Today I met a black lady who is extremely sophisticated, educated and intelligent. I learned that her ancestors were slaves. This thought, all of a sudden, struck me. Her slave ancestors must also have been very intelligent people. An intelligent slave and a stupid master. Did this “intelligence” factor make their relation more tolerable, or was it another thing making their relations more unbearable?Today I looked at America from this angle. In the entrance of official buildings, I saw many black people. They guard the buildings. But when I entered the buildings to meet with officials, I did not see any senior officials who were black. This automatically reminded me of the remarks of a friend of mine, who said to me that black people in the US think that President Barack Obama is not black enough. Today I realized the meaning of being black. It refers more to this history of slavery than skin color. Has America had a full confrontation with this ugly past? I will be traveling in the US for the next three weeks, and this question will always be on my mind.
This friend of mine who communicated to me this generally held “black view” about Obama also told me that her ancestors were slave owners. “Should I feel guilty for this?” she asked. She was referring to my previous article, “Bloody Turk,” in which I discussed the Armenian tragedy and the responsibility of the Turks. I said to her that I do not think that she should feel “guilty” but that she could try to share black people's pain about their past. Honestly, this is what I think people should do regarding past atrocities. We should share the pain and suffering of the victims. But we should not identify ourselves with the perpetrators. We should condemn them together; we should open our hearts to the memory of the victims.
I started to touch on some subjects again, each of which requires lengthy analysis. I may discuss them in my future articles.
When Obama was elected president, an interesting discussion started in Turkey: Who was the equivalent of Obama in Turkey? There were various theories. A Kurd, an Alevi, a woman with a headscarf, a Christian could be deemed Turkey's Obamas. There is indeed truth to all these different options.
The Turkish Republic is based on the denial of differences, and except for a small elite group, everyone is turned into the blacks of Turkey.
However, choosing someone from the aforementioned categories as president or prime minister would be legitimately met with the same objection as Obama was: They would not be black enough! They are all black, no doubt about that, but not as black as Armenians. The US choosing a “pure black” candidate would equate to Turkey choosing a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent as prime minister or president. Will we see those days? I really hope so. And my candidate for the presidency of Turkey would be Etyen Mahçupyan, who is one of the brightest intellectuals in Turkey and who also writes a column for Today's Zaman. He would be an excellent president, wouldn't he?
