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Newropeans Magazine, France
April 26 2005
Turkey, Armenia, and the Sweet Hereafter: Will There Ever Be a
Post-Genocide Era?
Written by Raffi K. Hovannisian
Tuesday, 26 April 2005
The Armenian Genocide and its final act turn ninety last week. The
lack of recognition, redemption, and closure of this defining
watershed for Armenians and Turks alike has been driven by power
politics and the hedging of history, aggressive revisionism and a
strategic incapacity of the perpetrators, the victims, and their
generations to call it like it is and move beyond.
The lessons, risks, and dangers flowing from the Genocide and its
contemporary continuation are all the more poignant because the
Armenian case was not only the physical murder of most individuals
making up the nation, but also the violent interruption and forcible
expropriation of its millennial homeland and way of life. This
pivotal distinction constitutes a primary source, different from the
Holocaust, for the denialist demeanor of the Ottoman Empire's
successor regime, the quest for justice and personal integrity of the
battered and scattered Armenian survivors, and the vicissitudes of
international diplomacy.
The legal, ethical, educational, material, and territorial components
of this landmark catastrophe have proved too complex a challenge for
any party or power to meet. It is the truly unique underpinning of
the Armenian experience that accounts in large measure for why a
historical, world-documented nation-killing remains in suspense to
this day and continues to serve as an instrument for polemics,
politics, and a variety of "national interests."
Absence of a meeting of modern Turkish and Armenian hearts and minds
means a history that is off limits but ever present, a frontier that
is undelimited but closed, and a relationship (or lack thereof) that
is hostage to the heritage of homeland genocide. It is this very
relationship, between Turkey and Armenia and their constituencies,
that is the key to creating a brave new region where the interests of
all players converge to form a single page of security and
development. And it is this relationship, if honestly and
efficiently forged, that would become the foundation for the
strengthening of respective sovereignties, for cooperation in matters
of education, culture and historical preservation, for an enduring
peace in Karabagh, Nakhichevan and the broader neighborhood, for open
roads, skies and seas, and for the guaranteed choice of a rightful
return of all refugees and their progeny to their places of origin.
As it stands, however, an unrequited past still doubles as an
unsettled present, leaving unchecked and unpredictable the many
future impediments to peace, stability, and reconciliation. How long
can this commingling of tenses go on? How can all concerned frame a
process for a resolution of substance? Can the heirs to Turkish
perpetration translate self-interest into seeking atonement, and can
the descendants of the great Armenian dispossession agree to move on?
Will we, or our children, ever see the light, let alone reflect back
from the heights, of the post-Genocide world?
Turkey's and Armenia's initially separate paths to European
integration might provide them one, perhaps penultimate opportunity,
against their own odds, to assume history, draw the line, and embrace
a promising epoch as sound, if unlikely partners in regional and
global affairs.
New benchmarks and new leaders and a new discourse are in order.
Raffi K. Hovannisian, formerly Armenia's minister of foreign affairs,
is founding director of the Armenian Center for National and
International Studies in Yerevan.
April 26 2005
Turkey, Armenia, and the Sweet Hereafter: Will There Ever Be a
Post-Genocide Era?
Written by Raffi K. Hovannisian
Tuesday, 26 April 2005
The Armenian Genocide and its final act turn ninety last week. The
lack of recognition, redemption, and closure of this defining
watershed for Armenians and Turks alike has been driven by power
politics and the hedging of history, aggressive revisionism and a
strategic incapacity of the perpetrators, the victims, and their
generations to call it like it is and move beyond.
The lessons, risks, and dangers flowing from the Genocide and its
contemporary continuation are all the more poignant because the
Armenian case was not only the physical murder of most individuals
making up the nation, but also the violent interruption and forcible
expropriation of its millennial homeland and way of life. This
pivotal distinction constitutes a primary source, different from the
Holocaust, for the denialist demeanor of the Ottoman Empire's
successor regime, the quest for justice and personal integrity of the
battered and scattered Armenian survivors, and the vicissitudes of
international diplomacy.
The legal, ethical, educational, material, and territorial components
of this landmark catastrophe have proved too complex a challenge for
any party or power to meet. It is the truly unique underpinning of
the Armenian experience that accounts in large measure for why a
historical, world-documented nation-killing remains in suspense to
this day and continues to serve as an instrument for polemics,
politics, and a variety of "national interests."
Absence of a meeting of modern Turkish and Armenian hearts and minds
means a history that is off limits but ever present, a frontier that
is undelimited but closed, and a relationship (or lack thereof) that
is hostage to the heritage of homeland genocide. It is this very
relationship, between Turkey and Armenia and their constituencies,
that is the key to creating a brave new region where the interests of
all players converge to form a single page of security and
development. And it is this relationship, if honestly and
efficiently forged, that would become the foundation for the
strengthening of respective sovereignties, for cooperation in matters
of education, culture and historical preservation, for an enduring
peace in Karabagh, Nakhichevan and the broader neighborhood, for open
roads, skies and seas, and for the guaranteed choice of a rightful
return of all refugees and their progeny to their places of origin.
As it stands, however, an unrequited past still doubles as an
unsettled present, leaving unchecked and unpredictable the many
future impediments to peace, stability, and reconciliation. How long
can this commingling of tenses go on? How can all concerned frame a
process for a resolution of substance? Can the heirs to Turkish
perpetration translate self-interest into seeking atonement, and can
the descendants of the great Armenian dispossession agree to move on?
Will we, or our children, ever see the light, let alone reflect back
from the heights, of the post-Genocide world?
Turkey's and Armenia's initially separate paths to European
integration might provide them one, perhaps penultimate opportunity,
against their own odds, to assume history, draw the line, and embrace
a promising epoch as sound, if unlikely partners in regional and
global affairs.
New benchmarks and new leaders and a new discourse are in order.
Raffi K. Hovannisian, formerly Armenia's minister of foreign affairs,
is founding director of the Armenian Center for National and
International Studies in Yerevan.