MWC – Media With Conscience
April 19 2015
Armenia: The Genocide Controversy
Of the many current concerns associated with historic wrongs, none is
more salient these days than the long simmering tensions between
modern Turkey and the Armenian diaspora (and the state of Armenia).
And none so convincingly validates the assertion of the great American
novelist, William Faulkner: `The past is never dead. It’s not even
past.’ This year being the centenary of the contested events of 1915
makes it understandable that was simmering through the decades has
come to a boil, with the anniversary day of April 24th likely to be
the climax of this latest phase of the unresolved drama.
The Armenian red line for any move toward reconciliation has been for
many years a formal acknowledgement by the Turkish government that the
killings that occurred in 1915 should be regarded as `genocide,’ and
that an official apology to the descendants of the Armenian victims
should be issued by the top political leaders in Turkey. It is not
clear whether once that red line is crossed, a second exists, this one
involving Armenian expectations of reparations in some form or even
restorations of property and territory. For now the battleground is
over the significance of granting or withholding the G word from these
momentous happenings. The utterance of this word, alone, seems the
only key capable of unlocking the portals leading to conflict
resolution, but it is a key that Turks across the political spectrum
refuse to use.
What has recently raised the temperature on both sides is the clear
alignment of Pope Francis with the Armenian demands. At a solemn mass
in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome on April 12th that was devoted to the
centenary of the Ottoman killings of Armenian Christians Francis
quoted with approval from the 2001 joint declaration of Pope John Paul
II and the Armenian religious leader Karenkin II to the effect that
these massacres in 1915 were `widely considered the first genocide of
the 20th century.’
The pope’s reliance upon an earlier declaration by a predecessor
pontiff was interpreted by some Vatican watchers as a subtle
indication of `restraint,’ showing a continuity of view in the
Catholic Church rather than the enunciation of a provocative new
position. Others equally reliable commentators felt that situating the
label of genocide within a solemn mass gave it more authority than the
earlier declaration with the 1.1 billion Catholics around the world,
with likely more public impact. The unusual stature enjoyed by this
pope who is widely admired the world over as possessing the most
influential voice of moral authority, exerting a powerful impact even
on non-Catholics, lends added significance to his pronouncements on
sensitive policy issues. There are some in the Catholic community, to
be sure, who are critical of this latest foray into this conflict
about the application of the word genocide at a delicate time. For
instance, the respected Vatican expert, Marco Politi, said that Pope
Francis’s comment were typical of this pope who `uses language without
excessive diplomatic care.’
For these very reasons of salience, one supposes, the Turkish response
has been strident, involving some retreat from the more forthcoming
statements made just a year ago by the then Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip ErdoÄ?an. In an apologetic and conciliatory speech addressed
directly to the Armenian community ErdoÄ?an in 2014 said: `May
Armenians who lost their lives in the early twentieth century rest in
peace, we convey our condolences to their grandchildren.’ His language
in 2015 reverts to a much harsher tone, in a pushback to Francis
declaring that religious leaders make a `mistake’ when they try to
resolve historical controversies.
In an effort to constructive, ErdoÄ?an restates the long standing
Turkish proposal to open the Ottoman archives and allow a joint
international commission of historians to settle the issue as to how
the events of 1915 should most accurately be described, and
specifically whether the term genocide is appropriate. Both ErdoÄ?an
and the current prime minister, Ahmet DavutoÄ?lu, continue to regard
the core issue to be a historical matter of establishing the factual
reality. The Turkish position is that there were terrible killings of
the Armenians, but at a level far below the 1.5 million claimed by
Armenian and most international sources, and mainly as an incident of
ongoing warfare and civil strife in which many Turks also lost their
lives, and hence it was an experience of mutual loss, and not
`genocide.’
