On the Path to Genocide: Armenia and Rwanda Reexamined

By Deborah Mayersen

Why did the Armenian genocide erupt in Turkey in 1915, only seven years after the Armenian minority achieved civil equality for the first time in the history of the Ottoman Empire?  How can we explain the Rwandan genocide occurring in 1994, after decades of relative peace and even cooperation between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority? Addressing the question of how the risk of genocide develops over time, On the Path to Genocide contributes to a better understand why genocide occurs when it does. It provides a comprehensive and comparative historical analysis of the factors that led to the 1915 Armenian genocide and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, using fresh sources and perspectives that yield new insights into the history of the Armenian and Rwandan peoples. Finally, it also presents new research into constraints that inhibit genocide, and how they can be utilized to attempt the prevention of genocide in the future. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781782382850

Deborah Mayersen

Deborah Mayersen is an historian, based at the University of Wollongong, Australia.  Her research expertise is in comparative genocide studies, including the Armenian genocide, Rwandan genocide and genocide prevention.  Her recent publications include the edited volumes The United Nations and Genocide (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and Genocide and Mass Atrocities in Asia: Legacies and Prevention (with Annie Pohlman, Routledge, 2013).

Book preview

Part I

THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Chapter 1

‘TRYING DESPERATELY TO ESCAPE HISTORY’

The Armenian Question

The Armenians are an ancient people, based in the lands now referred to as Eastern Anatolia and Transcaucasia. In the fourth century of the Common Era they adopted Christianity as their state religion, one of the first peoples to do so. At various times throughout their history they have ruled their own kingdoms, while at other times they have been subjugated by foreigners, often suffering persecution because of their faith. Ultimately, most of their lands came under the control of the rising Ottoman Empire, although the eastern portion came under Persian and then Russian rule. Ottoman Armenians were concentrated primarily in Anatolia (Asia Minor), where they formed a scattered but sizeable minority, and were closely intermingled with the Turkish population. Most were farmers, residing in small villages, although there were also merchants, traders, artisans and members of the professions. While this chapter often considers the Armenians collectively as a people, it is important to acknowledge the vast diversity within this category. The historical experiences of Armenian groups and individuals differed markedly in different places and in different time periods, as did levels of Armenian self- and communal identification, fluidity of identity and acculturation.¹

Under Ottoman rule, the Armenian people were regarded as giaours, or infidels. This official status, inferior to that of the Moslem population, meant Armenians were subject to legal discrimination and occupied a position of relative powerlessness within Ottoman society—two of the features associated with an ‘outgroup’ at risk of genocide. By the nineteenth century, such discrimination against the Armenian minority was entrenched, and worsening. Conditions were worst in Armenia proper, and particularly so in rural areas. There, the special taxes and disabilities imposed on Armenians were at their harshest, and least able to be borne by the poor and disenfranchised villagers. Ordinary government taxes were so high that a peasant’s share of his crop was only 33 per cent.² In addition, Christians were subject to a capitation tax, for the right to live from year to year, and a tax in lieu of military service, imposed on all males from three months old and above. There were extraordinary additional taxes for specific temporary purposes, which often became permanent. Sometimes Christians were obliged to pay taxes in advance, but then those same taxes were demanded again at the usual time.³ The system of ‘farming of taxes’ exacerbated the situation even further. In these cases, an ‘official’—often a dubious character—would pay a specified fee upfront for the right to collect as much taxes as could be squeezed from the inhabitants of a particular region. These taxes rarely went towards infrastructure improvements, or even the salaries of civil administrators. Roads were poor or nonexistent in rural areas, there were very few bridges and the only railway had been built by foreign enterprise.⁴ Corruption was endemic, with the absence of officials’ salaries being compensated for by the collection of ‘fees’.⁵

A major hardship was the inadmissibility of Christian evidence in courts of law, and the resulting lawlessness it encouraged. There were regular incidents between the Kurds and the Armenians, whereby cattle or property might be stolen, Armenians might be set upon and injured or even killed, or women subjected to rape and abduction. An example of the many cases recorded in official British documents was an 1867 report from Vice-Consul Sankey:

