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53ARMENIAN POLICY OF REMEMBRANCE IN THE EPOCH OF GLOBALISM
Mihran Dabag *
Karl Marx had once noted: “Interest has no memory, for it thinks only of itself’ [1]. Whoever does not remember about oneself, thus effectively forgetting historical prerequisites of own actions, may pursue one’s own interest ruthlessly and without any regard to the consequences.
Hence, in the political and historical context absence of memory means absence of conscience. Arguably, it can be stated that only the riddance of memory opens arena for political action, because it relieves of historical responsibility.
Such a principle of political dealing with history, in which only progress and success count and their victims are ignored, was sharply criticized by a German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin in his last work, a historical and philosophical analysis written in 1939. “Empathy with the victor invariably benefits the rulers,” notes Walter Benjamin, because “all rulers are the heirs of those who conquered before them.” [2]. It is this alliance of politics with the winners of history that Walter Benjamin had recognized and critically highlighted. He urged to finally change the perspective and take a focused look on the losers of history, to the victims, i.e. those whom the triumphant procession of the rulers passed upon.
' Prof. Dr. Ruhr-Universitat, Bochum, Germany.
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Thus, the history is the story of the victor. The latter has a monopoly to regulate the sources, concepts and categories to explain what happened. The victor can write his version of history and consequently, fix it. Conversely, the voice of the defeated seems to carry no weight, their interpretation of the history is not heard and they are doomed to silence. Due to the relations between political powers, which were established not least by violence, the defeated ones have no chance to tell or even write their story.
Carl Schmitt, a renowned German expert of public law had cynically described this situation in his 1919 satire “Die Buribunken”as follows: “The wheel of evolution silently passes over the silent ones; they are outside of all discourse and as a result, can no longer draw attention to themselves” [3].
Reflecting on the tradition of primacy of the winners’ history, the British historian Peter Burke had drawn attention on two important aspects: the close interweaving of historiography and historical amnesia on the winning side, and the difference between writing history and remembering history on the other side. First, let us turn to the context of historiography and historical amnesia: writing of history by winners means to perceive the past as an ended and interpreted process, which is discarded as a happening that has already been clarified. One may forget the past insofar as no directional significance needs to be attached to it for present actions [4].
This is a key difference between the process of writing history by winners and remembering history by losers and victims, because as Burke notes, in the history the losers are unable to accept what happened and are condemned to brood over it, relive it and reflect how it might have been [4, p. 297]. For the losers and victims the history is always present; it
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has not ended, but rather it remains for directing the actions in the present. Hence, what remained for the losers and victims of the history were their memories, which they were able to keep alive as disenfranchised and oppressed victims, but found no place in the dominating history of the winners. In this context, a second aspect is of great importance, which has subtly resonated in my previous deliberations: in addition to the juxtaposition of "winners" and "losers," the juxtaposition of "perpetrators" and "victims” should be considered. It should first be noted that the category of victim has two different dimensions of meaning, which are reflected in Latin terms sacrificium and victimus (sacrifice and victim in English) [5]. The notion of sacrificium originally indicated religious sacrifice, self-sacrifice for the faith or martyrdom. This term has been added to the context of national historiography as an action for a new sacred cause; namely, martyrdom for the homeland or nation.
The concept of sacrificium focuses on self-determined, active contribution of one's life in religious or heroic terms, in the context of faith, homeland, nation, whereas the concept of victimusis describes passive and helpless victims of violence. In the context of our review, it is critically important that in the history only for one of these two types of victims there has been a special form and a fixed frame of memory. Particularly, the sacrificium corresponds to the heroic narrative of the national semantics, which contains also the religious dimension of martyrdom [5, p. 74f]. Therefore, the self-sacrificial death of the winners, as well as martyrdom of the defeated is perceived as a “death for something.” It emerges as a meaningful gift to the community, to the country. This sacrifice for something is remembered with reverence by the community and descendants, and their self-sacrifice is rewarded with honor and glory.
