The participation of a number of Armenian studies and
genocide studies scholars in “The Caucasus at the Imperial Twilight” conference
in Tbilisi, Georgia, organized by Prof. M. Hakan Yavuz of the University of
Utah and sponsored by the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA), has generated
great controversy in the diaspora as well as in Armenia over the enabling of
genocide denial. The individual and organization at the heart of this
conference have, for much of the past decade, been actively engaged in efforts
to extend the denial of the Armenian Genocide into academia as well as in the
political realm in North America.
***
[The] willingness to ascribe to the deniers and their
myths the legitimacy
of a point of view is of as great, if not greater, concern
than are the activities of the deniers themselves.
—Deborah Lipstadt
WATERTOWN, Mass.
(A.W.)— The participation of a number of Armenian studies and genocide studies
scholars in “The Caucasus at the Imperial Twilight” conference in Tbilisi,
Georgia, organized by Prof. M. Hakan Yavuz of the University of Utah and
sponsored by the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA), has generated great
controversy in the diaspora as well as in Armenia over the enabling of genocide
denial.
The individual and organization at the heart of this
conference have, for much of the past decade, been actively engaged in efforts
to extend the denial of the Armenian Genocide into academia as well as in the
political realm in North America.
Since 2009, the TCA, which was established in 2007, has
pumped at least $900,000 into the Yavuz-directed Utah Turkish Studies Project
as a continuation of the decades-long campaign to deny, diminish, or otherwise
distort the history of the genocide. Denial within academia has reached new
heights through the publication of genocide-denying books by the Utah
University Press and other outlets, as well as the organization of four
(2010-13) conferences, including the most recent in Tbilisi.
The TCA has also lobbied aggressively to block
recognition of the Armenian Genocide and has engaged in legal actions against,
most notoriously, the University of Minnesota and its Center for Holocaust and
Genocide Studies (CHGS). The suit alleged defamation because the CHGS website
had identified the TCA as an “unreliable” source on the Armenian Genocide that
engaged in genocide denial. The suit was dismissed and the dismissal upheld,
with the decision stating that “the Center’s statement about the TCA is true and,
therefore, not actionable.” In addition, in 2011 the U.S. House of
Representatives Ethics Committee ruled that the TCA had provided some $500,000
in improper gifts in the form of legal counsel to now-former Ohio
Representative Jean Schmidt.
A key element of the TCA’s mission is to normalize the
presentation of denial of the Armenian Genocide within academia. This approach
seeks to establish the Turkish state’s denialist narrative as a legitimate
historical viewpoint, as just another scholarly “perspective.” In order to
succeed, however, they need legitimate scholars to function as “the other
side.”
By participating in the Tbilisi conference, scholars,
whether intentionally or not, are providing that “other side” of the “debate”
over the Armenian Genocide, according to several prominent scholars contacted
by the Armenian Weekly.
Prof. Richard Hovannisian
“I learned a long time ago that providing a platform for
deniers, under any guise, is a serious mistake because it affords them a claim
to legitimacy. It is no less harmful to the cause of serious scholarship to
participate in a conference organized and sponsored by a deceptive university
professor and an organization that has repeatedly supported the publication of
denial literature and initiated legal proceedings against institutions that
exclude denial materials from their programs,” said Prof. Richard Hovannisian,
the former holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern
Armenian History at UCLA.
“No matter how well intended it may be, participation in
such a conference confers on those behind it an unmerited status as partners in
a scholarly dialogue when, I believe, the real purpose is to create doubt and
undermine honest scholarly investigation,” he added.
