THE FATEFUL YEAR — 2015
Mirror Spactator
Editorial 12-27
By Edmond Y. Azadian
Armenians around the world will cross the threshold of the year 2015
with trepidation and anticipation. However, there is no magic in
numbers — whatever did not happen in a full century will not happen
in a single year and whatever was not achieved in 100 years will not
be achieved in one year.
However, the symbolism of the centennial resides in the fact that
Armenians will take stock of what happened in the entire past century,
to find out what they learned through their experience to be able to
assess the future and take the proper actions so that the gory burden
of history would not drag on for another century.
The irony is that after walking for 100 years, we are still only at
the beginning of our journey. The devastating blow of the Genocide
was so monumental that for 50 years — while licking their wounds —
the Armenians could not fathom the enormity of the tragedy: an entire
population was uprooted from its ancestral land of 3,000 years and
scattered around the world.
Mass destruction of human lives was witnessed many times in history,
but this was unique in its intent, magnitude and the results. The
Holocaust, the better-known genocide which took place a few decades
later in Europe, followed much the same model.
When the Armenians woke up from their stupor, half a century had
already elapsed and the world around them had changed dramatically.
The year 1965 was a turning point in our collective realization of
the trauma. In that year, the Armenians began to engage in political
activism, scholarly endeavors and reshaping the collective memory.
Genghis Khan, Talaat Pasha, Hitler and Stalin did not suffer any
deficiency in intelligence; they suffered from a deficiency of humanity
and conscience. In their case, intelligence and humanity were mutually
exclusive. They were perverted geniuses as they doggedly pursued
their bloodthirsty goals, treating human lives as so many expendable
commodities in the process.
To make an impact on human civilization — no matter how nefariously
— one needs a tremendous amount of prowess, which unfortunately this
gruesome foursome possessed.
For the Turks, Talaat Pasha was a visionary leader. Today, when
President Erdogan boasts of a 98-percent Muslim population in Turkey,
he certainly credits that achievement in homogeneity to Talaat Pasha’s
vision, who believed that Turkey could assimilate Kurds and Alevis
through religion. But Armenians did not have any common denominator
with the Turks, in Talaat’s calculations; therefore he assigned them
for extermination.
A few years ago, a Turkish defense minister asked rhetorically whether
Turkey would have been at its present dimensions if it had not expelled
the Armenians and Greeks.
After the Genocide, when Ittihadist government functionaries changed
hats and joined Ataturk’s Milli Movement, they continued their
genocidal policy of dumping the Greeks in the Aegean Sea in Smyrna and
deporting Armenians from Cilicia. Even the exchange of populations
between Greece and Turkey intended the further Islamization of the
latter. The case has been thoroughly researched by Taner Akcam in
his book, A Shameful Act.
Today, 20 to 25 million Kurds account for almost one third of
Turkey’s population and they are considered a threat to the country’s
territorial integrity. Although there are no reliable statistics
from pre-World War I Turkey, the Armenian population then matched
the Kurdish population. Had the Armenians been allowed a natural
growth like the Kurds, they would have been even more of a serious
threat to Turkey’s homogeneous nature. Therefore, 2015 should mark
not only the anniversary for the loss of 1.5 million lives, but also
the unborn generations, which have been lost forever.
Talaat Pasha and the Ittihadist triumvirate were so cunning in their
designs that the Armenian leadership could not possibly anticipate
the existential threat that was about to immolate them.
Today’s Armenian scene probably corresponds to the conditions the Turks
could imagine; an amorphous group of people scattered around the globe,
most of the time at odds with each other individually or in groups
but seldom together as a force against the perpetrators. The majority
of the group in the Diaspora has lost its national consciousness
and sense of preserving its heritage, leaving the responsibility of
carrying the mission for justice to a minority who bears in its blood
the burden of history.
Soviet Armenia has been the harbinger of maintaining the culture and
keeping the population together, even by coercion, but being a part
(or particle) of a global political entity, it could not serve as a
legal base, which our cause needed. Today, independent Armenia can
move both as a legal and political force, if depopulation does not
erode its vitality.
Despite their meager forces, Diaspora Armenians have carried the torch
and the powerful Turkish state reckons with them and considers them
more than a nuisance.
In 1946, during the founding of the United Nations, the Armenians
were able to present their case, although through two diverse groups,
which demonstrated the inherent weakness of our case.
Ever since, Armenians have been developing political awareness to
mobilize themselves in Western democracies and thus far have been
able to serve as a counterweight to Turkey’s organized onslaught and
allocated hefty resources.
Jean Marie Carzou published a book in France titled An Exemplary
Genocide. The Armenian Genocide was indeed an exemplary one, as it
conforms to all the historical, legal and moral definitions of the act
of genocide. The irony is that any truth and any morally correct act
cannot stand on their own and they will collapse unless supported by
military and political power. That is why Turkey and its denialist
partners can trample the truth with impunity and it is up to the
Armenians and human rights organization to fight for the truth in an
unequal battleground.
