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Modern Genocide: The Curse of the Nation State ..By Dennis R. Papazian
History and Prevention of Genocide Symposium 2001
by Dennis R. Papazian
Abstract
The character of the Young Turk dictatorship of Talāt, Enver, and Cemal (Jemal) Pashas during the twilight of the Ottoman Empire reveals elements conducive to genocide. The state was in decline. The Empire was being drastically truncated by a series of wars. Thousands of Muslim refugees were flooding Anatolia where the bulk of Armenian peasantry had lived for centuries as a settled population. The triumvirs saw themselves as the saviors of the Turkish nation, and on this basis entered World War I on the side of Germany in the hope of recouping territorial losses and punishing an old enemy, Russia. Power was exercised through the Committee of Union and Progress, a power parallel to, but not a part of the state structure. The Ottoman elites, who heretofore had ruled the state, saw their authority become a chimera as the parallel structure exercised the real power, just as the Communist Party unofficially ruled the Soviet Union for so many years and somewhat as the Nazi Party ruled Germany.
All three of these political parties could find domestic scapegoats during war, unencumbered by tradition and the values of the old social system. Such unlimited power, unhindered by traditional values, was ripe for solving perceived domestic problems by final solutions, the eradication of perceived domestic enemies to cleanse the state and to make it homogeneous in order to strengthen the state and make it able to achieve domestic and foreign goals.
The avoidance of genocide in the future, accordingly, is to offer protection to minorities and to punish crimes against humanity, until such time as world markets and social internationalization develop a common standard of behavior for the nation state and weaken the current view that a given dominant population is best served by a homogeneous state rather than a multinational society of peoples. In other words, strengthen the ideas universally that nationality is determined not by language, blood, or religion, but rather by state boundaries and that all mankind shares a common humanity that transcends borders.
by Dennis R. Papazian
Abstract
The character of the Young Turk dictatorship of Talāt, Enver, and Cemal (Jemal) Pashas during the twilight of the Ottoman Empire reveals elements conducive to genocide. The state was in decline. The Empire was being drastically truncated by a series of wars. Thousands of Muslim refugees were flooding Anatolia where the bulk of Armenian peasantry had lived for centuries as a settled population. The triumvirs saw themselves as the saviors of the Turkish nation, and on this basis entered World War I on the side of Germany in the hope of recouping territorial losses and punishing an old enemy, Russia. Power was exercised through the Committee of Union and Progress, a power parallel to, but not a part of the state structure. The Ottoman elites, who heretofore had ruled the state, saw their authority become a chimera as the parallel structure exercised the real power, just as the Communist Party unofficially ruled the Soviet Union for so many years and somewhat as the Nazi Party ruled Germany.
All three of these political parties could find domestic scapegoats during war, unencumbered by tradition and the values of the old social system. Such unlimited power, unhindered by traditional values, was ripe for solving perceived domestic problems by final solutions, the eradication of perceived domestic enemies to cleanse the state and to make it homogeneous in order to strengthen the state and make it able to achieve domestic and foreign goals.
The avoidance of genocide in the future, accordingly, is to offer protection to minorities and to punish crimes against humanity, until such time as world markets and social internationalization develop a common standard of behavior for the nation state and weaken the current view that a given dominant population is best served by a homogeneous state rather than a multinational society of peoples. In other words, strengthen the ideas universally that nationality is determined not by language, blood, or religion, but rather by state boundaries and that all mankind shares a common humanity that transcends borders.
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