As a genocide recedes into history, past the point at which remembrance is mainly the labor of survivors, victim group members become more distant from—and even distance themselves from—the lived reality of that genocide. This is not because the impact of a genocide lessens in time; quite the contrary, the magnitude of its total destructive consequences compounds with each passing day that the original devastation remains unrepaired (at least to the extent that some reparation is possible), as initial losses of what would have been the bases of the victim group’s future resource increases, political security, cultural and identity stability and other social, political, cultural, and economic gains as well as individual familial, economic, and other aspects of well-being, mean losses of all those gains. I am also not referring to emotions of sympathy or even empathy felt at reading or hearing of the suffering of genocide victims. I am referring instead to the emotional connectedness to the experience of genocide itself. Of course, those who did not directly experience a genocide can never feel and should never assume to feel what its immediate victims felt, but that does not mean that later generations can have no experience of the legacy of a genocide, of its impact—indeed, of the objective results of the genocide.

Imperial Domination, Not Mutual Negotiation

What do I mean? The most obvious example is the form of renewed assault against the victim group through denial of the genocide in question. Through the experience of denial—merely hearing or reading it, but even more so in struggling against it, being publicly attacked by deniers, etc.—those in the victim group are targeted by aggressors acting out of the same attitudes, ideologies, and agendas that motivated the genocide itself. (As an aside, it is for this reason that deniers’ attacks on Turks who recognize the Armenian Genocide—whether with this term or some euphemism—and their resulting suffering should never be equated with what Armenians who recognize the Genocide experience. Such Turks might be victimized by aggression from other Turks, but they do not experience reassertion of the genocide perpetrator-victim relationship itself. They remain in the dominant position, even if within that position they are marginalized.) Israel Charny has offered the premiere analysis of the deep nature of denial along these lines.

But too great a focus on the extremism of deniers obscures the complexity of the impact of the Armenian Genocide on contemporary Armenian-Turkish relations and other—more subtle—forms of domination. As I argue in “Dehumanization or Hyper-Domination: A Philosophical Challenge to the Reigning Model of Genocide,” forthcoming in The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies (edited by Richard G. Hovannisian and to be published by Transaction Press), underlying and driving the Armenian Genocide was a pre-existing imperial domination structure and normalized assumption of Ottoman Turkish/Muslim superiority over Armenians and other second-class subjects. This dominance relation was initially determined by the fact that Turks conquered Armenians (and the other groups, though I will focus here on Armenians, as my title suggests). It was made an enduring societal fact because the relation of imperial conquest was institutionalized in the millet system, complete with not only legal discrimination and other disadvantaging of Armenians, but associated violence against Armenians that continually extended the concrete experience of the initial conquest, replaying it in an almost ritualized manner as if to reassure the dominant Turks and other Muslims and to reemphasize for Armenians and other victims that the domination would remain in effect.

The Armenian Genocide pushed this relation to its ultimate level. As I argue in “Dehumanization or Hyper-Domination,” the determining force driving the Genocide was rejection of Armenian equality with Turks put into at least nominal and thus conceptual effect with the 1908 revolution and establishment of a liberal constitution for the Ottoman Empire. The Genocide was a means of maintaining the old form of domination in a new context that made a static hierarchy such as the millet system impossible. The strength of the imposition of dominance through the Genocide shows how fundamental this drive to domination was.

In my paper at the June 2005 6th Biennial Conference of the Association of Genocide Scholars as well as my presentation at the March 31, 2007, Armenians and the Left (AATL) panel on Armenian-Turkish dialogue, I extended this discussion to the post-Genocide era. My central point was that the hyper-domination of the Armenian Genocide did not end with the cessation of the killing, but rather established the post-Genocidal relation between Turks and Armenians as an extreme dominance hierarchy, the most obvious manifestations of which we can see in aggressive denialism and other anti-Armenian attitudes pervasive in Turkey, and even violence such as the assassination of Hrant Dink. But of course the broader, material forms of that dominance are its foundation, from the Turkish state’s much great military strength, political security (including viability as a state), and economic power, to the stability of Turkish identity based in a strong state compared to the on-going erosion of Armenian identity due to the destructive effects of the Genocide in many aspects (cultural destruction, population dispersion, family destruction, etc.), and much more. This domination hierarchy conditions all aspects of the general Armenian-Turkish relationship, and yet in none of the various “dialogue” efforts of recent years has this been acknowledged. Quasi-governmental efforts such as TARC, formal academic exercises such as the University of Michigan Armenian and Turkish scholars conferences, and even informal email lists have operated as negotiative exchanges between “Armenians” and “Turks” treated as equivalent parties, parties with equal power, rights, history (even a “shared history,” as if their roles in that history were similar), etc. Thus, by their very structures, these efforts have failed to engage the central feature of the general Armenian-Turkish relationship and cannot make meaningful progress, despite any even profound personal and academic changes that have occurred.