The Armenian extermination directly led to the coining of the term
“genocide.” Indeed, international jurist Raphael Lemkin, who came
up with the word in 1944, cited the Turkish extermination of the
Armenians and the Nazi extermination of the Jews at the defining
examples of what he meant by the term.
In 1997, the International Association of Genocide Scholars unanimously
posted a resolution affirming the historic reality of the Armenian
Genocide.
In June 2000, 126 leading scholars of the Holocaust, including Elie
Wiesel and Yehuda Bauer, published a statement in the New York Times
declaring the “incontestable fact of the Armenian Genocide” and urged
Western democracies to acknowledge it.
The much-maligned TARC (Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission)
submitted its findings in 2002 to the International Center for
Transitional Justice, which affirmed that wholesale mass murder of the
Armenians in their homeland amounted to genocide. The Turks were party
to TARC and soon distanced themselves when even a group like TARC,
considered soft and designed to appease all, could only reach the one
conclusion that all other legitimate groups did regarding this issue.
More than 20 countries have passed different legislative resolutions
recognizing the Armenian Genocide and the number is growing, the
latest being Bolivia.
After a long period of silence, the Turks found out that they are
at the losing end of an advocacy battle and changed their policy
first by reacting to any country recognizing the Genocide and by
allocating sizable resources for PR and especially buying scholars and
history chairs in academic centers. That is why one of their favorite
campaign themes has become “let us leave history to historians and
not to legislatures,” with the hope that eventually the fate of the
Armenian Genocide may be determined by the scholars getting paid to
form their points of view.
The Armenian Genocide issue has been politicized and used over time —
alternatively — by the state of Israel, the US and the European Union,
every time one of them had an exe to grind with Turkey or needed to
extort a political concession from Ankara.
As Turkey and Azerbaijan allocated more funding trying to win the
battle on the scholarly front, the number of denialists is growing
in addition to Bernard Lewis (who had to pay a symbolic fine to the
French court for denying the Armenian Genocide), Stanford Shaw, Justin
McCarthy, Guenter Lewy, Heath W. Lowry are considered the old guard of
the denialist front, as new names have been added to the ranks taking
a more aggressive posture, such as Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah),
Sinan Ciddi, David C. Cuthell, Sabri Sayari and others.
On the other hand, a majority of the members of the International
Association of Genocide Scholars, headed by Israel Charny, are solidly
behind the veracity of the Armenian Genocide.
In recent years, with the crack of the wall of silence in Turkey, a
new phenomenon has developed, as Turkish scholars came out in support
of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide — scholars such as Taner
Akcam, Halil Berktay, Murad Belge, Fikret Adanir, Fuad Bundar, Baskin
Oran, Ugur Umit Ungor, Fatma Gocek and others.
The pioneer of the movement was the courageous journalist Hrant Dink,
who sacrificed his life for his cause. Dink maintained that Turkey
had been closed for three generations and that it would take time and
immense effort to change. “The problem Turkey faces today is neither
a problem of ‘denial’ nor ‘acknowledgement,'” he wrote in 2005.
“Turkey’s main problem is comprehension and for the process of
comprehension, Turkey seriously needs an alternative study of history
and for this, a democratic environment.”
For most of these Turkish scholars, the thrust was the democratization
of Turkey. The country had to come clean regarding its dark past,
in order to be eligible to join the civilized nations of the world.
Therefore, the issue of Genocide was the essential incidental. The
primary goal was the emancipation of Turkey from its historic burden.
The Armenians should not assume that the majority of Turkish scholars
would go beyond the recognition of the Genocide by the government
and that mostly for self-serving purposes, rather than for historic
justice. Try to mention territorial claims from Turkey and you will
see that you part ways with them.
During one of the Genocide scholars’ meetings in Yerevan, I was
startled by Baskin Oran, the fiercest critic of the current Turkish
government, who happens to support the recognition of the Armenian
Genocide. He jumped from his seat when he heard one of the speakers
mentioning territorial claims: “Who is that nationalist?” he asked
with anger.
Not only do we have limitations with those scholars, we will also
face the Kurds when push comes to shove. Today, the Kurds have been
apologizing to the Armenians individually and as a group, for their
ancestors’ collusion in the Genocide. The day they attain their
autonomy or independence, their tune will certainly change. And the
Kurds are sitting right on our historic lands.
Huge endeavors have been undertaken by Armenian historians in
developing a credible body of Genocide scholarship that can withstand
historic and legal scrutiny and challenges. In the West, Vahakn
Dadrian has been the pioneer in dissecting history with mathematical
accuracy. Many scholars have followed suit.
