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The Burden of Memory
by MELINE TOUMANI
The Nation. [from the September 20, 2004 issue]
Perhaps you noticed them in the main square of your town this year--or
last year, or any year you've been alive, in any town where you've
ever lived: a group of people solemnly assembled, a priest in a
peaked hood, probably a children's choir and definitely two or three
elected officials. It is April 24, and the crowd has gathered to
commemorate the genocide that began on that date in 1915, in which
1.5 million Armenians living in Eastern Turkey were killed by order
of the Ottoman government. A master of ceremonies reports the latest
tally of how many countries have passed resolutions commemorating
the Armenian genocide, and how many newspapers have used the word
"genocide" instead of the less politically charged "mass killings"
to characterize the tragedy. A few centenarians--the last of the
genocide survivors--hobble onto a platform while the crowd observes a
moment of silence. The priest prays, the choir sings and a Congressman
scans his notes and assures the Armenians that their contributions
to American society are indispensable.
After eighty-nine years, April 24 rituals in Armenian communities
around the world have become as reliable as time itself. Their
endurance is a response to the Turkish government's persistent
refusal to acknowledge the crimes of its predecessors. Although most
historians outside Turkey consider the Armenian genocide to have
been the first genocide of the twentieth century--an atrocity whose
rigorous planning and execution inspired Hitler--official Turkish
history alleges that any killings that took place were merely side
effects of World War I, that Turks were also killed by Armenians,
and that Armenians colluded with Russian forces, posing a security
threat. To propagate this version of the story, Turkey has hidden
documents, blackmailed universities (including elite US schools) and
filled library shelves worldwide with fraudulent histories. Only a
few prominent historians question whether Turkey's actions constituted
genocide, most notoriously Princeton's Bernard Lewis, who was condemned
by a Paris court in 1995 for "hiding elements which go against his
thesis--that there was no 'serious proof' of the Armenian Genocide."
Those Armenians whose grandparents were forced from their homes and
marched to death camps in the Syrian desert are, understandably,
not interested in having a debate on the kaleidoscopic possibilities
of historical interpretation. They want high-level condemnation
of the atrocities their loved ones suffered. Some, ultimately,
want reparations. But Turkey has thus far managed to prevent any US
administration from passing an official resolution calling the events
of 1915 genocide by threatening to cut access to strategic border
zones. Meanwhile, Canada, France and other countries have ignored
such threats and recognized the Armenian genocide.
For Armenians in the diaspora--a diaspora largely created by the
genocide--the quest for Turkish government recognition has become
a raison d'être and a powerful unifying issue for a community
that otherwise contains many subdivisions that vary by degree of
assimilation and allegiance to different host countries.
The collective energy of the Armenian diaspora is what made Peter
Balakian's book The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and
America's Response, an unlikely bestseller for a few weeks last
fall. The Burning Tigris describes how Americans in the first half
of the twentieth century were deeply engaged in efforts to help
"the starving Armenians" in the wake of their catastrophe. But
the distinctive merits of Balakian's book had little to do with its
commercial success. The reason was that Armenian-Americans spent much
of last year running an intensive e-mail campaign to garner pre-orders
for the book on Amazon.com. A sufficiently high number of pre-orders
would push the book into multiple printings early on and guarantee a
high ranking. The campaign worked, as Armenians worldwide placed orders
for one, two, three or twenty copies. Favorable reviews abounded. (A
similar publicity crusade boosted Atom Egoyan's 2002 film, Ararat,
the first-ever feature film about the Armenian genocide.)
With The Burning Tigris, Balakian, a poet and the author of a highly
praised memoir about the genocide, Black Dog of Fate, resuscitated a
discourse that has been comatose for decades. While Armenian-American
lobbyists work year after year to convince governments and journalists
to acknowledge the genocide officially, Balakian launches into his
book with no discussion of Turkey's denial (which he saves for the
epilogue). Instead, he tells a remarkable story of how the Armenian
Cause became a pet project for the American cultural elite of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Armenian tragedy is thus
folded into a dramatic narrative of romance and political intrigue,
starring heroic Americans, not suffering Armenians.
