Peace, Peace at last, finally please!*

I remember as a child that we would go to visit our "patriarch" Dr. Ahmet Rasim Onat's home on Sundays and four sister's families would come together. What did they talk about? I don't really remember because it was boring stuff about their kids! Those of us kids who couldn't escape being brought there would sneak away into the room that was used as doctor's office and measure our height, weight and marvel at the smooth contours of the hammer that was used to test reflexes. The grown-ups were too absorbed talking about what they considered to be their priority in the days of extended family. Kids, kids, kids.

In our nuclear family there was a story about kids that had a powerful effect on my sister Ayla and me. It was the story of my father's grandmother and even though it was known and discussed when the occasion came up, it was not widely advertised. As a kid I was not terribly interested in it. I had decided to learn about the stars in the night sky and that was the life ahead of me period. Now I am missing many of the details of my great-grandmother's story. Dammit I could have asked then. But then I had no interest in the past. Now it is too late! Not too late, however, for me to record it here.

I know the birthday of my father's eldest brother and I also know that my grandmother was 27 were she was married. From this I can surmise that the story of my great-grandmother took place sometime in 1870's. It was in the days of extended family with the young mother and her kids getting first priority. But there comes a time when the family decides that the young mother and babies must go! Go, go where? How can they let such a completely defenseless group go out into the unknown?

Because it is their only chance of survival!

My father's grandmother was an Armenian. She must then have been in her early, or mid twenties. She was the mother of three baby girls. One day she was put on a horse carriage with only her babies and let go.

I checked to see if there was something of historic importance close to that time that might have precipitated this extreme decision. Sure Ottoman and Russian empires were, as usual, fighting but I don't really know if it had any relevance to my story. I checked because I have often seen this type of situation: OK, so you live with your neighbor in peace for 40 years. Nice people and you are friends. But! You look at his house and it is better than yours. You look at his wife and she is more beautiful than yours. You look at his kids, yepp you guessed it they are
brighter than yours. It may only be a case of grass being greener on the other side of the fence. That doesn't change anything. So what are you going to do? Nothing. However, then comes an opportunity in the form of a global conflict which you can seize as an excuse to take over your neighbor's house, rape his wife and murder his children all because they belong to a different ethnic group.

The story of ethnic cleansing is one that gets repeated over and over again throughout human history. Most recently we have seen it in Bosnia and Kosovo. However, no ethnic group has exclusive rights over it. We have all been doing it! Furthermore, we cannot sit smug and say that it is all stuff happening on TV. My roommate in College was a Japanese-American born in Utah!

Recently in a morning news program I saw a young woman and her three kids who had came to Istanbul on the last bus that left Pristina. The capacity of the bus was about forty but it carried over sixty people. The interviewer kept asking the young mother about her husband, mother and father. She just replied that she and her kids were alone.

My father's grandmother finally drove her carriage into Bursa (Broussia) which is located on the foot steps of one of the nine Mount Olympia's of ancient Greece. Judging by the standard of roads those days, the place where she must have been living was probably not too far away. There a "jandarma" which is a military type rural police officer helped her to find food and shelter. Eventually they were married and this is how it came to pass that my grandmother Firuze was born.

I do not know the names of any of my great-grandparents. But I can certainly appreciate their courage and determination. Civilization is fragile but as individuals we the people are strong.

I have a picture that I inherited from my father. I believe it is the picture of my father's grandfather with his two daughters. But even that I can only surmise. I do not know for sure. (no scanner now, sorry)

Now the sad fate of the Armenians living in the Eastern providences of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 has come to the spotlight again. My family history leads me to the belief that 1915 was different from other ethnic cleansings only in size. It has happened all the time and was instigated by all ethnic groups without exception. However, the sheer magnitude of "forced relocation" that the Armenian population suffered and the wholesale death that it led to is simply staggering. It was not genocide in the sense of systematic extermination that the Jews suffered under the Nazis but it was enormous. To my Turkish readers I would recommend "Fourty Days at Musa Dagh" which is an eye-witness account, my western Europen readers need only recall "Anne Frank's Diary" to remember how happily they collaborated with the Nazis and for my American readers I shall continue with the story of my roommate at Berkeley. At the time we were friends, he came from a rich Japanese-American family that lived in an exclusive little town in Southern California. But this family was forced to relocate in Utah during the hysteria of "Japanese invasion of California" in World War II. The justification that the US authorities presented for this move was exactly the same as that of the Ottomans towards the Armenians. My roommate never quite recovered from it even though the difference in conditions was in no way comparable to 1915 and certainly his family prospered under the American way of life that rewards initiative and creativity. But the last I heard from my roommate was that he had become an oceanographer. "Living on the sea has cured me from seeking an answer to the futile question 'where do I belong'?" he wrote.

It is time to say stop to ethnic cleansing in any shape or form. This is simply unacceptable behaviour. Even though it may be such a deep rooted part of our psyche, we can certainly overcome it. And please, please, finally let us all live in peace.

*my thanks to Jan for egging me on to write!