InternationalShared history, the story of two women
Published: Tuesday September 23, 2008
Fethiye Cetin, the author of My Grandmother and longtime legal advocate for Hrant Dink. Hanneke Geerdink
Fethiye Cetin, the author of My Grandmother and longtime legal advocate for Hrant Dink. Hanneke Geerdink
Yerevan - In My Grandmother FethiyeCetin recounts the life of her grandmother. And mine. Sort of. It turns out wewere the cousins divided at birth.
A young girl, living in Anatolia, Eastern Turkey, separated,violently, from parents at an age too young to remember. That's the story ofher grandmother. That's the story of my grandmother, too. Neither hadschooling. Neither had a profession, other than grandmother.
Raised by well-meaning captors, they were the children whowere saved, at least physically, while their parents were forced onto thedeportation route.
The children grew up. Raised in the desert, they did notforget the names of their mothers and fathers. They did not forget their ownnames - screamed by their parents as they were torn away - nor abandon theexpectation that somewhere, somehow they would be reunited.
It was not to happen. In my grandmother's case, there was notrace of the parents. She was raised by a family that sold her off to anArmenian merchant. Through the sands of Syria to the orphanage in Aleppo, shemade a new life for herself, her daughter, and the diaspora that theycomprised.
Fethiye Cetin'sgrandmother Seher was married off to the son of the family that cared for herand adopted her. For her, there could have been a reunification. But when herlong-lost mother and father were located in a not-terribly-distant Aleppo,Seher or Heranush dared not risk insulting her husband and his family, and didnot take a trip, albeit a short one, to reconnect with parents and siblings.Her family was again lost, now forever. But for this noble, some would saymisplaced sense of responsibility, there might have been a different ending tothis story.
Instead, the story goeslike this: After raising obedient and loving children and grandchildren, andbecoming old enough to fear that her story might go with her to her grave,Seher or Heranush shared her story with her granddaughter. She did so partlywith the hope that at this late stage some family might still be found. But shealso opened up in order to begin the settling of accounts that each of us willdo, before the books are finally closed.
In the diaspora, dozens of students and scholars discoveredthat such final reckonings are useful to the recounting process. Storiesotherwise too painful to tell now required listeners. Survivors who for decadeswould not speak, now sought an audience in order to share their improbable,matchless stories.
Some 2,000 survivors from France to Canada and the UnitedStates have recounted their tales of deprivation, struggle, and survival. Somecursed the Turks. Others yearned for the days when they lived together asneighbors. Most did both.
No one remembered the estimated two million Turks whosegrandparents too had stories similar to Heranush's.
Hrant Dink used to say that he'd get several calls a weekfrom Turks who had just discovered that they were, after all, also Armenian.One such call came from Fethiye Cetin, Hrant's own advocate and a human rightsattorney.
The story Fethiye Cetin told Hrant is in this slim, 100-pagebook. It is painstakingly and elegantly translated into English by MaureenFreely, who is also Orhan Pamuk's translator. (There are two translations intoArmenian as well.) Although it's called a memoir, Ms. Cetin writes aneasy-to-read unavoidable tear-jerker. A confessional of sorts, she breaks thesilence on a most open secret - that there were Armenians in Turkey severalgenerations ago, and their descendants live in Turkey still. This is a messagefor Ankara.
But this is not a bookof politics and ideologies. It's a simple story of two women - a 90-plus yearold who broke her own silence only when she knew she had no choice, and hercourageous granddaughter who chose to break the silence that could no longer besustained. How else to explain to sisters and nieces about the grandmother whomade interesting sweet breads in the spring - the Easter cheoregs that remindedher of a life lost? How else to deal with the phone call that came from Americawhen Heranush's death notice was published in the Istanbul daily Agos andread 10,000 miles away by the new children of the parents who had survived,moved to the other side of the ocean, but never forgotten the daughter theyleft behind?
The silence has been broken. The Fethiye Cetin generationwill support Hrant Dink's call to talk to each other and listen to each other.Now, the diaspora generation of victims' descendants must exhibit the dignity,capacity, and willingness to also talk and listen.
