Turkish president’s historical visit to Armenia today on the occasion of Armenia-Turkey 2010 World Cup qualification game will certainly raise a whole set of new issues for both Armenians and Turks.
The complex and mostly painful history of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, followed by the Turkish Republic’s failure to assess the Armenian liberation movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the 1915-1916 Genocide in a fair and objective way, complicates the normalization of relations between the two nations.
Today’s football match, having the two presidents side by side, etc. are surely positive, and hopefully a good beginning. But I guess everyone knows that the process of reconciliation will be a long one, and will require a lot of patience, perseverance and good will on both sides of the border.
The normalization will also need a clear road map; a road map that, among other things, should rely on and promote direct contacts between the two people.
This is not only because such contacts can facilitate and accelerate the “official” normalization process, but because the normalization, in our case, concerns the people as much as the political leadership. In other words, to succeed the Armenian-Turkish normalization, relations should develop at the top as well as at the bottom.
From this perspective, today’s football match doesn’t have much to do with the most commonly used analogy; the table tennis game that helped China and the U.S.A to normalize their relations. There, it was mainly a political/strategic problem at the top and was solved by those at the top. The similarity is therefore only in the form; a sports event serves as pretext for a first contact.
In our case, the process will be closer to postwar Federal Republic of Germany’s reconciliation with its western European neighbors. Political negotiations at the top between experts and diplomats will be required but simultaneously direct contacts between Armenian and Turkish citizens, organizations, businesses, and the civil society, needs to be established and developed.
On the basis of such a viewpoint, today’s match will unfortunately fail to deliver as Turkey’s authorities have refused to let their football fans cross the border into Armenia. The Armenian president will meet his Turkish counterpart but Armenian football fans and Yerevan residents in general won’t have the opportunity to meet Turkish supporters.
As for the relations “at the bottom” are concerned, education has been constantly used in reconciliation processes between nations as well as between different ethnic or religious communities within a given country.
The complex and mostly painful history of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, followed by the Turkish Republic’s failure to assess the Armenian liberation movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the 1915-1916 Genocide in a fair and objective way, complicates the normalization of relations between the two nations.
Today’s football match, having the two presidents side by side, etc. are surely positive, and hopefully a good beginning. But I guess everyone knows that the process of reconciliation will be a long one, and will require a lot of patience, perseverance and good will on both sides of the border.
The normalization will also need a clear road map; a road map that, among other things, should rely on and promote direct contacts between the two people.
This is not only because such contacts can facilitate and accelerate the “official” normalization process, but because the normalization, in our case, concerns the people as much as the political leadership. In other words, to succeed the Armenian-Turkish normalization, relations should develop at the top as well as at the bottom.
From this perspective, today’s football match doesn’t have much to do with the most commonly used analogy; the table tennis game that helped China and the U.S.A to normalize their relations. There, it was mainly a political/strategic problem at the top and was solved by those at the top. The similarity is therefore only in the form; a sports event serves as pretext for a first contact.
In our case, the process will be closer to postwar Federal Republic of Germany’s reconciliation with its western European neighbors. Political negotiations at the top between experts and diplomats will be required but simultaneously direct contacts between Armenian and Turkish citizens, organizations, businesses, and the civil society, needs to be established and developed.
On the basis of such a viewpoint, today’s match will unfortunately fail to deliver as Turkey’s authorities have refused to let their football fans cross the border into Armenia. The Armenian president will meet his Turkish counterpart but Armenian football fans and Yerevan residents in general won’t have the opportunity to meet Turkish supporters.
As for the relations “at the bottom” are concerned, education has been constantly used in reconciliation processes between nations as well as between different ethnic or religious communities within a given country.
Education along with culture, and probably more than business, sports and tourism, brings people from different horizons together; and allows them to know each other better, to reevaluate their perceptions of each other, to share experiences, and to build new understandings.
This transformative role may operate in two main ways:
> Teaching/learning about the other nation/community
> Organizing academic exchanges/joint programs
This transformative role may operate in two main ways:
> Teaching/learning about the other nation/community
> Organizing academic exchanges/joint programs
Background information on Armenian Turkish relations:
Blogian.net has reprinted a comprehensive article by Turkish columnist Ayse Hur from Taraf Newspaper, dated 1 September 2008, translated from Turkish by the Zoryan Institute, U.S.A. To read, please click here: Turkish Columnist on the Armenian Issue
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Picture: Turkish football fans, the main absents from the match.
>
Blogian.net has reprinted a comprehensive article by Turkish columnist Ayse Hur from Taraf Newspaper, dated 1 September 2008, translated from Turkish by the Zoryan Institute, U.S.A. To read, please click here: Turkish Columnist on the Armenian Issue
______________________________________
Picture: Turkish football fans, the main absents from the match.
>
1 comment:
Great post!
I like it.
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