By Stella Morabito
Monday, April 23, 2018
If President Trump recognizes the Armenian genocide by
specifically using the word “genocide” in his April 24 proclamation, he would
send a strong signal to the world that America is unequivocally on the side of
historical truth and the protection of innocent life. He would be only the
second president, after Ronald Reagan, to do so boldly and officially.
Every year on April 24 there are memorial services,
marches, and media reminders of the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians at the
hands of the Ottoman Empire. The beginning of the massacres is marked on that
date in 1915, when hundreds of Armenian community leaders, merchants, and
intellectuals were rounded up and killed in Constantinople.
That horrific incident was followed by the sorts of
activities you’d expect of a government intent on mass slaughter of an ethnic
group: propaganda campaigns intended to vilify Armenians in the eyes of their
Turkish neighbors; conscription of all Armenian men ages 20-45 to deprive their
families of their protection; gun confiscation programs; the release of violent
criminals from prisons in order to form “chetes” or killing squads targeting
Armenians; mass deportations and death marches into the Syrian desert with
little to no food or water; and much more. I’ve written
in detail about the genocide for The
Federalist.
As the granddaughter of genocide survivors, I’ve always
been well aware of those atrocities and hardships suffered a century ago. But
most Americans are completely unaware, and the ignorance is growing. This is
especially the case as our education establishment treats any serious study of
history as, well, a thing of the past.
Official U.S.
Recognition of This Genocide Has Been Thorny
For the United States, where many Armenian refugees
settled, official government recognition of the genocide has never been a
simple matter of acknowledging the historical record. Several American
presidents in recent history issued commemorative proclamations that mourn the
massacres and the tragedy of the killings, but—with the notable exception of
Reagan—do not call it a genocide.
Turkey has been a key U.S. ally, and it is deeply
offended by any mention of the genocide, which has long been a taboo subject in
that nation. This is in stark contrast to Germany’s reckoning with its Nazi
past and responsibility for the Holocaust shortly after World War II. But
despite the passage of a century, the Turkish government seems to have grown
ever more resistant to hearing that its Ottoman forebears had anything to do
with the mass killings.
President Obama’s handling of the situation is perhaps
the clearest exhibit of just how difficult it has been for recent U.S.
presidents to utter the word “genocide” in reference to the Ottoman
extermination of the Armenian population in Turkey. In his 2008 presidential
campaign, Obama openly pledged that if elected he would call the killings a
genocide.
He never kept that promise, even during the 2015
centennial marked by major events and memorial events around the nation as well
as in Washington DC. Today two of his top aides—foreign policy advisor Ben
Rhodes and United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power—have said the Obama
administration’s judgment call on this was a mistake.
Reagan called the mass killing of Armenians a genocide in
an official proclamation in 1981. In addition to that, there have been two
joint resolutions of Congress recognizing the genocide, passed in 1975 and in
1984, as well as one resolution of the House of Representatives, passed in
1996. Also, 48 U.S. state legislatures have condemned the mass killings as
genocide. (I would guess the Alabama and Mississippi legislatures will soon
come around.)
Trading Truth for
an Ally
Turkey’s entry into the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization in 1952 during the Cold War marked a major U.S. partnership, with
both nations having a common adversary in Russia. So American presidents and
foreign policy officials often take meticulous care not to offend Turkey. Hence
avoiding identifying Turkey’s Ottoman predecessors as mass killers of 1.5
million Armenians.
One might think that with the fall of the Soviet Union in
1991 and the rise of Turkey’s Islamist president Tayyip Erdogan, who habitually
extols the glories of the Ottoman Empire and supports the Muslim Brotherhood, a
U.S. president might be less hesitant to recognize the Armenian genocide. But
U.S. foreign policy officials generally defer to pressure from the Turkish
lobby because they continue to see a modern and secularized Turkey as an
indispensable ally with a critical geo-strategic position. A recent op-ed in
the Washington Times made
that case.
