Had France surrendered to the memory of its old wars with Britain, the two countries wouldn't have sat together in the European ring. Had Charles de Gaulle surrendered to the sight of Adolf Hitler arrogantly crossing the Champs-Elysees avenue in occupied Paris, the French-German engine for the European dream would not have seen the light. Had China and Korea surrendered to the memories of Japanese perpetrations, manufacturing rockets would've prevailed over manufacturing tractors. We cannot deny history's wounds, their weight on spirits before books, and the stories told by grandmothers to their grandchildren about martyrs, massacres, orphans, and whole groups that were uprooted. And yet, surrendering to history's wounds implies living in a permanent cage. It heightens the rottenness of the wounds and the waves of hatred while waiting for the moment of revenge. Experience tells us that the weight of history is less than that of geography. The former can be dealt with through recognition, handshakes, forgiveness and the solace of forgetting. Facts can be manipulated and alleviated. The latter is fate. It does not accept any interpretations. You can choose some of your history but not your neighbor. Geography is the only constant, and you have to drink it even if it is poisoned. The independent Republic of Armenia was born from the remains of the Soviet Union. It is a closed mountainous country that is rich with rocks and sparing with oil and gas. The independence did not heal its wounds. Its inhabitants as well as Armenians abroad did not forget the wounds of WWI and the Ottoman State's decision to eliminate the Armenian presence from the Turkish depths. After the Armenians took over Nagorno-Karabakh following a bloody battle with Azerbaijan, Turkey closed its border with its deadly neighbor. For around a century, Armenians demanded from Turkey to recognize the genocide and were faced with rejection, as Turkey considered such practices as the consequence of WWI. It was not easy for Armenia to relinquish this claim. It was also not easy for Turkey to make such a recognition that implies political, psychological, moral, and maybe even financial repercussions. Because of this heavy and complicated legacy, we can consider what happened in Zurich to be a historical event. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and his Armenian counterpart Edouard Nalbandian signed two protocols for diplomatic relations and opening of borders between the two countries. Just hours before the signature, Armenian President Serge Sarkissian addressed his fellow citizens: “We have no other alternative than to build unconditional relations with Turkey despite a decades-long enmity.” He assured that his country will continue to demand Ankara to recognize the genocide. Sarkissian had visited the Armenian diaspora around the world and was welcomed by protests and chants that did nothing to change his decision. The justification for the protocol signature was the agreement on the formation of a historic committee that would study “in a scientific and unbiased way the historic facts and archives” related to the events of 1915. Armenia chose not to surrender forever to history's wounds. There are geographic facts, roles, oil and gas pipes, economic cooperation, and the rising Turkish role inside and outside Caucasia. Turkey chose to continue implementing its decision to put an end to all its pending problems on the domestic and foreign levels, including the prohibited subjects regarding Armenians and Kurds. Perhaps it wished to remove the obstacle of the Armenian genocide issue from its path to the European dream. At the end of two decades filled with a bloody awakening on identities, talk about the clash of civilizations, and the spreading of divisions among ethnicities, confessions, and sects, especially after the Yugoslav explosion, the signature in Zurich offers a different image. It is the image of coming out from the corridors of the past and searching for stability and prosperity. This image does not only concern the two countries but also the relations between countries whose history pours poison into their present. It also concerns groups inside countries that suffer from deep wounds in their memory. In the end, the issue is about accepting the other who is different, and who resides either behind international borders or inside the state itself. The image concerns Arabs too. Who knows, we might wish in the coming years for inter-Arab relations to be similar to Turkish-Armenian relations, after we revived in the past years all of history's wounds and tragedies.
