Before any further acts of restorative justice can or should take place, a full recognition of what was done between the years of 1915-1918 must be made, at a bare minimum, by the government of Turkey, but preferably by the government of the United States as the country with the largest population of diasporic Armenians which has not formally recognized the Armenian Genocide as genocide (the only two countries with larger Armenian populations—aside from Armenia itself—are Russia and France, both which have formally recognized the Armenian Genocide as genocide).
Debates
concerning formal recognition in both countries are ongoing, though whether
Turkey will be in any position to even countenance recognition in the near
future after its abortive military coup against strongman president Recip
Tayyip Erdogan is an open question. And in truth, were it not for a crucial
secondary step in restorative justice—the step of potential reparations—it may
well be good for the restorative justice process to simply skip over the
governments of Turkey and Armenia altogether, as both have ceased to be truly
representative of their citizenry in any fully democratic manner. In
considering potential obstacles to restorative justice, these two governments
must be considered chief among them.
However,
as evinced by the extent of the livelihoods that had to be surrendered in order
for their escapes to be made, the material losses experienced by my family—and
by millions of other families—was dire. Reparations have been made a part of
some Armenians’ advocacies, sometimes quite coarsely.[1]
Speaking solely for myself, and not for any other member of my family, I am not
sure that I could accept any such reparations myself. I would much prefer to
see such monies go towards the efforts of genocide memorials, like the Armenian
memorial in Yerevan, or Yad Vashem in Israel, or towards humanitarian efforts
aimed at increasing the financial security of Armenians themselves. While my
family lost greatly in both blood and treasure as a result of the Armenian
Genocide, the blood cannot be replaced, and I am not sure, in my case, that the
treasure necessarily should be either. I am financially secure, my family is
financially secure, and I can think of many other people and organizations to
which such reparations could go in my personal instance. I would imagine there
are many other diasporic Armenians—certainly not all, or even necessarily a
majority—for whom this is also the case.[2]
However,
I believe that truth and reconciliation protocols—as a part of the larger quest
towards restorative justice—may be created independent of governments. The
Armenian Apostolic Church, while not always having the warmest of relationships
with other Armenian Christians, still speaks for the Armenian community on
matters of genocide and its immorality, and could act as an effective advocate
and framer for a truth and reconciliation process. Because the genocide itself
concluded ninety-eight years ago, the question of offering legal amnesty in
exchange for testimony and admission of fault—as in the case of South Africa’s
truth and reconciliation process—is largely moot, and puts the church in a
stronger position to spur on such a process free of the corruption of the
Turkish and Armenian governments, even as those countries’ citizens may protest
any outcome.
On a
more global level, in order to incorporate the whole of the Armenian diaspora,
such truth and reconciliation attempts, for the sake of a centralization of
efforts, would perhaps best be undertaken under the auspices of an international
human rights group. In keeping with the spirit of a non-governmental actor
initiating such proceedings, rather than use a highly-politicized actor such as
the United Nations Human Rights Council, there are non-governmental
organizations that may be equipped to do so, such as the International Crisis
Group out of Belgium, or the Aegis Trust out of England, both of whom played
significant roles in resisting the Darfur genocide in Sudan. These
organizations are not explicitly religious, but they would offer the sort of
moral credibility necessary for any initiator and facilitator of restorative
justice.
The
parties to this process would be, in terms of the victims: descendants of the
direct genocide victims, and the people who have faced hate mail, death threats,
and even, in Turkey, imprisonment for acknowledging the Armenian Genocide
(Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code contains a ban on “insulting the Turkish
Nation”—and before 2008, on “insulting Turkishness”—that was used to prosecute
high-profile writers and academics who acknowledged the Armenian Genocide as a
genocide[3])
and in terms of the perpetrators: the current Turkish government, as well as
their allies in Turkish academia who continue to manufacture ready-made excuses
and mitigations for why the Armenian Genocide should not be recognized, much
less apologized for, and the longer those excuses are made, the more indignant
resulting protests against any recognition will likely be.
