Forgiveness and Transcendence

As a child of a survivor of the Ottoman-Turkish Genocide of Armenians, I have been very familiar with the atrocities planned and carried out from 1894 to 1915. During World War I, the Turkish authorities declared the Armenians to be enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Adult males, and especially those identified as potential leaders, were arrested, taken to a desolate area, and shot. This process was designed to deprive Armenians of leadership and representation, so that deportations might proceed without resistance. Ultimately, famine, thirst, torture, epidemics, pillage, and plunder resulted in the deaths of one-and-one-half million people which was two-thirds of the Armenian population in that area. My father was one of the fortunate survivors who was then able to settle with his family in Syria. My mother’s family walked through the deserts to Syria, where I was born.

The collective pain and suffering of my nation of Armenia and the continued Turkish denial of its Genocide left me feeling helpless and pained. I eventually concluded that the best way to deal with those negative feelings was to sublimate them. This led me to found the Armenian American Society for Studies on Stress and Genocide. In the Society we began systematic research on the psychosocial impact of the long-term effects of the Armenian Genocide. The study revealed that the persistent denial of the Genocide by the Turkish government evoked intense anger and rage in survivors due to the lack of validation and reparation. Validation of a traumatic experience is an essential step toward resolution and closure. An explicit expression of remorse by a perpetrator to a victim has enormous healing value. Against a background of losses and atrocities well beyond the realm of usual life experience, these aged survivors reflected a sense of personal and communal accomplishment, tempered with anger regarding the perpetrators’ denial of how they were victimized.

In 1988 a devastating earthquake struck Armenia. This motivated me to establish a Mental Health Outreach Program to assist the psychosocial needs of the surviving community in Soviet Armenia. Both my clinical outreach and research with the earthquake survivors in Armenia revealed yet further traumatization. Some of the nightmares of the Armenian earthquake survivors were not of the earthquake, but of the Turkish gendarmes whipping them into the deserts during the Genocide. This created a tremendous feeling of pain and helplessness in me. How was I going to help my countrymen to work through the long-term effects of

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the Genocide? How would I help the Armenian elderly survivors of the Genocide integrate the trauma, find meaning in their experiences, and move to the next stage of their life—death?

About six months later, in 1989, I met Viktor Frankl at the International Forum of Logotherapy in San Jose. Frankl was a psychiatrist who survived Nazi concentration camps where he lost most of his family. He went on to write Man’s Search for Meaning (1963). Feeling extremely fortunate to have met Frankl, I tearfully asked him, “How can I help the Armenian people heal from the injury perpetrated by the Ottoman-Turkish Genocide, … [from] the insult of [being the victims of] the denial perpetrated by the successive Turkish governments ever since the first genocide of the 20th century.” I went on, “The Armenian survivors are still … tormented [as] the psychic genocide continues. What can I do?”

Viktor Frankl looked at me with great understanding and empathy, and quickly said, “Ask the Armenians to be the first to forgive. You have waited close to 80 years. These survivors are dying as we speak, they can’t wait any longer. Help them to forgive.” I felt a moment of relief and comfort since I thought I now knew the answer. But how? That was yet another big question. What Viktor Frankl talked about is an individual, and spiritual, forgiveness, not a political one. I kept on trying to insert it in my lectures and in Armenian Genocide commemorations, but in vain. Some of my Armenian colleagues stopped talking with me for advancing these ideas. They did not realize that forgiveness does not imply the abandonment of the goal of educating the perpetrator of the crime to the need to accept responsibility.

I continued sublimating, continued conducting research on the Armenian Genocide, and continued helping around the world. In 1996, we published our first scientific research article in the Journal of Traumatic Stress after four years of revisions; not because of the paper’s scientific merit but its political consequences. The Introduction of the paper (where the historical perspectives were mentioned) got changed and revised about a dozen times by the Editorial Board of the journal. Some Turkish leaders even threatened the Jewish editors by saying, “Which is more important, a dead Armenian or a live Jewish person?” A second study was published in the Psychoanalytic Review with the encouragement and support of Dr. Flora Hogman, a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust.

