Robert Manne's article "A Turkish Tale" (The Monthly, Feb 2007) strikes me as curious in several ways. First, to support his argument he advances as facts several strongly disputed points: (a) that an Armenian ‘genocide' occurred, (b) that it was state-organised and (c) that a million Armenians were slaughtered. The evidence he presents for these ‘facts' is diaphanous.
There is no doubt that many hundreds of thousands of Armenians died, by way of murder, ill-treatment, illness, exhaustion and starvation, in those dreadful months of 1915, at various hands including those of Ottoman troops and vengeful Kurds. There is no doubt that their forced removal south to Syria was state-ordered. The figure of one million dead is, as Manne fleetingly mentions, disputed. But the disastrous relocation surely does not of itself constitute a genocide. Hard facts are required to support such a profound claim.
Manne's published evidence is a couple of conversations - at least one of which is capable of a different interpretation - and poet Les Murray's fictional character Fredy Neptune. It would take more than Manne's substantial academic reputation to make something solid of this flimsy fabric. He offers nothing from official sources, such as the dauntingly voluminous Ottoman archives. Not surprising: the victorious allies searched unsuccessfully after WWI for evidence to back the genocide claim.
The second and more curious element of his linking Gallipoli to the Armenian tragedy is Manne's invitation that we realign our view of the ‘gentleman' Turk more towards William Gladstone's ‘unspeakable' Turk, the slavering beast who would unhesitatingly and enthusiastically commit genocide on innocent Armenians. The British PM invariably went slightly loony at the mention of the Ottomans, for religious and empire reasons. He, along with the US and the British empire (including its supporters at the Age), swallowed so much garbage from US missionaries in the Ottoman empire that it is no wonder Gladstone and others became unsteady on their feet when the word ‘Turk' was spoken.
In making this link Manne seems to be inviting us to indulge in a group slander - that the Turks at Gallipoli should be bundled in with the Turks involved in the Armenian ‘genocide' - the ‘all men are bastards' argument. If it is not such an invitation, what point is Manne making? And why, incidentally, does he gratuitously attack Ataturk's reputation in the process?
The Ottoman decision, made in desperate times, to move the Armenians away from the area where they were causing trouble, turned into a catastrophe that could well have been foreseen. But the Armenians were Ottoman citizens acting as a Fifth Column in the east with Russian support. "We cannot permit people in our own country to attack us in the back," Young Turk leader Enver Pasha said. It is a fair point. The Armenian tragedy sprang from what the Ottomans saw as Armenian treason.
We still await proof that a genocide was state-planned.
