tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/armenian-genocide-8087/articlesArmenian genocide – The Conversation2023-04-24T16:07:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2023112023-04-24T16:07:41Z2023-04-24T16:07:41ZGenocide resisters, long overlooked by history, step into the spotlight<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522625/original/file-20230424-26-lc5hws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C7%2C5187%2C3176&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A minaret from which Turks fired upon Christians in 1909 in Adana stands amid the town's ruins.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2014696599">Bain News Service via Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The anniversary of the <a href="https://www.armenian-genocide.org/">Armenian Genocide</a> is marked every year on April 24. That was the date in 1915 when hundreds of Armenian community leaders were arrested by the government of the Ottoman Empire in the capital Constantinople, now known as Istanbul.</p>
<p>At the time, Armenians lived throughout what is modern-day Turkey. <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674251434">Modern scholars estimate</a> up to <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/armenian-genocide-9780857719300/">1.5 million Armenians were killed</a> by the Turkish government, and around 800,000 to 1.2 million were deported during World War I. Most ended up in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Russia, Europe and the Americas. <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691147307/they-can-live-in-the-desert-but-nowhere-else">During that period</a>, Greek, Assyrian and Yezidi communities were also massacred and forced to flee into exile.</p>
<p>April is also <a href="https://sfi.usc.edu/genocide-awareness-month">Genocide Awareness Month</a>. Holocaust Remembrance Day takes place this month every year, as do commemorations for genocides in Cambodia, Iraqi Kurdistan, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.</p>
<p>For much of the 20th century, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-04-24/hundreds-protest-outside-turkish-consulate-in-beverly-hills-on-107th-anniversary-of-armenian-genocide">commemorations of mass killings and genocide</a> have focused on remembering the dead as victims and condemning the perpetrators. </p>
<p>But recent research has taken a broader view, recognizing that mass violence takes place because of many complex factors. Besides political, economic and cultural currents, the resistance and resilience of the people who were targeted are coming to the fore of scholarly work and public understanding.</p>
<h2>1909 before 1915</h2>
<p>The 1915 Armenian Genocide was not the first attack on Armenians in what is now Turkey. In the 1890s, hundreds of thousands of Armenians were targeted by the government of the Ottoman Empire in what came to be called the <a href="https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1812&context=gsp">Hamidian Massacres</a>, as they took place during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.</p>
<p>And in 1909 – again, in April – there was a separate such episode. Those massacres took place in the region historically known as Cilicia, on the Mediterranean coast of southeastern Turkey today. In two waves of violence at the end of April 1909, more than 20,000 Armenians and other Christians were killed by Turks connected with the government. The violence happened in and around the city of Adana and extended into neighboring areas. Muslim populations suffered as well, with an estimated 2,000 killed in retaliation for the massacres.</p>
<p>Some present the Hamidian and Adana massacres as dress rehearsals for the Ottoman Turkish government’s plan, decades in the making, to implement the all-out elimination of the Armenians in 1915, dispossessing them of their millennia-old historical homeland. Among Armenians, this is the prevalent nationalist reading of Armenian history. </p>
<h2>Survivors on their own terms</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522627/original/file-20230424-18-fg1dpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portrait of a woman in a dress" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522627/original/file-20230424-18-fg1dpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522627/original/file-20230424-18-fg1dpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522627/original/file-20230424-18-fg1dpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522627/original/file-20230424-18-fg1dpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522627/original/file-20230424-18-fg1dpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522627/original/file-20230424-18-fg1dpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522627/original/file-20230424-18-fg1dpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Author Zabel Yessayan helped lead relief efforts after the 1909 massacres.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zabelle_Yesayan.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recent scholarship has taken a closer look at the details of these massacres. In particular, scholars are beginning to highlight the fact that, despite facing mass violence, Armenians and others organized resistance activities and put together relief work in the aftermath of killings. Sometimes resistance was armed, and sometimes it consisted of putting together protest campaigns or publishing newspaper articles and books in the Ottoman Empire and beyond.