Donef, Racho. “Sayfo and Denialism: A New Field of Activity for Agents of the Turkish Republic” (2017)

This chapter comes from the book Let Them Not Return (2017), one of the most recent scholarly works that explores the genocides conducted by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 against various Christian minorities—Aramean, Assyrian, Chaldean, etc. While most research on the ‘Genocide of 1915’ covers the Armenian genocide, the Christian communities covered in the book have often been overlooked in their involvement. However, recent scholarship has tried to fill this gap and distinguish the Armenian genocide from the others by calling the latter the Sayfo, meaning ‘sword’ in Aramaic. Racho Donef holds a doctorate in, among others, anthropology and is a specialized researcher in these minority groups and the genocides. In this chapter, he illustrates how Turkey and its intellectuals enforce and accept one version of its history regarding the genocides. The narrative that has been repeated since the inception of the Turkish Republic in 1923 involves the Armenians as the perpetrators and the Turkish as the victims who acted in self-defense. Turkish journalists, scholars, writers, etc. engage with counternarratives that acknowledge the genocide to deny and refute any claims made against the Turkish Republic (206). The works these same people publish are a continuation of Turkey’s invented history, which it created in order to enforce a positive national identity in the early stages of the Republic’s formation (209). Therefore, the sources Donef predominantly uses are examples from Turkish nationalists wherein they contradict claims made against the Turkish historical narrative. Intolerance of such claims runs high in the country, even labeling those who voice their opposite views as traitors (211). Censorship is an integral part of enforcing Turkey’s identity which helps diffuse any threat against it. For example, Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code punishes any person who insults “Turkishness,” a term that has been coined too vague by organizations like Amnesty International (Amnesty 3). The legal system in Turkey has always favored those who upheld the national narrative. Donef illustrates this with the example of an Aramean Reverend in Diyarbakir who was secretly recorded by a Turkish newspaper affirming the Sayfo; the recording was later used as evidence in a legal case against him (211-2).

Donef shows how the Turkish government, since the beginning of its formation, managed to silence the Armenian genocide and fabricate a narrative that was eventually used in the historical canon, but failed to do the same with the Sayfo. When the communities of the latter genocide spoke up, they caught Turkey, both the government and its intellectuals, unawares, which led to international pressure on the government to acknowledge the genocide (212). What allowed the emergence of the counternarratives was the diaspora. Where they were silenced in their place of origin, the victim groups of the genocide were listened to in their new home. The Turkish government lost control over how they presented themselves vis-à-vis the world regarding the events of 1915 and implored the migrants to return to Turkey where the acknowledgement of the genocide could be easier refuted (212). Turkey’s history books are filled with contradictions, on the one hand playing the victim and on the other celebrating the deaths of the Christian groups that fell victim to Turkey (215). The country has mastered dancing around explicitly mentioning the genocide yet praising the deaths it has on its hand, all as an act of self-defense. For over a century, any acknowledgement of the genocide has been refuted by the Turkish Republic and Donef does not expect any change in this attitude with Recep Tayyip Erdogan as president (216).

The chapter illustrates the methods adopted by the Turkish government to refute any mention of a genocide on a scholarly level. While this topic has been explored before in context of the Armenian genocide, this chapter sets itself apart by discussing the Sayfo instead. The sources on this genocide are scarce but emerging. Donef’s chapter shows how the Turkish government uses censorship and propaganda as its primary weapon of choice whenever its nationalist ideology is questioned. It has armed its citizens with an invented history, turning them into soldiers whose goal it is to protect this history that only they believe in. The repetitive narrative has put “Turkey to sleep” (qtd. in Donef 215) and created an impenetrable wall of propaganda.

Works Cited

Amnesty International. “Turkey: Article 301: How the Law on ‘Denigrating Turkishness’ Is an Insult to Free Expression – Amnesty International.” Amnesty International, 1 Mar. 2006, www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur44/003/2006/en. Accessed 1 April 2024.

Donef, Racho. “Sayfo and Denialism: A New Field of Activity for Agents of the Turkish Republic.” Let Them Not Return: Sayfo, the Genocide against the Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire, edited by David Gaunt, et al., Berghan Books, 2017, pp. 205-18.

Author of this entry: Helenie Demir.

Donef, Racho. “Sayfo and Denialism: A New Field of Activity for Agents of the Turkish Republic.” In Let Them Not Return: Sayfo—The Genocide against the Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire, edited by David Gaunt, Naures Atto & Soner O. Barthoma, 205-18. New York: Berghahn, 2017.