Raffi Meneshian
Meline Toumani’s “There Was and There Was Not: A Journey Through Hate
and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond” is arguably one of the
more critically acclaimed Armenian Genocide themed books to come along
in years. It has been nominated as a finalist for the 2014 National Book
Critics Circle Awards in the category of autobiography and has garnered
an impressive array of glowing reviews from publications ranging from
The New York Times to The Economist. Having signed with the imprint
Metropolitan/Henry Holt/Picador, part of the McMillan family of book
publishers, Toumani has major muscle behind promoting the memoir. Her
appearances on various radio talk shows, television programs and a
recent high profile Op-Ed have had two overtly consistent themes- 1.
Armenians need to get over the issue of Armenian Genocide recognition
and 2. They have been brought up to indiscriminately hate Turks. Yet, as
many strain to recall exactly who Meline Toumani is, her book has been
met with some interest, some anger, and a whole lot of blank stares
within the Armenian community.
The main premise of the book is fairly straight forward, while its
implications rather sharp. A story in three parts, Toumani takes us
through her Armenian American younger years, her time in Turkey and
Armenia, and then a final section in the United States where she
reflects on her recent experiences and gives us a big reveal. In her
early life, Toumani has conflicted feelings on how to view Turks given
her preconceived notions. Those notions, she contends, was that of an
irrational discomfort and hatred of Turks, introduced and nurtured by
the Armenian community both in the immediate and the abstract. As she
approached her mid to late 20’s, her intellectual curiosity kicked in
and she decided to confront those awkward feelings. In 2005, she takes a
spur of the moment trip to Turkey and ends up spending approximately
four years there attempting to get beyond the hatred of Turks to
understand them, study them, and get over her own prejudices. Toumani
then spends a small amount of time in Armenia before returning to Turkey
and then “shuts down her science project” and returns to the U.S. in
order to write her book. The actual “journey” is not her Turkish
wanderlust, rather, her emotional and intellectual evolution during this
period of her life. One part catharsis, the other part an act of
understanding the Turkish people.
It is during her time in Turkey that Toumani’s book shines. Her
storytelling flows, is inspired, and we are taken into a world many of
us have never seen. The highlight of the book is her banter with Yusuf
Halacoglu, president of the Turkish Historical Society who was entrusted
with creating(*) and upholding the official Turkish revisionist history on
the Armenian genocide. This riveting section details a duel of wills
between Toumani and Halacoglu over history, perception, and debate
acumen. She then visits the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations where the
word “Armenian” simply doesn’t exist and the official reopening of the
Church of the Holy Cross on Akhtamar Island, which had a circus-like
atmosphere in which virtually no Diasporan-Armenians attended.
Interspersed between these anecdotes is a travelogue-like narrative
where Toumani is in and out of Istanbul and Eastern Turkey. She details
interactions with the likes of Hrant Dink (for one hour), the Agos
staff, Kurds, Turks, and Armenians alike. I found it all exceptional
storytelling and quite inspired. I could genuinely feel the sincerity
and purpose with which she took on the “project.”
Yet, as with any storytelling, perspective is important as well as
extremely subjective. What is also fascinating is to what length one
will go to convey that perspective. The landmark 1950 Japanese Jidaigeki
film “Rashomon” by legendary director Akira Kurosawa comes to mind. In
the film, a tragic event occurs and is retold through the point of view
of four different witnesses. Toumani’s perspective should be taken in
the same light, one of many, with underlying reasons for her narrative.
She is neither right nor wrong, there was and there was not. Toumani’s
reasons begin to reveal themselves throughout the course of the book in a
rather unexpected fashion. Toumani believes that those vigorously
pursuing Armenian genocide resolutions may be harming Armenia’s
relationship with Turkey and are using “hateful rhetoric” in order to
chase ghosts of the past. Additionally, she does not believe in the
process with which governments legislate terminology as it applies to
historical events. In a single breath, Toumani wishes Turkey would admit
to the genocide while arguing against putting political pressure on
that country to force an acknowledgement. It’s one of many
contradictions in her book. One would argue that Armenians using
constant international political pressure have been effective in forcing
Turkey down the path of its inevitable mea culpa. Others may see it
differently. Toumani is in the latter camp. In her piece entitled “‘With This Madness, What Art Could There Be?’” (The Nation, October 21,
2014) , Toumani asks “ I wondered whether obsession with genocide
recognition was worth its emotional and psychological price.”
