The 2016 U.S. election, which resulted in the seemingly anomalous victory of a businessman with no government experience, arguably reflects America’s romance with wealth. The American Dream, long pondered by authors like Fitzgerald and Steinbeck, is a concept inextricable from American ideology. While there is some debate about how much wealth President Donald Trump has accumulated over his lifetime, it is undeniable that his most lucrative investment has been in carving out the appearance of wealth and using that image to his advantage.
I bring up Trump only as a point of contrast to the real subject of this article: Kirk Kerkorian, an Armenian businessman who passed away in 2015. Like Trump, Kerkorian was a real estate investor and Las Vegas hotel owner. Kerkorian owned the MGM Grand Hotel as well as MGM Studios. His story is quintessentially American and represents the best of what can come from a lifetime success.
Kirk Kerkorian was the son of Armenian immigrants, born in 1917 in California, two years after the beginning of the Armenian Genocide in which the Ottoman Empire, current day Turkey, systematically exterminated 1.5 million Armenians. Residing safely in the U.S., but starting from nothing, Kerkorian worked hard throughout his life to earn a net wealth of $18 billion dollars by 2008, making him one of the richest people in the world. Kerkorian, however, never forgot his heritage or the genocide that nearly wiped out his entire people.
After the 1988 earthquake that devastated the northern region of Armenia, Kerkorian sent medical supplies and funds to the survivors. He also funded a highway to connect Armenia to Karabakh and later invested $200 million in infrastructure for the country. More details on Kerkorian’s contributions to Armenia can be found here.
These contributions, however, are only part of Kerkorian’s legacy. Perhaps his most notable achievement is a project he did not live long enough to see to completion: a film about the Armenian genocide called The Promise, which was released in theatres across the country this past weekend. The Promise is the first mainstream Hollywood film about the Armenian genocide, an event rarely taught in schools and to this day unacknowledged by Turkey or by any U.S. president while in office except Ronald Reagan. The U.S. believes its relationship with Turkey is too vital and tenuous to be put at risk by officially using the term “genocide." Unwilling to accept that the Armenian people’s story must forever be silenced, Kerkorian spent $100 million to ensure the production of the film, asking for no return on his investment. All proceeds are being donated to non-profit organizations.
The most incredible part of Kerkorian’s story is that it took nearly 50 years for his dream to be actualized and a film like The Promise to be made. In the 1970s, Kerkorian, through MGM, had the rights to a script about the battle of Musa Dagh, but later had to sell the rights and the film was buried. Later attempts to produce a movie about the Armenian Genocide were squashed by Turkish lobbyists. Let’s be clear: Kerkorian, the owner of MGM Studios, was helpless for decades to produce a film about actual historical events because of the power Turkey holds over American business and politics. When The Promise debuted at the Toronto Film Festival, Turkish genocide deniers immediately flooded the movie’s IMDB page with 1-star ratings. Despite the best efforts of Turkey to cover up the genocide, the Armenian people have continued to tell their story, and now Hollywood is telling their story too. One of the most memorable quotes of the film is, “Our revenge will be to survive.” Kerkorian’s victory is to have the events of the Armenian genocide at last recounted on silver screens across the U.S.
There is a certain irony that The Promise debuted the same weekend as the March for Science where thousands marched in support of facts. The Armenian genocide is historical fact; yet, President Obama broke the promise he made as a senator to acknowledge the genocide and President Trump likewise refused to use the word genocide in his statement today on the 102nd anniversary of the genocide. Much has been made about how President Trump has ushered us into a “post-truth society.” For Armenians, a society grounded in truth never existed in the first place.
The Promise delivers a strong message about the importance of the press. The film features an American reporter named Chris Myers, played by Christian Bale, who documents the genocide for the Associated Press. He is an example of the most admirable journalists who refuse to give up sources or sacrifice truthful reporting for their own safety. Myers points out that without the press, no one would know what was happening in Armenia. The tragedy is that despite indisputable photographic evidence and the corroborated accounts of journalists, missionaries, U.S. ambassadors, and survivors, the Armenian genocide has gone unacknowledged by the U.S. and Turkey for a century.
This suppression of history has emboldened other groups to commit genocide because they believe there will be no consequences. On August 22, 1939 Hitler stated, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” If you care about the Holocaust, if you care about Rwanda, if you care about Darfur, you have to care about Armenia. If you care about truth, you have to care about the Armenian genocide.
Kirk Kerkorian was relentless in his pursuit to raise awareness about the Armenian genocide. His inspiring story is the epitome of the American dream, as are the stories of the hundreds of thousands of Armenian Americans who currently reside in the U.S. The Promise is about untold history and is one of the most politically important movies in a long time.
