Other People's Genocides

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

One of the big stories this week, at least in terms of US foreign policy, was Joe Biden's characterization of the Ottoman massacres of Armenians in 1915 as a genocide in comments he made last Saturday. The genocide is considered to have begun on April 24, 1915. 

“The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide,” Biden said in a statement Saturday.

This is considered a big deal because the Turkish government rejects this characterization, preferring instead to emphasize the degree to which the events of 1915 resemble a "civil war" rather than a genocide. Unsurprisingly, Ankara has sharply criticized Biden's comments, saying they have opened a "deep wound" in US-Turkish relations. 

The problem with discussions about genocide is that everybody seems to be operating from their own, seat-of-the-pants definition of the concept.

Genocide and the Borderlands

Tuesday, June 2, 2009 It's been a busy week or so since getting back to Istanbul last Sunday. I'm heading off again for the United States on Thursday of next week, so basically I've been hitting the archives, seeing friends, and trying desperately to finish up some work that I'd really like to complete before leaving Turkey. I hope to spend most of this summer working on a manuscript for a book, so before getting back to Michigan I hope to be able to mail off an article that I've been kicking around for the last few months.

Turk-Arm II: A Legacy of Pain and the Turkish-Armenian Rapprochement

April 23, 2009 Like a lot of people, I'm glad to see that the Turkish and Armenian governments have apparently made some progress recently in their relations with one another. As I wrote in a post last week, leaders of the two states have been making quiet steps towards a normalization in their relationship since the fall of 2008. In September of last year, Turkish president Abdullah Gul made a quick trip to Yerevan to attend a soccer game, and since late 2007 delegations from the two countries have been meeting regularly in Geneva in an effort to come up with a means of developing their relations.

Turkey and the Armenian Genocide Issue

January 16, 2009 Yigal Schleifer, writing for Eurasianet.org, has recently posted an interesting piece regarding  a Turkish website set up last December which apologizes for "the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915." The site, which was set up by 300 Turkish academics and intellectuals, invites Turks to sign their names below a statement reading: My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers and sisters. I apologize to them. As of January 17, more than 27,000 individuals are listed as having signed the petition. The petition campaign hasn't received a lot of attention in the Turkish media, but it has attracted numerous retorts and counter-allegations from within the Turkish blogosphere.  When I first started living in Turkey in 1992, I was often surprised by the degree to which almost all of the people I met here seemed to feel personally invested in the issue of whether or not the Ottoman government committed a "genocide" against Ottoman Armenians in 1915. Not only did I find the near uniformity of opinion on this matter to be striking, but it also seemed interesting that Turkish people would feel their national honor to be so closely bound up in events which occurred eight years prior to the creation of the Turkish Republic in 1923.  I often had trouble understanding why, having traditionally rejected so much of their Ottoman past in favor of the Turkish Republic, Turkish people would feel so defensive with regard to this issue. Yet there are a number of reasons, of course, why Turkish people would feel so defensive about this issue. Many Turks feel that their history is being compared to that of Nazi Germany, which strikes them as particularly galling when so much of Turkey's current population is made up of the descendents of Muslims who fled genocidal conditions in the Balkans, the Crimea, and the Caucasus. Why, it is asked, does no one ever seem to raise the question of genocide with regard to the French in Algeria, or the United States and the native Americans, the Russians in the Crimea and Chechnya, or the Armenians themselves in Nagorno-Karabakh? Additionally, many people are concerned that, since Turkey is the legally recognized successor state to the Ottoman Empire, any acceptance of culpability to genocide could lead to claims for reparations, even demands for territory. Indeed, many of the postings I've read on Turkish blogs in relation to the online petition campaign raise these questions. There is a lot of finger-pointing, and a lot of effort to distinguish the events of 1915 from the Holocaust or from various definitions of the term "genocide." Clearly, the Armenian genocide issue is something which is still extremely difficult for people in this country to talk about. After all, the Republic of Turkey was founded at the conclusion of over a solid decade of war which witnessed an incredibly brutal series of events befalling both the Muslim and the Christian populations of the region. Talking about these events outside of the traditional "forging of a nation" narrative surrounding the triumphs of Ataturk is not something that many people in this country are accustomed to, and doing so opens up a very painful chapter in Ottoman/Turkish history. But I think that undertakings like the petition campaign are an indication that people here are growing more comfortable bringing up these issues.  It is worth noting that the online petition does not mention the word "genocide" anywhere. I think that's probably a good idea. Discussion of this issue has all too often concentrated on the suitability of the term "genocide" for describing the events of 1915. While I think that such a debate is definitely worth having, I also feel that arguments over terminology have too often become a distraction from what should be the most important issue here: the recognition of the incredible suffering that befell innocent civilians of a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds during a very dark period in this region's history. Perhaps by starting with such a recognition, both Turks and Armenians can begin to move towards a healthier discussion of these events.