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=26239">The Horrors of Adana</a>” by Bedross Der Matossian is the first in-depth work on the Adana Massacres. Der Matossian writes about the actions of a prominent literary figure, Zabel Yessayan, who was among the leaders of relief efforts following the 1909 massacres, bringing in food, clothing and other necessities for the survivors. Yessayan also wrote “<a href="https://aiwa.wildapricot.org/Sys/Store/Products/266950">In The Ruins</a>,” published in 1911, specifically to document the aftermath of the killings and to support humanitarian aid, media outreach and legal efforts.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://msupress.org/9781611863949/the-resistance-network/">The Resistance Network</a>” by Khatchig Mouradian documents the work of Armenian community leaders such as <a href="https://armenianweekly.com/2023/04/19/ahari-hosts-dr-khatchig-mouradian-a-story-of-resistance-and-revival/">Rev. Aharon Shirajian</a> to support the survivors of death marches and deportations. Shirajian himself cared for a number of orphaned genocide survivors in Syria.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522362/original/file-20230421-16-528nad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Armed fighters stand together for a portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522362/original/file-20230421-16-528nad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522362/original/file-20230421-16-528nad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522362/original/file-20230421-16-528nad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522362/original/file-20230421-16-528nad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522362/original/file-20230421-16-528nad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522362/original/file-20230421-16-528nad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522362/original/file-20230421-16-528nad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armenian freedom fighters at Musa Dagh in 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Musadagh.jpg">The New Armenia Publishing Company via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These stories are not only powerful on their own but can also have lasting effects in the global effort to end genocide. Fiction can play a role, too. “<a href="https://worldcat.org/title/607574173">The Forty Days of Musa Dagh</a>” by Franz Werfel is a gripping novel that recounts the armed defense by a group of Armenians in one corner of the Ottoman Empire in 1915. </p>
<p>The book, which was published in 1933, the year Hitler took power, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-armenias-1915-musa-dagh-fighters-inspired-jews-to-resist-nazi-genocide/">served as an inspiration</a> for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/defying-the-holocaust-didnt-just-mean-uprising-and-revolt-remembering-jews-everyday-resistance-on-yom-hashoah-and-year-round-198722">anti-Nazi resistance</a> in the Jewish ghettos of Warsaw, Bialystok, Vilnius and elsewhere in the 1940s.</p>
<p>Jewish resistance to the Nazi genocide is another topic being given due attention by historians. The forthcoming “<a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300267198/resisters/">Resisters</a>” by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/wolf-gruner-829895">Wolf Gruner</a> is a work along these lines, focusing on the actions of five Jewish individuals during the Holocaust.</p>
<p>These efforts are beginning to shift how scholars and the public understand genocide. Those horrific actions were not carried out against passive victims, but rather were aggressions which, in many cases, faced intense and organized resistance. The perpetrators killed many but did not destroy the spirit of their victims. The survivors and their descendants have good reason to celebrate that spirit of resilience in the face of immense suffering.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202311/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I am personally acquainted with two of the authors I mention in this piece. We are simply friends and colleagues. There is no financial relationship among us or any other relevant interest.</span></em></p>Recent studies on mass violence have turned the spotlight on the resilience of targeted individuals and communities.Nareg Seferian, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia TechLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1621282021-06-04T16:20:58Z2021-06-04T16:20:58ZCanada’s hypocrisy: Recognizing genocide except its own against Indigenous peoples<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404416/original/file-20210604-27-fbnzmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits a memorial on Parliament Hill in recognition of the discovery of children's remains at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Canadian Parliament is sometimes at the cutting edge of genocide recognition and human rights.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/votes/43/2/56">the House of Commons passed a non-binding motion</a> to recognize China’s treatment of Muslim Uyghurs as genocide. It was a principled and courageous stand and Canada was just the second country in the world to take this position. </p>
<p>A report by <a href="https://www.glanlaw.org/single-post/legal-opinion-concludes-that-treatment-of-uyghurs-amounts-to-crimes-against-humanity-and-genocide">a prominent British legal team</a> documented crimes of the genocide which included “evidence of Uyghur children being forcibly removed from their parents,” placed in orphanages and mandatory boarding schools.</p>
<p>It also said children “are deprived of the opportunity to practise their Uyghur culture…are sometimes given Han names, and are sometimes subject to adoption by Han ethnic families.” The report concludes there is enough evidence that their forced removal is carried out with the intention of “destroying the Uyghur population as an ethnic group.” </p>
<h2>Shameful history of residential schools</h2>
