However, third-party countries, especially the United States, France, Switzerland, and Russia, were pushing hard for the new protocols. With their encouragement, talks continued, and on October 10, 2009, a ceremony was planned in Zurich where Turkey and Armenia were to sign a bilateral accord. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew to Switzerland for the occasion. Although not involved in the main negotiations, she was there to show support now that all the details were in place.
But at the exact appointed time, one p.m., it was announced that the ceremony could not begin. Armenia’s foreign minister, Eduard Nalbandyan, had not left his hotel. He was angry about something his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoğlu, was planning to say in his public statement, and refused to go to the University of Zurich, where the proceedings were to be held.
Secretary of State Clinton decided to intervene. As correspondents on the scene reported it, she directed her motorcade to the hotel where the Armenians were staying. For two hours, aides raced between the hotel and the university, where the Turkish delegation waited. It was an old-fashioned haggle. Slips of paper were handed back and forth, details were crossed out, edits were made. Clinton canceled her dinner plans in London, the BBC reported. Finally, she emerged from the Zurich hotel entrance with Foreign Minister Nalbandyan at her side, and the two of them got into her car. She admitted later that even then, nothing was certain, and it was during that tense car ride when the trickiest negotiations were ironed out.
But in the end, as leaders from several countries hovered over them with frozen smiles, the foreign ministers of Turkey and Armenia signed a set of protocols. The key compromise? Neither party would be allowed to make a public statement. Thus what should have been a historic moment was marked with pursed lips.
And the agreement still needed to be ratified by both parliaments.
While the main idea—establishing relations and opening the border—had considerable support on both sides, two factors made full ratification difficult. The agreement called for the establishment of an international commission to examine the “historical dimension” of the relationship, and the majority of Armenians found this clause unacceptable, on the basis that the historical dimension had been adequately examined many times over. In Turkey, meanwhile, most politicians as well as the general public opposed establishing relations with Armenia before progress was made on the conflict with Azerbaijan.
The timing of the October 10 agreement in Zurich was urgent, because four days later, on October 14, according to a schedule determined not by diplomats but by FIFA, Armenia and Turkey would meet again, this time in the Turkish city of Bursa, for round two of the World Cup qualifiers. The game could either be an angry face-off between enemies, or a spirited celebration of progress. President Sarkissian had said he would not go to Bursa without an agreement in Zurich.
The game was set for Wednesday night at nine p.m. One of my closest friends was getting married in Los Angeles on Saturday. I would attend the match in Bursa, take a bus and ferry back to Istanbul in the middle of the night, and fly home on Thursday morning—for good. By the time I reached Bursa, my bags were sitting in my foyer in Istanbul fully packed, and I had said most of my farewells.
* * *
MY FRIEND RAMAZAN, the photographer, was from Bursa. He was very excited about the game, since he had already traveled to Armenia to take pictures, and shots of the soccer match in his hometown would make a perfect addition to his portfolio. He had offered to show me around Bursa, so we met aboard the ferry—it was a two-hour ride across the Sea of Marmara—and the first thing Ramazan did when he saw me was hold up a copy of Milliyet newspaper, his face exuberant. In huge letters, the banner headline read: “Sarı Gelin, Hadi Gelin!”
How to explain the layers of nuance in this perfectly crafted tabloid slogan? “Sarı Gelin” was the name of a folk song that became popular—no, mind-numbingly ubiquitous—after Hrant Dink’s death, because it was played at so many memorial events for him. It had become a symbol of the multicultural history of Anatolia; the song had lyrics in Turkish, Armenian, and Persian. It was the musical equivalent of dolma, stuffed vegetables: something that everybody in the Middle East claimed as their own, and loved.
Some of the lyrics had completely different meanings depending on which language you spoke. In Armenian, sarı sounded like “the mountain.” In Turkish sarı meant “blond,” and gelin meant “bride” but was also the imperative of the verb gelmek, “to come.” An amalgamation: the blond bride comes to the mountain.
