Rebel Land: Among Turkey's Forgotten Peoples [Hardcover]

The mass murder of Armenians at the end of the Ottoman empire is fairly well-known, and I'm surprised that an Oxbridge graduate such as de Bellaigue was unaware of it. By his own admission, he only realised it after a work of his, influenced by the Turkish academe, was savaged by an American professor. To salvage his dignity and also filled with curiosity, he decided to spend time in Eastern Turkey where some of the most brutal acts of ethnic cleansing had occurred. This book is the result of his investigation and travel through that region, where he met not only the (converted to Islam) descendants of the Armenians, but also Kurds, Alevis, and Turks.

There appears to be some amount of diminution of ethnic identity. Most people identify themselves initially as Turks, speak fluent Turkish, and are wary of de Bellaigue. The fault-lines are not only ethnic, however, or even inter-religion. The Kurds themselves are divided by sect - Shiite or Sunni - and they despise each other only slightly less than they hate the heretic Alevis. Meanwhile, the slaughter of Armenians in 1915 was performed not just by the Turks, but by many of their coreligionists in the region, including the Kurds.

So closely are the subsequent fates of these minorities, though, that all of them make claims to victimhood. de Bellaigue segues from the Armenians to the Kurds. He discusses their long-standing fight for independence via means both political and terrorist. He then moves on to the most despised group of all, the Alevis, and their struggle for identity.

The problem with all these groups, besides the mutual suspicion, is also the innate corruption and megalomania of their own political elite. When they are not fighting the Turks, they are destroying each other. de Bellaigue has written a well-researched (and poetic, even) study of the tensions and psychological pressures these folks live under. Recommended.

After reading a review of Rebel Land in the International Herald Tribune, I was intrigued enough to buy the book. The author it seemed had moved to Turkey as a young journalist and had rather literally gone native. He had written an historical essay, which triggered a venomous response from an Armenian professor. Subsequently and somewhat remorsefully he undertook this investigative book to learn the sordid details of the region in Eastern Turkey where the `cleansings' took place and where today Kurds live under continuing pressure from the Turkish government. Given the subject and the desire of American and European parliaments to pass judgement on this history, the topic is obviously still relevant. The book is very well written; the author's perspective now clearly neutral and objective.

Parts of the narrative are, despite the tragic subject matter, quite poetic. Let me just note a few examples:
* The Great Monastery of Surp Karapet, the sum of fifteen centuries of labour, accretions, modification and repair, has been reduced to its separate parts. Black stone smoothed by the centuries, ...
* The fractures running through this society mean that dramatically different versions of history are being recounted in neighbouring villages... Vartolus use the past to acquit their ancestors and string up their enemies.
* I got a new impression of the past as a chaotic series of emotions, of outrage and guilt, scornful of chronology and often founded on gossip or hagiography.
* ...the mass graves are planted with trees, a pleasant park grows over the bones.

The author has recounted the history of this region from the late nineteenth century when the Ottoman Empire came unravelled until the present. As the empire tried to hold on against the historical trends and encroaching powers, they effectively `cleansed' the area of Christian Armenians through genocide and forced resettlements. The Kurds moved into the vacuum and became the majority of the population. Today the Kurds themselves are under cultural pressure to accept an identity as Turkish nationals and to give up any dream of a Kurdish nation. The history is presented, but it is depicted in the author's on-site research through discussions with current residents and later generations of Armenian refugees. In many ways the book reads as a non-fiction novel.

I have already commended the author for his objective neutrality. However, I wish to qualify that and to offer one brief critique. There is one very beautiful passage which introduces the chapter, "The Siege of Varto." That passage poignantly captures the tragedy of mass murder. But the passage also reveals the author's own belief system. He approaches a truly neutral perspective on the world, but then lapses into a romantic acceptance of ethnicity as though it were a substantive thing and not merely ephemeral. The modern world, just as the author relates, has followed a tragic path from a period of empires with broad regions of various subject peoples to today's `myths' of national identity, where minorities are eliminated, suppressed or acculturated and absorbed. While Turkey is in the news once again regarding the Armenian genocide, they are not the only nation to have employed such nation-building tactics. Americans `cleared' North America of its Indian tribes and Israel is presently suppressing Palestinians. No nation is free of guilt. And yet every group that chooses death for the sake of culture, language or religion has made a tragic choice. There is no reason to do so other than for the vain preservation of ancestral traditions. There must be a better path to the future.

Unfortunately the tragedy of contemporary politics is that there is no political process available to pursue an alternative path. Essentially the UN recognizes present national boundaries, while respecting minority rights and the sovereignty of national governments at the same time. The contradictions are evident but not addressed. The UN is powerless and resolution of minority problems reduces very simply to a question of which power, be it the USA, Russia or China, believes it has a right to intervene to defend its interests. For someone of the author's diverse background and obvious sensitivities I would have hoped that he might delve just that bit deeper.

David Hillstrom, author

'This journey to Eastern Turkey and the town of Varto where de Bellaigue lived becomes an examination of the way crises and ethnic wars develop where people care deeply about land and spill blood to avoid extinction. De Bellaigue makes the investigation personal and layered; he does not shrink from the obstructions thrown up by bureaucrats or taciturn witnesses; he dares to show the attractive and repellent sides of the participants in these bitter struggles between Turks, Kurds and Armenians. In a region where so much of the past is blurred by denial, this book gives us much greater understanding.'

The Orwell Prize is Britain's most prestigious prize for political writing. The Book Prize judges for 2010 were Jonathan Heawood (director, English PEN), Andrew Holgate (literary editor, Sunday Times) and Francine Stock (writer and broadcaster).