Looking Backward, Moving Forward

Confronting the Armenian Genocide

Richard G. Hovannisian, Richard G. Hovannisian

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351508292
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Genocide & War Crimes
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The decades separating our new century from the Armenian Genocide, the prototype of modern-day nation-killings, have fundamentally changed the political composition of the region. Virtually no Armenians remain on their historic territories in what is today eastern Turkey. The Armenian people have been scattered about the world. And a small independent republic has come to replace the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was all that was left of the homeland as the result of Turkish invasion and Bolshevik collusion in 1920. One element has remained constant. Notwithstanding the eloquent, compelling evidence housed in the United States National Archives and repositories around the world, successive Turkish governments have denied that the predecessor Young Turk regime committed genocide, and, like the Nazis who followed their example, sought aggressively to deflect blame by accusing the victims themselves.This volume argues that the time has come for Turkey to reassess the propriety of its approach, and to begin the process that will allow it move into a post-genocide era. The work includes "Genocide: An Agenda for Action, " Gijs M. de Vries; "Determinants of the Armenian Genocide, " Donald Bloxham; "Looking Backward and Forward, " Joyce Apsel; "The United States Response to the Armenian Genocide, " Simon Payaslian; "The League of Nations and the Reclamation of Armenian Genocide Survivors, " Vahram L. Shemmassian; "Raphael Lemkin and the Armenian Genocide, " Steven L. Jacobs; "Reconstructing Turkish Historiography of the Armenian Massacres and Deaths of 1915, " Fatma Muge Go;cek; "Bitter-Sweet Memories; "The Armenian Genocide and International Law, " Joe Verhoeven; "New Directions in Literary Response to the Armenian Genocide, " Rubina Peroomian; "Denial and Free Speech, " Henry C. Theriault; "Healing and Reconciliation, " Ervin Staub; "State and Nation, " Raffi K. Hovannisian.

1
Introduction: Confronting the Armenian Genocide

Richard G. Hovannisian

The Armenian Genocide, like the Holocaust and mass killings in Cambodia, the Balkans, and many parts of Africa, has passed into a previous century and even a previous millennium. The question naturally arises, why remember? Why remember in a world so heavily laden with a legacy of unbridled violence, especially with the unprecedented instruments of annihilation made possible through the technological advances of the twentieth century? Why is it that after the passage of many years collective memory stirs deep passions both among the descendants of the victims and of the perpetrators? These questions apply all the more so to the genocides and genocidal massacres that have not been formally acknowledged, that have been denied by the perpetrator regime, often with the tacit support of world economic, political, and military partners.

The decimation of the Herero people at the hands of imperial Germany and its colonists in the first decade of the twentieth century, the destruction of the Armenian people in the very cradle of their civilization in the second decade, the calamitous losses of the Ukrainians and other victims of the Stalinist revolution and purges in the third decade, the genocides perpetrated under the cover of a world war in the fourth decade, have been followed by so many cases of mass murder that they cannot all be listed. The horrendous executions of urban dwellers, Buddhist monks, and minorities in Cambodia, the mutual slaughter in the Balkans and central Africa, the plight of the southern Sudan, the assault on the identity of the Kurdish people, and the intentional elimination of native groups from forests and jungles as hindrances to economic development constitute only a partial record of the century and, in some cases, the process still continues.

The case of the Holocaust stands alone in the bloody record of the twentieth century. In all other cases, there has not been full recognition of the crime or open acceptance of guilt by the perpetrator side. Nor have these violations of the fundamental right to life yet been contextualized within the historical consciousness of human-kind. The ultimate goal of denial is to prevent the crime from becoming a part of permanent collective memory. To this end no efforts are spared, ranging from the allocation of financial and intellectual resources for propagandistic purposes to economic and military blackmail. In the case of the Armenian Genocide, there is a long trail of multileveled denial by the perpetrator side to suppress memory and in so doing to expunge the historical record.

The failure of absolute denial has led to more devious and sinister forms through rationalization; that is, explanations and excuses for what occurred, and through relativization; that is, attempts to obscure the intent and scope of the crime by placing it within the context of general human suffering during wartime. Third parties, whether individuals, groups, or governments, are often complicit in the denial because of their own perceived interests, be they economic, political, military, or geostrategic. And, as the perpetrator side is often powerful and in control of a state machinery, it becomes all the more difficult for the victims and victim groups to thwart the designs of the deniers.

