Today President Biden took the historic step of recognizing the Armenian Genocide, one of the first of the modern era and the direct inspiration for the Holocaust.
This move has been widely applauded as a long-overdue recognition of a historic injustice and is also, with little subtlety, celebrated as a snub against Turkey - the source of all evil in the Eastern Mediterranean to think-tankers, the Bipartisan Consensus, and people casually scrolling through their phone.
Optimists also see this as a rebuke against Trump’s “isolationism” and his personal not-cold relationship with Erdogan. Or as he is generally known by Western audiences, “Turkish Hitler,” ready to “genocide” helpless Kurds - never mind how that would hurt him in the polls - and Armenians, despite the fact that he didn’t when he supposedly had the chance. What better way could USians move to reclaim their moral leadership?
So on the back of recognizing a genocide that occurred over 100 years ago, why shouldn’t Team Biden’s next step be to recognize one that is ongoing and which has fundamentally reshaped our world, one that he, to public knowledge, never agitated to end, and one in which Armenia is an active participant - the Syrian Genocide?
After all, is America back or not?
Given the Biden Administration’s noted silence on the issue, it doesn’t appear to be. The last thing anyone in the Administration wants to talk about is Syria, outside of perfunctory notes about ISIS (which, of course, never veer toward the Assad regime’s role as an early incubator and current life support system for the group as it reforms in Assadistan’s eastern deserts).
If anything, the Administration seems giddy to move past the Syrian Genocide - see how White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki repurposed the infamous “red line” albatross as the warhead in yet another #PsakiBomb.
However, perhaps we shouldn’t fault the Biden Administration for wanting to put this whole business behind it. After all, the new story of America that the Democratic Party has adopted is premised entirely on the Syrian Genocide’s erasure. The United States is now a fundamentally white supremacist settler-colonial entity that is only capable of harming Black and brown bodies. We can have Year Zero in Amerikkka or a no-fly zone over Idlib, but not both.
And this is why the tape has to run on the Syrian Genocide. The American public cannot see images of their racist, neo-Nazi hothouse military ending the largest genocide of the post-war era. Doing so would break the new world that certain segments of the Democratic Party were and are committed to creating.
The results of this have been stunning. Syria’s Sunni Arab population has so far been reduced by about 5 million through expulsions and massacres. You can use your imagination to think of how many Sunni Arab children in Syria were never born over the last ten years. They were arguably the the grand target of the genocide, for they were destined to “replace” Syria’s Alawite minority - sound familiar?
But the Syrian Genocide did give the Year Zero Caucus a handful of refugees and some good talking points against bigoted Republicans. And Trump, but who’s keeping score?
Meanwhile, the genocide-scarred Armenians of Occupied Aleppo celebrate under the Assad regime’s watch and approval - and not for the first time.
And with all of America’s sympathy.
Biden’s recognition of the Armenian genocide does not mark a “return to form” for the United States. The continued erasure of the ongoing the Syrian Genocide proves this. Rather, the Armenian recognition signals where we are headed - to a de facto alignment with the world’s most reactionary powers. It’s no coincidence that this censure is directed at Turkey, the only country to have fought those powers willingly and on multiple fronts.
But maybe it’s time to get with the program. The Syrian dead are dead and those living will soon join them, if all goes according to plan. Year Zero demands it. After all, Psaki put the new zeitgeist best -
“Red line is an old term. We’re not going to use it again.”
we used to follow eachother on twitter im glad u havent changed
Great article
I Want to bring her only one point : the article actually underestimates the extent of the catastrophic of this genocide as the numbers of the displaced and massacred are not only 5 millions but close to 14 millions with 6-7 million refugees in diaspora and 6-7 millions displaced internally 1-2 millions massacred and 2-3 millions disabled
I want also to mention one additional byproduct of the Syrian genocide: changing the international norms of war and conflicts which manifested in complete disregard of the most sacred of values and institutions by Assad, Putin and Khamenai mafia including butchering of children with knives, rape and torture of women and children and attacking schools, mosques, churches and hospitals with bombs, air to ground missiles and even with chemical weapons
Finally the complete disregard of the interests of the Syrian population by the “friends of Syria “ manifested by the verbal support of the people of Syria and actual support of assad through giving billions of dollars of UN aid to assad regime to keep him afloat , and re negging on the famous red line by Obama et al, which brings to my mind the common saying : ( with such “spectacular “friends you will not be in need of enemies “