The Globe and Mail (Canada)
October 19, 2007 Friday
The world still hangs on every U.S. word;
Here’s the question for Americans: Since when is it wrong to speak
out against genocide?
by IRSHAD MANJI
Pg. A23
Now playing on Capitol Hill: a political drama over whether Turkey
deserves denunciation for its mass deportation and slaughter of
Armenians starting in 1915, otherwise known as genocide.
Initiated by the House foreign-affairs committee, this symbolic vote
has sparked more than symbolic anger from the White House – and from
the Turkish government itself. The Bush administration insists that
now is not the time to be offending Turkey, which borders Iraq and
provides the United States with key access routes in its war on
terror.
The timing of this resolution should raise questions, all the more so
because of who initiated it: Democrats. They are the gang for whom
success in today’s Iraq, not slaughter in yesterday’s Turkey, is the
signal issue in America. HBO’s Bill Maher nailed that point when he
quipped, "This is why the voters gave control of the House to the
Democrats. To send a stern message to the Ottoman Empire."
Still, there is at least one key reason to recognize the Armenian
genocide now, and it relates directly to America’s implosion in Iraq:
Democracy has been redefined not just in the Middle East but also in
the United States. These days, American politicians must pay
attention to "voters" who live well beyond their shores.
As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put it, "Some of what harms our
troops relate to values – Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, torture. Our troops
are well served when we declare who we are as a country, and we
declare it to the rest of the world."
Hers is a subtle argument about the need for the United States to
reclaim the moral high ground on human rights. It might be too subtle
for most Americans, who, let’s face it, have little concern for what
may or may not have happened countless miles away more than three
generations ago.
But Ms. Pelosi’s argument is not meant for Americans. It is intended
for an international audience.
America remains the only country in the world with a universal
constituency. Its domestic politics often has a profound effect in
every corner of the Earth, from determining immigration flows and
investment patterns to handing leaders and their heirs the excuses
they crave to blur the lines between God and government.
The same cannot be said of domestic politics in modern, multicultural
entrepôts such as India, Britain or China. Nor do domestic politics
in feisty, fiery states such as Iran and Israel set precedents for
the rest of us. Not yet anyway.
No wonder so much of the world seethes that only Americans can vote
for the next president of the United States. I hear it from young
Muslims whenever I travel to Europe. And it is not just Muslims who
express a sense of disenfranchisement. Last week in this newspaper,
columnist Jeffrey Simpson suggested that Al Gore would be president
if people outside the United States could cast ballots.
How many countries enjoy a reach so long and far that non-citizens
would care enough to want a say in its leader – or journalists would
care enough to speculate how the rest of the world would vote?
America’s universal constituency is what House Democrats are
acknowledging through a resolution to condemn the Armenian genocide.
Doubtless, I am about to be accused of naiveté. Left-wing critics
will sniff that this condemnation is a pretext to milk campaign
contributions from Jewish Holocaust survivors who, like the Armenian
genocide survivors, are dying off.
Right-wing detractors will sneer that this move is meant to undermine
the war on terror by alienating a crucial ally. Indeed, many House
Democrats have begun wavering on the anti-genocide measure because of
Turkey’s threat to block its borders to U.S. war planners if the vote
passes. By yesterday, it seemed unlikely the vote would happen at
all.
The question for Americans ought to be: Since when is it wrong to
speak out against genocide, however many years have elapsed? People
of good conscience continue raising their voices against slavery in
the United States well after abolition. Are they reckless or sinister
for offending many Americans? Is offence a reason to stop
remembering?
Here is the question for Turks: Why should your history be immune to
America’s judgment when, according to surveys of global attitudes
about the U.S., you as a nation are among the most anti-American
(read: judgmental) in all of the Muslim world?
Irshad Manji, author of
The Trouble with Islam Today and senior fellow with the
European Foundation for
Democracy, is writing a book
about the need for moral courage in an age of self-censorship.
www.muslim-refusenik.com