Ara Sanjian
After the Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi
or AKP) started governing Turkey in 2002, a number of Turkey watchers
privately told their Armenian friends to expect a different approach
from this new political elite regarding Ankara’s official position on
the Armenian Genocide of 1915. They argued that the Young Turks, who
executed the genocide, were positivists, nationalists, and
social-Darwinists, not Islamists. Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), the
founder of the Turkish Republic, which replaced the Ottoman Empire, had
himself been a Young Turk. When, in 1919, he embarked upon his
nationalist struggle against the victorious World War I Allies, Greeks
and Armenians, many former Young Turks joined him because remaining
loyal to the Ottoman sultan could have led to their arrest, trial, and
conviction for involvement in the genocide. The modern Turkish
nation-state, which Atatürk built, could not have been achieved had
Armenians and Greeks continued to live in large numbers in eastern
Turkey. For Young Turks-cum-Kemalists, recognizing Ottoman Turkish
government responsibility in effecting the Armenian Genocide would be
tantamount to accepting that many of the founders of their cherished
republic were implicated in one of the twentieth century’s bloodiest
episodes. The ideological predecessors of the Islamists, conversely,
were not in power in 1915. The Islamists do not idealize Atatürk’s
republic. It would be easier for them to come to terms with this painful
chapter and thus end the ongoing antagonism with Armenians.
