The real answer to Washington lobbying
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Oluşturulma Tarihi: Şubat 03, 2009 00:00
Amid the lights and noise of a crowded news agenda, readers may have missed a small event the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review reported yesterday.
This is the "counter apology," launched by an Armenian NGO to respond in kind to a similar initiative launched a month or so ago in Turkey. The Internet-based apology campaign with which we are more familiar is the one spearheaded by academic (and Daily News columnist) Cengiz Aktar. It simply invites Turks to add their names to a list of those apologizing for the "Great Catastrophe" that Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915.
The Web site has so far generated some 30,000 signatures and great controversy. One prosecutor even tried unsuccessfully to have the project hauled into court for insulting the Turkish nation. Reasonable people can and have differed on whether the site is a good idea. Our own views on this are divided. But we are in agreement that this well-meaning exercise is hardly worth condemnation. But one response it has generated is particularly noteworthy: An analogous Web site to be launched soon by Australian Armen Gavakian. Its petition for Armenian signatures reads: "I apologize to the Ottomans and Turks for murders committed in the name of the Armenian people and I empathize with the feelings and pain of the Ottomans and the Turks."
We hope this is noticed by those in Turkish policy circles who are currently wringing their hands over the prospect that the perennial "Armenian Genocide Resolution," when offered to the U.S. Congress this year, will pass. It is a done deal, the argument goes, greased by the Democrats in Washington, led by President Obama, who have vowed support the past. The "Jewish lobby," or better said the "Israel lobby" can no longer be counted on to spike the bill, they say.
We share the view that this is a profoundly dumb piece of legislation. But we don’t share the anxiety that its passage in 2009 is a foregone conclusion. Circumstances have changed dramatically in Washington. But so have events on the ground between Turks and Armenians. Reciprocal presidential visits, a football game, a score of civil society initiatives and now Turks and Armenians acknowledging one another’s pain in a novel cyber-ritual.
We have confidence that these developments, when laid out on the witness table before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, will have far more power than another round of backroom arm-twisting by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or high-priced Turkish lobbyists. The U.S. Congress may be naive enough to fall under the sway of one ethnic lobby versus another. We don’t believe it is foolish enough to endanger so many remarkable steps toward reconciliation of two estranged peoples emerging on the back of noble and courageous official and grassroots efforts by both sides.
The Web site has so far generated some 30,000 signatures and great controversy. One prosecutor even tried unsuccessfully to have the project hauled into court for insulting the Turkish nation. Reasonable people can and have differed on whether the site is a good idea. Our own views on this are divided. But we are in agreement that this well-meaning exercise is hardly worth condemnation. But one response it has generated is particularly noteworthy: An analogous Web site to be launched soon by Australian Armen Gavakian. Its petition for Armenian signatures reads: "I apologize to the Ottomans and Turks for murders committed in the name of the Armenian people and I empathize with the feelings and pain of the Ottomans and the Turks."
We hope this is noticed by those in Turkish policy circles who are currently wringing their hands over the prospect that the perennial "Armenian Genocide Resolution," when offered to the U.S. Congress this year, will pass. It is a done deal, the argument goes, greased by the Democrats in Washington, led by President Obama, who have vowed support the past. The "Jewish lobby," or better said the "Israel lobby" can no longer be counted on to spike the bill, they say.
We share the view that this is a profoundly dumb piece of legislation. But we don’t share the anxiety that its passage in 2009 is a foregone conclusion. Circumstances have changed dramatically in Washington. But so have events on the ground between Turks and Armenians. Reciprocal presidential visits, a football game, a score of civil society initiatives and now Turks and Armenians acknowledging one another’s pain in a novel cyber-ritual.
We have confidence that these developments, when laid out on the witness table before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, will have far more power than another round of backroom arm-twisting by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or high-priced Turkish lobbyists. The U.S. Congress may be naive enough to fall under the sway of one ethnic lobby versus another. We don’t believe it is foolish enough to endanger so many remarkable steps toward reconciliation of two estranged peoples emerging on the back of noble and courageous official and grassroots efforts by both sides.