Death by Denial: Armenians

Death by Denial: the Armenians. April 24 comes apace. World War I mid-term test April 2007. Professor Brigit Farley, Washington State University-Tri-Cities.

Question I: The Armenian genocide was among the worst atrocities of the war. Although not initially a participant in the hostilities ,the United States was involved in this genocide and its aftermath from the start. What was the nature of that involvement, and how did it evolve? You should use Balakian's book and the World War I document architect (Ambassador Morgenthau's diary) in composing your answer.

Answer: "Remember the starving Armenians," mothers admonished children with finicky appetites when I was growing up in the 1930s, but we didn't really know what it meant.

The first 115 pages of Peter Balakian's book THE BURNING TIGRIS tells more than this reader can stand to know, having supped full of horrors and refusing to consume another word.The Armenian genocide of 1915 was preceeded by a taste of things to come during the 1890s and had a far-reaching effect on Americans for three decades. It raised a question still vital today: "To what extent are we responsible for crimes of genocide committed in other parts of he planet?" That question haunted me when visiting Auschwitz and Dachau, when touring the killing fields of Cambodia, when seeing the monument dedicated to all the sixteen year-old boys murdered by the Japanese in World War II, and when seeing the film HOTEL RWANDA, reading about the carnage in Bosnia and today in Darfur.Women were in the forefront of demanding moral accountability and positive action when the massacres first occurred 1894-96. In I903 a feminist named Charlotte Gilman demanded American leadership in prevailing "on the "Turkish government to desist from its criminal conduct." During World War I former President Theodore Roosevelt berated President Woodrow Wilson for his failure to take effective action against Turkey's planned murder of 200,000 civilian Armenians by order of the Sultan in 1890s. The carnage lasted beyond World War I and cost the lives of between a million and a million and a half Armenians. American consciousness exploded:. "In 1896 the US Congress passed the first international human rights resolution in American history, condemning the sultan for the massacres." For the first time our country became heavily involved internationally with its attempt to help the Armenians, a large Christian minority culture thousands of miles away in Turkey. Protestant American missionaries were involved with the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey and witnessed the atrocities, which brought their concerns home to the US through eyewitness accounts, personal stories, and newspaper accounts. Concern spread and was expressed internationally in 1915 when the Allies, in the midst of a war, condemned the Ottoman Turks for violating a "fundamental standard of humanity and would have consequences." Historic but empty words -- there have been no consequences and the perpetrators have neve admitted responsibility. Women activists in Boston took up the cudgel in fighting horrors thousands of miles away when news of the massacres arrived by telegraph. These strong-minded energetic women followed in the footsteps of abolitionists and joined with suffragettes. Led by Julia Ward Howe, they "launched America's first international human rights movement." Clara Barton, renowned Civil War nurse, and a group of nurses sailed to Turkey and set up relief stations to treat victims of state-sanctioned brutality and murder. Today, we rend to think ourselves superior to our predecessors, but these Red Cross treatment stations, overseas for the first time, were effective and efficient, financed largely by American donations. Since the Armenians embodied an exotic ancient culture and were "the first Christian in the world," Protestant Americans were emotionally involved and sent missionaries to convert Armenians from its patriarchal ways, teach women their rights, promote education, encourage BIBLE study, and worst of all in Turkish eyes, emphasize human rights for all. Imperialism and a superior attitude toward the "backward" Armenians were part of American zeal, not just in Turkey. Christians and Jews had no legal rights in Turkey, anathema to Americans. Turks and Kurds extored outrageous taxes, tortured, killed, raped, and stole with impunity. All the Armenians wanted were fair taxation, freedom of conscience, public meetings, equality under the law, protection of life and property, the right to bear arms for self-defense, and for the 1878 Treaty of Berlin to be upheld. Instead, Turkish promises meant nothing, and 20,000 Armenians were massacred in the late 1890s. Americans such as William McKinley, William Jennings Bryan, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John D.Rockefeller, newspapers, church groups, the U.S. Congress, and diplomatic corps affirmed that "Americans had an obligation to humanity." Pres. Grover Cleveland was lukewarm, which did not diminish Clara Barton's relief efforts. The number of Armenian victims rose to 100,000 by 1900, including the Sasun massacre in 1894. This was only the beginning of "Islamic fanaticism and a jihad mentality" fostered by the Turkish government, whose ruler Abful Hamid continued to deny everything and blame the victims.

