Note: The article was first published on siyasetkahvesi.net
I will share four stories that I have personally heard from World War I. Two that I have heard from my Kurdish friends, and one from my own family history. I hope that these stories will open a window to understand the cruelty of war, how neighbors turn into enemies, and what we have lost in the name of humanity, and more importantly, to look at history through the lens of “conscience” that you may have never thought of looking at before.
A Story from Diyarbakir: Murder at the Fountain
A Kurdish friend of mine from Diyarbakır had a grandmother who used to wash clothes at a fountain in her village during the war. The village was divided between Muslim Kurds and Christian Armenians. One day, a mounted soldier came to the fountain and announced that the caliph had declared a jihad against non-Muslims. In response, her grandmother attacked two Armenian women who were washing clothes there and drowned them in the fountain. This incident is a painful example of both war and how people can become savages towards each other.
A Story from Bingöl: Massacre on the River's Edge
Another Kurdish friend from Bingöl told me a horrific story from his own family. During the war, Muslim villagers gathered their Armenian neighbors on the banks of a river and shot them. It is even said that they competed to see who could kill the most people with a single bullet. Even women and children were not spared from this massacre. However, the next day, when the villagers heard a baby crying, they found a baby still alive among the dead body of its mother and raised it in their own family. This incident reveals the darkness of humanity on one side and the last remaining shred of conscience on the other.
I am telling these two events from what my friends told me personally. I have no way of verifying them from independent sources. But family stories and oral history are important sources.
Muslims Burning to ashes
Another example of the terrible savagery committed by groups that were once part of the same society during wartime was told by a Turkish friend of mine from Adana. He told me how Armenians in their district had crowded Muslims, including women and children, into a mosque and burned them alive.
My Family Story from Trabzon: A Life Lost in Flames
There is also a story from my own family. I am not Kurdish, I am from the Black Sea region. When the Russians occupied Trabzon in 1916, there was great chaos. The young and middle-aged men of my family died in the war, leaving only the women behind. My family tried to escape out of fear for their lives and honor. However, my disabled great-aunt was forced to stay in the village when she was only 14-15 years old. Russian soldiers raided the village and set the houses on fire. My great-aunt was burned alive in that house. This painful story that my family told me tells us how destructive and inhumane war is.
Mutual Tragedies During the Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
The 19th and early 20th centuries were the longest and most painful period for the Ottoman Empire. This vast empire was home to countless ethnic and religious groups. However, during the empire's decline, the atrocities committed by both Muslim and Christian communities against each other were no less and no more brutal than their European counterparts.
The 20th century saw the ancient lands of Eastern Europe hit by nationalist ideas, with all nations turning against each other in order to establish their own nation-states. When the states in the Balkans (such as Greece, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Serbia) triumphed over the Ottomans and gained their independence, this process also resulted in ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population in the region. It is estimated that around 5 million Muslims were killed or displaced during this period.
The Turks in Anatolia, on the other hand, tried to protect the idea of the empire as much as they could because they thought they were the essential element of the empire, and therefore they were later caught up in the nationalist movement. However, just like in other nation-state establishment processes, this time the Christian populations of Anatolia (Greeks and Armenians) became the victims of this transformation.
But these are the subjects of political history, not human or conscientious history. While these reasons and processes are being analyzed, the experiences of the father whose son was burned alive, the feelings of the pregnant mother whose baby was torn out of her womb with a bayonet, the thoughts of the child who was gang-raped by uncles she did not know, or how those who committed this atrocity managed to appease their humanity and conscience while doing so are not discussed or debated. It seems that no one cares about the millions who died, whose lives, hopes, dreams, souls and honor were destroyed.
Don't Miss History from Your Conscience
These stories show how different identities disregard millions of human lives in their efforts to dominate each other. When we understand how destructive and inhumane war is, we must ask the question: Why should we defend the sins of our ancestors?
Murder is murder, rape is rape, and massacre is massacre. Just because one of our ancestors committed these acts, where does morality fit in, to ignore them or to try to find a logical political justification to legitimize them? Perhaps it is time to talk about “what our ancestors did to others” rather than stories about “what others’ ancestors did to ours” and to put the blame on ourselves.
History becomes blurred when viewed only from our own perspective. Tribalism or blind loyalty to a group can silence a person's conscience. However, history is not just a mirror of an identity race, but also of the responsibility of being human. Questioning the actions of our ancestors is not a matter of blaming them, but a moral duty to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future.
These tragedies that took place during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire are not just events that have made it into history books, a few of which are true stories. These are the stories of real people, neighbors, and friends. The story of how people who were supposed to protect each other ended up eating each other raw. The test of humanity, which has seeds of evil at its core, that has been repeated throughout history and continues today. Why should we take moral responsibility by owning up to the atrocities committed by others under the guise of heroism?
Without learning to look with conscience, the lessons to be learned from history will be incomplete. As descendants of the parties to the events that took place 100 years ago, whether you are Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian or Greek, instead of saying, “My side is right, the other side is guilty,” it is necessary to focus on the questions, “How can we understand the tragedies of that period and how can we prevent such pain from recurring in the future?” A true reading of history can only gain meaning with the guidance of conscience. As long as history is kept as stories of wars and victories as the echo of power struggles, it cannot serve our conscience, our individual morality or the truth.
History Should Be a Lesson, Not a Race
As a result, competitions based on identities such as “we suffered too” or “they did this to us too” are against human dignity. Tragedies experienced in history should not be a tool to prove who suffered more. On the contrary, these stories should teach us lessons so that such events do not happen again.
Learning to live together is not possible by denying or defending the past; it is possible by accepting it honestly and developing a common morality in which the individual constantly questions his conscience in order not to experience these pains again.
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