Ara Alexander Iskanderian reviews Deep Mountain: Across the Turkish-Armenian Divide by Ece Temelkuran
http://aralexanderian.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/book-review-deep-mountain-across.htmlIn his travel account of 1930s Soviet Armenia, the Russian-Jewish poet Osip Mandelstam wrote; “I have cultivated in myself a sixth sense, an ‘Ararat’ sense: the sense of attraction to a mountain.” Mandelstam’s observation based on the Armenians’ heavily romanticised longing for Mount Ararat might just be an aspect of the Armenian mentality rather than merely a colourful remark.
The mountain upon which Noah’s Ark came to rest now lies on the Turkish side of the border and looms ominpresently over Armenia’s capital Yerevan, a daily reminder to Armenians of loss and historic trauma. It’s customary for Diaspora Armenians to prominently display a picture of the mountain in their homes, a symbol of exile and the lost Armenia of Anatolia. Ararat is a sort of Armenian Zion.
A gradually growing ‘Ararat Sense’ develops throughout the pages of Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran’s new book Deep Mountain: Across the Turkish-Armenian Divide; Ararat anchors every chapter in Temelkuran’s quest to seek out and encounter the fabled Armenian Diaspora, ultimately infecting her as well. For most Turks Ağrı Dağ - to give Ararat its Turkish name - is merely Turkey’s highest point. However, for Armenians it’s a far more emotive landmark.
In conversation with the late Silva Gabudikian, the grand dame of Armenian poetry, Temelkuran is informed of the conundrum Ararat poses to Turkish-Armenian dialogue: “Young lady,” says Gabudikian, “Ararat is a matter of height for you but for us, it’s a matter of depth!” Hence a book gains its title, and Ararat a synonym: ‘Deep Mountain’. A metaphor for insurmountability or a shared romanticism, Temelkuran leaves the reader to apply their own Ararat sense whilst offering her own suggestion.
Truly deep run Ararat’s roots within the Armenian psyche. During one interview the Istanbul-born Armenian avant-garde musician Arto Tunçboyajyan states; “There’s only one people in the world who feel like they belong to a mountain: the Armenians.” Mention of the mountain recurs throughout the encounters described in Deep Mountain, perhaps convincing Temelkuran of her choice of title but certainly leading her to conclude rather poignantly “It’s your Ararat and our Ağrı. Your loss and our pain.”
Herein this statement coming close to the end lies something telling about the book. Temelkuran’s audience, though not intended to be exclusively Armenian, undoubtedly has Armenians in mind during its final pages. The author seems to be speaking directly to an Armenian readership, concluding in her epilogue with a warm invitation for a glass of raki – which she refuses to italicise for reasons apparent in the book – and over that glass, perhaps Armenians and Turks could reconcile? Utopian, the book will definitely be accused of, but it remains laudably trailblazing.
This is a book part travelogue, part encounter, part memoir and part history and yet overarchingly heartfelt. Ece Temelkuran sets herself a difficult task; not content with the official image of the Armenian bogeyman and the ‘other’ of the Turkish media, she takes it upon herself to seek out Armenians for herself. Her goal, to confront the popular image peddled in Turkey of a belligerent and vengeful Armenian Diaspora and an impoverished suffering Armenia on account of the former’s demands for recognition of the Armenian Genocide. In her odyssey she travels to Armenia, and to centres of the Armenian Diaspora: Paris, Boston and New York, helpfully encouraged by the late Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Here one could be critical, absent on the list of Diaspora centres are other important sites; Beirut, Aleppo and Moscow could have been added, and I for one would have loved to have chatted in London.
There are some painful confrontations in this book too; Armenians who refuse to talk to a Turk, an elderly bookselling couple whose faces’ colour drains at the prospect of a Turk in their midst. The image of the terrible Turk that many Armenians harbour is as much an issue to overcome and Temelkuran is refreshingly non-judgmental in this disregard, in fact she’s rather empathic and understanding and rarely prone to frustration. By the conclusion of her sojourns Temelkuran’s got the measure of the Armenians. “Armenians are designed for survival,” she says and her listeners are overjoyed at the summation.
That Armenians are. When Gabudikian rather unpoetically and equally undiplomatically lists and quantifies Armenia’s most recent woes – the 1988 earthquake (50,000 dead), the Karabagh War (30,000 dead), Turkey’s blockade (nearly a million émigrés) – Temelkuran silently sits hearing the litany, quietly accepting the accusation from Gabudikian that attempting to decipher a people having gone through all that is almost impossible. Indeed, much later in the book Temelkuran grinds her own axe, angrily stating how offensive she finds the touristic image of the Turk as an apple-tea-drinking, moustachioed kilim-seller. Implicit is that stereotypes need to be overcome and her narrative quest is underwritten by an attempt at this.