Things got worse in the 20th century.The American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morganthau noted the German presence in Turkey in 1914, describing how effectively German officers trained Turkish troops. Morganthau was assured that the jihad pamphlet urging Turks to kill all unbelievers except Germans did not apply to Americans. Armenians, however, continued to be fair game despite Morganthu's repeated diplomatic protests. By 1922 the death toll had risen to about 1.5 million dead Armenians -- a precursor of Hitler's "final solution" or the Jews. Turkish ruler Talaat Pasha told Morganthau that everything was "the result of prolonged and careful deliberation."Morganthau learned in 1915 that the Turkish government confiscated Armenian property in a "gigantic plundering scheme as well as a final blow to extinguish the Armenian race" while lying to them that "deportation was only temporary." Eyewitness accounts accumulated in Morgenthau's office and "Were the firstbody of U.S. diplomatic literature about a major international rights tragedy." Besides homes, schools, and monasteries, the financially stable Armenian culture was rich in churches.filled with treasures. Morgenthau wrote in his diary, "Turkish gendarmes, under the plea of searching for hidden arms, ransacked churches.. . held mock ceremonies in imitation of Christian sacraments. . . beat priests into insensibility. . . When they could discover no arms in the churches. . . arm the bishops and priests with guns, pistols, swords, then take them before courts-martial for possessing weapons against the law. . . "Labeling people and killing them for WHO they are, not for what they have done compelled Ambassador Morgenthau to confront Talaat Pasha repeatedly about Turkish treatment of Armenians who "angrily replied, 'You are a Jew these people are Christians. . . Why can't you let us do with these Christians as we please?'" True Nazi mentality in the making! Morgenthau replied that the US contained 97 million Christians and about 3 million Jews. He explained that in his ambassadorial capacity, "I am 97 percent Christian. . . The way you are treating the Armenians . . . puts you in the class of backward, reactionary people." But the Pasha saw no reason for complaint: "We treat the Americans all right." Money usually talks, but even Morgenthau's reminder of financial assets gained by Armenian productivity failed. The Pasha cared nothing about commercial loss, having figured out IN ADVANCE of his murderous policy that "it will not exceed five million pounds." In fact the Pasha bragged, "I have accomplished more toward solving the Armenian problem in three months than Abdul Hamid accomplished in thirty years!" What an inspiration for Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, the warring Balkan countries, and Rwanda in "these enlightened times."Morgenthau received a "mind your own business" message from the Turks, but Americans refused to back off. In 1914 Morgenthau urged Pres. Wilson to "appeal to Turkey to put a stop to the annihilation of the Armenians.. . to appeal to the German government to 'insist' that Turkey stop 'this annihilation of a Christian race.'" Mortgenthaus's urgent plea for the Amenian relief project during the time of deportations resulted in Turkey's cutting off communication lines with American consuls. Missionaries came to Morgenthau's office with tears streaming down their faces as they told of atrocities and declared, "Only 'the moral power of the United States' could save the Armenians from annihilation." Americans and other nations responded in 1915 to Morgenthau's urging with a huge philanthropic effort. The American Committee on Armenian Atrocities was incorporated by Congress, raised more than $116 million and was truly, as Pres. Coolidge, said, "a nationwide passion." By October 1915 the Turks had massacred 800,000 Armenians. The Gemans went on record for "not blaming the Turks for what they are doing to the Armenians."By 1919 Pres. Wilson, who wanted a democratic world order, was opposed by our European allies , whom "he saw as driven by imperialistic designs on the spoils of war." Britain wanted Armenia to have mandated status, under the protection and guidance of European powers already overburdened wirh their own mandated responsibilities. Wilson lambasted the Turkish government. But former Pres. Teddy Roosevelt castigated Wilson for keeping the U. S. out of war against Germany and Turkey, "for the pure hypocrisy. . to protect the missionary interests in the Ottoman Empire, especially their vast real estate holdings. . . worth about $123 million."Insult to injury was a request by a Turkish official: since many Armenians had life insurance policies with two large American insurance companies and were all dead with no heirs, would Ambassador Morfenthau please provide get a list of all dead Armlenians from the insurance companies so the Turkish government could collect on the policies? In 1919 Wilson's Treaty of Sevres required Turkey to recognize Armenia as an independent state, boundaries to include access to the Black Sea as determined by Pres. Wilson, Turkish renunciation of any claim to the land, and for Armenia to assume some financial obligation to Turkey for the land even though Armenians had been abused by Turkey. But the Western commitment to Armenia died fast, and by the fall of 1920 Kemalists continued the massacre. Turkish war crimes trials in 1919 condemned the leader and several members of the CUP (Committee of Union and Progress) to death "in absentia," and some were actually executed. But to this day the Turkish government refuses to take responsibility. As recently as 1984 Turkish denial and their attempt to rewrite history expressed itself in a threat not to allow American military bases in Turkey if we did not stop harping about Armenian genocide. It became an issue of power: "What does it mean when . . . Turkey can persuade a superpower like the United States to abandon the earlier stance toward the genocide of 1915?" Yet the Turkish government successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress against a bill, with no legal ramifications, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.World Jewery has seen to it that the world will never forget Nazi Germany's "final solution" to the Jewish "problem" with its superb information campaign commemorating six million murdered Jews. However, I wish they also remembered the total of 12 million murders, including gypsies, homoxsexuals, priests -- anyone they didn't like - while remembering the six million Jewish victims. Pres. Ronald Reagan dismissed with casual cruelty his visit to Bitburg in 1984 to pay respects to dead German S. S. officers, telling the world no one remembers the past anyway. Reagan had no trouble consenting to Turkish demands that we ignore its Armenian genocide. Sen. Robert Byrd fought in the U. S. Congress on behalf of Turkish denial, and in 1990 Pres. George H. Bush called "April 24 a day of remembrance for more than a million people who were victims of the . . . massacres. No mention of Turkey or the Armenian genocide.

Unlike the Jews, unfortunately, the Armenians have no public relations experts to make Pres. Wilson's words an enduring truth: Wilson said the American public will never forget the Armeniasns, but April 24 comes apace, and how many people today know or care about its significance?