with the house looking (again) to pass a resolution calling out the turks for genocide of the armenians after WWI, the boy and i are trying to figure out:
Has the U.S created similar resolutions for way-in-the-past genocide in other countries?
everything i see has resolutions passed in or around the time of active/recent genocide, like the serbs, darfur, rwanda, zaire, etc.
after the boy muttering things about “have we passed resolutions against spain for the aztecs? or the incas? have we passed resolutions for the slaughtering of native americans by france?
he rattled on, and i thought it was a good question from a historical perspective.
i know the armenian one is at the forefront because the US has a big push from armenian-americans. i guess that is what it takes for the house to feel like they need to comment on such things?
(This intended to be “just facts.” I know you are Turkish, so I hope you don’t take any offense at any of this.)
I had a professor who specialized in the Armenian genocide. I’m not sure what got him interested, but I do think that he lost a good deal of his family. He used to talk about his research in class, and that is the biggest part of my knowledge-base on this subject. The big deal is that for years Turkey denied even that a large number of Armenians were killed simply for being Armenian. I’m not sure what their current stance is, other than that Turkey objects to the word “genocide.”
This issue is still going on right now, not because Turkey is running around killing Armenians, but because there is a somewhat large international movement to get Turkey to admit to killing Armenians and apologize. For awhile, the information to prove that so many people died was somewhat hidden–or at least that is my understanding–and so no action could be take in the immediate aftermath. It is even more important now, or at least is making the media more often and has generated a bigger push from the Armenian community, because Turkey is seeking admission to the EU. I’m sure you already know that this has brought up all sorts of touchy questions like “what does it mean to be European?” and “should the EU admit a country that’s a little too theocratic for everyone else’s (in the EU) taste?”
I do not know what the US’ history is in resolutions against genocide–you might check on something like Darfor, or Nazi Germany, or Fascist Spain–but I do know that the US is trying to juggle its poorly managed (okay that’s opinion) foreign policy along with relationships with the EU (very important economically, especially with the dollar in the toilet) and UN (very important but more to not piss off China, etc.). I think the primary point of passing a resolution is twofold: (1) make Armenian-Americans happy (there are a lot of them), and (2) “send a message” (since the US’ view of things is taken pretty seriously in most parts). The only real reason put forward to not pass the resolution–as far as I can see–is that we have military bases in Turkey that we rely on as staging ground for the way in Iraq.
certainly no offense taken 🙂
i know and understand most of those aspects, and i agree that the armenian genocide should be called such – it is what it is. i guess i just take issue with our government making that statement about turkey, but (i’m pretty sure) not having issued resolutions against the russian people for stalin’s genocides or china for theirs. i guess i feel like if we want to force a statement that x nation should acknowledge/apologize for their historical actions, we should just issue a bigfat resolution stating genocide sucks and list all the world’s countries and events that qualify – let’s just be fair 🙂 but politics is never fair, is it?
i also wanted to speak to the notion that turkey is theocratic in any sense. david is a major history geek and when we decided to visit turkey, he got sucked into many history books on modern turkey. honestly, that nation is one of the most sectarian ones out there. it is *insane* how loyal they are to the idea of religion and state being separate and that their military coups all occurred to remove govt officials who were crossing the line, and immediately went to elections to replace them. if *ONLY* the U.S. could be so unaffected by their religious beliefs.
i think the EU are being snotty brats about the idea of letting a muslim nation in. i don’t think their claim that turkey is too theocratic for their taste holds any water…i think it’s just an excuse to cover their discrimination against and fear of a (very populous) muslim nation having a say in their midst.
hrm. apparently i have strong feelings about that 🙂
also, if we ever wanted the middle east to have good will toward us and the west in general, turkey was the gateway. i can’t emphasize enough what a difference i think it would make if the middle east saw turkey become part of the EU and be accepted as a legitimate player in the western culture. i think it would have been the bridge for all other muslim communities. however, i think recent events in general (increased radicalism, our ever-straining relations etc) may have closed that window of opportunity. it’s sad really – turkey was so all about the west for so long.
I did study some Turkish history in college, so I know a lot about Kamil Ataturk (which I may have misspelled, sorry) and the major modernization reforms. Dude, Turkey was SO all about the west for so long. (Except in Turkish Cypress, which never seems to have gotten with the program, but that’s another story.)
I do think some of the EU are being snotty brats. France, in particular, has a major issue with fear-mongering around even slightly brown people (hello, what do you think happens when you run around invading extant civilizations and declaring them France??). Sarkozy is not helping that any.
Oh, and I’m not sayin’ it’s a fair thing, just sayin’ what I know.