Friday N & P: May 1 Edition

May 1, 2015

Hello again, Borderheads, I hope your week has been a good one. Life has been good up at the Borderlands Lodge. My schedule has been pretty full lately, involving a lot of planning and organization for my upcoming travels to the Eurasian Borderlands. 

 
Gabor Szabo always puts me in the right mood

Snowy Springtime N & P

Friday, April 17, 2015

It's been snowy up here lately in the northern Rockies. After a very mild winter which saw far colder temperatures and much more snow out east than out here, springtime has been snowy so far in Bozeman. It's getting better though. Today is a bluebird day, the first of several, apparently, to arrive over the next week or so. It's an encouraging development, to say the least, for denizens of the Borderlands Lodge.

Sign of spring: the return of the prairie dogs

An Obama hand in Turkish-Armenian talks?

April 29, 2009 Hürriyet is reporting that it was a threat from Barack Obama to use the word 'genocide' in his April 24 speech which prompted Turkey to close the deal in agreeing to a 'roadmap' for normalizing relations with Armenia.   According to Hürriyet, during Barack Obama's visit to Turkey in early April of this year, Obama threatened to make good on his campaign pledge to recognize as a 'genocide' the events of 1915, in which at least several hundred thousand (and possibly more than one million) Ottoman Armenians perished. Every year, the president of the United States makes an address on April 24, the day in which these events are commemorated, and every year there is speculation over whether or not the word 'genocide' will be used in the address. In not using the word 'genocide' in his address, Obama was sharply criticized by Armenian groups and others for having 'turned his back' on the pledge.

Turk-Arm I: Quiet Steps forward in Turkish-Armenian Relations

April 18, 2009 Turkish members of parliament from the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP in Turkish) and Nationalist Action Party (MHP) have recently visited Azerbaijan to attend a meeting called  "Azerbaijan-Turkey: Common Interests and Problems." At the meeting, the opposition MPs made a point of criticizing the recent efforts of Turkey's AK Party government to take some steps towards the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations.  Referring to Armenia's occupation of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, CHP representative Sukru Elekdag was quoted as saying "Turkey wants peace, tranquility and security to prevail in the Southern Caucasus. However, peace and security cannot be ensured in the region because of the ongoing Armenian occupation."

April 24-25: two days of remembrance

April 26, 2009 April 25 (yesterday) is a holiday in Australia and New Zealand known as Anzac Day (which stands for Australia-New Zealand Army Corps), which commemorates soldiers who died in the British-led invasion of the western Ottoman Empire in 1915. On April 25 of that year, thousands of troops from (mainly) Britain, Australia, and New Zealand began what would become an eight-month siege of Çanakkale ("Cha-nak-ka-le"), on the Gallipoli (Gelibolu, in Turkish) peninsula between the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea. Gallipoli is the entry point to the Dardanelle Straits which lead, through the Sea of Marmara, to Istanbul--the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The Sea of Marmara is directly below Istanbul, and is connected to the Aegean (and through the Aegean, the Mediterranean) by the Dardanelle Straits.

On the Kurdish and Armenian initiatives...

