Turkey and Armenia

I do not understand the significance and the reasoning for the the non binding resolution to ask the President that the WWI killings of Armenians be called genocide.

Is this meddling to try to hurt the peace negotiations?
Is this posturing for some legislators to placate Armenian Americans?
Is it a needful and moral stance against war atrocities?

Should we take this political stand against a NATO ally over an act now almost 100 years old? Should we engage in sideline shouting while important and intense talks between other nations are ongoing?

"On the other side is an important U.S. Armenian-American constituency and their backers in Congress ahead of congressional elections in November."

And then there is the all important voice of defense contractors.

1> And then there is the all important voice of defense contractors.

That is why it is a nonbinding resolution: it always comes down to money. Those defense contractors donate to campaigns, and now that the campaign law was hammered by the Supreme Court, the defense contractors can have a significant impact on the fall elections. After all, self-preservation and greed are the cornerstones of American government.

This way, the politicians can placate the voters, and not do anything significant to damage the Turkish/American relationship. The governmental posturing by the Turkish and USA leaders will blow over by next week.

Berman, Radanovich and Schiff represent areas of California with the largest Armenian-American communities. Kirk and Pallone are co-chairs of the Armenian caucus. Which is not much of a surprise and does not necessarily imply cynical posturing.

Lockheed is also in Berman's district. If you go strictly by the numbers, ANCA only gave him $1250 to the Lockheed Employees PAC's $7000.

What might be the impact on the Turkey and Armenian negotiation and on Turkey and US relations?

KJ thinks Turkey will pull the ambassador temporarily, maybe for show. Then after the show, things will return to normal.

The political posturing maybe for more than donations. It may be for actual votes.

I guess my question is if this display is harmful to an important process and is being conducted despite potential harm, just in order to curry votes.

If it is for show by some Congresspersons, why is there in Congress enough support to advance the measure through committee?

If it is for pure show by some Congresspersons, why is Congress wasting this time of a side show to help some members get re elected, rather than working on a real issue?

As an aside, my ultimate hope is that someone will give me something to ease my growing anger over the workings of Congress.

What I find interesting is the cynicism directed at this non-binding resolution. We have a "representative" form of government, which means that these elected officials may be "representing" the interests and concerns of their constituents (if what MMcM wrote is correct). I don't see a problem in this per se; this is what one would expect from Congresspersons. I see no reason one should be angry about this unless one is predisposed to look for issues about which to be angry. On the other hand, one can reasonably disagree with (1) the timing of the resolution, (2) its content, and (3) its insertion into the long-standing dispute between Armenia and Turkey.

You may be correct in your critique of me.

But there is a sensitive negotiation in progress.

The atrocities are almost 100 years old, meaning there were ample previous opportunities to pass a non binding resolution if that is the proper moral stand.

It seems to me to be a purposefully timed political move that serves to complicate tenuous progress, and the gain seems to be some votes for a few Congresspersons.

It will however make me feel better to be shown that my reaction is wrong, and all parties are acting earnestly towards a better world.

5> What I find interesting is the cynicism directed at this non-binding resolution.

Perhaps it is well-earned cynicism? There is a looooong history of such 'opportunisitic statements/legislation/non-binding utterances, from this august body to warrant skepticism. Yes, they are looking out for a portion of their constituency, although I think their Armenian constituency would prefer jobs, affordable healthcare, more regulation for banking, etc. But, Congress doesn't want to give them what they want, so they feed them some 'feel-good' crumbs. Will this non-binding resolution put food on a man's table, or help him pay for his son's surgery? No, but it makes blowhards in Washington 'look sympathetic.' I don't buy it.

6> It seems to me to be a purposefully timed political move that serves to complicate tenuous progress, and the gain seems to be some votes for a few Congresspersons.

It will however make me feel better to be shown that my reaction is wrong, and all parties are acting earnestly towards a better world.

I would agree with your analysis. The most important objective for all of these politicians is getting reelected. Nothing more and nothing less. Experience has shown that you are not wrong, and there is little of late to come out of Washington that truly reflects earnest action towards a better world. Affordable healthcare? New banking regulations? Ending two wars? Hmmmm...perhaps this is the best that they can do.

It may be that our policy makers, in considering the resolution, have an eye toward Iran where many Armenians fled to during WWI and where many Iranian-Armenians still hold prominent positions in politics and business. Coincidentally, the National Iranian Oil Company just signed a deal with Gazprom, a huge Russian energy company, here.

Perhaps it is well-earned cynicism? There is a looooong history of such 'opportunisitic statements/legislation/non-binding utterances, from this august body to warrant skepticism. Yes, they are looking out for a portion of their constituency, although I think their Armenian constituency would prefer jobs, affordable healthcare, more regulation for banking, etc. But, Congress doesn't want to give them what they want, so they feed them some 'feel-good' crumbs. Will this non-binding resolution put food on a man's table, or help him pay for his son's surgery? No, but it makes blowhards in Washington 'look sympathetic.' I don't buy it.