The brilliance of Balakian's project--and its undoubted PR value
to the Armenian diaspora lobby--is that it portrays the genocide
concern as a quintessentially American issue rather than a special
interest that Americans should feel guilty for ignoring. Indeed,
following the success of The Burning Tigris, Balakian (along with
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power and Robert Melson, a
scholar and Holocaust survivor) helped convince the New York Times
to change its longstanding policy against using the word "genocide"
to describe the Armenian events. (The Burning Tigris details the
reports about the Armenian genocide that appeared on that paper's
front pages while the massacres were taking place.)
But the novelty of its narrative notwithstanding, The Burning
Tigris cannot escape becoming yet another artifact in what the young
scholar Lisa Siraganian has called "the fetish-culture of diasporan
Armenians." In this culture, many diaspora Armenians are reared to
hate Turkey with a fervor that seems completely at odds with their
daily lives as typical--even liberal--American citizens. Clothes
with "Made in Turkey" labels are put back on the rack, Turkish
restaurants are avoided and a vacation in Istanbul is shunned
by even the most adventurous travelers. At Armenian summer camps
and youth groups, third-generation Armenian-Americans who don't
speak Armenian and have never seen Armenia learn to perpetuate this
legacy. Many are descendants of genocide survivors, but often it is
the later-generation descendants who take up the cause most ardently,
suggesting that something besides a simple interest in justice
fuels their behavior. In the face of the distress of assimilation,
the glory of a shared victimhood is seductive indeed, especially when
it can be attained without having actually suffered.
Sociologist Anny Bakalian has called the quest for genocide recognition
a sine qua non for the Armenian community in America. A literal grasp
of her words calls to mind a scene from George Steiner's controversial
novel The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. In a provocative climax,
Steiner's Adolf Hitler character suggests that Jews should be grateful
to him for having catalyzed the fulfillment of the Zionist dream. A
similar tragic paradox underlies the Armenian situation: Without the
shared sense of purpose afforded by the pursuit of Turkish recognition,
would the Armenian diaspora simply assimilate and disappear? In other
words, is Turkey's denial the diaspora's lifeblood?
The enthusiasm surrounding the release of The Burning Tigris was a
reminder that the needs of the diaspora, which lives in the shadow
of the history that defined it, differ from--and sometimes clash
with--those of the 3 million citizens of Armenia, who live for their
own future. So what about that little piece of land in the Caucasus
where Amazon.com doesn't often deliver?
In Armenia itself, Turkish denial of the genocide barely registers as
a concern among the citizens of the tiny republic, who are lucky if
they get through each day with enough running water and electricity
to put dinner on the table. Armenians are not indifferent toward the
genocide, or to Turkey's denial of it, but the historical tragedy has
been supplanted in their imaginations by the demands of day-to-day
life. Since 1988, when a terrible earthquake killed 50,000 Armenians
and left one in ten citizens homeless, the country has endured
relentless suffering. The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in
food and power shortages during the harsh winters of the early 1990s,
and simultaneously the war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh
felled many, severely drained resources and sparked a refugee crisis.
At the train station in the capital city of Yerevan, the hardships
of daily life are on full display. The train platform, which used
to bustle with travelers, is now the site of a chaotic outdoor
market that has spread across most of the platform and surrounding
grounds. Vendors from the outskirts of Yerevan entreat passersby to
pick up a few peaches, a light bulb or some plastic shoes. It is the
clearance sale of all the city's bazaars, and not in a good way.
Inside the silent station hall, a dust-shielded board lists distant
cities that Armenians could have visited in the past; virtually
any place of interest in the Soviet sprawl was once accessible by
rail. But the only place the train now goes outside Armenia is to
neighboring Georgia, an equally rocky country that is larger than
Armenia, almost as ancient and at least as poor. Eighty-five percent
of Armenia's possible ground access to the outside world is closed
due to blockades imposed by Turkey on the west and Azerbaijan on the
east. The small gap in the precipitous mountain border that Armenia
shares with its friendliest neighbor, Iran, is best traversed in a
tiny Niva, Russia's answer to the Jeep.
But the trunk of a car can hold only so much for market, which is
why Armenia's economy is so effectively strangled by the Turkish and
Azeri blockades; they curtail cargo transport and the development
of import and export relationships in all directions. The World Bank
estimates that these blockades have an impact of up to $1.1 billion
a year on Armenia. If the blockades were lifted, according to the
bank, Armenia's GDP--currently at $3,770 per capita--could increase
by 10-18 percent, and Armenia's exports could double.
