Blind R Us

 Editorial, 29 February 2016

For a nation which has been frequently slapped by unjust and cruel reality during its more than 4,000-year history, Armenians can be embarrassingly naïve and politically unsophisticated, despite Khrimian Hayrig’s reference to the paper ladle in 1878.

Take the recent brouhaha in Armenian circles about Vatican’s February 3 statement regarding the Genocide of Armenians and Turkey’s supposed willingness to open its archives, “the pain and suffering endured by all parties”, the “necessity for reconciliation and forgiveness…” between Armenians and Turks.

 Editorial, 29 February 2016

For a nation which has been frequently slapped by unjust and cruel reality during its more than 4,000-year history, Armenians can be embarrassingly naïve and politically unsophisticated, despite Khrimian Hayrig’s reference to the paper ladle in 1878.

Take the recent brouhaha in Armenian circles about Vatican’s February 3 statement regarding the Genocide of Armenians and Turkey’s supposed willingness to open its archives, “the pain and suffering endured by all parties”, the “necessity for reconciliation and forgiveness…” between Armenians and Turks.

The statement was an almost duplicate of the pro forma boiler plate misinformation Turkish diplomats studiously babble whenever cornered by unequivocal evidence of the Genocide. The Vatican statement was Genocide Denialism 101 which every Turkish diplomat has to master before he is measured for his striped pants and shipped overseas to prevaricate on behalf of Ankara.

There is no point in parsing every word of the cringe-inducing and dishonest Vatican statement, including its description of the Genocide as the “events of 1915”.

Why would the Vatican–meaning the pope–make such a volte-face after recognizing the Genocide with such pomp and ceremony at Saint Peter’s Cathedral last April? The question is painfully redundant. The Vatican reworded its policy for the same reason a long list of American presidential candidates, who acknowledge the Genocide during their election campaign, and then make a 180-degree turn to eat their words once they’ve ensconced at the Oval Office.

As an educated person, the pope knows–just as Obama, Bush, Clinton, et al do–that Turkey committed Genocide of the Armenians, but as head of a state, he has to play real politik. The Roman Catholic Church is a state with interests which are not always spiritual. Then there’s the matter of some 35,000 Catholics who live in Turkey, in addition to the vast properties the Roman Catholic Church holds in that country. The pope has to protect his cowered congregation there and maintain his Church’s hold on those valuable properties.

In 2004, after Pope Benedict XVI stated his opposition to Turkey joining the European Union, the Council of Catholic Bishops made an unseemly rush to meet the prime minister of Turkey “to discuss restrictions and difficulties such as Church property issues.” Vatican got the message that its properties could suddenly turn into mosques, just as countless Armenian churches had done. Perhaps emotional and unruly “Turkish extremists” could unleash another campaign to eliminate Italian nuns and bishops living in Turkey.

The Roman Catholic Church might have more paintings and statues of Christ than any other organization; it might have more copies of the Bible, more and bigger churches than any other congregation; it might even have St. Peter’s Keys to Heaven…but it is still basically a state with multi-layered interests with followers in every continent.

It’s no secret that for hundreds of years the Catholic Church had armies and as a state held large chunks of central Italy. During the Middle Ages–supposedly a time of supreme devotion to Christianity—the popes regularly invaded neighbouring principalities and dukedoms to further expand Church land holdings and tax base. A few decades ago, Pope John Paul II, according to no less than Mikhail Gorbachev, George Bush Sr., Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski (ruler of Poland), and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, was the primary cause for bringing down Communist rule in Poland and eventually in all of Europe. While the pope and President Ronald Reagan plotted the downfall of Gen. Jaruzelski the Vatican Bank covertly helped fund the Solidarity movement.

Pope John Paul II also visited Azerbaijan, although there were no more than 400 Christians in that country of 9 million and more than half of the Christians were foreign diplomats or oil industry expats. Why did the seriously ailing pope visit the Muslim dictator who was after the blood of neighbouring Christian Armenia? Because Vatican is a non-member member of the Western Club–a club that has oil interests.

While Armenians–including the publishers of Keghart.com–have been hailing the pope’s recognition of the Genocide Ankara has obviously been working hard to dilute Vatican’s statements of last year. Thus its ambassador’s return to Vatican was announced at the same time the Vatican issued its edited statement of April 2015.

Media “morgues” are memory banks where the publications’ editorials are filed so that staff would know where the outlet stands on issues. Some companies call it archives, corporate or collective memory. Armenians can use a collective memory so that they’re not shattered every time they come across double-dealers, entities with forked tongue, people who see no difference between black and white or truth and lies. Armenians also need to remember that politics is ruled by self-interest and not morality or truth. A collective memory would go a long way to protect us from disappointment and from the Gebhardts and the Hasterts of this world, and the modern “disciples” of St. Peter—Christ’s close friend who thrice denied knowing the Lord.