Why recognition proved so elusive
Sadly, recognition of human atrocities on the magnitude of the Armenian Genocide is a privilege reserved for relative peacetime, which proved elusive during much of the 20th century. For Armenians specifically, ongoing episodic pogroms occurred pre-1915 and continued until 1923, at which time the world unwittingly hurtled toward its most volatile and deadly period in recorded human history. Given the chaos, Genocide survivors had scant opportunity to process the unfathomable events perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire.
Practicality displaced emotion, as Armenians had to determine their most pragmatic option going forward: where to go in the world, how to get there and how to become economically relevant in a foreign land. They needed to escape the unbearable pain and grief of the past and the possibility of more uncertainty and misfortune going forward. No concerted effort to campaign for Genocide recognition could be mounted while our ancestors were preoccupied with where to resettle and how to build a prosperous future.
Much academic study is written about the psychological effects of experiencing such a traumatic event. Perhaps grief and suffering were obscured, both consciously and unconsciously, in order to blunt the pain. Perhaps our ancestors were stunned, leading to an emotional inertia. These effects are deep-rooted and can be perpetuated for many years.
Armenians did garner immediate Western endorsement and press at the time of the Genocide; however, World War I and ultimate U.S. involvement moved Ottoman atrocities off the front pages. It was not until 1944 that Polish-Jewish academic Raphael Lemkin coined the phrase “genocide,” though he did not refer specifically to the Armenians. By that time, the horrors of the Holocaust were starting to emerge, and that became the topic of the day.
The Genocide did, however, induce the establishment of a far-reaching and robust diaspora, especially in France, Russia, South America, the United States and the Middle East. However effective these growing tendons were at disseminating Ottoman atrocities, progress was gradual.
As Mr. Peter Balakian duly noted in his article for the Armenian Weekly, Turkey obstructed recognition efforts by exploiting the chaotic onset of World War I and, in the ensuing years, staging a systematic campaign of denial and gaslighting. History carves out strange alliances. This is no more evident than post-World War I when the Allied Powers had to court what was left of the Ottoman Empire due to its strategic location vis-a-vis an encroaching Russia and a more volatile Middle East.
The Republic of Turkey filled that void. Realpolitik dictated that the Republic of Turkey could not be outright blamed, shamed and held accountable for the unspeakable crimes committed against the Armenian people. Turkey had been rendered unassailable, which in itself was an equally egregious crime.
From the 1920s to the 1950s, global chaos and suffering reached inconceivable heights. Europe was devastated, among other regions of the world. Astonishingly, the Turks took indecency several standard deviations higher by blaming the Armenians for their unfortunate fate, citing their alliance with Russia. Even more astonishingly, they used the specious argument that it was wartime, and many innocent Turks had died as well. The Ottoman Empire shamelessly used the cover and chaos of current events to dilute and deny their atrocities.
Incredibly, the attitude of some non-Jewish Europeans after the Holocaust was that their Christian and Protestant populations had also been decimated in the two World Wars, so why should they feel sorry for the Jews? Such rationale did not help promote the Genocide recognition effort.
Finally, as Mr. Balakian also noted, the 1945 Nuremberg trials, followed by the decolonization movements in Africa, triggered a thawing of recognition inertia. The mid-1960s saw the crescendo of the African-American civil rights movement and its intellectual cousins—women’s rights, anti-war protests, gay rights and environmental movements.
American culture drastically embraced change, at long last providing a clearer path for Armenians to make their tragic story known to the world. In 1965, the first April 24th Genocide Remembrance Day gathering was held in New York City’s Times Square, petitioned by about 40 parishioners from New York and New Jersey and endorsed by the Knights of Vartan fraternity.
In my childhood and early adolescence during the 1960s and early 1970s, the Armenian Genocide was more a concept than an actual event to my young mind. I would often ask my paternal grandmother, with whom I was very close, what exactly the Turks had done. Why didn’t my father have any relatives, like my maternal grandparents did, who had been fortunate enough to emigrate to America prior to 1915? Who better to ask than a family member who had actually experienced it?
But the second she heard the word “Turks,” I sensed, even at my young age, immediate revulsion. She would swing her arm in an upward motion, thrust her head down and quietly utter, “Go-ddam Tur-ks.” I will never forget that look on my grandmother’s face. She did not want me to see the pain in her expression. She would not discuss it. She did not want to relive it. Above all, she did not want to frighten me with it.
In my later years, I understood that my grandmother was trying to protect my impressionable mind from being desecrated by the same hate, pain and suffering inflicted upon her entire family during the Genocide. She wanted me to grow up “clean,” tabula rasa, with no emotional baggage and nothing to fear in life—a privilege never bestowed upon her and her family.
What tremendous sacrifices our ancestors made for us, enabling us to lead such charmed lives. How lucky we are to have descended from them.
Peter Hamptian has a bachelor’s degree in economics with a minor in English from Rutgers College and a master’s degree in international finance from Columbia University School of International Affairs. He has worked in finance since 1985.
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