<p>Similar descriptions could be applied to what churches and governments in Canada did to Indigenous children who were sent to Indian Residential Schools.</p>
<p>Is it a double standard for Canada to recognize the Uyghurs and not Indigenous people? It’s a question that needs to be considered once again after the recent announcement by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation that <a href="https://tkemlups.ca/wp-content/uploads/05-May-27-2021-TteS-MEDIA-RELEASE.pdf">a ground penetrating radar specialist had discovered the buried remains of 215 children</a> who attended the Kamloops Indian Residential School.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An aerial photo of the school that is set along a winding river" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404419/original/file-20210604-25-1ie9e6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404419/original/file-20210604-25-1ie9e6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404419/original/file-20210604-25-1ie9e6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404419/original/file-20210604-25-1ie9e6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404419/original/file-20210604-25-1ie9e6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404419/original/file-20210604-25-1ie9e6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404419/original/file-20210604-25-1ie9e6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The former Kamloops Indian Residential School is seen in Kamloops, B.C. The remains of 215 children have been discovered buried near the former school.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In addition to the February motion against China’s treatment of its Uyghur population, Canada recognizes seven other genocides: the Holocaust during the Second World War, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-parliament-recognizes-armenian-genocide-1.509866">the Armenian genocide</a>, the Ukrainian famine genocide (<a href="https://www.ucc.ca/issues/holodomor/">Holodomor</a>), the Rwandan genocide, the <a href="https://bosniak.org/2010/10/19/canadian-parliament-unanimously-adopts-the-srebrenica-genocide-resolution/">Srebrenica massacres</a>, the mass killing of the <a href="https://natoassociation.ca/canadian-government-acknowledges-isis-genocide-against-the-yazidis-now-what/">Yazidi people</a> and the mass murder of the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4470455/canada-declares-myanmar-rohingya-genocide/">Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar</a>. </p>
<p>Recognition of our country’s own genocide against Indigenous people is long overdue.</p>
<h2>A violation of UN convention</h2>
<p>There have been calls for Parliament to recognize the Indian Residential Schools as a violation of the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml">United Nations Genocide Convention</a>, in particular of <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf">Article 2e </a> which prohibits “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” </p>
<p>Almost two decades ago, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) described the residential school system as “the forcible transfer of children from one racial group to another with the intent to destroy the group.” AFN National Chief Atleo <a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/residential-schools-fit-definition-of-genocide-atleo/">made reference to genocide in 2011</a>, as has current National Chief Perry Bellegarde, <a href="https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/discovery-of-indigenous-children-s-bodies-reminder-of-canada-s-genocide-experts-1.24325480">who reiterated his views on genocide</a> after the announcement of the discovery of the graves in Kamloops.</p>
<p>There is ample evidence in the <a href="http://www.trc.ca/about-us/trc-findings.html">Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report</a> of state intentions, legislation, actions and legacies of genocide.</p>
<p>Sen. Murray Sinclair regularly discussed the Indian Residential Schools system as <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-murray-sinclair-has-tried-for-years-to-shock-canada-into-confronting/">violating Article 2e</a> and stated that he would have put this in the TRC’s Final Report, had it been permitted.</p>
<p>As he explained in an interview with me for my book <em><a href="https://utorontopress.com/ca/the-sleeping-giant-awakens-4">The Sleeping Giant Awakens</a>: Genocide, Indian Residential Schools, and the Challenge of Conciliation</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I had written a section for the report in which I very clearly called it genocide and then I submitted that to the legal team and I said, can I say this, or, can we say this? And the answer came back unanimously no, we can’t as per our mandate, because we can’t make a finding of culpability, and that’s very clear. So, we did the next best thing.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The TRC ultimately concluded that <a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/canada-guilty-cultural-genocide-indigenous-peoples-trc-2/">cultural genocide had been committed in the Indian Residential School system</a>, while also making hints throughout the report that the government was culpable of more. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A portrait of former senator Murray Sinclair taken in the halls of Parliament Hill" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404420/original/file-20210604-17-gyywp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404420/original/file-20210604-17-gyywp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404420/original/file-20210604-17-gyywp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404420/original/file-20210604-17-gyywp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404420/original/file-20210604-17-gyywp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404420/original/file-20210604-17-gyywp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404420/original/file-20210604-17-gyywp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former senator Murray Sinclair, who spent six years hearing stories of the effects of Canada’s residential school system for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has used the term ‘genocide’ to describe the IRS system.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Preventable deaths</h2>
