The evolution of quasi-legal “resolutions,” in various state and national legislatures or court systems around the world, of genocide committed by the Ottoman government against its Armenian citizens during (and after) the First World War has been an interesting, if curious, phenomenon. Of course, the passing of a resolution has no legal force and certainly does not demonstrate historical veracity as one cannot legislate the direction or flow of historical events in retrospect. What resolutions do, however, is to attempt to achieve a perception of events in order to increase the visibility and importance of a community, achieve a specific political goal or to gain some sort of compensation. Resolutions of the kind relating to the “Armenian Genocide” serve to enhance the status and importance of the Armenian community in a cultural environment where victimhood is a badge of honour. The fact that so many of these highly dubious documents have passed through national and state legislatures is a tribute the tight knit, affluent and highly clannish nature of the Armenian diasporas. In short, over many years they have shown themselves adept and manipulating the sympathies and resources of their hosts in order to further their own financial, political or cultural agendas.

The content of the resolutions or affirmations that have “passed” through legislative systems can be viewed in a number of internet web sites or publications and they make for interesting reading. While organisation is clearly evident from the beginning the evolution of the format and content is quite informative as it demonstrates a growing level of co-ordination and an increasing level of orthodoxy as the years have progressed. From the start certain central claims have been made (1,500,000 dead for example) but enthusiasm and zealotry made for the production of some quite startling “facts” — in other words, although everybody was trying to sing from the same hymn sheet the chorus was somewhat ragged

One of the earliest resolutions passed through the California State Assembly on April 15th 1968 and related specifically the establishment of the Armenian Martyrs Monument in Montebello, California. However, it is not until terrorist campaigns conducted against Turkish individuals and institutions got underway in the early 1970s that the flow of resolutions began increase. The reasons for this should be obvious. Although terrorism conducted against Turks was carried out by a variety of disgruntled or ill individuals and by a variety of politically radical and extremist Armenian groups, they presented the mainstream Armenian communities around the world, and particularly in North America, with both an opportunity and a problem. High profile terrorist atrocities served to bring Armenians’ sense of grievance to the wider public around the world- this was a great opportunity. The problem was that the 1970s and 1980s was a period that was almost defined by a terrorist driven crisis directed primarily against western targets and western values and tied up in Cold War issues. All of these terrorist groups were left wing and extremist in outlook and all had support from the Soviet Union, one of its dependencies or one of its third world proxies. The numerous Palestinian factions are an obvious example but to this we can add the IRA, the Red Brigades, Bhader-Mienhoff, Sandero Luminoso, the Japanese Red army, the PKK and so on; all high profile, anti western and ruthless.

Into this complex political mix comes the Armenian terrorist, in various formats revisiting the terrorism of the Armenian radicals of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The majority of people in the west viewed the Armenian terrorists with the same jaundiced eye that they viewed all the other terrorists. This time round, unlike the “problem of the Near East” in the late 1800s and early 1900s the Armenians had no rationale, no viable agenda…….no value.

What were they murdering and mutilating for? There were no oppressed Armenians in Turkey. There was no land or people to liberate. Their philosophy was nihilistic and hate driven; an opportunity for publicity, but also a problem. How could the mainstream Armenian community — whose leaders rarely unequivocally condemned the terrorists, benefit from the publicity without tarnishing the carefully nurtured aura of innocence? Part of the answer must have been in the campaign for “legal” recognition.

From the outset, the most consistent and uniform claim was the casualty figure- 1,500,000 — a figure that can not be changed since it is inscribed in stone, quite literally, on the Martyrs Monument. Apart from this, things did vary, probably due to over enthusiasm. Some of the embellishments are quite amazing, for example, part of the April 4, 1980 New York State Assembly resolution claims in one section:


“The land (Armenia) became a vital trade route between East and West and was coveted by the Persians, the Medes, the Mongolians, the Russians, the Greeks, the Romans and the Arabs; however, the Christian Armenians were able to peacefully coexist with invading armies until the birth of the Ottoman nation, when the Turks established dominion over an empire stretching some one thousand five hundred miles from Vienna to the Caucusus Mountains; and

WHEREAS, The Turks could neither tolerate nor integrate the independent Armenians, who spoke their own language and practised their own religion………..” and so on in similar vein for another twenty sections.

Clearly, anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the relevant time periods and regions will know that this is quite simply arrant nonsense and is laced with a racist subtext of the kind that obscures much of what is written about Turkish history. One would have hoped that an august body of legislators would know better.