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None of the above applies to the victimus, the helpless victim of a radically asymmetrical violence, who is viewed as meaningless collateral damage of historical processes. Examples include the victims of slavery, indigenous peoples of Africa and the New World massacred in the course of European expansion, victims of the genocides of Armenians, European Jews, Sinti and Roma, as well as numerous other persecuted and murdered civilians elsewhere in the world. There was no framework and mode of remembrance for these victims – they had no place in history.
It so happens that the experiences of powerless victims are impossible to examine through the heroic forms of experience processing and remembrance established in the history. There are no established and culturally tested patterns of acceptance and traditions of memory, even for the victims themselves.
The memory researcher Aleida Assmann has identified the reason for this lack of a solid framework of acceptance in that it often takes decades or centuries after the historical event for the experience of powerless victims to be recognized by the public and become part of the collective or cultural memory. According to Assmann, this mainly depends on whether the victim group succeeds in developing forms of commemoration that cut through generations [5, pp.-81].
Most often the epic stories venerate the heroes above all: in the case of the Holocaust, initially for a long time the Jewish memory was focused on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It is easier to recognize the sacrifice of heroes, because their remembrance has a solid and established framework, thus allowing an acceptable commemoration.
In order to preserve the memory of the helpless victims, a proper framework is required, which first needs to be created – and this neces-
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sitates an expansion of their support in the form of public recognition and resonance. This very important point is worth reiterating. Establishing a framework for remembrance of the helpless victims of genocide requires public recognition. This especially applies to the remembrance of the Armenian genocide victims, because remembering the victims of this genocide is difficult not only due to the lack of conventionalized narrative of remembrance and experience handling, but also is aggravated by a state-sanctioned, strategic policy of denial by the perpetrating state’s successor society. This denial policy leads to rejection of the victims’ victimhood and transformation of the event they fell victim of into a non-event. This means not only they cannot be remembered as victims, but also denial of the very existence of any victims.
Therefore, public recognition is an important prerequisite for creation of a remembrance framework and commemoration of the innocent civilian victims of collective violence and genocide.
The fact that the victims of the Armenian genocide are denied such recognition is particularly shocking and deplorable, since after the experience of Nazism and the Holocaust, creation of such framework for expanding remembrance and public recognition for the helpless victims was initiated, which simultaneously became a centerpiece in the political imperative for remembrance.
The memories of the experiences of war and violence, nationalism and racism should have been essential for reshaping of Europe after 1945. The memory of victims was a central element for forming the foundation of democratic civil societies in Europe. This marked a departure from the paradigm of non-remembrance, oblivion and forgiveness dominating Europe since ancient times, which, inter alia, was formulated by Cicero in 44 BC, in a speech shortly after the assassination of Julius Caesar: “all
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recollection of the existing dissensions ought to be effaced by everlasting oblivion” through which “the foundations of peace” must be created [6]. However, after 1945 it was the first time that a peace arrangement had to be based not on forgetting prior hostility, strife and violence, but rather on the obligation to remember the sacrifice of victims. Thus, a new paradigm of remembrance was established.
This paradigm of memoryshould have also been implemented in the global political context. It was supposed to be a roadmap to the new global world order into the 21st century.
In The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age [7] published in 2001, Daniel Levy and Natan Sznaider have noted the globalization challenges to the memory of the victims of collective violence, which has been considered mandatory since 1945. In particular, the transnational interweavings and constant convergence of competing ways of life and experiences bring into question the validity and obligatoriness of remembrance (and contents of remembrance), which had been obviously organized on national and regional basis and was mandatory. The changes in the consciousness of individuals described by Levy and Sznaider as a process of “internal globalization”, ultimately lead to cosmopolitanism or globalization of the people’s self-consciousness [7, p. 18-24, 33ff].
In view of the outer and inner globalization, including the consequences of globalism or cosmopolitanism for the people’s selfconsciousness, the collective memory conceptualized on the basis of nation-state principles is no longer up to date and viable [7, p. 22f]. Instead of this nation-state based concept of memory or “national memory”, the concept of a “cosmopolitan memory” emerges, which is entangled simultaneously in the locality and globality. Levy and Sznaider believe that the carriers of such a cosmopolitan memory are the diaspora
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communities, which by their very structure fit into this dialectical relationship between the local and global dimensions [7, p. 24f].
