WAS A MASSACRE GENOCIDE? THE ARMENIAN DIASPORA WON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER
by Gwynne Dyer
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
stm
October 19, 2009 Monday
Pennsylvania
The first great massacre of the 20th century happened in eastern
Anatolia 94 years ago. Armenians all over the world insist that their
ancestors who died in those events were the victims of a deliberate
genocide, and that there can be no reconciliation with the Turks
until they admit their guilt. But now the Armenians back home have
made a deal.
On Oct. 10, the Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers signed an accord
in Zurich that reopens the border between the two countries, closed
since 1993, and creates a joint historical commission to determine what
actually happened in 1915. It is a triumph for reason and moderation,
so the nationalists in both countries attacked it at once.
The most anguished protests came from the Armenian diaspora: 8 million
people living mainly in the United States, France, Russia, Iran and
Lebanon. There are only 3 million people living in Armenia itself,
and remittances from the diaspora are twice as large as the country’s
entire budget, so the views of overseas Armenians matter.
Unfortunately, their views are quite different from those of the
people who actually live in Armenia. For Armenians abroad, making the
Turks admit that they planned and carried out a genocide is supremely
important. Indeed, it has become a core part of their identity.
For most of those who are still in Armenia, getting the Turkish
border re-opened is a higher priority. Their poverty and isolation
are so great that a quarter of the population has emigrated since the
border was closed 16 years ago, and trade with their relatively rich
neighbor to the west would help to stanch the flow.
Moreover, the agreement does not require Armenia to give back the
Armenian-populated parts of Azerbaijan, its neighbor to the east.
Armenia’s conquest of those lands in 1992-94 was why Turkey closed
the border in the first place (many Turks see the Turkic-speaking
Azeris as their "little brothers"), so in practical terms Armenian
President Serge Sarkisian got a very good deal.
The communities of the diaspora, however, believe the Armenian
government has sold them out on the genocide issue. Their remittances
are crucial to Armenia, so Mr. Sarkisian has spent the past weeks
traveling the world, trying to calm their fury. In the end, he will
probably succeed, if only because they have no other homeland.
But can any practical consideration justify abandoning the traditional
Armenian demand that Turkey admit to a policy of genocide? Yes it can,
because it is probably the wrong demand to be making.
Long ago, when I was a budding historian, I got sidetracked for
a while by the controversy over the massacres of 1915. I read the
archival reports on British and Russian negotiations with Armenian
revolutionaries after the Ottoman empire entered the First World
War on the other side in early 1915. I even read the documents in
the Turkish General Staff archives ordering the deportation of the
Armenian population from eastern Anatolia later that year. What
happened is quite clear.
The British and the Russians planned to knock the Ottoman empire out
of the war quickly by simultaneous invasions of eastern Anatolia,
Russia from the north and Britain by landings on Turkey’s south coast.
So they welcomed the approaches of Armenian nationalist groups and
asked them to launch uprisings behind the Turkish lines to synchronize
with the invasions.
The usual half-promises about independence were made, and the Armenian
groups fell for it.
The British later switched their attack to the Dardanelles in an
attempt to grab Istanbul, but they never warned their Armenian allies
that the south-coast invasion was off. The Russians did invade, but
the Turks managed to stop them. The Armenian revolutionaries launched
their uprisings as promised, and the Turks took a terrible vengeance
on the whole community.
Istanbul ordered the Armenian minority to be removed from eastern
Anatolia on the grounds that their presence behind the lines posed a
danger to Turkish defenses. Wealthy Armenians were allowed to travel
south to Syria by train or ship, but the impoverished masses were
marched over the mountains in the dead of winter. They faced rape and
murder at the hands of their guards, there was little or no food and
many hundreds of thousands died.
If genocide just means killing a lot of people, then this certainly was
one. If genocide means a policy that aims to exterminate a particular
ethnic or religious group, then it wasn’t.
Armenians who made it alive to Syria, then also part of the Ottoman
empire, were not sent to death camps. Indeed, they became the ancestors
of today’s huge Armenian diaspora. Armenians living elsewhere in the
empire, notably in Istanbul, faced abuse but no mass killings.
It was a dreadful crime, and only recently has the public debate
in Turkey even begun to acknowledge it. It was not a genocide if
your standard of comparison is what happened to the European Jews,
but diaspora Armenians will find it very hard to give up their claim
that it was. Nevertheless, the grown-ups are now in charge both in
Armenia and in Turkey, and amazing progress is being made.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress