Why Armenians cannot ‘get past’ the genocide

Allowing Turkey to continue its denial of the 1915-1918 genocide is too high
a price for Armenia to pay for normalized relations.

By Karnig Dukmajian

Los Angeles Times
3:22 PM PDT, October 15, 2009

Just as The Times expressed in its Oct. 13 editorial, "Turkey and Armenia:
reconciling history," I believe that it’s in both countries’ interest to
restore diplomatic ties and open their shared border. However, I cannot help
but question the logic of The Times’ appeal to Armenians and Turks to "get
beyond" the issue of the Armenian genocide — especially when the editorial
board shares the concern of Armenians that the establishment of a commission
to study the genocide is "simply a means for Turkey to continue denying
history."

For Armenians, there is no "getting beyond" the issue of the genocide.
Turkey’s denial of the genocide, for which it has gone unpunished, is an
injustice all Armenians must live with every day.

Imagine this: Suppose Israel and Germany share a common border, as Armenia
and Turkey do. Suppose also that Germany has not recognized that the
Holocaust took place; that Germany admits only that some Jews died in "civil
unrest" during World War II, and that Germany claims that Jews also killed
many Germans. Suppose West Germany did not pay 3 billion marks in
reparations to Israel (which it did in the 1950s and ’60s), renovate
deserted Jewish synagogues across Germany or establish memorial parks where
concentration and extermination camps once stood. Suppose then that 16 years
ago, Germany unilaterally decided to shut its common border with Israel in
solidarity with a third country with which Israel went to war, and that its
stated purpose of such action was to cause Israel economic strain. And
finally, suppose that after much international pressure, Germany has decided
it will reopen the border but only if Israel agrees to make several
concessions, including partaking in a commission to study whether the
Holocaust actually took place and making territorial concessions in its
unresolved conflict with the third country.

These circumstances would justifiably outrage the international community.
But today, no one shares in the Armenians’ outrage as they continue their
long march on the road to justice alone.

Turkey and Armenia should establish diplomatic relations, but it should not
come at so high a price for Armenians. Turkey’s calculated campaign of
choking Armenia’s economy — after having nearly annihilated its people less
than a century ago — and subsequently seeking concessions in return for
reopening the border should be unequivocally condemned by all Western
democracies. Instead, the foreign ministers of the European Union, the
United States, France, Switzerland and Russia were on hand in Zurich last
week to applaud the lopsided agreement signed by Armenia and Turkey.

For Turkey, this is another victory in its efforts to erase the genocide
from the world’s memories, a campaign it prosecutes both within its own
borders (a national law makes it illegal to insult the Turkish nation, which
the government uses to prosecute those who speak truthfully about the
genocide) and abroad by working to stop further international recognition of
the genocide. For the West to applaud the agreement reached by Turkey and
Armenia, presumably due to geopolitical gains, is to condone sweeping under
the rug one of the world’s worst unpunished crimes.

It is highly offensive to suggest that Turkey and Armenia "get beyond" the
Armenian genocide. To "get beyond" an issue, one must first face it. It is
impossible for either Turkey or Armenia to "get beyond" the Armenian
genocide because Turkey has not yet faced its crime.

Karnig Dukmajian lives in Tarzana.