Lessons of History: The Question of Armenian Genocide

The Congressional Committee of Foreign Affairs voted recently for the recognition of the Armenian massacres, perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks during the First World War, as genocide. The Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, has vowed to bring the resolution to the House floor for a vote by the end of the year.

This development has caused diplomatic tremors in Ankara and Washington. The two governments are concerned about the political implications of such a resolution, if it were to pass at this critical time of uncertainty and turbulence in the Middle East. After all, the US/Turkish relations have not been in their best state lately, due primarily to the Turkish refusal to allow the US military to open a second front of attack in the North, during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. That refusal, coming unexpectedly from a NATO ally, has proven rather costly to the US war effort in both dollars and American lives.

To complicate things further, the Turkish Government has asked and received authorization from the National Assembly for an invasion and possible extensive military operations in Northern Iraq ostensibly against Kurdish “terrorists,” but in reality to get control of some of the rich oil resources in the area. Such a Turkish move would certainly make things even more difficult for the US in Iraq, because it will set in turmoil the only area of Iraq which is relatively peaceful and prosperous, the Kurdish Iraq in the North.

However, a prosperous and autonomous Kurdistan is exactly what the Turks fear most, because it will set a “bad example” for the millions of Kurds in Turkey to imitate. The Turks, therefore, will do whatever they can to prevent a free Kurdish State from coming into being. They will not hesitate to use any pretext, even the Armenian genocide resolution in the US Congress, to move into Northern Iraq and occupy it militarily, just as they did thirty-six years ago when they invaded Cyprus and occupied almost half of the island, under the pretext of protecting the Turkish Cypriots. There are some Turkmen in Iraq too, who may want to have Turkish “protection” from the surrounding Kurds.

But this political maneuvering and shrewd calculations of Turkey�s Islamist Government should not be allowed to derail the legitimate process of the US Congress to amend a historical error by recognizing the Armenian genocide with its proper name at last. The Republic of Turkey does not gain anything of moral value by trying to cover up the painful and horrible events that accompanied the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War II, or its own birth in 1923. History has lessons to teach for those who are prudent enough to learn from it and courageous so as not repeat the same errors.

History teaches us that the dissolution of empires is usually as messy or violent as a non-amicable divorce. Various ethnic and religious groups, that had found a modus vivendi under the protective umbrella of a thriving empire, suddenly come to realization that the imperial power is falling apart and cannot protect them any more. Then, each ethnic group goes its own way and tries to become independent and self-sufficient. Hence the messy process of separating the common-wealth and getting a fair share arises.

In the case of the Ottoman Turks, their coming into Western Anatolia and the establishment of an empire there and in Southeastern Europe was facilitated by the fact that the Christian powers of that time were divided, while the Byzantine Empire had been broken down into a number of principalities as a result of the disastrous fourth Crusade. Thus many Anatolian Christians (Armenians, Syrians, Greeks, etc.) did not resist but rather helped the Turks build and sustain for centuries the Ottoman Empire (14th-20th).

For more than a century the Ottoman Empire had become “the old sick man” of Europe, who would not die, because the Great Powers could not agree how to burry its corpse and divide the spoils. In the First World War it appeared that the dismemberment of the Empire would be accomplished finally. But the rise of Kemalism in Turkey and the threat of the spread of Communism after its success in Russia (1917), combined to keep the whole of Anatolia and a corner of Europe in Turkish hands. Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and other ethnic minorities were either slaughtered or forced out from the lands where they had lived and prospered for millennia.

The Armenians of Anatolia particularly were targeted in such a systematic way for extermination by massive executions, forced labor camps, violent transportations, and ethnic cleansing that the term “genocide” describes fittingly the brutality of that historical reality. A generation later, Hitler was to use the Armenian genocide as “a model” for his even more horrific conception of a genocidal scheme against the Jews in Germany.

No wonder, then, that many of the Jewish and other survivors feel sympathy for the Armenians and their tragic fate. Many Europeans and American have felt the same sympathy for a long time. Recently, the citizens of European States and the United States have found the courage to apply the necessary pressure on elected officials to act in the direction of recognition of the Armenian genocide by its proper name in memory of the millions of its victims. There is hope that horrors of this magnitude and inhumanity will not be repeated in the future, if humanity remembers them and names them appropriately.

In this light present day Turkey, which is supposed to be secular and democratic, should not be offended if other States judge it politically correct and prudent to recognize the atrocities perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians as genocide. The Republic of Turkey perhaps should do the same for its own good. In fact, it would have been better for the image of Turkey and its aspiration of joining the European Union, if it had done so some time ago. Instead of this sensible policy, Turkey threatens the United States with strategic penalties to prevent the resolution on Armenian genocide from reaching the House of Representatives. This is very strange behavior of a NATO ally.

Turkish policy makers probably calculate that they can get now the share of Iraq that they wanted some years ago (2003). At that time Turkey, under the same Islamist Government of Mr. Erdogan, refused to help the Americans by allowing them to open a second front in the North, because the United States did not want it to enter the rich in oil fields of Northern Iraq. Now they threaten to prevent even supplies for the SU troops in Iraq to pass through Turkey. They also threaten to invade Iraq to fight PPK members, using as pretext not just the killing of ambushed Turkish solders, but also the passing of the Armenian genocide resolution in the Congressional Committee of Foreign Affairs.

The Turks may want to repeat the success they had so easily in Cyprus in 1974, when they invaded the island illegally. By threatening to occupy the whole of Cyprus, they managed to hold on to more than a third of it for more than thirty years now. But Iraq is not Cyprus, Kurds are not Greeks, and the US of post 9/11 is very different from its previous self. So, if Turkey moves into Northern Iraq against the expressed will of the US and NATO, it may bite more than it will be able to chew this time. The good luck cannot be on the Turkish side for ever. Kurds and poor Armenians deserve a share of it.

Dr. Christos Evangeliou is Professor of philosophy, Honorary President of IAGP, poet, and author of several books including, Themata Politica: Hellenic and Euro-Atlantic.

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