Why are the Turks so upset?
I don’t quite understand Turkey’s anger over the Armenian genocide resolution. I have my doubts over whether it was actually a genocide in the technical sense, but that’s not the point here. (There’s a good commentary on this on NRO, though I take great issue with Kavulla’s offhand and unjustified comment that Turkey may have merely a “delusion” of civilization.”)
But who was responsible for the Armenian massacres? They occurred entirely under the Ottoman Empire, before the founding of the Turkish Republic. And what about the people involved? To the best of my knowledge Ataturk had nothing to do with it, and in fact didn’t get along with the Young Turks who were running the government. As for those Young Turks (this is admittedly all based on Wikipedia/Vikipedi):
- Enver Pasha: court-martialled by the Ottoman Empire for crimes including the abuse of Armenians; sentenced to death; fled Anatolia; rejected as a political partner by Ataturk.
- Talaat Pasha: court-martialled by the Empire in absentia; sentenced to death; assassinated by an Armenian.
- Cemal Pasha: court-martialled by the Empire; sentenced to death; assassinated by an Armenian.
- Behaeddin Shakir: court-maritalled by the Empire but apparently acquitted; exchanged by the British to Ataturk’s government but never took up a major position.
- Sukru Kaya: If I’m reading Vikipedi correctly, which I’m probably not, he was fairly involved in Ataturk’s government, and he definitely became a Foreign Minister from Ataturk’s party.
But I think the upshot is that except for Kaya, none of the perpetrators of the massacres went on to become a major part of the Turkish Republic. In fact, even the Ottoman Empire tried the Young Turks for their crimes—which may have been just a tool to punish them for losing the war, but still, even Germany didn’t try its own war criminals in 1945. In WWII that was left up to the allies, who in the one case here where they had the chance (Shakir’s), didn’t try the perpetrators.
My point is I think the Turkish Republic has a very plausible case for admitting the massacres, or even admitting a genocide, but denying any responsibility by the current government. Everyone in the post-war German government which accepted responsibility for the Holocaust had lived through the war, and many had even been in the German Army, though probably not the SS. But a government of Turks born long after the last Armenian was murdered still stubbornly insists on denying the massacres, even hiring washed-up US congressional leaders to lobby for them. Why? All I can figure out is that it has to do with a continued sense of the Republic as the heir to a Great Turkish Past, and maybe a sense of the artificiality of Turkish nationalism. There were certainly plenty of Turks outside modern-day Turkey (as shown by Enver Pasha’s post-war activities), and plenty of non-Turks inside it. Maybe Turks realize, even if they don’t want to admit it, that without the Armenian massacres and the population exchanges, there could be no Turkey as we know it? (Sort-of the point made here.) Thus, even if remembering the massacres doesn’t hurt Ataturk’s reputation, maybe it does undermine the founding myth of Kemalism: a historical predestination that Anatolia would be the nation-state of the Turks?
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