<p>The discovery of the graves of 215 Indigenous children makes it clear that preventable deaths were always a part of the Indian Residential School system. We are now at the beginning of compiling the evidence of mass deaths in the schools. </p>
<p>Ground radar scans will help us get to the truth, and Sinclair believes <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-survivors-of-residential-schools-share-their-stories-call-on-the/">the death toll may reach 15,000 lives</a>. But we need not wait for the results of these investigations to make a conclusion of genocide. We have ample evidence of violations of Article 2e. </p>
<p>Remember that Raphael Lemkin, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41204789">who coined the term genocide</a>, was clear that genocide need not mean killing. In 1944 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/51.1.117">he wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Killing marks only the final stage of genocide. Lemkin was clear that “the machine gun” was often “a last resort” instead of the primary means of destruction.</p>
<p>In 2016, MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette, with help from <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/maeengan-linklater-lobbies-for-manitoba-residential-school-memorial-day-1.3102730">Maeengan Linklater</a>, a Winnipeg man whose parents went to residential schools, <a href="http://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-318/first-reading">introduced C-318</a> “An Act to establish Indian Residential School Reconciliation and Memorial Day.” It called for Parliament to recognize that “the actions taken to remove children from families and communities to place them in residential schools meets this (UN) definition of genocide.”</p>
<h2>Never debated</h2>
<p>This private member’s bill didn’t make it to the committee stage and was never debated or discussed in the House. Bills have a long and complex route through Parliament to be enacted into law.</p>
<p>A motion, like the one about the Uyghur genocide, is a much shorter and simpler process and can be passed quickly. However, a motion in Parliament must pass unanimously; there can be no votes against. In the Uyghur case 266 voted for genocide recognition and the rest chose to abstain, including <a href="https://bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56163220">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and most of the cabinet</a>. </p>
<p>Within days of the news about the discovery in Kamloops, the <a href="https://www.brandonsun.com/local/dotc-seeks-recognition-of-genocide-574551162.html">Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council at Keeshkeemaquah, Man., recommended</a> that “the Parliament of Canada should recognize the Indian Residential School system as an act of genocide.”</p>
<p>I wholeheartedly agree. A motion to recognize the Indian Residential School system as a violation of Article 2e of the UN Genocide Convention can go some way towards establishing a ground floor of truth on which we can build for the coming generations.</p>
<p><em>If you are an Indian Residential School survivor, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162128/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David MacDonald receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant 430413).</span></em></p>Canada has officially recognized eight genocides that have happened around the world. It has not done the same for its own treatment of Indigenous children who they sent to Indian Residential Schools.David MacDonald, Professor of Political Science, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1499302020-11-13T11:58:36Z2020-11-13T11:58:36ZNagorno-Karabakh, diaspora communities, and how tensions boiled over on far away city streets<p>The signing of a <a href="https://www.economist.com/europe/2020/11/14/a-peace-deal-ends-a-bloody-war-over-nagorno-karabakh">deal to halt the violence</a> in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus may have brought a six-week breathing space to the troubled region. But there is already evidence that the ceasefire, while warmly greeted by Azerbaijanis, has been roundly rejected in Armenia, which has been forced to cede territory.</p>
<p>There were <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/12/armenia-protests">protests in the Armenian capital</a> of Yerevan after prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, announced details of what he called a “painful” deal. The parliament was briefly occupied and the speaker beaten by an angry mob.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Armenian, Azerbaijani and Turkish diasporas have strongly reacted to the conflict. On September 28, Armenia’s high commissioner for diaspora affairs, Zareh Sinanyan, issued <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DiasporaHighCommissionerOfficeArmenia/">a thinly veiled call to arms</a> to the Armenian diaspora:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In this war we are all soldiers and all have an important role to play. The time has come for each of us to stand ready to do our part, each within our means, to defend our nation and our land.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/armenia-azerbaijan-volunteers-int/armenian-diaspora-rushes-to-nagorno-karabakh-to-back-troops-idUSKBN26U13N">Armenians living overseas</a> had already been keen to contribute to the cause since violence erupted on September 27, either by sending remittances or by joining the war themselves as fighters.</p>
