“It has allowed them to question and even to modify the
past, which nowadays is no less malleable or obedient than the
future.” —Jorge Luis Borges, ‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’
It has long been clear—at least since 1950 and the
publication of Esat Uras’ Tarihte Ermeniler ve Ermeni Meselesi,2 though, in
fact, probably since 1915 itself3—that the Turkish state, with its allies and hirelings,4
has sought to construct an alternative history in which, at various times, the
Armenians have either not existed, or existed only as a tool of Western
imperialist powers threatening the integrity of Turkey or the Ottoman Empire; a
history in which the Armenian Genocide cannot be named independent of the words
“alleged” or “so-called.” In this sense, the writing of history has served as a
continuation of the genocidal process.
Mainstream journalism and scholarship undertake the
work—sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly—of constructing Turkey’s Tlön.
In the past decade, even as a few scholars from Turkey
and Turkish citizens have begun to talk and write more openly about their
history, including the Armenian Genocide, Ankara, perhaps concerned that it is
losing the battle to erase and rewrite history, or, on the contrary, perhaps
because it believes that victory is achievable, has raised its efforts to a new
level. This article examines some of the ways Turkey creates and disseminates
its perversion of history and how its narrative is (unknowingly or knowingly)
passed along to mostly uninformed readers, with the end result of skewing the
discussion towards a narrative acceptable to Turkey. A comprehensive history
and analysis is well beyond the scope of this article and, in fact, calls for a
book-length study.
Outside Turkey (and perhaps even inside the country) it
is not too well known that there has existed since 2001 an entity called, in
Turkish, Asılsız Soykırım ddiaları ile Mücadele Koordinasyon Kurulu (AS MKK)
or, in English, the Committee to Coordinate the Struggle with the Baseless
Genocide Claims.
According to Jennifer Dixon, a scholar who has researched
the development of the official Turkish historical narrative on the “Armenian
Question,” the committee is “[c]o-headed by the Foreign Minister and the
general who heads the National Security Council” and “also includes high-level
representatives from a number of key government ministries and organizations,
including the Ministry of the Interior, the Turkish Historical Society and the
archives.” Dixon further explains that “it appears that its main goals have
been to coordinate and execute a centralized strategy for responding to
international pressures on this issue, and to shape public opinion in Turkey
and abroad on this issue.”5
Turkey is thus perhaps the only state with an official or
semiofficial entity devoted exclusively to events that it maintains did not
occur. The committee has not been idle, and the number of publications devoted
to refuting the “Baseless Genocide Claims” has increased substantially since
2001.6
On June 10, 2010, Turkey’s state news outlet Anadolu
Agency reported that in 2011, the Turkish Historical Society (Türk Tarih
Kurumu) would publish a 20-volume encyclopedia that “aims to create the most
comprehensive resource on Armenian problem [sic].” Project director Prof. Enis
Sahin stated, “When we first started this project, we thought it would be
comprised of 5,000-6,000 pages . . . Now it seems to be a set of books of
nearly 20 volumes each with 600 or 700 pages. It will become an encyclopedia.”7
Although the encyclopedia has yet to appear, this author is informed that it is
still in the works.
The creation of the 20-volume Un-cyclopedia of the
Armenian Non-Genocide would likely represent a milestone of sorts in the
state’s untiring efforts to negate history. Sahin wrote in 2003:
If Turkey wishes to become a global state or an
influential power in its region, it should overcome the difficulties it faces
in the Armenian Question just like in each issue and should formulate highly
realizable policies in line with its geopolitics and put them in place. These
policies should be adopted as imperatives for the country; never should there
be any concessions from them… It is evident that Armenian allegations of
genocide are a complete deception… There should be an abundant number of works
translated into foreign languages supporting the Turkish thesis in libraries
and research institutions in these countries.8
Sahin’s statements suggest that his agenda is to support
and advance the state’s interests (as represented by its official thesis on the
“Armenian Question”) by any means necessary. Such remarks might seem unusual
coming from a professor of history, but they are less so when one remembers
that the Turkish Historical Society was created in 1931 by Atatürk for the
development and dissemination of Turkey’s official, state-generated history.9
A DIGRESSION BY WAY OF BORGES
The Turkish Historical Society’s uncyclopedic
undertaking—as a part-for-whole representation of the entire monstrous
apparatus dedicated to creating a fake history—strongly calls to mind Jorge
Luis Borges’ uncanny, nightmarish ficción “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.” Not a
short story in the usual sense, it is, as the author points out in the foreword
to the collection The Garden of Forking Paths (1941) in which it first
appeared, an example of what he calls “notes upon imaginary books.”10
It is difficult to summarize a commentary on an imaginary
book. The Borgesian narrator describes his dawning awareness of the land called
“Uqbar” (which, as coincidence would have it, is supposed to be located near
Armenia), which is mentioned in some copies of a certain encyclopaedia.
Doubting the very existence of such a place, he reads that “the literature of
Uqbar was fantastic in character, and that its epics and legends never referred
to reality, but to the two imaginary realms of Mlejnas and Tlön…” (19).
Later, much to his surprise, the narrator encounters one
volume of A First Encyclopaedia of Tlön: “clearly stated, coherent, without any
apparent dogmatic intention or parodic undertone” (22).
It emerges, finally, that this is all part of a vast
intellectual conspiracy born in the 18th century: “A benevolent secret
society.. . came together to invent a country. . . [and] in 1914, the society
forwarded to its collaborators, three hundred in number, the final volume of
the First Encyclopaedia of Tlön. The edition was secret; the forty volumes
which comprised it (the work was vaster than any previously undertaken by men)
were to be the basis for another work, more detailed, and this time written,
not in English, but in some one of the languages of Tlön. That review of an
illusory world was called, provisionally, Orbis Tertius11…” (31–32).
This might be the end of the story. Except that in a
postscript written seven years later (that is, seven fictional years later),
the narrator reveals, with quiet horror, that the “unreality” of Tlön begins to
intrude into the “reality” of this world:
Contact with Tlön and the ways of Tlön have disintegrated
this world […] Now, the conjectural ‘primitive language’ of Tlön has found its
way into the schools. Now, the teaching of its harmonious history, full of
stirring episodes, has obliterated the history that dominated my childhood.
Now, in all memories, a fictitious past occupies the place of any other. We
know nothing about it with any certainty, not even that it is false. Numismatics,
pharmacology and archaeology have been revised. I gather that biology and
mathematics are also awaiting their avatar. . . . A scattered dynasty of
recluses has changed the face of the earth—and their work continues. If our
foresight is not mistaken, a hundred years from now someone will discover the
hundred volumes of The Second Encyclopaedia of Tlön. Then, English, French, and
mere Spanish will disappear from this planet. The world will be Tlön (34–35).
For those who follow closely the historiography of the
Armenian Genocide and the simultaneous anti-historiography of the Armenian
Non-Genocide, much of this should sound less like fantasy than like grim
realism. Because when it comes to the history of the Armenian Genocide, to an
alarming extent, we are already living in Tlön.
But how does this process work? How does the unreality of
genocide denial enter into and permeate our world? It is not by means of a
secret society as in Borges’ fiction. Mainstream journalism and scholarship
undertake the work—sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly—of constructing
Turkey’s Tlön.
For the purposes of this article, one example must
suffice: a work of journalism that swallows whole the idea that the discussion
of the Armenian Genocide is a “debate” and the virtual unknowability of what is
actually a rather well-documented historic event or series of events. The
article by Jack Grove, which appeared last year in the (London) Times Higher
Education, “Can We Ever Know the Truth About the Armenian ‘Genocide?’”12 serves
as a good case study, as it is almost the apotheosis of a “neutral
journalistic”13 approach to the Armenian Genocide that probably unwittingly
serves to advance the cause of genocide denial and the dissemination of
unreality.