When Temelkuran is at Tsitsernakaberd (‘fortress of swallows’), the museum and monument dedicated to the Armenian Genocide and there confronted by the images of the genocide’s victims, she admits to feeling a sense of detachment; it’s honest, albeit an admittedly disappointing reaction. Yet, in her honesty Temelkuran also suggests that the intense stare of a museum assistant, desperate to discern an emotional reaction, prevents a genuine reaction. Is this a symptom of the titular Turkish-Armenian divide - resentment at being forced?
Later on, following the murder of Hrant Dink on an Istanbul sidewalk, Temelkuran weeps and with her 100,000 others for a very dear Armenian. Overnight Hrant Dink became a martyr, sometimes for the wrong reasons. Dink’s death, and Temelkuran’s account, reveals the depth of a very personal, very human, very real relationship – Dink in life and death was seemingly the catalyst for the book’s beginning and completion – and underlines the unfortunate truism latent in Stalin’s aphorism that a million deaths remains a statistic whilst an individual’s death is a tragedy. Dink is for Temelkuran an inspiration and in his death she sees perhaps a glimmer of the Armenian pain, which she has earlier diagnosed in the Diaspora but not understood wholly or empathically, until Dink’s murder. A painful frustration of voices prematurely silenced, patriarchs killed and opportunities lost.
There are cringe-worthy moments the book. When Ece and Yurttaş, her photographer, are asked to leave a bar in central Yerevan unless they accept the Armenian Genocide, I found myself wanting to say; ‘we’re not all like that’. In Boston the pair attend an Armenian scouting event where there’s much foot-stomping and chest-beating. It’s April 24th, the day Armenians globally commemorate the Armenian Genocide and the evening’s proceedings to which Temelkuran’s privy culminate with a brief documentary on the genocide. Images of genocide are interspersed with the Turkish perpetrators. Temelkuran’s description of the commemorative event, similar to ones I participated in as a child, rather alarmingly reminded me of the ‘two minutes hate’ sessions of George Orwell’s 1984.
Yet in this landscape of human encounters there are really touching moments. When a group of war veterans excitedly tell their tales to Temelkuran on May Day in Yerevan in Azeri Turkish, she listens attentively like a good granddaughter whilst they lap up her attention. In America when wealthy, well-to-do Armenians suddenly break into dormant, peasant dialects of Turkish you can almost read the grin on Temelkuran’s face at the sound of half-dead Anatolianisms. The secret language of cuisine, folk songs and common expressions regularly brings a smile, just as Yurttaş’s altercations with a constantly ‘recalculating’ GPS and overly patriotic French waiters are eerily familiar and human. Most poignant of all are Temelkuran’s encounters with Armenian women where some secret language of sisterhood and maternity inflects the dialogue and really encourages openness. As a male reader I felt I was missing out on something when descriptively knowing looks pass between Temelkuran and people she considers her Anatolian sisters.
This is not a political book and will certainly displease many demagogues irrespective of their ethnicity or nationality. In its pages are no judgements of right and wrong. Temelkuran asks some questions, talks rather romantically in parts but largely leaves the people she meets to do the talking. This is ultimately a humanistic exploration of trauma. History is nodded at but not wholly explained, thus Temelkuran’s own personal view on the Armenian Genocide is never assertively stated but that’s somewhat forgivable; this is a book about encountering people and their memories, not entering the fray of a very emotive issue. Having said that, not making an explicitly clear stance will draw criticism from some who see the whole topic as politicised. I’m also not convinced of what purpose it serves to draw links between the politically motivated killings of left-wing Turks in the 1970s and the Armenian Genocide. To paraphrase Plato, one cannot compare two people’s suffering. Similarly, her search for a common Anatolia culture is a bridge waiting to be crossed and Temelkuran seemingly relishes these commonalities but how much there is a willing community to join her in charting this possible common ground is up to writers who come in this book’s wake.
The bravery with which Temelkuran proceeded to challenge stereotypes and the un-diminishing courage when faced with sometimes bellicose interviewees is commendable, especially when one considers the flak she has attracted in Turkey for having written the newspaper columns out of which this book evolved. Personally I was moved by her rather simple strategy for reconciliation with which she concludes. Dismissively utopian for some, nevertheless Temelkuran suggests “the fantastic notion that this problem could be resolved if every Turk listened to every Armenian – just listened.” What might ‘they’ hear? Perhaps nothing more than the love of a mountain, that infectious Ararat sense. It’s a start though.
Topic: The Armenian genocide a hundred years on