<p>The Azerbaijani diaspora has also been active, organising demonstrations and collecting humanitarian aid for wounded soldiers and their families. Although the conflict is specific to the Azerbaijan-Armenian context, Turkey is heavily involved too – with direct political and <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-armenia-azerbaijan-turkey-arms/turkish-arms-sales-to-azerbaijan-surged-before-nagorno-karabakh-fighting-idUSKBN26Z237">military support</a> being provided to Azerbaijan and through its domestic and diaspora populations’ activities.</p>
<h2>Tensions turn violent</h2>
<p>Before Azerbaijan’s September offensive, the conflict had been mostly dormant since the truce that ended the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54324772">Nagorno-Karabakh War</a> in 1994. But tensions between diasporas had remained high thanks to a range of unresolved issues, such as recognition of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-the-world-recognised-the-armenian-genocide-40576">1915 Armenian genocide</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-the-world-recognised-the-armenian-genocide-40576">It's time the world recognised the Armenian genocide</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>On October 28, Turkish and Azerbaijani nationals in Lyon, France, were filmed marching towards Armenian neighbourhoods chanting “<em>Allahu Akbar</em>” (God is Great) and “Where are the Armenians?”. One day before this event, there had been <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turks-azeris-lyon-france-armenians-vienne-video-b1422175.html">violent clashes</a> between the two groups, also in Lyon, when Armenian protesters blocked a highway.</p>
<p>A few days later, on October 31, a French memorial to the Armenian genocide in Lyon <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/france/20201102-france-to-ban-turkish-grey-wolves-after-defacement-of-armenian-memorial">was defaced</a> with slogans promoting Turkish ultra-nationalist organisation the Grey Wolves. The French government responded by banning the group, citing its “incitement to hatred against authorities and Armenians”. </p>
<p>Tensions between Armenians and Turks in France have played out amid wider <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54598546">religious tensions and violence</a> in the country.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beheading-in-france-could-bolster-presidents-claim-that-islam-is-in-crisis-but-so-is-french-secularism-148070">Beheading in France could bolster president's claim that Islam is in 'crisis' – but so is French secularism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Clashes between the various diaspora communities elsewhere have underscored the bitterness of the conflict. <a href="https://mirrorspectator.com/2020/07/28/azerbaijanis-attempt-to-counter-two-boston-armenian-demonstrations/">In Boston</a>, Armenian demonstrations were disrupted by local Azeri nationals and there were reports that some Armenians had been physically attacked. In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgX3XHjkIJs&ab_channel=NBCLA">Los Angeles</a>, one person was arrested and several people, including a police officer, were injured after a peaceful protest by organised by the Armenian Youth Federation turned violent at the Azerbaijan Consulate in the suburb of Brentwood. Meanwhile, Armenian nationals attacked a Turkish restaurant in <a href="https://www.duvarenglish.com/diplomacy/2020/11/08/armenian-group-attacks-turkish-restaurant-in-beverly-hills">Beverly Hills</a>, vandalising the premises and physically assaulting staff members.</p>
<h2>A complex dynamic</h2>
<p>But Turkey has been making an effort to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19436149.2020.1770449">organise its overseas communities</a> during the past decade and has developed the capacity to use them to send clear messages to Armenian communities and their host countries. The thrust of this has been to work with Azeri communities to counter Armenian narratives about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the 1915 genocide.</p>
<p>The Armenian diaspora itself also reads what is happening in Nagorno-Karabakh through the prism of historical Armenian-Turkish relations rather than in terms of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. In particular, Armenian protesters tend to frame the current events by referring to the 1915 genocide, although it is not directly related to the current conflict, and to treat the Azeri-Turkish bloc as a monolithic threat towards Armenian existence and survival. </p>
<p>Recent events show that homeland conflicts can easily be transported to third-party countries – especially when they escalate, as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has recently. Tensions between communities can be rekindled within minutes and relations can quickly worsen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bahar Baser is a research associate at the DIASCON project "Diasporas and Transportation of Homeland Conflicts: Inter-group Dynamics and Host Country Responses" (2019-2023), funded by the Academy of Finland. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Élise Féron receives funding from the Academy of Finland for the DIASCON project "Diasporas and Transportation of Homeland Conflicts: Inter-group Dynamics and Host Country Responses" (2019-2023).