My further point in my AATL presentation was that the dominance relation has been normalized in the psychology of not only traditional elements of Turkish society (the less educated, the incorrigibly chauvinist, the propagandized) that are disparaged by progressive-minded Turks, but also progressive Turks themselves. I discussed the various ways this plays out. Three important examples from my AATL remarks are:

(1) Progressive Turks often treat the Armenian Genocide instrumentally, as a tool for transforming Turkish society toward liberal democracy and progressive openness. Unfortunately, the meaning of the Genocide for Armenians drops out of consideration, and the resolution of the Genocide issue for Turks becomes democratization of Turkey. Progressive Turks thus take control of the Genocide issue itself, which becomes one more piece of appropriated property. Often, such progressives disparage—as “extremism,” “nationalism,” and other four-letter words in left circles—efforts by the “Armenian Diaspora” to retain some kind of priority in discussions of the Genocide and to keep the focus on issues of concern to the victim group. The Armenian Genocide becomes an instrument for Turkish democratization along the lines of the agenda of a particular segment of the Turkish elite, rather than the crisis in the Turkish-Armenian (domination) relation it truly is. At best, “Turkish democratization” is presented as the ultimate solution of the Armenian Genocide that will resolve all outstanding issues for Armenians, too. While it could, of course, improve the situation of Armenians in Turkey, Turkish democratization is not at all inconsistent with anti-Armenianism. Democratization cannot address the attitude and material realities of imperial superiority; only directly engaging this domination of Armenians can. In fact, proper democratization depends on ending this domination, not the other way around. This is quite clear through even a cursory look at US history and, specifically, the compatibility of deep oppression of various groups inside and outside US borders with democracy for the US “majority” throughout the history of the United States.

(2) Progressives often equate Turkish and Armenian “nationalism” as equally retrogressive, misguided and dangerous. There are deep flaws in this approach. First, Armenian “nationalism” must be analyzed on its own terms, with recognition of the historical conditions of oppression and the civil rights struggle that gave rise to it. The effort to resist domination and to strive for basic human rights within an overarching Ottoman structure should not be equated with Turkish extreme and dominational nationalisms that justified and drove the destruction of Armenian “others” in an effort to nationalize the Ottoman Empire and have subsequently motivated an aggressive, intolerant, imperialist political outlook and acts. To equate the two nationalisms by counter-factually assuming that all Armenian nationalisms are like this as well and would do the same thing as standard Turkish nationalism given the chance despite the fact that Armenians have not committed a genocide, engaged in a history of imperial conquest, etc., is, in essence, to hold Armenian nationalisms accountable for the sins of Turkish nationalisms. Even to the extent that some post-Genocide Armenian nationalisms have come to take on territorial claims for land depopulated of Armenians through the Genocide is not the same as Turkish imperial/expansionist territorial desires, but it is often presented as such.

(3) Progressive Turks often choose not to label the 1915 violence against Armenians “genocide.” They employ various rationales for this, such as the view that the word was not coined until years after the Armenian Genocide occurred—which of course neglects the fact that Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide” specifically to refer to a set of events that included very centrally the Armenian Genocide and applied it to the Armenian Genocide himself. Most prevalent is the view that using the term, even if proper, will just produce a defensive reaction by Turks that will prevent them from engaging the Armenian Genocide issue at all. Thus, because some Turks might get upset, we must not label the Armenian Genocide by the proper, correct, appropriate term. There are two obvious problems with this position. First, if the only way most Turks today will take seriously the history of genocide against Armenians is if it is presented as something less serious than it was/is, then will those Turks who are thus comfortable enough to talk about the “events of 1915” actually be engaging the Genocide at all? Indeed, if Armenians (and progressive Turks) have to worry about upsetting and even provoking a violent reaction by Turks by raising the Armenian Genocide issue in its proper form, then does this not signal the fact that there is a deep underlying refusal to accept the reality of the Armenian Genocide and to do the serious work of transforming contemporary Turkish society away from the genocidal anti-Armenianism that has been perpetuated unchallenged for 92 years? To use the terms of Kibibi Tyehimba of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, to let the “sleeping dog” of genocidal anti-Armenianism lie undisturbed and thus unchallenged means that it will remain present as a foundational element of contemporary and future Turkish culture and politics. Until the majority of Turks today can confront the harsh reality of the Armenian Genocide in its true form and full implications for Turks today, then what sense does it make to speak of progress in Armenian-Turkish relations?

