Responsibility is forgivable while guilt persists over generations

PanARMENIAN.Net - Guilt in history - we speak about guilt of genocide and war when we can ascribe it to certain political elites, says a statement PanARMENIAN.Net received from the Armenian community of Berlin.



The statement reads as follows, "When considering the difficult question of guilt, it helps to replace "guilt" with the notion of "responsibility". For when we speak about "responsibility", then it's a matter of conditions, perhaps even being forced to make a decision. That is not the case with the difficult concept of guilt. Guilt bears evidence to the direct intention of the individual and his will. Responsibility is "forgivable". "Guilt" persists over generations.



Today in Germany, studying characteristics of the perpetrators is the focus point of the endeavors to come to terms with the past. Yet the historical research in South Africa or in Rwanda is also conducted in the hope of being able to name those responsible. In this pursuit of the examination of one's own perpetrator history, it's also a matter of shaping a new Germany, a South Africa, a Rwanda, which specifically commits itself to tolerance. Lastly, it is also a matter of not remaining in the depths of guilt; of lessening the burden of guilt.



On April 24, when we commemorate worldwide the 1.5 million victims of the genocide caused by the regime of the Young Turks in 1915-16, we are confronted with the unprecedented position of Turkey, which vehemently prevents discussion about guilt in history, attempts to accuse the genocide victims for having provoked the "escalation of violence", and replaces examination of the genocide with denegation. This not only calls for an awareness of the continuity of national narratives in Turkey, but also leads us more to a discussion of the specific form of guilt in genocide.



Genocide is a crime that effects all levels of society, touches all generations, and excludes no one. Those who are not perpetrators are bystanders. But can one really speak of bystanders when such a large-scale deportation occurred of which everyone was a witness? The perpetrators of a genocide are certain that they have the consent of the bystanders. Their ideological goals - a co-existence of old prejudices against the "Christian infidels " with a new hate of modern Armenians and a nationalistic ideology of the creation of a new Turkey- knowingly include the bystanders as an active, consenting populace. The perpetrator of genocide doesn't fear the resistance of his victims; he fears only the intervention of bystanders. Hence the attitude of the bystander bears the blame for the absoluteness and radicalism of the act of genocide.



This is why coming to terms with a genocide is so important. That's why such an examination in Turkey is so vehemently and systematically contested: because it affects not only a chapter of elapsed history, but also every individual today: his prejudices, his national images and his national identification.



The day of remembrance on April 24 commemorates a day on which the deportations reached the capital, Constantinople. On this day, public figures were arrested and murdered, among them politicians, writers and lawyers.



The day of remembrance commemorates not only the deep rupture that the genocide created in Armenian life in its homeland. It commemorates first and foremost the suffering of those deported and the barbarity with which they were murdered.



"Like Jeremiah, I became like a rotten cloth, and, as the preacher said, my name is erased from the book of mankind", wrote the Armenian Monk St. Grigor Narekatsi (951-1003) in his Book of Prayers. But the medieval tale of suffering, oppression and violence still knew the hope of God.



The philosopher Hans Jonas described the withdrawal of God from the modern world in his work, "The Imperative of Responsibility". And while Hans Jonas deduced from the experience of the Holocaust the necessity of an ethics of responsibility, April 24 calls upon us to reflect on guilt in history. This broader question looks not only at the perpetrator, but also identifies the role of the bystander and therefore us and our actions - as actors and responsible individuals in modern societies and with modern policies. Such examined responsibility inquires after the perspective of today's states with regard to denegation, oppression and violence and insists that we face up to the blameworthy consequences of being a bystander."