Prof. Roger Smith
Prof. Roger Smith, a founding member of the International
Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) and a former president of the
association, concurred. “Invitations to conferences such as the one organized
by Hakan Yavuz of the University of Utah, a university that has numerous
graduate students who are churning out denial of the Armenian Genocide, are
simply lures and traps,” he said. “Lures in the sense that it gives the
appearance of welcoming dissenting views and appears to offer an opportunity to
refute the narrative upheld by ‘historians who hold other views of what took
place in 1915.’ It suggests a debate and an assessment of the evidence: a
normal process in scholarly inquiry. Some scholars may, not unreasonably, jump
at the bait, and hope to dislodge the claims of those who argue that the
genocide never took place, that the Young Turk regime is not responsible for
whatever happened, and that, in any case, the term ‘genocide’ is not applicable
for a variety of reasons. But the trap is when such well-known, non-denialist
scholars participate in such conferences, they inescapably offer legitimacy to
the whole conference, to its framework. And that is precisely what the
organizers seek: the appearance of legitimacy for bogus history,” he said.
Marc Mamigonian
Marc Mamigonian, the director of Academic Affairs of the
National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), said, “Deniers
have already hijacked the discussion of the Armenian Genocide to an unhealthy
extent through their efforts to manufacture doubt about established historical
facts. Participating in forums organized and funded by individuals and entities
who promote the Turkish state’s denial of the Armenian Genocide only
contributes to the myth of a scholarly debate.
This also undermines scholars who strive to create honest scholarship in
the face of denial and intimidation. Denial—even if it carries a university
imprint—must not be legitimized and granted a place at the same table as
scholarship, because it does not belong there.”
Prof. Keith Watenpaugh
Prof. Keith Watenpaugh, an associate professor of Modern
Islam, Human Rights and Peace at UC Davis, said, “The Turkish Studies Project
(TSP) at the University of Utah, which is the sponsor of this conference, is
funded by the Turkish Coalition of America. As a federal judge recently ruled,
the TCA is a denialist organization. It uses its money and relationship with
the University of Utah to support Armenian Genocide denial through publications
and through conferences like the one in Tbilisi. Given the genocide denial
framework established by the TSP and its director, the political scientist M.
Hakan Yavuz, the participation by scholars—Armenian or otherwise—cannot help
but lend legitimacy to its broader denialist enterprise. I would not
participate in something like this. I am reluctant to criticize the few
Armenian scholars who did participate, because I stand in solidarity with all
those who resist denial and its corrosive effects, even if I don’t agree with
the way they go about doing it.”
Watenpaugh added, “Instead we should be asking questions
about the continued relationship between the University of Utah and the TCA. It
is hard for me to understand why an important American research university
would lend its good name to a political organization that seeks to violate
academic freedom by, for example, bringing suit against the Center for
Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, and by promoting
the falsification of history through its grants and political advocacy. The
real issue here is the fact that the University of Utah has provided an
institutional home to genocide denial.”
“Armenians and others should be confident that there are
more and better venues of interchange between Turks and Armenians in which
elements of their shared past can be examined honestly and in a framework of
legitimate historical enquiry. In fact, scholarship on late-Ottoman Armenian
society and history is one of the most vital fields of history today, and the
Armenian Genocide is firmly established in the global history of human rights
and genocide studies,” Watenpaugh concluded.
Prof. Debórah Dwork
In turn, Prof. Debórah Dwork, the director of the
Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University, told
the Armenian Weekly that “there is no reason—none!—to engage genocide deniers,
whether they are deniers of the Armenian Genocide or of the Holocaust, or of
any other genocide.” She explained, “A conference or debate offers them an
arena to make their arguments. Why would I offer them such an arena? Speaking
to them, or arguing with them elevates them to the status of legitimate
scholars, and their positions to the status of legitimate history. We are not
equals and there aren’t two legitimate, equally historically valid ‘sides.’”
According to Dwork, “engaging with deniers allows them to
set the issues to be discussed; it allows them to hijack the historical
account. Why should I talk about the points they wish to raise? And please,
would someone tell me why I should I waste my time refuting their arguments?
Time is the coin of the scholarly realm, and if we spend it on deniers, we are
not moving our research forward.” She concluded, “Engaging with deniers thus
undermines history thrice over: It offers them a platform; it confers
legitimacy upon them, and it diverts scholars from their own research which, of
course, plumbs precisely the genocide the deniers refute.”
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