Calling a genocide a genocide
Published October 15th, 2007 in In The NewsIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Niall Ferguson is not looking to make too many friends. His column in today’s LA Times sheds a perspective on the recent controversy caused by the passage of HR 106 out of committee. This non-binding resolution affirms that the genocide of the Armenians in 1915 will indeed be considered a genocide by our governmnet.
Ferguson affirms that a genocide occurred but finds that a resolution will only cause more rift in our world. For some reason, Turkey cares what our legislators think because they have offered serious consequences for passing this non-binding resolution (did I mention it’s non-binding?).
Ferguson’s article comes on the heels of a similar article by US Representative Jane Harman last Friday, which makes me wonder why the LA Times feels it necessary to fill its oped pages with such a view point, when it has clearly editorialized last Wednesday that “the real mark of courage is speaking truth when it’s inconvenient.”
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I must preface my response by saying I’m in agreement that the genocide of Armenians in Turkey is the right designation. And it is very appropriate that our government make these kinds of statements - non-binding, binding or otherwise.
What I wonder about is not why the non-binding resolution, but rather, why now? I’m not sure all about the history of this issue, but why hasn’t a resolution or statement or declaration or anything been made in the previous 92 years? It seems that as much as I agree with the statement, I question the absolute virtue of those that passed it, since it seems like there is an indictment of 92 years on this one, which calls into question the political motivations for passing it just as much as those opposing it need to be called into question.
Is that appropriate to ask?
It is appropriate to ask–my two cents is that the Democrats are trying to force some sort of rift in Bush’s war in Iraq.
But the other answer to your question is this: the Armenian lobby has tried and tried for many years to get this passed. So it wasn’t random and a eureka moment. Such a resolution has actually passed the committee years ago, but did not win the votes in the house.
I think Fergusson has got this issue precisely backwards. It is failure to acknowledge historical truth that leads to genocide, and it is the willingness to allow regimes to deny it that encourages the idea that genocide can work, and that there can be genocide without consequences. I responded at length to Niall Fergusson on my blog: http://www.documentedlife.com/log/?p=320
Miles, thanks for stopping by and for your excellent response. You articulate well what I think I felt on an intuitive level with Fergusson’s column. To acknowledge an evil, but to find it politically expedient to not mention it seems to fit well with what you describe existing in a “twisted moral universe.”