With more nations acknowledging the Armenian genocide,
Turkey’s situation may be getting more fragile. Erdogan was especially offended
by Germany’s 2016 statement of recognition. He directly threatened to leave
Europe “to your own worries” if the European Union continued to pressure Turkey
on genocide denial and stated “we will never accept the accusations of
genocide.” It’s difficult to tell how the Trump administration might calculate
its decision.
Massacres Versus
Genocide: What’s the Difference?
While the Turkish government doesn’t deny that hundreds
of thousands of Armenians were killed under Ottoman rule, it rejects the term
“genocide,” in large part as a matter of national pride. I think this is
especially true considering President Erdogan’s unabashed reverence and
nostalgia for the old Ottoman Empire. Those who try to bring back the perceived
glories of an old era aren’t going to want to stain it.
Also, the term “genocide” was coined in 1944 by Raphael
Lemkin, a Holocaust survivor who initiated the U.N. convention on genocide. No
doubt Turkey has no interest in being called out before the U.N. on the matter.
But in addition to the perceived humiliations
acknowledgement would bring, Turkey has another reason for objecting: the fear
of having to pay reparations to descendants of the victims. In addition to the
loss of life, much wealth and property was seized, including Armenian churches,
monasteries, businesses, farms, and homes. A prime example of reparations for
genocide was the post-WWII Israeli-West German agreement of 1952, in which West
Germany agreed to pay reparations to Holocaust survivors and relatives of
victims.
The Turkish government has made a number of claims in its
denial, primarily stating that it doesn’t measure up to the U.N. definition of
genocide. The U.N. Convention on genocide defines it as violent acts “committed
with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group.” The Turkish government states there was no “intent,” for
genocide, no master plan; and that the deaths were basically the regrettable
results of the ravages of World War I, in which both Turks and Armenians
suffered. The Turks also rationalize the mass deportations of Armenians by
stating the Armenians basically colluded with the Russians, thus rendering them
“subject to relocation.”
But Turkey’s rationalizations defy voluminous
evidence and scholarship on the matter. Were the Armenians simply casualties of
war? No. In fact, wars serve as cover for genocide. World War I served as cover
for the Armenian genocide, just as World War II served as cover for the
Holocaust.
In a conversation at the German Embassy in Istanbul just
before the genocide was launched, Ottoman leader Talat Pasha is quoted as
stating: “Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly
liquidate (grundlich aufzaumen) its internal foes, i.e., the indigenous
Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention.” Then in
1918: “The question is settled. There are no more Armenians.”
Eminent Turkish scholars such as Hrant Dink (assassinated
in 2007) and Taner Aksam have also called for recognizing the genocide. As
Aksam has noted, “If you want to have a democracy in our country, you have to face
your own history. Without an honest reckoning of what happened in the past, you
cannot create a peaceful future.”
Resisting the
Facts of History Is Always Dangerous
As President Trump stated in his recognition of the
Holocaust last year, “We must never, ever shrink from telling the truth about
evil in our time. Evil is always seeking to wage war about the innocent and to
destroy all that is good and beautiful about our common humanity, but evil can
only thrive in darkness.”
The truth will always out. The question is always the
cost of silence in the face of evil because shrinking from the truth encourages
the perpetuation of evil. Consider how Adolf Hitler was encouraged by that sort
of silence when he commanded deaths of all “men, women, and children of Polish
derivation and language” in his 1939 invasion of Poland. He rationalized: “Who,
after all, today speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
But as more nations recognize the Armenian genocide,
Turkey’s stubborn denials grow ever less tenable. There are virtually no living
witnesses of these events that occurred a century ago. It’s past time for
Turkey to simply step back, look at the big picture and say: Yes, it happened.
It’s part of the historical record, and it was a crime against humanity. This
truth alone can make Turkey a freer, more peaceful, and happier place in the
long run.
President Trump should help make that happen. Otherwise,
if we keep kicking the can down the road, the road eventually leads to
forgetting. And to forget such harrowing history is to invite it to repeat
itself.
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