Back in 1999, my company had some engineers over from Turkey for a training session, and one was a private pilot, and apparently it’s much easier to get charts here in the US, so he ordered some that covered Turkey. However, when we took him over to the local airfield to pick the charts up, they were VERY suspicious of him getting flight charts that included parts of the Iraqi-Turkish border. There were also interesting no-fly-zone markings on the charts, which was kind of cool.
I do like to think that most of our elected officials at least know that there’s an Iraqi-Turkish border. Turkey-Georgia? That I doubt.
And, on the original question, I can’t imagine what the value is in the US making a resolution on the post-WWI genocide. It means to me that they’re apparently not busy enough. The only thing I can think of is that collectively they’ve decided that it’s in their best interest to pass meaningless resolutions that the majority of their consituents can’t really argue with the content of.
tangentially related
i remember NPR doing a very charged article on how oppressed and uneducated women are (or continue to be?) today in Turkey. maybe that’s just a part of the anti-muslim propaganda… but i wonder if it’s really a common perception, whether it’s really true, and whether it has anything to do with the EU inclusion process. having visited, can you speak to the state of women’s affairs?
Re: tangentially related
i can’t even wrap my brain around that statement. turkey’s women were holding positions in the elected government body before US women could *VOTE*. i have never known them to be anything but the most progressive about education for their women. the older generation certainly held a certain belief that their wives belonged at home taking care of them, but their daughters had no limits as to who and what they could achieve – especially in modern times. i want to do some more homework on that idea, but my gut and my knowledge of both history and experience is that (at least in urban areas), it is not at all the case.
Re: tangentially related
I think that’s a very complicated answer for Turkey.
I did some sort of slap-dash sociology research in Turkey when I was in undergrad, I was interviewing on gender issues. and what I found is what belen related earlier: Turkish men (in the educated class) expect their wives to serve them in the home…they may work, but it’s not as important as the husband working (ditto education), and if the wife makes more money, the man is still considered “the breadwinner.” One thing I asked as a litmus test on the relative value given to men’s professional lives vs women’s was along the lines of “if you were offered a job in another city, would you expect your wife to quit her job and move elsewhere?” (a resounding yes across the board). when I asked after the reverse situation, the wife being offered a job elsewhere, the answer was conditional, due to economics: if the job was still within Turkey, then no, they would not quit their own jobs to further their wife’s career. if the job was outside of Turkey, in Europe or the US…it doesn’t matter WHO got the job, they would go.
These answers were about what I expected. what surprised me was that when I asked after how much they value their daughters’ education and future career (relative to sons), they looked at me like I was nuts for even asking. of COURSE their daughters could go as far as their sons in education, as far as they wanted. and of course they could have a career, independent of their husband. and of *course* they expected their daughters to be treated like equals. without exception, all of the men I spoke with thought it was ridiculous to consider that their daughters should be second-class citizens, and they really seemed not to have considered the irony or the disparity in their thinking.
the wives always gave conditional answers. “yes, such-and-such, but I think my husband would say differently.” or “I want to say my husband would move for my job but…I’m not sure. maybe no.” *they* had expectations of being equals, but they were very conscious of the fact that their husbands weren’t there yet.
but I was interviewing the educated class in Turkey. what you have to take into account is that there are two types of Turks…the educated, intellectual/professional class who are pretty much agnostic, and the folks with lower education who are far more devout. and I was also interviewing people in the major cities (Istanbul and Ankara), and the farther east you go in Turkey, the more rural and parochial it gets. I’m not really sure about the lower classes then, but I have some published studies in pdf….somewhere. probably on my old computer.
but yeah, they definitely have a far better lot than much of the middle east. woman can seek education and careers and public office, and it’s been that way for a long time. there is a sort of…ethic of paternal care that feels both respectful to women and insidiously misogynistic. it rides a very fine line, and I think in Turkey it’s an ok thing but I think that’s what leads to what we see elsewhere, when it’s blown up to the extreme. I was told that if I’d been raised in Turkey I would have been “treated like a little princess all my life,” and pampered and babied. it was said like it was a good thing, but it made me recoil a little as an American. of course, this was said when I’d already been there 3 weeks and was tired of being told I shouldn’t go out sightseeing by myself even though it was perfectly safe. (no really, *perfectly* safe).
so yeah, it’s complicated. and I just wrote you a novel, haha. hope that…well I can’t say cleared things up. but, you know….
I hadn’t thought about the kurdish connection. though if they’re trying to prevent backlash on kurdish turks, this is a very ass-backwards way to do it.
dude, I’m just all over this thread, aren’t I?
bethany and I bounced the idea that maybe the Democrats were using this as an ass-backwards backdoor to withdrawal from Iraq, but I hope not, because if that’s their plan, it’s ridiculously ill-conceived.