COMMENTARY: THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND OBAMA’S LACK OF CULTURIST SENSIBILITIES
2010 /03/08 | 12:31
world
The following opinion piece by John Press appeared in the March 8,
issue of the "Global Politician".
This week the House of Representatives debated a resolution that
would have given official recognition to the attempted genocide
of Armenians at the hands of Turks. Speaking through Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton, the Obama administration said it "strongly
opposes" the designation of the massacres as genocide. Obama’s strong
opposition tells us a lot about truth claims and Obama’s lack of
culturist sensibilities.
President Obama says he does not want to offend Turkey. The fact
that he does not care if he offends Armenia lays implicit in this
declaration. Thus President Obama is bending truth to accommodate raw
power relations. As such he could be said to be making policy based
on an objective analysis of the situation.
Unfortunately, the world is made of subjective interpretations. As
the controversy suggests, everyone has a side in this debate and
the outcomes have political implications. President Obama admitted
as much when he went to Egypt and Turkey and apologized for alleged
western crimes in the Islamic world.
Being generous, we could accept that President Obama’s hopes lie in
mutual revelation of sins leading to forgiveness and international
understanding; open dialogue from this view could lead to the end of
nations taking sides. However, his unwillingness to discuss Islamic
sins and eagerness to discuss western ones shows an imbalance in
this generous narrative. Unfortunately, it shows a willingness to
completely buy into the Muslim narrative.
Whether you denounce the American bases in Iraq or Islamic attacks
upon India, we can agree that the non-Islamic world and the Islamic
world are in competition. When we take a "human rights" perspective
and deny sides exist, we end up pouring money into enemy nations,
such as Afghanistan, in the name of nation building and supporting
Islamic nations, such as Kosovo, in the western sphere. We end up
taking the Turk’s side as easily as we take the Armenian’s side.
In foreign policy we should side with our friends and understand that
some folks are our foes. Armenia, as a Christian nation, falls within
the sphere of western related powers. We should back them. In terms
of narrative, it would run against our values to never admit wrong.
However, to only admit to our faults and deny Islamic nations’ crimes,
feeds into a narrative whereby attacking us is justified and adopting
our values is corrupt.
A culturist approach assumes that sides and competition exist. It
also recognizes narrative’s great impact on public and international
opinion, and the geo-political implications such narratives have. As
such a culturist approach would have us singing our virtues overseas
and condemning the Armenian genocide in the strongest terms possible.
John Press is an adjunct professor at New York University and author of
"Culturiam: A Word, A Value, Our Future".