The Road from Diyarbakir: A Call to Deepen Kurdish Commitment to Genocide Justice
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The Road from Diyarbakir: A Call to Deepen Kurdish Commitment to Genocide Justice –
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By Khatchig Mouradian
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BERLIN, Germany (A.W.)—On May 10, a conference on “The 1915 Genocide: Collective Responsibility and Roles; Kurdish, Armenian, Assyrian Relations” was held in Berlin. It brought together two generations of Kurdish intellectuals to discuss inter-communal relations before and after the genocide and the responsibilities of Kurds in the process and conciliation and making amends.
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Armenian Weekly Editor Khatchig Mouradian delivered the following speech, in Turkish, calling on Kurdish opinion-makers and politicians to expand and deepen their role in bringing justice to the victims of the Armenian Genocide.
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For the Turkish version of the speech, click here.
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I pass through Diyarbakir on all my trips to Turkey.
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In January 2013, I was scheduled to speak at a conference in Ankara dedicated to Hrant Dink, and once again I decided to first make a stop in Diyarbakir.
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It was Jan. 17 when I landed in Diyarbakir. Some of you here will remember that day. Hundreds of thousands had gathered for the funeral of activist Sakine Cansiz and her comrades.
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As I stood in the crowd listening to the speeches, my mind wandered from Dersim to Diyarbakir to Ankara…
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Two days later, in Ankara, I delivered my first speech in Turkish.
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I started like this:
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How did Turkish come to me?
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I did not learn it to add one more foreign language to my CV.
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Turkish came to me the day I was born. I had not asked for it, yet I could not reject it, either.
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It came to me in the voice of my grandmother.
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For you, Turkish is the mother tongue. For me it’s my grandmother’s language.
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My grandparents survived the genocide and ended up in Lebanon with practically nothing. They rebuilt their lives from scratch, and gave my parents the gift of life.
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And when I was born, they gave me one of the few things they were, in fact, able to bring with them from Kilikia: the Turkish language.
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For you, Turkish is the language of parental love.
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For me, it is the burden of death and dispossession.
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My Turkish has memories of death and dispossession from Adana, Kilis, Konya Eregli, and Hasanbeyli. The villages and towns of my grandparents.
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And today, for the first time, I speak that language from a podium.
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Today, for the first time, I return that gift of death and dispossession to the lands it came from…
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At the end of the speech, I said:
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But asking others to open their eyes and acknowledge the suffering of Armenians can never be enough.
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What is necessary is justice.
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So today, I return the language of death and dispossession to you.
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And instead, in the name of my grandparents, Khachadour and Meline Mouradian, Ardashes and Aghavni Gharibian, I demand a language of justice.
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Today, as we discuss “The 1915 Genocide: Collective Responsibility and Roles,” I once again think about the funeral and my speech. And my mind wanders from Dersim to Diyarbakir to Ankara. Because I believe the road to justice passes through Diyarbakir.
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And that sound must be amplified, so that it reaches Van, Hakkari, Şırnak, Dersim, Batman, Bitlis, and Ağrı.
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And eventually Ankara.
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Let us not talk about brotherhood and peace. I am tired of the incessant use, misuse, and abuse of these words in Turkey.
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Let us not talk about shared dolma, shared pain, an Anatolian diaspora, Turkish passports, lobbies, condolences, and other absurdities.
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The road to conciliation passes through justice. There are no shortcuts.
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Ankara keeps the border with Armenia shut, but Diyarbakir can open another border: The border with the diaspora.
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And that border can only open with justice.
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As we approach the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, let our minds, together, wander from Dersim, to Diyarbakir, to Ankara.
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Many of you here know that Sakine Cansiz was from Dersim, and that her nom de guerre, Sara, was her Armenian grandmother’s name.
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Hundreds of thousands gathered to pay their respect to Sakine Cansiz in January last year. But that respect has not been paid to Sakine’s grandmother, and the million and a half who perished during the genocide.
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So let hundreds of thousands gather in Diyarbakir on April 24, 2015, to commemorate the genocide of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontic Greeks.
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And to make the voice of justice stronger.
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