A century after the Armenian genocide, Turkey maintains that there was no such systematic plan executed to wipe out the Armenian population. While they acknowledge that atrocities were committed, they say that they happened in wartime, and that both sides suffered extensive casualties, validating the killings.
Far from making any sort of formal apology, the Turkish government seems to only work harder to cover up the past. On the day where Armenia scheduled a century-after memorial for the 1.5 million Armenians killed, the Turkish authorities scheduled a commemoration for the Battle of Gallipoli, which helped found Turkey as it is today. While this does seem to be a sort of setback, in the past couple years Turkey has become more relaxed to the idea of alternative histories to their own official history. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan actually went as far as to acknowledge and apologize for the painful history, becoming the first Turkish leader to do so.
The 100 year anniversary strengthened the Turkish nationalism and inability to acknowledge and apologize for the genocide, though. As the anniversary came around, President Erdogan said, ““The Armenian diaspora is trying to instill hatred against Turkey through a worldwide campaign on genocide claims ahead of the centennial anniversary of 1915… If we examine what our nation had to go through over the past 100 to 150 years, we would find far more suffering than what the Armenians went through.” After a poll was conducted, it was found that only about 9% of Turks thought that the government should label the atrocities a genocide and apologize for them. Turkey has remained steadfast in denying the genocide, and has managed to convince the majority of the Turkish population that they were justified in the murder of a million innocent lives. Even after the systematic killings of the Armenian people, the Turks go beyond denying the genocide to blaming Armenia for giving Turkey a bad reputation. As the president said, “the Armenian diaspora is trying to instill hatred against Turkey through a worldwide campaign.” This kind of blaming and scapegoating for the reputational problem caused directly by Turkey is exactly what initiated the conflict to begin with, so seeing these patterns still existing and taking form, especially from the mouth of such an influential and important leader, is extremely worrying.
I think it’s interesting to see how much power the word “genocide” has now, probably because of how much it is connected with the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people. Genocide was not a word yet when the 1.5 million Armenians were killed or forced out, and genocide was not a “crime” at that time, as defined by international law. Still, the actions can still be seen as fitting the definition of genocide, looking back. (Basically, it’s intentionally trying to wipe out a whole racial, ethnic or religious group.) Turkey refuses to call it a genocide or allow anyone to speak of it as a genocide. Maybe they don’t want it to be thought of in the same category as the Jewish Holocaust. President Erdogan of Turkey will admit that the mass killings of Armenians had “inhumane consequences” and gives his “condolences” on the 100 year anniversary, but he rejects the genocide word. It’s sad that the U.S. won’t officially acknowledge the word due to purely political reasons with Turkey.
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