Turkish-Armenian dialogue initiative by Harvard University

These all are just nice; however, I will talk about a noteworthy initiative in the civil society universe. Harvard University recently held a Turkish-Armenian workshop on Sept 18-20. Because I was a participant, I had the opportunity to closely follow the process and contribute to the efforts. Given the delicacy of the issue, I will not disclose the names of the other participants, but I will share the content (with the consent of the organizers) to make sure that the relevant parties benefit from this experience.

Let me begin by introducing the organizers. Two senior experts from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative supervised the project: Dr. Eileen Babbitt and Dr. Pamela Steiner. Both are world-renowned academics in the field of international conflict resolution. I should also note that Steiner is a granddaughter of Henry Morgenthau, who served as the US ambassador to Turkey during the Armenian deportation. Hugh O'Doherty, who has been involved in the Northern Ireland peace process, also provided assistance for Steiner and Babbitt. Seventeen Turks and Armenians (four of them as observers) came together upon Harvard's invitation.

Special attention was paid to make sure that the participant profile was diverse; Turks and Armenians from their home countries as well as members of the diaspora attended the meeting. Leading figures who had proven influence or have the potential to do so in their respective communities were chosen. The organizers initially held separate sessions with the Armenians and the Turks. These talks were followed by joint sessions. The goal was to make sure that the fears, concerns, hopes and needs were analyzed from an academic perspective. This would, of course, also provide the opportunity to the organizers to glean some clues on the mental and emotional blueprints of the participants which could eventually be used in conflict resolution.

 An interesting part of the workshop was the “personal narrative” section where the Armenians and Turks shared their views with respect to each other; we witnessed during this endeavor that both communities would be able to maintain strong dialogue provided that they would be empathetic. Despite huge psychological, ideological and political barriers, we were able to mingle with each other easily. After all, aren't we the children of same lands and interacting cultures?

Meanwhile, I also observed that the visits held by the diaspora Armenians to Turkey had a positive impact on addressing the prejudices. I asked several American Armenian participants who had toured their ancestral land whether they felt more at home in Turkey or Armenia. All replied “Turkey.” I think these sentiments should be thoroughly analyzed and taken into consideration by the state and civil society.

The Armenian genocide claims and the Turkish reaction vis-à-vis the allegations are the thorniest elements that make a viable dialogue even more difficult.

Armenians put emphasis on the psychological aspect of the recognition of the “Armenian genocide” by the Turkish state and nation; Turkish participants referred to the psychological, legal and political dimensions of the genocide claims and to the concerns over probable repercussions of recognition. The Armenian participants briefly responded to the question as to what their move would be if Turkey were to recognize the genocide some day as follows: They agreed that there would be no territorial demands, whereas nobody could promise that compensation would not be obligated. It was interesting when a participant from Armenia, through the end of the meeting, implied half-jokingly that Turks would seem to “give anything” if they set the genocide allegations aside. I observed that some Armenian participants hold that Armenians should focus on other issues instead of paying so much attention to the genocide issue. For instance, one such participant dedicated himself to the human rights struggle in Turkey. Another one was working on cultural exploration and cooperation.

As I noted at the meeting, these are two traumatized sister communities and nations we are dealing with. The major trauma of the Armenians was that they lost their native land after great tragedies during the final years of the Ottoman Empire. Turks were victimized by the trauma caused by the collapse of the grandiose empire -- thanks to efforts from inside and abroad -- they had created. Both nations still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Rapprochement between these communities is possible by abstention from negative political initiatives that would provoke the deep-cut historical wounds. The progress in the field of diplomacy is promising; however, the Harvard workshop shows that there is much room for doing things on the civil society front as well...