TO NEGOTIATE OR NOT TO NEGOTIATE
The Past as Dilemma
Gerard J. Libaridian
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
The past dominates the general perception of Turkish-Armenian relations. At least
it appears so. It dominates because it ended tragically in the Ottoman Empire and because
we have perceived it in more ways than one and invested so much in each. The question
is: Can we take responsibility for the way in which we have recreated that, just as it has
created us. And, What is to be done with two different, disparate and more often than not
conflicting perceptions of the past, when there is willingness to transcend it?
For the Armenian side, the difference can be resolved if and when the Turkish
side acknowledges the Genocide perpetrated by the Young Turk government during
World War I. This expectation of the victim has encountered the Turkish view, which
places its own victimization by the Great Powers at the center of its own perception of
history, a perception that makes what happened to Armenians an almost irrelevant detail,
a nuisance at best, and that should be denied, trivialized, or explained away. The mainline
Turkish position has been to do all three, at the same time.
There are, essentially, three ways of reconciling differences when positions have
been long standing and when each side has invested so much of its identity in its position.
We know that identity wars are more ferocious than interest wars. A first way is to better
understand the past and, equally if not more importantly in the initial stage, to understand
better the reasons for the other’s position. The second way is to negotiate history. The
first requires scholarship, intellectual integrity, and the courage to integrate what one
learns into one’s thinking and positions. The second requires technical skills taught at
diplomatic, business and law schools . The first implies painstaking efforts; it can be
expedited but not forced. Its outcome may still not be imposed universally. The second
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can be encapsulated in a diplomatic protocol, treaty, or a formal resolution by
institutional political bodies, governmental or otherwise.
These two are, conceptually, separate processes; but in real life, given the stakes,
they have not been. After all, governments and institutionalized bodies formulate and
implement policies; they are more inclined to negotiate; and they do so by invoking the
past. Scholarship, on the other hand, has clear implications for policies. Furthermore,
scholars are not immune to their identity and environment, although policy makers seem
to have thicker skins when it comes to accepting facts shown to be evident by scholars. It
is as useless to argue history with a diplomat charged with the implementation of a policy
as it is to ask a scholar engaged in a dynamic process of discovery for policy
recommendations.
- Winter '14
