Ontological (in)security and state denial of historical crimes: Turkey and Japan

International Relations

Volumn 24, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 3-23

  Zarakol, Ayşe ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Apology; Identity; International society; Japan; Ontological security; Shame; Turkey

Indexed keywords

EID: 77950123531     PISSN: 00471178     EISSN: 17412862     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0047117809359040     Document Type: Article

References (104)

1. I am not qualified to provide a definitive pronouncement on whether the events of 1915 qualify as genocide. There are three separate issues here: whether the atrocities themselves can be considered genocide when we assess the consequences for the Armenian population; whether there was genocidal intent behind the atrocities; and whether the label of genocide, which did not exist as a legal category at the time, could be applied retroactively. My personal opinion on these questions respectively is: yes, no, and it depends. I could qualify these answers further, but that would take another article. Because this article does not deal with the historical accuracy of the label but rather the tension between international society's understanding of the past and the official Turkish account, I am deferring to the common international usage without further discussion, and will not be qualifying the term genocide with quotation marks throughout the article. For readers who are interested in a further study of this debate, let me note that the literature on this issue is vast. For mainstream views, see e.g. Vahakn N. Dadrian, 'The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 18, 1986, pp. 311-60.
2. Vahakn N. Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus. (Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1995).
3. Vahakn N. Dadrian, The Key Elements in the Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide: A Case Study of Distortion and Falsification (Cambridge, MA: Zoryan Institute, 1999).
4. G. S. Graber, Caravans to Oblivion: The Armenian Genocide, 1915 (New York: Wiley, 1996).
5. Guenter Lewy, The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005).
6. Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response (New York: HarperCollins, 2003).
7. Robert Melson, Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
8. For non-Turkish accounts sympathetic to the official Turkish perspective, see e.g. Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961).
9. Justin McCarthy, Muslims and Minorities: The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire (New York: New York University Press, 1983).
10. Standford Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, Reform, Revolution and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808-1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).
11. There are also a few Turkish scholars who recognize the genocide claim. See e.g. Taner Akçam, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006).
12. Other prominent Turkish scholars who accept the genocide claim are Murat Belge, Selim Deringil, Baski{dotless}n Oran and Cengiz Aktar. The latter two started an internet campaign in December 2008 (along with the journalist Ali Bayramoǧlu) to enable individual citizens to apologize to the Armenian community. The text of that apology is the following: 'My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers and sisters. I apologize to them.' They collected about 30,000 signatures. The campaign website can be accessed at www.ozurdiliyoruz.com (accessed 9 December 2009). The term 'WWII atrocities' is not very precise, because some of the atrocities in question happened before WWII, during the period of Japan's aggressive expansion into mainland Asia. Throughout the article, whenever I use this term, the reader should take it to refer to the atrocities committed by Japan leading up to and during WWII, roughly between 1937 and 1945.
13. See e.g. Jef Huysmans, 'Security! What Do You Mean? From Concept to Thick Signifier', European Journal of International Relations, 4(2), 1998, pp. 226-55.
14. Bill McSweeney, Security, Identity and Interests (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