The almost internationally uncontested historical narrative is that
the essential factual questions have settled: the Ottoman political
leaders embarked on a deliberate policy of mass killings of the
Armenians living in what is now modern Turkey. From this international
consensus, the Armenians claim that it follows that Armenian
victimization in 1915 was `genocide,’ the position endorsed and
supported by Pope Francis, the European Parliament, and about 20
countries, including France and Russia. As might have been expected
the NY Times jumped on the bandwagon by publishing a lead editorial
with the headline, `Turkey’s Willful Amnesia,’ as if was a matter of
Ankara forgetting or a dynamic of denial, rather than is the case of
selective perception, nationalism, and fears about the fragility of
domestic political balance that explain Turkey’s seemingly stubborn
adherence to a discredited narrative.
Yet there are weighty problems here, as well. The conclusion of
`genocide’ is ambiguous. Not only did no such crime, labeled as such,
exist in 1915, but there was not even the concept crystallyzed in this
manner. Indeed the word was not coined until 1944 by Rafael Lemkin in
his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, written in reaction to the
crimes of the Nazis. Lemkin’s text does indirectly lend support to the
Armenian insistence that only by acknowledging these events as
genocide is their true reality comprehended. Consider this often
quoted passage from Lemkin’s book: `I became interested in genocide
because it happened so many times in history. It happened to the
Armenians, then after the Armenians, Hitler took action.’
>From a Turkish perspective, it is notable that the Nuremberg Judgment
assessing Nazi criminality avoids characterizing the Holocaust as
genocide, limiting itself to crimes against peace and crimes against
humanity. If in 1945 there was no legal foundation for charging
surviving Nazi leaders with genocide, how can the crime be attributed
to the Ottoman Turks, and how can the Turkish government be reasonably
expected to acknowledge it. Also in the Nuremberg Judgment there is a
clear statement to the effect that criminal law can never be validly
applied retroactively (nulla poena sine lege). This principle is also
embedded in contemporary international criminal law. That is, if
genocide was not a crime in 1915, it cannot be treated as a crime in
2015. Yet from an Armenian perspective, this issue of criminality is
tangential, and is not the ground on which the Turkish narrative
rests. Both sides seem to agree that what is at stake is whether or
not to characterize the events as `genocide,’ regardless of whether
genocide was a distinct crime in 1915. But here ambiguity abounds on
this issue of criminality.
The preamble of the Genocide Convention (1950) includes language
compatible with the wider import of Armenian contentions: `Recognized
in all periods of history that genocide has inflicted great losses on
humanity.’ In effect, that the reality of genocide long preceded the
conclusion of the treaty. And even the premise of prior criminality is
reinforced by Article 1: `The Contracting Parties confirm that
genocide, whether committed in time of peace, or time of war, is a
crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and
punish.’ By using the word `confirm’ it would appear that the crime of
genocide preexisted the use of the word `genocide’ invented to
describe the phenomenon, and thus no persuasive jurisprudential reason
is present to oppose redescribing the events of 1915 as an instance of
genocide.
Such a discussion of the pros and cons of the legalities is far from
the end of the debate. The pressure to call what happened to the
Armenians as genocide is best understood as a pycho-political campaign
to achieve an acknowledgement and apology that is commensurate with
the magnitude of the historical wrong, and possibly to set the stage
for a subsequent demand of reparations. The insistence on the label
`genocide’ seeks to capture total control of the moral high ground in
relation to the events by authoritatively associating the tragic
experience of the Armenians with the most horrendous events
experienced by others, and most particularly by the Jewish victims of
Nazism. In this sense, although Nazis were not indicted at Nuremberg
for genocide, the whole political effort to criminalize genocide as a
crime was in reaction to the Holocaust, lending an initial credibility
to the `never again’ pledge. In other words, only by calling the
events of 1915 genocide can the issues of guilt and responsibility be
resolved in accord with the Armenian narrative with sufficient
gravitas.
The Armenian claim is thus not to be understood as primarily
expressive of a criminal law perspective, but reflects the key
contention that what took place resembled what is prohibited by the
Genocide Convention, and thus in this extra-legal sense is
appropriately called `genocide,’ which functions as a way of
concluding that the Armenians were victimized by the worst possible
type of human behavior. And further, that no other word conveys this
assessment as definitively as does `genocide,’ and hence the Armenian
insistence is non-negotiable. Any step back from this posture would be
interpreted as a further humiliation, thereby dishonoring the memory
of those who suffered and opening the wounds of the past still
further.