We shall return to this viewpoint later, as the year 2001 (when the study of Levy and Sznaider was published) was marked also by a deep fissure, a revision of the memory paradigm that has been established or at least planned right after 1945.
This revision was related to the changes in politics that took place after September 11, 2001. The phrase that the 9/11 changed the world is nothing more than a cliche. Most certainly 9/11 not so much created a new world order, but rather changed the principles by which the world is restructured and will be restructured.
New lines of friendship and antagonism were determined, new areas and lines of conflict were diagnosed, new arguments were put forward to legitimize international interventions, including military ones. These are just a few factors clearly indicating that 9/11 proved to be a turning point in international politics. However, this turning point perhaps does not so much relate to the real intentions and objectives of the international political actions, because it concerns the continuation of traditional aspirations of power politics. These are pursued today to some extent more openly and aggressively than in the decades before.
However, 9/11 marked a significant turning point in terms of political arguments and perspectives of international politics. This shift in the perspectives of international politics is particularly expressed in the fact that currently less significance is attributed to the factor of “memory” as a political guideline. Instead, today special attention is paid to the ideas of “security” and “stability”.
Since the mid-1990s the world powers have been increasingly focusing to the so-called global risks. In addition to identifying the weak-
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nesses of the state and democracy, they turned their attention, inter alia, to religious fundamentalism, international terrorism, scarcity of global resources (water, oil) or climate issues and climate disasters. In parallel, however, initially there were also developments that seemed to be related to the memory paradigm. For instance, establishment of the International Criminal Court or the intensive work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia promised to open a new chapter in global determination to act against genocidal crimes and to prove sensitivity towards genocidal experiences.
Also, the debates about “collective memory” or “memory culture” initiated since late 1980s for the first time in the history of the world seemed to have promised securing a special place for the memories of the victims and hence, the victims themselves. As a reminder, some of the protagonists of this debates included Jacques LeGoff, Pierre Nora and in particular, Aleida and Jan Assmanns in Germany.
Nevertheless, the impression that the early 21st century global world politics would be marked by a new openness and growing ethical rationale and responsibility, turned out to be deceptive. In this context it is important to clearly understand what truly underlies the emphasis on memory and remembrance culture per se. A closer look at the political discourse focused on the category of “memory” quickly reveals one thing: the historical responsibility referred in the discourse only marginally touches the remembrance responsibility for persecution and violence, wars and displacement, from which a special responsibility would follow towards the victims as well.
This European-influenced memory policy concerns rather the memory of the power abuse, gaps in democracy, or enemy images carried into politics.
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Whenever references are made to “memory”, they are firmly embedded in some specific form of policy. Generally, global memory must be constructed in this policy, which by no means is focused on the variety of individual experiences. Quite the opposite, there is an interest in construction of a general “memory” detached from any specific experiences as a moral imperative.
Holocaust is key to this concept of memory as a moral imperative, although the attention is no longer focused primarily on the National Socialist violence policy structures or their victims. Instead the focus is on the significance of the Holocaust as a universal symbol. We mean a symbol that is understandable and morally binding in the global context for each and everyone. This universalized moral formula of “Holocaust” is meant to remove all experiences of violence and to prevent any future acts of violence. However, such strategy of memory policies now has some far-reaching consequences, not least for the memory of the Holocaust itself. Such universalization will inevitably remove the memory of the Holocaust from its own immediate context and its underlying experience, and will ultimately drain it [8].
In this regard the Stockholm Declaration of the International Forum on the Holocaust signed in 2000 by many European countries, the USA, Canada and other countries is a characteristic example. It was intended to formulate kind of a binding directive for remembering the Holocaust [9]. The declaration highlights the “universal meaning” that “Holocaust will always hold” and is centered on its quality of “unprecedented collapse of civilization”. It is perceived as an event in which the human ability to do both evil and good paradigmatically surfaced. In a typical logic of heroic sagas, martyrdom and Sacrificiums, the declaration then specially emphasizes the “selfless sacrifice” of those who defied the Nazis, and gave their lives to protect the Holocaust’s victims.
