[Mb-civic] Turkey finally hears its past - Henry Morgenthau III - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  Turkey finally hears its past

By Henry Morgenthau III  |  April 24, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

''AMBASSADOR Morgenthau's Story," my grandfather's account of the 
killings of Armenians in Turkey in 1915, was published just before World 
War I ended in November 1918. A personal chronicle of his service as the 
US ambassador to Ottoman Turkey for 26 months, the book was published 
last month for the first time in Turkish, a milestone in informing the 
Turkish people of what happened in their country more than 90 years ago.

The term genocide had not yet been invented when my grandfather wrote 
his book. Thus, Morgenthau refers to ''the destruction of the Armenian 
race" as ''the murder of a nation." It was Henry Morgenthau's lonely 
voice that alerted the world to the premeditated atrocities of the Young 
Turk leaders and the complicity of their German allies.

Why Morgenthau chose to speak out on behalf of the Armenians is a more 
complex question than how he did so. Almost from the time he arrived in 
New York as a 10-year-old German Jewish immigrant, he envisioned public 
service as his ultimate calling. When the opportunity arose, he attached 
himself to Woodrow Wilson's rising star and was appointed US ambassador 
to Turkey.

At the end of 1914, Morgenthau noted a pattern: Palestinian Jews were 
conscripted into the Turkish army, then promptly disarmed and placed in 
labor battalions. This was a tactic the Turks used against Greeks and 
other minorities, and, most ominously, against the Armenians.

Fearing reprisals against Jews in Turkish territories, Morgenthau warned 
international Zionist leaders to contain their indignation. Then he took 
it upon himself to call on the US Navy for help. In January 1915, the 
USS Tennessee was ordered to Alexandria, Egypt, ostensibly to protect US 
citizens. In fact, it made possible the evacuation of impoverished 
Jewish refugees, including David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who 
became respectively Israel's first prime minister and second president.

Morgenthau was never able to carry out a rescue of the Armenians with 
the effectiveness he achieved in saving Jews, though certainly not for 
want of trying. There were fundamental differences between the Armenian 
and Jewish situations. The Armenians were a minority located within the 
borders of Ottoman Turkey and Czarist Russia. The Jews, on the other 
hand, were widely dispersed throughout Eastern and Western Europe and 
the United States, and to a much lesser extent in the Near East, 
including the Holy Land. In Western Europe and the United States, Jews 
had risen to positions of power and had learned how to network 
internationally. The diaspora Armenians had not yet achieved such status 
and so could not mobilize support for their persecuted kinsmen.

When Morgenthau appealed to Enver Pasha, the Turkish minister of war, to 
permit US missionaries to feed starving Armenians, the response was 
coldly cynical. ''We don't want the Americans to feed the Armenians. . . 
. That is one of the worst things that could happen to them. . . . It is 
their belief that they have friends in other countries which leads them 
to oppose the government and so bring down upon them all their 
miseries." The Turkish minister of the interior, Talaat Pasha, was 
equally callous: ''The hatred between the Turks and the Armenians is now 
so intense that we have got to finish them. If we don't, they will plan 
their revenge."

The memoirs of my grandfather factually chronicle an important period of 
history. Yet, 91 years later, the Turkish state insists the genocide of 
the Armenians did not happen. Why does Turkey protect the murderers of 
the past? That is a question that needs to be asked over and over again 
until the truth is acknowledged. As Turkey seeks membership in the 
European Union, it is being challenged to open up its society and adopt 
free speech.

But its penal code has resulted in several Turkish writers being brought 
before their own courts for speaking out about the Armenian genocide. 
Surely a modern country like Turkey needs to treat its citizens with 
more respect. Free speech cannot be denied, especially in a country 
seeking to join the EU. Whatever may have motivated Turkish officials to 
deny the genocide for more than 90 years, there now appears to be some 
light at the end of the tunnel. The US government, which had knuckled 
under in support of the Turkish policy of denial, is now urging all 
parties to accept the realities of history.

At this critical moment, the publication of the Turkish edition of 
''Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" is an important step for the citizens 
of Turkey. It is their right to know their own history, good and bad, 
without interference from the state. A crime denied is a crime repeated. 
Great nations in history have acknowledged the misdeeds of their earlier 
governments. It is time for Turkey to join the ranks of those great nations.

Henry Morgenthau III, who lives in Cambridge, is the author of a family 
history, ''Mostly Morgenthaus."

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/24/turkey_finally_hears_its_past/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20060424/5d02b07b/attachment.htm