American Conservative Magazine
April 25 2009

A Decent Compromise

Posted on April 25th, 2009 by Daniel Larison

I failed to mention the commemoration of the Armenian genocide
yesterday. After seeing Obama’s remarks, I thought I would make a
couple of observations. Obviously, Obama refrained from referring to
it directly as genocide in English, and the Armenian phrase he used to
describe it, Mets Yeghern (or, in the Western dialect transliteration
being used in the official remarks, Meds Yeghern), primarily means
slaughter or crime, but it can be and has been used to refer to
genocide.

The official name for the genocide in Armenian is a calque,
tseghaspanut’yun, which refers specifically to the killing of a race
or people, so it is not quite full recognition, but it is also as
close to full recognition as possible under present circumstances.

This provides a face-saving way to acknowledge the reality of what
happened without unduly irritating Turkey, and I think it shows enough
respect to Armenian history without jeopardizing the improving
relations between Turkey and Armenia.

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