ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION IN THE U.S. CONGRESS – RIGHTING A HISTORICAL WRONG?
by Onnik Krikorian
Global Voices Online, MA
menian-genocide-resolution-in-the-us-congress-righ ting-a-historical-wrong/
Oct 22 2007
It’s not often that Armenia makes international headlines across the
globe, but when it does it’s usually because of one issue that remains
fiercely debated until this day – the massacre and deportation of
as many as 1.5 million Armenians from Ottoman Turkey in 1915-17. 22
countries recognize the events that occurred towards the end of World
War I as genocide, a charge that the modern-day Republic of Turkey
refuses to accept even though the term was devised by Raphael Lemkin
in 1943 with the Armenian and Jewish experience in mind.
Most scholars also recognize the Armenian Genocide as such, but
for the large and influential Armenian Diaspora, recognition by
the United States is considered to be the main objective of its
continuing international campaign. It’s no wonder then, that when
a U.S. Congressional House Committee on Foreign Affairs passed a
resolution to recognize the Armenian Genocide by 27 votes to 20
on 10 October, not only did the news make international headlines,
but it also defined conversation in much of the blogosphere.
Writing on Cilicia.com’s Life in Armenia immediately after the
resolution was passed, Yerevan-based American-Armenian, Raffi
Kojian, noted the prominence of the story as a leading item in the
international media.
What was very interesting for me this morning, was reading all
the news articles, and there was definitely no shortage of them. I
opened Google News to search for "Armenian Genocide" to see if it
passed, but instead was greeted with "Armenian Genocide Resolution
Passes Committee" as the top headline, with 650 stories already on
the topic. That’s big news! The coverage and points being raised
were quite varied, from the sickening editorial in the Washington
Post to widespread calls for doing the right thing. Lantos, head of
the committee, summarized the vote beforehand as choosing between
acknowledging a genocide, and appeasing Turkey for military reasons.
Basically, do the right thing, or give in to the questionable
arm-twisting of a supposed ally – though he did not put it in those
undiplomatic terms.
Although such resolutions are not new in the United States, with
past experience showing that national security concerns and foreign
policy objectives eventually prevent such acknowledgment from passing
into law, reaction from Diasporan bloggers was ecstatic. Writing on
Cilicia.com’s Life in the Armenian Diaspora, Lori wrote an entry in
pretty much the same vein.
I’ll never forget this day! How monumental is this? Sitting in
California unable to watch the House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting
I had my father calling me from Armenia to provide periodic updates
since he was able to watch the session live. I can’t even begin
to express how I’m feeling right now, I’m happy, proud, relieved,
ecstatic, encouraged, hopeful…..Finally, our efforts weren’t in
vain. Finally, a president didn’t succeed in shooting this resolution
down. I must say that as a Clinton supporter I was disappointed in him,
but I expected it from Bush and it feels SO GOOD seeing his efforts
to stop this resolution from passing fail. I want to find the 27
members of the committee who voted and shake their hands. I want to
thank them for not buying into the threats Turkey made and for not
allowing themselves or their ethics to be bought by the Turkish lobby,
for not bending over and being Turkey’s puppets.
Reaction in the Turkish blogosphere, however, was obviously very
different. Even 92 years after what most people do consider to be
Genocide, the Republic of Turkey as well as everyday Turks deny that
the event took place. Moreover, they blame the Armenian Diaspora
rather than the modern-day Republic of Armenia for attempts to have
the Genocide recognized in the United States. As the Turkish government
responded to the passing of the resolution by threatening to withdraw
logistical support for American troops in Iraq, Erkan’s Field Diary
was one of the first Turkish blogs to react to the news.
27 members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who are the
representatives of American citizens are meddling into a past they
have no f***** idea, acting as peons of a genocide industry… Well
done dudes, this shows very well that a Democrats-controlled Congress
is even worse for Turkey. I hope you can do any good for your own
people after making Middle East even messier with your anti-Turkish
attitude…
Yet, given that the resolution first and foremost concerned Armenia
and Turkey, two countries which share an albeit closed border and
which have not established diplomatic ties primarily because of the
international campaign for Genocide recognition, the bulk of posts
on this subject primarily came from American and English bloggers. To
begin with, this was because prior to the vote by the House Committee,
U.S. President George W. Bush attempted to intervene to prevent
its passage.
The blogosphere was set alight by critical posts from American
citizens protesting that fact. 1 Boring Old Man was particularly angry,
pointing out that Bush is hardly the most appropriate person to offer
his opinion on "crimes against humanity."
I doubt that Mr. Bush knows where Armenia is unless someone briefed
him recently, or knows anything about the Turks and the Ottoman
Empire, or knows who Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was or of his place in
Turkish history, or has read anything [even Wikipedia] about the
Armenian/Turkish struggles, or cares much about any of these things.
All he knows is that it is not polically expedient for our country to
acknowledge the Armenian mass killing as a genocide because it will
infuriate the Turks who are NATO Allies. His deepest understanding
is to do the politically expedient thing.
[…]
He’s no person to be entering the debate about the Armenian Genocide.
