GRAHAM FULLER SOYKİRİM TANİMA KARARİ HK. NELER YAZMİS?
Biden’s
opportunistic timing in Armenian genocide declaration
This has much more to do with current US policy towards Turkish President
Erdogan than it does with the morality of the case.
APRIL 26, 2021
Written by
Graham E. Fuller
The issue of Turkish genocide against Armenians during World War I has once
again become volatile. President Biden on Saturday issued a statement speaking
out on the death march conducted in 1915 by the Ottoman Turkish forces to
“ethnically cleanse” sensitive military regions of eastern Turkey of its
restive Armenian population, leading to the deaths of at least one million
Armenian civilians.
The
Armenian case ranks just below the Nazi Holocaust in the annals of modern
genocide. Indeed, while the full circumstances surrounding the Armenian case is
still debated, all parties, including the modern Turkish government, acknowledge that, at the very least widespread killings, occurred. The
Armenian genocide took place towards the end of the war in
the middle of a complex geopolitical situation in eastern Turkey where
Armenians have been living for over one thousand years; they constituted a
significant part of the huge, thoroughly multi-ethnic, multi-religious Ottoman
Empire that collapsed at the end of the war, eventually giving rise to the new
much smaller modern Turkish republic.
The
Ottoman government perceived the Armenian population of eastern Turkey as
hostile during the war, and there is
evidence that violent nationalist Armenian groups carried out some terrorist
acts against the government at the time. The Empire was also facing
invasion from Tsarist Russian forces fighting on the side of the Allies in
Europe.
That
massacre was one of the most horrific cases of broad-scale elimination of huge
numbers of a civilian population. Indeed,
it is hard not to qualify it as genocide by today’s standards. Turkish
accounts note that the Christian Armenian population was suspected of having
sympathies with the invading Tsarist Russian (and Christian) forces into
Eastern Anatolia where large numbers of Armenians lived. Russia, in fact, had
some grounds to believe the Armenians could be induced to serve as a fifth
column of resistance against Ottoman forces. The case is complicated since it
simultaneously involved widespread disorders
in eastern Anatolia under wartime conditions, much anarchy, brigandage,
killings, seizure of Armenian lands, etc. Local Kurdish populations were also
largely anti-Armenian.
Biden’s
official declaration and condemnation of the Armenian genocide now joins many
similar Western condemnations. But this is the first public condemnation by
Washington of an incident reaching into Turkey’s past. Unfortunately, the statement has much more to do with current U.S. foreign policy
towards Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan than it does with any morality
of the case. At this point, condemnation of the genocide is effectively being
wielded as a tool of American foreign policy.
While
the government of modern Turkey, which came into being in 1923, has
unofficially acknowledged that a large-scale massacre of Armenian civilians
indeed did take place, Ankara steadfastly rejects the use of the term
“genocide.“ Among other things, it argues that the
modern Turkish Republic is not the same state or even the same country as
was the massive Ottoman Empire. It also points out that, before the term
“genocide” in invoked, Turkish and Armenian scholars need to jointly work out
all the relevant facts and conditions of the complex events that took place
under wartime conditions on the eastern front of the Empire against invading
Russian forces. Indeed, there have been a few working groups
of Turkish and Armenian scholars working to shed broader light on the full
story. But large numbers of fervid Turkish nationalists fiercely reject any
idea of Turkish culpability while many Turkish liberals support the
investigation. In any case, the political “complexity” of the issue in no way
diminishes the horror of what took place. In the international view, the
Armenian cause has the moral argument on its side.
The U.S. Congress has debated for decades as to whether to officially
recognize the killings as genocide, as long urged by well-organized
Armenian-American and human rights groups. Concerned over the potential
impact it would have on U.S. relations with Turkey, especially at a time when
Ankara was viewed as a more “stalwart'” member of NATO, the State Department
lobbied Congress against such a move. Nonetheless, both houses of Congress
finally passed resolutions recognizing the genocide and rejecting its denial in
2019. The Trump administration, however, refused to endorse Congress’s action,
essentially reaffirming Washington’s long-held position.
Biden’s statement, however, marks a dramatic change. The
question is, why this declaration now — over 100 years after the terrible
events? Clearly, it has everything to do with Washington’s
great dissatisfaction with the foreign policies of the Erdogan government in
Turkey and is intended as a point of punitive pressure against Ankara. Over
the past nearly 20 years under Erdogan, Turkey has increasingly pursued an
independent direction in its foreign policy, often in direct contradiction of
what Washington perceives as its own interests. And indeed, Ankara has been adroitly playing both sides of the game in working
closely with both Russia and China, while offering occasional olive branches to
Europe.
The timing of Biden’s genocide declaration highlights what is part of a
generic long-term problem of serious hypocrisy in U.S. foreign policy; it
claims to be based on “moral values” or “human rights” or
“democratic values.” Yet these genuine values are primarily used
instrumentally. They serve as weapons against countries Washington does not
like but are almost never directed against regimes we do. The countries and
leaders chosen for U.S. denunciation are invariably cherry-picked according to
time, place and the political needs of the moment, rather than
values.
Washington speaks out about the “genocide” of Uighurs in China but has
nothing serious to say about Israel’s treatment of nearly four million
Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The Indian government’s harsh
policies against Muslim Kashmiris go largely overlooked because we want India
on our side against China. Rwanda was never prominent on the U.S. political
agenda in a genocide of some 800,000 people in 1994; we had no Cold War interests
to protect there. The widespread killing of Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka over
nearly three decades were largely ignored. And the savage massacres of 200,000
Mayan peoples in Guatemala were overlooked because the generals in charge were
“anti-communist.” The United States has been similarly virtually silent about
the severe repressions against the Shi’ite populations of Saudi Arabia and
Bahrain. The list goes on.
Surely this approach cheapens and devalues our professed concerns over
“human rights.” The United Nations, or perhaps more modest countries that are
not playing in the international strategic game, such as the Scandinavian
nations or Canada, wield far greater credibility on these issues.
Most
Armenians are justifiably pleased to see further recognition and condemnation
of the terrible events that befell them over a century years ago. But what useful purpose does it serve for Washington to issue such a
condemnation of genocide precisely today?
The
declaration will of course anger Turkey — and that is the point — a message to
Erdogan that we no longer consider him a valued ally to be shielded from
criticism. But the declaration is quite unlikely to change the broader course
of Ankara’s policies. Erdogan today faces serious
domestic pressure as a result of failing economic policies and, above all, the
abuse of liberal values and free speech in his heavy-handed treatment of
political opposition. At the moment, he is making nice with the West in hopes
of relieving pressure as he moves towards elections in 2023. But last
year Erdogan was deep in his “Eurasian mode” in seeking closer relations
with Russia and China. This pendulum is likely to be a predictable
phenomenon as Erdogan weaves back and forth in his complex vision of Turkish
foreign policy extending from Western Europe and North Africa to China.
Human values should always matter in governance everywhere. But when they
are employed opportunistically for transient political ends on a
century-old issue, we undermine the very importance and significance of those
values.
Written by
Graham E. Fuller
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