You may ask yourself why the Armenian genocide currently matters, or more accurately, why Turkey is so resolute against it being recognized as such. One would think after almost a hundred years, an official apology for killing or displacing 2 million Armenians would be a welcome and long overdue occasion for Turkey to make peace with Armenia. But as we've seen, Turkey has threatened "diplomatic consequences" if Obama doesn't suppress a congressional resolution that would officially use the label "genocide" for the incident, even going so far as to withdraw their U.S. Ambassador because of it. In fact, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the issue was a matter of "honor" for his country and no less than Turkish President Abdullah Gul said the following:
"I declare such a decision that was taken with political concerns in mind to be an injustice to history and to the science of history. Turkey will not be responsible for the negative results that this event may lead to."
Before we examine this further, it would be helpful to define the term "genocide" so that we know what we're talking about. In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
Under these terms, the widespread massacres and deportations of Armenians in 1915- which included the use of 25 major concentration camps, forced marches, mass burnings, drownings, and gassings- were in every way a genocide by the Turks against the Armenians. So why is Turkey so against calling it as such, let alone apologizing? After all, Germany has made great steps to publicly acknowledge and profusely apologize for the Jewish Holocaust, even paying reparations, making holocaust denial and the display of symbols of Nazism a criminal offense and establishing a National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Berlin. But Turkey? They won't even allow the US to label the Armenian genocide as such or acknowledge it in any way. Here is why: land.
Take a look at a map of pre-genocide Armenia here, here and here. What you will notice is that a huge chunk of what is now Turkey was then considered Armenia. If the 1915 Turkish actions were indeed recognized as a genocide, current day Armenia could potentially petition for the return of its land. Note that this may even include the area known as Cilicia, a separate but ethnically connected entity bordering the Mediterranean Sea that dates back to the Kingdom of Cilician Armenia in the early part of the second Millenium. These historically grounded lands could rightfully be considered Armenian if they could establish that they were unlawfully taken from them via the genocide. The evidence is there and so is the history. Armenia itself was officially named way back in 512 BC when it was annexed to Persia, while Cilicia was established as a principality it 1078. After years of struggle under Turkish, Kurdish and Mongol rule, the Ottoman Empire ruled Armenia from 1453-1829, after which the Russian Empire ruled through the rest of the 19th century. After the Genocide and WWI, what's left of Armenia was annexed by Bolshevist Russia and became part of the Soviet Union from 1922-1991, after which Armenia declared its independence. But let's back up for a moment for a glimpse at what happened during WWI.
In 1913, three so-called Young Turks took over the Turkish government via a coup with a goal of uniting all of the Turkic peoples in the region and creating a new Turkish empire called Turan with one language and one religion. The wanted to expand their borders eastward but standing in their way was historic Armenia. Hence, the Armenian Genocide. In December of 1920, the Treaty of Alexandropol was signed between the Democratic Republic of Armenia and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, thereby ending the Turkish-Armenian War while forcing Armenia to cede over 50% of it's land to Turkey. In seven years, the Turkish government had ethnically cleansed and took over most of Armenia. Armenia was granted formal international recognition with the 1920 signing of the Treaty of Sevres and with the help of President Woodrow Wilson, arranged for the return of a portion of their historic homeland. However, Turkey soon elected Mustafa Kemal, an extreme nationalist who refused to honor the treaty and set about re-occupying those lands, leaving current day Armenia as a far smaller portion of its former self.
Interestingly (and not all unexpected) Turkey is predominantly Muslim and Armenia is predominantly Christian, dating back to AD 40 when the Armenian Church was purportedly founded by two of Jesus' disciples. Currently, over 93% of Armenian Christians belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church and they rightly claim that the Armenian Genocide was a religious and ethnic cleansing. It was also a purging of a culture that was in many ways more advanced and educated than their Turkish neighbors. Here's a passage from the Armenian Genocide page on historyplace.com that's illuminating:
There were also big cultural differences between Armenians and Turks. The Armenians had always been one of the best educated communities within the old Turkish empire. Armenians were the professionals in society, the businessmen, lawyers, doctors and skilled craftsmen. And they were more open to new scientific, political and social ideas from the West (Europe and America). Children of wealthy Armenians went to Paris, Geneva or even to America to complete their education.
By contrast, the majority of Turks were illiterate peasant farmers and small shop keepers. Leaders of the Ottoman Empire had traditionally placed little value on education and not a single institute of higher learning could be found within their old empire. The various autocratic and despotic rulers throughout the empire's history had valued loyalty and blind obedience above all. Their uneducated subjects had never heard of democracy or liberalism and thus had no inclination toward political reform. But this was not the case with the better educated Armenians who sought political and social reforms that would improve life for themselves and Turkey's other minorities.
The Young Turks decided to glorify the virtues of simple Turkish peasantry at the expense of the Armenians in order to capture peasant loyalty. They exploited the religious, cultural, economic and political differences between Turks and Armenians so that the average Turk came to regard Armenians as strangers among them.