</span></em></p>A new ceasefire is unlikely to stop clashes between the warring expat communities around the world.Bahar Baser, Senior Research Fellow, Coventry UniversityÉlise Féron, Senior Research Fellow, Tampere Peace Research Institute, Tampere UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1291592020-03-06T13:01:57Z2020-03-06T13:01:57ZArmenian genocide: US recognition of Turkey’s killing of 1.5 million was tangled up in decades of geopolitics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318770/original/file-20200305-127872-1kqgvxl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thousands of Armenian-Americans gather to commemorate the 103rd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Los Angeles, California on April 24, 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/thousands-of-armenian-americans-gather-to-commemorate-the-news-photo/950997458?adppopup=true">Ronen Tivony/Nur via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Armenian communities across the globe mark the murderous history of state violence in Turkey with the <a href="http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/remembrance_day.php">Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day</a> on April 24. </p>
<p>That commemoration marks the period between <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/timestopics/topics_armeniangenocide.html">1914 and 1921, when the Ottoman Empire carried out an extended campaign to expel or kill the Armenians</a> living in Turkey and its border regions. From massacres to death marches, 1.5 million of Turkey’s historic Armenian population was murdered. </p>
<p>Since 1923, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13608746.2010.513605?src=recsys">Turkey</a> has denied perpetrating what came to be called the Armenian genocide. It has pressured its allies to refrain from officially declaring the events a “genocide,” which the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml">United Nations defines</a> as acts committed with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”</p>
<p>But in a milestone vote in late 2019, both the U.S. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/us/politics/senate-armenian-genocide.html">House</a> and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-12-12/senate-armenian-genocide-resolution">Senate</a> defied that pressure and the weight of over 40 years of precedent. </p>
<p>They passed a bill declaring that the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks was, in fact, a genocide.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t5h92vYoJWU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Armenian Genocide took the lives of 1.5 million people. Scholar Eldad Ben Aharon discusses US recognition of the Genocide.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since 1975, <a href="https://schiff.house.gov/news/press-releases/schiff-presses-secretary-of-state-rice-on-armenian-genocide-recognition">numerous efforts</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/world/europe/10iht-10turkey.7834745.html">were made</a> to pass an Armenian genocide bill. The decades-long struggle involving Turkey, Israel, Armenian-Americans, the American Jewish community and the U.S. government over the commemoration of the Armenian genocide resulted in failure to pass a bill every time – until 2019. </p>
<h2>Setting the table</h2>
<p>I am a <a href="https://royalholloway.academia.edu/EldadBenAharon">historian of international relations</a>. I am currently writing a book that focuses on <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14682745.2018.1483342?src=recsys&journalCode=fcwh20">Israeli-Turkish-American relations</a> and the contested memories of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19448953.2018.1385932?src=recsys">the Armenian genocide</a>. </p>
<p>The political struggle over U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide was set in motion during the presidency of Jimmy Carter in 1976. Carter came to the job with a <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=25540">commitment to protecting human rights</a>. That commitment was soon tested by the longstanding strategic relationship between the U.S. and Iran, which was ruled by the Shah with an iron fist. By late 1977, <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137598714">U.S.-Iranian relations were deteriorating</a> after Carter sent mixed signals about the Shah’s dictatorship and his abuse of Iranians’ human rights. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318484/original/file-20200304-66064-1wj03ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318484/original/file-20200304-66064-1wj03ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318484/original/file-20200304-66064-1wj03ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318484/original/file-20200304-66064-1wj03ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318484/original/file-20200304-66064-1wj03ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318484/original/file-20200304-66064-1wj03ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318484/original/file-20200304-66064-1wj03ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318484/original/file-20200304-66064-1wj03ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn escort the Shah and Shahbanou of Iran to a state dinner in the White House in 1977.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-and-rosalynn-escort-the-shah-and-shahbanou-of-news-photo/615299118?adppopup=true">Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1978, Carter’s fraught relations with the Shah weakened the Iranian leader’s hold on power. Popular protest movements mounted, culminating in the Shah’s overthrow in 1979, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Iranian-Revolution">Iranian fundamentalist revolution</a> and the American hostage crisis.</p>
<p>The criticism at home about the Carter-Shah relationship and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/holocaust-angst-9780190237820?cc=nl&lang=en&">American Jews’ reluctance to support Carter’s administration</a> convinced the president and his staff members to re-promote human rights through American foreign policy. </p>
<p>Their strategy: Use the Holocaust as a universal lesson for genocide prevention to help reinforce ties with Jewish voters. </p>
<h2>Holocaust remembrance</h2>
