OPINION:
Riding a strong summer wave of good press just before Congress takes a holiday, the Armenian National Committee of America is sparing no trick in effecting a vote on House Resolution 106: The Armenian genocide resolution is, quite simply, the raison d’etre of the Armenian-American lobby — the horizon event that has, since the genocide in 1915, animated and inspired the million-strong crew of our clipper ship. Yet on the eve of our final paddle, this lonely sailor is harboring some doubts.
At least France’s resolution in 2001 delivered the message straight: “France recognizes the Armenian Genocide of 1915.” This was a humble nod to history. But just the title of its American counterpart, the “Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution,” is more breathtaking. As for the text, we jog through 1,600 words and a few dozen “findings” before we reach the actual declaration, which is addressed to the president “to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity” concerning the Armenian Genocide.
The marathon span is unbecoming of the resolution; as it replaces the elegant nod with a parade of winks and waves, it makes one suspect that it is Congress that craves a nod from history. Some of the findings are clearly irrelevant; number 11 reads that the U.S. Senate once resolved that the president “be respectfully asked to designate a day on which citizens of this country may give expression to their sympathy” for Armenians.
Others seem counterintuitive: numbers 28 and 29 record presidential statements of remembrance that make no mention whatsoever of “genocide.” Much of the rest pads a catalogue of historical facts about the first mass slaughter and displacement of the 20th century. We learn, for example, that the United Nations, international archives and even the man who coined the word “genocide” defend the term’s applicability to the events of 1915. Except these aren’t billed as facts or axioms or details of reality or historical discoveries; they are presented as “findings” of the U.S. Congress.
As the great grandson of genocide survivors, the grandson of genocide historians, and the son of Armenian repatriates — though writing, I’m afraid, without the sanction of the generations — I am insulted by that sticker. That Congress “finds” the genocide to be a fact makes the tragedy no more real than its refusal, so far, has made it unreal. Truth does not need a permission slip from the state.
As an heir, moreover, of an American tradition of limited government, I am annoyed that the legislature is poking into a sphere in which it has neither business nor experience: the province of truth. It is bad enough that a committee of aristocrats governs the conventions of politics, economics and human rights. We the citizens scarcely need to sign over the laws of nature, too, lest gravity be repealed and the whole race goes floating about the universe.
Of course, as its eventual declaration suggests, the Armenian genocide resolution is aimed at the right bullseye: the repair of a foreign policy that is rooted in de facto denial. No account of Turkey’s “strategic importance” justifies why John Evans, the last U.S. ambassador to Armenia, was fired for asserting (never mind in a “personal capacity”) the reality of the Armenian genocide. And no reference to neutrality explains why President Bush insists, against the sabotaging endeavors of the Armenian lobby, on giving the post to Richard Hoagland, an avowed genocide denier.
Congressional symbols of good faith will not do the job. When Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul flies into Washington to smear the resolution as a “real threat to our relationship” and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice slobbers back that Turkey is a “global partner (that) shares our values,” it isn’t House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s problem. U.S. foreign policy should be sobered up and called to honesty by the institution that directs foreign policy: the president of the United States. Only his leadership, and not the dubious decrees of congressmen with Armenian constituencies, can beget real victory for Armenian hopes and American principles.
But should the Armenian genocide resolution pass, we will at least enjoy the consolation of some high comedy. As imperious Turkey runs away from the West and then reluctantly returns, and as the Armenian lobby revels in its final success before the inevitable existential crisis, bad congressional resolutions might well begin to sound like good Philip Larkin: “Sexual intercourse began / In nineteen sixty-three…/ Between the end of the Chatterley ban / And the Beatles’ first LP.”
Garin Hovannisian is a writer living between Washington and New York.
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