PanARMENIAN.Net

Responsibility is forgivable while guilt persists over generations
12.04.2008 16:29 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Guilt in history – we speak about guilt of genocide
and war when we can ascribe it to certain political elites, says a
statement PanARMENIAN.Net received from the Armenian community of
Berlin.

The statement reads as follows, `When considering the difficult
question of guilt, it helps to replace "guilt" with the notion of
"responsibility". For when we speak about "responsibility", then it’s
a matter of conditions, perhaps even being forced to make a
decision. That is not the case with the difficult concept of
guilt. Guilt bears evidence to the direct intention of the individual
and his will. Responsibility is "forgivable". "Guilt" persists over
generations.

Today in Germany, studying characteristics of the perpetrators is the
focus point of the endeavors to come to terms with the past. Yet the
historical research in South Africa or in Rwanda is also conducted in
the hope of being able to name those responsible. In this pursuit of
the examination of one’s own perpetrator history, it’s also a matter
of shaping a new Germany, a South Africa, a Rwanda, which specifically
commits itself to tolerance. Lastly, it is also a matter of not
remaining in the depths of guilt; of lessening the burden of guilt.

On April 24, when we commemorate worldwide the 1.5 million victims of
the genocide caused by the regime of the Young Turks in 1915-16, we
are confronted with the unprecedented position of Turkey, which
vehemently prevents discussion about guilt in history, attempts to
accuse the genocide victims for having provoked the "escalation of
violence", and replaces examination of the genocide with
denegation. This not only calls for an awareness of the continuity of
national narratives in Turkey, but also leads us more to a discussion
of the specific form of guilt in genocide.

Genocide is a crime that effects all levels of society, touches all
generations, and excludes no one. Those who are not perpetrators are
bystanders. But can one really speak of bystanders when such a
large-scale deportation occurred of which everyone was a witness? The
perpetrators of a genocide are certain that they have the consent of
the bystanders. Their ideological goals – a co-existence of old
prejudices against the "Christian infidels " with a new hate of modern
Armenians and a nationalistic ideology of the creation of a new
Turkey- knowingly include the bystanders as an active, consenting
populace. The perpetrator of genocide doesn’t fear the resistance of
his victims; he fears only the intervention of bystanders. Hence the
attitude of the bystander bears the blame for the absoluteness and
radicalism of the act of genocide.

This is why coming to terms with a genocide is so important. That’s
why such an examination in Turkey is so vehemently and systematically
contested: because it affects not only a chapter of elapsed history,
but also every individual today: his prejudices, his national images
and his national identification.

The day of remembrance on April 24 commemorates a day on which the
deportations reached the capital, Constantinople. On this day, public
figures were arrested and murdered, among them politicians, writers
and lawyers.

The day of remembrance commemorates not only the deep rupture that the
genocide created in Armenian life in its homeland. It commemorates
first and foremost the suffering of those deported and the barbarity
with which they were murdered.

"Like Jeremiah, I became like a rotten cloth, and, as the preacher
said, my name is erased from the book of mankind", wrote the Armenian
Monk St. Grigor Narekatsi (951-1003) in his Book of Prayers. But the
medieval tale of suffering, oppression and violence still knew the
hope of God.

The philosopher Hans Jonas described the withdrawal of God from the
modern world in his work, "The Imperative of Responsibility". And
while Hans Jonas deduced from the experience of the Holocaust the
necessity of an ethics of responsibility, April 24 calls upon us to
reflect on guilt in history. This broader question looks not only at
the perpetrator, but also identifies the role of the bystander and
therefore us and our actions – as actors and responsible individuals
in modern societies and with modern policies. Such examined
responsibility inquires after the perspective of today’s states with
regard to denegation, oppression and violence and insists that we face
up to the blameworthy consequences of being a bystander.’