 By the mid 1980s Armenian terrorism was a spent force but the process of accumulating resolutions had acquired and independent force of its own and continued with a much greater degree of conformity — by 2000 they appear to working from a standard text in some cases. For example, from the Main Joint Resolution June 3rd, 2001, we find reference to:

“.. atrocities committed against the Armenians…..including the torture , starvation and murder of 1,500,000 Armenians, death marches into the Syrian desert and the exile of more than 500,000 innocent people”

This section is repeated almost verbatim in the California State Resolution of the 10th April 2003 and with minor changes in the New York State Legislature resolution of April 19th 2002. The resolutions from Main and California also both use the now almost obligatory reference to Adolph Hitler’s quotation and they also use the identical quotation from Ambassador Morgenthau in which he states, among other things, that previous massacres in history are “insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.” All the stops are clearly being pulled out in order to put across an emotive, tailored message that will appeal to people’s historical misconceptions and ignorance. Armenians are unique; their suffering is unique and preceded that of the Jews.

This last California resolution is particularly interesting as it carries the mark of Senator Poochigian, a lawyer and law maker of some repute in California — apparently.

Senator Chuck Poochigian

Senator Poochigian has made the next logical step beyond resolutions and has formulated a law. The law he has formulated, however, is significantly different in form and scope from his resolutions. Firstly, it is limited in scope as it applies only to the area of insurance claims held by Armenians in Ottoman lands, their heirs and beneficiaries. It is modeled directly on a law covering insurance claims of Jews in German occupied Europe of the 1930s and 1940s. Promulgation of law in this area is a logical progression and appears to have been running, in this instance, in conjunction with attempts made by a number of Californian Armenians, supported by Armenian community groups, to cash in on insurance policies they either held or felt that they were entitled to benefit from and which date from the late 1800s and early 1900s. According to an article in The Fresno Bee in September, 2000 the value of these “lost” insurance policies could run to as much as $3 billion.. Poochigian’s Law was formulated specifically to aid these claims.

Poochigian’s Law is really quite fascinating and is remarkable because of the difference in tone, scope and definition when compared to all the resolutions on the subject of the Armenian Genocide- even the California resolution drafted by Poochigian himself. No mention of numbers here. The definition of “genocide” in the context of the law is so wide as to be meaningless in any real sense and the definition of who exactly is a “victims” of the “Armenian genocide” is quite spectacular!

The first section of the law sets out its perameters:

Section  (a) The Legislature recognises that during the period from 1915 to 1923 many persons of Armenian ancestry residing in the historic homeland then situated in the Ottoman Empire were victims of massacre, torture, starvation, death marches and exile. This period is known as the Armenian Genocide.”

This is innocuous stuff — the number 1,500,000 (always given in numerical form in resolutions for greater impact) is substituded for the word “many”. This could apply to anybody who had the misfortune to live in the region including Turks, Kurds, Circassians, Jews and Greeks since all were subjected to starvation, expulsions, disease and massacre by someone. In fact, Armenians and Russians perpetrated atrocities and massacres of their own on Muslim communities before, during and after the relocation of Armenians occurred. However, at this point he restricts himself to Armenians.

The bill goes on to state that many Armenians and their descendants live in California and deserve an expeditious resolution to their claims because they have suffered enough. In fact, any further delay would represent an ”undue, unreasonable and unjust hardship on Armenian Genocide victims and their heirs.”

It is Poochigian’s definition of who is an Armenian Genocide victim that is most amazing of all. In Section 2) subsection 1) the bill states the following:

“Armenian Genocide Victim” means any person of Armenian or other ancestry living in the Ottoman Empire during the period of 1915 to 1923, inclusive, who died, was deported, or escaped to avoid persecution during that period.”

One hardly needs to highlight any part of this definition; it is amazing in both in its scope and its departure from the many resolutions passed through state and national legislatures. Why could this be? The answer is quite simple- a resolution is meaningless and free of political and monetary costs because its victims are Turks who, as yet, are only a small and relatively insignificant minority with little lobbying power. A law on the other hand, can be tested in court therefore it was necessary to frame the law as broadly as possible in order to ensure that challenges over facts and figures did not risk the outcome. This law is an admission that the basic facts to be found in every Armenian Genocide Resolution are unsafe.

 

 

 

Related:

The "Genocide Resolution" in America Almost Passes

 The Importance of Genocide Resolutions