!á�� face="Verdana" size="2">On Feb. 23, five deputies of the German opposition parties CDU/CSU submitted a motion to the Bundestag for the “commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the Armenian exile and massacre.” Thus, after France, Germany too is taking a stance in favor of Armenian demands over the “genocide” issue. Since the German government supports our European Union membership bid, this unpleasant task falls on the opposition. Meanwhile, certain foundations that are in the habit of working against Turkey too have reportedly received instructions to stage meetings and to issue publications on this matter. For this reason, the Turks in Germany feel uneasy.

  Although the word “genocide” was not used in the aforementioned motion, the fact that the text contains references to “planned” and “deliberate” banishment and massacres indicates that in reality what is meant is the “genocide” issue. 

  The responsibility for the events is being placed on Turkey by using the words “Turk” and “Ottoman” interchangeably and, also, by considering the Republic of Turkey the heir of the Ottoman Empire. 

  By claiming that not only the Armenians but also other Christian communities such as the Assyrians and the Chaldeans were subjected to a forced relocation, it is being implied that the 1915 incidents had been anti-Christian in the broader sense.

  The authors of the motion are acting with the assumption that there is a consensus among historians to the effect that the Armenian incident had been a massacre (or, in reality, a “genocide”). They maintain that Turkey is denying historical facts, looking at them from a political angle. For this reason, they are not referring to the need for the issue to be examined by independent historians. They make a baseless claim in the following vein: They say that the “scientific” studies of those who looked at these incidents from the Armenian angle are being suppressed and that researchers are being punished. Although these claims are groundless, they want the freedom of expression to be implemented specifically in that field. 

  While demanding that we “immediately normalize” our relations with Armenia, relations said to be problematic because “we have not confronted our past,” they stress that this would create new possibilities for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabagh problem between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Yet there is no reference at all to Armenia being responsible for the occupation of the territories of a neighboring country; an act that has created one million migrants. 

  A significant part of the motion in question was devoted to the ideas and activities of Lepsius, a Protestant priest who held, in fact, pro-Christian prejudices. 

  It “regretted” that the German Empire failed to intervene “though it knew about the incidents in full detail.” It stressed the need for Germany to display an interest in this issue now due to Germany's responsibility stemming from that “failure.” The text also contains the strange argument that the motion is aimed at contributing to mutual understanding between the 40,000 Armenians and large numbers of Turks living in Germany. 

  Significantly, in the “actions” section of the motion, the authors urge the Bundestag to contribute to the efforts aimed at working out an agreement between the Turks and the Armenians by bringing about an “apology for that historical crime/forgiveness.”

  In the same section the authors demand that the “history of the Armenian exile” should be taken up together with the “history of the other ethnic conflicts of the 20th century.” Thus, for the first time, an official document reflects the kind of approach that envisages that the Armenian incident should be thought of in a Holocaust context. The motion claims that the Armenian massacres were carried out with “death marches,” “camps” and “special units” and this shows that the Armenian incidents are indeed being compared to the Jewish genocide. In other words, an attempt is being made to water down the genocide concept and to ease the pain on the German conscience.  It is true that Germany has certain responsibilities regarding the Armenian incidents. Firstly, the archives the German military delegation took away at the end of World War I should be opened to the public. Secondly, as a “great power” Germany should confront its past by explaining why it failed to make even the smallest move in favor of the Turks who were massacred in the Balkans and the Caucasus during the Ottoman-Russian War, which ended with the Berlin Treaty, and also those who were massacred in subsequent wars. Thirdly, Germany should carefully refrain from rendering the Holocaust “ordinary.” And, finally, they must not stoop so low as to use the Armenian incident to obstruct our European Union membership, which they oppose for other reasons.