<p>While the Iran crisis was playing out, on Nov. 1, 1978, Carter launched the President’s Commission on the Holocaust. Carter requested that the commission submit a report <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/information/about-the-museum/presidents-commission">addressing the</a> “establishment and maintenance of an appropriate memorial to those who perished in the Holocaust.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318485/original/file-20200304-66064-19b93p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318485/original/file-20200304-66064-19b93p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318485/original/file-20200304-66064-19b93p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318485/original/file-20200304-66064-19b93p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318485/original/file-20200304-66064-19b93p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318485/original/file-20200304-66064-19b93p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318485/original/file-20200304-66064-19b93p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elie Wiesel, chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, spoke about the Holocaust and presented President Carter with the panel’s final report. Carter vowed that a U.S. memorial would be built.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/elie-wiesel-chairman-of-the-presidents-commission-spoke-news-photo/515124534?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The commission included American Holocaust survivors like <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/information/about-the-museum/presidents-commission">Elie Wiesel</a> and <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/in-memoriam/benjamin-meed-1918-2006">Benjamin Meed</a>. The commission’s September 1979 report recommended special days of remembrance for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, a dedicated education program, and the establishment of the <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/">United States Holocaust Memorial Museum</a> as a national memorial.</p>
<p>The museum, the <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20050707-pres-commission-79.pdf">report said</a>, should be focused on one specific aspect of the Nazis’ many crimes: the “unique” and unprecedented nature of the murder of the Jews – even over other Nazi victims. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310066/original/file-20200114-151880-1k17j3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310066/original/file-20200114-151880-1k17j3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310066/original/file-20200114-151880-1k17j3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310066/original/file-20200114-151880-1k17j3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310066/original/file-20200114-151880-1k17j3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310066/original/file-20200114-151880-1k17j3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310066/original/file-20200114-151880-1k17j3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310066/original/file-20200114-151880-1k17j3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President’s Commission on the Holocaust report; Sept. 27, 1979.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Millions of innocent civilians were tragically killed by the Nazis. They must be remembered. However, there exists a moral imperative for special emphasis on the six million Jews. While not all victims were Jews, <em>all</em> Jews were victims, disdained for annihilation solely because they were born Jewish,” wrote the commission.</p>
<p>This approach clashed with Carter’s views on the universal lessons of the Holocaust. It also aroused the opposition of representatives of other victims of the Nazis, such as the <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/what-roma-genocide">Roma</a> and <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-why-we-ve-suppressed-the-queer-history-of-the-holocaust-1.5823923">the gay community</a>, who pressed for inclusion in the Holocaust museum.</p>
<h2>A ‘campaign to remember’</h2>
<p>Another heated debate was taking place about who should pay for the museum, which was estimated to cost US$100 million. </p>
<p>The land allocated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was a contribution by the federal government. But the remaining funds to build the museum were to be donated mainly by the American public through a “<a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/united-states-holocaust-memorial-museum">Campaign to Remember</a>.” </p>
<p>This was the moment – the convergence of Carter’s vision of human rights protection and the “Campaign to Remember” – that the organized American-Armenian community believed could bring the almost-forgotten memory of the Armenian genocide back to public consciousness.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318487/original/file-20200304-66089-fsift2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318487/original/file-20200304-66089-fsift2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318487/original/file-20200304-66089-fsift2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318487/original/file-20200304-66089-fsift2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318487/original/file-20200304-66089-fsift2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318487/original/file-20200304-66089-fsift2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318487/original/file-20200304-66089-fsift2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318487/original/file-20200304-66089-fsift2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">California Gov. George Deukmejian.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/elie-wiesel-chairman-of-the-presidents-commission-spoke-news-photo/515124534?adppopup=true">AP/Walt Zeboski</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>California Gov. <a href="https://www.jdlasica.com/feature-story/gov-george-deukmejian-on-the-armenian-genocide/">George Deukmejian</a>, an Armenian-American, pressured museum leaders to appoint Set Momjian as its American-Armenian community representative. The Armenian community in the U.S. made <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/22/magazine/holocaust-museum-a-troubled-start.html">a donation of $1 million</a>, aiming to be able to include the Armenian genocide in the museum’s focus. </p>
<p>In August 1983, the Armenian expectations became reality when the museum commission reached a decision to include the Armenian genocide in the exhibition narrative. Although the decision about the 1915 genocide was informal, it was still a commitment that later would be difficult to reverse. </p>
<h2>Turkey looks to Israel</h2>
