The similarities and narratives being told in both Ahiska’s piece and Altinay’s piece correlate in theory and discourse. The resemblances between the two narratives are striking and complimentary of one another even though the focus of both articles are different, yet they share characteristics of remembrance, counter-memory symbolism, state and power structures. In this essay I will demonstrate the relationship in narrative and substance, which both authors are discussing. Aysi Gul Altinay is focused on the Armenian Genocide of 1915 by the hands of their Turkish rulers and the following historical counter-memory provided by Turkish nationalist historiography, specifically on the implications on the ‘un-silencing’ of the ‘Armenian question.’ Turkish nationalist history has largely accepted the silence on the events of 1915 as the historical norm, not to be questioned. In a way it is worse that this discussion, which has only surfaced recently in mainstream Turkish society, is not one of responsibility for the massacre of an estimated 2 million Armenians but rather one of the very existence of these atrocities. What few pieces of archived information that exist from 1915-1920 do not give specifics on the fate of so many Armenian women and children but do point to the survival of large numbers of women and children through Islamization. Ataturk’s own biographer gave reason and definition to the reason behind the organized historical silence of all things Armenian genocide by calling the period ‘a time best left forgotten’ thereby demonstrating the use of silence as an historical eraser. Until only as recently as the 1970’s the republican state defense narrative gained momentum and attributed events of 1915 as a response to Armenian terrorists attacking Turkish diplomats abroad, showing great similarity to the German defense of Kristallnacht and the beginning of the Holocaust to the assassination of a Nazi diplomat by a young Jewish man, Herschel Grynzspan. To this very day, Turkish authorities protest the usage of the term “genocide” to describe the mass killing of Armenians in 1915, protesting in the U.N and with other countries who use the term. As a result of this narrative of silence followed by defense and outright denial, modern Turkish society is not quite in touch or educated about the 1915 genocide. State printed history books largely write this chapter of history out instead they focus on the supposed Armenian attacks on Turkish diplomats, the state and old republican defense. A silenced history repressed by bodies of power results in an ignorant society.
Meltem Ahiska’s article is focused on the role and purpose of monuments, specifically on the workers monument in Tophane, which was erected in 1973. Ahiska first identifies the characteristics and purpose of monuments, noting that monuments are erected with a claim to embody the will to remember, however they act as a cancellation of the need to re-find and remember the past in the present. Monuments contribute to the closure of the past as a dead body, they symbolize an excuse to close the book on an event or idea and move on as if it never had happened. Ahiska goes further by stating that monuments do not just kill memory but also create a regime of memory and desire that serves power, thereby replacing the memory that is meant to be forgotten with a new memory of the subservient and dominated by a larger power. It is no wonder why Ahiska notes that monuments and fascism go hand in hand. Just as monuments have this dominating fascist like approach about them so to the republican statistic historical narrative had silenced history to the atrocities of the Armenian genocide, leaving only in its place a centralized and powerful regime. While Ahiska focuses on the monument in Tophane, I saw a more relative symbolism between the two narratives in the events surrounding the humanity monument in Kars. Located on the Turkish-Armenian border, the monument at Kars standing approximately 30 meters high, upon being seen by the current Turkish PM Erdogan, called the monument ucube, literally meaning “monster”, and quickly ordered the monument to be demolished. As opposed to the numerous national monuments erected to honor Ataturk that are protected by law against defacement, and seen as embodiments of the Turkish state, Erdogan saw the one monument that perhaps had some ‘counter-monument’ status as it was located in close proximity to Armenia and served as a reminder to the humanity in all of us, it was this monument that was called a monstrosity, and torn down. Ahiska quotes Georges Canguilheim as saying “what is contrary to life is not death but monstrosity”; monstrosity is the inability to recognize a living being as living, and in my opinion it is this note that connects the two articles. The irony of PM Erdogan using the word ‘monstrosity’ is a mere coincidence that encapsulates the narrative of these two writers. Whether this inability to recognize a human being as human, whether early on in 1915 or the years that followed leading to the present situation of misinformation, denial and silence, the same charectistics are shared by most if not all monuments in that they are simply a symbol of dominance, and continued dominance over the mind and state of the masses.