Telling the truth about the Armenian Genocide
A piece by Christopher Hitchens about Turkish pressure to distort history…and Barack Obama’s “unusually clear and unambivalent record” in speaking out against it:
In 2006, for example, the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, was recalled for employing the word genocide. Then-Sen. Obama wrote a letter of complaint to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, deploring the State Department’s cowardice and roundly stating that the occurrence of the Armenian genocide in 1915 “is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence.” On the campaign trail last year, he amplified this position, saying that “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that president.”
Hitchens’ piece came out before Obama said this in Turkey:
[T]he best way forward for the Turkish and Armenian people is a process that works through the past in a way that is honest, open and constructive…I want to be as encouraging as possible around those negotiations, which are moving forward and could bear fruit very quickly very soon,” Obama added. “And so, as a consequence, what I want to do is not focus on my views right now, but focus on the views of the Turkish and the Armenian people. If they can move forward and deal with a difficult and tragic history, then I think the entire world should encourage them.
Some Armenian activists were less than pleased (and no word on Hitchens’ opinion). Obama “missed a valuable opportunity to honor his public pledge to recognize the Armenian genocide,” Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), said in a statement. Other Armenians seemed willing to cut Obama some slack:
Bryan Ardouny, executive director of another Washington advocacy group that lobbies on Armenian issues, the Armenian Assembly of America…said it was “significant” that Obama, while in Turkey, referenced his 2008 stance, but added “I don’t have a comment one way or the other if he should have done something more or less while in Turkey.”
Ardouny’s group places more weight on what Obama will do or say on April 24, the day on which Armenians commemorate the deaths.
As for me? I more with Ardouny than with Hamparian. I measure forward progress in millimeters.
