Raffi Bedrosyan
Last month, the Turkish government released a website
where Turkish citizens can look up their ancestral roots all the way
back until the mid-1850s. There are hundreds of stories in printed and
social media, which sent shockwaves in Turkey and beyond, about several
Turks who discovered that they had Albanian, Arabic, Pontic Greek,
and—worst of all—Armenian roots. There have even been reports that some
members of an ultra-nationalistic and racist Turkish party were
ostracized and thrown out of their ranks, went into depression, and even
committed suicide upon discovering their Armenian family roots.
And yet, in a country where calling someone Armenian is the biggest
insult, there are numerous documented and undocumented stories about
prominent Turks having Armenian roots, including a past president,
another former president’s wife, and several opposition politicians. In
one of the documented stories, the family of a past opposition leader—an
ultra-nationalistic Turk—was actually converted to Islam from an
Armenian family in the Black sea region, whose Armenian descendants now
live in Canada.
When this official genealogy website was made public, I immediately
wondered how the hidden Armenians’ (Armenians and their descendants, who
were forced to convert during the Armenian Genocide) roots were
recorded and a quick survey revealed that absolutely none of them were
recorded as Armenian. Their family history started only with their
adopted Muslim Turkish names. Although there is past evidence that the
government kept detailed records of converted Armenians among Turks and
Kurds, these records are not made public and are not revealed in this
new website. Interestingly, it became evident that many Armenians
killed, lost, and deported during the genocide are still marked as being
“alive” on the website. Many Armenian families who knew the tragic fate
of their grandmothers or grandfathers born all the way back in 1850s,
are now finding out that these people are still miraculously alive,
according to the doctored records of the website.
I wish here, to relate two interesting—and little known—stories of roots.
A weathly Armenian family lived in a village of Malatya in the 1880s.
The region was terrorized and harassed by Kurdish tribesmen, who
regularly raided Armenian villages. Eventually, Armenians started
organizing defense forces by banding together fedayees (freedom fighters) to protect the Armenian villages. An Armenian fedayee leader
once approached the head of this wealthy Armenian family and asked for
money to buy weapons and horses. The wealthy Armenian said that he would
decide in two days whether to comply with this request or not. After
two days, the fedayee returned and the wealthy Armenian refused to give any money. The fedayee
promptly shoots the man. The widow of the killed Armenian man fled with
her newborn son to Izmir, where she converted to Islam and raised her
son with utter hatred toward Armenians. That boy grew up to be Ismet
İnönü (1884-1973), the second President of Turkey after Kemal
Ataturk—and perhaps one of the worst enemy of the Armenians and other
minorities in Turkey, after the Ittihadist (Young Turk) leaders.
İnönü brought forth legislation called the “Wealth Tax” in 1942
(Varlik Vergisi), ostensibly to help Turkey cope with the war economy,
but with the intent of ruining the minorities. The taxes were assessed
based on ethnic origin—the level of taxation with respect to total
capital was 232 percent for the Armenians, 184 percent for the Jews, 159
percent for the Greeks, and only a mere 4.9 percent for the Turks. The
payment deadline was 15 days and anyone who could not pay was arrested
and sent to the eastern provinces to work as laborers in stone quarries,
building roads or tunnels. This was, in effect, a wealth transfer from
the minorities to the Turks.
Many Armenians, after selling all their assets at dirt cheap prices,
went bankrupt and still could not raise the required amounts and ended
up at labor camps and dying there. In 1964, İnönü further oppressed the
Greeks, when he deported 45,000 of them who had dual Greek and Turkish
citizenship during the Cyprus crisis. They were given ten days to leave
behind all their properties, assets, and belongings to leave the country
with the allowed $20 and 20 kg (45 lbs) of possessions. The story of
Ismet İnönü’s Armenian roots was corroborated by prominent historian
Prof. Pars Tuglaci (Parsegh Tuglaciyan) (1933-2016), a family friend of
İnönü.
Ali Kemal was a prominent liberal Ottoman journalist and editor of
the Ikdam newspaper in the 1910s. He was also a member of the opposition
Liberal Union (Itilaf) party and severe critic of the ruling Ittihad
Terakki party. He fiercely criticizes the ruling party for entering the
war, and for committing “war crimes and massacres” against its own
Armenian citizens. His editorials and brilliant political speeches
defending the Armenians are so vehement, that the pro-Ittihadist media
dubbed him “Artin Kemal” (Artin is an Armenian name, short for
Harutiun).
After the war, when Ottoman Turkey was defeated and the Ittihadist
leaders fled the country, the Sultan appointed a new government and
Kemal briefly became Minister of Interior. Kemal relentlessly demanded
prosecution and punishment of the Ittihadist leaders. While he continued
his attacks on the Ittihad leaders and defends the Armenians’ rights,
he decided to send his British wife and children to England for safety.
Unfortunately, the tide turned against Kemal when the resistance started
by Kemal Ataturk in Ankara gained power and swept the Sultan and the
Istanbul government away. Kemal got caught in the barber shop of
Tokatliyan Hotel in Istanbul. While being taken to Ankara for trial,
one of Ataturk’s commanders, “Red” Nureddin Pasha (dubbed “Red” for his
red beard as well as his bloody cruelty) ordered his soldiers to lynch
Kemal who was torn apart limb by limb while still alive.
Kemal’s family settled in Britain and his great grandson eventually
became the Mayor of London, and current Foreign Minister of Great
Britain, Boris Johnson. As a master diplomat, Johnson continuously tells
Turkish President Erdogan that UK will do everything possible to get
Turkey into the European Union, but at the same time, advocates Brexit
by arguing that if Turkey enters EU, Britain would be flooded by Turkish
immigrants.
If it weren’t for stories of tragic roots, politics would be fun.
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