The Armenian genocide constitutes the most tragic part of this overall picture. When they rose up for a nation-state (before 1914, and in the first year of the war), they found themselves face to face with the counterattack of the “Union and Progress” administration, based on its decision dated April 24, 1915. They were expelled from their homeland, which they had inhabited for thousands of years, and were annihilated on the roads of exile, while those who remained were condemned to a long life of diaspora. In other words, the Armenian diaspora is a reality, but it is a bleak, shattered, and collapsing reality. The newly constructed Armenian national state might have become a source of solace. This is not only about the role of the Turkish bourgeoisie in the genocide, but also about the Kurdish feudal lords’ share in it. The matter is not limited to the Armenian genocide alone; rather, these feudal lords were the original criminal elements in the Kurdish genocides as well, implemented during the same periods and in different forms (especially in the Hamidiye Brigades). They continue to perform this cursed role of “village protectors” in the ongoing Kurdish genocide. They multiply their wealth and property in exchange for denying Kurdishness, and may even pretend to be a false Kurdishness if necessary.
No example can more usefully and eloquently demonstrate that the nation-state is a system of genocide and ethnic cleansing (and a system of denial and refutation of history, the elimination of local culture, and democratic power in general) than the conflict of the Turkish nation-state with the Armenians. The tragedy of the Armenian people stems from its embrace of an early capitalist bourgeoisie and its possession of a level of cultural sophistication superior to that of its neighbors; and from the arbitrary games of capitalist hegemony (its sacrifice of a culture that has lasted thousands of years for a small daily benefit.
