The Armenian Genocide Resolution
There is a resolution coming up for vote in the House of Representatives to officially declare the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire, a genocide. Considering that this happened 90 years ago, I was wondering why Congress has suddenly decided it’s time for this resolution.
Congressman George Radanovich cleared everything up in this interview with Tucker Carlson.
Radanovich said, “We’re doing this to benefit the Turks.”
Make of that what you will.
Radanovich represents Fresno, CA (19th district), historically home to a large Armenian population.
Well, with Turkey threatening to invade Iraqi Kurdistan, the possibility of the ‘war on terror’ expanding to include Turkey is non-trivial. Viewed in this light a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide could be seen as a signal from the US Congress: we are not afraid to demonize you.
There’s nothing “sudden” about it. Similar measures have been proposed periodically for the past 20 years, each and every time nixed by the White House (under both parties) in the name of the most cynical, amoral sort of Realpolitik: after Israel, the Turks have been our most consistent “ally” in the Near East and we’re terrified to piss them off, even at the expense of validating their pathological denialism.
What makes it relevant today? Why should we care? Well, for one thing, despite overwhelming evidence about the planned, systematic destruction of Armenian communities in Eastern and Central Turkey, suggesting in word or print that the Turkish government committed “genocide” is treated as lese majesty in Turkey and is punishable as a criminal offense. (Turkish Nobel laureate Ohran Pamuk was prosecuted for this “crime” in absentia in 2005, though the charges were ultimately dropped on a technicality.) In the second place, though I by no means condone the PKK or its ilk, institutionalized Turkish oppression of the Kurds in Eastern Turkey makes a second such genocide well within the realm of the imaginable.
Yes, the US Congress’s gesture is purely symbolic, but the symbolism is potent. Imagine if the government of Germany as an EXPLICIT MATTER OF PUBLIC POLICY denied that the Holocaust ever happened. Would we still consider Germany an “ally”? Would we just say, “Oh it’s so long ago now–let bygones be bygones”? Or that Germany is “too important to provoke”?
One could very reasonably argue that with the situation in Iraq at a particularly delicate juncture that “now is not the moment.” But to suggest that the genocide measure is nothing more than a sop to a Central Californian pressure group is to miss the point entirely. And, actually, in the long term it WOULD benefit the Turks to reopen the border and have diplomatic relations with Armenia, and it WOULD benefit the Turks to enter the EU…neither of which has a snowball’s chance in hell of happening unless the present-day Turks can summon the wherewithal to acknowledge some moral culpability on the part of their great-grandfathers.
You need to study this issue more.
There is no doubt that there are good reasons for a resolution on the Armenian genocide, I just have a hard time believing that Congress is really interested in any of them. That’s why I wanted to find out the official rationale behind the resolution. The congressman in the video I linked to was much less eloquent in his argument for the resolution than you, John. As you observed, I know very little about the historical precedence for genocide recognition, however my point was that I don’t trust the US government’s motives in this case. They have no problem funding the war in Iraq and turning a blind eye to Darfur, but the Armenian genocide is an important issue on the House floor. Seems odd, at the very least.