The strategy of denying the Armenian Genocide outright
has mostly become the exception rather than the rule. This is not to suggest
that what one might call classic, old-school denial14—“There was no Armenian
Genocide and besides they deserved it” does not live on. Unfortunately,
virulent and blatant denial and victimblaming—unlike analogous Holocaust
denial, for instance—is readily available and often is authored by figures
associated with one or more of the several Turkish-American groups one of the
tasks of which is to import Turkey’s war on historical truth. More than 20
years ago, the pioneering genocide scholar Roger Smith wrote that “[t]he
Turkish argument is elaborate and systematic and, though some of its surface
details have changed over time, its basic structure has remained one of denial
and justification.”15 This is still largely the case today, though one must
qualify the phrase “Turkish argument” because not only, of course, is this not
an argument made by all Turks, but also because denial and justification of the
Armenian Genocide are not limited to Turks.16
Overall, since Smith wrote his important essay, the
language and the content of Turkey’s denial have evolved,17 and this evolution
has had its impact on the kind of genocide denial that the average person might
encounter. The blunt instrument of old-school denial has been honed into a more
precise dagger. In the U.S. and Europe, in particular, in order to advance its
agenda of spreading mistruth, denial exploits cherished ideals such as freedom
of speech and the belief that there must always be two sides to each story.
Instead of confronting the genocide head-on, deniers play
upon widespread ignorance of the subject and seek to create doubt. By reframing
well-documented history as a “controversy” with at least two legitimate
“sides,” they engage in spurious, circular debates with the goal of
indefinitely deferring genocide recognition and its consequences. Prof. Taner
Akçam has formulated it well: “we can observe that on the subject of the
Armenian Genocide, the Turkish government and entities that support its
positions follow a very systematic and aggressive policy in the U.S. The
essence of this policy is to make the idea that ‘1915 was not genocide’ be
accepted as normal and as equivalent to the idea that ‘1915 was genocide.’”18
Consequently, if both “it was genocide” and “it was not genocide” are equally
acceptable positions, then of course there can be no such thing as “genocide
denial.”
This policy is being pursued in at least two related
ways. The first is a campaign of legal intimidation. Examples include the
failed effort in Massachusetts to sue the Commonwealth’s Board of Education for
not including denial-supporting materials in its curriculum on genocide19 and
the thus far dead-on-arrival defamation suit against the University of
Minnesota and its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies for identifying the
Turkish Coalition of America’s website as one of many “unreliable” sources.20
This tactic seems intended to produce “a chilling effect on the ability of
scholars and academic institutions to carry out their work freely.”21
Even when such lawsuits fail, they not only serve to
intimidate scholars but also to advance the idea that the subject of the
Armenian Genocide is inherently controversial and disputed, thus helping to
re-frame the discussion in terms congenial to the agenda of new-style genocide
denial. In competitive sports this is known as “working the refs.” If a coach
complains constantly about penalties on his team, the beleaguered referee may
unconsciously start balancing things out, if only to stop the complaints.
But, of course, the complaints never stop. Another form
of this tactic is on display nearly every time a journalist writes anything
about the Armenian Genocide and letters, emails, and phone calls follow from
Turkish officials or domestic pressure groups, to say nothing of government and
business entities seeking to assist a valued ally regarding a “sensitive”
matter.22 It is understandable, though
not excusable, that press outlets alter their coverage in a more “balanced” way
that they think will make these complaints stop or will safeguard them against
legal attacks.
Denial of the Armenian Genocide is only to be expected
from advocates of Turkish state interests. More pernicious, arguably, is the
conscious or unconscious adoption of denialist themes and rhetorical framing by
academics and mainstream journalists. These issues of language and framing are
familiar to anyone who follows media coverage of the Armenian Genocide. One is
accustomed, when reading the arguments of advocates for the official Turkish
position, to encounter leading questions, euphemisms, distortions, and false
equivalences, all geared towards a certain “spin.” Denialist phrasing includes
such old chestnuts as “so-called Armenian genocide,” “alleged massacres,”
“Armenian relocation,” “civil war,” and “necessary wartime security measure.”
It should be noted that this maximalist form of denial has been, if not
replaced, then augmented by an ostensibly humane approach that takes note of
Armenian suffering, even acknowledging massacres, but invariably stresses that
the First World War was a time of great general suffering and that in no way
was there a deliberate effort to eliminate the Armenians.
Sometimes the maximalist approach and the quasi-humane
approach rest cheek by jowl within the same article. For example, Turkish
Coalition of America “resident scholar” Bruce Fein’s “Lies, Damn Lies, and
Armenian Deaths” allows that “Armenians have a genuine tale of woe” but states
that they have concocted an exaggerated number of deaths during the
non-genocide to make a more convincing case as they seek “a ‘pound of flesh’
from the Republic of Turkey,” an eyebrow-raising comparison of Armenians to
Shakespeare’s Shylock.23
One is accustomed, too, to the “he said/she said”
treatment of the Armenian Genocide that has become the most frequent fallback
position for many mainstream news media, particularly when (and this is almost
always the case), the writer has no background in the subject matter. NYU
journalism professor Jay Rosen provides a helpful guide to the hallmarks of he
said/she said reporting:
—There’s a public dispute.
—The dispute makes news.
—No real attempt is made to assess clashing truth claims
in the story, even though they are in some sense the reason for the story.
(Under the “conflict makes news” test.)
—The means for assessment do exist, so it’s possible to
exert a factual check on some of the claims, but for whatever reason the report
declines to make use of them.
—The symmetry of two sides making opposite claims puts
the reporter in the middle between polarized extremes.24
The effort to get influential mainstream newspapers such
as the Boston Globe and New York Times to stop mandating such inane
formulations as, “Armenians claim that as many as 1.5 million….” whereas
“Turkey states that Armenians and a larger number of Turks and Muslims died as
a result of wartime conditions…” met with success despite the deeply entrenched
tendency to engage in false equivalences in the belief that this demonstrates a
lack of bias and shows journalistic objectivity.25 As Rosen writes,
“Journalists associate the middle with truth, when there may be no reason
to…Writing the news so that it lands somewhere near the ‘halfway point between
the best and the worst that might be said about someone’ is not a truthtelling
impulse at all, but a refuge-seeking one, and it’s possible that this ritual
will distort a given story.”26
The problems that Rosen identifies as endemic to he
said/she said journalism are on display in Grove’s article “Can We Ever Know
the Truth About the Armenian ‘Genocide?’” The problems start with the title.
The title is a good example of what is known as a loaded
question—a question that is deployed for rhetorical purposes in order to frame
the discussion that follows. To choose another example that has more
current-day resonance that a journalist might ask innocently: “Which side do
you take in the global warming controversy?” Such a question presupposes the
existence of a “controversy,” and a controversy presupposes the existence of
two or more opinions or sides with a more or less equal claim on truth.
To ask the question “Can We Ever Know the Truth About the
Armenian ‘Genocide?’” is to adopt the language of the party that asserts the
existence of a controversy in the face of overwhelming evidence—a party that
desperately seeks to be recognized as half of a “heated dispute” rather than as
a trafficker in fake history.
The quotation marks around “genocide” signal to readers
that the word thus enclosed is somehow questionable. We cannot know the
writer’s or editor’s motivation for using those scare quotes. If the
“controversy” is the news, according to Rosen’s model, perhaps the scare quotes
are meant to telegraph journalistic objectivity by positing the existence of a
“debate”: i.e., was it a genocide or a “genocide”? They may be read as: “We are
not saying it was a genocide, we are not saying it was not a genocide. We are
just reporting on a controversy from a neutral position.” Nevertheless, the
scare quotes within a loaded rhetorical question support the reading that is
most congenial to genocide deniers. Far from staking out an already specious
middle position, the scare quotes place Grove and Times Higher Education in
apparent alignment with those who, “when not able to silence the question of
genocide altogether, [attempt] to sow confusion and doubt among journalists,
policy makers, and the general public.”27
The first sentence of the article proper states what
appears to be a simple fact: “Few academic subjects are as politically
explosive as the dispute over the mass killings in Armenia.” The writer has
correctly stated that this is an academic subject with political repercussions.
However, instead of proceeding to present an accurate assessment of the
academic consensus28 and the reasons for the political controversy, which would
clearly require a substantial exploration of the subject, the author follows
the path of least resistance and presents “both sides” of the “dispute,” which,
misleadingly, becomes located in the academic realm rather than in the
political.