At present, both sides are locked into these contradictory positions.
No way forward is apparent at present. Each side is hardening their
positions, partly in retaliation for what they perceive to be the
provocation of their adversary in the controversy. ErdoÄ?an’s
relatively conciliatory tone of 2014 has been replaced on the Turkish
side by a relapse into defensiveness and denial, and the revival of
the largely discredited nationalist version of the events in 2015 as a
mutual ordeal.
The Armenian campaign, in turn, has intensified, taking advantage of
the centenary mood, and now given the strongest possible encouragement
by Pope Francis. In this setting, it is to be expected that Armenians
will mount further pressure on the U.S. Government, considered a key
player by both parties, to abandon its NATO-oriented reluctance to
antagonize Turkey by officially endorsing the view that what happened
in 1915 should be acknowledged by Turkey as genocide. Barack Obama had
assured the Armenian community during his presidential campaign that
he believed that Armenians were victims of genocide in 1915 but has to
date refrained from reiterating this position in his role as
president.
The contextualization of this tension associated with the redress of a
historical grievance is also an element in the unfolding story. There
appears to be an Israeli role in deflecting Turkish harsh criticism of
its behavior in Gaza by a show of strong support for the Armenian
campaign. Then there is the peril in the region faced by Christian
minorities such as the Yazidis, especially at risk from ISIS and other
extremist groups operating in the Middle East. In this picture also is
the rise of Islamophobia in Europe, as well as the moral panic created
by the Charlie Hebdo incident and other post-9/11 signs that
religiously induced violence is continuing to spread Westwards. When
Pope Francis visited Turkey last November there was reported an
agreement reached with ErdoÄ?an that the Vatican would combat
Islamophobia in Europe while Turkey would oppose any persecution of
Christian minorities in the Middle East.
I have known well prominent personalities on both sides of this
Armenian/Turkish divide. More than twenty years ago I endorsed the
Armenian position in talks and some writings. In more recent years,
partly as a result of spending several months in Turkey each year I
have become more sympathetic with Turkish reluctance to apologize and
accept responsibility for `genocide.’ Among other concerns is the
credible anxiety that any acknowledgement of genocide by Turkish
leaders would unleash a furious right-wing backlash in the country
imperiling social order and political stability.
Aside from such prudential inhibitions there are on both sides of the
divide deep and genuine issues of selective perception and identity
politics that help maintain gridlock through the years, with no
breakthrough in sight. Augmenting pressure on Turkey as is presently
occurring is likely to be counter-productive, making the Turkish hard
line both more mainstream and inflexible. Indicative of this is the
stand of the main opposition leader, Kemal KiliçdaroÄ?lu (head of the
CHP) who seldom loses an opportunity to oppose the governing party on
almost every issue, when it comes to the Armenian question is in
lockstep solidarity with ErdoÄ?an.
I see no way out of this debilitating impasse without finding a way to
change the discourse. It serves neither the Armenians nor the Turks to
continue this public encounter on its present path. The Turkish
proposal for a historical joint commission is a bridge to nowhere as
either it would reinforce the existing consensus and be unacceptable
or the gridlock and be unacceptable. What might be more promising
would be a council of `wise persons’ drawn from both ethno/religious
backgrounds, and perhaps including some third parties as well, that
would meet privately in search of shared understanding and common
ground.
A Turkish columnist, writing in this same spirit, proposes renewing
the ErdoÄ?an approach of 2014 by moving beyond sharing the pain to
making an apology, coupled with offers of Turkish citizenship to the
descendants of Armenians who were killed or diplaced in 1915.[See
Verda Ã-zer, `Beyond the Genocide Debate,’ Hürriet Daily News, April
17, 2015] One possible formula that might have some traction is to
agree that if what was done in 1915 were to occur now it would clearly
qualify as `genocide,’ and that was done one hundred years ago was
clearly genocidal in scale and intent. Perhaps, with good will and a
realization that both sides would gain in self-esteem by a win/win
outcome, progress could be made. At least it seems worth trying to use
the resources of the moral imagination to work through with all
possible good will a tangle of issues that has so long seemed
intractable.