The Murder of a Category: The Promise (Terry George, 2016) and Idealism, History, and Armenian Genocide in Turkey

Mount Ararat, a traditional reference point for Armenians, is outside the current state’s borders. [...]thoughts are inspired by The Promise, a fascinating feature film; and partly inspired by contemplation of William Saroyan, a writer of drama and fiction, and philosophy professors Paul and Peter Boghossian, political policy analyst Ian Bremmer, newspaper editor and writer David Ignatius, fashion designer Patricia Field, art dealer Larry Gagosian, film directors Rouben Mamoulian and Atom Egoyan and Alek Keshishian, actors Joe Manganiello and Andy Serkis, entertainer Cher, musicians Aram Khachaturian and Arsen Petrosyan, reality television stars the Kardashians, and erotic film star Colton Ford, people who are all, reportedly, of Armenian descent. The Promise, directed by Terry George (the writer of In the Name of the Father, The Boxer, and Hart’s War, and the director of Hotel Rwanda and Reservation Road), begins with an acknowledgement of tradition: whereas other villagers may have been involved with growing rice and grain, corn, tobacco and cotton, or mining silver, iron, or salt, the narrator, the lead character, Mikael or Michael (Oscar Isaac), a young Armenian, tells us that his family members for generations have been apothecaries, herbalists and healers, in his Turkish mountain village, and that he, Michael, is an apothecary too, and wants to study medicine, formally, in the city. The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire by Viscount Bryce and Arnold J. Toynbee (Hodder & Stoughton,1916), containing reports and other documentation verified by scholars; and Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story by Henry Morgenthau, Sr.