Comparative Politics, Year I

GENOCIDES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

CASE STUDY: THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

„If the restoration of human dignity is to become a theme for social research,
it becomes imperative to understand the unified character of genocide, the common
characteristics of its victims, and ultimately the need for alliances of victims and potential
victims to resist all kinds of genocide. To insist on universalism, triumphalism, or separatist
orientations is self-defeating” (Irving Louis Horowitz)

It is thus important to retain the fact that as different as the circumstances and
the intentions of the existence of the genocide may be, its analysis should be conducted while
concentrating upon some essential elements, such as the context, intention and motive, the
perpetrators, the victims and the bystanders. It is this approach that allows one to gain a global
view upon the phenomenon, and in this purpose, the present paper is meant to conduct a brief
analysis of the Armenian genocide.

But before proceeding to the analytical dismantlement of the genocide, it is

important to define the phenomenon according to the criteria enounced by the International
Society during the Convention on Genocide. Genocide is foremost an international crime for
which individuals, no matter how high in authority, may be indicted, tried, and punished by the
International Criminal Court (ICC).

According to Article 6 of the ICC Statute, this crime involves, "any of the following
acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm
to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to
prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another
group."

Context. Intention. Motive. Development.

The Armenian Genocide, conducted by the government of the Ottoman Empire
between 1915 and 1916, with subsidiaries between 1922 and 1923, counted one and a half
million Armenian victims from a total Armenian population of two and a half million living
within the borders of the Ottoman Empire.

Regarding the background that led to the present situation, it is important to

reflect upon the status of the Armenians within the Turkish society. It is thus compulsory to
relate to religion, since we are speaking at the time about an important Christian minority
within a Muslim state that at the time was still ruled by a hierarchy of religious rulers- the
caliphate being considered the form of statal organization descending from the tradition of the
Prophet Mohammed.
 Going further, in traditional Ottoman society, Armenians as other Christians
were considered dhimmi and the treatment applied to them, even if they were allowed to an
extent to freely practice their religion, was that of an inferior being. To this approach, the
Armenians defied the authorities by becoming wealthier, better educated and more urban,
situation that entailed the repression of the state leading even to persecution.

The advent in 1908 of the Young Turks and the implementation of their
approach to the reformation of the state in order for the Empire to redress from the crisis, in
accordance to the constitution of 1876 was intended to be supported by the international
society, thing that never happened, since there were greater interests at stake.

In fact, the interests of the international society made it possible that between
1908 and 1912 the territory of the Ottoman Empire be reduced by 40% while its population
by 20%, situation that determined a shift in ideology for the Young Turks.

The Young Turks approached the radical xenophobic nationalist movement,

pan-Turkistan, which had as purpose the creation of a new empire based on Islam and Turkish
ethnicity1. The new Empire was to stretch from Anatolia to western China and would exclude
minorities or deprive them of rights if they refused the Turkish nationality and Islam and it
was this approach and the purpose established, that triggered the vision of Armenians, among
other minorities as alien nationalities and determined the abuses that took place.

Under the accusation that the Armenians were claiming Anatolia and had the
Russians, the traditional enemies of the Ottomans, as allies, the measures taken were that of
placing the Armenians in concentration camps in eastern Anatolia, on the border with Russia.
Moreover, the entrance of Ottoman Turkey in the First World War at the side
of the Germans, against Russia, allowed the pan-Turkists to take further their actions against
the Armenians, which would lead to their destruction.

By February 1915, the Armenians in the Turkish army had been disarmed, and
they were enrolled in labor battalions, being worked to death or killed, while the civilians
were deported from Eastern Anatolia to Cilicia, toward the desert near Aleppo, meant to die
from famine and abuse, slow death being the most common approach to their extermination.

In parallel, the population was incited to kill the Armenians, killing squads,
called Teshkilat-i Makhsusiye, being in charge with these actions and in addition to these,
there are also accounts of the involvement of some Turkish physicians in medical and surgical
experimentations on Armenian subjects.

Going further, when analyzing genocide, the final conclusion or impression

may not always be clear, but approaching all the sides of the matter can be useful for its
accuracy.

1
Robert Melson, Paradigms of Genocide: The Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and
Contemporary Mass Destructions, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, vol. 548, pp. 156-168
 The Victims
A research conducted by Donald E. Miller upon the response of the survivors
of the Armenian Genocide, distinguished between six types of responses to the massacre:
Repression, Rationalization, Resignation, Reconciliation, Rage, and Revenge, without being
explicit psychiatric categories, but rather a “logical ordering of possible alternative responses
by survivors to the massacre”2.