In post–Hrant Dink Turkey, “Sarı Gelin” had come to be a soft, unthreatening stand-in for all things Armenian. Hadi was slang for “hurry up.” And so the headline on the day of the soccer match was clever indeed. “Sarı Gelin, Hadi Gelin!” Armenia, come on over already!
Ramazan loved it. I had mixed feelings. The phrase appealed to my fondness for wordplay, and there was something sweet about it. The directness was refreshing: not a statement about Armenia but to Armenia. Yet in a less charitable interpretation, “sarı gelin, hadi gelin” was a bit like saying, “Hey, pansy, get your ass over here.” But fine. It was just soccer. I was excited for the game. And Ramazan would be my local tour guide—an ideal way to spend my final day in Turkey.
Unfortunately, from the moment we got to Bursa, things started to turn sour.
The entire city was covered with flags—not just Turkish flags, which were to be expected for a national game, but Azerbaijan flags, too. There might have been tens of thousands of them. Nobody who has not been to a place like Turkey for a patriotic event can imagine what “covered with flags” really means. President Sarkissian had indeed come from Armenia, but the Azerbaijan flag bonanza did not bode well for the tenuous diplomatic connection.
* * *
RELATIONS BETWEEN ARMENIA and Turkey had come far enough that for weeks, Turkish journalists had been filing enthusiastic reports about preparations for the match, hopes for great diplomatic strides, and signs of a blossoming neighborly relationship—and a lot of the coverage had the ring of propaganda, but of a sort that had been earned, at least, by the fraught and faulty process, one step forward and two steps back, that had lurched along in the hands of politicians, cultural figures, scholars, and business people for the past few years.
Between Armenia and Azerbaijan, however, there was no such progress. The war was officially over, but there remained unconcealed rage on both sides. Armenians were occupying an enclave that they considered their rightful territory, while Azerbaijan considered this a hostile takeover that would be rectified one day soon. Karabakh declared independence in 1991 as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a status formally disputed by the UN and other international organizations. Officially, it was recognized only by the breakaway republics of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria—and across the pond, by California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Louisiana, and Maine. (In 2012, the island nation of Tuvalu was said to be considering recognition of Karabakh, also, and the Azerbaijan press went mad; but then again, reports indicated that Tuvalu might sink below sea level before further decisions were taken.)
I was not a great supporter of most Armenian rhetoric on the Karabakh issue; it was steeped in an uncompromising arrogance, as Armenians from all over the world went to Karabakh to establish NGOs and other footholds, disguising aggressive resettlement as humanitarian aid. But the fact that Karabakh was now functionally Armenian was indisputable, and there was no obvious way to resolve the situation. Linking it together with Armenian-Turkish relations was like weighting that historic conflict with a lead anchor. Both would go down together.
So the Azerbaijan flags blanketing Bursa on the day of the soccer match meant many things: they were an effort by nationalist Turks to upend any diplomatic progress; they were a reminder that for many Turks, the old slogan still rang true: the only friend of a Turk is a Turk; and they were a guarantee that no Armenian could feel the slightest bit welcome.
* * *
A GROUP OF journalists from Yerevan
had made the trip, and Aris, the Agos reporter, was helping them get around. He had invited me to meet the group a couple nights earlier, when they had arrived in Istanbul. There were about ten of them, almost all women in their twenties and thirties. Most had never been to Turkey before and the Azerbaijan flags were not making a great first impression. But even taking this into consideration, the Armenians struck me as not at all interested in connecting with Turks. Walking around Bursa with them the day of the match, I was alternately amused and disturbed by their running anti-Turkish commentary. It was fascinatingly uncensored, since they were speaking in a language nobody around them could understand, and it was the first time I had heard such talk while standing on Turkish soil.
