Fresno Hosts Kadir Akın’s Documentary Film RED
FRESNO — On April 19, Fresno hosted the film RED and its producer and director Kadir Akın as well as Garo Paylan, both founding members of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and leading democracy activists in Turkey. This event was made possible by the support of the Armenian Cultural Conservancy of Fresno and Massis Publishing.
The documentary film RED, based on the book written by Akın, Armenian Revolutionary Paramaz: Armenian Socialists and Genocide from Abdul Hamid to [the Committee of Union and Progress], examines the statements, ideas, and actions of Mattteos “Paramaz” Sarkissian, a leader of the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party, along with the Armenian Question in the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent Armenian Genocide. Akın is also author of The Crisis of Socialism: Unity and Re-establishment and In the Trail of Hidden History: Modernization in the Ottoman Empire, Constitution, Roots of Socialism, and Armenian Deputies.
Following the 1908 revolution, the Parliament was reopened with elections of 288 members, including 147 Turks (including some Kurds), 60 Arabs, 27 Albanians, 26 Greeks, 14 Armenians, 10 Slavs, and 4 Jews. Two representatives from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), one from the Thessaloniki Socialist Workers’ Federation (SSIF), and one from the Social Democrat Hunchak Party (SDHP) started a “socialist deputies” caucus. These deputies spoke of the need to co-exist and fought for workers’ rights, unions, women’s rights, decentralized government. These deputies dreamed of creating a more harmonious society.
Akın expressed excitement when he first read Paramaz’s internationalist political perspective expressed during his defense at the Van Court while facing trial in 1897.
Through the written word and the film Red, Akın, who himself was imprisoned from 1982 to 1988 following the September 12th coup in Turkey in 1980, unearths the origins of the socialist movement in Turkey led by Armenian intellectuals and deputies as members of the Chamber of Deputies of the Ottoman Empire during the Second Constitutional Monarchy (1908-1915). As a researcher and journalist, Akın challenges both the nationalistic/’right-wing’ and alternative/’left-wing’ accounts of the past by shedding light on the pivotal contributions of Armenian, Greek, Jewish, and Bulgarian revolutionaries in the emergence of socialist politics in the late Ottoman era.
These Armenian intellectuals advocated for revolutionary ideas, including addressing the poverty brought by the economic destruction during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid, the 1908 Workers’ Strikes, women’s rights, freedom of the press, and the demands of the Christian peoples of the Empire. From the floor of the Ottoman Turkish Parliament, Deputies Vahan Papazyan of Van (above left) spoke out on education policies (May 8, 1911), Vartkes Serengulyan of Erzerum defended laborers’ rights against the capitalist class, and Hampartzoum Boyadjian of Adana spoke about workers’ unions and fraternity.
Garo Paylan, who served for two consecutive terms—2015–18 & 2018–23—in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey representing Istanbul and Diyarbekir, expressed his personal thanks to Akın for uncovering the history of these progressive voices which “can break down the prejduces and bring unity across different ethnic groups in Turkey today as we struggle for a multicultural, democratic, and more equal society.”
In 2018, Garo Paylan faced 2 indictments, including “defaming Turkey and the Turkish state” and “insulting Turkishness” for his comments referring to the 1915 Armenian genocide from the podium of the Turkish parliament.
Q&A with Kadir Akın & Garo Paylan facilitated by Dr. Matthew Ari Jendian -Photos by Nicholas Jendian