I leave it to one with superior wisdom to adjudicate whether, in this particular instance, cynicism is warranted or not. However, to argue that because constituents might want something else out of Congress the resolution is somehow no more than feeding them crumbs only obfuscates the matter at hand; if the constituents want their concerns about the past treatment of Armenians to be acknowledged by Congress (and this non-binding resolution meets this concern), then whether or not some other business before Congress -- health care, banking, or whatever -- is proceeding properly is irrelevant to an assessment that this non-binding resolution meets (or does not meet) the desires of constituents. Congress could (and maybe should) do many things, but the fact that they've done this particular thing is not undermined by lack of action on other issues. My own view is that if one adopts a critical perspective, it should be based on reasonable and practical expectations for a political process that has been set up to be slow moving and cumbersome by design. Cynicism can, after all, be based on false premises.

In this case it has taken almost a hundred years.

I wonder what was meant in the article with the reference to this action on the resolution being taken "ahead of the November elections."

Generally speaking Armenians tend to feel pretty strongly that they were victims of genocide and that Turkey "got away with it".

But modern day Turkey is still an important part of the US foreign policy and military system (to the extent the US actually has a coherent thought out "system").

I can imagine that there is pressure on representatives from districts where Armenian Americans are concentrated to "do something" about all of that.

So, how can a representative "do something" for his Armenian American constituents, and not gum up the works involving US relations with Turkey, and or military contracts with "Big Bucks" for all ?

A non binding statement could do the trick. The Armenians get a "bone" and nobody's ox is gored.

Ford's in his fliver, alls right with the world.

In this case it has taken almost a hundred years.

I have no particular stake in this resolution. But I don't think you can hold it against people living today or the particular Representatives backing the resolution that they weren't around 100 or 75 years ago to do something.

I'll back off my question, and accept that the resolution will do nothing and the Turkey ambassador will come back, and Armenia and Turkey will continue with their negotiations, and the appropriate Congress people will get their votes, and the Armenian constituents will feel vindicated, and all will be well.

I am just overly cynical.

November is getting close after all.

From the BBC:

Both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton lobbed against the genocide resolution, but only at the last minute. Both supported it as candidates. Turkey may also have lost support from the powerful US Israeli lobby because of PM Erdogan's verbal attacks on Israel.

Turkey and Israel have been going at it since last year when Turkey began criticizing Israel for its attack on Gaza. Back in January, Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon publicly humiliated Turkish ambassador Ahmet Oguz Celikkol.

I would not be surprised if this spat somehow spilled over into American politics.

And from NPR

"The government of Armenia is not going to push this issue as much as they might have," Suny says. "They want to make some realistic state-to-state agreements with the Turks."
____

Armenians outside of Armenia seem to take a harder line on the question of the term genocide than those still living in the country.

"This denial of the genocide has become the central organizing principle among Armenians in the diaspora," says Ronald Grigor Suny, a professor of Armenian and Russian history at the University of Michigan.

_______

"The use of the term genocide throws a monkey wrench into what could be the smoothly working machinery of reconciliation," he (Charles W. Ingrao, an historian at Purdue University,)says. "It has a political dimension that makes it counterproductive."

Why doesn't Congress condemn this mini-genocide too, and earn the love of all sides?

How big is the Azerbaijani lobby?

Well, they've got oil in Baku. I don't think the Armenians have got any oil, so, like the Jews (who also have no oil), they will have to rely on their lobbying power.

Congress should grow up. Genocidal mass murder is absolutely normal when two different tribes find themselves trying to exert their control over the same piece of land.

It's how people are. Where one side refrains from completely wiping out the other, and just contents itself with repressing them in various ways, pushing them into reservations or refugee camps, it's a triumph for the better angels of our nature, etc.

But we should understand that it's not the historical norm.

Crazy world it is, why can’t the ones living in Turkey say: ”So what, I wasn’t in on it anymore than I was in on Treblinka, Katyn, or My Lai.”

Why is that, what makes a membership identity necessary? We are certainly not born that way. I for my part think it starts with your parents demanding you act silly so as to get your dinner, and your teacher demanding you learn nonsense to get an exam, and your general demanding you massacre Armenians so as to evade the traitor’s gallows.

I think it starts when relevance becomes external to the acts themselves as correspondence with the demands on receiving favourable treatment. The Turks each in their own private retreats don’t give a shit - how could they, what are the possible consequences? No they are just being robotically loyal, scared of being seen as traitors, as undeserving of their porridge – all abreast, we're good soldiers and whores all of us – and never did our Turkey do anything like such a bad word.