The category of victims that responded to the suffering by repressing it,

refusing to openly talk about the issue, denying the occurrence of the event, is very low in the
Armenian case, and this may be due to the fact that many survivors could not hide their
experience from others, having grown up in orphanages among others with the same past, or
lived in neighborhoods inhabited by Armenians. Moreover, Armenians, during the social
gatherings, often approach the subject.

In what regards rationalization, meaning inventing plausible explanations for

why the massacre occurred, and to justify the outcome of the events, only one such testimony
was registered at a survivor stating that : “we Armenians have to admit our guilt, we wanted
to have our independence. The Armenian political committees did a lot of political uprisings.
Of course, Turks would not allow these. But we have to admit it. If we today did something
like they did, here in the United States, the United States government would shove us into the
Pacific Ocean”. In other cases this rationalization is also used in order to seek explanation for
the good that might have incidentally resulted: 1. The genocide determined the Armenians,
once and for all, to emigrate from Turkey; 2. They managed to flourish in all domains in their
new homelands, 3. The genocide encouraged the increase in importance of the Armenian
nationalism and 4. Armenians became more religious due to this situation.

Resignation, the failure to hope, the act of submitting to the pain and terror of
past realities, being unable to rationalize, compensate or search revenge, began for the
survivors in 1915 when they understood their incapacity of resisting deportation, it also
deepened during the course of events and managed to persist to the present, since some view
the genocide as the perish of the nation itself, many Armenians not having acknowledged
Soviet Armenia as their homeland.

However, reconciliation appears to many, even if perceived as a religious

duty, as a “daily struggle”, since retaliation appears as the reasonable solution, moreover since
the Turkish government refuses to recognize the existence of the Armenian genocide.

Rage, being the expression of extreme anger or emotional fury, is to be

considered a separated category from revenge since it implies strong emotional feelings
without involving physical violence. Rage was felt at some time by every survivor, feeling
that is directed towards the perpetrators, but in the present it is still acknowledged due to the
refuse of the Turkish government to recognize the genocide.

In this respect, revenge is the strongest and naturally the most entitled feeling
to be perceived by the survivors, since retaliation appears easily to solve the problem of
dealing with the abuses of the past. However, this is difficult to direct, since the Turks of
today are not the ones of the past, just as the government has changed, following the reforms

2
Donald E. Miller, Lorna Touryan Miller, Armenian Survivors: A Typological Analysis of
Victim Response, The Oral History Review, Vol 10, 1982, pages 47-72
implemented by Ataturk. However, the survivors may also consider that God, rather than man
should punish the abuses.

However, no matter the approach to the genocide, the victims are the ones to be
drawn together by their common past, and the mere acknowledgement of their suffering, even
if what the resent is resignation or the need for revenge, suffices for their unity, situation that
has imprinted upon the common conscience of the Armenian people and their conception as
such.

The Perpetrators
In order to understand the Armenian genocide, it is important compulsory not
to detach the events from the institutions and cultural and religious values of the Ottoman
state.

According to the traditions, the Armenians were considered “Peoples of the

Book” and thus were granted the statute of protected non-Muslims of the Muslim state,
however being subjected to discrimination, having to pay higher taxes, being prohibited from
ringing bells or exhibiting crosses, and even their clothes being regulated by specific laws.

Moreover, the Ottoman society was divided in two categories- on one hand the
military (askeri) and on the other the subjects (reaya) and as it is expected, there were no
Armenians among the military. To this it should also be added the fact that the Ottoman early
approach to conquest was accompanied by mass deportation of the indigenous populations
and by the settlement of Turks in the conquered territories3.

Given this aspects, it is not difficult to understand how it was easy to

implement the genocide and determine people to take part in it. In fact, the whole process of
perpetration of the genocide started, respecting the definition, from up, form the authorities
that provided the framework for the abuses, down to the simple people that chose either to
respect or to protect the targeted minority.

On the other hand, even if there are accounts of Turks striving to save the
Armenians, by resorting to marriage or adoption, these are only marginal, given the final
result- the death of more than half of the Armenian minority inhabiting the territory and the
survivors’ determination to flee elsewhere in the world.

Going further, what speaks clearly about the perpetrators, is also the present
attitude of the Turkish government, refusing to admit the existence of the Armenian genocide,
even when faced with the incapacity, in lack of such an recognition, to be accepted among the
members of the European Union.

