Foreign Policy In Focus
Jan 5 2007
Headbangers Against Genocide
John Feffer, IRC | January 4, 2007
Editor: Chuck Hosking, IRC
John Dolmayan, Daron Malakian, Shavo Odadjian, and Serj Tankian of
System of a Down
Thousands of young people with long hair and studded tongues pay good
money several dozen times a year to listen to lectures about
genocide. Well, `lecture’ is perhaps not the best way to describe
Serj Tankian’s delivery. The tall lanky Tankian, who has cascades of
curly hair and looks like the long-lost offspring of Frank Zappa and
Cher, is a natural on stage. But when he grabs the microphone, he is
more likely to shout than to talk.
Serj Tankian is the lead singer of System of a Down, a popular rock
group on the cusp of heavy metal. SOAD, as its fans like to call it,
is part of a new generation of politically engaged rock groups. Like
Rage Against the Machine or Green Day, SOAD produces some rousing
antiwar songs (like `BYOB’ with its chorus of `Why don’t presidents
fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?’). But the group
also has a very specific political goal: to educate the world about
the Armenian genocide.
A new documentary, Screamers, tells the story of the 1915 genocide
through the words, music, and activism of the four Armenian-American
members of System of a Down. The film comes at a particularly
important time. Despite repeated public avowals of `never again’ by
many government leaders – after Bosnia, after Rwanda – genocide is again
in the headlines because of Darfur. And Turkey continues to evade
responsibility for the Armenian genocide even as it attempts to join
the European Union and cement its alliances with the United States.
Screamers, as genocide expert Samantha Powers explains in the film,
are people who react viscerally to the horror of atrocity and won’t
stop screaming until something is done about it. The raw energy of
System of a Down clearly resonates with its audience. But will such
musical activism make waves outside the concert halls as well?
Political Metal
Heavy metal, according to convention, is all about Satan, death, and
doom. It is a musical form about as far removed from politics and
foreign policy as a lullaby or a mazurka.
Dig a little deeper, though, and even heavy metal turns out to be
more complicated than that. Ozzy Osbourne’s Black Sabbath, for
instance, would seem to be the epitome of reactionary, white-boy
rock. Long before his reality show resurrection, however, Ozzy took
aim at the Vietnam War in the song `War Pigs’ and blasted the
insanity of Cold War deterrence in the song `Children of the Grave.’
Today, heavy metal bands wear their politics even more prominently on
the sleeves of their black T-shirts. Bands like Lamb of God write
songs castigating U.S. foreign policy, while Cattle Decapitation
takes on the protein industrial complex.
It’s one thing to rile up an audience of recruitment-age young people
with songs about the idiocy of the Iraq War. System of a Down,
however, aims at the more difficult goal of activating young people
around an event that occurred nearly a century ago. In 2005, during a
concert tour devoted to the 90th anniversary of the Armenian
genocide, the band put photographs of the atrocities on the big
screen in the concert hall and ran TV footage of Peter Jennings
discussing the meaning and contemporary significance of the term
`genocide.’
`Today, more people learn about the Armenian genocide from System of
a Down than through all the other efforts combined,’ says Aram
Hamparian of the Armenian National Committee.
And it’s not just Armenians or the descendants of other genocide
victims (Jews, Cambodians) who groove to SOAD’s message. Although the
band refuses to play in Turkey, Serj Tankian reports, `We have a lot
of fans there. We’ve gotten into the heads of some of the younger
generation, and hopefully something will happen one day with that.’
For SOAD, the crusade is deeply personal. In Screamers, the band
members each relate stories passed down from their grandparents and
great grandparents about who survived, who didn’t, and the
unspeakable things that were witnessed. Scholars estimate that 1.5
million Armenians died during the genocide. `A whole race, Genocide.
Taken away, all our pride,’ SOAD sings in `PLUCK.’
There’s Something About Turkey
The stakes reach well beyond settling personal scores or even setting
the historical record straight. System of a Down is very clear about
the geopolitics of its work. Throughout the Cold War, Turkey fended
off all outside pressure to alter its policies – regarding Cyprus, its
mistreatment of Kurds, or its interpretation of its national
history – by emphasizing its anticommunist credentials. With the Cold
War over and membership in the European Union beckoning, Turkey has
been willing to make some concessions, such as abolishing the death
penalty and providing more rights to the Kurdish community. But
diplomatic recognition of Cyprus is still off the table, and the
Armenian genocide remains a forbidden topic.