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It is noteworthy how the categories Sacrificiums and Victimus are recognized and set against each other: on one hand is the selfless, active, heroic sacrifice, which receives a special honor, and on the other hand is the helpless, passive victim of the Holocaust, for which the heroes selflessly gave their lives.
Out of the total 8 paragraphs of the Stockholm Declaration only paragraph 6 formulates the commitment to commemorate the actual victims of the Holocaust, the massacred Jews of Europe, and then immediately, an obligation to honor the resistance fighters is attached to this commitment: “We share a commitment to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to honor those who stood against it.” Thus, the centerpiece of such universalized Holocaust remembrance is not about victims, but rather, it is about the historical collapse and the actors of resistance; the martyrs and heroes. Although the memoryactually continues to be preserved through a dynamic, lively process of reconstruction, in the course of universalization of remembrance policies it is actually replaced by a formative commemoration. An important distinction is made by this between memory and commemoration, which is worth exploring in somewhat more detail [10].
Memory is always a narrative based on experiences, conveyed both directly and indirectly. Memories are orientations that always have to do with identifications. Memory is always bound to its carrier.
Conversely, commemoration brings to contraction of history and identity. Commemoration is meant first of all not for preserving, but for integrating and harmonizing the common universal “values”.
“Memory” cannot be universal, whereas “commemoration” can be universal only if it is free of memories and detached from experiences that are preserved in stories.
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Enzo Traverso, a philosopher and political scientist, has described this political remembrance strategy of establishing a universalist commemoration as a “reification of the past” [11]. Thereby the past is aes-theticized, neutralized and eventually transformed into a profitable consumer product that could be picked up and utilized by the tourism industry and consumer culture [11]. Traverso’s analysis obviously resonates with Adorno’s critique of culture [12], though seems somewhat exaggerated and disputable. Yet he addressed some important aspects, including the proverbial reification of the past, which is evident in the form of monuments. Traverso also pointed out the tendency of an aestheticized abstraction from the experiences and living memories, which is accompanied by an attempt to represent the past in universally fathomable and binding symbols that are additionally cemented by phraseology [11, p. 8].
What are the conclusions of this analysis, applicable in terms of positioning the Armenian memory? What are the repercussions of such remembrance policy structures for us? What political strategies of memory can we develop in order to place ourselves in this global, or at least, European system of remembrance?
To answer these questions, on the one hand it is important to always keep in mind the foundations and functions of European remembrance policies, and on the other hand, to ask how the recent specific schemes of these memory policies look like in the greater Europe.
As it has already pointed out, the global/European remembrance policies are especially focused on the experience of Nazism, World War II and the Holocaust. Against the backdrop of this experience, a new Europe should have gotten rid of the tradition of competition between the European powers, which had determined the history of Europe for centuries. In view of the violent events of the 20th century, a common
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European identity had to be established in order to secure a future peace. Consequently, a “remembrance culture” was called upon, which should have formed the basis for a common future of peace and democracy through the reflection of history and historical experience. Hence, from the very outset, the re-orientation towards “remembrance” was functionally integrated into the policies of establishing a European identity, and this link is still in effect to date. This has been recently highlighted again by an internationally known German political scientist Claus Leggewie, when he pointed out that beyond economic ties, a united Europe can function out only if it possesses a discerned memory, when there are generally discerned narratives and contents of memory [13].
For European remembrance policies that aim at establishing such memories, and hence, such European identity, Leggewie has designed an interesting concept that integrates different experiences and aspects of the history. Leggewie suggests a concept of arranging European remembrance in a form of seven concentric circles, which should be constitutive in the European critical memory. Also, these seven circles are arranged hierarchically [13, p. 15-48].