Sunday, December 13, 2009 One of the biggest stories to have emerged from Turkey this year was the so-called "Kurdish initiative" (Kürt açılımı, or Kurdish 'opening').  The "Kurdish opening" was announced in the Spring of this year, but has actually been around for a while. On January 1 of 2009, the Turkish government set up TRT 6, a television channel which broadcasts in Kurdish. Then, during the municipal election campaign earlier this year (nationwide municipal elections in Turkey are treated as referenda on the performance of the sitting national government in a manner similar to midterm elections in the United States), Prime Minister Erdoğan went even further in his efforts to woo Kurdish voters to his party. Prior to the March 29 elections, Erdogan not only promised that he would allow Kurdish-language radio, but also spoke Kurdish himself publicly at a campaign rally--something which is actually illegal in Turkey.

Local and Global N & P

Wednesday, May 7, 2014 Well folks, there's a lot going on these days, both at the Borderlands Lodge and in the world more generally. Locally, there's a flurry of activity taking place in anticipation of upcoming travels. Globally, meanwhile, things are going to hell as usual. Whether you like it local or global, here is your N & P! *** Some news from Montana: the horrid killing of a Turkish-German youth named Diren Dede. Diren was an exchange student at a high school in Missoula, a city about four hours west of Bozeman and home to the University of Montana. He was shot by a man who had set up a video feed to catch burglars, who'd apparently been breaking into the garage recently.

News & Propaganda: Jan. 27 edition

Wednesday, January 27, 2011 Snowy days, people, and busy times here in the imperial metropole. I'm getting increasingly settled, and the Borderlands Lodge in Exile is finally starting to run on its own power. And that's an especially good thing in this wet, cold weather.

Friday News & Propaganda

Friday, April 24

Greetings, Borderlanders! Life has been pretty busy of late up here at the Borderlands Lodge. Spring has come, again, to the Greater Bozeman Metropolitan Area, and the snows of last week have receded. 

The weather in Bozeman has been just amazing lately

N & P: Christmas at the Borderlands Lodge Edition

Saturday, December 26, 2020

On the heels of last week's International Monkey Day edition, now we've got still more special days this week and next. All of these holidays just keep coming.

While I enjoy getting a tree and putting it up in my place here in Bozeman, Christmas has never been a particularly big holiday for me in this part of the world. As an adult, I've appreciated Christmas most of all during the years when I was abroad. As I've written elsewhere, back when I was living full-time in Turkey in the 1990s, Christmas felt like my own personal secret holiday of sorts, something most of the people around me were not celebrating, or even aware of. That's how I like my holidays sometimes: in isolation.  

And indeed, Christmas this year was spend largely in isolation. I made ribs and mashed potatoes, with margaritas on the side. A friend came by to eat and drink on the landing leading up the stairs to my balcony. So, we were distanced by about 10-12 feet and outside. Otherwise, I spent the day the way that I've spent most of the past nine months: working on my book, reading, and taking an hourlong walk. 

In other words: exciting times, all around. The other day I found a can of split-pea soup in my cupboard and literally thought to myself: "Oh, split-pea soup. That might be fun."   

So yeah, on second thought I guess nothing exciting is happening here, after all. 

And what about the Eurasian borderlands, you are asking, what's been going on there? Well, let's have a look...

N & P : Padre Possibility Edition

 Friday, October 9, 2020

While I'm a stalwart supporter of the Detroit Tigers baseball team, I occasionally engage in flirtations with various National League temptations. This occurred for the first time when I was a university student in Montreal. The 1$ (Canadian) bleacher tickets in the late 80s-early 90s at Olympic Stadium and easy access via the metro made the Expos my National League mistress of choice for some time. These loyalties, such as they were, were eventually transferred to the Washington Nationals. 

This year I've been meeting up furtively with another team in the hours after the Detroit Tigers have lost yet another game. While Dan Dickerson and Jim Price are packing up their microphones in Detroit, I've been listening to a different radio broadcasting team on the Pacific coast. I've been fooling around with the San Diego Padres.  

