Çidem İnç: Şun Şan Orti Erdoğan

 

Erdogan make the handsign of the
ultranationalist and racist Grey Wolves

This man, this Armenian hater, this self-proclaimed modern Enver Paşa and Sultan Selim I, this megalomanic Erdoğan is a dangerous son of a bitch.  He is our enemy and a most dangerous one at that.

He helped and gave haven to Isis to launch attacks in Syria including the Armenian villages of Kessab.  We protested and nothing was done about it by anybody. In Washington, DC, he ordered his thug bodyguards to attack and beat-up Armenians protesting against him.  We protested, congressmen and senators were outraged, and… nothing really came of it.  The US greatly relied upon Kurdish fighters in Northern Syria.  They fought valiantly and how did the US repay them?  We let Turkish forces attack them.  I have to emphasize, we the US let him get away with his bodyguards attacking US citizens protesting in the capital of our country.  We not only let him, but apparently sanctioned him, to attack our Kurdish allies.

What hold does this man have over the US?  We are still suffering from the policy set by Admiral Mark Bristol in the 1920s making Turkey an ally and ignoring or, at best, paying lip service to Armenian interests.  It was bad enough before Erdoğan.  It is horrible with him and the US doesn’t seem to waiver from this supposed “ally” when it really counts.  Erdoğan gets bolder and bolder in his Ottoman aspirations and we seem to look away.  Why?

As Armenians in the US, we are active and interested in pursuing recognition of and restitution for the Armenian Genocide from the Turkish government.  We woke to this mission in 1965 commemorating the 50^th Anniversary of the 1915 Genocide.  Since then. We have learned to lobby.  We dedicate vast sums of money and time on this.  We have improved our efforts and influence as we became more educated and influential in this country.  But, we are only influential to a small degree.  We have pushed for Congress to pass Genocide Resolutions.  We have endorsed Presidential candidates who have promised to call what happened a Genocide.  The best we got is President Obama’s “Medz Yeghern.”  Biden gave the same promise this year.  I hope he does but my expectations are low.

It seems much longer, but it was just one year ago that resolutions were passed in Congress recognizing the Genocide.  On October 29, 2019 that The Resolution Affirming the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide (H.Res. 296) was passed by the House.  Then on December 12, the Senate passed The Resolution Expressing the Sense of the Senate that it is the Policy of the United States to Commemorate the Armenian Genocide Through Official Recognition and Remembrance (S.Res. 150).  Trump, not surprisingly, did not acknowledge these resolutions. 

It was a great moment for Armenians in this country.  We were ecstatic. After years of dedicated effort, we finally got a resolution passed.  It may, however, have not been entirely the result of Armenian efforts.  I believe this was Congress’s way of protesting Erdoğan’s attacks on our Kurdish allies in Syria especially given Trump’s allowing, evening sanctioning, such a thing.  It was an easy way to make a statement against this despot.

Erdoğan was none too happy with these resolutions.

Here we are a year later and Azerbaijan with significant Turkish support attacked, killed Armenians, displaced other Armenians, and took ancestral lands that the rest of the world thinks belong to them.  Was this Erdoğan’s reaction to the passing of these resolutions?  Was this revenge? 

We spent fifty-four years to have two resolutions passed that the President did not endorse and in essence got us only a feeling of satisfaction.  One year later, Erdoğan showed us that what really matters is force and the ability defend ourselves.  We have yet to learn the lesson Khrimian Hayrig taught us.