Second, this sacrifice of the proper term reveals a subtle attitude on the part of progressives who embrace this approach. They are clearly much more concerned about upsetting Turks who possess an anti-Armenian attitude and who lack the moral courage to confront history as it truly was than they are about harming Armenians by yet again downplaying the reality of the Armenian Genocide. Indeed, no Turk that I am aware of who has adopted this strategy has even acknowledged the moral tension that this approach creates, signaling just how absent Armenian well-being is in their consideration of the Armenian Genocide.

I ended my remarks with recognition of the difficulties faced by progressive Turks who engage the Armenian Genocide in a context of hostility and repression, inside and outside of Turkey. Their efforts in this context should be applauded. At the same time, I cautioned against mistaking a “situational” appraisal of their views for an objective one. Relative to their situation, positions about not using the term “genocide” in reference to the Armenian Genocide, a focus on Turkish democratization, etc., are understandable. But that does not make such views objectively right, and it is against objective standards of morality that we must judge how anyone engages the Armenian Genocide. One could add that, relative to the heinous anti-Armenianism of deniers and Turkish imperialists, these progressives are quite laudable. But, being better than morally bad deniers does not automatically qualify one for superior moral status—despite the frequent standing ovations by appreciative Armenians. After genocide and so many years of denial, the very framework through which most Turks and Armenians view the “Armenian Question” is deeply skewed, and proper engagement of the Armenian Genocide requires first a critical analysis of this skewing and establishment of a balanced framework that has not been determined by denialism. So long as many Turks—and Armenians—see the issue through the skewed framework, genuine progress on it is difficult if not impossible. Only by directly confronting the domination relation and correcting through a variety of reparative measures for the victims and a deep social transformation away from genocidal imperial domination on the part of the perpetrator can the domination relation be overcome.

My views are certainly not in the mainstream of the general literature on “truth and reconciliation” after mass human rights violations such as genocides, and have been almost entirely absent from at least the academic discourse on the Armenian Genocide. In fact, I am not aware of any approach to the post-Genocide relation between Turks and Armenians that characterized it as a domination relation of Turks over Armenians marked by a material and conceptual power imbalance, prior to my introduction of this analysis in my June 2005 IAGS paper (final title, “Toward a New Conceptual Framework for Resolution: The Necessity of Recognizing the Perpetrator-Victim Dominance Relation in the Aftermath of Genocide”). But, that does not mean that the view can be dismissed as entirely unworthy of consideration. On the contrary, some Armenians and others have recognized this as a productive intervention in the contemporary discourse on the Armenian Genocide. Peter Balakian, for instance, who attended my 2005 IAGS paper, appears to approve of the core of my analysis of the Turkish-Armenian dominance/power relation, as evidenced by his own AATL presentation, which drew on my 2005 IAGS analysis of the post-genocide dominance/power relation of perpetrator group over surviving victim group.

A Case Study of Imperial Domination

Given this, what happened in the third presentation of the March 31 panel was fascinating. Halil Berktay, the final panelist to whom I showed respect in my remarks and after, rejected my presentation not through a critique of the specific points I made, but through personal attack. He dismissed my presentation as “patronizing” as well as guilty of a number of vague academic sins, such as being “reductive,” “ethically absolutist,” and more. My remarks were, according to him, “comprehensively wrong” —apparently so obviously so that they warranted no actual refutation.

Though the tone of Berktay’s comments was rude and hostile, this would have been a minor issue had their content been meaningful academic discourse, that is, supported by a specific critique of at least some of the points I had made, stating precisely how I had been “reductive,” “ethically absolutist,” etc., or why my “reduction” and “ethical absolutism” was actually incorrect in the context. As for the last charge, it is significant that I included a full section (see above) discussing the ethical complexities of any appraisal of Turkish engagements with the Armenian Genocide. If my remarks manifested an objectivist view of ethical issues regarding genocide, I certainly did not take on this view naively—and I certainly invite concrete debate about the ethical theory I advanced and the application I made.

