Armenia and Our Current Military, Cultural, and Psychological Genocides

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

If you have followed my columns, you know I like to listen to music from a variety of cultures. That parallels my clinical and academic interests in cultural psychiatry and the diverse values that are encountered in patient care.

So last Thursday we again went to Ravinia, outside of Chicago, this time to listen to some Armenian music from the Aznavoorian Duo. We got more than we bargained for.

What provided the extra value was the background of the featured Armenian composer, Komitas Vartabed (1869-1935). An orphan growing up, he became a priest in 1895 and then went to study musicology, collecting Armenian folk music. The music played seemed nostalgic.

All that was interrupted and became nostalgic when the Armenian Genocide started in on April 24, 1915. Turkey had aligned with Germany at the beginning of World War I. Scapegoating the Armenians as an enemy, the Turks first targeted the intellectuals and the clergy, and fitting that identity, Komitas was sent to a prison camp. He survived, but greatly traumatized, and entered psychiatric hospitals for the rest of his life. He came to be viewed as a martyr of the genocide.

The mentioning of martyrs, trauma, and genocide caused me to think about our current related considerations in political violence, wars, and genocides. We cannot learn from Armenian history unless we talk about it, but it has not been evoked in the news as a possible predecessor of our current wars. Some 1.5 million, mainly Christians, out of almost 2 million were killed by the Turks until 1923.

Turkey denies responsibility. Whether it was a genocide or not has been debated over and over because apparently there is not enough evidence that it was well-planned in advance. By now, there is also consideration that genocidal violence can be conceived more broadly, and I would include psychological and cultural genocide besides military.

In some current examples, certainly Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was planned, given its massing on the border for months, and Putin conveying at least a goal of psychological genocide by insisting that the Russians and Ukrainians are 1 people. There were assassination attempts on Ukraine’s leader. China, which suppresses the news, seems to have been using psychological genocide in their “re-education” of the native Uyghurs and military genocide for those who do not cooperate. Internal cultural genocide is escalating again against women by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Israel declared war against Hamas—and not against Gaza or other Palestinians—after being invaded.

Going over the history of possible genocides indicates perpetrators of most all religions and atheist countries. The United States is not an outlier, as the settlers’ decimation of some Native tribes attests. Slavery had aspects of cultural genocide to eliminate prior values and heritages.

That means the human nature we study and try to treat is the cause. Clinically, we see, as I did, the worst individual perpetrators in prisons. Clinically and societally, genocide in any form can be heartbreaking and excruciating for the victims, healers, and compassionates, including myself.

Prevention of possible genocides conducted by countries is the key. Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer, coined the term genocide in 1944, literally meaning the killing of a people.¹ He outlined the initial psychological components as he saw them: attacks on the intelligentsia and churches, the brains and morality, risks that both of Komitas and even us psychiatric professionals are thought to possess.

There do seem to be early warning signs that can easily be ignored as mundane or ordinary.² It is not unusual to blame one group for another’s troubles. Dehumanization comes next. If we think about it, it seems like the United States has been seeing some of these early warning signs, including increasing antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as the dehumanization of Haitian immigrants.

It seems time to not take a chance of further escalation. Even without violating the Goldwater Rule in the upcoming election, we need to weigh in on the psychological processes involved in escalating divisiveness and potential violence, perhaps even connected to the recent assassination attempts on Past President Trump.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.

References

1. Luciuk L, ed. Holodomor: Reflection on the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine. Kashtan Press; 2008.

2. Staub E. Overcoming Evil: Genocide, Violent Conflict and Terrorism. Oxford University Press; 2011.