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THE CENTENNIAL OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Rudaw, Kurdistan Iraq
APril 17 2015
By DAVID ROMANO yesterday at 07:07
The approaching centennial of the Armenian genocide has led to
a flurry of activity commemorating the event. The key date of a
process that took place over several years is April 24, 1915, when
Ottoman authorities arrested some 200 Armenian community leaders in
Istanbul and deported them to central Anatolia - where most were then
executed. The event marked a transformation of the previous decades'
distrust, discrimination, repression and occasional murders and
massacres of members of the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire.
In times of instability and war, minorities suspected of sympathizing
with the enemy - as many Armenians did - often suffer such depravities.
The arrests of April 24, however, seemed to indicate a new, more
organized and methodical government plan to eliminate the Armenians
entirely. Armenian leaders in Istanbul were not armed or engaged in
insurrection against the Ottomans, yet they were deported and killed.
At the same time, an Armenian uprising on the other side of the empire
in Van - described by Armenians as a defensive reaction to abuses
and depredations of Ottoman officials there - led to the government's
siege of the city and the targeting of the whole Christian population
of Eastern Anatolia. Hundreds of thousands of Armenian men, women and
children were rounded up and forcibly marched - without provisions and
subject to continuous attacks by mostly Kurdish tribes - hundreds of
miles towards Deir el-Zor, a dusty town in eastern Syria hardly able
to feed its own population at the time. Only some 15,000 survived
the march and the continued starvation in Deir el-Zor.
The final death toll is the subject of dispute between Turkish sources,
who estimate around 500,000 Armenian dead (roughly equivalent to the
number of Muslim Ottoman citizens killed during the World War One
in Eastern Anatolia) and Armenian sources, who hold to a figure of
one and half million Armenian victims. Western scholarly sources I
examined mostly cite a figure of at least one million Armenian dead
from the events of 1915 and 1916. Of a pre-1915 population of roughly
two million Ottoman Armenians, less than 400,000 remained in 1917 -
mostly in Istanbul and the European side of the empire. That number
would be further whittled down in subsequent years.
Today, Turkey completely rejects the term "genocide" to describe
what occurred. Ankara's view has always been that the Armenians,
along with a large number of Muslims, died during the fighting in
the region that was part of World War One. They insist that there
was no calculated plan on the part of the Ottoman government to
eliminate the Armenian community of Anatolia. When Pope Francis this
week used the term "genocide" in his commemoration, Prime Minister
Davutoglu reacted by claiming the Pope had joined an "evil front"
against Turkey aiming to unseat his government.
Your humble columnist is not a historian, of course, and is in no
position to definitively settle contrasting accounts of history. This
column represents no more than my considered opinion. Having been
to eastern Turkey more than a few times, however, I can never help
wondering: "If this was not a genocide, then where are all the
Christians who were once a plurality in provinces like Van?" We call
what the United States and Canada did to the native inhabitants
of their lands a genocide, yet it remains a good deal easier to
find Iroquois, Cherokee, Navaho, and other aboriginal peoples in
most parts of North America today than it is to find an Armenian,
an Assyrian or a Nestorian in Anatolia.
The Ottoman Empire of the 15th and 16th centuries was at its height
and could afford to be magnanimous and tolerant of various groups,
even taking in Jews fleeing the Inquisition in Spain. The crumbling
empire of the early 20th century, on the other hand, was weak and
desperate, seeing enemies anywhere and everywhere - including hundreds
of thousands of passive Christian civilians who had lived in their
villages for centuries, and who wanted nothing more than to live their
lives and avoid the dangerous politics a few of their countrymen had
gravitated towards.
Genocide scholar Helen Fein identifies four principle motivations
for the act of genocide, all of which were present to some degree
in a declining Ottoman Empire, whose elites were newly acquainting
themselves with European ideas about nationalism and cultural
homogeneity. The four motivations are: Eliminating a real or potential
threat, spreading terror among real or potential enemies, acquiring
economic wealth, and implementing a belief or ideology.
Unfortunately, similar reasoning still seems all too common today, as
Yezidis reflect on the past year, as Iraqi and Syrian Christians seek
shelter from the Islamic State, and a month after Kurds commemorate
Halabja and the Anfal genocide.
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He is the Thomas
G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State
University and author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (2006,
Cambridge University Press) and co-editor (with Mehmet Gurses) of
Conflict, Democratization and the Kurds in the Middle East (2014,
Palgrave Macmillan).