Perhaps it is unfair to say that Berktay never made a concrete criticism of my views. In his talk, he stated that the use of the term “genocide” had become an obsession of the “Armenian Diaspora” (did he mean all Diasporan Armenians? did he assume we somehow all think the same on this or any other issue?) to the point of obscuring the reality that the term was supposed to refer to. He seems to have meant that, by using the term as a kind of buzzword or shorthand, Armenians had come to see the Genocide as a simple historical event without internal complexity. Presumably this meant not recognizing the currents and counter-currents in Turkish society and politics leading up to the Genocide and other such things. Apparently, he was unaware of my and many others’ repeated discussion of this complexity, but this is not the main problem here. During the brief “question and answer” session, he added that use of the term “genocide” caused students and others to focus on an overall unified event, instead of seeing the details of a complex process. I pointed out that his approach assumed that using the term “genocide” to recognize that in fact a general event had occurred and at the same time recognizing and exploring the complex, multi-directional elements in the Ottoman Empire at the time of the Genocide were mutually exclusive, but that there was no reason one could not look at the issue on both levels at once. I used the example of a microphone, which we can recognize as a particular object with a particular function and at the same time as a collection of individual atoms. His response was pejorative again, as he stated that “as a philosopher I should know better,” should know that a “genocide cannot be compared to a microphone.” Not only was this a mark of intellectual condescension, implying that I am not a good philosopher and do not understand what any minimally decent philosopher should find obvious, but he never explained why the analogy I drew between parsing a physical object such as a microphone and a historical event such as the Armenian Genocide did not hold in the relevant respects. I had, after all, prefaced my comments with a discussion of a philosophical approach to parsing objects in the world (physical and social) that many prominent philosophers such as Hilary Putnam recognize as a perceptual activity that occurs relative to the conceptual frameworks (in the case here, levels of analysis, visible object or atomic) that are employed. I was hardly taking an unprofessional, underdeveloped, or irresponsible philosophical position. Rather than disagreeing with it as part of a productive intellectual exchange, he rejected my legitimacy to state it and thus to participate in such an exchange.

My intent here is not to go through a point-by-point expose of the academic and ethical faults of Berktay’s remarks as they pertained to my views. To be honest, I cannot do justice with words on a page to the level of disdain he showed me (down to an angry glare after numerous statements in his hour-long talk that he must have felt were particular “zingers” against me, as a number of audience members commented to me after the program). An exhaustive presentation would be viewed as reflecting much more negatively on me than on him. I also do not mean to substitute my analysis of Berktay’s talk and treatment of me for readers’ own: I encourage all readers to go to www.armeniansandtheleft.com to view the panel presentations themselves, and to form their own conclusions about what transpired. I invite any criticisms and corrections to my analysis as presented here, as part of the on-going discussion of Turkish-Armenian relations and my own educational process on them. To be honest, I would like to be convinced that I have overstated the issues here, in the hope that more progress is being made than my experiences indicate.

But, it seems unlikely that I have overstated. Numerous audience members after the panel and in later communications to me confirmed my understanding of Berktay’s treatment of me. At one time, it turns out, an audience member had sent a note to one of the panel organizers pointing out to that audience member’s amazement that Berktay was enacting the precise relation of imperial domination over me as an Armenian that I had detailed—and that no one was saying anything about it. Another (Armenian) audience member even said he/she had to leave the room because he/she could not accept witnessing the degradation of an Armenian in this way as it was allowed to continue.

Why did Berktay act this way? To be honest, prior to March 31, I knew very little about him, except that he had publicly acknowledged in Turkey that the Armenian Genocide happened and had taken some heat for this. I certainly did not set out in my remarks to insult him, but rather to present an intellectual position on the topic at hand. And I did not insult him any more than Hrant Dink had “insulted Turkishness.” What I did was to point out (1) the real issue at the core of the contemporary Armenian-Turkish relationship, (2) the ethical challenges it poses, and (3) the fact that even many Turkish progressives, however much their strides forward might be appreciated, have not met these challenges. Far from insult, I provided Berktay an excellent opportunity to engage these ethical challenges and to distinguish himself as a truly progressive force in Turkish-Armenian relations. I provided him tools that he might have used to reflect on certain neglected aspects of the construction of Turkish identity that might have led to a better understanding of it and Turkish relations to Armenians. I did this, as people of color have so often provided the service to whites in the United States, for us as whites to understand ourselves more deeply and better than we could in the absence of a discourse on race and racism. I even highlighted in my own talk how uncomfortable and difficult I knew facing these challenges is for all concerned, Armenians and Turks. I opened the door for him...

And he slammed it in my face. Again, why? As that audience member recognized (and as I did but could not say during the panel), Berktay enacted the very imperial domination I described in my remarks. In his mind, apparently, it is acceptable to demean Armenians when they do not agree with him, present uncomfortable ethical challenges, and do not cow-tow to progressive Turks. I did not insult him, but did something worse—I acted as his moral and intellectual equal. I asserted my views on a difficult issue and expected them to be taken seriously—views that included a challenge to progressive Turks. I provided a special opportunity—a “golden opportunity” —for Berktay to show just how far Armenian-Turkish relations had come, by showing respect to an Armenian who had challenged the prevailing sense of their own political accomplishments held by many progressive Turks. I dared to make the challenge, to step out of the place where “good,” agreeable Armenians stay and make Turks, progressive and not, comfortable with their historical relationship to Armenians.