In a court of justice, when a Turk is plaintiff or defendant, Christian testimony is not received . . . in the district of Toultcha . . . a Christian peasant last winter lost three horses, which horses he afterwards saw in the possession of a Musulman belonging to another village. The case came before the Cadi and Judicial Medjliss. The plaintiff was desirous to produce witnesses to prove that the horses belong to him. He offered the testimony of every man in his village, any of whom could swear to the horses. He must produce two Turks. It was in vain that he insisted that no Turks lived in his village. No Turks, no horses.⁶

The result of this law was aptly described by British consul Lloyd: ‘In all crimes of violence of which the Christians have been the victims during the past year in the Province of Erzeroum no one has been punished.’⁷

Furthermore, Christians were forbidden to bear arms. As one author put it, ‘The Armenian subjects of the Sultan are thus literally as defenceless as a flock of sheep surrounded by wolves.’⁸ Consul Lloyd summed up the impossible predicament of the Armenians in the following official communication:

Since the receipt of your Excellency’s telegram, I have heard of the commission of several very serious crimes and outrages upon the Armenians, which shall be reported when details reach me. In a country such as this lawlessness is to be expected, but unfortunately in nearly every instance armed and ungoverned Kurds are the aggressors, and the unarmed and unprotected Armenians the victims. Though it is well known that the Kurds live by plundering the Christians, no effort is made by the Turkish Government either to disarm them or to afford protection to the Christians, the law against the latter carrying arms or having arms being at the same time strictly enforced.⁹

Perhaps the worst of the depredations endured by the Armenians was the Gazdalik, or hospitality tax. This law provided that a Christian householder must give three days gratuitous hospitality to every Moslem traveller or official who requested it. Travellers could simply demand this ‘hospitality’ at any time, choosing the best houses, demanding to be fed and to sleep wherever they wished. It was not uncommon for wives or daughters to be raped by these travellers. In the period from January to June 1891, British consuls in Armenian regions reported on four separate incidents in which Turkish travellers, utilizing the Gazdalik, murdered and/or raped their hosts. None appear to have been punished. The British consul at Erzeroum reported the following incident in January 1891:

A band of thirty mounted police which were on the march were billeted for the night in a small Armenian village of ten houses, a few hours distant from Bitlis. Four of them were quartered in the house of a young married Armenian. Overhearing them discussing plans against his wife’s honour, he secretly sent her to the house of a neighbour. When the zaptiehs learnt this they ordered him to send for her, and, on his refusing to do so, beat him most cruelly. He fled to a neighbour’s house, but, two days later, died from the effects of the ill treatment which he had received . . . In the houses where the other zaptiehs were quartered their designs against the female members of the family were carried out without resistance.¹⁰

In comparison to the subsequent mass outbreaks of violence, however, the period up to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 might be considered relatively stable and calm.¹¹ There was a recognized (albeit inferior) place for the Armenian minority within the multinational and multireligious empire, as a millet, or national community.¹² Indeed, the Armenians were often referred to by the Ottoman authorities as the ‘most loyal millet’.¹³ Moreover, while most Armenians suffered from some discrimination, those in Constantinople and other major centres were significantly advantaged compared to their provincial kin. Indeed, historians have noted that one almost cannot speak of ‘the Armenians’ during this period, so great was the disparity between urban and rural conditions.¹⁴ For urban, professional Armenians, this period became a time of cultural and intellectual renaissance, and increasing prosperity. European notions of enlightenment, reform and romanticism began to reach the community, with profound effects.

The beginnings of this cultural revival can be traced to the 1700s. Foreign travellers exposed Armenia to European influence, and Europe to the Armenians. The first foreign missions in Armenia date back to about 1720, and over the following century both Roman Catholic and Protestant missions became widespread. The missions established a network of schools, which gradually spread throughout the region. By the 1850s, not only were thousands of Armenian children attending elementary school, even in the more remote areas, but secondary schools were also opened in major towns. Girls were not excluded from education, with a number of girls’ boarding schools being established. By the 1880s, almost every community with one hundred or more families had a school.¹⁵ Colleges were established in the Ottoman Empire, and Armenian students began to travel to Russia, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France and even the United States for a university