5/6/2008 - Why Has the Lochner Version Assumed the Importance That It Has?
Why and how such a spurious quotation of forty-five years ago became so important that it has been cited by no fewer than twenty-two members of the U.S. Congress in 1984? The answer is complex and closely linked to American ethnic politics. Taking advantage of the flurry of press interest aroused by the activities of Armenian terrorist groups, activities which in the past decade have resulted in the assassinations of over thirty-five Turkish diplomats, Armenian-American spokesmen have stepped up their ongoing campaign of vilification against the Republic of Turkey which they allege was responsible for the “genocide” of more than 1.5 million Armenians during the First World War. Unhampered by the limitations of logic or truth, these spokesmen attempt to justify current Armenian violence against innocent diplomats (none of whom were living in 1915), as a natural response to Armenian suffering in the course of the First World War.
In terms of logic (or the lack thereof), this is comparable to the descendants of peoples who suffered under the last Russian czars running around shooting Soviet diplomats today. Both the Soviet Union and the Republic of Turkey began their existence as revolutionary states in the wake of the First World War, the former emerging from the ashes of the Russian Empire, while the latter was created from the ruins of the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire, the political entity in existence at the time of the alleged genocide.
A significant portion of Armenian propaganda efforts in recent years has been devoted to establishing a linkage between their own historical experiences and those of European Jewry during the Second World War. The cornerstone in their case has long been the spurious Hitler quote, “Who, after all, speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?” Certainly, the argument that Hitler himself cited the world’s lack of reaction to the fate of the Armenians and was encouraged by it, must be very poignant to Jews. The following examples will serve to illustrate the mileage hitherto obtained by Armenian’ Americans in this regard:
1. Under the tutelage of an Armenian-American Congressman, Charles Pashayan, Jr. (R- Calif.),sixty-six elected U.S. Representative made speeches on or about April 24, 1984 (Armenian Martyrs’ Day), condemning the Republic of Turkey, a NATO ally, for failing to acknowledge its responsibility for the “genocide” of the Armenians which allegedly transpired a decade before the Republic came into existence.
2. As noted earlier, seven of the twenty-two members of the U.S. Congress (three Senators and four Congressmen) who used the alleged Hitler quote in the course of their April
24, 1984, remarks were Jewish.
3. Utilizing the “linkage” conveniently provided by the spurious Hitler quote, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council has agreed that the Armenians were the victims of the twentieth century’s first genocide and therefore deserve inclusion in the planned memorial. Indeed Elie Wiesel, himself a Holocaust survivor and Chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, in a 1981 speech delivered in the Capitol rotunda stated “Before the planning of the final solution Hitler asked, ‘Who remembers the Armenians?’ He was right. No one remembered them, as no one remembered the Jews. Rejected by everyone, they felt expelled from history.”
In a similar vein, Congressman Glenn Anderson, in his April 24, 1984, remarks, discussed the inclusion of the Armenians in the planned Holocaust Memorial in the following terms: “Toward this end, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, established by an act of Congress in 1980, has unanimously resolved to include the Armenian genocide in its museums and education programs.”
4. During the past two years a number of state boards of education have adopted into their programs Holocaust curricula which include detailed treatment of the Armenian “genocide” as the precursor of the Jewish Holocaust. The curricula adopted by the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey all stress the spurious Hitler quote as the tie that binds the Armenian and Jewish experiences. In New Jersey, the curriculum was actually prepared and published by the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League. This is, to say the least, ironic, as the continued repetition of the spurious Hitler quote, as it is used today, certainly defames the Turkish people.
5. On September 10, 1984, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution (House Joint Resolution 247) designating April 24 as a National Day of Remembrance of Man’s Inhumanity to Man, and requesting the President of the United States to issue a proclamation calling upon the American people to observe such a day of remembrance for all the victims of genocide, “especially the one and one-half million people of Armenian ancestry who were victims of the genocide perpetrated in Turkey between 1915 and 1923.””
This resolution, both by naming April 24 Armenian Martyrs’ Day, and by specifically naming only Turkey as the “perpetrator” of a “genocide,” does nothing less than brand one of the United States’ NATO allies with the historically controversial charge of genocide. In regard to the label itself, the fact remains that there was no country of Turkey in existence between the years 1915 and 1923; rather, the governing power in the region was the multinational state known as the Ottoman Empire.”
House Joint Resolution 247 was submitted by Congressman Tony Coelho (D- Calif.) and 233 co-sponsors. Of interest to us is the fact that Coelho, who represents the “heartland’of California’s Armenian community (the Merced-Fresno region of the San Joaquin Valley), cited the purported Hitler quote in urging his colleagues to vote for passage of the H.J. Res. 247.
In addition to his own utilization of the quote, Coelho also entered a letter from California’s Armenian-American Governor, George Deukmejian, supporting the resolution’s passage in the record. In support of H.J. Res. 247, Deukmejian wrote, “One cannot ignore the chilling words of Adolf Hitler before he began his reign of terror during World War Il, ‘Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?”
At the time of this writing the U.S. Senate is considering the adoption of their half of this joint resolution.
Leaving aside the larger question of whether or not the fate of the Ottoman Armenians in 1914-1915 was in fact anything that could conceivably be termed genocide, and focusing only on the matter at hand, the spurious Hitler quote, we find that three things come immediately to mind.
The first is the obvious danger inherent in partisan ethnic politics as currently practiced in the United States. To appease a handful of potential voters, some American politicians are willing to allow themselves to be used as tools of ethnic pressure groups, regardless of the truth or falsehood of the information they are fed.
Secondly, one cannot help but marvel at the patience of the Republic of Turkey, which, beleaguered by economic and social problems of its own, also has to cope with misinformed American politicians lecturing her on her own history. It is safe to say that if the U.S. Congress spent as much time hammering at the Federal Republic of Germany (another NATO ally) for the well-documented events which transpired forty years ago in that nation’s history, as they spend lecturing the Republic of Turkey for actions alleged to have occurred seventy years ago in the Ottoman Empire, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would long since have lost a member.
Finally, given the serious problems facing our nation, e.g., the arms race, unemployment, and budget deficits, in conjunction with the fact that as this study has repeatedly demonstrated, history is clearly not the forte of many U.S. Congressmen and Senators, it is not impertinent to suggest that the Congress would be better served if its members were to confine their activities to the business at hand and leave the writing of history to the historians.
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