Berktay’s reaction confirmed just how deeply I had challenged the self-understanding of at least some progressive Turks. He had no substantive response because a true response would have required recognition of the imperial dominance relation that he was participating in and the ways in which it has shaped his and many other progressive Turks’—as well as the bulk of Turkish society’s—attitudes toward and concrete treatment of Armenians. Instead of accepting the critique as a responsible scholar and Turkish individual committed to transforming the nature of Turkish attitudes and treatment of Armenians, he reacted with academic aggression and denigrated me publicly. I am not saying that he had to agree with me, but as a Turk claiming to want to build positive relations with Armenians he should have recognized that my views came out of the horrific history of violence and domination of Armenians by Turks, and reflected on them to considered why given that history I would raise questions about various aspects of even apparent progress in Armenian-Turkish relations. He should have taken the responsibility to try to convince me, by argument but also by example, that my concerns were unnecessary, however much he recognized them as understandable. Instead, he attacked the cause of the discomfort he suddenly faced when forced to confront these difficult questions.

My challenge violated a sense of imperial superiority and entitlement to decide how he would engage the Armenian Genocide, to determine the bounds of what he would feel about it and what he should do about it. Berktay displayed a sense of automatic (progressive or otherwise) Turkish legitimacy relative to Armenians, that Turks are always in some sense right or possessed of superior understanding, in an individual manifestation of the imperial dominance relations confirmed, extended, and intensified by the Armenian Genocide. From that skewed perspective, the problem could never be in the Turkish individual, but had to be in the Armenian. Thus, Berktay could dismiss me and anyone else in the Armenian Diaspora who holds political views different from his and engages in civil rights activism for Armenians as narrow, simple-minded, extremist “nationalists.” We Armenians are the problem and deserve to be condemned—the old familiar tune once more. (Of course, plenty of Armenians have shown him the proper deference, and so these “good” Armenians can be accepted and even lauded.)

This hostile dismissal has become a ritual that is beyond simply blaming the victim. It is a permanent (flawed) ethical outlook and ideology that automatically delegitimizes any political action or view by an Armenian that challenges in a meaningful way the status quo of domination. The sense of Turkish superiority is so normalized that when an Armenian asserts him-/herself as an equal party in the discourse on the future of Turkey and its relation to Armenians and presents countervailing views, the Armenian appears to be taking a position of superiority, because the Armenian is claiming a position that is above his/her “rightful” place of subservience. Indeed, Berktay’s belief that I was “patronizing” toward him and other progressive Turks seems to have been a function of this skewed perspective: when an Armenian steps up to assume his/her own equality to a Turk and to exercise the autonomy of thought and engagement of the Armenian Genocide that a full human being has the right to, this appears to be an act of superiority because the Armenian has stepped above his/her properly inferior position. The imbalance in perception and power is quite clear: at least this prominent progressive Turk refuses to engage in self-reflection when positions he takes are questioned, yet he does not hesitate in the slightest to disparage the general attitudes, political activities, and intellectual level of Diasporan Armenians, as he did in his AATL presentation.

However progressive its possessor might feel, this reaction functions to help maintain the status quo of domination. It silences or marginalizes some Armenians, and disciplines others. So long as nothing is done to change the material facts of domination and the attitudes that buttress them and prevent serious discussion of changing this domination—yes, this includes responsible discussion of reparations aimed addressing the damage done to Armenians in order to mitigate somewhat the effects of the Armenian Genocide, including Turkish advantages over Armenians and Armenian disadvantage caused by the Genocide and the oppression before and after it—then the dominance relation remains unchanged. Denial can be defeated, but denial is just a symptom of the deeper problem, and defeating denial alone will not change the imperial domination of Armenians and the Turkish attitudes that at once support it and result from it. One can shift and change how the dominance relation is played out, abandoning denial as a well-used but now not so effective move, as a means not of overcoming the domination relation, but as an intentional tactical or unaware psychological effort to preserve domination in an outwardly new form.

From the skewed perspective within which Turkish imperial superiority to Armenians is normalized, it is legitimate to mistreat Armenians. Armenians do not deserve the basic respect that would be accorded Turks or others. Of course, there is no reason to target inoffensive Armenians, but when Armenians cross the line, get “uppity,” then from this perspective it is morally acceptable to demean them, condescend to them, to belittle them. But if degrading Armenians, particularly those who act like equal human beings, is acceptable, then we are always part-way down a slippery slope. Now, even as an Armenian, I for one would never be so disrespectful, presumptions, and simplistic about my position in the world to claim that I am part of some “we” “who are all Hrant Dink.” And, I do not suggest that my experience in the face of Turkish imperial power was anything like what Hrant Dink faced in Turkey, which was a daily life and death matter for him. But, they are on the same continuum. While denial does not unite progressives to the militarist/chauvinists who pursue denial out of ideological delusion or political agenda, as my AATL talk pointed out, it has become clear that in their actual acts and statements that some progressive Turks maintain an imperial attitude that is also at the origin of denial. This does not mean that these progressives are in any way reducible to such deniers or militarists, who embrace the violence of the Armenian Genocide as they deny it, but that they are part of an overall imperial structure. The leaders who condemned Dink legally and publicly for insulting Turkishness did not actually fire the guns that killed him, but they did share a fundamental attitude with his killer(s). Progressives who maintain a masked form of imperial superiority likewise share in the attitude. In a similar way, the majority of whites in the United States might run the gamut from right-wing Christian fundamentalists to left-wing socialists, and yet still be united in their participation in a racist system, regardless of their perceptions of their individual attitudes toward non-whites. The racism might come out in different ways, with right-wing militarist Turks using aggression, threats, power-politics, money-lobbying, etc., and progressive Turks using dialogue that splits the Armenian community into “good” and “bad” Armenians and thus molds that dominated community toward accommodation to the final imperial order produced by the Genocide. But the core is the same—imperial privilege and dominance.

