By Grigor Boyakhchyan
Against the backdrop of Turkish official denialism,
distortion, and propaganda stunt looms the larger decay of a state rooted in
organized forgetting. Picture showing Armenians killed during the Armenian
Genocide. Image taken from Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story, written by Henry
Morgenthau, Sr. and published in 1918. Original description: “THOSE WHO FELL BY
THE WAYSIDE.
Scenes like this were common all over the Armenian provinces, in
the spring and summer months of 1915. Death in its several forms—massacre,
starvation, exhaustion—destroyed the larger part of the refugees. The Turkish
policy was that of extermination under the guise of deportation” (Public
Domain/Wikimedia Commons)
The will to truth is cowed by pressure of numerous kinds,
reasons of state on the one hand, economic necessities on the other, and, not
least, the pure careerism of intellectuals who put their expertise in the
service of power as a matter of course. When governments and professional
elites find reward in the sophistries of might makes right, truth is bound to
suffer.”
–Terrence Des Pres
Repentant or emboldened through a hundred long years of
denial, the Turkish statehood stands at a critical juncture of its historical
past, present, and future. The Armenian Genocide and the Great National
Dispossession of the Armenian people from their homeland will ultimately
determine its decent place in the family of civilized nations. Recognition and
repentance, along with elimination of dire consequences, is the right way
forward for the Turkish government.
Only a month ahead of the April 24 Centennial of the
Armenian Genocide, the Republic of Armenia, together with Diaspora Armenians
from many far-flung corners of the world, brings together the vestiges of
enduring historical memory and remembrance on human suffering, extermination
and resurgence to denounce past inhumanities and prevent future ones. Unbroken
in spirit against this unprecedented crime, the message they bring to the fore
of international agenda stretches far beyond the tragedy of a single nation to
embrace the whole humanity.
Against the backdrop of Turkish official denialism,
distortion, and propaganda stunt – as the commemoration of Gallipoli landings
staged by the Turkish government on April 24 demonstrate – looms the larger decay
of a state rooted in organized forgetting and long-enforced oblivion. Not only
does the strenuous denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government
constitute a form of renewed aggression that should be condemned and outlawed
in its own right, but it also forecloses the mere opportunity for many decent
men and women in Turkey to come to grips with their own history.
Armenians are marched to a nearby prison in Mezireh by armed
Turkish soldiers. Kharpert, Armenia, Ottoman Empire, April, 1915 (Public
Domain/Wikimedia Common
Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to centrally
planned and systematically orchestrated genocide against the Armenian people –
the testimony of survivors, documentary evidence, official archives, and the
reports of diplomats – the denial of Armenian genocide by successive regimes in
Turkey has proceeded from 1915 to the present. Among the scores of articles
available in the archives of the New York Times, one featured on February 23,
1916 presents the reflections of Lord Bryce, the head of British delegation to
the Anglo-French Parliamentary conference, on Turkish atrocities committed
against Armenians. It reads in part: “The cause of Armenians is especially dear
to me. There is no people in the world which has suffered more. It has been a
victim not of religious fanaticism, but of cold-blooded, premeditated hatred on
the part of the brigands who term themselves the Turkish Government and who do
not intend to permit the existence of any national vitality except in their own
element.”
In an attempt to assassinate the entire civilization and
culture, the Ottoman Turkish government unleashed the deportation of Armenian
people to the arid deserts of Syria that would come to be known as death
marches of men, women and children, with many dying along the way of exhaustion
and starvation. The American ambassador Henry Morgenthau would later write in
his memoirs: “When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these
deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they
understood this well, and in their conversations with me, they made no
particular attempt to conceal the fact.”
The Armenian Genocide commemorative memorial at the Goddard
Chapel, Tufts University. The plaque reads, “To the glory of God and the memory
of one and one half million Armenians – many of them related to Tufts Alumni –
who perished in the 1915 Genocide in what is now modern Turkey.” (Photo: Grigor
Boyakhchyan)
Various perspectives on denial can be brought to bear on the
form and content of Turkish attempts to transplant a benign political image
around the world; what unites them together, however, is the state-sponsored
struggle to diminish, disguise and consign to oblivion the memory of race
extermination behind their actions in whatever way possible – a struggle of
forgetting against memory.
Regardless of the state of play on the ground in the Middle
East or elsewhere and the ensuing geopolitical significance allegedly
attributed to Turkey in world affairs, it is crystal clear that the only
enduring strength, authority and leadership that a country seeks to obtain in
international arena proceeds along the principles of morality and justice.
Unwillingness to embrace this route is an attribute of politicians who think in
short timelines.
There are no “smart denials” on the face of justice,
irrespective of the strategies and techniques the Turkish authorities choose to
concoct behind the sealed borders and closed doors. Denials are either short-or
long-lived; but they never mature into reality. Nor does the known fade into
the unknown – no matter how intensely the hundred shades of distortion and
denial envelop the truth – and those who have attempted it have themselves
ended up in the dustbin of history. To bind the country to the same path of
government-backed denial is an expression of no strategy, no goals, and no
vision for its future. It is a sign of moral decay.
Related
Willful Blindness: Abraham Foxman and the Armenian Genocide
May 2, 2014In "Turkey"
The Second Move in the 2011 Genocide Obfuscation Gambit?
March 4, 2011In "Armenia"
Turkey, Armenia, and the Terrible Truth December 4, 2009In
"Armenia"
Grigor Boyakhchyan
Grigor Boyakhchyan holds a Master’s Degree in International
Security Studies (ISS) from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts
University. He currently serves as Head of Foreign Relations Department of the
Center for Information and Analytical Studies under the Government of the
Republic of Armenia. Prior to service, he taught a full-time course on International
Security Challenges for Master’s Degree students at Yerevan State University.
He may be reached at grigorboyakhchyan@yahoo.com.
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