I have this post about “Nice Guys” (a subject about which many in the feminist blogosphere have written over the years) percolating in my head, but it will have to wait for tomorrow or Monday.
As most know, the House was scheduled to vote soon on a resolution concering the Armenian Genocide. It now appears that vote may be put off.
Mr. Bush, who as a candidate in 2000 criticized what he called a “genocidal campaign” against the Armenians, said lawmakers had better things to do than be caught up in the past, pursuing legislation that has unsettled an important ally.
“With all these pressing responsibilities, one thing Congress should not be doing is sorting out the historical record of the Ottoman Empire,” Mr. Bush said. “Congress has more important work to do than antagonizing a democratic ally in the Muslim world, especially one that is providing vital support for our military every day.”
Backers of the resolution said they would push ahead despite mounting opposition and try to rally support for the declaration, which they said was essential to deter future genocide and protect America’s credibility in speaking out against brutality in places like Darfur and Myanmar.
I teach and live in the heart of one of the largest communities in the global Armenian diaspora: hundreds of thousands of Armenian-Americans live in the Glendale-Pasadena region. My congressman, Adam Schiff (no relation to the fictional Law & Order DA) has been one of the chief proponents of a genocide resolution. Here at Pasadena City College, we have a huge number of students of Armenian descent; I have heard one administrator, speaking off the record, suggest that nearly 65% of “white” students on this campus are Armenian. (My students, who tend to assume that “white = Northwestern European” rather than literally “Caucasian”, generally don’t label Armenians as white. The college does.)
Since 1993, I’ve taught Modern European history here. Every semester, I cover World War One in considerable detail. But when I first started teaching at PCC, my focus was entirely on the causes of the war — and on the catastrophe that was the Western Front. I talked about the Somme and Verdun, and skipped over the eastern campaigns very quickly. World War One was not my primary field (my training was as a medievalist), and my inclination was to focus on the better-known Western story. My second semester at PCC, a very bright and vivacious young Armenian-American woman named Lori came to my office and challenged me: “Why aren’t you teaching the Armenian genocide when you teach World War One?” Lori was in her second semester with me, and had been in the first women’s studies class I ever taught, and had no trouble confronting me about what she regarded as a serious oversight in my syllabus.
I had no answer for Lori other than the most honest one: “Lori, I don’t teach it because, frankly, I don’t know much about it.” Her eyes widened. She seemed genuinely surprised, but that surprise quickly turned to excitement. “Hugo”, she said, “now I’m going to teach you. By the time you’re done reading the books I give you, you’ll swear never to skip over the genocide again.” Impressed by her determination (and more than a little embarrassed by this large lacuna in my knowledge), I agreed to “do an independent study” with her. Lori went home, told her parents — and, apparently, the entire local community — and within days, I had stacks of books on my desk. I had magazine articles. I had newspapers. I had phone calls from Orthodox priests inviting me to come and meet with them. Some sort of grand Armenian telephone tree had been created. One woman called me up out of the blue, said she had heard I “needed help”, and wanted to introduce me to her grandmother — who was, in 1995, one of the last survivors of the genocide with clear memories of the events of 1915.
Thanks directly and indirectly to Lori (who now teaches at nearby Pasadena High School), I got an extraordinary education from an entire community. I heard oral history, I read book after book after book. Another pastor (from an Armenian Protestant church) contacted me and said he would be willing to translate an entire book on the genocide into English if it would be useful to me. I quickly assured him I had everything I needed and more.
Over the next several months, as word of “Professor Hugo’s study project” continued to spread, I began to be besieged not just by books but by baklava. Strangers sent baklava in tins to my department. Trays and plates piled up. I must have gained five or six pounds off that sweet dessert alone.
And of course, I read the “other side” — the documents produced by those sympathetic to the Turkish claim that no genocide took place Though Lori (and the vast diaspora she brought to my door) obviously hoped I would teach that the genocide was a very real event, they understood that I needed to familiarize myself with the counter-argument. To my own relief, I found the few books and papers that did deny the genocide to be unconvincing at best, and deliberately deceitful at worst.
So for the past dozen years, I’ve worked discussion of the Armenian Genocide into every World War One lecture. I don’t lecture on the Genocide to the exclusion of other aspects of the broader conflict, but I do stretch a bit to make sure that at least the outline of the story is told. And I have time and time again voiced my strong support for those who want to pressure Turkey into admitting what happened nearly a century ago.
I am the son and grandson of ethnic Jews who barely survived the Holocaust. My father’s mother’s mother and my father’s father’s grandmother both died at the hands of the Nazis. My family’s property in Vienna was confiscated. About a decade ago, the Austrian government sent my father a letter. Included in that letter of sincere regret for the actions of an earlier Austrian government was notice of compensation. The Austrians sent my Dad about 80,000 schillings (a little over $5000 at the time), and continued to send additional payments until his death last year. The money meant little to Dad — but the recognition of wrongs done did. It came late, he noted, but far better late than not at all.