First, he doesn’t know anything about it. Second, the issue is way
too close to home for him to be objective. He cites his "War on
Terror." What he doesn’t mention is his own Terrorism…
Winter Patriot agreed.
[…] As far as I can tell, it boils down to a question of language.
We’re not supposed to call a historical crime against humanity by
its rightful name because that would put a crimp in the current
crime against humanity, which we are also not supposed to call by
its rightful name.
Two days later, the conversation changed as the White House continued
to apply pressure to prevent the resolution from being put to the
U.S. Congress for a full vote in November. With Turkey continuing to
make threats to prevent U.S. troops in Iraq from being supplied via
its territory, and with the Turkish Ambassador being "temporarily
withdrawn, "opponents of the resolution started to accuse U.S.
Congressional Speaker Nancy Pelosi of supporting House Resolution
106 in an attempt to scupper the war effort. Blogs such as The Hill’s
Pundits Blog took the same line in cyberspace.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has picked the worst time to play politics when
it comes to Iraq, Turkey and Armenia.
[…]
We are now in a real war with terrorists. We have more than 100,000
troops in Iraq. We have the Turks threatening to invade Kurdistan,
just as Joe Biden talks about creating Kurdistan out of the ashes
of Iraq. We have a more Islamic-leaning Turkish government. We are a
fighting a global war on terror, where we need the help of the Turks
more than ever.
And Nancy Pelosi has decided to bring the same resolution to the floor,
threatening our national security by playing politics.
[…]
This is a bad time to play politics, Madame Speaker, especially on
this issue, follow the lead of your predecessor. Choose American
national security over domestic politics.
The Simi Valley Sophist went further and effectively accused Pelosi
of treason.
Despite the Turkish threat, Pelosi is pushing forward with the
resolution. What is Pelosi’s political imperative? It surely is not
Armenian votes. And, it surely is not a fear of additional American
service personnel deaths.
[…]
Now, you go ahead and tell me that Pelosi cares about the welfare of
our troops. And, you go ahead and tell me that Pelosi actually cares
about the memories of Armenians. I’ll submit to you that Pelosi has
simply found another mechanism to throw a monkey wrench into the Iraqi
war effort. I’m sorry, but I don’t find that patriotic. I hark back
to the Vietnam War era traitor, Jane Fonda.
This Ain’t Hell… concurred.
[…] Historians will remember that the Democrat "leadership"
(using the term loosely) are a traitorous bunch of double-dealing,
back-stabbing punk-ass sissies who can’t summon the fortitude to stand
up to a few squeakywheels on the internet. That’ll be their legacy.
Faced with such an outcry domestically, perhaps it was no wonder that
many of the same Congressional Representatives that supported the
resolution started to back away from HR 106. Interestingly, though,
few of those bloggers which opposed the resolution actually denied
that the Armenian Genocide took place. Instead, once again, national
security and foreign policy objectives took precedence over what most
Armenians consider to be the quest for "historical justice." Cribs
and Ranting was one of them.
It was a grand and appropriate gesture, befitting statesmen, by the US
House of Representatives to officially dub the massacre of Armenians
by the Ottoman Turks as "genocide". The US need not have made the
first move on this, but it did it in line with its assumed role as
a global leader, as a beacon of freedom to the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, reality hit the House representatives, real hard. It
is not the truth that prevails, even if it is a genocide. Usually it
are the hard, cynical ground realities that win.
[…]
Worried about antagonizing Turkish leaders, House members from both
parties have begun to withdraw their support from a resolution backed
by the Democratic leadership that would condemn as genocide the mass
killings of Armenians nearly a century ago, reports The New York Times.
[…]
Turkey has promised to turn over documents and support a conference to
determine whether there was a genocide of Armenians. That conference
would take years to convene, and maybe years to arrive at any
conclusion. But it may now provide the House of Representatives a
fig-leaf of an excuse to get out of the embarrassment their idealism
got them into.
Deja vu – the same happened in 2000 when another resolution recognizing
the Armenian Genocide was about to be put to a full Congressional
vote. It wasn’t long before Armenian bloggers such as ArtMika at
Unzipped started to write more on developments which to be honest,
shouldn’t really have come as much surprise to anyone.
It seems that Bush + Turkey & co ‘succeded’ again. A number of
House members panicky withdrew their support as co-sponsors of the
resolution. To get majority seems unlikely now, and House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi may be forced to shelve or postpone it. I felt kind of disgust
when read the news (below, via iararat). They used us or got used
and then threw away… as usual. Pure ‘moral dimension’ in politics.
[…]
ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos reports: "According to Congressional
and Bush administration sources, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is
now unlikely to bring a resolution which would label the deaths of
Armenians in a conflict more than 90 years ago as "genocide".
Yet, while history looked set to repeat itself with another resolution
about to be blocked because of concerns about the war in Iraq and
U.S.-Turkish relations, some interesting precedents did occur in the
blogosphere. Firstly, and as was the case with the murder earlier
this year of ethnic Armenian journalist and editor Hrant Dink in
Istanbul, the Armenian blogosphere was defined more by numerous posts
from non-Armenians.
