A few might be satisfied to note that Turkey did not love the speech. Of questionable significance is that according to some, Obama used the “Armenian equivalent” of genocide in the speech. But I don’t buy it. “Meds Yeghern” apparently means “Great Catastrophe,” not genocide. In other words, Armenians use it to mean the genocide in question, not genocide. This would be analogous to a President using the term “The Shoah,” but refusing to call the Holocaust a genocide.

Massacre at Erzinjan

I am pro-Presidential usage of the term “genocide” to describe the genocide against the Armenians. However, I think I am anti-Congress passing a statement declaring it a genocide. This is because I don’t think determining historical truth should the responsibility of the government. Instead, it should be done by historians. But I think congressmen should, as people who talk about things in the world, use the word genocide freely when it is accurate, just like the President should. In other words, they shouldn’t consciously avoid it as a political strategy.

The reasons for not doing it seem weak to me, and rather cynical. For one thing, it’s not at all clear that not acknowledging the genocide doesn’t itself “tilt” relations between Armenia and Turkey; rather, it sends a clear pro-Turkey message. Also, since integration into the EU and friendlier relations generally appear to be in Turkey’s self-interest in recent times, I feel like they would get over it pretty quickly. But U.S. policymakers and speechwriters know many things that I don’t. For example, they know all sorts of good reasons for ignoring Turkey’s well-documented human rights abuses when parading around the country giving speeches. Abuses much worse than, say, Cuban human rights abuses, which, according to moral cherry-picking, are super important.

If Obama does eventually call the genocide a genocide within his first term, it will be interesting to track the immediately ensuing lack of negative consequences. Until then, there’s nothing more to say.