The second sentence virtually constitutes a statement of
the locus classicus of genocide denial: “Almost 100 years after the alleged
atrocities of 1915–16, arguments still rage over whether the deaths of between
600,000 and 1.5 million Armenian civilians constitute genocide.” “Alleged
atrocities”: that is to say, even the fact of atrocities, whether as part of
the execution of a genocide or not, is called into question. A wide range of
estimated deaths reinforces the idea that even after “almost 100 years” we are
no nearer to the truth. The already tenuous grip on logic is altogether lost in
the sentences that follow. “Most historians agree that Ottoman Turks deported
hundreds of thousands of Armenians from eastern Anatolia to the Syrian desert
during the First World War, where they were killed or died of starvation and
disease.” Actually all historians agree that hundreds of thousands of Armenians
were deported from Anatolia to the Syrian desert and that large numbers of them
died. Even the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledges the death of as
many as 300,000 Armenians.29 Yet Grove cannot deign to present even this as a
firmly established fact.
“But was this a systematic attempt to destroy the
Christian Armenian people?” Grove asks, “[o]r was it merely part of the
widespread bloodshed—including the deaths of innocent Turkish Muslims—in the
collapsing Ottoman empire?”
A false choice is presented here, because the
extermination of the Armenians was both a systematic attempt to destroy them—a
genocide—as well as part of the overall bloody collapse of the Ottoman Empire
during a world war in which many Turks and Muslims also died. Likewise: Was the
Holocaust a systematic attempt to destroy the Jewish people? Or was it part of
the widespread bloodshed—including the deaths of innocent German civilians—in
the war-torn Nazi empire? Clearly it was both. Such false opposition, which
masquerades as objectivity in its pretense of emphasizing the tragedy of all
loss of life, is a staple of genocide denial—any genocide denial.30
Our suggestion is not that Grove knowingly drew on the
rhetorical tools of genocide denial or deliberately trivialized the
extermination of the Ottoman Armenians. However, he made no attempt to answer
the questions he posed or to provide any factual information that a reader
could use to formulate a response. In short, he failed to do his job.
The fog of doubt hovering over the author’s references to
the “alleged atrocities” and quote-genocide-unquote obscures other facts as
well. Having noted that “Hrant Dink was assassinated by a 17-year-old
nationalist in 2007 after criticizing the country’s denialist stance,” he then
retreats and states that “[b]efore Dink’s death, such claims had resulted in
his being prosecuted for ‘denigrating Turkishness.’ The Nobel laureate Orhan
Pamuk was also prosecuted for making similar claims.” Claims? Did they make
claims or did they make factual statements that brought them into conflict with
Turkey’s “denialist stance”? And what, for that matter, is Turkey’s denialist
stance? Who formulates it and how is it disseminated? Surely these are
questions whose answers a reader of this article would find relevant, but Grove
either doesn’t know or doesn’t think this is important enough to share with
readers.
The bulk of the story consists of a collection of quotes
from “both sides” of the spurious “debate.” Jeremy Salt of Bilkent University
takes up the classic “Yes, Armenians died, but…” position, emphasizing “the
scale of the catastrophe that overwhelmed the Ottoman Empire.” All peoples of
the dying empire suffered and died from “massacre, malnutrition, disease, and
exposure. Armenians were the perpetrators as well as the victims of largescale
violence…These are the facts that any historian worth his salt will come
across,” declares Salt.
Salt’s statements call to mind part of Roger Smith’s
enumeration of the rhetorical tropes of Turkish denial in 1989: “Armenians
suffered and died, but this was due to wartime conditions and to elements
beyond the control of the government—Kurds, criminals, officials who disobeyed
orders” but “the number of Turks who died was far greater.”31 Since Grove makes
no effort to explore the reliability of Salt’s account, the questions need to
be asked: What is the purpose of the article and what is Grove’s responsibility
towards his readers?
The comments of Hakan Yavuz of the University of Utah
department of political science32 shift the discussion away from history itself
and towards a “debate.” He identifies “the Armenian diaspora” as “the key
obstacle to advancing the debate over the causes and consequences of the events
of 1915.” The diaspora promotes what he calls “the genocide thesis” and works
towards “silencing those who question their version” of history.
That is, these are simply two “narratives” of history and
neither can be privileged over the other. Such an approach again calls to mind
Akçam’s assessment: “The essence of this policy is to make the idea that ‘1915
was not genocide’ be accepted as normal and as equivalent to the idea that
‘1915 was genocide.’”
Yavuz presents another common talking point: “One may
conclude that the Armenian diaspora seeks to use the genocide issue as the
‘societal glue’ to keep the community together.” Such a statement deftly avoids
addressing what actually occurred historically, and shifts the discussion away
from a discussion of facts and toward the realm of identity politics.33
While Salt along with Yavuz handle the role of “he said,”
Akçam is forced into “she said.” His presence in the article appears to result
not from his authorship of numerous significant books and articles on the
Armenian Genocide but because he “told a conference at Glendale Public Library,
Arizona [sic, the event took place in Glendale, Calif.], in June that he had
been informed by a source in Istanbul, who wished to remain anonymous, that
hefty sums have been given to academics willing to counter Armenian genocide
claims.”
“Beyond the legal writs, however, the episode has raised
questions of whether free historical investigation of the genocide claims can
ever take place amid the frenzied Turkish-Armenian political climate,” writes
Grove, making use of the doubt-raising term “claims.” Akçam is quoted making no
such statement.
Grove writes that Akçam “believes pressure from Ankara
has made it impossible for Turks to look into the subject at home.” That
assertion is certainly supportable. But the fact that researchers in Turkey
feel real pressure not to address the Armenian Genocide does not mean that
there is no “free historical investigation of the genocide,” since Akçam is
himself engaged in such work—but not inside Turkey.
Giving the impression that such work is impossible suits
the purposes of those promoting denial, however, inasmuch as it questions the
validity of the large body of scholarship on the Armenian Genocide. Grove’s
readers are given no real opportunity to understand the actual state of
“historical investigation” or who actually creates obstacles and how. A great
many readers will come away from it knowing only of the existence of a somewhat
nebulous “debate” that might be historical, might be political, or might be
legal, but the true facts of which are either unknowable or not important. Or,
in Jay Rosen’s formulation: “No real attempt is made to assess clashing truth
claims in the story, even though they are in some sense the reason for the
story.”
Words written more than 25 years ago by Richard
Hovannisian are perhaps even more applicable today:
As the number of persons who lived through World War I
and who have direct knowledge of the events diminishes, the rationalizers and
debasers of history become all the more audacious . . . At the time of the
deportations and massacres, no reputable publication would have described the
genocide as ‘alleged.’ The clouding of the past, however, and the years of
Turkish denials, diplomatic and political pressures, and programs of image improvement
have had their impact on some publishers, correspondents, scholars, and public
officials. In an increasingly skeptical world, the survivors and descendants of
the victims have been thrust into a defensive position from which they are
required to prove time and again that they have indeed been wronged,
individually and collectively.34
The Times Higher Education coverage shows how genocide
denial has evolved a more effective model that seeks to establish itself as the
legitimate “other side of the story.” A journalist who can write without irony
of “the alleged atrocities of 1915–16” clearly has fallen for this tactic. The
“competing narratives” approach to the Armenian (scare-quotes please)
“genocide” is the wolf of denial in the sheep’s clothing of “objective
reporting.” Journalists who fail to see beyond the trap of “reporting the controversy”
have effectively ceased to engage in journalism and are merely serving as
conduits for genocide denial. Which brings us back to Borges. Each time an
“objective, neutral” outlet uncritically passes along the Turkish state’s
historical fictions, the world is that much closer to becoming Tlön.
ENDNOTES
1. The author would like to thank Dr. Lou Ann Matossian
for many helpful suggestions and comments during the writing of this article.
