A 21ST CENTURY PROBLEM: LESSONS FROM THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Berkeley Blog
April 20 2015
Stephen Menendian, assistant director, Haas Institute for a Fair and
Inclusive Society | 4/20/15
On April 24th, Armenians worldwide will solemnly commemorate the 100th
anniversary of one of the first modern genocides, the massacre of more
than one million ethnic Armenians in eastern Turkey in 1915. This
occasion is an opportunity to consider not only the legacy of this
specific event, but the larger questions of ethnic and religious
conflict, international response, the failure of political will
to prevent and punish such acts, and the long-term consequences of
that failure.
The convulsion of Empires during World War I, including the
destruction of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, are events
that reverberate today. In his best-selling book, Laurence in Arabia,
Scott Anderson persuasively argues that the root cause of much of the
unrest now evident in the Middle East, including the Arab Spring, can
be traced to the Sykes-Picot agreement, a secret treaty that helped
conclude the war. Other scholars have argued that the destruction of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire may have also contributed to much of the
ethnic and religious conflict that emerged in the Balkans in the 1990s,
though temporarily quelled during the Cold War.
The disintegration of these empires left remnant nation-states less
effective at tamping down ethnic and religious conflict or perhaps more
susceptible to political demagoguery against minority and marginalized
populations. This is what happened in eastern Turkey. As the Ottoman
Empire began to unravel, political leaders in the new Turkish state
initiated a program that would ultimately exterminate most of the
ethnic Armenian population, often on grounds that they would be
sympathetic to the Russians, while seeking to build a more ethnically
and religiously homogenous Turkish state.
Perhaps the most important lesson of the Armenian Genocide was the
lack of political will to stop or punish it. The massacre of more
than one million Armenians raises serious questions about the ability
of the international community to prevent or punish acts of genocide
nearly a century later. The disasters in Rwanda, Bosnia, and the Sudan
illustrate how political willpower – including geopolitical interest
– in the international community is probably a chief determinant of
whether attempted genocide will be resisted.
To some extent, it may be impossible to prevent genocides. In the
course of wars, territorial conflict or regional disputes, minorities
become vulnerable targets, especially if those minorities may be
suspected of sympathy with an enemy (the Japanese internment during
World War II is an appalling domestic example). Ethnic clamoring
for greater freedoms and rights in conjunction with conflict with
a neighboring state predominantly composed of that minority may be
a chief predictor of sectarian violence. If two or more sectarian
identities also overlap, as was the case with ethnic Armenians in
Turkey, who were also predominantly Christian, then the ingredients
for ethnic conflict and even genocide are most potent.
If the political will to intervene in the midst of a war zone is
lacking, the least that can be done is the provision of a strong
judicial mechanism to punish the perpetrators in order to curtail
subsequent denial and recalcitrance as well as to deter future crimes.
It is clear that prevention and punishment are matters of will,
not just ability. As is the case with many such conflicts, Turkey is
sensitive to accusations that the massacre of Armenians during World
War I constitutes a genocide, and recent remarks by Pope Francis have
triggered a diplomatic row. At a recent press conference, Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that “It is out of the question
for there to be a stain or a shadow called genocide on Turkey.”
Perhaps most importantly, denialism – the inability to accept and
address the realities of the Armenian genocide – has distorted Turkish
politics, serving as a third rail and arguably bolstering autocratic
forces within Turkey, just as the issue of slavery and Jim Crow did
in the American South, even leading to the so-called gag-rule in
Congress. Without exercising the will to prevent or punish such acts,
the international community risks perpetuating cycles of denial,
violence and a distorted politics will continue to haunt us for
generations to come.
In 1903, W.E.B Dubois wrote that “the problem of the 20th Century is
the color line.” It’s not going too far to assert that the problem of
the 21st Century is the problem of “Othering.” Othering occurs wherever
human beings are marginalized or discriminated against on the basis of
a group-based identity. Although genocide may be the most extreme form
of Othering, too many conflicts or instances of violence across the
globe seem organized around one or more dimension of human difference,
ethnic, religious, racial, national origin, gender, sexual orientation,
and more. There is an endless stream of new stories of violence,
conflict and tension along these and other societal cleavages.
In Myanmar/Burma, militant Buddhists have massacred members of the
Muslim minority. In India, anxiety is growing that resurgent Hindu
nationalists, emboldened by the election of Modi, may lead to violence
or oppression for other ethnic and religious minorities. In Iraq,
former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was pushed from office partly
on grounds that built an insufficiently inclusive government that
exacerbated sectarian tensions between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds,
which have led to the rise of the Islamic State. Europeans are
wondering whether discrimination, segregation and alienation among
immigrant and Muslim youth may be contributing to social polarization.
In the United States, mass incarceration and police violence,
disproportionately impacting black and brown men, has sparked a
national movement, #BlackLivesMatter.
The Armenian Genocide illustrates the fundamental dynamics of Othering
in its most horrific and extreme expression. The failure, more than
a century later, to acknowledge it, let alone begin to address it and
build a more inclusive, open and democratic Turkish state and region,
is an abject lesson for the 21st Century. This weekend, the Haas
Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society is holding a conference
that will examine the larger questions of Othering and Belonging and
attempt to discern possibilities and develop practices for generating
more inclusive institutions, narratives, and identities that impede
Othering and promote Belonging.
From: A. Papazian