Richard Hovannisian’s contributions have also paved the way. In free
societies, scholars are not supposed to hold identical views on issues
, as they do in autocratic countries, where the state dictates the
“truth” and the scholars have to endorse that truth and find or
manufacture evidence to support that “truth.”
But when it comes to the study of genocide, there is divergence among
Armenian historians. Some of the young scholars in Armenia accuse
their colleagues in the US of being traitors, as if they have sold
their souls to the Turks or to the US. The counter accusation is
that Genocide scholarship has been developing on nationalists lines
in Armenia and therefore lacks credibility in the West. No visible
effort has been exerted to narrow the divide and mobilize forces
towards true and solid scholarship.
Some scholars in the west try to undermine the foundations of Dadrian’s
work in genocide studies, in an effort to enhance their own images.
There is also a very dangerous issue which should not be sacrificed
to competing egos: the truth at the foundation of the definition of
Genocide. Article 2 of the United Nations Convention on Genocide,
adopted in 1948, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious
group, as such.”
The Turks, eventually may settle for any term except the world
“genocide,” because the latter carries legal consequences in terms
of punishment and reparations.
Next, they would pay any price to interject a shade of benefit
of doubt about the intent or premeditation portion of the act of
genocide. Unfortunately, some scholars are buying into the apologists’
argument to make their scholarship marketable in the West.
After considering documents at the military tribunals in Istanbul at
the end of World War I, after reading Morgenthau’s statement that
the Ottoman government has determined to exterminate the Armenians
and after reviewing Talaat Pasha’s Black Book, newly discovered and
published by Murad Bardakci then could not be any question about the
premeditated nature of the Armenian Genocide.
Armenia must serve as the hub of Genocide studies. The inroads that
Armenians have developed in the academic circles in Europe and Russia
will help to internationalize the issue of the Genocide. In that
sense, Yuri Georgivich Barsegov, an expert in international law,
has made a huge contribution by publishing two volumes under the
title The Armenian Genocide: A Crime Under International Law.
We will be facing the Turks on political, scholarly, cultural,
moral and even military fronts, and solid scholarship can serve as an
awesome weapon in the hands of all activists and groups, the Armenian
Assembly, the Armenian National Committee, the Zoryan Institute,
political parties and organizations in Europe, South America and in
the newly energized Armenian community in Russia.
One of the breakthroughs of the past century was the military and
the armed struggle for the recognition of the Genocide.
No matter where one stands — morally and legally — on the issue of
armed struggle or terrorism, one cannot fail to notice the results
achieved by that struggle. In the 1970s, almost 75 Turkish diplomats
were assassinated throughout the world. Granted, they were all career
diplomats with no blood on their hands. But they represented and
symbolized a state which had exterminated 1.5 million innocent souls
and sitting on their ashes, continued to deny the crime. The comfort
of the Turkish state was shaken and the case of the Armenian Genocide
was thrust on the international scene.
In a paper published in Foreign Affairs magazine, Thomas de Waal makes
the following statement: “When Turkish historians finally returned to
the topic [of Genocide] in the late 1970s, they did so in response to
a wave of terrorist attacks on Turkish diplomats in Western Europe,
most of them carried out by Armenian militants based in Beirut. …
Turkish society has began to revisit the dark pages of its past.”
This was one of the bloody stages of Armenians struggle which also
had its unintended consequences.
Thus, a Spanish journalist, Jose Antonio Gurriaran, a contributor to
the Pueblo newspaper, was injured by a bomb blast planted in a phone
booth by Armenian youth. That incident sparked in him the interest to
research and find out why the bomb was planted in the first place. He
published a book titled La Bomba, and ever since, he has become an
advocate for the recognition of the Genocide.
Similarly, the famous Turkish novelist Elif Shafak has discovered the
Armenian Genocide in a traumatic way; growing up as the daughter of a
Turkish diplomat, she shivered every time she heard the word Armenian
for fear that her mother, a career diplomat, would get assassinated.
Once she became older, she wanted to find out why Armenian youth
were so intent on drawing Turkish blood. Later on, she featured the
Armenian Genocide in one of her novels, The Bastard of Istanbul,
and published it in defiance of the Turkish court.
We face 2015 with many unfulfilled dreams and projects. We have more
problems to face than our dreams. The remains of the Genocide victims
are not yet buried, nor is their quest for justice attained. The
struggle is ahead of us. Some historians and editorialists tell
the public that we have crossed a stage of recognition and we
need to concentrate on compensation. A footnote on the report of
a UN rapporteur about the Armenian Genocide is not equivalent to
UN recognition. Nor can President Ronald Reagan’s reference to the
Armenian Genocide memorial be counted as recognition, especially when
it was recanted later.
Recognition and quest for compensation go hand in hand. Recognition
will only enhance the chances of compensation.
Whatever was not achieved in one century, will be carried over to
the next century, until the future generations can bring closure and
justice to this deep wound.