As a former New York Times journalist, Toumani flaunts the use of
source materials to assert her objectivity and credibility. In the
second chapter of the book entitled, “Summer Camp, Franklin,
Massachusetts, 1989” Toumani informs us that she has stumbled upon some
rather important documents- summer camp newsletters from her youth.
Within these newsletters, she selectively focuses on the feelings of 8
to 19 year olds and what they wrote in these “Hai Lites.” She chooses to
extract passages that portray children and teenagers as being
singularly obsessed with Armenian Genocide themes. “Many of the
newsletter entries imagined genocide,” Toumani writes. “Poems told of
orphaned children ‘A red, so red/drips so endless/Why, Daddy? Why?’ or
national liberation ‘ but just when they think they’ve got us all/we
will rebuild/ One day an Armenian will find another, and red, blue, and
orange will raise high/ And not another Armenian will have to cry.’ “
She continues with a few more passages citing these camp newsletters
during her specific stint in 1989. In my own examination of these
documents, I found the genocide themes the exception rather than the
rule contradicting her claim. With each sentence, Toumani paints an
improbable picture of a summer camp that seems normal from the outside,
yet within its confines, is a place where children are taught to hate
Turks through the use of basic history lessons, Ottoman era
revolutionary songs taught within context, and guest lectures. This, in
between swimming, games, arts and crafts and other routine summer camp
activities. Toumani’s deliberately dark undertones in portraying the
camp when she was a teenager are intentionally ominous. She uses it as a
clever, and misleading, literary device moving forward.
The bombshell story from this chapter she has written about, talked
about, and actively promoted in the press is where a guest lecturer was
invited to discuss the Lisbon 5 incident (1983) on “Debate Night.” She
contends that the lecturer moderated a discussion on the validity of
whether such tactics (a suicide bombing) were useful in gaining Armenian
genocide recognition during that timeframe (the 1980’s). Towards the
end of the debate as things were getting heated, a counselor from San
Francisco stepped in and shrieked, “you people are all crazy.” The
debate abruptly ends, according to Toumani’s account. A controversial
topic to be sure, but not outside the realm of what is teachable and
debatable amongst young adults given I was learning about Nazi hunters
in the aftermath of the Holocaust, the bombing of Japanese during WW2,
and slavery during that age when I was going to middle and high school.
When I read the Lisbon 5 passage, I was startled. Not so much as to the
story, but more to the fact that I was on staff when Meline was a camper
in the summer of 1989. I did not recall this incident during that
timeframe. I had heard a version of this story a few months before the
publication of Toumani’s book. It was mere coincidence that the person
who was recalling this incident was the “counselor from San Francisco”
in a casual conversation reminiscing about the past. So, like Toumani, I
referred to the camp newsletters and verified that the people she was
referencing never in fact attended during the time frame (1989) she
quoted in her book. This lecture happened in 1990 but with a tone a bit
different than the tale that Toumani tells. Whether Toumani’s error in
retelling a story and the dates involved may have been as simple as
streamlining her experiences to fit the confines of her book, or sloppy
fact checking of summer camp newsletters from a former New York Times
journalist, it is nevertheless irresponsible due to the fact that she
was looking at the same source materials I was.
As the chapters roll on, another reveal begins. She looks down on
many aspects of her ethnic identity. While waiting at the Istanbul
airport, she writes, “Standing apart from the merchants, there was
usually also a few slender Armenian girls in skintight jeans, amply
rogued, with silky long hair, wearing stiletto heels and tank tops, fake
breasts distorting fake logos and suggesting a different kind of goods
for sale. Yes, here they were, my people.” Or about the work that the
Armenian National Committee does, “Claims that human rights were at
stake seemed disingenuous; and when Armenian lobbying groups yoked the
cause to a platform of saving Darfur, it seemed motivated more by PR
than conscious.” Lastly, Toumani’s take on community events, “I had
attended awful theater by Armenian playwrights in which young actors
faked the accents of genocide survivors in kitschy attempts at
representing trauma, tugging the heartstrings of audiences who handed
them over expectantly, as if in a prearranged bargain.” Her list of
targets also includes Armenian men, Hayastantsi Armenian women, Turkish
Armenians of Istanbul, Armenian student clubs, Armenian political
organizations, Armenian lobbyists, Armenian volunteers, the city of
Yerevan, to anything else you can imagine. It’s in the book, and it’s
downright weird. What is clear is that she is above all of it.
