The Armenian Genocide of 1915 is one of the dark pages of Armenian history. In the aftermath of the massacres in the Ottoman Empire, Armenians lost one and a half million compatriots and the land belonging to us, which was under the control of the empire at the time. The nine decades following the tragic events of 1915 can be considered as the genocide recognition period.
During this time period, Armenians have done everything they can to make the world recognize the Armenian Genocide, but it would be wrong to say that we have achieved much. We haven’t reached success because we ourselves haven’t recognized the genocide; not by declarations, but in its essence.
In August 1990, when the newly elected Armenian parliament members were discussing the clauses of the independence declaration, some MPs were insisting that one of the clauses had to include recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The Supreme Soviet Council administration of the time didn’t want to go along with the Armenians’ strives, but it did:
“The Republic of Armenia will help gain the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 committed in Western Armenia and the Ottoman Empire.”
The resistance of the Supreme Soviet Council was considered as a betrayal of national interests, while the victory of the Armenian National Movement as a forward to an anti-national politics. In reality, the democrats that had come out victorious knew that the declaration of an independent Armenia already meant recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
Despite the combined efforts of Armenian organizations in the Diaspora, the booms and sparks here and there, recognition of the Armenian Genocide actually began after the declaration of independence of the Republic of Armenia when our country was self-established in the world. Why?-because independent Armenia was finally standing up for the “Armenian Issue”.
The French-Armenian community has played a significant role in France’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide, but it’s unbelievable to see such an influential European country like France take that step and endanger French-Turkish political and economic relations for the sake of its citizens’ sentiments. It wouldn’t go for it simply because it has no outlook, in other words, it was a step that would lead to nowhere.
Perhaps the recognitions after independence worry Turkey, but they don’t really benefit Armenia. They are just hints, or as they say “messages” aimed towards Armenia, claiming that the real recognition of the genocide is going to be Turkey’s confession and not the recognitions of the majority of citizens living in Canada or the U.S.
In fact, twenty-nine states have already recognized the Armenian Genocide. 208 legislators are sending an address to U.S. President George Bush, but the president continues to consider the genocide as tragic events and points out how necessary Turkish-Armenian relations are.
How do we Armenians look at it? What’s George Bush going to do after pronouncing the word genocide, the word that he “longs for”? Is he going to bomb Turkey? Is he going to hurt economic ties with that country, or is he going to force the Turkish authorities to apologize for what they have done?
When talking about the need to improve Turkish-Armenian relations, George Bush hints that he is actually able to pronounce that “longed for” word genocide, but that nothing will change after that if both sides don’t find a way to free themselves from being the victim of genocide and the one who committed genocide.
I don’t know what the Turks need to get that burden off their shoulders, but what Armenians need to get rid of the feeling of being victimized is a state and the assurance that they are citizens of that state. If Armenia were to have recognized the genocide back when it should have, Armenians would have understood that genocide is only possible under the rule of a foreign country. Genocide is not committed in one’s own country.
If Armenia were to recognize the genocide when it should have, Armenians wouldn’t have differentiated between the massacres of 1915 in Turkey and the massacres in the Soviet Union 15-20 years later. How was the genocide of 1937 any different? Weren’t Charents and Bakunts the same victims just like Varuzhan and Zohrap? If we don’t bring it all together, then we simply separate the phenomenon and part of it. We care about the Sumgait massacres, but for some reason, we don’t get emotional over the taigas in Siberia and the Middle Eastern deserts. Armenians even praise Russia for recognizing the Armenian Genocide, although Russia also doesn’t have the habit of asking for forgiveness just like Turkey.
When the Communist government of Armenia finally got permission to commemorate the victims of the genocide fifty years after the Armenian Genocide, a national renaissance began in Armenia. The youth was filled with enthusiasm and that enthusiasm led to the division of two groups-one group dreamed of Turkey being punished, while the other was dreaming about Armenia’s independence. The members of both groups were arrested and sent to jail in the beginning, but later the ideas of the first group became a means for patriotism used by the official intellectuals, but the rest simply kept on getting arrested and sent to jail until the perestroika and the Karabagh movement.
The second group had really recognized the Armenian Genocide and that’s why a huge state like the Soviet Union was afraid of them. The Soviet authorities knew very well that recognition of the Armenian Genocide would lead to independence and that independence was going to make recognition inevitable.