Aris had arranged a formal lunch for us at a restaurant famous for the Bursa specialty, Iskender kebab, a dish of lamb shavings drizzled with butter, surrounded by red pepper sauce and topped with yogurt. I had tried it the previous night, with Ramazan and his friends, and it was delicious (although too rich, apparently; I was sick in my hotel room later on). But today, the Armenian journalists were staging a lamb revolt. Several of them refused to try the Iskender kebab. One of the men had learned a few words of Turkish from his grandmother and insisted on using them, but only to make demands; he kept barking at the waiter, “Dana yok!” What he meant to say was “no lamb”—as in, we don’t want lamb. But dana means “beef,” and yok means “there isn’t,” so the waiter appeared bewildered by this visitor from Armenia shouting, “There is no beef!” like a bad translation of the Wendy’s commercial. One of the women was a vegetarian and wanted mushrooms instead of meat, a preference incomprehensible to the chef, and another nearly knocked over the waiter when he tried to douse her plate with a ladle of melted butter.
The proprietor of this famous kebab house had acted delighted to welcome a group from Armenia, and now they were refusing to eat his food. I couldn’t blame them for being angry about the flags all over town, but I was surprised by the way that—unlike myself—they seemed to feel no obligation to be gracious even over the simple matter of lunch. Was it because they were not alone but in a group? Because they would be here only for a few days? I was embarrassed by their rudeness, but also a little bit envious of it.
After we ate, the restaurant manager tried to tell the group about the history of the restaurant—it had originally been an animal hospital, opened by a Turkish-Armenian veterinarian named Gregorian. Aris translated, but they showed no signs of paying attention.
“Your friends don’t seem very interested,” the manager said to Aris.
“Oh, they’re just tired.” He looked rather weary himself.
* * *
FINALLY, AFTER DARK, we made our way to the bleachers. The Atatürk Stadium had room for twenty thousand, and more than sixteen thousand seats were filled. For weeks people had been wondering how the stands would be divided up—everyone wanted to make sure they bought a ticket to sit on their own team’s side—until it became obvious that there would not be enough Armenian spectators to bother with sides at all. Only about fifty Bolsahays had come, and they made up the “Armenian section,” a little roped-off chunk of seats. It was adjacent to the press section, where I sat with Aris and the journalists from Yerevan.
The pregame festivities began with an announcer reading the names of the players. The moment he started to list the Armenian team members, a chorus of the loudest booing I had ever heard rose up from the stands. I tried to cheer, but it was pointless amid the deafening boos. I could not hear even the faintest sound of my own voice.
When the Armenian national anthem was played, the jeering got even louder. From all directions, an undifferentiated mass of male energy churned with need and rage. Everything that happened next seemed to happen automatically, and I let it happen. I put my hand over my heart. Soon I was shaking with sobs and I didn’t try to contain myself. I stared straight ahead, where my eye caught the eye of one of the security guards who was facing the stands. Let him think about it, I said to myself. Let him try to imagine why this journalist in the press section has her hand over her heart during the Armenian national anthem and why there are tears rolling down her cheeks.
Then the Turkish national anthem started. After two years in Turkey, I could hum the tune from beginning to end, and had even come to feel a certain fondness for it. A good national anthem can stir a listener from any country, if they have the heart for that sort of thing, and I did. But it was different now, as if I had returned full circle to the days when this song made my heart freeze. The volume kept rising as every voice in the stadium joined in.
When the anthems were finished, a flock of doves was released. I turned around to find Aris, and we exchanged a pointed glare. They had released doves at Hrant’s funeral. The doves were a mockery here. And it had to have been an accident, but there it was: one of the doves had an Azerbaijan flag stuck in the web of its foot. This unlikely messenger fluttered over our heads with its banner until it found a perch on the eaves high above.
* * *
AS THE GAME wore on, I stopped watching the field. Armenia would obviously lose. I had never expected otherwise, but it was unbearable to see this happen after the crowd’s reaction to the Armenian team. Some of the journalists from Yerevan were live-blogging for their papers or sending text messages to their editors. Over a year had passed since my last trip to Armenia, and if these reporters’ wireless arsenal was any indication, things there were modernizing at an astounding rate.
Although a huge Turkish and European press corps had come to the match, the press section still had plenty of extra room, so during the second half about two hundred regular spectators helped themselves to the empty seats, better than the ones they had paid for. Like the rest of the audience, most of them were carrying Turkish flags.