Although my personal journey of forgiveness began in 1988, the most important event that impacted my journey was in the summer of 1998, when I took a taxi in New York City. I sat next to the driver, noticed his accent, and inquired, “I detect a familiar accent, where are you from?” “Turkey,” he answered, noting that he had been studying in South Africa for about 10 years. Immediately I began speaking in Turkish, and ask him if he was Turkish. His reply was a definite “Yes.” Smiling, he said, “My name is Ahmed. Are you Turkish, too?” Before he even completed his sentence, I replied, in a tone expressing urgency, “No, I am Armenian!” My response must have been strong and definite because Ahmed quickly declared, “I have many Armenian friends here in New York, they are from Istanbul.” He went on to tell me about his friend Garo, who one day had invited him to his house for dinner. When Garo’s elderly mother found out that Ahmed was Turkish, she threw him out of her house, yelling at him, “Your government massacred my people and my family, I don’t want you in my house.” My gut reaction was “Yes! Good for her, you deserve to be thrown out.” My heart was beating faster and faster, my body was feeling hot, and my hands were cold and clammy, as I felt my anger escalating. Indeed, this was a very familiar feeling.

I had felt this same anger surging in January, 1997, when I first read Sami Gulgoze’s Letter to the Editor in the Observer, the American Psychological Society’s newsletter. Gulgoze’s response to the research article, “Coping with Ottoman-Turkish Genocide: The Experience of Armenian Survivors,” was to write, “Whether there has been a genocide or not has been a scholarly debate for years, and there is strong evidence against the existence of such an event in the Ottoman land.”

In the taxi, I remembered my intensifying feelings of anger, rage, resentment, disappointment, and hopelessness as I had read the letter. This was written by a scholar, a professor of psychology, from a reputable university in Turkey. What could I expect from this taxi driver? While I was submerged in those negative thoughts, I realized that Ahmed was still talking; in fact, he was trying to say something. I looked at him with anger, as he said, “I wish it [the Genocide] didn’t happen. It is very sad and bad that it happened. Many innocent people died for no reason.”

Ahmed sounded genuinely sad and troubled. He grew more anxious as I sat silently, processing my feelings. After all, I had thought I had resolved my anger about the Armenian Genocide.

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He added, “But it is not my fault; I didn’t do it.” To this I answered, “Of course, I know you didn’t commit the Genocide. Do your other Turkish friends know about the Genocide?” He responded, “Well, you know, we don’t talk about it in Turkey. It is not mentioned in our history books.”

Ahmed’s admission helped me to achieve a new level of understanding, forgiveness, and hope. I meet many skeptics, as I lecture around the world on human-made traumas and forgiveness in order to achieve closure. Many Armenians, especially, confuse forgiveness with forgetting, and in this process turn their anger against me as they exclaim, “How could you even think of asking fellow survivors and their children to forgive the Turks!” I think that they equate forgiveness with forgetting. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Forgiveness does not mean that I will stop researching the Armenian Genocide. Forgiving does not mean concealing the truth and forgetting our human rights. Forgiving means freeing oneself of the chains of anger, unlocking the locks of resentment, and taking a step toward ending the cycle of hatred. Only when freed of hatred can one achieve one’s potential and succeed in life.

I wrote about my experiences with the Turkish taxi driver, and the issue of forgiveness. It was published in a few Armenian papers. I then received many calls and letters to the editor, brimming with hatred and stating that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I was even called a “Turk [enemy] lover.” Many of my colleagues stopped talking to me.

As I continued my journey toward forgiveness and integration of the trauma of the Armenian Genocide, I submitted a paper to the Sixth European Conference on Psychotraumatology, Clinical Practice, and Human Rights, which was to take place in Istanbul, Turkey, in June, 1999. Because I was fully cognizant of the Turkish denial of the Genocide, I revised the research paper and entitled it “Mass Human Rights Violations: Resilience vs. Resignation.” My paper was accepted with some revisions. (Together with a colleague from Canada, I submitted another paper on the Genocide, which was rejected.) Because they were worried about my safety, all of my friends and colleagues were against my going to Turkey to present on the Turkish Genocide against the Armenians. Despite all the opposition, I went to Turkey.

