Justin Veiga | executive editor
jveiga@smcvt.edu

“Who remembers the Armenians?”

Not the majority of U.S. Congress, apparently.  Two weeks ago, the House Foreign Relations Committee voted to condemn the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923, and to officially acknowledge those killings as an act of genocide. 

Now, after threats from the Turkish government to reconsider its support of U.S. efforts in the Middle East and its serious consideration of an offensive towards the Kurds in northern Iraq, Congress has turned its back on the resolution and more importantly, on establishing a recognized platform for intolerance of future acts of unspeakable violence. 

At one point, House Resolution 106 flaunted 225 co-sponsors, but in just a three-day period last week following Turkish coercion, 14 House members withdrew their names, tail (and integrity) firmly tucked between their legs.  Many more have chosen to leave their signatures, but have warned that they would vote nay if the proposal reached the floor, including Democratic Rep. Jane Harman of California.

“I think there was genocide in Turkey in 1915 but I am gravely concerned about the timing,” she told The New York Times on Oct. 17.

Most of the lawmakers who oppose the legislation have used current Middle Eastern affairs as their excuses.

“While this is still the right position, it is not the right time,” Republican Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, who has previously supported the resolution but was personally persuaded by President Bush to vote no this time around, told The Times in their Oct. 11 front-page story.

Bush urged House members to neglect the resolution and its passage, telling them, “This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings.”

What, then, is the right response?  This country has long prided itself on acting with a sense of justice and duty to humanity, within our own borders and especially beyond.  It is troubling that intimidation from another government is all it takes to shake and wither those principles.

The truth is that Turkey has long been at odds with the Kurdish separatists who live along the now NATO-registered nation’s southeastern border.  The introduction of this resolution, strictly a symbolic measure proposed by Congressman Adam Schiff of California, did not spark this feud. 

Officials in Istanbul, as do our own in Washington, D.C., regard those separatists as members of a terrorist organization, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K.  Yet Bush has argued that an attack on Kurds in general at the hands of the Turks would further complicate and stricken American efforts in Iraq, as our administration has relied on the Kurds for stability and leadership in the new democratic government.

But regardless of whether or not the Armenian Genocide Resolution reached the floor, Turkey appeared poised to strike, as evidenced by the reported Oct. 24 aerial attacks on Kurdish rebels.  Turkish warplanes and Cobra helicopters launched assaults on mountain trails that P.K.K. members have been known to utilize.

Turkey’s dismay in response to the legislation, officially titled, “Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution,” reflected a bolstering mechanism for its own agenda.  The time frame of the proposal benefits Turkish interests whether it is voted on and passed in the House of Representatives or not.    

No valid reason therefore exists that should deter an immediate House vote on the measure.  Timing or any other persuasive political tool should never out-wield the conscience of an individual, nor should it ever provide an excuse to evade decency.  

Just prior to the commencement of World War II, Adolf Hitler spoke those four words: “Who remembers the Armenians?”  A cruel blend of complacency and hatred, the Nazi Fuhrer used the rhetorical question as a defense to his proposed extermination of the Jewish population in Europe.

Had Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued a statement proclaiming timing or other world affairs as an inescapable control over American response to the learned atrocities of Hitler’s concentration camps, would Congress or the American public nod in agreement and turn a blind eye on occurrences so blatantly evil?

Granted the Armenian Genocide occurred over 90 years ago.  Granted most individuals directly affected during that time have since passed.  And granted, time heals all wounds.

But time offers no resolve to the unending suffering brought against the Armenian people by the Ottoman Empire in Turkey.  Nor does it provide reason in undermining morality.  The depravity of inaction rests with its inherent message that future acts of inhumanity will be tolerated by the United States.