Speak no evil?

Los Angeles Times
Sunday, July 16, 2006
EDITORIAL

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU refer to Turkey’s 1915-1923 genocide of
Armenians, accurately, as "genocide"? In Turkey, you face a possible
three-year jail term, even if it wasn’t you using the term but a
character in your novel. In the United States, you just lose your
job as ambassador to Armenia.

The novelist is Elif Shafak, who learned last week she will go on trial
for defamation of the Turkish Republic. The former ambassador is John
M. Evans, who was recalled from Yerevan in May after referring to the
"Armenian genocide" in a speech before a group of Armenian Americans
in February 2005. As one State Department bigwig told an Armenian
newspaper: "Ambassadors serve the president, and they are obliged
to follow his policy. President Bush’s policy as regards the mass
killings of Armenians is precise."

Precisely what purpose this policy serves is clear: avoid using
the most truthful word in the English language to describe an
eight-decade-old atrocity for fear of offending a crucial NATO ally.
As Bush’s proposed replacement for Evans, Richard Hoagland, put it
last month during his confirmation hearing, "Instead of getting stuck
in the past and vocabulary, I would like to see what we can do to
bring different sides together."

Vocabulary may not be the president’s best subject — Bush himself has
poked fun at his frequent malapropisms — but he’s shown he knows the
meaning of the word "genocide." Campaigning for the White House in
2000, Bush told Armenian American groups that "the 20th century was
marred by wars of unimaginable brutality, mass murder and genocide"
and that "history records that the Armenians were the first people
of the last century to have endured these cruelties … If elected
president, I would ensure that our nation properly recognizes the
tragic suffering of the Armenian people."

It’s one of the more blatant of Bush’s broken campaign promises.
Luckily, the Senate is showing signs of giving this rhetorical
appeasement the rebuke it deserves. Half of the senators on the
Foreign Relations Committee have demanded that the State Department
give an official explanation for Evans’ premature recall, and some
have hinted that Hoagland’s appointment could hang in the balance.
They should block the nomination altogether until the ambassador-to-be
dares to utter the g-word.

And the Bush administration should have the courage of its lack of
conviction and explain forthrightly — not just to Armenian Americans
but too all Americans who believe in calling evil by its proper name —
why U.S. policy is being dictated by Ankara nationalists.