Yet memory persists and collective memory shapes the identity of both the victim and the perpetrator sides. Armenians the world over realize that it is essential to face the future openly and freely, that the preservation of the small existing Armenian republic is vital to their own self-preservation, and that throughout history their people have recovered and advanced, not through dwelling morbidly or fatalistically on the past, but by reviving and rebuilding. It was the creative talents of the Armenian people that allowed them to persevere through centuries of oppressive foreign rule and in circumstances of great adversity. But the Genocide of 1915 dealt such a forceful blow that this time it thrust most survivors beyond their native lands into a diasporan existence. Armenians feel deeply that they cannot fully overcome that blow until it is acknowledged through acts of contrition and redemption. Hence, in some ways they are imprisoned by the past and their liberation is dependent on actions of the perpetrator side.

In the Republic of Turkey a monolithic state narrative of the “events” of 1915 gripped the country for decades, directing the whole of society to accept a construction of history that no other government, including those that have tacitly or directly assisted in the cover up, believes to be the truth. The narrative has cast Turkey into an incessantly defensive and self-delusional stance, producing a deeply colored view of the world and its own history. In recent years, however, there have emerged Turkish voices, both inside and beyond the borders of the country, that are calling for a reassessment of the facts and striking out on a path that might free their people and their country from the psychological harm of denial. Hence, with the turn of a new century, new hope is also kindled.

This volume considers how the Armenian Genocide may be contextualized from a temporal distance of nearly a century. The theme itself implies that the issue remains current, that it has not disappeared down a memory hole, that it cries out for an answer and a solution. The contributors seek to restate and clarify the historical record, to understand the developments that led to the genocide, to examine the legal and international ramifications, to suggest new directions in education, literature, and historiography, to pose the harm of denial against the need for healing and conciliation, and to assess the role of historical memory in the foreign policy of the small post-Soviet Armenian republic that neighbors the large, powerful Turkish state that incorporates most of the lands on which the Armenian people once lived.

Most chapters in this volume have grown out of an international conference held at the University of California, Los Angeles, in April 2000, on the occasion of the eighty-fifth anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. The conference, titled “The Armenian Genocide and Historical Memory: Challenge of the Twenty-First Century,” was organized by UCLA’s Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History, currently held by the editor of this volume. Three additional chapters on a contemporary agenda for the prevention of genocide, on the determinants of the Armenian Genocide, and on the discourse and periodization of Turkish historiography enhance the volume and take the place of three conference papers that do not appear in this publication. The views and findings presented are, of course, those of the individual authors and, as is often the case, may not necessarily be shared in full by the editor.

In his introductory essay, Gijs M. de Vries places the Armenian Genocide and its recognition within the context of the history of efforts to prevent and punish the crime of genocide, which he labels “the darkest word in the human language.” As a state minister of the Netherlands and a human rights activist, he has been directly involved in assessing the work of the international tribunals created at the close of the twentieth century on war crimes and crimes against humanity. He outlines recent trends towards achieving the original intent of the U.N. Genocide Convention and considers the role of national legislatures and international organizations, such as the European Union, in gaining universal recognition of the Armenian Genocide and other crimes against humanity.

The twelve chapters that follow that opening essay may be divided into clusters of four. The first cluster focuses on and interprets the historical record. In a thought-provoking analysis, Donald Bloxham analyzes the polarization in the Ottoman Empire which gave rise to the Young Turk movement and its incumbent nationalism. He places into historical context the incremental victimization of the Armenian people culminating in the genocide. The coup d’état of the extreme wing of the Young Turk party in 1913, after the Ottoman defeat in the first Balkan War, placed in power the forces of exclusive nationalism, and the initial military setbacks in the first months of World War I set in motion the plan of elimination of the Armenian population. Simon Payaslian examines U.S. policies and actions during the genocide. These were linked closely with domestic issues and presidential politics in a country that was desperately trying to avoid being drawn into the European war. Hence, a clear and consistent distinction was maintained between humanitarian pleading and intercession and political-military intervention in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire and its Young Turk regime, and this distinction was maintained even after the rupture of United States-Ottoman relations in April 1917.