Two important caveats are necessary. First, I have focused on Halil Berktay because his public imperialist assertion was so egregious and blatant that it requires correction, but perhaps more importantly because consideration of it brings into relief some of the key aspects of Turkish-Armenian relations with a depth and clarity not possible through a general treatment. But my goal is not to critique him particularly, but to use the example his behavior on March 31 provides to help Turks, Armenians, and others to understand the core issue of contemporary Turkish-Armenian relations. What is more, he is certainly not alone among progressives in displaying an imperial attitude toward Armenians. During the AATL panel, I treated the issue in general terms, highlighting views prevalent among progressive Turks rather than looking at specific individuals, in order to provide a framework of analysis for attendees.

Second, I am using the term “uppity” in this article advisedly. Of course it is meant to refer to the demeaning characterization of African Americans who, under slavery or Jim Crow, did not behave as inferiors to whites, as many whites expected them to, personally and politically. But, the denigration I experienced on March 31 was an isolated incident for me. It was not connected to any explicit possibility of violence, and did not “follow me home” after the program, as a permanent feature of my life invading the different aspects of my daily existence. While one could argue that the imperial domination of Armenians could have had and have in the future some career impact, as Armenians deferential to Turkish authority might be selected out for professional benefits, positions, etc., of such scholars as me, on the grand scale of things this is a relatively minor issue, if it exists. People of color, women, and others marginalized in our society and around the world face disparagement on a regular basis when they assert themselves as full human beings relative to whites, men, Euro-Americans, local elites, and others in positions of power. In our own society, the countless African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos/as, Asian Americans, women, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, etc., who point out the violence, discrimination, and exploitation they face and the systematic domination foundational to US society are marginalized, ridiculed, attacked, and belittled continually as a matter of course. And there is no escape into the privileged “white male-hood” that I partake of. They are maligned and threatened by rednecks, blatant sexists, etc., but also dismissed as extremists, condescended to, ignored, academically defamed and degraded, and kept in their inferior positions by subtle assumptions and structural exclusions by “white liberal” progressives who are convinced of their own freedom from racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. I wish to be clear that, by using the term “uppity” my intent is to inform my analysis of Turkish domination of Armenians with an understanding of U.S. racial, gender, etc., domination, but not to suggest that as an Armenian I share the position, experiences, or level of oppression of people of color, women, etc., in our society—even if some Armenians in other historical and political contexts (during the Genocide, in contemporary Turkey, etc.) have and do.

An Uppity Armenian Gives Voice to His Dignity

During the panel discussion, I wished to respond to Berktay’s degrading conduct toward me, but the context restricted me to making only substantive responses to the content of certain positions he took, not to his treatment of me and its implications for Turkish-Armenian relations. Had I pointed out the imperialist nature of his personal attacks and their ethical unacceptability, I would likely have been perceived to have lowered the discourse to an interpersonal conflict, which would have obscured the fact that what was playing out, as many audience members understood, was a post-genocidal imperial dominance relation. My critique would have been relativized to one part of a mutual conflict. Even if recognized as political in nature, as a conflict between “a Turk” and “an Armenian,” the true political nature of what transpired would have been obscured.

Given my difficult position of having to take public debasement without response, it was a serious problem that not a single individual in the audience made clear that Berktay was demeaning me and that this was not acceptable. And, because no audience member actually pointed this out publicly and I could not, Berktay and many audience members presumably left the discussion with the experience of denigration of an Armenian as an acceptable activity. The lack of response reinforced the normalization of the inferiority of Armenians, as fit targets of vilification. Even those who reacted against this emotionally were left to feel that, if morally wrong, it was acceptable in the context of practical reality—that the reality of Turkish domination of Armenians makes such ill-treatment legitimate despite moral considerations.

