In Eastern Turkey, Walking in the Shadow of Genocide

John Lubbock (*)

 

In the week leading up to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, British-Armenian historian Ara Sarafian led a group of students, academics and journalists on a mission to engage with local Kurds and the descendants of Armenians in the Kurdish region of Turkey.

It was in these towns and villages, 100 years ago, that the Armenian population, as well as many Assyrians, were forced from their homes and killed or deported by the state and its deputies. The Ottoman bureaucracy, supposedly fearing non-Turkish populations would revolt and carve off Ottoman lands to create new nation-states, exploited tribal, class and ethnic tensions to encourage local Kurdish leaders to murder their neighbours and steal their lands.

Sarafian has been travelling to this region, and especially the main Eastern city of Diyarbakir, for years, engaging with locals and trying to build bridges with the local community.

Turkey’s Premier Tries to Keep Power, as President

Sebnum Arsu

Tin Arango

 

Just before Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s motorcade swept into the airport here [Ankara], workers rolled up a red carpet that had been used for the departing president and put down a turquoise one for Mr. Erdogan.

Turquoise was the primary color of the Ottoman Empire, and Mr. Erdogan’s preference for it is a subtle, yet telling, symbol of his ambitions as he campaigns to become president — crisscrossing the country in a bid to expand his pre-eminence over Turkish political life and become, as many of his critics put it, a modern-day sultan.

On Sunday, Turks, for the first time in history, will vote for their president, a position that on paper is largely, but not entirely, ceremonial. As the campaign has unfolded, any sense of its historical importance has been eclipsed by a sense of certitude: Mr. Erdogan is widely expected to win, and widely expected to govern the country from the presidential palace.