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do
not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
http://rudaw.net/english/opinion/160420151
Rudaw, Kurdistan Iraq
APril 17 2015
By DAVID ROMANO yesterday at 07:07
The approaching centennial of the Armenian genocide has led to
a flurry of activity commemorating the event. The key date of a
process that took place over several years is April 24, 1915, when
Ottoman authorities arrested some 200 Armenian community leaders in
Istanbul and deported them to central Anatolia - where most were then
executed. The event marked a transformation of the previous decades'
distrust, discrimination, repression and occasional murders and
massacres of members of the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire.
In times of instability and war, minorities suspected of sympathizing
with the enemy - as many Armenians did - often suffer such depravities.
The arrests of April 24, however, seemed to indicate a new, more
organized and methodical government plan to eliminate the Armenians
entirely. Armenian leaders in Istanbul were not armed or engaged in
insurrection against the Ottomans, yet they were deported and killed.
At the same time, an Armenian uprising on the other side of the empire
in Van - described by Armenians as a defensive reaction to abuses
and depredations of Ottoman officials there - led to the government's
siege of the city and the targeting of the whole Christian population
of Eastern Anatolia. Hundreds of thousands of Armenian men, women and
children were rounded up and forcibly marched - without provisions and
subject to continuous attacks by mostly Kurdish tribes - hundreds of
miles towards Deir el-Zor, a dusty town in eastern Syria hardly able
to feed its own population at the time. Only some 15,000 survived
the march and the continued starvation in Deir el-Zor.
The final death toll is the subject of dispute between Turkish sources,
who estimate around 500,000 Armenian dead (roughly equivalent to the
number of Muslim Ottoman citizens killed during the World War One
in Eastern Anatolia) and Armenian sources, who hold to a figure of
one and half million Armenian victims. Western scholarly sources I
examined mostly cite a figure of at least one million Armenian dead
from the events of 1915 and 1916. Of a pre-1915 population of roughly
two million Ottoman Armenians, less than 400,000 remained in 1917 -
mostly in Istanbul and the European side of the empire. That number
would be further whittled down in subsequent years.
Today, Turkey completely rejects the term "genocide" to describe
what occurred. Ankara's view has always been that the Armenians,
along with a large number of Muslims, died during the fighting in
the region that was part of World War One. They insist that there
was no calculated plan on the part of the Ottoman government to
eliminate the Armenian community of Anatolia. When Pope Francis this
week used the term "genocide" in his commemoration, Prime Minister
Davutoglu reacted by claiming the Pope had joined an "evil front"
against Turkey aiming to unseat his government.
Your humble columnist is not a historian, of course, and is in no
position to definitively settle contrasting accounts of history. This
column represents no more than my considered opinion. Having been
to eastern Turkey more than a few times, however, I can never help
wondering: "If this was not a genocide, then where are all the
Christians who were once a plurality in provinces like Van?" We call
what the United States and Canada did to the native inhabitants
of their lands a genocide, yet it remains a good deal easier to
find Iroquois, Cherokee, Navaho, and other aboriginal peoples in
most parts of North America today than it is to find an Armenian,
an Assyrian or a Nestorian in Anatolia.
The Ottoman Empire of the 15th and 16th centuries was at its height
and could afford to be magnanimous and tolerant of various groups,
even taking in Jews fleeing the Inquisition in Spain. The crumbling
empire of the early 20th century, on the other hand, was weak and
desperate, seeing enemies anywhere and everywhere - including hundreds
of thousands of passive Christian civilians who had lived in their
villages for centuries, and who wanted nothing more than to live their
lives and avoid the dangerous politics a few of their countrymen had
gravitated towards.
Genocide scholar Helen Fein identifies four principle motivations
for the act of genocide, all of which were present to some degree
in a declining Ottoman Empire, whose elites were newly acquainting
themselves with European ideas about nationalism and cultural
homogeneity. The four motivations are: Eliminating a real or potential
threat, spreading terror among real or potential enemies, acquiring
economic wealth, and implementing a belief or ideology.
Unfortunately, similar reasoning still seems all too common today, as
Yezidis reflect on the past year, as Iraqi and Syrian Christians seek
shelter from the Islamic State, and a month after Kurds commemorate
Halabja and the Anfal genocide.
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He is the Thomas
G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State
University and author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (2006,
Cambridge University Press) and co-editor (with Mehmet Gurses) of
Conflict, Democratization and the Kurds in the Middle East (2014,
Palgrave Macmillan).
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do
not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
http://rudaw.net/english/opinion/160420151