My Armenian friends have not been given what my family has been given. Those who murdered my great-grandmother nearly seven decades ago were punished, and, in due course, genuine regrets were given and token compensation paid. The Austrian government of the 1990s that voted to pay compensation was made up of men and women who were, of course, personally innocent of the crimes committed by an earlier generation. But they understood that as government ministers, they had a public obligation to do all they could to right the wrongs of their predecessors. They did so, and it meant something to all of us in the very small Schwyzer diaspora.
My Armenian friends, neighbors, and students have not known what I have known. I am the descendant of survivors of one genocide; they the descendants of another. The countries that committed mass murder against my ancestors have admitted their culpability, and to the best of their ability, made reparations. I, the great-grandson of Shoah victims, can walk the streets of Vienna or Linz and feel at home — and part of that sense of comfort (what the Austrians call gemuetlichkeit) is due to this official recognition of past injustice.
There is no excuse for further delay in holding Turkey to account. No other nation in the twentieth century has so consistently denied its complicity in mass murder for so long. Concerns over retaliation (such as the cut-off of rights to Turkish airspace) smack of the very sort of appeasement that time and again has enabled tyranny and genocide. This region of the world is likely to be volatile for generations to come, should the Lord tarry in His return. Turkey is likely to be a vital ally decades from now. If this resolution doesn’t pass now, I see no reasonable possibility that it will pass again anytime soon — as the exact same rationale will be provided in the future. Ten years from now, we will be told again that “we can’t upset a key ally in the region.”
As any therapist will tell you, we don’t heal from the past by forgetting it. Justice and denial are fundamentally incompatible. The fact that Turkish democracy may be fragile and the fact that a genocide resolution may embolden anti-Western nationalists in Asia Minor are real concerns. But to set aside this resolution out of these concerns is to give in to vile political and emotional blackmail. The Turkish position resembles that of a petulant spouse: “I’m only going to stay in this marriage with you if you promise not to hold me accountable for my past infidelities. Let’s just let the past be the past.” That kind of denial is catastrophic for any relationship, be it sexual or geopolitical.
I’m proud of Adam Schiff for his good work in carrying this resolution forward. I am sorry to see that the resolution may now be withdrawn. I know how much resolutions can mean; I saw my father’s face when he held that letter from the Austrian government offering a sincere and abject apology for his family’s suffering. (He made a dozen copies and gave them to all of us.) Words do mean something. Resolutions do have the power to heal old wounds. The past is never really past, after all — as both historians and therapists always remind us. Psychologically and politically, denial is always unhealthy — and to be complicit in denial, as those who oppose this resolution are, is more than unhealthy. It’s profoundly immoral.
I want my Armenian friends, neighbors, and students to have that same recognition of their suffering that my family has of ours. A resolution in the House will mean a great deal to a great many, not least that dwindling handful of very elderly centenarians who can still recall what the Ottomans did in 1915. But time is running out for them. In their last days, we ought not sacrifice the recognition that is their due on the altar of geopolitical expediency.
During your World War One lectures, do you also mention the Assyrian Genocide that was happening at the same time as the Armenian Genocide? There was approximately 750,000 Assyrians killed by the Turkish government between 1914 to 1920.
From http://lalettre.hayway.org/protected/en/communique000100b8.html
Denial is to be killed twice
Finally I would like to point out the following. The Assyrian genocide is not known globally. An unknown and denied genocide inflicts great emotional pain on us, children of a people victimized by genocide. Many of our contemporary society’s problems can be deduced from the genocide. Even though the democratic world has failed to prevent the genocide committed against our people, it has to cooperate to alleviate the problems we are facing today. As the first genocide of the twentieth century, the Assyrian genocide should be more prominently present in universities.
Committed wherever and by whomever, genocide remains genocide. It survives the traces of time. The historical profession is not only an exercise in constructing the where and what of facts. It is also a means to cope with the past. Past genocides have to be known and condemned in order to prevent future genocides. And this is precisely why the Assyrian genocide should be known and considered. It is a big mistake to think that it lies in the past and should be forgotten. History is not about oblivion. It is about knowledge. It is about education. It is about the future.
Those that suggest we should forget about the genocide have difficulties understanding us. These people have no idea about the socio-economic, political and psychological effects of genocides. “Forget about us” is their advice. But is forgetting that easy? We Assyrians have lost two thirds of our population in 1915. We were uprooted from our motherland. The remnants of the genocide were cast into distant parts of the world. Today we are struggling with our sheer existence. As I said before, many contemporary problems are a product of the genocide. How can we forget about all this? My personal experience is that I saw my grandfather often crying when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I was a child and I couldn’t attach any meaning to my grandfather’s crying. I just knew he missed his 3 brothers. That’s all I really knew… I have just learnt of these details only a few months ago from a 97-year old woman whom I met in Germany. She told me that all of my grandfather’s brothers were killed in the genocide of 1915, and that he used to mourn about them. Since I found out about this a few months ago, I have often dreamt of my late grandfather, who passed away 30 years ago. They are telling us to forget about all this. How can I forget this? How can I forget my grandfather, my village, my homeland, my loved ones? All this is my personal story, and it is impossible for me to forget about them. Of course, the deceased can never be returned, how much we want. But Turkey owes us an apology. It must acknowledge the genocide.Acknowledgement will be very advantageous to Turkey. To augment its international respectability and to strengthen democracy. Denial, on the other hand, will only bring the opposite. The children of Assyria are waiting for what all children need, a sense of write and wrong. Thank you !
