BETTER TO MAKE HISTORY THAN DEBATE IT
The Business Times
October 23, 2007 Tuesday
Singapore
WHY the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives
chose this particular moment to push a bill that accuses the Ottoman
Empire of carrying out ‘genocide’ of about 1.5 million Armenians
during World War I will always be a source of wonder for the rest of
the world. Now, the House Majority Leader, Democrat Representative
Nancy Pelosi, wants to bring the bill to a vote before the entire
House of Representatives, where it enjoys support among both Democrats
and Republicans.
Congressional bashing of the Ottoman Empire will certainly win much
applause among the members of the powerful Armenian lobby and the
large Armenian-American community in Ms Pelosi’s state, California.
But modern Turks who accept the notion that hundreds of thousands of
Armenians had been killed during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire –
but not as part of a campaign to exterminate this national group –
have attacked the move, which most of them see as an insult to their
national pride.
Moreover, the genocide resolution has been approved during a tense
period in the relationship between Washington and Ankara. Turkey
opposed the decision by the Bush administration to oust Saddam Hussein,
and its political and military leaders have expressed concerns that
the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq has been providing
safe haven for Kurd guerillas who act as a destabilising force
inside Turkey.
Indeed, after more than 20 Turkish soldiers have been killed in
fighting with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Turks have
threatened retaliation against the Kurds by sending troops into
northern Iraq. Also, the Turkish Parliament voted to provide its
government with the authority to take such an action, just a day
after the genocide bill. It reflects further deterioration in the
relations between these two important strategic allies.
No serious historian questions the facts regarding the death of
hundreds of thousands of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman forces
and their allies, and many non-Turks and some Turks apply the term
‘genocide’ (as opposed to, say, ‘massacre’ or ‘killings’) to describe
that tragedy.
This is certainly an issue – not unlike the killings of the native
populations of America and Australia – that should be debated by
historians and in academic forums. And, surely, the US Congress has
more important issues to discuss these days, including ending the
war in Iraq and ensuring that the mess there does not suck in other
players in the Middle East, including Turkey.
Indeed, Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(Nato) and candidate for membership in the European Union, is a
thriving Muslim democracy with close ties to the Arab world and
Israel. As such, it could and should play an important role in ensuring
stability to neighbouring Iraq.
America and Turkey should work together in making history – as opposed
to debating it.