I guess nothing would have happened if it weren’t for the fact that, at some point, the ten journalists from Armenia started a tentative cheer. At first, it was as if they were only joking, pretending to behave like real soccer fans.
“HAY-A-STAN! HAY-A-STAN!” The name for Armenia doesn’t mean anything to most Turks—in Turkish the name is “Ermenistan”—and nobody more than twenty feet away could hear it amid all the other noise. But little by little the journalists shouted louder, and soon I began to shout with them.
“HAY-A-STAN! HAY-A-STAN!” It was the simplest rhythm of the sporting world, three quarter notes and a rest.
Now and then we swapped in another cheer, “Hayer,” which simply means “Armenians.” I mimicked the way my Armenian colleagues shouted it, in a sort of fratty drawl, “Hayerrrrr.” This sounds very much like the Turkish word hayır, which means “no.” The call made sense either way. We were almost having a good time.
Then two women grasped the upper corners of a large Armenian flag they’d brought along, and began shaking it to the rhythm of the Hay-a-stan chant. One of the others held a tiny flag, the size of a postcard, in front of his chest. Two flags, that was it.
Suddenly we were surrounded by security guards who were holding up their hands and shaking their heads. “No, no, no,” they were saying in English, using the only lingua franca they had.
The Armenian journalists shook their heads in response and kept chanting and laughing and thrusting their flags in the air.
A supervisor appeared in the aisle. “No, no.” He made a crossing out motion with his arms. “Yasak!” he called out in Turkish, which means “prohibited,” and then again in English, “No. Excuse me, excuse me. No, no.”
I moved closer and asked him in Turkish what the problem was.
“They must not show these flags here. It is forbidden.”
“Forbidden? You must be kidding!” I was enraged. “Look around this stadium. Are you saying that in this enormous ocean of flags for Turkey and Azerbaijan, at this so-called historic match between two neighbor countries, that these ten Armenians cannot hold up their flag and say the name of their country? Is this a joke?” I was yelling, really yelling.
The Armenian journalists had stopped chanting and were watching me.
“Think for a moment how we feel,” I shouted at the man. “Can you imagine what it’s like to come to this place for the first time in your life, this country you have been afraid to take one step toward, and then be surrounded like this, and hear twenty thousand people booing your national anthem? Can you imagine it?”
“This is the official policy. This is the rule,” he said quietly. “It is not my rule, it is in the football federation rules. This is the press section. The press section must be objective.”
“Who are those guys back there with the Turkish flags?” I said. “They’re not press!”
The man nodded nervously. “They are also violating the rules.”
“I don’t care about those rules!” I screamed. “This is a question of being a person!”
So it happened that a random security supervisor for a soccer stadium became the only person I spoke to honestly and unrestrainedly in all of two years in Turkey.
* * *
THEY CREAMED US, 2-0. The instant it was over, the stadium exits were flooded with people, and I was separated from Aris and the Armenian journalists. Outside, I saw the Armenian group from Istanbul. I recognized several faces. There was Nerses, the basketball team manager, and there was Sarkis Bey. I hadn’t spoken to either of them in months. I kept meaning to call Sarkis Bey, to visit him at the Agos office, to spend a bit more time with him in my waning days in Turkey, but I hadn’t done it. No matter what language I tried, communication was still arduous. Nobody else had trouble understanding my Turkish—with my friends who didn’t speak English, I spent long evenings chatting, laughing over my improvised vocabulary, jotting down words on napkins, pulling out a pocket dictionary now and then—but with Sarkis Bey, I felt shy about using Turkish, ashamed even. At first, when I was just learning to construct sentences, he would chuckle and offer a “Bravo!” But later, as my Turkish became more fluid than the mash-up of Armenian dialects we had been working across, he seemed to regard me oddly and tended to reply in Western Armenian or to call Ertan or another Anglophone into the room to translate from English. Was my Turkish so bad? Or did he not, for some reason, want to hear me speak that language?
There Was and There Was Not: A Journey through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond Page 28
