Commemoration of Genocide as a Contemporary Political Weapon: The Example of the Ottoman Genocide of the Armenians

Abstract

On 27 January 2006, the United Nations commemorated an act of genocide for the first time, the murder of European Jews by the German National Socialists. In 2011/2012, a motion was even put forward in the French parliament making denial of the genocide of the Jews and the Armenians punishable by law, although it failed to come into effect when an objection was lodged by the Constitutional Council on 28 February 2012. The remembrance of a genocide should have as its goal, for example, the punishment of the perpetrators and accessories to the murder, political and moral condemnation by the ruling classes in society, the party, sections of the electorate and the people living in the state who brought the perpetrators of the genocide to power and who failed to stop them, or the prevention of future acts of genocide. The acknowledgement of the fact of an act of genocide by the (successor) state responsible for it comes at a high price to society. However, non-acknowledgement can also be very costly, and the resulting international condemnation can have serious consequences for the economic and cultural development of a state.

The Ottoman Ittihad genocide of the Armenians was for a long time denied or concealed, and to a certain degree still is today, since a large part of the current Turkish leadership and the population generally still identify with the “Young Turk” leaders in the Ottoman Empire who were responsible for the genocide, and because the states allied to Turkey feel that the interests of the alliance are more important than the interests of a small people who were furthermore drastically decimated by the genocide and driven from a large part of their former settlement area.

Over the past three decades, the level of public awareness of numerous acts of genocide has grown considerably. In many countries, the academic and public debate surrounding them has been given new impetus. In some countries, a significant degree of political pressure at home and above all abroad is being applied to acknowledge the fact of historical acts of genocide, taking the pressure on Germany as a model. The countries to which this pressure is being applied most strongly are Japan, France, the USA, Russia and, in particular, Turkey. In the case of Turkey, the failure to acknowledge the genocide of the Armenians has become a weapon in the inner-Turkish academic and public process of dealing with the past, as well as of foreign policy. On the one hand, the clarification of the term “genocide” is a vital element of the liberalisation and democratisation of Turkey, although a package deal whereby the acknowledgement of the fact that genocide took place would be a condition of EU membership would however be extremely damaging to the attempts to liberalise and democratise the country.