Philip Kennicott
The rug was
woven by orphans in the 1920s and formally presented to the White House
in 1925. A photograph shows President Calvin Coolidge standing on the
carpet, which is no mere juvenile effort, but a complicated, richly
detailed work that would hold its own even in the largest and most
ceremonial rooms.
There was hope that the carpet, which has been in storage for
almost 20 years, might be displayed Dec. 16 as part of a Smithsonian
event that would include a book launch for Hagop Martin Deranian’s “President Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan Rug.”
But on Sept. 12, the Smithsonian scholar who helped organize the event
canceled it, citing the White House’s decision not to loan the carpet.
In a letter to two Armenian American organizations, Paul Michael Taylor,
director of the institution’s Asian cultural history program, had no
explanation for the White House’s refusal to allow the rug to be seen
and said that efforts by the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, John A.
Heffern, to intervene had also been unavailing.
Although Taylor,
Heffern and the White House curator, William G. Allman, had discussed
during a January meeting the possibility of an event that might include
the rug, it became clear that the rug wasn’t going to emerge from deep
hiding.
“This week I spoke again with the White House curator
asking if there was any indication of when a loan might be possible
again but he has none,” wrote Taylor in the letter. Efforts to contact
Heffern through the embassy in the Armenian capital of Yerevan were
unsuccessful, and the State Department referred all questions to the
White House.
Last week, the White House issued a statement: “The
Ghazir rug is a reminder of the close relationship between the peoples
of Armenia and the United States. We regret that it is not possible to
loan it out at this time.”
That leaves the rug, and the sponsors
of the event, in limbo, a familiar place for Armenians. Neither Ara
Ghazarians of the Armenian Cultural Foundation nor Levon Der Bedrossian
of the Armenian Rugs Society can be sure if the event they had helped
plan was canceled for the usual political reason: fear of negative
reaction from Turkey, which has resolutely resisted labeling the events at the end of the Ottoman Empire a genocide. But both suspect it might have been.
“Turkey is a very powerful country,” says Der Bedrossian, whose organization was planning to fund a reception for the event.
And it’s a sign of the Obama administration’s dismal reputation
in the Armenian American community that everyone assumes it must be yet
another slap in the face for Armenians seeking to promote understanding
of one of the darkest chapters in 20th-century history.
Aram Suren Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National
Committee of America, says the president has had “a very negative
reception across the board in the Armenian world, and that includes both
Democrats and Republicans.” The principal emotion is profound disappointment. As a candidate, and
senator, Obama spoke eloquently about the Armenian genocide, risking
the ire of Turkey and Turkish organizations. But since taking office,
says Hamparian, Obama has avoided the word,
making more general statements about Armenian suffering. Critics of his
silence point to the geopolitical importance of Turkey in a region made
only more complex by the Arab Spring and a brutal civil war in Syria.The
word genocide is a flash point in the ongoing animosity between Turkey,
Armenia and the Armenian diaspora. Turkish resistance to accepting the
historical facts of the Armenian genocide has included wholesale denial
that the events took place, an effort to contextualize them as the
fallout of a complicated, violent period, and semantic argument based on
the 1948 legal definition of genocide, established by the United
Nations. Independent scholars have eviscerated the first of these
claims, demonstrated the bad faith of the second (the treatment of the
Armenians was egregious) and grappled seriously with the legal
particulars, especially the difficulty of proving the “intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, as such.” But few seriously argue that the events weren’t
genocidal.
Samantha Power,
for example, uses the term “Armenian genocide” throughout her landmark
2002 book on genocide, “A Problem From Hell.” Power was appointed by
Obama to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and was
confirmed in August.
But the president’s language has been more
circumspect. As a candidate, he said, “The Armenian genocide is not an
allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely
documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical
evidence. America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the
Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides.” But in his
most recent presidential proclamation honoring April 24’s Armenian
Remembrance Day, he used the Armenian term “Meds Yeghern” — “great
calamity” (1) — while avoiding explicit mention of genocide.
U.S.
government officials and the Smithsonian have been reluctant to address a
controversy that is often dismissed as just another intractable
historical dispute. Although Armenian musicians performed at the
Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2002, a Smithsonian spokeswoman says
the institution hasn’t taken up the subject of the genocide, a
remarkable omission of scholarship concerning an important ethnic group
in the United States and one of the last century’s most critical and
notorious historical events. (Even Adolf Hitler supposedly referred to
the Armenian genocide in a quote that is also disputed by some scholars:
“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” he
asked in a speech just before Germany invaded Poland in 1939.)
In
Power’s book, the author notes the power of “Turkish objections” to
prevent official U.S. recognition of the genocide. As a presidential
candidate, Obama said in a statement that he “stood with the Armenian
American community in calling for Turkey’s acknowledgment of the
Armenian Genocide.” But April’s presidential proclamation finessed the
delicate situation by saying, “I have consistently stated my own view of
what occurred in 1915, and my view has not changed,” suggesting he
strongly supports a truth he no longer has the courage to utter.
Calls and e-mails to the Turkish Embassy in Washington weren’t returned.
The
status of the rug remains ambiguous. It was last taken out of storage
in 1995 and is reported to be in good condition. But a White House
spokesman declined to answer questions about whether it might ever be
seen again, if the climate is simply too politicized for the rug to be
exhibited.
And the Smithsonian is distancing itself from Taylor.
“Dr. Taylor put this together on his own, nobody knew about it,
certainly senior leadership didn’t know about it,” says Randall Kremer,
who handles public affairs for the National Museum of Natural History,
where Taylor is employed.
Taylor says he doesn’t want to
speculate about why the White House won’t lend the object, and he says
he isn’t an expert on the tortured politics of the region. It was the
rug, its iconography, its status among Armenians and its history that
intrigued him, especially after hearing Armenians discuss it during a
2012 visit to Armenia.
“We’re not afraid of doing Armenian exhibitions,” he says. “I would love to do one.”
Although
the White House can offer no explanation about why the rug is off
limits to the American people, Der Bedrossian is optimistic that it
might someday see the light of day.
“Rug weaving is a metaphor
for me: We can make peace weaving together,” he says. “We are patient. I
tend to believe in miracles. Someday it will come.”
"The Washington Post," October 21, 2013
(1) Մեծ Եղեռն (Medz Yeghern) does not mean "great calamity." It means, literally, "great crime," and, figuratively, "genocide" ("Armeniaca").
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