2. The English translation, The Armenians in History and
the Armenian Question, appeared in 1988 with substantial additions and was
widely distributed to libraries. Uras, aka Ahmed Esat, was a former Young Turk
official and a participant in the organization of the Armenian Genocide. See
Hilmar Kaiser, “From Empire to Republic: The Continuities of Turkish Denial,”
in Armenian Review 48.3-4 (Fall-Winter 2003), pp. 1–24.
3. Official Ottoman publications were issued concurrently
with the genocide in order to offer justification of the process then
unfolding. See, for example, The Armenian Aspirations and Revolutionary
Movements (Istanbul, 1916; in English, French, and German) with its copious
photographs of menacing-looking Dashnaks and Hnchaks and heaps of “confiscated
weapons.” Taner Akçam has observed that Talaat Pasha himself “laid the
groundwork for the ‘official Turkish version’ of the deportation and killings”
at the Union and Progress Party’s final congress in November 1918 (A Shameful
Act [New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006] p. 184). For a succinct account of the
importance of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in “the consolidation of Turkish denial
within official Turkish history” see Fatma Ulgen, “Reading Mustafa Kemal
Atatürk on the Armenian Genocide of 1915,” in Patterns of Prejudice 44.4
(2010).
4. As early as 1924, Edward Hale Bierdstadt would assert,
“So far as I have been able to ascertain, the direct propaganda in which Turkey
indulges is comparatively small…because Turkey has evolved an even better
method of concealing truth and spreading untruth. She makes her friends work
for her” (The Great Betrayal: A Survey of the Near East Problem [New York: R.
M. McBride & Company, 1924], p. 84).
5. Jennifer Dixon, “Defending the Nation? Maintaining
Turkey’s Narrative of the Armenian Genocide,” in South European Society and
Politics, 15:3, p. 478. Dixon’s 2011 UC Berkeley dissertation, “Changing the
State’s Story: Continuity and Change in Official Narratives of Dark Pasts,” is
by far the most informative source to date on the production, dissemination,
and evolution of Turkey’s official narrative of genocide denial.
6. ibid., pp. 478-479.
7. Original link (no longer operative):
www.armenialive.com/armeniannews/ANKARA—Turkish-Historical-Society-launches-project-on-
Armenian-issue. See
www.armeniandiaspora.com/showthread.php?244763-ANKARA-Turkish-Historical-Society-launches-project-on-Armenian-issu#.T2yH89m1Vw4.
8. “Armenian Question and Turkey: What Hasn’t Been Done
and What Should Be Done?” See
http://www.stradigma.com/english/april2003/articles_02.html.
9. Jennifer Dixon describes the Turkish Historical
Society as “quasi-official” and a “nominally an independent foundation” whose
“publications frequently reproduce and advance official ideologies on a range
of topics, including the Armenian question” (“Changing the State’s Story,” p.
77 and p. 56, note 140). See also Fatma Müge Göçek’s observation that “[i]n an
attempt to place the blame for the past as well as present violence squarely on
the Armenians, the Turkish state then drew upon its retired diplomats and
‘official scholars’ to reconstruct a mythic version of 1915. Through the
selective use of archival documentation, the official Turkish Historical
Society in particular started to build a large body of literature around the
imagined narrative of past events” (The Transformation of Turkey: Redefining
State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era [London: I.B.
Tauris, 2010], p. 152).
10. Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones, edited and with an
introduction by Anthony Kerrigan (New York: Grove Press, 1962), pp. 15-16. The
translation of “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” is by Alastair Reid. Further
citations given in the text parenthetically.
11. Borges’ “Orbis Tertius”(Latin: Third World) is
undoubtedly intended to suggest the Nazi Third Reich. Connections between Orbis
Tertius and Karl Popper’s World 3 are worth exploring.
12. The article appeared on Sept. 22, 2011. See
www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=417484.
13. That is to say, one cannot and should not assume that
Grove has any nefarious agenda. On the contrary, it is the very assumption that
he is coming to the topic from an “unbiased” perspective that makes the article
significant.
14. A very partial list of earlier analyses of the
evolution of denial of the Armenian Genocide includes: Rouben Adalian, “The
Armenian Genocide: Revisionism and Denial,” in Michael N. Dobkowski and Isidor
Wallimann. eds., Genocide in Our Time: An Annotated Bibliography with Analytical
Introductions (Ann Arbor. Michigan: Pierian Press, 1992); Roger Smith,
“Genocide and Denial: The Armenian Case and Its Implications” (Armenian Review,
42.1 1989) and Richard Hovannisian, “The Critic’s View: Beyond Revisionism”
(International Journal of Middle East Studies, 9.3, Oct., 1978); “The Armenian
Genocide and Patterns of Denial,” in The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, ed.
Richard G. Hovannisian (New Brunswick and Oxford: Transaction Books, 1986);
“Denial of the Armenian Genocide in Comparison with Holocaust Denial,” in
Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide, ed. Richard G.
Hovannisian (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999).
15. Smith, p. 6.
16. Nonetheless, because deniers frame the issue as an
argument about (judgment of, accusation of, attack on) Turks, Turkey, or
Turkishness—and, hence, increasingly play the “anti-Turkish” or “anti-Muslim”
card—as opposed to a matter of historical truth, the “defenders of Turkey”
respond by attacking the ethnic/national identity of their opponents. Hence the
tu quoque counterassaults on Armenians, Armenia, or Armenianness; Western
“colonialists,” “genocidaires,” “religious bigots,” or “racists,” etc.
17. See Dixon, “Changing the State’s Story,” esp.
chapters 3-5.
18. As stated in lecture at the National Association for
Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), May 2011.
19. See Memorandum and Order, C. A. No. 05-12147-MLW,
U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, June 10, 2009.
http://pacer.mad.uscourts.gov/dc/opinions/wolf/pdf/griswold%20opinion%20june%2010%202009.pdf.
20. See
http://www.mndaily.com/sites/default/files/Cingilli%20v%20U%20of%20MN.pdf for
Judge Donovan W. Frank’s 3/30/11 dismissal of the case. The dismissal has been
appealed.
21. The quote is from a Jan. 18, 2011 letter from the
Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Committee on Academic Freedom to Turkish
Coalition of America President G. Lincoln McCurdy. See
http://mesa.arizona.edu/committees/academic-freedom/intervention/lettersnorthamerica.html#US20110118.
22. This is not to say, of course, that individual
Armenians and Armenian groups do not also attempt to achieve influence; but the
fact is that the Republic of Armenia cannot be compared as a global player to
Turkey, nor are Armenians able to draw on the considerable influence of
international corporations, ex-government officials, and lobbyists that support
Turkey. See, for example, Luke Rosiak, “Defense contractors join Turkish
lobbying effort in pursuit of arms deals,” http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/
2009/defense-contractors-join-turkish-lobbying-effort-in-pursuit-of-/.
In 2008, Turkey was ranked fifth among foreign governments in total money spent
on lobbying activity and first in the number of contacts with members of
Congress. See http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/adding-it-top-players-foreign-agent-lobbying/.
23. See
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-fein/lies-damn-lies-and-armeni_b_211408.html.
Fein is also one of the two attorneys at Turkish American Legal Defense Fund, a
project of the Turkish Coalition of America.
24 See
http://archive.pressthink.org/2009/04/12/hesaid_shesaid.html.
25. See, for example, Christine Chinlund, “Should We Call
It a Massacre or a Genocide?” Boston Globe, May 5, 2003. The Globe would
announce its change in policy in July 2003.
26. Rosen, “He Said, She Said Journalism.”
27. Smith, p. 18.
28. The repeated statements of unanimous affirmation by
the International Association of Genocide Scholars, for instance, go
unmentioned.
29. See “Armenian Claims and Historical Facts,”
http://www.mfa.gov.tr/data/DISPOLITIKA/ErmeniIddialari/ArmenianClaimsandHistoricalFacts.pdf.
This document is part of the Ministry’s treatment of the “Controversy between
Turkey and Armenia about the Events of 1915.”
30. See, for example, Richard J. Evans, Lying About
Hitler (New York: Basic Books, 2001), for a discussion of David Irving’s
willingness to acknowledge large numbers of Jewish deaths but not a systematic
policy of genocide.
