New Book by Julien Zarifian Examines Full Story behind US Relationship to the Armenian Genocide

Part V moves the reader through the Obama, Trump and finally the Biden administration when efforts finally gave way to success. As Zarifian points out, part of the reason for recognition was simply the unrelenting efforts of Armenians and their allies to keep coming back with new resolutions: even Donald Trump’s bullying and non-recognition couldn’t stop both houses Congress from eventually recognizing it—then finally Biden made his official statement to the relief of Armenians everywhere.

In Part VI, Zarifian then meticulously and with remarkable objectivity analyzes the American reaction to the Armenian genocide itself: he is praiseworthy of the founding of the Near East Relief. Simply, American interests never coincided enough with those of the Armenians: before WWI, the US was not a player in the region even. Afterwards, they gave in to geopolitics as Turkey became an important NATO ally against the Soviets. As Zarifian points out, the US attitude to the Armenian Genocide can be divided into roughly three periods: 1) recognition of the event as it happened but non0intervention; then the period until WWII; then WWII to the 1980’s: pacification and refusal to upset Turkey, and then the 1980s onwards when it began to reckon with the historical record more honestly. Zarifan shows that a coalition of forces overwhelmingly hindered recognition: the strength of the Turkish lobby and its importance as a NATO ally; but also the role of the Jewish Lobby and AIPAC since Turkey was Israel’s only Muslim ally in the region; and finally the United States’ own failure to reckon with of history of slavery and genocide against the Native Americans created a perhaps subliminal desire not to discuss Genocides too often: the Holocaust was enough, it seems. In the end, it seems that plain hard work and lobbying as well as the doggedness of politicians like Senator Menendez who kept bringing the resolution to vote until opposition to it wore down and it passed. But here is the sad reality of Armenian Genocide recognition: apart from the catharsis that it provided Armenian Americans, and helping to set the historical record straight once and for all, little was arguably gained. Turkey refused to accept the facts and even participated in further ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Artsakh by training Azeri officers and providing Bayrakdar missiles.

Zarifian also notes that recognition of the Genocide has changed little in the Armenian world, apart from assuaging people who see it as a moral victory. As for Armenia itself, wedged between Turkey and Azerbaijan, the Third Republic has gained little from the US’s most recent acknowledgment: apart from a $3 million insurance settlement paid out to heirs, reparations will not occur nor will peace between Armenians and Turks magically appear. At least the US finally did the right thing, Zarifian seems to conclude, even if it came some 50 years too late. And one also wonders what Armenians could have been built in the US institutionally with all the effort and financial resources that they poured into this battle for over a half century. Be that as it may, Zarifian’s book makes a solid addition to works by scholars such as Raymond Kevorkian, Richard Hovannisian, and others who have analyzed the Armenian Genocide from different angles and perspectives.

At 300 pages, of which a good third are endnotes and bibliography, Zarifian’s book should be the authority on this topic for quite some time to come. In the end this is a book for historians and students of history both. It might someday be interesting to write a companion volume that analyzes in a similarly thorough fashion the reaction of say Western Europe (France, Russia, the United Kingdom) same issue. As such, Zarifian lists places, events and motivations, and although he does provide cogent analysis of the diverse elements involved in American decisions towards Armenians the Genocide, there is little room here for theories of nationalism, colonialism, Lit Crit, gender studies and such which have recently made the field of Armenian Genocide studies so exciting, such as Elyse Semerdjian’s recent volume on the tattooing of Armenian female bodies sold into slavery. Were it not for Zarifian’s elegant and pared down prose, and his obvious intelligence, it might otherwise read a bit dry. In the end, though, this is a perfect companion for the studies that detail the events and horrors of the Armenian Genocide itself, as well as all the new scholarship and fiction coming out on the issue. If we take all of these different studies together as a whole, it seems that one hundred years after the events that traumatized an entire nation and its descendants, we finally have scholarship that is intelligent, rich, and complete; scholarship that also helps to anchor the truth and complexity Armenian Genocide in the annals of human history once and for all.

In his introduction, Zarifian makes the interesting observation that this particular issue represents one of the most remarkable instances of continuity in US policy, at both the domestic and international levels. Given this fact, it is even more important that this egregious status quo was finally changed. It also says something positive about the willpower and organization of Armenian-Americans who are a tiny minority group which had limited financial means and education until the middle or end of the twentieth century. As pyrrhic a victory as it may have been, the 2021 Armenian Genocide recognition represents a good example of how immigrant groups to the US have at times been able to change the law or government policy to their advantage by using the country’s democratic channels.