15. Anthony F. Lang Jr., Agency and Ethics: The Politics of Military Intervention (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002).
16. Ian Manners, 'European [Security] Union: From Existential Threat to Ontological Security', IIS Working Papers, Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (05/2002).
17. Catarina Kinnvall, 'Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security', Political Psychology, 25(5), 2004, pp. 741-67.
18. Catarina Kinnvall, Globalization and Religious Nationalism in India (New York: Routledge, 2006).
19. Jennifer Mitzen, 'Anchoring Europe's Civilizing Identity: Habits, Capabilities, and Ontological Security', Journal of European Public Policy, 13(2), 2006, pp. 270-85.
20. Jennifer Mitzen, 'Ontological Security in World Politics', European Journal of International Relations, 12(6), 2006, pp. 341-70.
21. Brent Steele, 'Making Words Matter: The Asian Tsunami, Darfur, and "Reflexive Discourse" in International Politics', International Studies Quarterly, 51, 2007, pp. 901-25.
22. Brent Steele, '"Ideals that were Really Never in our Possession": Torture, Honor and US Identity', International Relations, 22(2), 2008, 243-61.
23. Brent Steele, Ontological Security in International Relations (New York: Routledge, 2008).
24. For excellent defenses of the utility of this concept for IR, see Steele, Ontological Security, Introduction, and Mitzen, 'Ontological Security', pp. 352-4.
25. See e.g. Jack L. Goldsmith and Eric A. Posner, The Limits of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 169.
26. R. D. Laing, The Divided Self (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969), p. 39.
27. Laing, Divided, p. 40.
28. Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 92.
29. Giddens, Consequences, p. 95.
30. Laing, Divided, p. 44.
31. Alexander Wendt, 'The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory', International Organization, 41, 1987, pp. 335-70.
32. Huysmans, 'Security!', p. 242.
33. Mitzen, 'Ontological Security', p. 354.
34. Mitzen, 'Ontological Security', p. 355.
35. Steele, Ontological Security, p. 58.
36. Steele, Ontological Security, p. 59.
37. Steele, Ontological Security, p. 19.
38. Lang also emphasizes narratives in Agency and Ethics.
39. Kinvall, 'Globalization', pp. 748-9.
40. See Steele, 'Making Words', p. 905.
41. Nicholas Tavuchis, Mea Culpa: A Sociology of Apology and Reconciliation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 34-5.
42. See Anthony F. Lang, Jr., 'Crime and Punishment: Holding States Accountable', Ethics and International Affairs, 21(2), 2007, pp. 239-57, for both a review of the evolution of international law in this direction and also for an argument for taking it even further.
43. Ross Carroll, 'The Politics of Culpability' (Northwestern University workshop, Istanbul 2008), p. 7. 24 Steele, 'Making Words' and 'Ideals'.
44. Steele, 'Making Words' and 'Ideals'. Carroll makes this argument.
45. See e.g. Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991).
46. See e.g. Ernest Gellner, Plough, Sword and the Book (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
47. And also Nations and Nationalism (New York: Cornell University Press, 1983).
48. Also, John W. Meyer and Ronald L. Jepperson, 'The "Actors" of Modern Society', Sociological Theory 18(1), 2000, pp. 100-20.
49. Gellner, Nationalism, pp. 19-39.
50. For an extended discussion, see John M. Hobson, and J. C. Sharman, 'The Enduring Place of Hierarchy in World Politics', European Journal of International Relations 11(1), 2005, pp. 63-98.
51. As most discussed by E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis, 1919-1939 (London: Macmillan, 1939).
52. See Hobson and Sharman, 'Enduring Place'.
53. And also Edward Keene, Beyond Anarchical Society (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
54. Max Weber, Basic Concepts in Sociology (Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1962).
55. Norbert Elias and J. L. Scotson, The Established and Outsiders (London: Sage, 1994), p. xvi.
56. Elias, Established, p. 101.
57. Elias, Established, p. xvi.
58. Erving Goffman, Interaction Ritual (New York: Anchor, 1967), pp. 109, 111.
59. See Steele, Ontological Security, p. 13 and Chapter 3.
60. These processes are best documented by the World Polity school. See e.g. George M. Thomas, 'The Expansion of the State', Annual Review of Sociology, 10, 1984, pp. 461-82.