Why the Padres? Family connections--my maternal grandparents lived there for many years. Moreover, because the Tigers crushed the Padres in the 1984 World Series, I've always felt a certain patronizing magnanimity toward their squad. I've never feared them, and the Tigers rarely play them anyway. 

And I've always liked the idea of San Diego. It seems like a nice place to live. It reminds me vaguely of the Crimea. Nice weather, a lot of Navy people, proximity to the ocean, little green men. That kind of vibe. 

Out here in Montana, moreover, I like listening to the West coast radio broadcasts late at night. The Padres tend to be one of the last games of the evening to finish up, so I usually end up with them. A lot of great relationships have started off with far less. 

So don't call it an affair: I was just enamored by the lure of possibility. 

Alas, while the Padres made the playoffs this year and extended their season beyond Detroit's, they lost in the--which series was this again?--to the Dodgers. So now I've lost my baseball mistress as well.

***

And what about the Eurasian Borderlands, you might be asking? A lot has been going on this past week, including: 

Crimea River: Water and Russian-Ukrainian Relations

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

There's been a lot of talk lately about the likelihood of Russia invading Ukraine, an issue that I discussed here last week. One point that I emphasized last week was that there are real differences between the respective value of the Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and the value of eastern Ukraine, where the Russian government has been intervening ever since 2014. 

In particular, I noted that, whereas there were real concrete benefits for Russia in invading and annexing the Crimea, the case for doing something similar in the rest of the Ukraine seems somewhat murkier. So what, exactly, would be the benefit to Russia if that country actually were to invade Ukraine? 

Biden's Meeting with Erdoğan in Brussels

Saturday, June 19, 2021  

If Joe Biden's meeting with Putin doesn't quite qualify as a summit in my books, the US president's meeting with Turkish president Tayyip Erdoğan was even shorter, as part of a broader meeting with NATO leaders in Brussels. 

All smiles for now...

The meeting was important, though. US relations with Turkey have been at various stages of rocky for years, with the months following the July, 2016 coup attempt (or coup attempt-like events) in Turkey constituting a real low point. It was at this time, in 2017, that Moscow offered to sell its S-400 missile defense system. In response to Ankara's purchase of the system, the US put sanctions on Turkey and will not sell it weaponry for now. 

Erdoğan's interview with Charlie Rose

Wednesday, April 30, 2014 Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan had an hour-long interview on Charlie Rose the other night. I found it pretty riveting. Then again, my taste in entertainment isn't always so great. A lot of the questions that Charlie asked him were pretty classic. The Kurds. The Armenians. A sleepy-looking Rose (did the slip him something beforehand?) perked up for a brief moment when he actually thought he might get Erdoğan to issue a sort of apology for the Armenian genocide on live TV. It didn't happen, but I was nevertheless surprised to see the Prime Minister indicate, after providing a series of qualifications, that he might be open to doing something like that in the future.

Raising the roof: more on the Gezi protests

Monday, June 3 The Ataturk Cultural Center (known as the AKM) used to be one of my favorite places in Istanbul. As a cheapo foreigner, I liked taking dates to the inexpensive ballet and (usually western) classical music performances that were held there. Cheap 'n classy, that's the way I used to roll in those days. Mostly, the fare at the AKM consisted of a few very frequently presented shows like Swan Lake or Carmen. One time, I went to a performance of Kazakh music performers with a girl I was seeing at the time when the concert was halted suddenly, like at the beginning of Madonna's Eva Peron film. They announced that the great Turk Sanat Muzigi performer Zeki Muren had passed away, and a palpable groan came from the audience. The concert ended and we all left. Anyway, these are the sorts of memories I have of the AKM, which also used to be the main meeting place for people in Taksim during the years before the cellular phone. It's located right next to Gezi Park.

Caucasus Journey XIV: In Kars

Wednesday, May 20, 2009  On Tuesday (yesterday) I took a bus from Artvin to Kars. The trip was long--about six hours--and felt even longer because so much of it was on road that is under construction. Calling the surface washboard-like would really be too diplomatic.