya gave examples from U.S. Armenian press, dictating to Armenia what they should do and act within their wishes. Prof. Haluk Tarcan said that he lived for 30 years in Paris and as regards the ownership of land, he has evidence that pro-Turks have lived in this are since 13.000 and can prove it. Lale Gurman said that she represents a NGO but that the Turkish views are never voiced by scholars.

The meeting was an exchange of views and counter comments which have been left unreplied by speakers. The overseas guest speakers were more lenient and balanced compared to Turkish speakers who demonstrated their blind prejudice. Sumerolog Dr. Muazzez I. Cıg (95) said that we have lived for a thousand years together but in 1915 they were provoked by outside powers, they took arms and revolted against their homeland. And what has happened we should leave behind and live again as good neighbors and that Turks have no problems or antagonism against Armenians. The meeting closed at 1 p.m.

SSA

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