’Kmtrsşvytlmnszplmnvjz ’

There were Armenians among my class and school friends. In those years, an Armenian neighborhood even existed right behind the high school from which late President Turgut Özal and current President Abdullah Gül graduated. Our Armenian friends in this neighborhood were going home for weekends. And we were invited to their houses at times.

I had my Armenian friends in my early teenage years while I was attending secondary school in the middle of Anatolia and while I was attending high school in Tarsus in the middle of the Çukurova. But I do not remember us ever talking about the 1915 incidents.

We didn’t talk about this subject when we ran across our school friends or when we had new Armenian friends years later because there was nothing to talk about. If the subject was opened somehow, they said they didn’t talk about it at home either. But they all knew of the incidents.

All Armenians knew 1915 even if it was not talked over at all. Information was in their genetic codes.

As a matter of fact, we, as Muslim Turks, knew that too. As the subject was never mentioned by Armenian at their homes, it was not talked at our homes either. My parents met and got married in the city of Malatya. Through family memories from Malatya, I remember the word "deportation" and know that Armenians lived in this city. But the year of 1915 was never mentioned.

A year ago, I learned from my old friend of 45 years that Oral Çalışlar that the high school we attended in Tarsus was actually located in the Armenian neighborhood. We never mentioned 1915. But we, just like Armenians, knew that there was something about 1915 because it was in our genetic codes too.

Due to the online apology campaign, there are people now trying to turn ferocious nationalist reactions into a "lynching campaign." But such reactions result from "information" not from "ignorance;" information embedded in genetic codes, very disturbing information. When we look in the mirror, so to speak, and face ourselves, we are exposed to a sudden flood of rage.

This is one side of the story. The other side candidly expresses the great injustice and misery Albanians, Bosnians, Circassians or Abkhazians and Georgians; i.e. what Muslim communities united by Turkish identity, went through last years of the Ottomans. In the meantime, Azerbaijani Turks, primarily those living in Karabakh, remind of what they have been through lately and react to say, "We were displaced and subjected to atrocity. We lost tens of thousands too."

That is correct. This, on one side, points out to what extent a significant population of people living in Turkey feel "aggrieved" and "treated unfairly." And it, on the other side, shows how much Turkish people are "traumatized" as a society.

Such a reaction naturally includes the acknowledgment of "calamity" and "tragedy" of 1915. But if the objection voiced as "We were exposed tooÉ" includes an emphasis on "Our grief is as important as theirs," it means corroboration of 1915 as the "Great Catastrophe."

The said signature campaign gave birth to a "historical and social psychoanalysis," though that was not the aim at all. Pages of the history are being revisited again. We are looking in the mirror again. This is painful in so many aspects.

One should also see that similar issues cannot be left to the discussions of historians only. Historians may have very different interpretations on the same subject or even on the same piece of document.

This is the case for every profession. Have you ever seen jurists reach a consensus over a legal case, or politicians over a political issue. So how will historians agree on what is 1915 and what is not, even if all archives are opened and read line by line?

The important thing is to include "conscience," own history and society in discussions. That is what happened with the signature campaign and it worked well.

However, we cannot ignore an array of unacceptable attitudes in the debates. That "proto-type" assessment voiced by Parliament Speaker Köksal Toptan is just one of them. "The apology campaign was unfair as it was an attempt to unilaterally convict Turkey. I am having a hard time to see what our friends are trying to do with this apology campaign and what they want to obtain through this campaign. But something extraordinarily wrong happened," he said.

First of all, we don’t have any one issuing an "apology statement." Despite all attempts to sabotage the campaign, there was a "citizens’ act" with over 20,000 signatures as I was writing this piece. If Toptan and others read these two sentences once again, they will see how they are wrong:

"In my conscience I cannot accept the insensitivity toward the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915 and the denial of it. I refuse such injustice and I do apologize to my Armenian brothers and sisters, share their pain."

Where is on the earth "unilateral conviction of Turkey?" Where is "taking Turkey to the point of execution through this apology?"

We have to assume that people reading this two-sentence statement are not disabled. Such a reaction is originating from the aforementioned information embedded in genetic codes; the "denial reflex" about something annoying and unlikeable and the attitude of distortion as a result.

Isn’t the two-sentence statement reading "In my conscience I cannot accept the denial?" And there is no mention of Turkey in the statement.

Besides, attitudes of somewhat known intellectuals are far away from being convincing. They mainly raise objections to "I apologize to." Some of them say if the statement had ended with "I share the pain my Armenian brothers and sisters feel," they could have signed it.

This was an attitude acceptable last week. But what we had during this week formed such dynamism that their articles or remarks about "I apologize to" are read something like "kmtrsşvytlmnszplmnvjz" and sound like "kmtrsşvytlmnszplmnvjz."

I mean, they are meaningless, incomprehensibleÉ