Truly, the conversation was global and the media also sought to solicit
opinions from bloggers and internet users. One of those was Inside
Higher Ed which ran an interesting article on the role of academia
in the debate over the Armenian Genocide. The online article allowed
commenting in the same way as a standard blog post.
More significantly, perhaps, and although Armenian and Turkish
bloggers avoided discussing HR 106 together online, some Turks
attempted to reach out to ethnic Armenians via their blogs. One of
those was Turkish writer, Mustafa Akyol, at The White Path.
A few days ago a new friend of mine who happens to be an American
Armenian played some beautiful songs for me that come from the
deepest roots of her ethnic tradition. While I enjoyed the numinous
rhythms of that magnetic Armenian music, I realized how similar they
were to the tunes of the Turkish classical music that I have grown
up hearing. "Despite all the political warfare," I said to myself,
"alas, look how similar we are." I actually have a similar feeling
when I drive along the magnificent mosques and palaces of Istanbul,
some of which were built by Armenian architects – men in fez who
devoutly worshiped Christ and proudly served the Sultan.
Well, we were the children of the same empire, weren’t we? We actually
lived side by side as good neighbors for centuries until the modern
virus called "nationalism" descended upon us. And then hell broke
loose.
[…]
Convey your message calmly, in other words, and it will be heard. But
don’t try to impose it onto us. We are not a nation of monsters,
but we do have a stubborn side. When foreigners start to dictate our
history to us, we tend to revert back to our grandmothers’ stories.
And if we will start listening to your narrative, that will not be
because we are pushed into a corner by the politics of a powerful
lobby, but because our hearts are touched by the memoirs of a terrible
tragedy.
Apart from Raffi Kojian at Cilicia.com and myself, few Armenian
bloggers chose to participate in what can be considered an
invitation to discuss and debate. In general, the Armenian and Turkish
blogospheres remained polarized and isolated from each other although
both Talk Turkey and Blogian were notable exceptions. Hopefully,
as the resolution continues to be discussed in American political
circles, there will be more examples of Armenian and Turkish bloggers
communicating with each other on the matter.
Certainly, and even though the fate of House Resolution 106 remains
uncertain, Global Voices will continue to keep readers up to date
on the latest developments. Until then, the latest posts from the
blogosphere represent the two main views in circulation – that the
Armenian Genocide happened and it should be recognized, or that it
happened, but the resolution in the United States is not the way to
right what most consider to be a historical wrong.
While I understand the need to maintain good relations with an Islamic
democracy, NATO member, and strategic ally, we cannot play along with
Turkey’s policy of whitewashing history and suppressing dissent. The
United States cannot be a moral leader in the world if we only stand
up for human rights issues when economic and strategic interests
aren’t at stake.As the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Adam Schiff (CA-29) asks:
"How can we take effective action against the genocide in Darfur if
we lack the will to condemn genocide whenever and wherever it occurs?"
Georgetown University College Democrats
Is there an example of more extreme, hypocritical arrogance than
the U.S. Congress, and other politicians, as well as newspapers
columnists and human activists attempting to have a resolution passed
acknowledging the Armenian genocide by Turkey?
[…]
The fact that the U.S. Congress wants to pass a resolution regarding
the genocide that Turkey has committed, but has not said anything
about the genocides the United States is responsible for, shows that
passing these type of resolution is completely meaningless.
Getting Truth
Two days ago, I lauded George Bush for having the courage to meet
publicly with the Dalai Lama. Today I am embarassed to note that the
American Congress has succumbed to the pressure exerted upon it by
the Bush White House by refusing to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
[…]
[…]
We are not talking here about a compromise on a tax treaty, a
trade-off on a bill to support pork producers if someone supports
your wheat farmers. We are talking about the killing of 1.5 million
people. Recognizing genocide for what it is will not bring the dead
back. But it will do justice to their memory and let others know that
there will be no negotiating or compromising on the issue. Shame on
Bush and shame on the US Congress.
University of Alabama Faculty of Law
There seems little historical doubt that the Armenian massacre
was indeed genocide. The eye-witness accounts of the time are
overwhelming, and Ottoman government documents talking openly about
eliminating the Armenians as a people group are plentiful from the
period 1915-1917. But with the U.S. dependent on the friendship of
Turkey to support a difficult war in Iraq, it seems at the very least
an ill-timed notion to rub Turkey’s face in the judgment of history.
True, all Armenians and American-Armenians will feel affirmed
by official American national recognition of the injustice they
suffered. But isn’t it more important that the Turks themselves should
finally come to acknowledge the truth of what happened to the Armenians
92 years ago? That may yet take decades to come to pass.
Assuredly, it won’t be hastened by this week’s Congressional
resolution. And what if resupplying American troops in Iraq is
seriously compromised by a Turkish curtailment of U.S. base usage
in Turkey? To rephrase Congressman Lantos’ well-stated dilemma: "Is
the gratification of wounded Armenian sensibility worth the possibly
serious risk that could ensure to American forces in wartime?" […]
Implications
The Armenian Observer also carries a summary of what Armenian bloggers
in the Republic as well as the Diaspora wrote on the resolution,
and there is full coverage on the Oneworld Multimedia blog. For now,
the story looks set to continue.