Azerbaijan closed its border with Armenia in 1991, when Armenian
and Azeri forces began fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory
geographically encompassed by Azerbaijan but historically populated
by Armenians. A bloody ground war ensued, and Armenia won control of
Nagorno-Karabakh as well as several surrounding districts. A cease-fire
in 1994 ended the fighting, but a real resolution has yet to be
reached. As Azerbaijan's next of kin, Turkey closed its border with
Armenia in 1993 to protest the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In Modern Armenia: People, Nation, State, Gerard Libaridian describes
how relations between Armenia and Turkey have shifted in the years
since 1991, when Armenia became an independent state. In a refreshingly
balanced analysis, Libaridian examines Armenia and Turkey as states
with clear needs and interests, and argues that pressure from the
Armenian diaspora has long complicated the efforts of the two neighbors
to establish ties. Libaridian, currently a visiting professor at the
University of Michigan, was a foreign policy adviser to the president
of Armenia from 1991 to 1997; his direct involvement in negotiations
gives him the credibility to present views that will be unappealing
to many diaspora Armenians.
After Armenia gained independence, the leading party, the Armenian
National Movement (ANM), under then-President Levon Ter-Petrossian,
decided that genocide recognition could not be a condition for
Armenia's relationship with Turkey. "Obviously this policy was not due
to a lack of knowledge of history within the ANM," Libaridian writes,
noting that Ter-Petrossian himself was a historian; his views did
not reflect "the absence of an appreciation of the significance of
the genocide" but a difference in "how to imagine the future."
Thus began what Libaridian calls "the battle for the soul of the new
republic." Ter-Petrossian was vilified by critics in the diaspora
for his refusal to give priority to genocide recognition, and for
banning the ARF party, a militant political group with strong diaspora
ties. (My own memories of the Ter-Petrossian years include stories of
Armenian-American children chanting "Death to LTP!" at ARF gatherings
in suburban New England--LTP being the preferred moniker of disrespect
for the president among diaspora malcontents.)
Libaridian offers an especially perceptive analysis of Turkish
diplomats during Ter-Petrossian's years in office. Challenging
the widely held anti-Turkish sentiments of his diaspora peers,
Libaridian reminds readers that the Turkish administration was made
up of people whose close colleagues had been assassinated by Armenian
terrorists--mostly diaspora Armenians, some descended from genocide
survivors--between 1975 and 1983. More than thirty Turkish diplomats
and bystanders were killed in bombings and assassinations. "It left a
deep impression on the Turkish state and defined its view of Armenians,
especially in the mind of the foreign policy establishment." Libaridian
notes this not as an apologist but as a strategist.
He also explains that until the Soviet Union came apart, Turkish
officials never thought of Armenia as a state. They thought only of
Armenians, a cultural group that, in their estimation, consisted
of a handful of crazed terrorists and an aggressive diaspora that
relentlessly condemned Turkey. "It took them a while to start thinking
of Armenia as an independent country," says Libaridian. "This was a
serious problem."
This leap of imagination was not Turkey's challenge alone; the
diaspora, too, had to get used to the idea of an Armenian state. Until
1991, the diaspora could be a cultural and political surrogate for
a republic restricted by Soviet policies. And while the diaspora
had no need of friendly relations with Turkey, Armenia, facing the
requirements of statehood, desperately needed the economic and security
benefits guaranteed by diplomatic ties with a neighbor. Armenia's
leaders as well as its regular citizens had the biggest challenge of
all: making the psychological transition from being Moscow's smallest
child to setting up a house of their own.
When Robert Kocharian became president in 1998, he immediately
sought to reel in an alienated diaspora. Kocharian has not insisted
on genocide recognition, but in a nod to diaspora demands, he has
put the issue on the negotiating table. He has also welcomed the ARF
back to Armenia, and established more formal relations with other
diaspora organizations.