31. Smith, p. 19.
32. Yavuz is also the director of the Turkish Coalition
of America-funded program “The Origins of Modern Ethnic Cleansing: Collapse of
the Ottoman Empire and the Emergence of Nation States in the Balkans and
Caucasus” at the University of Utah. For Utah’s announcement of the program,
see http://unews.utah.edu/old/p/031009-1.html. The university’s Middle East
Center announced in its June 2009 Newsletter (29.2, p. 11) that “TCA has
provided a gift of over $900,000.00 to be used towards research and scholarship.”
Online at http://www.humis.utah.edu/humis/docs/organization_302_1249062720.pdf.
33. This does not necessarily mean that the quest for
justice for the victims of the genocide and their descendants is not an
important force in Armenian Diasporan identity, of course. Obviously one
can—and many do—examine the prominence of the genocide in diasporan identity
without fostering doubts about the historical facts themselves. See, for
example, Anny Bakalian, Armenian-Americans: From Being to Feeling Armenian (New
Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1993).
34. “Patterns of Denial,” p. 131.
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About the Author
Marc Mamigonian
Website
Marc A. Mamigonian is the Director of Academic Affairs of
the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR). He is the
editor of the publications Rethinking Armenian Studies (2003) and The Armenians
of New England (2004) and is the author or co-author of several scholarly
articles on the writings of James Joyce.
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Reply
Dave
June 4, 2012
Turkey lies about the Genocide, true. What we must not
forget, too, is that Turkey lies about everything.
That is, its policies, domestic and foreign, are all lies
too.
When Turkey says, for example, that if the Artsakh issue
is settled it will open its border with Armenia, how do we know this is true?
What I am pointing to is a particular propensity to lie.
Yes, all states lie, but Turkey lies more, and is more inclined to violent,
inhumane behavior.
This is the culture of the Turkish state.
Reply
A. Maranci
June 4, 2012
This is by far the best account I have read about the use
of loaded words to convey an impression of “fairness” in reporting while in
fact casting doubt on historical truth and replacing it with “uncertainties”.
Mr. Mamigonian’s analysis is sharp and his logic impeccable. Should be required
reading for all especially Mr. Grove.
Reply
Richard
June 4, 2012
Armenians are concentrating too much around 1915 . It is
time to write about
our history before christianity ,during the time of
Tigrane the great or the time
of the greatnest of Ani or even the cilician kingdom of
Armenia and dispers it to
the Odars. Armenians have a number of movie produces
now.They should start
making movies about those great days of the armenian
empire.This will show to the world that armenians didn t just exist only during
the Ottoman Empire.
It is our fault also because we never talk or have
programs to show to the world that Armenia existed and was a greater power even
before chistianity.
It is like we have been stuck in 1915 and Armenians never
existed before.
Lets spread out our history to the time of greater days
in the past centuries.
jda
June 4, 2012
Richard,
Perhaps unwittingly, you serve the Turkish policy of
denial by implying that to study the Genocide and demand justice, Armenians are
somehow ignoring the culture.
I am sure that Ankara and its moneyed friends here would
be giddy at the prospect of endowing Chairs of Armenian culture worldwide on
the proviso that Genocide was never mentioned and the geography of Armenia was
left off the sylabus.
Or perhaps we can go a step further to imagine even the
Ergun Kirlikovali Institute, dedicated to establishing that Seljuks and
Ottomans established a Golden Age for Armenia, something he and his ilk have
said in print. All sounds like something Robert Livingstone, Richard Gephardt
and Richard Armitage could all support with help from Chevron, Sikorsky and
Boeing. All in the name of Brotherhood.
Both of these related subjects are worthy of study, by a
proud proclamation to the world of one, and the insistent denunciation to the
same audience of the other.
Hitler wanted to build a great museum about the Jews and
their culture in Berlin when the last Jew was dead. Let’s not make Armenian
culture the enemy of Genocide recognition and justice. Our enemies can misuse
our culture to deny their continuing efforts to kill the people who made
thatculture.
Richard, you say Armenians concentate ‘too much” on 1915
[through 1923 and beyond]. Which efforts for recognition and justice do you
think are excessive? How do they detract from promoting and preserving
traditional or older culture, a subject that all ethnicities and nations seem
now to ignore as against the world uni-culture of celebrity, consumerism, and
consumption?
Reply
john the turk
June 4, 2012
if you want turkey to stop calling it “the so-called
armenian genocide”,start a campaign
for a proper trial by icj rather than political campaign
for recognition
can you do it? i do not think so
why you can not do it?ask hovannisian he knows the answer
he he he he he
jda
June 4, 2012
“John” the Turk,
Let’s take your question and elaborate.
If some court [again] found the intentional state murder
of Armenians to have occurred, or better yet, that it is a an ongoing process
which commenced in the 1870′s, what will you do to support enforcement of a
decree that it happened, and that historic Armenian lands and wealth be
returned with interest?
Until you are ready to declare with a majority of your
countrymen that you will gladly accept the jurisdiction of the court, and the
speedy enforcement of its decrees, why should we bother to litigate something
everyone except some Turks deny and American defense contractors publically
avoid?
Reply
ragnar naess
June 4, 2012
I am one of the persons who according to many who comment
on these pages substitutes “doubt” for straightforward denial. Boyajian who
frequently makes comments on these pages once asked me – if I remember
correctly – whether I am not sure that I am delaying justice. As a “doubter” I
will be expected to answer “I am not sure” and this of course be an important
part of my answer. How could I be sure? – - – I was in Erzurum in the beginning
of May at what was called “1. uluslararasi türk-Ermeni iliskileri ve büyük
gücler sempozioumu” – “The first international Symposium in Turkish-Armenian
relations and th Great Powers” and delivered a paper with the title
“Convictions and documentation in the Armenian issue”. I ended by suggesting
that Turks and Turkey apologize to Armenians for the role of the CUP in the
fate of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915. – - – I like Mamigonian’s paper because
it captures an important aspect of what Turkish official policies on the
Armenian Genocide has been, and still is. —- To all those who have argued
against me in the AW earlier, I will say that I have not changed my views
except hopefully regarding more through knowledge. However, I have some
comments and will try to ask my old questions in a new and hopefully better
way.
Mamigonian starts in the following way:
It has long been clear—at least since 1950 and the
publication of Esat Uras’ Tarihte Ermeniler ve Ermeni Meselesi,2 though, in
fact, probably since 1915 itself3—that the Turkish state, with its allies and
hirelings,4has sought to construct an alternative history in which, at various
times, the Armenians have either not existed, or existed only as a tool of
Western imperialist powers threatening the integrity of Turkey or the Ottoman
Empire; a history in which the Armenian Genocide cannot be named independent of
the words “alleged” or “so-called.” In this sense, the writing of history has
served as a continuation of the genocidal process.Unquote
comment: First I believe attempts to create alternative
histories are not something exceptional. One obvious example is how nationalist
discourses, backed by strong interests, produce a world-view which may depart
more or less completely from what sober-minded and hard working historians
hold. For several hundred years the US lived on a myth of the “land and the
people” in which the fact that the lands largely were stolen was suppressed
because it was not part of the official history. In Norway it gradually dawned
upon us in the 1960-ies that until some 300 years ago roughly 30% of our present
territory was peopled by the Sami people, who never expressed any wish to be
incorporated in Norway, which at that time was a part of Denmark, by the way.—
I agree 100 percent on what Mamigonian says about the
1916 publication on the “Armenian aspirations and activities”, published in
Istanbul. However, there is something in Mamigonian’s script that reminds me of
the distinction between “rational” and “magic” use of words. Mamigonian starts
by indirectly referring to the genocide as an established fact. This is his
right and the conviction of a great many historians (allthough I counted some
40 university based scholars who doubt or deny), and quite a number of
countries have passed resolutions to this effect, but they are still in a
minory. So where do we go from here? My answer is that we have to argue, and
argue in detail. But I cannot find anything about the need to argue in
Mamigonian’s article. In a way he deals with diagnosis of a situation. Now
psychologists can make diagnoses if the patient is willing, but Turkey is not
willing to accept the diagnosis. And has the power to reject it. So what de we
do then? But how? – - I will try to comment on Mamigonian’s – in many ways –
excellent article, but first point out that there may be a lot of force in rightly
put questions. As part of my presentation in Erzurum I noted that the book of
Kemal Cicek, who is now more or less the official voice of Turkish official
historiography – it has been published in Turkish and in German, and will soon
appear in English – neglects to comment extensively on Kevorkian’s book from
2006, in which according to my counting some 200 different instances of
massacre are described, and not only that, in some 80% of these definite place
names are given and even names of perpetrators. How can a historiography which
does not account for this – or at least discuss it – be taken seriously? This
is one of the things I said. Or should I have said something like “The Genocide
is a fact, and it is an established truth, and go an read the relevant books
and listen to the historians if you doubt it”. A contribution like the latter
would have been an example of magical use of words. And I am afraid that
Mamigonian – by not suggesting that one of the answers to this predicament of a
denialist Turkey is that one should argue – means that Mamigonian used a kind
of magical language. A kind of “second Tlön”?
jda
June 4, 2012
Is there a Norwegian word for brevity?
