Çidem İnç - Thoughts and Dichotomies

     On April 12, 2015, I began titling a few of my posts with the Armenian Chidem Inch which is a slangy contraction of Chem Kider or I Don’t Know. You can reference the first post below to learn how this idea came to me.

1. Chidem Inch
2. Chidem Inch - Kim Kardashian in Armenia
3. Çidem İnç - Hagop Martayan 
4. Chidem Inch - Descendants of Survivors and Saints
5. Chidem Inch - The G Word
6. Chidem Inch: Sedition Medition!
7. Çidem İnç: Terror in Paris and Beirut
8. January 2016: Chidem Inch - The Water Diviner 
9. April 2016: Chidem Inch - April 24th
10. Chidem Inch: April 24, 2018

     I have resumed that series again this year with two posts this month… soon to be three. Sometimes I use the Anglized version Chidem Inch and sometimes I use, Çidem İnç, using the Turkish Alphabet created by an Armenian, Hagop Martoyan at the behest of Kemal Ataturk (see number 3 in the above list for that story).
     Every year around this time, I have a similar experience. Armenians commemorate the anniversary of April 24th. I am struck with a variety of thoughts and dichotomies. It is not that these thoughts and dichotomies are non-existent or dormant the rest of the year. The commemoration speeches, programs, articles, and postings just make them more top of mind.
     What are these thoughts and dichotomies, these thoughtful dichotomies, and dichotomous thoughts?
     #TurkeyFailed: Let me begin with this. We Armenians love to use this tagline and hashtag to defiantly show Turks and Turkey that we have survived, we are still here, and, oh yeah, we mean to seek and see justice prevail. How did they fail? They took all of our lands and wealth. They dispersed a large portion of the survivors across the globe. That diaspora is under risk. The UN has classified Western Armenian as a language at risk. At risk of dying. Going away. Western Armenian is or was the language of the Diaspora. It was what made Aleppo and Beirut Armenian centers. Gone? #TurkeyFailed?
     Aleppo was a center and close to the homeland. Many in the 50s and 60s moved to Beirut. And the Syrian Civil War killed whatever was left there. Beirut, yes, it is still close to the homeland, there are still Armenians there, but in much lesser numbers since the civil war. The real diaspora in the US, Europe, South America, and Australia? Without immigration from the Middle East and Armenia, these communities would have dwindled based on my very unscientific quasi-statistical observations. Yes, Turkey Failed, as I, second generation born in the US, am still here, still embrace my culture albeit a hybrid culture, and still consider myself Armenian.
     Turkish people vs. the Turkish Government: I am not a big fan of the Turkish Government… any of them since… um… perhaps… Sultan Osman I. But, truth be told, I don’t know enough to make that sweeping statement. I leave that to the historians. So, my statement is only applied to the governments since Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Abdul Hamid massacred Armenians and set the tone and prelude for the 1915 Genocide perpetrated by the Young Turk government. Ataturk did call the Genocide “a despicable act” but did nothing to make amends. He was too busy building and modernizing a nation and either probably hated Armenians, didn’t care about Armenians, or would have found dealing with them a distraction from his country building endeavors. Since then, the governments have all been denialists. They have set the tone for country. Erdogan? Well… the only thing I like about this guy is that all the Turks I know hate him more than the Armenians I know do.
     Turks I know? Yes, Turks I know. I never knew any until I went to Michigan. I met some in the math department. I was wary. I expected… I am not sure what I expected but it was nothing positive. As my views weren’t based on my own personal experience, my biases were just that: biases. Over the years, I have gotten to know a fair number of Turks. In graduate school at Wayne State University, I became good friends with a fellow student Halim. We are in touch still on Facebook. We discussed the Armenian-Turkish situation pretty often and in as much depth as two industrial engineering graduate students might get. We found out where we agreed and where we disagreed and managed to remain friends. I was surprised at first and then quite proud of ourselves.
     I got to know more Turks and Kurds over the years at Colgate and now in Chicago playing in the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble (MEME). At Colgate, we had business in common. In MEME, it is the music. Among the folks I have gotten to know are a few good friends, a larger number of acquaintances, and a few where we are not each other’s cup of tea. Not oddly, the proportions are the same as the general population. Go figure.
     The dichotomy for me here is to separate judging individual Turks I meet and get to know from judging and holding the Turkish Government accountable.
     It is sad part of history. But, it didn’t happen to you. I had nothing to do with it: This is what I do hear occasionally from Turks that I know. Well, they are correct. I did not experience the Genocide first hand. Three of my four grandparents did. My paternal grandmother was born in Andover, MA where her family moved having seen the writing on the wall after the Hamidian Massacres. I have, however, experienced the vestiges, the White Genocide, the Djermak Chardt. While we have a great life in this free country and have prospered, we might well have done the same in our ancestral homelands embraced fully in our culture.
     On the other hand, this is exactly what I would say to an American Indian if one were to confront me as to what the United States has done to them:  It is a sad part of history, my people had nothing to do with it.  It is what people who have benefited and are on the “winning” side of a Genocide tend to say.
     Conclusion: Yes, this was a bit of a ramble. Some will respond favorably. Others will see fit to school on this point or that that I just don’t get… and I may actually learn something.
     I will leave with a passage from William Saroyan’s from “The Armenian and the Armenian” from his second book Inhale & Exhale (1936). My thoughts and dichotomies are nothing new…

I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose history is ended, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, whose literature is unread, whose music is unheard, whose prayers are no longer uttered. Go ahead, destroy this race. Let us say that it is again 1915. There is war in the world. Destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them from their homes into the desert. Let them have neither bread nor water. Burn their houses and their churches. See if they will not live again. See if they will not laugh again. See if the race will not live again when two of them meet in a beer parlor, twenty years after, and laugh, and speak in their tongue. Go ahead, see if you can do anything about it. See if you can stop them from mocking the big ideas of the world, you sons of bitches, a couple of Armenians talking in the world, go ahead and try to destroy them.

     Yeah, OK, #TurkeyFailed… you sons of bitches…