Some ladies are reincarnated; I can assure you from having spoken to a pair that none of the Norwegian ones used to be Norwegian, no, they were French mistresses to the king, Pharaoh’s daughters, Greek priestesses, and the like: when intermittingly dying they all changed nationality! And I think that this is the internationalist spirit we need: let the Norwegians and the Maoris and the Yemenites take the blame for the Armenian Genocide, then Turkey can answer for The British terror bombing of Copenhagen, and well… let’s wait with blaming the US Americans for anything, they’re prowling around under the surface of all the World’s oceans with subs chock full of atomic bombs – all the time representing God’s own country!

We're slowly, very very slowly, climbing up out of the mud. Give us a few more generations, and time to roughly equalize the economic and cultural levels of the world's peoples, a really global economy, mass education... maybe we'll transcend all the nationalist/tribalist madness.

The European tribes have mixed pretty well in America, and they seem to be on a new path in Europe. On the other hand, European civilization (on both continents) seems to be suffering from a loss of self-confidence, which does not bode well for the future.

#19: Why is that, what makes a membership identity necessary? We are certainly not born that way.

What makes you think that? Our cousins the chimps learn pretty quickly who's in tribe and who's out, and are more than willing to commit genocide on the other tribes.

#21
I said you are not born with membership identity, you said that (for chimps at least) it happens quickly, which doesn't sound like a real protest?

A membership identity, as I see it, is created when dependency upon that membership is forced upon one, when ones activities to assure ones continued life goes from attempting mastery in manipulating the material world, and attempting returnable friendliness in wholly fresh attempts, to that of demonstrating demands as being obediently remembered.

As for the animals as comparable to humans, I truthfully haven’t given it much thought. Can dogs be as independent as cats, or are they born herd animals? Dogs bark even against those they have not come to know, Heraclitus informs us. They are always in uniform, with an identity that contrasts with strangers.

Maybe animals are not fully comparable to us at all; the fish, for example, unlike mammals, probably can’t distinguish between himself and the ocean. The fish moves the ocean, as I read some Indian philosopher put it.

Like language, we are born with the capacity, probably a mandate, to form a membership identity. The only thing the child needs to learn is which tribe he is part of.

#23
If people do become something, they do have the capacity to become it yes; I find it hard to argue against that. But what group that if threatened with losing its existential cohesion would make you need to fight for it as for your own life? And how did you find out you had this collective identity?

Why do some people cry when a flag is raised and the local team wins a game, while some couldn’t care less - if not their amount of real life independence? Would you keep your membership identity day out and day in as lonely trapper in Alaska? If not, then why not, other than its lack of practical use?

Just because a recognizable pattern of behavior is observable among human beings (e.g., the formation of "membership identity"), it doesn't necessarily follow that this is an indication of some inborn capacity; i.e., the universal is not always the natural. One could as easily argue that this is the result of external compulsion: join or die. Additionally, one would not be able to account for ambivalence exhibited towards membership identity if the ubiquity of group formation is explained as the result of an inborn capacity (at the psychological level, object relations theory is a useful starting point for an analysis of complex processes of attachment and differentiation).

9> My own view is that if one adopts a critical perspective, it should be based on reasonable and practical expectations for a political process that has been set up to be slow moving and cumbersome by design. Cynicism can, after all, be based on false premises.

I disagree with the first sentence, and the evidence lies with the many non-important declarations that have come out of Congress in short order, when passions were high, or they needed a 'look-good' moment.

And, cynicism can be based on factual premises, such as the inability of the USA Congress to actually do anything that truly benefits mankind,, before it is self-serving. I don't claim to have 'superior wisdom', and when it smells like a duck and quacks like a duck I can only surmise that it waddles.

9> My own view is that if one adopts a critical perspective, it should be based on reasonable and practical expectations for a political process that has been set up to be slow moving and cumbersome by design. Cynicism can, after all, be based on false premises.

I disagree with the first sentence, and the evidence lies with the many non-important declarations that have come out of Congress in short order, when passions were high, or they needed a 'look-good' moment.

And, cynicism can be based on factual premises, such as the inability of the USA Congress to actually do anything that truly benefits mankind, before it is self-serving. I don't claim to have 'superior wisdom', and when it smells like a duck and quacks like a duck I can only surmise that it waddles.

Edited for typo

I'll never see Turkey at least with DH--he's convinced there's a dungeon or something in basement of Turkey's Chicago Consulate where he'd need to go to renounce his Turkish citizenship, it being illegal for Turks to have dual citizenship... Not irrational? (Remember Erdogan's body guards beating protesters on his trip to DC? https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/violent-brawl-turkish-embassy-washington-dc-474... )

Ragıp Soylu (Middle East Eye) @ragipsoylu | 8:22 AM · Apr 25, 2021
Turkish-Americans have played Ottoman Military Marching Band musics all day to Armenians who were protesting outside the Turkey’s Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Via @kasimileri_
From Kasım İleri
0:25 ( https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1386294425542926336 )