Should, for example, people feel like Hitler and constantly live under this never-eroding guilt, or should we encourage German children to identify themselves with Oskar Schindler, who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust? Should we identify ourselves with Talat Paşa, or with Hacı Halil and others who saved Armenians, risking their lives, in 1915 in Turkey, for example?
Germans have been trying to recover from the Holocaust by continually reminding themselves how guilty they were. But can a society heal by only a negative psychological confession? We are guilty, we killed Jews! This must be the first step. But without a positive statement, can we really heal? This question is not only for the perpetrators, but is valid for victims as well. Can they heal by demonizing the people whose ancestors killed their ancestors, without doing anything else?
I am not saying that we should jump to a justifying conclusion that our ancestors, not we, did bad things, so we do not have to question ourselves. What I am trying to say is that when there is a trauma like a massacre or genocide in the history of a society, that society cannot heal by just focusing on the evil in the actions, or it will be very difficult to finally create something positive. In every genocide, as in every humanitarian crisis, there have always been good people like Oskar Schindler or Hacı Halil. They are the real heroes.
If you have seen the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” then you would already be familiar with one of those good people. In this true-life story, the hotel director, Paul, is a Hutu who saved many Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. I do not know how this genocide is taught in Rwandan schools today but I do hope a large chapter about the life and endeavors of Paul Rusesabagina are being studied.
In that way, Rwandan children can identify themselves with him and the Tutsi children can learn that not all Hutus were murderers. If we do not focus on the Paul’s, Oskars, Halils, we cannot create a bright future. Without having Oskars in our minds, we may all turn into some kind of racists against the perpetrators, thinking that all Germans, all Serbians, all French, all Turks are “fascist animals.” This is seriously racist thinking, which may lead to other genocides when the necessary conditions arise.
It seems to me that we need to understand the great suffering of victims; we need to feel that all these sufferings happened in our country. We should try to understand the connections between what happened in the past and what is going on now -- in political life, in culture, in daily life -- and try to cleanse all this from today. In this respect Turkey is not even at the beginning of the road. Hrant Dink was just killed few years ago by this “soul” who has been haunting us since 1915. But when it comes to creating a positive future, I do not think we can do that by identifying ourselves with the murderers. All we need to is remember the nameless heroes who tried to save countless victims, some who were successful and some who lost their lives as a result. If you ask me I would erect their monuments across the country and teach their lives in great detail to young generations together with what really happened in all these countries in which all these tragedies took place,. In this way we can make sure that healthy generations of Germans, Turks, Rwandans and so many others can be raised. Am I wrong? I do not know.