61. John W. Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas and Francisco O. Ramirez, 'World Society and the Nation-State', American Journal of Sociology, 103(1), 1997, pp. 144-81.
62. L. S. Stavrianos, Global Rift (New York: William Morrow, 1981).
63. Arnold J. Toynbee, Turkey (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927), p. 34.
64. See Taner Akçam, Türkiye'yi Yeniden Düşünmek (Istanbul: Birikim Yayi{dotlesss}nlari{dotless}, 1995), p. 191.
65. see also Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961),p. 127.
66. Robert Melson, 'Paradigms of Genocide', Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 548, 1996, p. 157.
67. Niyazi Berkes, Türkiye'de çaǧdaşlasma (Ankara: Bilgi, 1973).
68. İlbeyi Özer, Avrupa Yolunda Bati{dotless}laşma ya da Bati{dotless}li{dotless}laşma (Istanbul: Truva. 2005).
69. Türk Ocaklari{dotless} was a neighborhood organization for youth with a clear purpose of nation-building. Füsun üstel, Türk Ocaklari{dotless} (1912-1931) (Istanbul: İletişim, 2004).
70. Berkes, Türkiye'de, p. 469.
71. Berkes, Türkiye'de, p. 470. All English translations are mine.
72. Berkes, Türkiye'de, p. 607.
73. Hamdullah Suphi, 'Irk ve Milliyet', Yeni Mecmua, 67(1), 1923, p. 7.
74. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Nutuk [The Speech], ed. H. V. Velidedeoǧlu, 8th edn (Istanbul: Cumhuriyet Kitaplari{dotless}, 2005 [1927]) p. 43.
75. 'Atatürk's Interview with French Reporter Maurice Pernot' (29/9/1923), in Andaç Uǧurlu (ed.), Yabanci{dotless} Gözüyle Cumhuriyet Türkiyesi (1928-1938) (Istanbul: Orgun, 2003).
76. Atatürk, The Speech, p. 380.
77. 'Atatürk's Speech to Turkish Parliament' (29/9/1923), in Atatürk'ün Bütün Eserleri, ed. A. B. E. D. Kurulu, vols 1-20 (Istanbul: Kaynak Yayi{dotless}nlari{dotless}. 2005).
78. 'A Speech delivered by Atatürk on the Second Anniversary of the Victory Day' (30/8/1924).
79. Atatürk's briefing of the Neue Freie Presse, Reporter (22/9/1923).
80. As quoted in Andaç Uǧurlu (ed.), Türkiye'nin Parçalanmasi{dotless} ve İngiliz Politikasi{dotless} (1900-1920) (Istanbul: Orgun, 2005), p. 128.
81. Marcus Jansen, The Emergence of Meiji Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 426-7.
82. Stefan Tanaka, Japan's Orient (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p. 17.
83. Tanaka, Japan's Orient, p. 17.
84. For an extended discussion, see Tanaka's book in its entirety, but especially, pp. 45-9.
85. Shogo Suzuki, 'Japan's Socialisation into Janus-Faced European International Society', European Journal of International Relations, 11(1), 2005, p. 154.
86. Tokotomi Soho in 1934, quoted in Ryusaku Tsunoda, Sources of the Japanese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), p. 644.
87. Ian Buruma, Inventing Japan, 1853-1964 (New York: The Modern Library, 2003), p. 99.
88. Yoshida Shigeru, Last Meiji Man, ed. and trans. Hiroshi Nara and Yoshida Ken-Ichi (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), p. 11.
89. Takeshi Matsuda, Soft Power and its Perils (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Press, 2007), p. 55.
90. Matsuda, Soft Power, p. 55.
91. Buruma, Inventing Japan; Shafiqul Islam, Yen for Development (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1991).
92. Jansen, Emergence.
93. Buruma, Inventing Japan.
94. Ryuji Mukae, 'Japan's Diet Resolution on World War Two', Asian Survey, 36(10), 1996, p. 1012.
95. Sebastian Konrad, 'Entangled Memories: Versions of the Past in Germany and Japan, 1945-2001', Journal of Contemporary History, 38(1), 2003, p. 96.
96. Konrad, 'Entangled', p. 98.
97. Susanne Klien, Rethinking Japan's Identity and International Role: An Intercultural Perspective (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 6.
98. Shogo Suzuki, 'Seeking "Legitimate" Great Power Status in Post-Cold War International Society: China's and Japan's Participation in UNPKO', International Relations, 22, 2008, pp. 45-63.
99. Suzuki, 'Seeking', p. 49.
100. Suzuki, 'Seeking', p. 52.
101. Suzuki, 'The Strange Masochism of the Japanese Right: Redrawing Moral Boundaries in Sino-Japanese Relations' (unpublished paper, 2008), p. 4.
102. Mitzen, 'Anchoring Europe', p. 283.
103. Steele, Ontological Security, pp. 58-9.
104. Steele, Ontological Security, pp. 52-5.