Before
the voting of the Armenian Genocide resolution in Bundestag,
political circles in Turkey hid behind the same old denialist
discourses. The statement of the newly-assigned Prime Minister Binali
Yıldırım was the most interesting one. Turkish prime minister
explained what happened in 1915 with the conditions of war and
defined it as “a common incident”.
With such a statement, Prime Minister Yıldırım proved that he deserves the “low profile” characteristic, which has been attributed to him. As you may remember, after the overthrowing of the former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, the term “low profile”, which is taken from American political terminology, found a place in our political vocabulary. Ultimately, President Erdoğan deemed Binali Yıldırım as the candidate with the “lowest profile” and made him the chair of AKP and prime minister of my country with 80 million population.
The term is new, but being low and unprincipled has been a favorable feature in politics for a long time now. Especially in the societies that have nothing to do with transparency and democratic tradition, such people have promising political future.
It is no different for Armenian society in Turkey. Both in church hierarchy and civil life, people with low profile have always been in demand.
Putting aside the exceptions, we can say that this characteristic is favorable in the institutions that are called “society foundations” as well. Most of the time, a charismatic person with high profile, and with a lot of money as the case may be, becomes the chair of the foundation and forms a “committee” consisting of people with low profile. And those committee members with low profile, who are mere façades, never express a counter-view or cause needless disturbance. This situation leads conservative people to think that the committee is working in concert. However, that is not the case. These low profile committee members express their criticisms that they cannot say during the meetings behind closed doors and try to give the impression that they are in fact on the opposing side.
This generalization concerning the administrators of the foundations doesn't apply to the foundations of the Armenian society. The alumni foundations established by former students have a more democratic mechanism. Any foundation member, with the support of their former classmates, can be a candidate and become the chair of the foundation. This democratic atmosphere and transparency caused disturbance among the executive elite of the society. For instance, Kınalıada Children Camp had been functioning under Karagözyan School Foundation's supervision, but about 10 years ago, it was handed over to the administration of foundation by a virtual operation. Similarly, a property donated to Getronagan School Foundation was given to the foundation behind closed doors.
The most recent example is the land belonging to Surp Pırgiç Hospital. This land was given to “Hovakim 1461” foundation, which is barely accountable.
These tricks are only possible with those low profile persons.
The solution is to smooth the way for people who argue, question and object when necessary. I know that conservatives would say that they are “adventurers”, but don't mind, support the anarchists.
