The Guardian, UK
Oct 13 2007

Coming to terms with history

The Armenian genocide, not the Holocaust, was origin of the term.
Turkey must acknowledge this if it is to create a more positive
identity.

Michael Herron

About Webfeeds October 13, 2007 2:00 PM | Printable version
Simon Tisdall’s article Righteousness before realism on Comment is
free describes the congressional resolution recognising the genocide
of the Armenians by the Turks during the first world war "as a matter
of putting the world to rights, according to America’s lights".

This gives the incomplete picture that it is singly American moral
imperialism that wishes to dredge up this issue from the distant past
so that it can bask in the glow of self-righteousness. It is not only
the Americans who are interested in this issue. The French parliament
also passed a resolution last year, which made denial of the Armenian
genocide a crime as it is for Holocaust denial.

The Holocaust is a significant marker by which to judge the moral and
pragmatic consequences of this recent congressional resolution. No
reasonable person questions the fact that the Holocaust should be
held up as the worst example of man’s inhumanity to man. This moral
example outweighs all practical political concerns. Should the
Armenian genocide be held to a lower moral standard than the
Holocaust? The Holocaust was worse because it was more all
encompassing and done on an industrial scale but one could argue they
were both genocides.

The reason for this assumption is due to the author of the word
"genocide", the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin. Lemkin coined
the term in response to Winston Churchill’s statement about the
crimes of the Nazis as a "crime without a name". Even though Lemkin
used the term to describe the Holocaust he had been working since the
1920s on a legal definition of similar acts of brutality. The
original acts of brutality that started Lemkin on his search for a
definition were committed by the Turks against the Armenians during
the first world war. For Lemkin the original genocide was the
Armenian genocide not the Holocaust. In order to be consistent if one
describes the Holocaust as genocide one also has to describe the mass
murder of the Armenians as one as well.

The prism of the Holocaust influences Turkish responses to
accusations of genocide. Turkish officials find it beyond the pale
for the Turks to be compared to the Nazis. The fact that the
Holocaust was so well documented and the Armenian genocide less so,
allows the Ankara government to argue: "it is blatantly obvious that
Congress does not have a task or function to rewrite history." This
chimes with Turkish official arguments that it should be left up to
historians to determine what happened in the past not politicians.
This would be very well if Turkish authorities did not use article
301 of the Turkish penal code to muzzle Turkish writers who describe
the killing of Armenians as genocide.

The problem for the Turkish government is that Taner Akcam, a Turkish
historian living and working outside Turkey, has published a number
of works on the Armenian genocide. He has researched what consists of
Turkish government records of the time and has come to the conclusion
that it was a case of genocide.

One reason Akcam gives for the sensitivity of the Turkish government
to this accusation of genocide is not only the natural reluctance to
be tarred with the same brush as the Nazis but that the heroic
generation that founded the Turkish Republic from the ashes of the
Ottoman Empire included Young Turks who were involved in the
deportation and killing of Armenians during the first world war. As
protectors of the secular principles of the Turkish Republic
established by this heroic generation, the Turkish army is especially
hostile to this charge of genocide.

This accusation tarnishes the reputation of the heroic generation as
"good soldiers", an identity that Turkish males are supposed to
assume and thereby maintain the importance of the army within the
Turkish state. Accusations of genocide might hinder the reproduction
of this national identity, but as in the case of West Germany after
the second world war, acknowledgement of genocide can help create a
more positive identity. Genocide should not be ignored nor airbrushed
from history to satisfy short-term political interests. We owe it to
the victims to remember and to future generations to remind.

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