Even before the Young Turks took over, there was a spike in Islamic fundamentalism and Christian Armenians were branded as infidels. In 1909, tens of thousands of Armenians from hundreds of villages in Cilicia were massacred, setting the stage for the genocide years later. Reading an account of these atrocities is not for the faint of heart and yet, we must not shield our eyes from the dark realities of history, lest we want to see them repeated. As much as we wish to see these barbaric behaviors relegated to the distant past, one need only look to places like Darfur, Bosnia and Rwanda to see modern day humans at their worst.
The histories of Armenia and Turkey are surely intertwined and yet, this genocide remains a black stain on both their psyches. Judging from Turkeys recalcitrance to discuss or acknowledge it, that stain may never go away. But that doesn't mean it will ever be forgotten, no matter how much Turkey wishes it would fade into history. Though they would like to take advantage of the worlds collective amnesia, the internet has made it impossible to forget and erase this so-called "injustice to history". Here is a telling quote from Adolph Hitler, speaking to his generals before invading Poland in 1939:
"Thus for the time being I have sent to the East only my 'Death's Head Units' with the orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language. Only in such a way will we win the vital space that we need. Who still talks nowadays about the Armenians?"
We all do, Mr. Hitler, and long after your genocidal dreams have faded, long after the last survivors of those inflicted generations have passed, they will not be forgotten. Armenian-American author William Saroyan put it best:
"I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose history is ended, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, whose literature is unread, whose music is unheard, whose prayers are no longer uttered. Go ahead, destroy this race. Let us say that it is again 1915. There is war in the world. Destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them from their homes into the desert. Let them have neither bread nor water. Burn their houses and their churches. See if they will not live again. See if they will not laugh again. See if the race will not live again when two of them meet in a beer parlor, twenty years after, and laugh, and speak in their tongue. Go ahead, see if you can do anything about it. See if you can stop them from mocking the big ideas of the world, you sons of bitches, a couple of Armenians talking in the world, go ahead and try to destroy them."
p.s. The word for "infidel" in the Turkish language has gone through a semantic change and became to mean "anybody of non-Muslim religion" over time. It is understood that it doesn't imply a person, who rejects god or a non-believer. It is more a classification than a demeaning expression per se. It may be different in the Arabic countries, I don't know.
I am deeply sorry for all the Armenians who died or were killed around the events of 1915. I'm also not an illogical, stubborn refuser. I expect to read unpoliticized, scholarly historical articles that discuss the events within their context and how it pertains to international law. I'll be happy to read them to resolve this issue in my mind. So far, I haven't seen much from either side.
When I say context, I specifically mean two things: 1) The concept of nations vs. empires and 2) how the use of force to acquire territory was regarded in the beginning of the century and before. The idea of having national states was at its infancy, especially in the political history of the Ottoman Empire. Even when in majority, in a portion of land, it wasn't immediately expected that an ethnicity had the right to form its nation state, let alone the Armenians, who weren't even the majority ethnicity in Eastern Turkey. I'd argue that it's not commonly agreed on even today. When the Ottomans had to strike to stop the Russian-aligned Armenian's attacks it was considered a war against a people, who wanted to have a piece of Ottoman land. I wish fewer Armenians and Turks had died in the mean time, I wish the Ottoman Empire had more competent leaders, but you need to do more homework before attempting to prove hatred against a people and the "intent to destroy" to qualify these acts as genocide.
I have heard about many wrongdoings against Armenians, but I am certain I have never anywhere read or heard of gassings, nor was I easily able to find any reference by googling the subject. Could you give a reference to this claim?
On a different note, further down in your article, you characterize Mustafa Kemal as an extreme-nationalist, which is laughable for anybody, who is remotely familiar with the Turkish history and this is where you lost any credibility to speak on this issue in my eyes. If for nothing else, after the Turkish Independece War, which followed the WW1, he orchestrated the reforms to establish a representative democracy in Turkey and founded a political party, which was certainly left of center. He set up a foreign policy around peace and policies for equal treatment of all ethnicities as Turkish citizens. There are memorials in his name around the world, including in New Zealand and Australia, countries that both sent soldiers to fight against the Ottoman Empire during WW1. You should read more about why that is. Moreover, the centennial of his birth year, 1981, was declared the Ataturk Year in the World by UN and UNESCO.
IMO, this ridiculous statement alone shows how uninformed you are about the regions history and how unqualified to write an article about it.
Then you write about the atmosphere before the events and quote how well educated Armenians were. This is true, but your interpretation to use this to play with the readers' emotions is funny. Here is my take: Mostly regarding Western Turkey, The Armenians were educated and well-off. They also were big bankers and played important roles in the Turkish government. As such, it is inexplicable, why all of a sudden there would be such a hatred in the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians to justify their intent to destroy them as a people. Which brings me to my next point:
You quote the international convention for the definition of genocide and immediately after say, thus it was clearly a genocide, without actually going into detail as to how the events satisfied the requirements in the definition. Then why copy and paste the definition from Wikipedia? Notice the "intent to destroy" clause? It is why many Serbs got away with "crimes against humanity" rather than genocide in Bosnia. So, if you're gonna cite the definition, I would expect you to discuss the technicalities around it as it pertains to the issue, otherwise it is like a middle school paper.