2004-June 22
Den Haag
“geopolitical expediency?”
From where I stand, people opposing this resolution are trying to prevent a second genocide, this time of the Kurds. Is that what you’re referring to?
I mean, I don’t like it either. But when it comes down to it (and it apparently does), I prefer traumatized Armenians to dead Kurds.
Sarah nailed it. You use the phrase “geopolitical expediency” like it’s a bad thing. We’re not kissing up to the Turks to get them to reduce the capital gains tax. In an area of the world as critical and as volatile as the Middle East, “expediency” is a dismissive shorthand for “lives.” Yeah, it would suck to see a few old Armenians get their feelings hurt, but worse things can and will happen if we lose Turkey as an ally.
I really don’t see the connection between the story and the argument.
Suppose this bill passes. Will this in any way convince the Turkish state to recognize the genocide? To make some form of (even symbolic) restitution? Hardly. It will entrench the ultranationalists and add to their support. Even if you could strong-arm recognition out of Ankara, what would the value be? A coerced apology is no apology at all.
What made recognition by Germany and Austria of the Holocaust significant was that it was the Germans and Austrians doing the recognizing, and they apparently did so voluntarily: those states had the political maturity to recognize the crimes committed by their predecessors.
Turkey is, unhappily, not at that point today, and a perceived attack by those who they consider hostile outsiders is not going to hasten progress. Turkish perceptions are not even entirely awry: the US has after all ignored many heinous episodes in history, including its own history.
I’m sure self-righteous moralizing has its virtues, but advancing recognition of past wrongs and promoting self-awareness in others are rarely among them.
(Obviously if there was a question of punishing the perpetrators, it would be different. But that is clearly not the case here).
Faux, the apology that came from the Austrians and Germans came AFTER Nuremberg, after the decapitation of the Nazi elite (figuratively, of course) and after world condemnation.
The world has let Turkey slide since 1919, when the Armenian Genocide wasn’t an issue in the Paris Peace Talks after the war. Moral credibility about the present and the future is built on a foundation of moral accountability for the past.
Pope John Paul II apologized for the church’s role in World War Two — even though he had nothing to do with what happened. Those who inherit the land of the perpetrators and the titles of the perpetrators have an obligation to make amends for what their predecessors did. (A long way of saying I’m also sympathetic to the notion of reparations for slavery, but that would be a massive thread drift.)
Hugo -
No mention that Schiff’s predecessor, the Republican Jim Rogan, also sponsored similiar legislation and that a Democratic President actively opposed the resolution? Let’s not forget the politics behind this effort — CA-27 has the largest Armenian-American voting constituency of any Congressional district(I believe) and a big issue in Schiff’s unseating of Rogan was the influx of Armenian-American voters who place this issue at the top of their concerns.
Similarly, did you read Rep. Jane Harmon’s op-ed piece in the LA Times? Rep. Harmon was a co-sponsor who now apparently favors “geo-political expediency.” I thought she made an excellent point in noting the problem of Article 301 of the Turkish Constitution. That article guarantees freedom of expression, but also makes a crime of “public denigration of Turkishness.” As faux points out, ultimately the Turkish government must deal with this issue. If their own Constitution makes that acknowledgement problematic, better to work at amending that article as an interim step than poking them in the eye to make them even more recalcitrant.
In addition to what Sara/XRLQ stated, I suspect you have no real appreciation about how logistical operations work in Iraq. In addition to Kurds, Turkish denial of ingress routes into Iraq would have significant operational impacts and place U.S. and coalition forces at significantly greater risk. I understand your point, but you know where I would err at this moment.
Finally, I think the relationship between the games partners play and the games nations play is not as comparable as you present. For example, many European leaders press for the resolution — because those national leaders do *not* want Turkey to join the EU. They know making Turkish recognition of Armenian genocide is a deal breaker — so “geopolitical expediency” can occur on both sides of an issue. At least we are fairly up front about our reasons; many European leaders cover their racist/religious bigotry in the cloth of moral responsibility.
Col Steve, as with my pacifism, so with my dismissal of realpolitik. I’d still push this resolution forward, but as you know, I come from a theological position that says “just make sure the means you use are pure and right, and God Himself will take care of the ends.” That’s not the rule of the world, I understand… I admit I find the concern about the Kurds compelling; I also loathe placating the thin-skinned types who place national honor above truth.
Dear Hugo; I found this piece very insightful and forwarded it to my Armenian friend. I know her family was scarred by her parents experiences before they fled to America. Even after they they were safely settled here they never again enjoyed their previous status as educated professionals.
She said, “Very good article. Thank you for sending it. I know part of my psyche is described therein. We will never be “well” until there is the appropriate recognition. There has been much from other countries fortunately.”
Thanks again.