The Economist. Facing up to history
LONDON, MART 12, NOYAN TAPAN. NOT for the first time, Armenians sense
a moment of vindication in their struggle for the acknowledgment of
the tragedy that befell their forebears during the first world war.
Turkey is angry. And America’s administration is straining to limit
the damage. The latest Turkish-American rift over the Armenian
question – after a congressional committee voted on March 4th to
recognise the killings of 1915 as genocide – looks wider than some
previous ones. It coincides with a general scratchiness between
America and its ally. Turkey is reluctant to slap sanctions on Iran.
Anti-Americanism is running high among Turks. Some suspect that Barack
Obama retains his view (expressed as a senator in 2008) that `the
Armenian genocide is not an allegation…but rather a widely documented
fact.’ Still, the chances are that after a deep sulk, Turkey will send
its ambassador back to Washington, and the administration will
persuade legislators to avoid a vote in the full House, for fear of
wrecking an important relationship – and worsening the fading prospects
for reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia. A tired diplomatic
ritual will play out once again.
Can any actor in this sorry drama do anything to improve the script?
One day a Turkish leader will be statesman enough to see that national
dignity is better served by acknowledging the sins committed on
Anatolian soil than by suppressing debate and punishing truth-tellers.
Such a leader could decouple relations with Armenia from Ottoman
history. (In any case, their argument today is more about the
aftermath of the war over Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s than over
1915.) Some people in Turkey realise this. As one Turkish columnist
has noted, for Turkey to be so touchy about the minutiae of a
congressional vote betrays weakness, not strength. And nothing would
silence Turkey’s detractors more than a genuine, no-holds-barred
effort to probe the events of 1915. The result of the Armenian
deportations is indisputably and horrifically clear: hundreds of
thousands, probably more than a million, died. But there is room for
scholarly inquiry into the working of the murky state machinery that
led to that outcome – to determine whether the tragedy was principally
the result of murderous design or culpable neglect. By inviting all
scholars to peruse its archives (something it has done only patchily),
Turkey could disarm its critics.