Kocharian's approach is not surprising, considering that diaspora
Armenians currently provide about one-third of Armenia's GDP by
way of donations, investments and development programs of every
imaginable variety. Walk around Yerevan with locals, and they will
readily tell you which diaspora billionaire built that new road up
ahead, or the new museum that will tower over the city, or various
new schools, hospitals and homes that gleam against the capital's
crumbly backdrop. In summertime, repatriates and visitors from the
diaspora fill the streets and spend money on a healthy quantity of
crafts and jewelry, not to mention food, hotel rooms and services.
Analysts in Armenia and the diaspora are divided into two camps: those
who believe Armenia can build a sustainable economy based solely on
diaspora support, and those who believe an open border with Turkey is
critical to a functioning economy. But would the diaspora keep sending
money if Armenia didn't indulge its quest for genocide recognition? And
if it weren't for the diaspora's demands, might Turkey long ago have
opened its border and allowed for the kind of long-term economic
development that Armenia needs? Turkey's official stance now is that
the opening of the border is tied to resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict; but over the years diaspora activities have shaped the
diplomatic environment in which the negotiations have taken place.
In the battle for the soul of the republic, Kocharian's administration
is in an awkward bind, forced to seek diaspora funding and thus obliged
to tolerate the diaspora's unique psychological demands--which, though
they are born of good intentions, are not necessarily in Armenia's best
interests. Indeed, according to Libaridian, officials in Armenia would
rather not encourage a nation of victims. "What is this?" he asked in a
recent interview, adopting the perspective of an Armenian official. "We
respect, we mourn, but we don't want a bunch of citizens who live
for and identify themselves as victims in history. We have won a war."
What, then, does a disgruntled diplomat offer as an alternative? "The
best way to commemorate the victims of the genocide is to live,
survive and progress, to give an opportunity to the new generation in
Armenia to live better than their parents," Libaridian says. "Then,
if they have the means to do something more than we could do to gain
recognition, let them do it. But give them that opportunity." Armenia's
supporters in America should keep sending money--but in the political
arena, they should step aside and allow Armenia's officials to develop
economic relationships that will insure the country's stability,
so that the era of tragedy that began with the genocide does not
continue indefinitely, sustained by the age-old hatred that makes
less and less sense as time goes on. The truth will no longer set
anybody free. Armenia has suffered enough.
by MELINE TOUMANI
The Nation. [from the September 20, 2004 issue]
Perhaps you noticed them in the main square of your town this year--or
last year, or any year you've been alive, in any town where you've
ever lived: a group of people solemnly assembled, a priest in a
peaked hood, probably a children's choir and definitely two or three
elected officials. It is April 24, and the crowd has gathered to
commemorate the genocide that began on that date in 1915, in which
1.5 million Armenians living in Eastern Turkey were killed by order
of the Ottoman government. A master of ceremonies reports the latest
tally of how many countries have passed resolutions commemorating
the Armenian genocide, and how many newspapers have used the word
"genocide" instead of the less politically charged "mass killings"
to characterize the tragedy. A few centenarians--the last of the
genocide survivors--hobble onto a platform while the crowd observes a
moment of silence. The priest prays, the choir sings and a Congressman
scans his notes and assures the Armenians that their contributions
to American society are indispensable.
After eighty-nine years, April 24 rituals in Armenian communities
around the world have become as reliable as time itself. Their
endurance is a response to the Turkish government's persistent
refusal to acknowledge the crimes of its predecessors. Although most
historians outside Turkey consider the Armenian genocide to have
been the first genocide of the twentieth century--an atrocity whose
rigorous planning and execution inspired Hitler--official Turkish
history alleges that any killings that took place were merely side
effects of World War I, that Turks were also killed by Armenians,
and that Armenians colluded with Russian forces, posing a security
threat. To propagate this version of the story, Turkey has hidden
documents, blackmailed universities (including elite US schools) and
filled library shelves worldwide with fraudulent histories. Only a
few prominent historians question whether Turkey's actions constituted
genocide, most notoriously Princeton's Bernard Lewis, who was condemned
by a Paris court in 1995 for "hiding elements which go against his
thesis--that there was no 'serious proof' of the Armenian Genocide."