The central axis of this concentric remembrance system is the Holocaust, as a negative founding myth of Europe [13, p. 15ff.]. Six other circles surround this center, of which the second constitutes the experience of Stalinism and Gulag [13, p. 21ff.]. The third circle is the experience of ethnic cleansing and expulsion, as a pan-European trauma [13, p. 27ff.]. Leggewie assigns to this circle not only the post-1945 expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe, but also what he calls the “Armenian question”. Remarkably, in earlier deliberations on European remembrance policies, Leggewie had placed the “Armenian question” in the fourth circle of “war and crisis experiences," but in his monograph he moved it
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to the category “expulsion and ethnic cleansing” and refers to it, in particular, in connection with the EU expansion to south and east, as well as in the context of the contact or grouping line between Islam and the secular Europe [13, p. 30-31]. At the same time Leggewie considers the “Armenian question” as sort of a nuisance within a 'wider Europe', since “In terms of commemoration, the wider Europe will be divided over the Armenian question before it can start converging.” [13, p. 30]. Thus, the events of 1915/16 are not only classified as “genocide” as an undisputable criterion, but first and foremost are attributed with relevance in the context of process of Turkey’s integration in the European Union.
Leggewie labels the fourth circle of European remembrance as “war and crisis memories,” which he regards as the driver of the European integration, and then dedicates the fifth circle to “European periphery”, from the colonial crimes and slavery to the current neocolonial economic policies. The sixth circle of remembrance describes Europe as a continent of immigration, and the seventh circle finally presents the “success story” of Europe since 1945; the policy of mutual understanding and the peaceful unification process. [13, p. 45ff.].
On the one hand, it is seen that this an integrative model, as it combines different experiences and perspectives. On the other hand, it is a monocentric model, because it arranges the different experiences attributed to the European remembrance tenet in a hierarchical system with the Holocaust in its center [13, p. 14].
It is relatively easy to determine that this political concept of remembrance was conceived with a very strong Western European perspective and thus, is utterly Euro-centric.
From other perspectives though, such concentric structure can be imagined quite differently. For example, in the viewpoint of the black
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African slaves’ descendants, the history and experience of abduction and slavery would certainly be in the center of such system.
We believe the Armenian remembrance policies have to be set precisely at this point. We must make it clear that such universalizing and mono-centric remembrance policy is deficient and nontransferable, and point out the dangers of resultant experience draining. We have to counter it with a political concept of remembrance that would emphasize the necessity of polycentric structure of memory landscapes. We need to describe the weight and gravimetric fields of the individual experiences that form their own memory circles, and point to the intersections of these circles situated next to each other in a polycentric landscape of memory.
For example, it strikes that the design of Holocaust-centered memory policies in Europe are very much focused on 1945 and the World War II. Although rightfully characterized by many historians as the seminal catastrophe of the 20th century, the World War I is in a rather outlying position in this concept, as it is placed in the fourth circle of
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Leggewie’s model. Yet the World War I has to be understood as central, perhaps the most pivotal event in the European history, in which the era of nation-states coalesced in a paradigmatic form. It was a violent outburst of national and national-imperial conflicts and clashes of interest, as the first violent manifestation of the nation-states’ nationalist vision of ethnically homogenized populations, which was attempted to materialize through the genocide of Armenians. With the World War I, a new order in Europe was established that paved the way for major totalitarian regimes of the first half of the 20th century, the consequences of which continue to exist to date in Europe and the world. Thus, the events of 191418, including those of 1915-16, played a crucial role in shaping and structuring Europe in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The genocide of Armenians has to be considered a core event in this seminal catastrophe, and it is important to make it clear. This has to be viewed as one of the centers of the polycentric memory discourse system, because the Armenian genocide must be perceived as the gravity center for transformation of the Asia Minor, Caucasus and Balkans, as well as implementation of the national and nation-state idea as a modern and the only possible form of communitarization in this region. It exemplifies a violent attempt of implementing a new order, i.e. establishing a homogeneous nation-state identity of people, territory and domination by complete destruction of an ethnic group which is regarded non-assimilable. Thus, the genocide committed against the Armenians has a paradigmatic position in the context of violent establishment of a nation state, because of which it forms a field of concentric circles with itself to be placed in the center of such a memory circles. This circle obviously overlaps in different dimensions with the Holocaust-centric European memory circle.
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First, it overlaps in terms of the historical characteristic, because of the Armenian Genocide was carried out in the shadow of the World War I, in the midst of developments in Europe. This is the first intersecting area. The second overlap is at the systemic level: the Armenian experience is at the center of the European communitarization paradigm and nation-building processes in the European periphery.
