Nation State Formation and Genocide: The Armenian Case
by The Nation State was, is, and will perhaps remain the most important political representation of National aspirations. The negative side is that Nation State Nationalism is inclusive and is built on the principle of excluding “others”, who don’t fit into the ethnic-national configuration of a given nation state. This phenomenon has been debated as the precursor of many of the maladies of humanity since the concept of nation state was established. In this lecture we delve into Turkish nationalism and how it lead to the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
Now that the dust has settled about this farcical misadventure and Turkey once again showed the international community that what it was doing was only a diplomatic ploy to gain time and, in the process, to water down the efforts at passing a resolution vis-à-vis the Armenian Genocide within the United States’ Congress, we are back at square one.
Conclusion
“You have to hit and shape the iron bar while it is hot,” goes the Armenian saying. It’s been 94 years since the events that started in 1915. I guess the “iron bar” has hardened so much that the blacksmith can not give new shape to it. I say this in a relative way, since if I try to compare it to the process through which the recognition of the Jewish Shoah underwent just after the end of WWII and culminated at the Nuremberg Trials and the Genocide Convention of 1948 so ardently fought for by Raphael Lemkin, what I see is that we are still far away from shaping the iron in the case of the Armenian Genocide.
Moreover, even with the noble ideas that Lemkin fought for the passage of the Genocide Convention; did it cure the malady it was prescribed for? The answer is a definite no.
Should I then be acutely pessimistic regarding the issue? Some would say yes. But I would not. I still believe, and perhaps naively enough, that we are entering into an age where this issue must come to a conclusion.
“Not until the fat lady sings” you would say. Yes, but that singing has already started. It has started with those left behind and whose offspring are discovering their Armenian identity. It has begun with a new generation of activists on both sides who will definitely reach places that their predecessors had never reached.
It will happen, because as Milan Kundera says:
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
It will happen since in the words of Timothy Radcliffe:
“Despite all the lunacy of the last century, all the absurdity of war and genocide, we believe that humans being are rational and are made to seek the truth.”
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Post Commentjedilost
On July 29, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Has it ever occured to you that Armenians might have tried to do what Greeks and Bulagrians did, ie forming their own national state? Do you actually suggest that Armenians were immune from the nationalism trend?
Please dont twist my words as it tends to happen more than often. Im not saying anything like “they were backstabbers.” or “they deserved it.” No. I am nowhere near that notion. But I see no fairness in putting all the evil on the Turks and almost angelizing Armenians. What is your stand against the Moslem victims? Do you think they were not important or do you simply deny that?
Garabet Moumdjian
On December 18, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Unfortunately dear jedilost, independence has never occurred in the thinking of Armenians under Ottoman dominion. The most that Armenian political parties advocated for was equality and some self rule…
garabet moumdjian
On October 17, 2010 at 6:21 am
Also dear friend, I don’t deny the agony of Turks. However, one must weigh the balance of calamities on both sides. all calamities are abhorred…however, to be wiped out of your ancestral homeland and to be dispersed and become a “citizen of the world” is not commensurate to somehow continue to exist on your ancestral homeland…We Armenians after all, are an “Ottoman Armenian Diaspora.” and not a n Armenian Diaspora of what is today known as the republic of Armenia…
I myself hail from a family from Marash in Cilicia (Chukurova)…
jedilost
On April 4, 2011 at 4:53 pm
I am sorry for this very late reply. Triond doesn’t have a proper follow-up system (actually, none at all) so it really took too long for me to realize that you have answered me.
first of all, i should thank you for acknowledging the agony of the Turks, which is actually a very rare thing. in most of the debates i find myself in, i sadly saw that Armenians are too reluctant to accept this notion.
and about your claim that Armenians never wanted an independent state, i guess this Huncakian site at http://www.hunchak.org.au/aboutus/historical_nalbandian.html (i don’t know if it is an offical site or not but its content pretty much matches with what i know) says quite the opposite. the second item in official Huncakian program says:
“The immediate objective of the party was the political and national independence of Turkish Armenia. ”
and this is an excerpt from the 3rd item:
“The Hunchak program advocated revolution as the only means of reaching the immediate objective. The arena of revolutionary activity was designated as Turkish Armenia. The Hunchaks said that the existing social organization in Turkish Armenia could be changed by violence against the Turkish government and described the following methods: Propaganda, Agitation, Terror, Organization, and Peasant and Worker Activities.”.
and this is the year 1886.
so i am really not making this up, but only showing you what Armenians have written.
actually, it would be wrong to assume that Armanians didn’t want what most of the other nations have already got: independence. this was the main trend back then.
now again, please let me emphasize that i am definitely not trying to say anything like “Armanians got what they deserved.” No, not at all. All i am trying to say that there was an ongoing conflict between the Ottoman authority and Armenians and it ended in a way i can never approve. i am deeply sorry for every lost soul, just for sake that they were human beings regardless of their nationality, and i would really appreciate if i start to receive the same kind of treatment from Armenians who mostly feel nothnig but hatred against Turks.