LESSONS OF HISTORY: THE QUESTION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Hellenic News of America, PA
7722&lang=US
Dec 11 2007
The Foreign Affairs Congressional Committee voted in the fall for the
recognition of the Armenian massacres perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks
during the First World War, as genocide. The Speaker of the House,
Democrat Nancy Pelosi, has vowed to bring the resolution to the House
floor for a vote before her term in office expires a year from now.
This development has caused diplomatic tremors in Ankara and
Washington. The two governments are concerned about the political
implications of such a resolution, if it were to pass at this critical
time of uncertainty and turbulence in the Middle East. After all,
the US/Turkish relations have not been in their best state lately,
due primarily to the Turkish refusal to allow the US military to open
a second front of attack in the North, during the invasion of Iraq in
2003. That refusal, coming unexpectedly from a NATO ally, has proven
rather costly to the US war effort in both dollars and American lives.
To complicate things further, the Turkish Government has asked and
received authorization from the National Assembly for an invasion and
possible extensive military operations in Northern Iraq ostensibly
against Kurdish "terrorists," but in reality to get control of some of
the rich oil resources in the area. Such a Turkish move would certainly
make things even more difficult for the US in Iraq, because it will
set in turmoil the only area of Iraq which is relatively peaceful
and prosperous, the Kurdish Iraq in the North.
However, a prosperous and autonomous Kurdistan is exactly what the
Turks fear most, because it will set a "bad example" for the millions
of Kurds in Turkey to imitate. The Turks, therefore, will do whatever
they can to prevent a free Kurdish State from coming into being. They
will not hesitate to use any pretext, even the Armenian genocide
resolution in the US Congress, to move into Northern Iraq and occupy it
militarily, just as they did thirty-three years ago when they invaded
Cyprus and occupied almost half of the island, under the pretext of
protecting the Turkish Cypriots. There are some Turkmen in Iraq too,
who may want to have Turkish "protection" from the surrounding Kurds.
But this political maneuvering and shrewd calculations of Turkey’s
Islamist Government should not be allowed to derail the legitimate
process of the US Congress to amend a historical error by recognizing
the Armenian genocide with its proper name at last. The Republic of
Turkey does not gain anything of moral value by trying to cover up
the painful and horrible events that accompanied the dissolution of
the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War II, or its own birth in
1923. History has lessons to teach for those who are prudent enough
to learn from it and courageous so as not repeat the same errors.
History teaches us that the dissolution of empires is usually as messy
or violent as a non-amicable divorce. Various ethnic and religious
groups, that had found a modus vivendi under the protective umbrella
of a thriving empire, suddenly come to realization that the imperial
power is falling apart and cannot protect them any more.
Then, each ethnic group goes its own way and tries to become
independent and self-sufficient. Hence the messy process of separating
the common-wealth and getting a fair share arises.
In the case of the Ottoman Turks, their coming into Western Anatolia
and the establishment of an empire there and in Southeastern Europe
was facilitated by the fact that the Christian powers of that time
were divided, while the Byzantine Empire had been broken down into
a number of principalities as a result of the disastrous fourth
Crusade. Thus many Anatolian Christians (Armenians, Syrians, Greeks,
etc.) did not resist but rather helped the Turks build and sustain
for centuries the Ottoman Empire (14th-20th).
For more than a century the Ottoman Empire had become "the old sick
man" of Europe, who would not die, because the Great Powers could not
agree how to burry its corpse and divide the spoils. In the First
World War it appeared that the dismemberment of the Empire would
be accomplished finally. But the rise of Kemalism in Turkey and the
threat of the spread of Communism after its success in Russia (1917),
combined to keep the whole of Anatolia and a corner of Europe in
Turkish hands. Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and other ethnic minorities
were either slaughtered or forced out from the lands where they had
lived and prospered for millennia.
The Armenians of Anatolia particularly were targeted in such
a systematic way for extermination by massive executions, forced
labor camps, violent transportations, and ethnic cleansing that the
term "genocide" describes fittingly the brutality of that historical
reality. A generation later, Hitler was to use the Armenian genocide as
"a model" for his even more horrific conception of a genocidal scheme
against the Jews in Germany.
No wonder, then, that many of the Jewish and other survivors feel
sympathy for the Armenians and their tragic fate. Many Europeans
and American have felt the same sympathy for a long time. Recently,
the citizens of European States and the United States have found
the courage to apply the necessary pressure on elected officials to
act in the direction of recognition of the Armenian genocide by its
proper name in memory of the millions of its victims. There is hope
that horrors of this magnitude and inhumanity will not be repeated
in the future, if humanity remembers them and names them appropriately.
In this light present day Turkey, which is supposed to be secular and
democratic, should not be offended if other States judge it politically
correct and prudent to recognize the atrocities perpetrated by the
Ottoman Empire against the Armenians as genocide.
The Republic of Turkey perhaps should do the same for its own good.
In fact, it would have been better for the image of Turkey and its
aspiration of joining the European Union, if it had done so some
time ago. Instead of this sensible policy, Turkey threatens the
United States with strategic penalties to prevent the resolution on
Armenian genocide from reaching the House of Representatives. This
is very strange behavior of a NATO ally.
Turkish policy makers probably calculate that they can get now the
share of Iraq that they wanted four years ago (2003). At that time
Turkey, under the same Islamist Government of Mr. Erdogan, refused
to help the Americans by allowing them to open a second front in the
North, because the United States did not want it to enter the rich
in oil fields of Northern Iraq. Now they threaten to prevent even
supplies for the SU troops in Iraq to pass through Turkey. They also
threaten to invade Iraq to fight PPK members, using as pretext not
just the killing of ambushed Turkish solders, but also the passing
of the Armenian genocide resolution in the Congressional Committee
of Foreign Affairs.
The Turks may want to repeat the success they had so easily in Cyprus
in 1974, when they invaded the island illegally. By threatening to
occupy the whole of Cyprus, they managed to hold on to more than a
third of it for more than thirty years now. But Iraq is not Cyprus,
Kurds are not Greeks, and the US of post 9/11 is very different from
its previous self. So, if Turkey moves into Northern Iraq against the
expressed will of the US and NATO, if may bite more than it will be
able to chew this time. The good luck cannot be on the Turkish side
for ever. Kurds and poor Armenians deserve a share of it.
Dr. Christos Evangeliou is Professor of philosophy, poet, and author
of several books including the latest, Hellenic Philosophy: Origin
and Character (Ashgate, 2006).