My resistance to the normalization of Armenian inferiority is part of the reason I have included the critique of Berktay here as part of my discussion Turkish-Armenian relations. If I could not speak out during the panel to challenge my disparagement and no audience members, who were in the position to respond to this treatment, chose to respond, then I feel I must speak out now. Of course, I risk just as much now, and my remarks here will surely be dismissed and derided in angry responses from Turkish and Armenian sources. This itself is an aspect of the imperial power dynamic. As John Stuart Mill points out in Chapter 2 of On Liberty, voices representing views against the established norms will inevitably be viewed as strident and extremist, regardless of their actual tone or content. Sometimes this criticism is justified, but often it is not. To follow this logic further, to the extent an imperial dominance relation between Turks and Armenians has been normalized then voices that challenge this norm will be perceived as disruptive, uncivil, aggressive, etc. The violence—past violence of the Genocide and potential violence ready to be unleashed should the imperial system be challenged, as Hrant Dink’s assassination shows­—and power—political, economic, ideological, etc.—that supports the imperial system is hidden from view, safely relegated to past history or hidden behind a misleading “stasis” that is a stalemate between denialist and other imperial forces and challenges to them. Those in positions of relative power in this imperial relation have the luxury of not having to exert themselves under normal circumstances to enjoy the benefits of and to maintain the power differential. This situation is similar to that in the United States, where whites do not have to exhibit explicitly racist attitudes or behaviors in order to enjoy the benefits of a racial hierarchy, as that hierarchy remains frozen because decisive action is not taken against it and “egalitarianism” merely perpetuates the hierarchy by treating high and low status in the same way. It is those in a subjugated position who have to take exceptional action in order to challenge the hierarchy, which makes the resulting “conflict” appear to be their fault and renders reactions from those in dominant positions as “understandable” reactions to destabilizing forces. Those who do not acknowledge the dominance structure in place will see Berktay’s behavior perhaps as a minor individual excess, but not as the mark of a power relation. My response on the other hand will be seen by such individuals as an extreme over-reaction to a subjective perception of ill-treatment, and the more strongly and logically I make the case that it was much more, the more I extreme I will be seen to be. Just as Berktay was in a position to dismiss my comments through denigration, rather than to engage them as legitimate concerns, so those who refuse to see the imperial order will dismiss the present analysis. They will likely say that I have presented a person “conflict” as a political issue. But, how can one speak of a purely personal relation between Turkish and Armenian individuals in the context of a discussion of the Armenian Genocide and its implications for the socio-political relations between the two groups? The “personal” here is infused with the political, and Turks who engage Armenians have the responsibility of understanding this and acting accordingly.

The subjugated are in a Catch-22. To say something meaningful about their oppression means being misconstrued as a extremist disruptor; to say nothing is to normalize yet another assault on their dignity, to further ingest the poison of an “accepted” inferiority and to confirm that inferiority by imposed inaction. (In one sense, of course, saying nothing is completely understandable. It is a function of the oppression of Armenians that we are put into this Catch-22 in the first place, and the mere fact of having to respond to assertions of domination is itself an unfair imposition of that domination.) The subjugated are forced to make a choice in a “double-bind” (to use feminist philosopher Marilyn Frye’s term and analysis, from The Politics of Reality): to accept domination or resist it, with each option entailing negative consequences. Regardless, my choice is clear: giving voice to my dignity is far more important than winning a public relations contest. And anyway, those Armenians and Turks who take seriously what I am saying will have, I believe, a useful tool for making sense of their experiences within the domination relation.

How does the foregoing shed light on the performance of the AATL panel audience? This, and not Berktay’s comments, was what truly saddened me that night. It is not that many did not “get it” —so many made clear to me that they did that night and in subsequent communications to me. It is that they failed to raise their own voices publicly when it really mattered—for me and for them. I am not in the habit of attacking “Armenians,” the “Armenian Diaspora,” or smaller segments of the global Armenian community, such as organizations, political parties, etc. Except in rare circumstances I do not see any point in adding to the surplus of calumny heaped on Armenians generally or these or those Armenians particularly. (I should add that it is no more justified to engage in unjustified attacks on Turks, regardless of the situation Armenians are in. It is crucial to judge different Turkish individuals, including Berktay, only and exactly on what they say and do, and to avoid generalizations. If criticisms are warranted in some or many cases, so is praise for the many Turks who from good motives saved Armenians during the Genocide and the key government officials, clerics, and other leaders who resisted the genocide, refused to participate in it, and often paid penalties for doing so.) Some Armenians spend quite a bit of time and effort deriding other Armenians, denialist Turks spend just as much vilifying most or all Armenians, and even some progressive Turks spend too much effort stating their disapproval of select Armenians, “Armenian attitudes” and Armenian groups. Much of the internal maligning among Armenians is a function of the internalized oppression resulting from the Genocide and the years of subjugation before and since. Some segments of a subjugated group, blocked from real equality with the oppressor group and subjected to reassertions of its power, claim a position of dominance against the only people to whom they have that kind of access, (some) other members of their own group. Rather than engaging in political activity to challenge the domination of Armenians, they relieve their feelings of inferiority by asserting superiority over and/or discharging anger and frustration against (some) other Armenians. (This is a simplified account, of course, but a full treatment is far beyond the scope of this paper and not essential for the issues taken up here.)