Those Armenians whose grandparents were forced from their homes and
marched to death camps in the Syrian desert are, understandably,
not interested in having a debate on the kaleidoscopic possibilities
of historical interpretation. They want high-level condemnation
of the atrocities their loved ones suffered. Some, ultimately,
want reparations. But Turkey has thus far managed to prevent any US
administration from passing an official resolution calling the events
of 1915 genocide by threatening to cut access to strategic border
zones. Meanwhile, Canada, France and other countries have ignored
such threats and recognized the Armenian genocide.
For Armenians in the diaspora--a diaspora largely created by the
genocide--the quest for Turkish government recognition has become
a raison d'être and a powerful unifying issue for a community
that otherwise contains many subdivisions that vary by degree of
assimilation and allegiance to different host countries.
The collective energy of the Armenian diaspora is what made Peter
Balakian's book The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and
America's Response, an unlikely bestseller for a few weeks last
fall. The Burning Tigris describes how Americans in the first half
of the twentieth century were deeply engaged in efforts to help
"the starving Armenians" in the wake of their catastrophe. But
the distinctive merits of Balakian's book had little to do with its
commercial success. The reason was that Armenian-Americans spent much
of last year running an intensive e-mail campaign to garner pre-orders
for the book on Amazon.com. A sufficiently high number of pre-orders
would push the book into multiple printings early on and guarantee a
high ranking. The campaign worked, as Armenians worldwide placed orders
for one, two, three or twenty copies. Favorable reviews abounded. (A
similar publicity crusade boosted Atom Egoyan's 2002 film, Ararat,
the first-ever feature film about the Armenian genocide.)
With The Burning Tigris, Balakian, a poet and the author of a highly
praised memoir about the genocide, Black Dog of Fate, resuscitated a
discourse that has been comatose for decades. While Armenian-American
lobbyists work year after year to convince governments and journalists
to acknowledge the genocide officially, Balakian launches into his
book with no discussion of Turkey's denial (which he saves for the
epilogue). Instead, he tells a remarkable story of how the Armenian
Cause became a pet project for the American cultural elite of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Armenian tragedy is thus
folded into a dramatic narrative of romance and political intrigue,
starring heroic Americans, not suffering Armenians.
The brilliance of Balakian's project--and its undoubted PR value
to the Armenian diaspora lobby--is that it portrays the genocide
concern as a quintessentially American issue rather than a special
interest that Americans should feel guilty for ignoring. Indeed,
following the success of The Burning Tigris, Balakian (along with
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power and Robert Melson, a
scholar and Holocaust survivor) helped convince the New York Times
to change its longstanding policy against using the word "genocide"
to describe the Armenian events. (The Burning Tigris details the
reports about the Armenian genocide that appeared on that paper's
front pages while the massacres were taking place.)
But the novelty of its narrative notwithstanding, The Burning
Tigris cannot escape becoming yet another artifact in what the young
scholar Lisa Siraganian has called "the fetish-culture of diasporan
Armenians." In this culture, many diaspora Armenians are reared to
hate Turkey with a fervor that seems completely at odds with their
daily lives as typical--even liberal--American citizens. Clothes
with "Made in Turkey" labels are put back on the rack, Turkish
restaurants are avoided and a vacation in Istanbul is shunned
by even the most adventurous travelers. At Armenian summer camps
and youth groups, third-generation Armenian-Americans who don't
speak Armenian and have never seen Armenia learn to perpetuate this
legacy. Many are descendants of genocide survivors, but often it is
the later-generation descendants who take up the cause most ardently,
suggesting that something besides a simple interest in justice
fuels their behavior. In the face of the distress of assimilation,
the glory of a shared victimhood is seductive indeed, especially when
it can be attained without having actually suffered.
Sociologist Anny Bakalian has called the quest for genocide recognition
a sine qua non for the Armenian community in America. A literal grasp
of her words calls to mind a scene from George Steiner's controversial
novel The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. In a provocative climax,
Steiner's Adolf Hitler character suggests that Jews should be grateful
to him for having catalyzed the fulfillment of the Zionist dream. A
similar tragic paradox underlies the Armenian situation: Without the
shared sense of purpose afforded by the pursuit of Turkish recognition,
would the Armenian diaspora simply assimilate and disappear? In other
words, is Turkey's denial the diaspora's lifeblood?
