During a recent trip to Armenia, I was once again reminded of man's inhumanity to man, his brutality to fellow human beings. I also found myself face-to-face once again with the power of memory and of hate, and asked myself if there is any way to overcome the lingering and pernicious effects of murderous acts.
In 1915, as the Ottoman Empire was in its death throes, over a million Armenians were massacred, and many others were forced into exile from the land that had been theirs for centuries.
More recently, in the 1970s in my own country, Argentina, the military conducted what has become known as the "dirty war" against those who opposed its dictatorship. In the process, the military made "to disappear" thousands of people—as many as 30,000—never to be seen again or accounted for.
In the Argentine case, many years later, military officers—including members of the former ruling junta—were tried and imprisoned. While this action couldn't bring back the "disappeared," it was a necessary act of justice for their families and partial closure for their losses.
But what about the Armenian hatred for the Turks, almost a century after the devastating events of 1915? Can the antagonism be overcome so that a civilized relationship between the two countries can be brought about? It is obviously too late to bring those responsible to justice. However, it should be possible to reach a level of understanding between the two societies.
While in Yerevan, I spoke with Professor Mira Antonyan, director of the Fund for Armenian Relief, about the effects of those events on Armenians today. "The only thing that unites us now is our resentment against the Turks for the events of the past. Being Armenian means having sad memories," she told me. That feeling was shared by her husband and a friend of both, who regularly trade with Turkish businessmen.
I told them that I felt Armenians were in a quagmire, unable to move forward because of the tremendous weight of history. "Perhaps you are right," Mira's husband answered, "but genocide is a very heavy burden on our shoulders. We cannot just forget what happened. We cannot erase our memory."
Broadly speaking, I believe that there is a generational divide on the question. The older generation—those over 50—insist on the need for an apology from the Turkish government. The younger generations, without rejecting the facts of history, feel the need to overcome those memories. They believe that such visceral attachment to the past is self-defeating.
Kamilla Petrosyan, a psychiatrist in her late 30s, told me how her 4-year-old son arrived home one day from kindergarten frightened to death on learning that day about the 1915 massacres. "We have to stop this culture of victimization," she said, "otherwise we will never be able to move forward."
Recent events have shown that the Turks too are beginning to show signs of the need to move forward. A number of Turkish intellectuals, including last year's winner of the Noble Prize for literature, Orhan Pamuk, have made public statements to that effect. And, following the assassination last year of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, some 50,000 people marched through the streets of Istanbul in solidarity, and leading members of the present Turkish government attended the funeral ceremonies at the Armenian Patriarchal Church.
What we now desperately need is a change of paradigm, to move from a culture of violence to one of peace. Recent times have been characterized by the use of violence over dialogue, and of aggression over diplomacy. Very little has been done to build effective bridges for peace.
Even limited initiatives, such as the one carried out by volunteers from the American Peace Corps in Armenia for summer camps for children from both Turkey and Armenia, are valid undertakings. In talks with several Armenian schoolteachers, I found them eager for contact with Turkish schoolchildren.
It is only by constructing bridges of understanding—particularly working with young people, still untainted by the weight of the past—that we will be able to change the present paradigm of violence and war for one of collaboration and peace.
Dr. Cesar Chelala is the co-author of "Missing or Dead in Argentina: The Desperate Search for Thousands of Abducted Victims," a New York Times Magazine cover story, for which he shared an Overseas Press Club of America award.
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