Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day has become something akin to Groundhog Day - but re-imagined as a Kabuki play directed by Rod Serling: There are the usual somber processions; Turkey’s 94-year campaign of denial; co-sponsors signing on to a symbolic Congressional resolution ultimately doomed to die without a floor vote; and a carefully crafted statement by a U.S. president that acknowledges the day without naming the monstrous act that makes the day significant. Everyone has his part to play and everyone plays his part the exact same way year in, year out.   

This year, however, new drama was injected into the highly ritualized production when Armenia and Turkey announced that with the help of Swiss mediators, they had agreed on a “roadmap” to normalize diplomatic relations, which, as far as The Stiletto can tell, seems to depend upon the Turks continuing to deny the Genocide while also demanding that Armenia give the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh back to Azerbaijan. If this is the case, Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan tells The Wall Street Journal that this roadmap will lead nowhere, just like the roadmap that was supposed to bring peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians:

By opening Armenia's border or normalizing relations with Turkey, Armenia's approach to Nagorno Karabakh will not undergo any changes or amendments. The problem of Nagorno Karabakh can be solved only on the basis of mutual compromises. This can never be a one-way, give-me type of approach that resolves this problem of Nagorno Karabakh. Despite the absence of relations with Turkey and despite the economic situation in Armenia, there can be no Armenian leader who signs a paper or who has a small idea in his mind that Nagorno Karabakh can be given to Azerbaijan for any motivation or reason.

While Sargsyan was unequivocal in stating that Nagorno Karabakh is non-negotiable, he was rather oblique discussing the Armenian Genocide when The Journal reporter asked about a sub-commission on “history” that will be set up under the proposed framework for restoring diplomatic relations with Turkey, and whether Genocide would be one of the issues taken up by the sub-commission:

We cannot prohibit Turkey from raising any issue in any of the sub-commissions, just as they cannot limit us in raising any issue. One thing is for sure – the fact that a genocide took place raises no doubts in us.

This sub-commission on history is eerily reminiscent of Iran’s 2006 International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust (which sought “neither to deny nor prove the Holocaust ... [but] to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue”), however Turks need to learn the true history of their past. By order of the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Turkish schoolchildren – including Armenians whose ancestors perished in the Genocide - are forced to watch “Sari Gelin,” a so-called documentary of “the events of 1915” that teaches – among other things – that Armenians boiled and ate Turkish children.

To see for yourself, click here (35 seconds into this video clip “witness” Mehmet Akçal, 105, of Saimbeyli, Adana, claims: “Not one Muslim man was left. They were imprisoned and killed. Children were boiled in water. They said, ‘We are serving you lamb.’ They made women eat their husbands.”) and here (4:49 into this video clip another “witness,” Sefa Vahisoğlu, 95, of Kozan, Adana, claims: “In Saimbeyli and in many places, they slaughtered children like animals. They were inhumane enough to boil little babies in hot water and offer them as food to their parents.”)

This is nothing less than a blood libel, meant to incite hatred of, and violence toward, Armenians and it will be interesting to see how the history sub-commission deals with it. (Click these additional links to see “Sari Gelin” in its entirety: Part 1; Part 2; Part 4; Part 6 and Part 7).

This surprise plot twist of apparent progress made towards normalizing relations between Armenia and Turkey wasn’t the only new scene inserted into the oft-performed play. After repeated campaign promises that he would explicitly recognize the Armenian Genocide, President Barack Obama crapped out for a second time – at least, in English. In another example of his “dog-whistle politics” (third item), Obama used a term for the Genocide that Armenians use amongst themselves in his statement commemorating the 1.5 million Armenian deaths:

Ninety four years ago, one of the great atrocities of the 20th century began. Each year, we pause to remember the 1.5 million Armenians who were subsequently massacred or marched to their death in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. The Meds Yeghern must live on in our memories, just as it lives on in the hearts of the Armenian people. …

Nothing can bring back those who were lost in the Meds Yeghern. But the contributions that Armenians have made over the last ninety-four years stand as a testament to the talent, dynamism and resilience of the Armenian people, and as the ultimate rebuke to those who tried to destroy them.

The Stiletto had to ask an Armenian speaker for the English equivalent of “Meds Yeghern” and learned that it can variously be translated as large-scale (meds) atrocity, calamity or murder (yeghern).

A citizen journalist posting on the independent news site Huliq.com approves of the way Obama finessed the thorny issue:

Obama did a great political move: he satisfied both Armenians and Turkey. Today the newspapers are writing "Obama refrained from using the G word," but tomorrow all of them will write, Obama used the G. word, but the Armenian equivalent and two times in his speech. In my opinion "The Meds Eghern" is a stronger way of labeling the mass atrocities.

At least one mainstream Armenian-American organization doesn’t see it that way, reports The Associated Press:

"Today's statement does not reflect the change the president promised," said Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America. He said Obama "has needlessly delayed the cause of genocide affirmation and diminishes U.S. credibility with regard to genocide prevention."

As he did in Turkey, Obama’s statement stood by his past rhetoric on the subject of the Armenian Genocide but without restating it. Obama can yet put his money where his mouth is by allowing Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) Armenian Genocide Resolution to come to a floor vote – and then to sign it if it reaches his desk.

Update:  Turkey has objected to Obama's Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day statement, reports Agence France-Presse:

"We consider some expressions in (Obama's) statement and the perception of history it contains concerning the events of 1915 as unacceptable," the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement. …

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that political meddling would not help a tentative dialogue between Ankara and Yerevan to mend ties poisoned by their common bloody history.

"This message does not satify us," Erdogan was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as telling reporters in Istanbul. "Everyone must avoid statements that would overshadow the normalisation process."

AFP notes that the term Obama used instead of “Genocide” - Meds Yeghern – "predates the use of the word ‘genocide’ but is sometimes used by Armenians to refer to the killings.” The Armenian speaker whom The Stiletto consulted to find out what “Meds Yeghern” means had mentioned that it is a flowery, old-fashioned term used mostly by the intelligentsia. “Meds Yeghern” has since been supplanted by “Genocide” because it wasn’t until some 30 years later that Polish-Jewish scholar Raphael Lemkin coined the word “genocide” to describe the scale and brutality of the Ottoman Turks’ extermination campaign against the Armenians, which he saw being replicated by Adolph Hitler.   

Light A Candle To Honor The Souls Of The 1.5 Million Armenians Who Perished In The Genocide

Is The Honeymoon Over?

President Barack Obama has not even closed out his first 100 days in office - he reaches that milestone on Wednesday of the coming week - but a Rasmussen national telephone survey of voters finds that more than half of U.S. voters (53 percent) say it is at least “somewhat likely” that the next president will be a Republican, with 31 percent saying it is “very likely”: 
 

Thirty-five percent (35%) say it is not very or not at all likely, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twelve percent (12%) aren’t sure.

This is not an expectation related to the 2012 election. It is a question about the President following Obama which could happen in either 2012 or 2016.

Naturally, there is a partisan divide - 77% of Republican voters say it’s likely the next president will be from their party. Just 39% of Democrats agree.

Still, that’s an increase among both parties from previous surveys. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 47% now say a GOP president is likely, while 33% think not.

Oh, and 46 percent say Obama is governing like a partisan Democrat vs. 35 percent who think the president is being bipartisan.