The enthusiasm surrounding the release of The Burning Tigris was a
reminder that the needs of the diaspora, which lives in the shadow
of the history that defined it, differ from--and sometimes clash
with--those of the 3 million citizens of Armenia, who live for their
own future. So what about that little piece of land in the Caucasus
where Amazon.com doesn't often deliver?
In Armenia itself, Turkish denial of the genocide barely registers as
a concern among the citizens of the tiny republic, who are lucky if
they get through each day with enough running water and electricity
to put dinner on the table. Armenians are not indifferent toward the
genocide, or to Turkey's denial of it, but the historical tragedy has
been supplanted in their imaginations by the demands of day-to-day
life. Since 1988, when a terrible earthquake killed 50,000 Armenians
and left one in ten citizens homeless, the country has endured
relentless suffering. The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in
food and power shortages during the harsh winters of the early 1990s,
and simultaneously the war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh
felled many, severely drained resources and sparked a refugee crisis.
At the train station in the capital city of Yerevan, the hardships
of daily life are on full display. The train platform, which used
to bustle with travelers, is now the site of a chaotic outdoor
market that has spread across most of the platform and surrounding
grounds. Vendors from the outskirts of Yerevan entreat passersby to
pick up a few peaches, a light bulb or some plastic shoes. It is the
clearance sale of all the city's bazaars, and not in a good way.
Inside the silent station hall, a dust-shielded board lists distant
cities that Armenians could have visited in the past; virtually
any place of interest in the Soviet sprawl was once accessible by
rail. But the only place the train now goes outside Armenia is to
neighboring Georgia, an equally rocky country that is larger than
Armenia, almost as ancient and at least as poor. Eighty-five percent
of Armenia's possible ground access to the outside world is closed
due to blockades imposed by Turkey on the west and Azerbaijan on the
east. The small gap in the precipitous mountain border that Armenia
shares with its friendliest neighbor, Iran, is best traversed in a
tiny Niva, Russia's answer to the Jeep.
But the trunk of a car can hold only so much for market, which is
why Armenia's economy is so effectively strangled by the Turkish and
Azeri blockades; they curtail cargo transport and the development
of import and export relationships in all directions. The World Bank
estimates that these blockades have an impact of up to $1.1 billion
a year on Armenia. If the blockades were lifted, according to the
bank, Armenia's GDP--currently at $3,770 per capita--could increase
by 10-18 percent, and Armenia's exports could double.
Azerbaijan closed its border with Armenia in 1991, when Armenian
and Azeri forces began fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory
geographically encompassed by Azerbaijan but historically populated
by Armenians. A bloody ground war ensued, and Armenia won control of
Nagorno-Karabakh as well as several surrounding districts. A cease-fire
in 1994 ended the fighting, but a real resolution has yet to be
reached. As Azerbaijan's next of kin, Turkey closed its border with
Armenia in 1993 to protest the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In Modern Armenia: People, Nation, State, Gerard Libaridian describes
how relations between Armenia and Turkey have shifted in the years
since 1991, when Armenia became an independent state. In a refreshingly
balanced analysis, Libaridian examines Armenia and Turkey as states
with clear needs and interests, and argues that pressure from the
Armenian diaspora has long complicated the efforts of the two neighbors
to establish ties. Libaridian, currently a visiting professor at the
University of Michigan, was a foreign policy adviser to the president
of Armenia from 1991 to 1997; his direct involvement in negotiations
gives him the credibility to present views that will be unappealing
to many diaspora Armenians.
After Armenia gained independence, the leading party, the Armenian
National Movement (ANM), under then-President Levon Ter-Petrossian,
decided that genocide recognition could not be a condition for
Armenia's relationship with Turkey. "Obviously this policy was not due
to a lack of knowledge of history within the ANM," Libaridian writes,
noting that Ter-Petrossian himself was a historian; his views did
not reflect "the absence of an appreciation of the significance of
the genocide" but a difference in "how to imagine the future."
Thus began what Libaridian calls "the battle for the soul of the new
republic." Ter-Petrossian was vilified by critics in the diaspora
for his refusal to give priority to genocide recognition, and for
banning the ARF party, a militant political group with strong diaspora
ties. (My own memories of the Ter-Petrossian years include stories of
Armenian-American children chanting "Death to LTP!" at ARF gatherings
in suburban New England--LTP being the preferred moniker of disrespect
for the president among diaspora malcontents.)