Vahram Shemmassian studies the plight of Armenian survivors of the genocide and their final expulsion by the victorious forces of the new Turkish state headed by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk). Assistance to the dispossessed was one of the undertakings of the League of Nations and of dedicated figures such as the American missionary and Near East Relief volunteer Emma Cushman and the Danish humanitarian, Karen Jeppe, who holds a special place of honor in Armenian memory. The calculations and actions of the British and French governments, the mandatory regimes in the Arab provinces where the exiles sought refuge, are integral to this story. Richard Hovannisian presents the sweet and bitter memories of the last generation of Armenians to have been born in the Ottoman Empire. Based on the more than 800 oral history interviews that have been collected at UCLA under his direction, he contrasts descriptions of a simple, happy, protected, almost idyllic childhood with those of abrupt and total disruption, bewilderment, and continuing trauma.

The second cluster of chapters deals with the Armenian Genocide in the context of international law, literature, and education. Steven Jacobs has discovered in the extensive papers of Raphael Lemkin, father of the Genocide Convention and originator of the term “genocide,” clear evidence that Lemkin regarded the Armenian deportations and massacres as a clear-cut case of genocide. Aside from Lemkin’s own autobiography, two manuscripts in his collection deal specifically with this issue. Joe Verhoeven places the Armenian Genocide within the context of current international law and tribunals treating crimes against humanity. Although he finds that most existing legal remedies can no longer be applied to the Armenian case because the actual perpetrators no longer are living, he finds a strong argument for alternate moral action as demonstrated in various forms of extralegal remedies that are currently being extended to individuals and groups victimized during World War II.

Rubina Peroomian demonstrates how literature is a highly effective way of conveying the totality and enormity of genocide. Using examples of the writings both by descendents of survivors and by non-Armenians, she maintains that the temporal distancing from the event itself does not diminish the impact but rather allows for a contextualization and a sensitivity that makes literature all the more powerful as an instrument of memory and mission. Joyce Apsel sees the role of education as critical in learning about the scourge of genocide and its prevention. She assesses the state of Armenian studies in the United States and shares her firsthand classroom experience on ways to integrate the Armenian Genocide into the broader curriculum.

The third cluster of chapters concentrates on historiography and denial of the Armenian Genocide, the price paid both by the victim and the perpetrator side, and the current political dimensions. Fatma Müge Göçek, in a critical essay, analyzes the characteristics of the three major phases in the Turkish historiography of the Armenian deportations and massacres. Making extensive use of memoir literature and state-sponsored publications, she shows how the narrative of events has been constructed, before pointing to a recent positive trend that can make strong strides if properly nurtured through measures helping to create a democratic civil society in Turkey. Henry Theriault turns to the pain and trauma caused by persistent denial of the Armenian Genocide and argues that the hallowed principle of freedom of speech is not without limits and qualifications. That principle, he argues, is not intended to allow intentional harm and suffering in the way that denial of genocide does. Denial of the Armenian Genocide, therefore, should be prohibited by law, just as a number of countries have done in the case of the Holocaust.

Ervin Staub underscores the importance of healing. Based on years of study and more recent field work, he maintains that people have fundamental psychological needs to feel secure from physical and psychological harm, to have a positive view of self and surroundings, and to be connected to other human beings. This is not possible, however, so long as victims or victim groups are denied recognition of their suffering. Acknowledgment brings rapid, if not amazing, healing, and it is the responsibility of third parties not only to recognize the crime themselves but also to encourage the perpetrator side to come to terms with its past. Finally, Raffi Hovannisian examines the state of Armenian-Turkish relations since the emergence of a new Armenian republic in 1991. As the first foreign minister of that precarious, landlocked state, he was involved in attempts to reach a normalization of relations with the Republic of Turkey, only to find that his government and all subsequent Armenian governments have come up against a set of Turkish preconditions revolving around repudiation of any claim, present or future, pertaining to the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian government, he maintains, must coordinate and master a spectrum of activities to safeguard the state and its citizenry while at the same time affirming the historical record as an uncompromised national value.