On second thought, there’s not much reason to believe you
would know.
Never mind.
Boyajian
June 4, 2012
Your point, Mr. Naess? Any clarity you hoped to impart
has been lost on me.
Where are the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians of Asia
Minor? What magical language explains their absence?
Reply
Alice
June 4, 2012
If the world’s leading scholar on genocide, William
Shabas (who was also the past president of IAGS), has questioned the
appropriateness of labeling the events of 1915 as genocide, then my ‘truth
telling impulse’ tells me that the term ‘genocide’ must, indeed, be accompanied
by quotations.
Gina
June 4, 2012
Alice,
I am afraid, you are either deliberately falsifying what
Schabas (not Shabas) has said about the Armenian Genocide or have been unable
to comprehend what he has actually said.
According to Schabas, the term “genocide” is very loaded
and should not be applied to every atrocity. The only events in recent history
that qualify for the term “genocide” in strict legal sense, he argues, are the
Armenian Genocide, the Jewish and Gypsy Holocaust, and the Rwandan Genocide.
He stated it as clearly as one possibly could. I am not
sure what it is that confuses you so. Or should I say, Alice, don’t twist
Schabas’ words?
jda
June 4, 2012
“Alice,”
Your fastidious refusal to go further than Dr. Schabas is
admirable as a general matter, but I think we can relieve you of doubt because
the statement you attribute to him was made by someone else, such as maybe
Chevron or Richard Gephardt.
I find Dr. Schabas expressed no doubt as to whether the
“events of 1915″ [the official Turkish euphemism for murder, rape, theft,
bayoneting children, destruction, burning civilians alive in Churches and barns
- you getthe idea] were Genocide, see also from Wikipedia:
“Schabas argues that the legal term “genocide” is a
loaded one that should not be used to describe every atrocity involving mass
killings. In the strict legal sense, the only true “genocides” in recent
history, he argues, were the Armenian Genocide, the Jewish and Gypsy Holocaust,
and the Rwandan Genocide. Thus his book, Genocide in International Law: The
Crimes of Crimes (Cambridge University Press, 2d ed., 2009), supports the view
that Stalin’s atrocities in the Ukraine, the killings of Slav and Soviet
citizens under the Nazi occupation, and the Holodomor were not, legally,
genocide.[4] The same book treats the Bosnian atrocities as ethnic cleansing
and not as genocide, in contrast to the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which
ruled the crimes committed in Srebrenica to constitute genocide.[5] However, it
criticizes the United Nations General Assembly for recognizing ethnic cleansing
as genocide.”
Can you cite us a reference?
If not, are you ready to declare the Genocide a Genocide,
rather than some vague, passive voice and obscene formulation Ankara and its PR
specialists so love in the place of truth?
By the way, nice name-selection. Very American-sounding.
A few decades late, though.I suggest “Caitlin” for your future efforts.
Boyajian
June 4, 2012
Wow Alice, this is unbelievable. You are either
misinformed or intentionally misleading others. Schabas clearly affirmed the
Armenian Genocide as an atrocity which qualifies to be labeled as such. A
simple wikipedia check will help you correct your ‘error.’
Reply
Sabrine
June 4, 2012
PROOF OF A SYSTEMATIC ATTEMPT TO DESTROY THE ARMENIANS:
Let us turn to AKCAM whom the author extensively refers
to.
The “clearest expression” that the Armenians were
subjected to genocide is the following quote- according to AKCAM: “The Armenian
issue pertaining to the Eastern provinces has been solved. Therefore, there is
no need to harm the reputation of our nation and government by conducting
unnecessary cruelties”.
The quote continues with the Minister of Interior, Talaat
Pasha, expressing the following: “at places where the protection of Armenians
could not be provided for, their transfer should be postponed.”
How can this be deemed as clear evidence of the existence
of a genocidal intention? Does this not show that what is presented as
‘evidence’ to substantiate the claim of genocide is highly questionable- to say
the least?
Reply
Karekin
June 4, 2012
This is a great piece. Thank you, Mr. Mamigonian. Of
course, we have all noticed that those who continually question the veracity of
the Armenian genocide, or use code language to avoid it or otherwise discount
it are always connected to the Turkish PR apparatus in some way. Whether it’s
individuals or states, it’s clear they have been co-opted, their judgements
based on dishonest scholarship and their loudest cheerleaders are always
sitting in Ankara. They are puppets and the puppet masters are linked to the
Turkish government.
While many of us have noticed this, it’s gratifying to
see these lies exposed so clearly in black and white. The question remains…why
would any intelligent person, Turkish or otherwise, still support such an
anti-intellectual and dishonest campaign? It is something of a mystery. The
world has effectively neutralized Germans for Hitler or Italians for Mussolini,
but when will Turks finally abandon their love of fascism and Ataturk, along
with all the lies he espoused?
Worse, those who buy into the lies always overlook the
fact that 4000+ years of Armenian presence in Asia Minor was effectively brought
to an end by the Young Turks and their successors. The proof is in the pudding,
and this pudding has no Armenians left in it.
The evidence that reveals the genocide most clearly – the
almost complete disappearance of the Armenians from their own historic lands –
could not be more obvious…but when will the liars notice this salient fact, or
are they also blind? Of course, they either pretend to be blind or choose to be
blind, but we cannot excuse this kind of self-imposed handicap or sympathize
with it, because it too is a lie….it is a chosen condition, not an accident of
birth or trauma, that allows these characters to reap great benefits from the
Turkish state. We, who have been written out of history books by dishonest
‘historians’, cannot be so blind about something so obvious…even a blind person
can see it.
Reply
john the turk
June 4, 2012
Jda
First of all, If you do not need a Turkish recognition,
why you Armenians complain and moan about the Turkish denial everyday?
If the court delivers a verdict in your favour then the
Turkish denial will stop. I do not think that the court is in a position to
talk about financial compensation let alone mention about returning a historic
Armenian land.But I will definitely support a financial compensation, If the
verdict finds an intention of the extermination policy as we are honorable
people to honor the findings
Reply
Karekin
June 4, 2012
The court already delivered a guilty verdict, and it was
an Ottoman court, in 1919. On top of that, the key leaders of the CUP – the
architects of the genocide – fled Turkey like rats jumping ship, and got their
just desserts shortly after. Morever, the International Association of Genocide
Scholars..the most celebrated academic organizatioin on the subject, has also
issued a decision. Why are these facts routinely ignored? The fact is, outside
of the Turkish bubble….truth and honesty prevail, but inside that
bubble….there’s alot of hot air and lies, but not much more. Turkey has not
learned that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of
the people all of the time…especially outside of Turkey.
Dave-us
June 5, 2012
It’s a deep and very complex piece of writing. Well done
Mr Mamigonian.