Libaridian offers an especially perceptive analysis of Turkish
diplomats during Ter-Petrossian's years in office. Challenging
the widely held anti-Turkish sentiments of his diaspora peers,
Libaridian reminds readers that the Turkish administration was made
up of people whose close colleagues had been assassinated by Armenian
terrorists--mostly diaspora Armenians, some descended from genocide
survivors--between 1975 and 1983. More than thirty Turkish diplomats
and bystanders were killed in bombings and assassinations. "It left a
deep impression on the Turkish state and defined its view of Armenians,
especially in the mind of the foreign policy establishment." Libaridian
notes this not as an apologist but as a strategist.
He also explains that until the Soviet Union came apart, Turkish
officials never thought of Armenia as a state. They thought only of
Armenians, a cultural group that, in their estimation, consisted
of a handful of crazed terrorists and an aggressive diaspora that
relentlessly condemned Turkey. "It took them a while to start thinking
of Armenia as an independent country," says Libaridian. "This was a
serious problem."
This leap of imagination was not Turkey's challenge alone; the
diaspora, too, had to get used to the idea of an Armenian state. Until
1991, the diaspora could be a cultural and political surrogate for
a republic restricted by Soviet policies. And while the diaspora
had no need of friendly relations with Turkey, Armenia, facing the
requirements of statehood, desperately needed the economic and security
benefits guaranteed by diplomatic ties with a neighbor. Armenia's
leaders as well as its regular citizens had the biggest challenge of
all: making the psychological transition from being Moscow's smallest
child to setting up a house of their own.
When Robert Kocharian became president in 1998, he immediately
sought to reel in an alienated diaspora. Kocharian has not insisted
on genocide recognition, but in a nod to diaspora demands, he has
put the issue on the negotiating table. He has also welcomed the ARF
back to Armenia, and established more formal relations with other
diaspora organizations.
Kocharian's approach is not surprising, considering that diaspora
Armenians currently provide about one-third of Armenia's GDP by
way of donations, investments and development programs of every
imaginable variety. Walk around Yerevan with locals, and they will
readily tell you which diaspora billionaire built that new road up
ahead, or the new museum that will tower over the city, or various
new schools, hospitals and homes that gleam against the capital's
crumbly backdrop. In summertime, repatriates and visitors from the
diaspora fill the streets and spend money on a healthy quantity of
crafts and jewelry, not to mention food, hotel rooms and services.
Analysts in Armenia and the diaspora are divided into two camps: those
who believe Armenia can build a sustainable economy based solely on
diaspora support, and those who believe an open border with Turkey is
critical to a functioning economy. But would the diaspora keep sending
money if Armenia didn't indulge its quest for genocide recognition? And
if it weren't for the diaspora's demands, might Turkey long ago have
opened its border and allowed for the kind of long-term economic
development that Armenia needs? Turkey's official stance now is that
the opening of the border is tied to resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict; but over the years diaspora activities have shaped the
diplomatic environment in which the negotiations have taken place.
In the battle for the soul of the republic, Kocharian's administration
is in an awkward bind, forced to seek diaspora funding and thus obliged
to tolerate the diaspora's unique psychological demands--which, though
they are born of good intentions, are not necessarily in Armenia's best
interests. Indeed, according to Libaridian, officials in Armenia would
rather not encourage a nation of victims. "What is this?" he asked in a
recent interview, adopting the perspective of an Armenian official. "We
respect, we mourn, but we don't want a bunch of citizens who live
for and identify themselves as victims in history. We have won a war."
What, then, does a disgruntled diplomat offer as an alternative? "The
best way to commemorate the victims of the genocide is to live,
survive and progress, to give an opportunity to the new generation in
Armenia to live better than their parents," Libaridian says. "Then,
if they have the means to do something more than we could do to gain
recognition, let them do it. But give them that opportunity." Armenia's
supporters in America should keep sending money--but in the political
arena, they should step aside and allow Armenia's officials to develop
economic relationships that will insure the country's stability,
so that the era of tragedy that began with the genocide does not
continue indefinitely, sustained by the age-old hatred that makes
less and less sense as time goes on. The truth will no longer set
anybody free. Armenia has suffered enough.