But
recognized it must be, and apologized for it must be as well. This is how true
reconciliation starts. The stakes for such reconciliation are high: there
remains a total blockade on the border that Armenia and Turkey share, and the
antipathy between both ethnicities’ diasporic populations remains extremely
high. Such antipathy cannot, should not, and ought not to be sustainable. The
antipathy between different peoples—between, say, Samaritans and Judeans, or
Syrophoenicians and Israelites—is something that we see Jesus Christ take on
(or, in the case of the Syrophoenician woman, that we see brought square in
front of Jesus) brazenly, without care or consideration for the societal norms
that dictate such prejudices. One of the earliest baptisms into the Way, the
church of Acts of the Apostles, was the Ethiopian eunuch, who lived on the
margins within the church in terms of not only ethnicity, but sexuality as
well. The transcending of such boundaries in the name of inclusion, justice,
and truth is an intrinsically Christian calling, even if we have ignored it as
such for far too long.
101
years ago, the blueprints for a century’s worth of genocides were drawn up.
1-1.5 million men, women, and children lost their lives as a result of
executing those blueprints, and then tens of millions of people in subsequent
genocides, from Germany to Rwanda, likewise lost their lives. These are perhaps
the most destructive, bloodthirsty blueprints of all time, but they need not
have an infinite lifespan. Indeed, some of our most devastating expressions of
evil have not had infinite lifespans. The Third Reich, envisioned to last for
1,000 years, lived for twelve. Apartheid in South Africa fell over twenty years
ago, even as the great work of promoting the interests of people of color there
relative to the white Afrikaners continues on. And the inheritance of a
continual humiliation and shame at the lack of regard given for the Armenian
genocide by its perpetrators, and by its perpetrators’ enablers in the United
States government, in academia, and elsewhere likewise can, God willing, one day
cease.
When
that day comes, whether in my lifetime or afterwards, there will no doubt be
rejoicing as well as trepidation, depending on one’s perspective in this
singular seeking of the truth of a historical atrocity that, thanks to the
collective memory of millions, will not fade into the mystic fog of time and
forgetfulness. Rather, those memories will live on, hopefully accompanied by
the spiritual richness and life that comes from having heard apologies made,
and accomplishing some measure of reconciliation as a result. It is a hope that
I still carry, for my family, and for my world.
Image of the forget-me-not logo of the recognition campaign courtesy of armeniangenocide100.org
Image of the forget-me-not logo of the recognition campaign courtesy of armeniangenocide100.org
[1] Elif
Safak, The Bastard of Istanbul, Viking
Adult, 2006,
[2] I
can confirm that my opinion is shared amongst my family. Per an email from Hagop
Mouradian, my third cousin and great-grandson of Krikor’s brother Hagop (for
whom he is named), who has maintained our family’s personal record of the genocide
in considerable detail: “I do not need my title, properties, money, and
jewels, but I do need to know that I have the right to live, that the targeted
killing of my ancestors was wrong. I need to be told that they did have the right to live, and that
that right was stolen from them. That is the
recognition that I need and that I desire so that I, as a member of this
family, can return “home", a place where I am at peace with who I am in
the world.”
[3]
The widely-touted 2008 reform amendments to Article 301 have not resulted in a
substantial change in its use to silence advocates of genocide recognition; in
the 2011 case of Taner Akcam, a Turkish scholar who favors recognition, the
European Court for Human Rights found that “the Court notes
that despite the replacement of the term “Turkishness” by “the Turkish Nation”,
there seems to be no change or major difference in the interpretation of these
concepts because they have been understood in the same manner by the Court of
Cassation (see paragraph 45 above). Accordingly, the legislator’s amendment of
the wording in the provision in order to clarify the meaning of the term
“Turkishness” does not introduce a substantial change or contribute to the
widening of the protection of the right to freedom of expression,” Case of Altug Taner Akcam v. Turkey, 25
October 2011, last accessed August 3, 2016, paragraph 92http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-107206#{"itemid":["001-107206"]}
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