On the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, we ask: Will Turkey ever own up to what really happened? The barrier of course is dichotomous thinking. As long as preserving national pride is more important than acknowledging the truth, we can not expect their position to change.

Should the crime be labeled as genocide? There is no question it was an atrocity and a war crime. It was clearly a crime against humanity. Proving it was genocide, however, means proving there was an intent to destroy the Armenian people. As long as an argument can be made that the Ottoman Empire faced an existential threat (which it did in the form of Russia) it can be argued that the actions against the Armenians was in self-defense. (An argument still used to this day to justify a variety of dichotomous actions)

If we set human evolution as our goal, we hope to see the Turks develop into a modern people who can admit the truth about their past. Demanding they admit to genocide before they are ready is counter productive. It simply amplifies the dichotomous noise. It plays into the “You say we are bad, but we are not bad, we are good, your are bad…” mentality.

We in the modern world may look down on those who deny the truth out of fear of being called “bad”, but unless we give them the space they need, they will never get past this very dichotomous way of thinking.  Without giving them the space they need, they will never see that denying the truth today does much more to hurt their national image than anything that was done100 years ago.