Now, I don't mind that my own piece on this subject, U.S. Foreign Policy Equivocates on Armenian Genocide, was rejected by every mainstream publication that I sent it to.
As a Turkish American, I completely understand why the chief Turkish diplomat to the US was recalled, and I would expect more recalls around the world. Since 1973, 110 acts of terror were carried out by Armenian terrorists in 38 cities of 21 countries. 42 Turkish diplomats were assassinated in these attacks, not to mention many more civilians wounded. First round of assassinations began at my home state, California.
In the Unites States and around the world, there's a lot of stereo typing of Turks, and this selective legislation is one of indifference and lack of knowledge and understanding of many Europeans and Americans of Turks and Turkish history. Labeling any country as a pariah state is hardly helpful to US foreign policy, especially when the so called pariah state is a secular democracy. In my opinion, it is best to leave this matter to Armenia and Turkey, and I am not convinced that legislative attempts to write history can ever be constructive to help Armenians and Turks move beyond one of the most difficult tests to their long friendship over many centuries.
Thanks Mr. Gennet!
While territorial claims are so important to be reasons of war, it is not possible to understand the indifference of the USA to the Armenian claims as ally. Armenia and the US have a false conviction that under such a pressure, Turkey will be forced to ratify the protocols.
Adoption of the resolutions in the House of Representatives clearly will damage the US-Turkey relations. Whether it is brought to the House Floor does not change the negative feelings of the Turks against the American politicians including the president.
This will also push Turkey-Armenia relations which have already reached a deadlock to enter into an irreversible path and will harm the normalization process. Rejection of the protocols by Turkey can even be possible.
This situation could harm Turkey, but will also harm the US and hinder the Turkey-Armenia relations.
This means that:
1) Since genocide is accepted as a reality fort he Armenians, it will not be possible to discuss whether the 1915 events are genocide or not in the Sub-commission on the Historical Dimension mentioned in the Second Protocol. Therefore, the question arises of what this Sub-commission’s task will be.
In response, it has been expressed that its task will include the discussion of issues like returning back of Armenian properties left behind after the Armenian relocation, giving compensation to descendants of the relocated Armenians, and preserving Armenian monuments, such as churches, in Turkey. Turkey is not willing to re-examine these issues which have already been resolved with the Treaty of Lausanne.
2) By putting forth that some of the Turkish lands are in fact Armenian, Armenia indirectly claims a right over these territories. In other words, again indirectly, it does not recognize the border between the two countries.
I want to remind you that the main trigger which forced USA to join WWI was the letter sent by German Foreign Minister Zimmerman to Mexico expressing support to Mexico to get back the Mexican states Arizona, Texas which had just been annexed by the USA.
Germany's claim on Zudetland and Gdansk just because they were its historical lands caused burst of World War II! The Worls history is a history of wars which broke up because of territorial claims of states.
Every year prior to April 24, the Armenian lobby increases pressure upon the US President over the speech he will deliver. But the difference now compared to the previous years is that the aim of the considered resolution by the Foreign Affairs Commission is to corner Turkey into ratifying the protocols.
However, they are the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Armenia’s decisions which have brought the process to point of zero. Because:
The court stated that the protocols can not be interpreted or applied in a way that would contradict paragraph 11 of Armenian Declaration of Independence.
Article 11 of the Armenian Declaration of Independence of August 23, 1990 refers to Eastern Anatolia of Turkey as Western Armenia and as such beholds that this area is part of Armenia.
Since the Armenian constitution recognizes as a basis “the fundamental principles of the Armenian statehood in the Declaration of Independence of Armenia”, it likewise accepts the characterization of Eastern Anatolia as Western Armenia and this, albeit indirectly, translates into the advancement of territorial claims.
Additionally paragraph 11 also states that The Republic of Armenia stands in support of the task of achieving international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia.
The decision to annihilate the entire Armenian population came directly from the ruling triumvirate of ultra-nationalist Young Turks. The actual extermination orders were transmitted in coded telegrams to all provincial governors throughout Turkey. Armed roundups began on the evening of April 24, 1915, as 300 Armenian political leaders, educators, writers, clergy and dignitaries in Constantinople (present day Istanbul) were taken from their homes, briefly jailed and tortured, then hanged or shot. In May of 1915 claiming that the Armenians were untrustworthy, the Minister of Internal Affairs (Talaat) ordered their deportation to relocation centers in the deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia.
Next, there were mass arrests of Armenian adult men and teenagers throughout the country by Turkish soldiers, police agents and bands of Turkish volunteers. The men were tied together with ropes in small groups then taken to the outskirts of their town and shot dead or bayoneted by death squads. Local Turks and Kurds armed with knives and sticks often joined in on the killing ...etc