In the final section of this memoir, Meline Toumani drops another
bombshell on the audience. The big reveal, as it were. She has moved on
from being part of a community to evolving into an individual.
Justifying a controversial decision she made omitting the word
“genocide” from her 2008 NY Times article on Komitas, she writes, “I
received an e-mail from an Armenian colleague asking me why I had not
used the word genocide. He wanted to know whether I had made that
decision or whether the paper had declined to use it. In truth, the
choice was mine. After thinking about it for a long time, longer than I
spent on the article itself, I had decided to avoid the word.” The
ultimate irony here is that Komitas became mute and lost his mind as a
direct consequence of being a witness to the Armenian genocide. It was
the defining part of his life as both a victim and survivor.
Meline Toumani is an author who wants it all. She is apolitical yet
plays petty politics. She disassociates herself from the Armenian
community but uses “we” and “us” when it is to her commercial advantage.
She wants to be that independent observer yet can’t help being the
story. In her April 17, 2015 NY Times piece entitled “We Armenian Should
Not Define Us,” Toumani comes out swinging against everyone from Kim
Kardashian, ANC’s Aram Hamparian, Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan to two
of the Armenian diaspora’s largest newspapers, Asbarez and
Armenian Weekly. Again, a victim. She writes in the NY Times op-ed,
“Armenian culture is deeply conservative, even prudish, so there could
be no less likely hero for this tiny nation and its diaspora than a
woman who is perhaps known for her outlandish personal life and
erotically charged public image.”
“There Was and There Was Not” cannot be recommended. She throws out
some provocative ideas but never really follows through with fleshing
them out. Her scope throughout the book is too narrow, her assertions
lack context, and her tone is acerbic and arrogant. She lacks
credibility in areas where heavy-handed statements are made, as in her
throwaway statement on Nagorno-Karabakh. I suspect many of the reviewers
fawning over the book have taken Toumani at face value and construed
her opinions as fact. Well-written press releases and a nice universal
story can do that sometimes. However, what is more disturbing is the way
this book has been marketed. In her own mind and in the eyes of her
publisher, Meline Toumani has emerged a hero after suffering as a victim
of alienation from the Armenian community. She and her marketing team
have set out to blame the victim and portray them as genocide obsessed
simpletons in order to conjure up sales. An old marketing trick,
controversy sells. Those who don’t like it are considered “close
minded,” “ultra-nationalists,” and “lack nuance,” a calculated response
to brush away valid criticisms. And yet, for an author who bemoans the
politicization and commercialization of the Armenian genocide, she has
chosen to release the book during the general timeframe of the
centennial. Commerce has no shame.
***
During my latest visit to Armenia in April and May 2015, I was
inspired by what I saw around me. Whether they were past colleagues, old
summer camp connections, friends, or new acquaintances, the sheer scope
of people in Armenia was impressive. Some were building a new life
there while others, like me, were there to salute the living while
paying respect to the dead. Nation builders, entrepreneurs, musicians,
thinkers, technology innovators, etc. were all transforming Armenia in
the present. Today. Right now. The mood in Armenia was upbeat, positive,
and determined. A few days after April 24, I passed by a familiar spot
on Abovyan called Artbridge Bookstore Café. There was a book reading and
signing taking place. It was Meline Toumani hawking her book to a very
small handful of people. Without missing a beat, I kept walking.
"Asbarez," June 1, 2015
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(*) Actually, Halacoglu did not create Turkish revisionist history. As the long-term president of the Turkish Historical Society, the guardian of "official" history, he was entrusting with the task of upholding revisionism ("Armeniaca").
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