Several prominent Turkish writers, including Nobel Prize-winner Orhan
Pamuk, have run afoul of the authorities for merely mentioning the
genocide. One of the first Turkish historians to grapple honestly
with the issue has published a new book on the genocide – from his
exile in Minnesota. In A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the
Question of Turkish Responsibility, Taner Akcam argues that
acknowledging the true nature of what happened in 1915 would require
accepting that the architects of modern Turkey were war criminals. In
her New Yorker review, Elizabeth Kolbert calls Akcam’s psychological
explanation `a view of Turkish ethnic pride that gets dangerously
close to a national stereotype.’ Given that most U.S. citizens are
similarly unwilling to associate the establishment of the United
States with the attempted eradication of Native Americans – and that
related complexes flourish in Australia, Israel, and many other
countries – Akcam has not so much fallen back on an ethnic stereotype
as he has articulated a more general psychological trait: the
universal impulse to deny the horrors that lie beneath all
nation-building.
Turkish efforts to stifle discussion on the Armenian genocide extend
far beyond the country’s borders. Peter Balakian describes in his
landmark book Black Dog of Fate how the Turkish Embassy intervened in
a textbook project convened by the New York State Department of
Education. Embassy officials told the organizers of the textbook
project on 20th century genocides that inclusion of a chapter on the
Armenian genocide would jeopardize U.S.-Turkey relations. `I traveled
to Albany several times … and sat in overheated offices imploring
state bureaucrats, who were horrified by the Turkish assault, to hold
firm on the chapter,’ writes Balakian, a professor of English at
Colgate University. `The Turkish contingent was threatening to call
President Reagan. Letters went back and forth. The Education
Department grew increasingly befuddled. Before it was over, the
Turkish government had succeeded in forcing changes to the textbook.’
At a much higher level of politics, as Screamers documents, the
Turkish government has lobbied the U.S. Congress to prevent the
passage of a resolution on the Armenian genocide. Although the House
International Relations Committee passed two resolutions in 2005
identifying the atrocities as genocide, the Republican-controlled
leadership blocked passage in the House as a whole. With Nancy Pelosi
and the Democrats now in charge, however, there is a good chance that
the resolutions will be brought to the floor and passed.
The Politics of Screaming
Unlike many largely forgotten atrocities, the Armenian genocide is
well documented. The accounts of survivors and contemporary
observers, the photographic evidence, and even documentation from the
Ottoman leadership itself make it impossible to dispute the attempt
to wipe out an entire race of people. Historians are still filling in
the gaps and piecing together motivations. Books like Black Dog of
Fate or Atom Egoyan’s exquisite film Ararat about the Armenian artist
Arshile Gorky explore the impact of the genocide on subsequent
generations.
However, these historical investigations take place in academe. The
books and movies are powerful but are ultimately, like most high
culture, understated and nuanced.
System of a Down is not interested in nuance or understatement. The
band members are passionate and angry, and they scream out shocking
lyrics often full of expletives. When Serj Tankian visits Congress to
lobby legislators, he seems, without a microphone and an opportunity
to raise his voice, like a fish out of water. But with Turkey still
playing the geopolitical card by threatening to stop buying U.S. arms
and hosting the U.S. military, a little screaming might be in
order – not just in concert halls but in the halls of power as well.
Links to songs about genocide:
System of a Down: PLUCK ()
Blowback: For Whom the Bells Toll
( .blowback.org/songs/songs_forwhomthebellstoll.html )
REM: The Flowers of Guatemala
( owers+of+guatemala_20115263.html)
Rage Against the Machine: Sleep Now in the Fire
( t-The-Machine/Sleep-Now-In-The-Fire.html)
Indigo Girls: This Train Revised
( ngUnid/42003E9E487244B0482568D8000EF51D)
RX Bandits: In All Rwanda’s Glory
( rwandasglory.html)
Kronos Quartet and Steve Reich: Different Trains
( rte_seesko.html)
Also see Adam Jones, `Ten Great Songs About Genocide’