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The Armenian Weekly; Volume 73, No. 41; Oct. 13, 2007

Commentary and Analysis:

1. Lessons from the United States Senate 1927
Shahe Fereshetian, M.D.

2. Names and Language
By Garen Yegparian

***

Lessons from the United States Senate 1927

Honorable Ms. Pelosi,

I am writing to you regarding H.Res.106, which would recognize the Armenian
genocide of 1915. You have received several letters asking you to prevent
the resolution from reaching the House floor, including the letter dated
Sept. 25, jointly signed by eight former U.S. Secretaries of State. I would
respectfully refer you to a similar situation that was faced by the United
States Senate in 1927.

At the conclusion of World War I, the United States signed a treaty with
Turkey on Aug. 6, 1923. Many statements for and against ratification of the
Treaty with Turkey were published during the following three years. On Jan.
3, 1924, the Honorable Charles Hughes, the former Secretary of State,
addressed the Council on Foreign Relations. ("Foreign Affairs," Supplement
to Vol. II, No. 2). He indicated, just as the letter you have just received
indicates, that should the United States fail to ratify the treaty with
Turkey, our economic and political interests would be in jeopardy. He even
quoted a letter by Dr. James L. Barton, who was the Secretary of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, saying that "If the
treaty (with Turkey) should be rejected, I am convinced that the continuance
of the American institutions in Turkey, with their large investment
interests, would be jeopardized" (Nov. 24, 1923).

Mustafa Kemal himself, the first president of the modern Turkish state,
indicated in an interview on Jan. 9, 1927, a week prior to the U.S. Senate
vote on the treaty, that the United State’s "present policy reacts against
America" and that "our mineral recourses which are awaiting American
engineering ingenuity and capital, when properly worked up, would furnish to
America much of the raw material that her country is not able to produce."

Despite all this rhetoric and the implicit-and explicit-threats, the
Democratic Party, lead by Senator William King of Utah, stood in unity and
rejected the treaty on Jan. 17, 1927. This was one of only three treaties
outright rejected in the history of the U.S. Senate. In his statement in the
New York Times, on Jan. 18, 1927, Senator King indicated the reason for his
principled stand: "The treaty was opposed upon three major grounds. Namely,
that it failed to provide for the fulfillment of the Wilson award to
Armenia, guarantees for protection of Christians and non-Muslims in Turkey,
and recognition by Turkey of the American nationality of former subjects of
Turkey."

"Obviously," he continued "it would be unfair and unreasonable for the
United States to recognize and respect the claims and professions of Kemal
so long as he persists in holding control and sovereignty over Wilson
Armenia-now a No Man’s Land, while a million Armenian refuges and exiles are
people without a country."

I am confident that you and your esteemed colleagues of the 110th Congress
will be able make a similar principled stand and bring H.Res.106 for a floor
vote.

Respectfully,
Shahe Fereshetian, M.D.
——————————————— ————————————————– –

2. Names and Language
By Garen Yegparian

Identity. In the diaspora, that’s what it’s all about. It may be denigrated
in the U.S. as "identity" politics," but as survivors of genocide with lots
of time and dead people to make up for, maintaining Armenian
identity-Armenianness-in dispersion is critical.

Obviously, we have the genocide as a unifying focus. But once the struggle
for recognition is over, even though we have much more important issues to
resolve, some of the cohesion we now enjoy will dissipate. Some of us will
breathe a collective sigh of relief and fade to the margins of our
community, or even completely out of it. Meanwhile we’ll still have battles
ahead requiring even better "armies" than the ones we now have deployed.

While we’re on the topic of recognition, make sure to contact Rep. Jane
Harman, who is nominally a co-sponsor of H.Res.106, but it turns out was
working undercover (what do you expect-she’s on a Congressional committee
dealing with America’s spies) AGAINST the resolution, until the ANC’s
pressure made them reveal it. Tell her how unforgivable her sneakiness is.
Contact her at (202) 225-8220, ask for Jay Hulings, or e-mail him at
jay.hulings@mail.house.gov. You can now see the letter at

Returning to the topic of this article, two news items in the LA Times
appearing over the last five months are instructive and suggestive.

On May 2, "Indigenous pride rising with name issue in Mexico," described the
case of a two-year-old girl who is still officially nameless. It seems the
government’s computers can’t handle the accents and such around the letters
that would represent the sounds of the indigenous language. The parents have
persisted and refuse to Spanify their child’s name. This lesson in pride in
one’s own culture as manifested in names is one that ought not to be lost on
us. So many of our compatriots are busy Jennifer-ing, Hamlet-ing,
Rene(e)-ing their children’s names that it is an epidemic. We are Armenian
through our difference from others, not by naming our boys Artur (sic) after
some legendary English king, or Scarlet after a character in a movie. This
is the kind of slow, almost imperceptible assimilative activity that leads
to loss of identity.

A related concern is the diminution of the number of names we use, out of
concern that the odars will mispronounce the name or tease the child. So
what? That’s exactly what will help cement awareness of the difference of
being an Armenian.

In the same vein of loss of national identifiers is language. Obviously,
this one is an even bigger deal. On Sept. 19, a piece titled "Researchers
say a language disappears every two weeks" ran. It turns out that in the
last 500 years, half the world’s preexisting languages have disappeared. We’re
down to 7,000. Half of these are expected to disappear in the next century.
How far behind can Armenian be? What do we have left, two, maybe three
centuries?

But why does any of this matter? Certainly just giving a child an Armenian
appellation won’t make him/her Armenian, nor will speaking the language. It
is the combination of these two and many other cultural aspects that
constitute the creature known as an Armenian. We are all lacking in one
aspect or another of this Armenian constitution. If we’re serious about our
national persistence, then we must be alert to the slow erosion of our
attributes. And, this concern applies just as much to Armenia as anywhere
else.

You know right from wrong on this. Act accordingly.