Obviously some acts and attitudes by Armenians do deserve criticism, and it would be chauvinist to avoid this, just as much as to unduly criticize Turkish individuals or the group as a whole. My disappointment in the mainly Armenian audience of the AATL panel is deep. I would estimate that the audience contained on the order of 200 Armenians (in addition to some non-Armenians), who witnessed a noteworthy Turkish individual demean an Armenian based on the latter’s political views and made possible by his inferior Armenian status, and not a single one protested this treatment. I have long been trained by experiences with aggressive deniers to face bad treatment in public. While of course I felt the pain of denigration, I could have accepted it if it had not been so acceptable to everyone else. But the failure of others to protest forced me to recognize that the entire audience, including the organizers of the panel, seemed to accept my denigration, too. With only one exception, those who asked questions directed at Berktay did so in deferential ways, further reinforcing his legitimacy and the illegitimacy of my recognition of ill-treatment. The moderator and other Armenians and the Left organizers had a special obligation to deal with Berktay’s behavior, if not to intervene as it happened (the moderator, for instance, could have simply kept Berktay to something close to his allotted time, rather than allowing him a full hour to speak, further reinforcing Berktay’s special legitimacy), then at least to offer some balancing response after his remarks and thus to go on record pointing out that Berktay’s conduct was not acceptable.

In the end, though, it was not my dignity that suffered, even as I take this opportunity to further reclaim it. Those Armenians who saw nothing wrong with what transpired were robbed of the important educational opportunity of a critical analysis that might have helped them reflect on the extent to which Turkish priority over and mistreatment of Armenians has been normalized in their own outlooks. It is not whether these Armenians agreed with what I said or not—that is not the issue, because my mere statement of a political viewpoint does not justify the maltreatment that occurred. Denial has trained us to accept mistreatment, expressions of hatred and prejudice, etc., as inevitable and thus in effect as acceptable. Here was an opportunity for some Armenians to become aware of this faulty norm and to begin the process of overcoming it.

As for those Armenians who did see something wrong but said nothing, they lost the opportunity to stand up for themselves by defending a fellow Armenian from denigration. As Aristotle tells us, developing virtues in practice is a matter of training oneself through habit to act appropriately. These Armenians reinforced the habit of accepting ill-treatment, making it yet harder the next time the situation calls for them to stand up for their dignity.

Both sets of audience members saw again and helped ensure for the future that, when a Turkish individual assumes his/her power and acts on that power, even to become angry and derisive, the “proper” Armenian response is to become ever more appeasing and deferential.

Fighting centuries of internalized oppression built through institutionalized subjugation in the millet system and driven as deeply as possible by genocide is a difficult task. I recall some years ago organizing with another Armenian a panel on genocide at a local university. We included presentations on the Holocaust, Nanjing Massacre and Armenian Genocide. In the days before the event, we found out that the many posters put up around campus to advertise the event had been torn down. We assumed, based on numerous past experiences and the fact that this was not usual for other events on this campus, that Turkish deniers had done this, but of course we had no proof. What is more, the other Armenian and I did not even react to the news; we just accepted it as what usually happens when one tries to publicize an event involving the Armenian Genocide. But those from the school’s Holocaust Center, which was sponsoring the program, had not internalized years of denialist abuse and saw what happened as an outrage that demanded serious action, including possible criminal justice measures. This was the first time that I realized how much my own perspective on Turkish-Armenian relations had been skewed by denial, and ever since I have worked to counter this skewing. Even if it is unfair that I have been burdened by Turkish domination with the writing of this piece and dealing with the backlash that will come against it, this article is my next step in that process.

Armenian readers, what will yours be?

Author’s Note: In addition to Marilyn Frye’s The Politics of Reality, my understanding of the Turkish-Armenian domination relation is informed by Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks, Bell Hooks’ Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, and Robert Ackermann’s Heterogeneities: Race, Gender, Nation, Class, and State. Fanon’s and Hooks’ work provided important stylistic models for the rhetorical approach of “An Uppity Armenian.” The discussion of “white liberal” racism in various parts of Feminist Theory and the “Benign Racism” chapter of Heterogeneities has especially influenced my understanding of progressive Turkish imperialism. My appreciation of the morphing capacity of Turkish imperial domination of Armenians owes much to Etienne Balibar’s discussion of “neo-racism” in his and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities.