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THE ARMENIAN MASSACRE AND THE POLITICS OF GENOCIDE
15:26 â~@¢ 18.12.14
One hundred years ago this April, the Ottoman Empire began a brutal
campaign of deporting and destroying its ethnic Armenian community,
whom it accused of supporting Russia, a World War I enemy. More than
a million Armenians died. As it commemorates the tragedy, the U.S.
government, for its part, still finds itself wriggling on the nail on
which it has hung for three decades: Should it use the term "genocide"
to describe the Ottoman Empire's actions toward the Armenians, or
should it heed the warnings of its ally, Turkey, which vehemently
opposes using the term and has threatened to recall its ambassador or
even deny U.S. access to its military bases if the word is applied
in this way? The first course of action would fulfill the wishes of
the one-million-strong Armenian American community, as well as many
historians, who argue that Washington has a moral imperative to use
the term. The second would satisfy the strategists and officials who
contend that the history is complicated and advise against antagonizing
Turkey, a loyal strategic partner.
No other historical issue causes such anguish in Washington. One
former State Department official told me that in 1992, a group of top
US policymakers sat in the office of Brent Scowcroft, then national
security adviser to President George H. W. Bush, and calculated
that resolutions related to the topic were consuming more hours of
their time with Congress than any other matter. Over the years, the
debate has come to center on a single word, "genocide," a term that
has acquired such power that some refuse to utter it aloud, calling
it "the G-word" instead. For most Armenians, it seems that no other
label could possibly describe the suffering of their people. For the
Turkish government, almost any other word would be acceptable.
US President Barack Obama has attempted to break this deadlock
in statements he has made on April 24, the day when Armenians
traditionally commemorate the tragedy, by evoking the Armenian-language
phrase Meds Yeghern, or "Great Catastrophe." In 2010, for example,
he declared, "1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to
their death in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. . .
. The Meds Yeghern is a devastating chapter in the history of the
Armenian people, and we must keep its memory alive in honor of those
who were murdered and so that we do not repeat the grave mistakes of
the past."
Armenian descendants seeking recognition of their grandparents'
suffering could find everything they wanted to see there, except one
thing: the word "genocide." That omission led a prominent lobbying
group, the Armenian National Committee of America, to denounce
the president's dignified statement as "yet another disgraceful
capitulation to Turkey's threats," full of "euphemisms and evasive
terminology."
The Armenian genocide lacks the devastating simplicity of the
Holocaust.
In a sense, Obama had only himself to blame for this over-the-top
rebuke. After all, during his presidential campaign, he had, like
most candidates before him, promised Armenian American voters that
he would use the word "genocide" if elected, but once in office,
he had honored the relationship with Turkey and broken his vow. His
2010 address did go further than those of his predecessors and openly
hinted that he had the G-word in mind when he stated, "My view of
that history has not changed." But if he edged closer to the line,
he stopped short of crossing it.
http://www.tert.am/en/news/2014/12/18/gen/1539698
15:26 â~@¢ 18.12.14
One hundred years ago this April, the Ottoman Empire began a brutal
campaign of deporting and destroying its ethnic Armenian community,
whom it accused of supporting Russia, a World War I enemy. More than
a million Armenians died. As it commemorates the tragedy, the U.S.
government, for its part, still finds itself wriggling on the nail on
which it has hung for three decades: Should it use the term "genocide"
to describe the Ottoman Empire's actions toward the Armenians, or
should it heed the warnings of its ally, Turkey, which vehemently
opposes using the term and has threatened to recall its ambassador or
even deny U.S. access to its military bases if the word is applied
in this way? The first course of action would fulfill the wishes of
the one-million-strong Armenian American community, as well as many
historians, who argue that Washington has a moral imperative to use
the term. The second would satisfy the strategists and officials who
contend that the history is complicated and advise against antagonizing
Turkey, a loyal strategic partner.
No other historical issue causes such anguish in Washington. One
former State Department official told me that in 1992, a group of top
US policymakers sat in the office of Brent Scowcroft, then national
security adviser to President George H. W. Bush, and calculated
that resolutions related to the topic were consuming more hours of
their time with Congress than any other matter. Over the years, the
debate has come to center on a single word, "genocide," a term that
has acquired such power that some refuse to utter it aloud, calling
it "the G-word" instead. For most Armenians, it seems that no other
label could possibly describe the suffering of their people. For the
Turkish government, almost any other word would be acceptable.
US President Barack Obama has attempted to break this deadlock
in statements he has made on April 24, the day when Armenians
traditionally commemorate the tragedy, by evoking the Armenian-language
phrase Meds Yeghern, or "Great Catastrophe." In 2010, for example,
he declared, "1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to
their death in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. . .
. The Meds Yeghern is a devastating chapter in the history of the
Armenian people, and we must keep its memory alive in honor of those
who were murdered and so that we do not repeat the grave mistakes of
the past."
Armenian descendants seeking recognition of their grandparents'
suffering could find everything they wanted to see there, except one
thing: the word "genocide." That omission led a prominent lobbying
group, the Armenian National Committee of America, to denounce
the president's dignified statement as "yet another disgraceful
capitulation to Turkey's threats," full of "euphemisms and evasive
terminology."
The Armenian genocide lacks the devastating simplicity of the
Holocaust.
In a sense, Obama had only himself to blame for this over-the-top
rebuke. After all, during his presidential campaign, he had, like
most candidates before him, promised Armenian American voters that
he would use the word "genocide" if elected, but once in office,
he had honored the relationship with Turkey and broken his vow. His
2010 address did go further than those of his predecessors and openly
hinted that he had the G-word in mind when he stated, "My view of
that history has not changed." But if he edged closer to the line,
he stopped short of crossing it.
http://www.tert.am/en/news/2014/12/18/gen/1539698