A Troubled Past

I feel as if I should put a disclaimer above these blogs about Armenia and Georgia.  I lost my guide book while hitchhiking on my second day of the trip so have had to piece together all the different places I have been from what other people have told me.  This cannot always be verified as being 100% accurate, but it does sometimes make things more interesting.  For example, when I travelled to Moynaq in Uzbekistan to see what had become of the Aral Sea after decades of it being drained, I was armed with knowledge from multiple sources stating that the Soviets had done the deed in order to make more room for cotton plantations.  Recently, I met an Uzbeki-born Russian who was eager to wave off such suggestions and instead pointed the finger of blame at the Koreans.  Central Asian saw an influx of immigrants during the 70s, most moving to Uzbekistan, where Korean car manufacture and electronic companies had been set up.  According to my new source, Uzbeks grew rice that didn't need water whereas the Koreans needed it for theirs.  Thus, they drained the sea in order to grow their crop.  Despite this almost certainly being a case of Soviet propaganda at the time to shift the blame from themselves, I can't help but wish that this was indeed the case.  Gangs of naughty Koreans cyphoning off one of the largest in-land seas because they couldn't abide the local cuisine is just too good of an image.  That is the problem with trying to accurately report anything; there are always two sides to the story and a lot of blurred lines.

Up on a hill overlooking Yerevan is a monument to Armenia's most recent history.  A tall column reaches up to the sky with a flame - concealed by marble tablets shaped like a yurt, burning brightly next to it.  This is a poignant reminder of Armenia's strained relationship with Turkey.  I usually try and stay away from politics as I don't really know enough about such topics and, frankly, it bores me.  However, the events between 1915 and 1923 are so integral to the future of both Armenia and Turkey that it would be impossible not to talk about it.

The facts: one and a half million Armenians were killed during this period by Ottoman Turks during the last days of their empire.  Many more Armenians were forced to march into the Syrian desert to whatever fate awaited them.  The Turkey argument is that they were provoked by Armenians who attacked first and kept on killing innocent Turks throughout the years.  However, those forced to march into the desert included vast numbers of the old, sick and the young and 1.5 million deaths, relatively speaking, actually puts the Holocaust into the shade a little.  That number is actually equivalent to over a third of the population.  It would be like wiping out New York three times over, if such a thing were to happen in the US.  Both sides are adament that they other was in the wrong, but one thing is clear to me... regardless of anything else, the Ottomans engaged in a campaign to wipe out any Armenian presence in their empire.  The word 'genocide' is something that I'm sure my Turkish friends would be aghast to see me use, but under the UN charter such acts cannot be called anything else.

As I said, there are always two sides to any story and I can be called ignorant of many things.  Despite my love of history, I'm not really interested in the rights and wrongs of the past.  I have always been more interested in how the past has shaped the present.  Travelling through Armenia, I waited to see what reaction I would get when I told people that I lived in Turkey.  Many of the older generation hesitated before continuing with their next question, as if the mere name conjured up distate.  Many of the younger generation, though, didn't blink and were interested to know about life in Istanbul and how it was different from England.  Young Armenians are getting tired of the 'conflict' with Turkey and also with their problems with Azerbaijan.  Most just don't understand or care why something that happened so long before they were even born is so important now.  I generally agree with this view; after all, which 'progressive' nation can honestly claim to not have blood on its hands.  I would certainly never try to justify the massacres in India, Africa and many other colonies carried out by the British, for example.

The problem for such a touchy issue is that it's almost impossible not to offend somebody by offering an opinion.  Look at the reaction Barack Obama received when he attempted to sit on the fence over the issue.  Whichever way you lean, though, surely both sides must agree that dwelling on such things won't help heal the rift or the hurt and that what is important is that acts like this are not repeated in the future.