It is of course, important to take into consideration that the present Turkish

government is not the continuator of the one that perpetrated the abuses, since the Caliphate
was abolished in March 1924 and the divine law regulating the state, the Sharia, was replaced
with the rule of law, by the reforms implemented by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

3
Stephan Astourian, The Armenian Genocide: An Interpretation, The History Teacher, vol.
23, 1990, pp 111-160
 In this respect, the state may refuse to admit the wrong-doings of the past
government as not to be associated to the one that is responsible for their perpetration, but, as
many justifications that may be found, the need for closure is not appeased by these.

Having the whole structure of the state involved at the time in the genocide
speaks not only of a governmental responsibility, but rather the demands for the recognition
of the Armenian genocide find grounds in the moral responsibility of the Turkish people
towards the Armenian survivors and offsprings.

The Bystanders
Bystanders define those that were neither involved in the perpetration of the
genocide nor stood as victims to this, the category of bystanders important to perceiving this
genocide is mostly the international society, because it is the one that can provide information
regarding the possibility of having the genocide prevented or stopped in time before having
caused so many victims.

As such, there are various accounts of the different states present in the
Ottoman Empire at the time of the perpetration of the genocide. Aside from German,
Austrian, and American consular reports, the memoirs of the United States Ambassador in
Constantinople, Harry Morgenthau, depict the abuses to which the Armenians were subjected.

However, measures were not implemented as to change the outcome, and this
may be well justified by the situation of the time, the dismantlement of colonial empires on
the grounds of the rise of nationalism and claims of self-determination and thus the approach
of World War 1.

Also, given the international reactions today, relating to abuses that approach
genocide, even now, when the shadow of the Holocaust is looming over the entire society,
supposedly drawing it more aware of the dangers, it is not impossible to understand the
incapacity of the states to understand the whole extent of the crimes or their unwillingness to
do so or to take action.

Nowadays, the Armenian genocide, counting survivors, has been recognized,

even if not by the perpetrators or the whole international society, and measures have been
taken, to the closure of the ones having lived through it and in the memory of the ones that did
not survive.

Among intellectuals, the International Association of Genocide Scholars has

recognized the 1915 genocide in three different resolutions, the latest being the one from
October 2007, extending it, in addition to Armenians, to the Assyrians/Syrians, Anatolian and
Pontic Greeks: “WHEREAS the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of
genocide, enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the
way for future genocides; WHEREAS the Ottoman genocide against minority populations
during and following the First World War is usually depicted as a genocide against
Armenians alone, with little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides against other
Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire; BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the
International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian
minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians,
Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the
Association calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these
populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward
restitution.”4

To conclude, there is no genocide that could be fully understood without the in

depth study of all its sides, just as there is no possibility to approach the matter in summary.
When dealing with death and abuses, frameworks never fully function in order to categorize a
genocide, reason for which a fully encompassing definition of genocide not only cannot exist,
but also should not exist.

Since Aristotle men have invented categories in the search of introducing the
unknown in a less difficult to understand framework, turning it in this manner regular. But
what is there to be done, when genocide has cleansed one million and a half men and
determined to flee around another million? How can the survivors be explained the reasons of
their sufferings and the deaths of their parents and relatives? How can a modern people living
under a modern constitution, be held responsible for the deeds of a past government that was
eventually rejected and replaces? How and why should the bystanders be awakened to
reactions? Is there a possibility to draw them responsible? And all this, to what use? What is
left after a genocide is destruction and change, change into a society, be it the one that had to
flee, or the one that had to start living without the presence of the minority it once knew. And
to what use closure? Closure for what? Today, in 2009, there can be hardly any survivors left,
to be consoled, and the perpetrator still refuses recognition of its deeds, while the offsprings
of the victims have been led to different corners of the world, establishing there Armenian
communities.

There is no solution to one genocide, and no framework to its punishment- the

international society is not bound by laws that can hold it responsible and there is none that
can be objective in this context, since all may enter in the category of either victim,
perpetrator or bystander.

4
http://www.genocidescholars.org/resolutionsstatements.html
References

• Robert Melson, Paradigms of Genocide: The Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and
Contemporary Mass Destructions, Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, vol. 548, pp. 156-168
• Donald E. Miller, Lorna Touryan Miller, Armenian Survivors: A Typological Analysis
of Victim Response, The Oral History Review, Vol 10, 1982, pages 47-72
• Stephan Astourian, The Armenian Genocide: An Interpretation, The History Teacher,
vol. 23, 1990, pp 111-160
• http://www.genocidescholars.org/resolutionsstatements.html