These two aspects constitute important gravity points in a polycentric memory policy to be designed and they bring the significance of the event not only to local or regional level, but also to a universal scale.
In our opinion, this universal relevance of the Armenian experience in the polycentric global landscape of remembrance should be the central topic of the future Armenian memory policies. In order to implement this, it is important to intellectualize and integrate the Armenian experience as constructive part in the remembrance policy of a
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polycentric remembrance global world. Also, discussions around the Armenian experiences must never be allowed to be left in or pushed towards the corner of national and nationalist discourses.
In addition to nation-states, transnational and supranational structures and players have increasingly emerged in the process of globalization, which progressively restrict the influence of nation-state perspectives. In this context the reducing or confining remembrance narratives to national relevance means a significant limitation of their scope. In the current supranational era our remembrance policies have to be designed supranationally and demonstrate the supranational relevance of our experience, as redrawn herein.
Undoubtedly, Armenians have actors both at the national and supranational levels, represented by the Republic of Armenia and worldwide Armenian diaspora. The latter is also a carrier of supranational memory policies and is quite familiar with transnational structures of the global world and moreover, has a structure similar to those. As a decentralized structure and resident of the centers of the world, the diaspora can become a carrier of the polycentric memory concept.
For a comparatively short period, about 150 - 200 years, the nations have dominated the history, shaped the memory paradigms and carried the narrative. Today, in times of supranational networks, development of supranational, transnational, global memory takes place and concepts are designed to shape this global memory policy. Projecting the Holocaust as a universal memory instance in which all experiences of violence are ignored or circles of European memory proposed by Claus Leggewie clearly point in that direction. The right thing to do would be to accept the signals of the times and to devise our memory policies accordingly, as well as to constantly strengthen the potential of
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the carriers of these concepts. The future task of the Armenian remembrance policies should be avoiding to get pushed into the logic of Turkish denial policy, and instead, participating actively and constructively in the current debate going on in Europe, contributing intellectually and conceptually in development of these discussions. The arguments provided above are an attempt to show the path in this direction. To summarize this, the bullet points below present the key aspects, which still have to be finalized though.
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References and Literature
1. Marx, Karl: Debatten uber das Holzdiebstahlgesetz. Von einem Rheinlander, in: Rheinische Zeitung 305 vom 1. November 1842:
2. Benjamin, Walter: Uber den Begriff der Geschichte (1939), in: ders.: Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. I.2, hrsg. Von Rolf Tiedemann und Hermann Schweppenhauser, Frankfurt am Main 1991 692-704, hier S. 696.
3. Schmitt, Carl: Die Buribunken, in: Summa. Eine Vierteljahresschrift 2, 4, 1918, S. 89-106, hier S. 102.
4. Burke, Peter: Geschichte als soziales Gedachtnis, in:Mnemosyne. Formen und Funktionen der kulturellen Erinnerung, hrsg. von Aleida Assmann und Dietrich Harth, Frankfurt am Main 1991, S. 289-304.
5. Assmann, Aleida:Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit. Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik, Munchen 2006, S. 72ff.
6. Meier, Christian:Das gebot zu vergessen und die Unabweisbarkeit des Erinnern. Vom offentlichen Umgang mit schlimmer Vergangenheit, Munchen 2010, S. 10.
7. Levy, Daniel/ Sznaider, Nathan: Erinnerung im globalen Zeitalter: Der Holocaust, Frankfurt am Main 2001.
8. Marchart, Oliver: Umkampfte Gegenwart. Der Zivilisationsbruch Auschwitz zwischen Singularitat, Partikularitat, Universalitat, und der Globalisierung der Erinnerung, in: Zivilisationsbruch und Gedachtniskultur, hrsg. von Heidemarie Uhl, Innbruck 2003, S. 35-66.
9. Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research: Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust
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(2001), (http://www.holocausttaskforce.org/about-the-itf/stockholm-dedaration. html?lang=en, accessed on 07.02.2013
10. Dabag, Mihran: Globale Erinnerung. Neue Ordnungsvorschlage fur die „historischen Irrffimer“ der Geschichte der Moderne, in: Zeitschrift der Genozid-forschung 4, 2, 2003, S. 114 -129.
11. Traverso, Enzo: Gebrauchsanleitungen fur die Vergangenheit. Geschichte, Erinnerung, Politik, Munster 2007, S. 8.
12. Adorno, Theodor W: Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft, in: ders.: Gesammelte Schriften in 20 Banden, hrsg. von Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt am main 1997, Bd. 10, S. 11-30.
13. Leggewie, Claus: Der Kampf um die europaische Erinnerung. Ein Schlachtfeld wird besichtigt, Munchen 2011.
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Parameters of an Armenian policy of remembrance
1. Polycentrism instead of monocentrism
• Reference to the deficiencies, the limited scope and dangers of monocentric and Eurocentric concepts of remembrance;
• Development of a concept of a remembrance policy, which emphasizes the necessity of polycentric structure of remembrance landscapes;
• Accentuation on the individual weight and various gravimetric fields of the individual experiences, each of which generate their own circles of remembrance;
• Highlighting the overlaps of these adjacent circles in a polycentric landscape of remembrance.
2. The gravimetric field of the Armenian Genocide
• Focus on the World War I as the primal catastrophe of the 20th century, as a central event of European history in which the era of nation-states was consolidated in a paradigmatic form;
• Accentuation of its paradigmatics as the first violent outburst of national and national-imperial conflicts of interest;
• Accentuation of its paradigmatics as the first violent manifestation of the nation-states’ nationalist vision of ethnically homogenized populations, which was attempted to materialize through the genocide of Armenians.
^ With the World War I, a new order was created in Europe, paving the way for major totalitarian regimes of the first half of the 20th century, the consequences of which continue to have an effect to this day in Europe and the world.
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^ The events of 1914-18, including those of 1915-16, played a crucial role in shaping and structuring Europe in the 20th and 21st centuries.
3. The genocide of the Armenians as a key event in the framework of the primal catastrophe of the World War I
• The Armenian Genocide has to be viewed as one of the centers of the polycentric memory discourse system, because the Armenian genocide must be perceived as the gravity center for “transformation” of the Asia Minor, Caucasus and Balkans, as well as implementation of the national and nation-state idea as a modern and the only possible form of communitarization in this region;
• The Genocide of Armenians exemplifies a violent attempt of implementing a new order.
^ Thus, the genocide of Armenians by itself constitutes a field of concentric circles, or rather, it is in the center of such a circle of remembrance.
4. The circle of remembrance of the genocide of the Armenians overlaps at various levels with the Holocaust-centric European circle of remembrance.
• First overlap: Level of the historical event. The genocide of the Armenians was carried out in the shadow of the World War I – in the midst of the developments in Europe;
• Second overlap: Systemic Level. Armenian experience stands in the center of the European communitarization paradigm and nation-building processes in the European periphery.
^ These two aspects constitute important gravity points in polycentric memory policies to be designed and they bring the signifi-
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cance of the event not only to local or regional level, but also to a universal scale.
5. The central task of the Armenian remembrance policy
• Accentuation of the supranational and universal relevance of the Armenian experience in the global landscape of remembrance, which has to be considered as polycentric;
• Discussions around the Armenian experiences must never be allowed to be left in or pushed towards the corner of national and nationalist discourses;
• Reducing or confining remembrance narratives to national relevance means a significant limitation of their scope;
• In view of current tendencies of globalization and transnationalization, an Armenian policy of remembrance must equally be designed in a supranational manner.
6. Carriers of a new, supranational Armenian policy of remembrance
• Supranational policy and culture of remembrance require a carrier, which is familiar with the transnational structures of the global world and itself has a comparable structure;
• As a decentralized structure and resident of the centers of the world, the diaspora can become a carrier of the transnational remembrance concept in a postnational world, because it fully interconnects the aspects of globalism and localism;
• The diaspora must be strengthened as a carrier of a postnational remembrance in a polycentrically organized, global landscape of remembrance.
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