This is the fourth volume on the Armenian Genocide that this editor has prepared. The first of these, The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, also published by Transaction Publishers, grew out of an international conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, held in Tel Aviv in June 1982. The conference was a watershed not only because it was the first major international gathering that considered all genocides, but also because it was torpedoed by the Turkish government. When it was learned that there would be a handful of papers that dealt with the Armenian Genocide, Ankara applied such strong pressure on the Israeli government and the sponsoring institutions, including Tel Aviv University and Yad Vashem’s Institute for Holocaust Research, that they felt constrained to withdraw their support. Jewish lives, it was stated, were at risk. The conference, though crippled, nonetheless proceeded with an intensified sense of mission. That blatant act of interference has been repeated many times since, but such disruptions have not halted in-depth studies and a growing understanding of the Armenian Genocide, its antecedents, perpetration, and aftermath.

Since 1982, scores of documented studies, memoirs, and literary, dramatic, and artistic works on the Armenian Genocide have appeared. The Armenian Genocide in Perspective was primarily descriptive for the purpose of making the genocide known to a broader public through a multidisciplinary factual approach. Now, however, there are hundreds of volumes that deal with the “darkest word in the human language”—and the impossible choiceless choices that accompany that word. Much more evidence, of course, remains to be gathered, hopefully with the assistance of a new generation of conscientious Turkish scholars, but the state of cutting-edge scholarship has progressed beyond descriptive narrative to insightful interpretation and analysis. It is hoped that the essays in Looking Backward, Moving Forward: Confronting the Armenian Genocide may serve as a modest contribution toward integrating the lessons and legacy of this unrequited crime into the collective human record—into collective human memory.

2
Genocide: An Agenda for Action

Gijs M. de Vries

Genocide: the darkest word in the human language. Yet how can any word even begin to address the immeasurable suffering inflicted on so many people? How to convey the intensity of the horrors that lie behind the statistics? How to honor the dignity of each individual man, woman, and child crushed in a wave of criminal madness so devastating that it has repeatedly claimed hundreds of thousands, even millions of lives?

Genocide is a crime so enormous and so heartrending that it seems to defy understanding. Yet understand it we must. If mankind is to confront this ultimate evil, we must harness our sense of shame and dismay and seek to understand its causes and manifestations. Without understanding there will be no effective strategy to prevent genocide. In terms of its gruesome potential for violence and human suffering, genocide is among the foremost political issues of our time. Prevention of genocide must rank as a top priority of states and international organizations. Here, I shall focus on the role of international law and diplomacy in the prevention of genocide.

In response to the Holocaust, the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” The definition has proved to be controversial and difficult to apply, legally as well as politically. More inclusive definitions have been offered, embracing, for example, the concept of “cultural genocide,” but the text of the Convention still stands. It raises some difficult questions. At what level of human suffering does wholesale slaughter turn into genocide? Does the extermination of an ethnic group by members of that same group constitute genocide? At what point does a campaign to eliminate physically political opponents provide evidence of the intent to destroy an ethnic group “as such”? Fortunately, through the painstaking work of the international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, some of these questions are now being addressed in jurisprudence.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), established by the United Nations in Arusha, Tanzania, has achieved some impressive results. For the first time since World War II, an international tribunal has convicted someone for genocide. For the first time, rape has been defined as a component of genocide. The ICTR has convicted some high officials, including former prime minister Jean Kambanda. Other key political and military leaders are in custody. Regrettably, progress in bringing the killers to justice has been unacceptably slow. As the International Crisis Group has argued, the ICTR needs more resources and better oversight.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), based in The Hague, has also broken important new ground, for example in defining sexual offenses as a crime against humanity. We have come a long way since Nuremberg, when not a single prosecution dealt with rape. In the first international conviction for genocide in Europe since World War II, the ICTY found former general Radislav Krstic guilty of the murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims.

The establishment of the International Criminal Court is the most important step in the struggle for human rights since the adoption of the Universal Declaration in 1948. The ICC’s importance is threefold. First, it will help bring to justice those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. No longer will those who murdered a single person be more likely to stand trial than those responsible for the genocide of millions. Second, as a permanent, independent court, the ICC will act as a deterrent to those contemplating such crimes. Its jurisdiction will not be contingent on political expediency. No future Idi Amin or Pol Pot will be immune from prosecution. Third, the ICC will promote reconciliation. By focusing criminal responsibility on individuals, not states or groups, and by bringing perpetrators to justice, the court will help break the cycle of revenge that so often perpetuates ethnic conflict. The ICC is an essential instrument to counteract the negative stereotyping conducive to large-scale violence. Of cours...