The EconomistNovember 9th 2019 Europe 45M
ixing politicsand history is perilous. David Rieff, the au-
thor of “In Praise of Forgetting”, argues that the commemora-
tion of past wrongs can become a moral cudgel, cynically weap-
onised over and over again for political ends. That is certainly how
Turkey’s government sees it when foreigners refer to the deaths of
over a million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman forces in 1915 as
genocide. On October 29th America’s House of Representatives
voted to do just that. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
was furious. “Countries whose history is stained by genocide, slav-
ery and exploitation have no right to give lessons to Turkey,” he
fumed. He suggested he might call off a trip to Washington
planned for November 13th, but as The Economistwent to press the
trip appeared to be back on.
The vast majority of scholars, as well as nearly 30 countries,
agree that the massacres and forced deportations of the Arme-
nians did amount to genocide. But the House resolution seemed to
be motivated less by a commitment to historical truth than by the
desire to reprimand Mr Erdogan. For decades American lawmak-
ers had stopped short of recognising the genocide to avoid damag-
ing relations with Turkey, a crucial natoally. This time relations
are already at rock bottom. Earlier this year Turkey bought a Rus-
sian missile-defence system, which could allow Moscow to spy on
American warplanes. Last month its army invaded northern Syria
to attack Kurdish fighters there who have been close American al-
lies in the battle against Islamic State. Small wonder American at-
titudes to Turkey have hardened. Less than an hour after the geno-
cide bill passed, the House voted in favour of economic sanctions
against Turkey. (To become law, these would have to clear the Sen-
ate and Donald Trump’s desk, which is unlikely.) Politics was the
main reason why America did not recognise the genocide in the
past, and why it has done so today.
Turkey has always denied the genocide, insisting that the num-
ber of Armenians who perished is much lower than most records
suggest, and that far more Ottoman Muslims were killed during
the war. Mr Erdogan’s government has occasionally referred to 1915
as a tragedy, but has never cared to distinguish between perpetra-
tors and victims. Turkey today is home to about 50,000 Arme-
nians, practically all of whom live in Istanbul, which was mostlyexemptedfromthemassdeportations. Few of them dispute the
basic facts of the genocide. But many have been reluctant to enlist
in the global recognition campaign.
Starting in the early 2000s, a series of seminars in America and
Europe brought together diaspora Armenians and Turkish Arme-
nian intellectuals. The former tended to focus entirely on the past
and on the genocide. The latter preferred to discuss the present,
and the challenges facing Turkey and its minorities. One of the
Turkish Armenian participants, a journalist named Hrant Dink,
argued that genocide resolutions by third countries have done
more harm than good, provoking a nationalist backlash and hin-
dering Turkey’s democratisation. “We must separate history from
politics,” he wrote at the time. “Let us not try to resolve our histori-
cal disputes before resolving our political ones.” A few years later,
Mr Dink was gunned down outside his office in Istanbul by a teen-
age Turkish nationalist.
Remembrance may be fraught with risks; but the dangers of
forgetting are higher. Taner Akcam, a Turkish historian, once
wrote that the genocide has become his country’s “collective se-
cret”. Schoolbooks in Turkey continue to teach that the death
marches were a necessary and proportionate response to attacks
on Turkish villages by Armenian rebels. Those Armenians who
died during the war, one claims, died a result of “transportation
difficulties, adverse weather conditions and epidemic diseases”.
Turkey’s rejection of the genocide label is only part of the pro-
blem. A bigger worry is its refusal to accept any responsibility for
what happened. For successive governments, condemnation of
the events of 1915, whether as genocide, a war crime or ethnic
cleansing, has been out of the question. The past has been sani-
tised. “There have been no massacres and no slaughters in our his-
tory,” Mr Erdogan said a few years ago.
The notion that the Turkish state can do no wrong has also left a
mark on the present. No major Turkish news outlet can report on
the dozens of civilians killed during the country’s Syrian offensive.
Turks who openly oppose the invasion risk prosecution. This is
largely because Mr Erdogan seeks to stifle most forms of dissent,
but also because the legacy of 1915 has made some topics especially
taboo. The Turkish state and army are beyond reproach; sugges-
tions to the contrary border on treason. Mr Dink believed Turkey
needed to become a fully-fledged democracy before it could face
up to the genocide. But perhaps Turkey needs to own up to the
genocide before it can become a democracy.Reversion to type
Ironically, it was Mr Erdogan who once offered the best chance of
progress. Turkey and Armenia launched talks to renew diplomatic
relations and reopen their borders in 2009. Five years later Mr Er-
dogan made history by offering condolences to the victims of 1915
and their descendants. But the talks have since collapsed, and the
government is now as snarlingly nationalist as any of its predeces-
sors. Two years ago parliament passed a law to punish lawmakers
who mention the genocide. Last month the authorities banned a
conference on Armenian culture in Anatolia. Since a coup attempt
in 2016, many of the liberals who encouraged Turkey to come to
terms with the genocide have been silenced or forced into exile.
Exposing or dwelling on another country’s past wrongs is bound to
create friction, and might even be counter-productive. But cover-
ing them up is an offence to the dead and a disservice to the living.
As Turkey may realise one day, the genocide is not the only stain on
its history. So, too, is the century of denial that has followed. 7Charlemagne The risks of forgetting
The Armenian genocide is at last recognised as such by America’s House of Representatives