Karekin, you forgot to mention that after the criminal
CUP “fled Turkey like rats jumping ship”, they were condemned to death by the
Turks themselves. This is the part that’s difficult to understand. The Turks
could have easily denounced these “leaders”, like Italy and Germany did after
WWII. That was their “ticket” back to civilization and respect. Instead, they
slowly allowed individuals who shared the same bankrupt and immoral ideology to
re-instate themselves in their Govt. to re-perpetuate its lies, retarding its
democratic development and prestige in the World, reducing its citizens to
hostages of their own lies.
They even went as far as exhuming these condemned
traitors in Europe and mockingly entombing them with honor in a place called
“liberty Hill”. In a sense, the young Turks simply became very old ones.
Imagine the Germans erecting a monument to
Goebbels,Himmler and Eichmann.
“Alice and John”, if you’re uncomfortable with using the
word genocide, as far as I’m concerned, “mass-murder” will suffice. There are
no statute of limitations to either heinous crime.
Reply
Arshag
June 4, 2012
Alice
Could you please calarify where you got your totally
misleading information from?
Already back in 2005 The International Association of
Genocide Scholars has sent a unanimously approved letter at its Sixth biennal
meeting to Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan in response his call for “an impartial
study by historians’ concerning the fate of the Armenian people in the Ottoman
Empire during World War I”.
This is the text of the letter:
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS
President: Robert Melson (USA)
Vice-President: Israel Charny (Israel)
Secretary-Treasurer: Steven Jacobs (USA)
Respond to: Robert Melson, Professor of Political Science
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 USA
April 6, 2005
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
TC Easbakanlik
Bakanlikir
Ankara, Turkey
FAX: 90 312 417 0476
Dear Prime Minister Erdogan:
We are writing you this open letter in response to your
call for an
`impartial study by historians’ concerning the fate ofthe
Armenian
people in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
We represent the major body of scholars who study
genocide in North
America and Europe. We are concerned that in calling for
an impartial
study of the Armenian Genocide you may not be fully aware
of the
extent of the scholarly and intellectual record on the
Armenian
Genocide and how this event conforms to the definition of
the United
Nations Genocide Convention. We want to underscore that
it is not
just Armenians who are affirming the Armenian Genocide
but it is the
overwhelming opinion of scholars who study genocide:
hundreds of
independent scholars, who have no affiliations with governments,
and
whose work spans many countries and nationalities and the
course of
decades. The scholarly evidence reveals the following:
On April 24, 1915, under cover of World War I, the Young
Turk
government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide
of its
Armenian citizens – an unarmed Christian minority
population. Morethan
a million Armenians were exterminated through direct
killing,
starvation, torture, and forced death marches. The rest
of the
Armenian population fled into permanent exile. Thus an
ancient
civilization was expunged from its homeland of 2,500
years.
The Armenian Genocide was the most well-known human
rights issue of
its time and was reported regularly in newspapers across
the United
States and Europe. The Armenian Genocide is abundantly
documented by
thousands of official records of the United States and
nations around
the world including Turkey’s wartime allies Germany,
Austria and
Hungary, by Ottoman court-martial records, by eyewitness
accounts of
missionaries and diplomats, by the testimony of
survivors, and by
decades of historical scholarship.
The Armenian Genocide is corroborated by the
international scholarly,
legal, and human rights community:
1) Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, when he coined the term
genocide in 1944, cited the Turkish extermination of the
Armenians and
the Nazi extermination of the Jews as defining examples
of what he
meant by genocide.
2) The killings of the Armenians is genocide as defined
by the 1948
United Nations Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide.
3) In 1997 the International Association of Genocide
Scholars, an
organization of the world’s foremost experts on genocide,
unanimously
passed a formal resolution affirming the Armenian
Genocide.
4) 126 leading scholars of the Holocaust including Elie
Wiesel and
Yehuda Bauer placed a statement in the New York Times in
June 2000
declaring the `incontestable fact of the Armenian
Genocide’ and urging
western democracies to acknowledge it.
5) The Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide
(Jerusalem), and the
Institute for the Study of Genocide (NYC) have affirmed
the historical
fact of the Armenian Genocide. 6) Leading texts in the
international
law of genocide such as William A. Schabas’s Genocide in
International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2000) cite
the Armenian
Genocide as a precursor to the Holocaust and as a
precedent for the
law on crimes against humanity.
We note that there may be differing interpretations of
genocide-how
and why the Armenian Genocide happened, but to deny its
factual and
moral reality as genocide is not to engage in scholarship
but in
propaganda and efforts to absolve the perpetrator, blame
the victims,
and erase the ethical meaning of this history.
We would also note that scholars who advise your
government and who
are affiliated in other ways with your state-controlled
institutions
are not impartial. Such so-called `scholars’work to serve
the agenda
of historical and moral obfuscation when they advise you
and the
Turkish Parliament on how to deny the Armenian Genocide.
In preventing
a conference on the Armenian Genocide from taking place
at Bogacizi
University in Istanbul on May 25, your government
revealed its
aversion to academic and intellectual freedom-a
fundamental condition
of democratic society.
We believe that it is clearly in the interest of the
Turkish people
and their future as a proud and equal participants in
international,
democratic discourse to acknowledge the responsibility of
a previous
government for the genocide of the Armenian people, just
as the German
government and people have done in the case of the
Holocaust.
Sincerely,
[signed]
Robert Melson Professor of Political Science
President, International Association of Genocide Scholars
[signed]
Israel Charny
Vice President, International Association of Genocide
Scholars
Editor in Chief, Encyclopedia of Genocide
[signed]
Peter Balakian
Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities
Colgate University
http://www.anca.org/press_releases/press_releases.php?prid=747
Reply
Sylva-MD-Poetry
June 4, 2012
Forget about the genocide and let us concentrate on new
Armenian generation
who live in Turkey and they are turkified There are two
million Armenians
Turkified Turkified Tirkified
Let them open their mouth and speak They are scared that
they will ruin their children’s future… Only some can tell to their Armenian
friends, “we are Armenian in origin…”
This is freedom civilized state called Turkey… In Arabic
they called Tattarruk= Turkification … the word should enter Oxford Dictionary
soon…
Let us concentrate on those people to return to their
identity…!
Is the massage clear… or you need as well historian…!
Reply
ragnar naess
June 4, 2012
A relevant article by Schabas is found in Middle East
Critique, 2011, 20:3, pages 243-269. Title :”Crimes against humanity as a
paradigm for International Atrocity crimes”.
He confirmes that the view that the fate of Armenians in
1915 qualifies as genocide is controvercial. I cite: Use of the label
‘genocide’ to describe the suffering visited upon the Armenians in 1915 remains
a matter of controversy.Unquote.—A central part of his texst is the following:
This article starts from the premise that it may be
helpful and constructive to examine the relevant historical events through the
lens of crimes against humanity. For reasons that are difficult to comprehend
fully, the concept of crimes against humanity seems to lack the unmatched
rhetorical power of genocide. In discussions about whether to qualify certain
acts as crimes against humanity or genocide, one frequently hears reference to
‘mere
crimes against humanity’ or ‘only crimes against
humanity.’ When former United States President Jimmy Carter described
atrocities in Darfur as crimes against humanity rather than genocide, following
an October 2007 visit to the region, he was excoriated by American bloggers and
conservative websites.Yet crimes against humanity belong squarely within the
catalogue of international atrocity crimes where, indeed, their place is
probably more central to the entire exercise than that of genocide. The Nazis
were prosecuted for crimes against humanity rather than genocide, a fact that
suggests there is nothing trivializing about using the former term rather than
the latter. Unquote. —– He also says the following:
But in the context of the Armenian atrocities, and many
other situations where the term genocide is at issue, the epithet of ‘denier’
often is employed not with respect to what actually happened but rather about
the legal qualification of the events. Accordingly, commentators may be branded
as deniers when they disagree about whether or not the term genocide correctly
applies to
facts about which there is broad consensus. Of course, it
is impossible to untangle entirely issues of fact and of law. However, the
increasing readiness to dismiss any discussion about the appropriateness of the
term genocide makes serious scholarly discourse more difficult Unquote.—–The
article concludes in the following way:
The real argument is about reaching some common
understanding of historical events. Much of the debate centers upon a
description of the events. However, matters of law also are involved, to the
extent that they characterize not only the extent of the atrocities but also
the intent or policy that lay behind them. The modest suggestion in this
article is that it may be easier to agree upon the term crimes against humanity
than to admit to genocide, and that this may open a pathway to a shared
narrative.unquote.—– I have the greatest respect for William Schabas, but I
have difficultiers in following his reasoning. The “need for common
understanding” is no argument not to pursue the question of whether genocide
was committed in 1915 or not, according to the definition and the precedents
given by the verdicts and legal opinions emerging since the late 1990-ies. To argue
from the premise of a “need for common understanding” further sounds like
proposing a hollow compromise. This of course is unacceptable.
