The
writer is an assistant professor of international relations at Lehigh
University. He served in the Armenian government from 1991 to 1993 as an
analyst and a foreign service officer.
Next Friday
Armenians in this country and around the world will commemorate the
100th anniversary of the most calamitous event of their history — the
mass murder of their ancestors in the Ottoman Empire. There will be
solemn speeches, ceremonies and rallies. There will be impassioned calls
on governments that have not recognized the murder of Armenians as
genocide to do so. And there will be denunciations of the Turkish policy of denial.
The
anniversary is also a good opportunity for another kind of reflection.
The Armenian politics of memory has not been without its controversial
aspects, which are rarely discussed openly and honestly. Such a
discussion is long overdue, especially if Armenians do not want the
politics to harm Armenia and are interested in Turkey someday
recognizing the genocide.
First, if we
are genuinely interested in not just the rest of the world but also
Turkey recognizing the Armenian genocide — and, at least to this
Armenian, that is the recognition that matters — we must fundamentally
revise our attitudes toward Turks, as emotionally understandable as
these attitudes may be. Specifically, we must stop treating criticism of
or even antagonism toward the Turkish state as interchangeable with
hostility and hatred toward Turks themselves.
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