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Los Angeles Times Valley Edition | Glendale News-Press | 2005 April 23
Only the truth can set us free
BY PATRICK AZADIAN
Years ago, one of my dear friends, Valerie, called me up and asked me to write down a number. As she is also my client, I did not question her and obliged. After giving me the number, she said: "Her name is Afsan, she is beautiful, she's got two PhDs, and she is very, very nice. Call her!"
I could not help but wonder what type of a name Afsan was. I asked Valerie where she was from.
She had not anticipated any further questions after giving me such a glorious description of Afsan. But she responded that Afsan was from the same place both our grandparents were from. Valerie is of Greek ancestry, and like my paternal grandparents, they were forced to flee their homes in Asia Minor during World War I.
My suspicions were true. Afsan was Turkish. A few days later, Valerie called me up again and insisted I contact the girl. Afsan was at Valerie's studio in Beverly Hills, getting a makeover.
I was hesitant. After all, dating a Turkish girl would not be too different from Margaret Thatcher meeting Che Guevara at the local Irish pub, or Chairman Mao taking Mother Teresa out to a romantic, candlelight dinner. I could not visualize a common ground, and if she had been brought up with the Turkish government's policy of denial, then there was probably a basic difference in our core values.
Somehow, I was persuaded to call Afsan. I figured, if two human beings cannot meet and have a civilized conversation in good faith, then we live in a nasty world. I decided, for one day, I could be a world citizen, or better yet, a person with no roots whatsoever.
I picked up Afsan at Valerie's studio. Before any part of her anatomy had actually touched the passenger seat, she said: "You look Turkish."
I was tongue-tied for more reasons than one. Valerie had not been exaggerating.
It was now official: I was going to be a world citizen for the next few hours. Turkish-Armenian dialogue had been on ice for more than eight decades; it could wait one more day.
As we sat on the rooftop of the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, sipping afternoon tea and munching on biscuits, we covered all the basics in the first 10 minutes. My membership to the world citizenship did not last long. Afsan asked me what I had tried to avoid as we first met: "What happened to your people?"
I had taken a bite off the biscuit, and it had reached the halfway point in my throat. Her question caught me off guard, and I started coughing and choking on the biscuit. Tears started flowing down my cheeks. Afsan was concerned, she put her hand on my back, leaned forward and said: "You are crying. I am so sorry if I asked the wrong question."
"No, no," I answered. "I have biscuit stuck in my throat."
"Oh!" she said and handed me the teacup; I was back to normal after a few minutes.
Afsan insisted: "We don't learn about this part of 'our' history in Turkey. I want to know."
I looked at her deep blue eyes and responded defensively: "If you want me to say my great-grandmother and grandparents were not forced to flee their homes in Van (southeast Asia Minor), and in the process lost at least eight members of their family, I cannot."
I was going to get this off my chest now and see if our friendship could flourish.
I encouraged Afsan to do her own research if she really was interested in the truth. With her academic background, it should not have been very difficult for her to decipher between historical revisionism and reliable historical records.
I left her with a few thoughts, before we went back to lighter topics.
"Ask yourself, as you already have, what happened to those people? How could over 2,000 years of presence on those lands be terminated in a few years without a systematic plan of action?
"But most importantly, ask yourself, what kind of a world would we have if parents could abuse their children without any consequences and later blame it on unruliness? What type of society would we nourish if every time when a woman is raped, we claim there are two sides to a story? What sort of family structures would we build if husbands could murder their wives and then blame it on the fact that she was chatting with the grocer? And what are the consequences of rewarding state genocidal policies by blaming the victims and revising the past?"
To her credit, Afsan listened carefully. Last I heard, she had gone back to help her homeland recover from a disastrous earthquake. I hope we were able to agree on some core values as human beings. As cliché as it may sound, truth can set us free, and that applies to all of us.
Copyright 2005 Glendale News Press
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