Upon my arrival at the conference in Istanbul, I noticed how the keynote speakers talked freely regarding Turkish human rights violations currently imposed on Kurds. I was encouraged by their candid reports, and decided to distribute my original abstract on the Armenian Genocide. At that point the threats began. First, I was threatened with being murdered, to which I responded with skepticism, stating that I didn’t think anyone would dare to kill me in front of the 650 scholars from over 48 countries present at the conference. The next day I was threatened with torture if I talked about the Genocide. The third day the Genocide abstracts were literally snatched from my hands. On the last day of the conference, the day when my lecture was scheduled to be presented, I was called by the Turkish organizers and the British head of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies to a private meeting in the basement. At this meeting I was presented with an ultimatum: either I would sign a letter stating that I would refrain from speaking about the Turkish Genocide of Armenians or I would have to leave the conference without presenting. This letter was given to me only 20 minutes prior to my lecture which was scheduled at the last hour of the meetings.

I reminded my inquisitors that this was a human rights conference, and they were in fact violating my rights as a presenter, by telling me what I could and could not talk about. But it was to no avail. They reiterated that because of the political situation, “we” had to protect the Turkish organizers. I posed the question as to why the plight of the Kurds was freely discussed while the Armenian issue was treated with silence. They provided no satisfactory answer, but again reiterated that if I wouldn’t sign the letter, I would have to leave the conference without delivering my presentation. Given this awful choice, I chose to sign the letter to not lose an opportunity to address the conference.

My European colleagues helped me to revise my transparencies by covering the identifying words such as “Genocide,” “Armenian,” and “Ottoman-Turkish,” with a special black transparency marker. I began my discussion without looking at the screen where the first transparency was projected. As I began to apologize for the black lines, I noticed smirks on the faces of many of my European and American colleagues. A look at the screen revealed the underlying, identifying words coming through the black marker’s ink. My comment was, “Oops, I guess we could not hide it, it is coming through.”

There was a growing tension in the audience. The Turkish attendees were extremely tense, and others were laughing at the irony in my state-

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ment. I continued showing the transparencies and focusing on forgiveness as a therapeutic intervention. It was a tense situation as I decided what I could and could not say. Nevertheless, I was able to communicate the importance of spiritual forgiveness as a means of getting over resentment and moving toward dialogue. I also mentioned how my Turkish colleagues were even wondering how I dared to ask the survivors to forgive, as they said, “The Turks should apologize first.” But, to follow the logic of Viktor Frankl, we have been waiting for 84 years and nothing has happened; we cannot wait idly and continue suffering as victims. We need to empower ourselves and move on to the next phase of dialogue and collaboration. As long as there is anger and rage we cannot collaborate. I also asserted that admission to genocide is a very difficult burden to carry on one’s shoulders, especially since the Turkish people have a very erroneous view about the Armenian Genocide. I then asked the scientific community to assist the Turkish people in the task of developing an emotional maturity by accepting responsibility and apologizing for the wrong doings of their ancestors. They, too, need to forgive their ancestors to be able to stop the denial and accept the responsibility. After the lecture, my European, American, and African colleagues hugged and congratulated me for my courage. I began crying in their arms. I was crying with a sense of relief, empowerment, and happiness to be alive.

I returned safely to New York with plans to write about my experience in Turkey. Although I was spiritually enriched, I was emotionally and physically drained. For two months I postponed the writing. Then the devastating earthquake happened in Turkey on August 17, 1999.

Since I have worked with natural disasters for over a decade in Armenia, California, Florida, Japan, and Santo Domingo, I began wondering, Should I go to Turkey to help? The answer was a definite “Yes.” My outreach does not have any geographic nor political boundaries. As I was pondering how to assist, I received two invitations from Turkey. I then began developing the Volunteer Mental Health Outreach Program for the earthquake survivors, funded by the Armenian Patriarchate of Turkey, and invited many experts in the field to join me. We worked several weeks under the tents with over 500 survivors in group therapy, debriefing, relaxation and breathing exercises, and researching the impact of the trauma. About a quarter of our clients were Armenians and the rest were Moslem Turks.

My colleagues could not believe that after all those threats to my life, and the difficulties I had in Turkey last June, I was still willing and able to assist the Turkish surviving community. For me it was yet another challenge, and a step forward in my journey of forgiveness and transcendence.

(This paper was presented at the November 6 meeting of the Psychohistory Forum.)

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