I have read Elif Şafak’s “The Bastard of Istanbul.” As a literary work, probably, it is not a masterpiece, but thinking of the author is understandable and acceptable for me. The author has come out of the “national” educational and upbringing circles, his view is far from the official position of Turkey, and it was considered reprehensible in the country. Şafak tries to understand us, the Armenians: why has the genocide left such a deep scar in the hearts of our generations, how, for what our people can get closer? She is trying to understand her own people, and “at hand” trying to understand the country, which she knows very well, the United States of America.
But, here, there is a problem for some of Armenian readers. As the author is a Turk, and certain types of Armenians have strong negative feelings towards the entire ethnic Turks, but they have doubts even towards this case of advocating universal values, if the writer is a Turk, then something is wrong. The same doubts, by the way, are also among some of us regarding the novel of Akram Aylisli “Stone Dreams”, what does he want to say? I think that normal writers, which, of course, are both of them, do not have particularly any “secret messages”. Man must stay a man, regardless of whether he is an Armenian, Turk, or Azeri, what is a secret here. The relationship between decent people and villains is almost the same with both aforesaid and all of the rest nations. The rest are political issues: who to whom and for what ‘winded up’, who washed the brain of whose and for what purpose?
But I speak not so much about the policy, but about prejudices. Not only national, but also social and political. Representatives of different political groups and streams among us are prejudiced against each other personally, not because they profess to different ideas, but because they see embodiment of all kinds of evils in the others. When the man “in front of you” expresses some thought and judgment, his critic does not analyze the idea logically, but simply attacks the party, type and breed of the said man. The rich and the poor, those having position and without, citizens and peasants, Armenians and Karabakh people usually have the same prejudices against each other, if a person not belonging to my group says something true, it means that something is not right.
While “the black” and “the white” in all mentioned groups are in the same relationship. In the meantime, do not be surprised on the priority of the second one.
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ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