It is also to my mind next to ridiculous to hold that
“the increasing readyness to dismiss any discussion about the appropriateness
of the term genocide makes serious scholarly discourse more difficult”.
Scholars should to do their work according to their skills and moral
conscience, whether this is “difficult” or not. Period
Reply
Boyajian
June 4, 2012
Ragnar, surely you realize that when Schabas states: “Use
of the label ‘genocide’ to describe the suffering visited upon the Armenians in
1915 remains a matter of controversy” he is simply stating the obvious; that
controversy exists over the use of the term, NOT that Schabas himself thinks
that the use of the term should be in doubt. Schabas has the commendable
(however misguided) motivation of trying to find terminology that leads to a
shared narrative and eventually to a resolution of the Armenian-Turkish
conflict.
While this may sound reasonable, Marc Mamigonian has an
astute response to Schabas’ suggestion:
From the ISG newsletter #47 Spring 2012 Issue:
“Mislabeling and Demeaning the Armenian Genocide” by Marc Mamigonian, Page 8:
“In the Middle East Critique article, however, Schabas
concludes with the “modest suggestion … that it may be easier to agree upon the
term crimes against humanity than to admit to genocide, and that this may open
a pathway to a shared narrative.”
Reading [Scheffer] and Schabas, one might get the idea
that the goal of scholarship is a “shared narrative” that is agreeable to
perpetrator and victim, denier and denied. After all, what doth it profit a man
if he stand for truth and truth stand in the way of creating a shared
narrative?”
It appears that you agree with Mamigonian and against a
‘hollow compromise’ that basically compromises the truth. But the act of
ignoring already established history and pursuing ‘the truth’ as if it hasn’t
already been established multiple times, is tantamount to compromising the
truth 2.
Can you be sure you have not been duped by the denial
camp into thinking there is real doubt about history just because they use
‘magical’ doubt language?
Reply
Karekin
June 4, 2012
Thank you to Arshag for posting the facts.
Reply
Darwin Jamgochian
June 5, 2012
Only 21 of 193 United Nations states have stood up to
recognize the Armenian Genocide. The latest country to step forward did so more
that 5 years ago. Countries of particular note in absention include the
democracies of the United States, United Kingdom and Israel.
Reply john the turk
June 5, 2012
Karekin
You are wrong .1919 trials were held under the Allies
occupation and the CUP Leaders caused hundred of thousand of death of the
Allies soldiers only a few years ago in Gallipoli before they finally occupied
Istanbul.
Reply
gregg dourgarian
June 5, 2012
Brilliant, funny column, Marc. Thanks.
Reply
Karekin
June 5, 2012
The essence of the problem is that the CUP, like the Nazi
party later on in Germany, was made up of greedy, murderous racists and thieves
who thought that murdering one select group of productive people and stealing
everything they created for Turkey, would somehow be a good thing. They were
wrong! But, unlike the Germans who finally saw the error of their ways, Turks
today have a very tough time criticizing the nutcases who drank blood for
breakfast. There is no introspection in Turkey and no self-criticism at all,
and that’s the major sign that Turkey and Turks have not joined the modern
world. Look in the mirror in an honest way, instead of repeating lies like
parrots. That’s the only way to get past this and to move forward.
Reply
Yvonne
June 5, 2012
It is peculiar for an academician such as Mamigonian to
decry that something is called controversial. Of course the genocide question
is controversial — Armenian terrorists have assassinated diplomats around the
world, including on US soil, to prove their point. If the whole story of this
historical episode is to be known, then researchers should not be derided for
starting from the standpoint that the history of the Armenian question, insofar
as the allegation of genocide is concerned, is equivocal. If one looks at the
Holocaust from this standpoint, each and every time the evidence will point to
the genocide of the Jews of Europe by the Nazi regime. One will not find the
same on the Armenian question, I would wager.
Reply
john the turk
June 5, 2012
Karekin
I have yet to meet a Turk who thinks that the CUP was a
party like the Nazi Party. It was a long time ago that Turks were accepted into
the modern world. I live in Europe and Turks in general are well respected
people in this country. I can only hope that you revisit your resources of your
belief. Just to remind you that Talat Pasha was considered the best man in the
government by Armenians in 1913 and they feared that he may leave his post. An
Armenian occupied the foreign ministry post in 1913 when the CUP was in power.
can you imagine that a Jew could have occupied the FM post during the Hitler
era? I can understand the Armenians frustration because they were uprooted from
their homeland But it is not black and white and the CUP party wasn’t a Nazi like
party
Reply
ragnar naess
June 5, 2012
karekin
there is some introspection in Turkey, in the emerging
civil society, and even in the governments who have made some moves in the
right direction in the last 20 years or so.
Boyajian
I am not sure how to interpret Schabas’ intention in this
article. But when he advocates the use of the term “crime against humanity”
regarding the Armenian fate, and warns against the present use of the term
“genocide”, must one not conclude that “Schabas himself thinks that the use of
the term should be in doubt”? Or is it your point that he thinks that a more
proper use of the term “genocide” might be warranted, but not the use we see
today? — As I said I believe I disagree with him because it is not obviously
right to change terms in order to create some compromise. This is how he
sounds. More expanations are needed if his proposal to skip the term genocide
evnentually is to be accepted. However, I am of course also critical of the way
the term is used by genocide scholars and those who campaign for the rights of
Armenians,as I have said many times before.— It is clear that Schabas has
changed his mind. In the book “Genocide in international law” he obviously
thought that the fate of the Ottoman Armenians qualified as genocide according
to international law.
Boyajian
June 5, 2012
It is NOT clear that Schabas has changed his mind about
the appropriateness of the term genocide when applied to Armenian suffering in
1915. It is only clear that he acknowledges the controversy that the use of the
term generates and that he proposes using the term crimes against humanity in
order to promote a more neutral base from which to create a “shared narrative”.
Reply
tanya
June 5, 2012
” Each time an “objective, neutral” outlet uncritically
passes along the Turkish state’s historical fictions, the world is that much
closer to becoming Tlön.”
Or is it the other way around? “Why” are “objective,
neutral” sources stooping to the level of intellectual inferiority you so
incisively demonstrate? Are they (are we) already in a larger Tlon?
Reply
Shahan Natalie
June 5, 2012
@Boyajian
Schabas quite clearly changed sides! Check this foto on
Prof. Cicek´s Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150717582343522&set=a.125936918521.104615.637473521&type=1
We all know that Ragnar, Schabas etc. are working for the
Turks. But I really can´t understand why they support Ragnar? He only tries to
confuse us and to spread doubt. Turks are too intelligent and I think that they
still have a black horse. Ragnar is a sort of cover for their masterplan.
Shahan
Reply
Karekin
June 5, 2012
If there is any honest introspection in Turkish society
about their own history, it is quite limited to a very narrow strata and
doesn’t reach the level of those in government. Let’s not forget, that very
government still has a law on the books that allows them to prosecute those who
cross the line. Yes, it’s being applied selectively, but the law remains in
force. If Turkey truly aspires to be part of the 21st century, to be European
and democratic, they need to start by cleansing themselves of such Kafkaesque
features as 301. Such laws have no place except in a fascist environment that
wants to exercise mind control of its citizens and prevent them from discussing
things openly and honestly. Correcting such things is all within Turkey’s
control, yet they don’t act. So, let’s not pretend that Turkey is ready for
anything on the genocide front, other than reforming itself.
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