Turkish Historian: "Senate Recognition of Genocide Is Important from a Legal Standpoint"

On December 12, a lecture was held at the Estonian Academy of Sciences featuring Tanner Akcam, a professor at Clark University in Massachusetts, and Schwon Nash-Marshall, philosophy professor and dean at Manhattanville College in New York, dedicated to the denial of the Armenian Genocide. Following the event organized by the Estonian Embassy in Armenia, renowned Turkish historian Tanner Akcam gave an interview to Estonia's leading newspaper, "Eesti Päevaleht", discussing the U.S. Senate's recognition of the Armenian Genocide and Turkey's denial policies.

According to "Eesti Päevaleht", Akcam, one of the world's most famous historians, warns that Turkey's denialist policies regarding the events of 1915 could escalate further...

Below is the complete interview:

Question: On Thursday, the U.S. Congress adopted a resolution classifying the 1915 massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide. What is the maximum impact of this?

Tanner Akcam: Here, we have to highlight two perspectives. First, the U.S. is different from all other countries. For that reason, recognition of the genocide by the United States has a much greater impact on the Middle East and particularly Turkey than, for example, similar resolutions from France or Germany.

Secondly, recognition is crucial due to a specific feature of the U.S. legal system. According to American legislation, any government, state agency, bank, or private company can file a lawsuit if they can prove two things: first, the organization must have some connection to this event, in this case, the genocide; second, they must be connected to the United States. If these two conditions are met, a third condition is necessary—the U.S. must have recognized it as a crime against humanity without a statute of limitations. Then, millions of dollars in lawsuits can be filed. The United States can freeze the accounts of those organizations. This poses enormous problems for Turkey.

Question: Ultimately, there need to be accusers. Who can file lawsuits now?

Tanner Akcam: For example, a whole series of lawsuits is already anticipated in California. For now, they have just been pending as long as the official recognition of the genocide was absent. Now, recognition has been obtained from three sources of power—the President, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. According to the assessment of most legal experts, that is sufficient.

Question: How important is it to label the massacres as genocide?

Tanner Akcam: For example, when we refer to the discussions that took place at the former Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal, there was much debate regarding whether it was a genocide or some other lesser manifestation, like ethnic cleansing.

Question: In fact, it does not matter to separate them?

Tanner Akcam: This is still the first step. Let's consider, for example, the Holocaust. In 1952, Israel, the U.S., and Germany reached an agreement in Luxembourg, where Germany agreed to pay reparations to Jewish diaspora organizations, among others. But over the years, new situations arose, such as forced labor, as well as new legal cases. A crime against humanity is a crime against humanity, and we are still at the beginning of this process.

When we talk about the Holocaust, historians have quite a clear picture of what led to it. If we set aside moral evaluations, what was the Ottoman Empire's rational justification for perpetrating the genocide? I would present two reasons—first, political, and second, ideological. The ideology was Turkish nationalism. The idea was to create a Turkish identity based on a universal identity, and to assert this identity, all Christians were considered enemies of the state. They did not conform to Turkey's Islamic collective identity. Thus, they had to be uprooted.

Secondly, a political reason was their fear of losing territory. Throughout the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire lost its lands in similar situations. Initially, they made concessions to Christians, increasing their rights, often only on paper. Then, other great powers intervened, and those regions gained independence. Hence, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania were established. We saw a similar process during the collapse of Yugoslavia; in order for Muslims not to demand any territory for themselves, those territories were simply emptied of Muslims. In the end, Turkish authorities are aware of this and openly state that if we had not expelled the Armenians from those regions, we would not have a Republic of Turkey today.

Question: So did the Ottoman Empire's mindset continue during Atatürk's administration?

Tanner Akcam: The denial of genocide was the prevailing tradition and foundational ideology of the Republic of Turkey.

Question: You yourself have called this intellectual state a "collective secret". What does this mean?

Tanner Akcam: It is something akin to Daniel Goldhagen's case, who argued in his book "Hitler's Willing Executioners" that Germans pretended not to know anything about the Holocaust because they highly valued it. I would prefer to use the expression of German philosopher Jürgen Habermas—"secret violence." By creating a collective identity, one creates specific discourses, specific expressions, terminology, and how you view yourself and others in those terms. Habermas points out that there are things you do not want to remember when you do not want to talk about them.