A thoughtless vote has put Americans abroad in Turkey at risk

It is a generally accepted convention, backed by law, that American citizens have the right to express opinions without fear of reprisal. This is so much a part of us, it is often not even a consideration in people’s lives. Our lack of thought, however, has led to the tacit assumption that these values apply to the rest of the world.

Thinking “It’s only a word” implies words lack substance. The idea that mere words can produce physical violence is not an everyday concern. American citizens blithely and thoughtlessly apply our unique value scale to the world at large, while assuming citizens of other countries will hold values in the same ranking. A recent and frightening example of such gross ignorance came in the form of the nonbinding House Resolution 106.

This bill would have, if passed, labeled the deaths, of more than 1 million Armenians between 1915 and 1917 as “genocide.” Presented by Rep. Tom Lantos and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, both California Democrats, the bill was nothing more than a cynical attempt by Democratic leadership to corral votes from people of Armenian descent in preparation for the coming election. In their historical and cultural ignorance, they apparently saw nothing beyond their political ambitions. The bill has been returned to committee, but is still viable.

Armenians, a wholly Christian population since about 300 A.D., lived in the disintegrating remains of the Ottoman Empire. Subjected to repeated pogroms in the late 19th-century, they were slaughtered outright during World War I by Islamic Turkish and Kurdish fanatics, who viewed killing Christian unbelievers as an act of faith. Horrific murders were committed in the name of Allah. The slaughter ended in 1923, the year Kemal Ataturk came to power and instituted a secular republic. One of his first actions after destroying the Empire, to salvage a fraction of its territory, was to crush a revolt of religious fanatics lead by Sheik Said in southeast Turkey.

Americans responded to the Armenian distress. During the 1920s and 1930s, an enormous movement initiated by Ambassador Henry Morgenthau and organized by Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge, along with Clara Barton, Henry Cabot Lodge, Charles Evans Hughes and many other influential Americans, the American Red Cross made several great aid missions for the Armenians.

Another charity, Near East Relief, raised and distributed $117 million (in 1920s dollars) for food assistance and relief supplies. “Remember the starving Armenians” became a household slogan throughout America.

The Democrats are playing like they have just discovered some previously unknown horrific history lesson. By proposing a nonbinding resolution, the Democrats acted as if sins of the past could be salvaged by an empty gesture, which would, in effect, say Turks of today must apologize and be condemned for actions they did not commit, which occurred before they were born. These thoughtless words have produced riots in Turkey and put thousands of resident American citizens and their families at risk.

At present, Turkey and Armenia are gradually working out their differences, however slowly and painfully. The Armenian orthodox Patriarch of Istanbul, Mesrob II (Mutafan), has repeated this. On Dec.17, he said, “The ‘Armenian genocide resolution’ pending in the U.S. Congress disrupts both the relations between the Turkish people and the Armenians in Turkey and between Turkey and Armenia.” To have American politics stirred into the mix would be a major disaster, and possibly destroy what fragile progress has been made.

Today, both Armenians and Kurds claim the eastern third of Turkey. The Armenians have a nation and the Kurds (the largest stateless group in the world) want one. Their intent is to carve up eastern Turkey for themselves.

Now, in response to repeated and bloody attacks by Turkish separatist Kurds (the PKK) operating from bases in Iraq, the Turks have massed thousands of troops on the border between Iraq and Turkey. It is perhaps only the effective diplomacy of the United States that restrains an attack by the fifth-largest army in the world, the Turks, into territory we – at least in theory – control. Both the Turks and the Iraqi Kurds are our allies.

Which makes pretending to aid the Armenian cause by condemning Turkey close to being the lowest form of cynical political opportunism.

G. Ernest Lynch III, of Temple, is a retired history and geography teacher from Mt. Blue High School in Farmington. His daughter is a U.S. diplomat in Turkey and lives in Ankara.