TURKEY SAYS THE POPE IS PART OF AN ‘EVIL FRONT’ BECAUSE HE USED THE WORD ‘GENOCIDE’
Washington Post
April 15 2015
By Ishaan Tharoor
Turkey’s outrage over comments made by Pope Francis this past weekend,
deeming the massacre of Armenians a century ago a “genocide,” continues
to smolder. Next week marks the centennial of the beginning of what
the pope called “the first genocide of the 20th century” at Sunday
Mass in commemoration of the killings.
Ankara reacted furiously, recalling its ambassador to the Vatican and
issuing a barrage of strong condemnations. On Wednesday, Turkish Prime
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made some even tougher remarks: “Currently,
an evil front is being formed against us,” he said. “Now the pope
has joined this conspiracy.”
Davutoglu was speaking at an event announcing the manifesto of Turkey’s
ruling Justice and Development Party, ahead of general elections in
June. The spat with the pope most likely offered good nationalistic
fodder for local consumption. The prime minister went on, hailing
the Ottoman Empire’s long history of providing sanctuary to the Jews
expelled by Spain in the 15th century:
I am addressing the pope: Those who escaped from the Catholic
inquisition in Spain found peace in our just order in Istanbul and
Ä°zmir. We are ready to discuss historical issues, but we will not
let people insult our nation through history.
The issue of the Armenian genocide is one of profound sensitivity in
Turkey — and awkwardness for Turkey’s NATO allies, including the
United States. The traumas and upheavals triggered by these events
directly shaped the far-flung Armenian diaspora, which plays a leading
role in global advocacy around how to remember and commemorate the
slaughters.
On Wednesday, the European parliament in Brussels called on Turkey to
recognize what happened as a “genocide.” The motion was dismissed by
Davutoglu’s boss, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said the appeal
“went in one ear and out from the other.”
The massacres took place amid the wider conflict of World War I, which
led to the unraveling and demise of the Ottoman Empire. Successive
Turkish governments have insisted the scale of the slaughter has been
distorted, and that many Turks were killed amid the chaos. As many as
1.5 million Armenians, by some accounts, were systematically killed
or disappeared.
“In 1913, there were up to 2 million [ethnic Armenians] in the Ottoman
Empire. When World War I broke out, the Ottoman government ordered
their mass deportation. A few years later, there was barely one-tenth
that number in Turkey, the rest having been exiled or killed,” details
Thomas de Waal, in his new book “Great Catastrophe: Armenians and
Turks in the Shadow of Genocide.”
Armenian suffering at the time was well-documented, particularly by
American observers. Former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt wrote in
May 1918 that his country’s entrance into World War I against Germany
and its allies was justified “because the Armenian massacre was the
greatest crime of the war, and failure to act against Turkey is to
condone it.”
The very term “genocide,” attributed to the Polish-born Jewish lawyer
Raphael Lemkin, was invoked precisely with what befell the Armenians
in mind. But, as de Waal’s book charts, the question of remembering
it has become a political hot potato in the decades since, shrouded
by Cold War squeamishness and stubborn Turkish nationalism.
In some ways, Erdogan’s government has attempted to soften or reform
the conversation surrounding the massacres. Ankara has invested
significantly in the restoration of old Armenian churches in eastern
Turkey.
Last year, in what was considered an unprecedented act, Erdogan
offered condolences to Armenian victims of the “inhumane” deportations
in 1915. But he stopped short of calling it genocide and condemned
the government of Armenia for using it as “an excuse for hostility”
toward Turkey.
“Millions of people of all religions and ethnicities lost their lives
in the First World War,” said Erdogan.
Like Davutoglu, Erdogan was less than pleased this week with the Pope’s
intervention into the matter. He warned the pope not to “repeat this
mistake” and reiterated his government’s insistence that its archives
were “open” and that a “joint commission” of historians should be
established to reckon with the past. (The historical consensus,
though, is that the genocide happened.)
“Whenever politicians … assume the duties of historians, then
delirium comes out, not fact,” said Erdogan. It’s a curious statement,
not only in this context but in others.
Erdogan has been known to pronounce repeatedly upon matters of history,
including his somewhat perplexing insistence on the arrival of Muslim
seafarers to the New World ahead of Christopher Columbus, which has
led even to the construction of a proposed mosque in Cuba.
In the case of the events of 1915, history very much remains the
subject of politics.
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