<p>The Turkish government was extremely anxious about the museum. It turned for help to its regional and Cold War ally, Israel. Turkey pressured Israel to influence the concept of the museum and to make sure the Armenians were left out of the memorial.</p>
<p>As part of an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00940798.2019.1702467">oral history project</a>, I interviewed Gabi Levy, who <a href="https://ivarfjeld.com/2009/11/06/islamic-mob-throws-egg-on-israeli-ambassador-in-turkey/">served as Israeli ambassador to Turkey from 2007 to 2011</a>. Levy told me that throughout the history of Israeli-Turkish relations, whenever Turkey had an urgent concern in the U.S., “the Turks carried assumptions regarding the ‘magical power’ of Israel’s foreign policy,” especially their purported ability to use the American Jewish lobby for influence the U.S. political arena. </p>
<p>Israel capitalized on presumptions about the Israeli/Jewish “magic power” to convince Turkey that they were taking all “possible measures.” Israeli diplomats tried to persuade the relevant American players to prevent the Armenian experience from being incorporated into the museum, requesting influential Jewish congressmen such as <a href="https://www.lantosfoundation.org/about-tom-lantos">Tom Lantos</a> and <a href="https://bioguideretro.congress.gov/Home/MemberDetails?memIndex=S000673">Stephen Solarz</a> to convince the museum commission to exclude the Armenian genocide. Lantos and Solarz believed this would serve U.S. interests in the Middle East that included Israel and Turkey maintaining good relations. </p>
<p>Ultimately, as a key U.S. NATO ally, it was Turkey’s own pressure on the U.S. Congress and the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Armenia-Survival-Christopher-J-Walker/dp/041504684X">Reagan administration’s Cold War</a> fears that forestalled any presence of the Armenian genocide in the museum as well as resulted in the failure to pass the Armenian genocide bill.</p>
<p>When the memorial finally opened its doors in 1991, its focus was the Holocaust and Jewish victims.</p>
<h2>What changed in 2019?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23739770.2019.1737911">Internationally</a>, a number of developments supported the dramatic changes in U.S.-Turkish relations in 2019. They include Turkey’s July purchase of a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48620087">Russian-made</a> air defense system, which angered the Americans, and the October military offensive by Turkey in Northern Syria <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50011468">against the Kurds, who were U.S. allies</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318489/original/file-20200304-66099-hbuqa0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318489/original/file-20200304-66099-hbuqa0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318489/original/file-20200304-66099-hbuqa0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318489/original/file-20200304-66099-hbuqa0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318489/original/file-20200304-66099-hbuqa0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318489/original/file-20200304-66099-hbuqa0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318489/original/file-20200304-66099-hbuqa0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318489/original/file-20200304-66099-hbuqa0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Donald Trump meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Oval Office of the White House, Nov. 13, 2019, in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Trump/e2e040d846ce46168429e14b4bfdf478/47/0">AP/ Evan Vucci</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the U.S., the unprecedented condemnation by both Democrats and Republicans of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his attack on Kurds in Syria, as well as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/us/politics/impeachment-vote.html">impeachment process</a> against Erdogan ally Donald Trump, weakened <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/erdogan-in-washington-tensions-Congress-criticism">Congress’ adherence to the longtime official position favoring</a> Turkey.</p>
<p>Congress passed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/us/politics/house-turkey-sanctions.html">powerful sanctions</a> against Turkey. The Armenian genocide <a href="https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hres296/BILLS-116hres296eh.pdf">bill</a> was part of the package. </p>
<p>Importantly, the bill passed by the U.S. Congress <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-resolution/150?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22Senate+Armenian+genocide%22%5D%7D&r=1&s=2">states</a> the U.S. will “commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and remembrance.” </p>
<p>The U.S. is thus committed to allocate federal resources to build a U.S. memorial to commemorate the 1915 genocide – just as with the the 1978 President’s Commission on the Holocaust. Practically speaking, building a U.S. Armenian genocide museum or memorial will have further negative implications for U.S.-Turkish relations, which might take another 40 years to rebuild. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article originally published on March 20, 2020.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Between 2017-2019 Eldad Ben Aharon was awarded the 'Armenian Studies Scholarship' by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. This was partial funding to undertake his doctoral studies. </span></em></p>As Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day is marked around the globe, a historian examines the little-known players in the long-running fight in the US Congress to pass a bill acknowledging the Genocide.Eldad Ben Aharon, Lecturer, Leiden UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1272962019-11-21T13:58:45Z2019-11-21T13:58:45ZChristians have lived in Turkey for two millennia – but their future is uncertain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302532/original/file-20191119-111676-1qzdbk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Christian pilgrim prays at the historic Deyruzzaferan monastery in Mardin, in southeastern Turkey, </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Turkey-Syria/dfb3a557cd4f4c87baf3b46225f94574/7/0">AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Vowing to better protect Christians, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/erdogan-vows-to-protect-christians-in-syria-says-their-churches-will-be-rebuilt.html">media</a> at the White House recently that Turkey will restore churches damaged during the civil war in northeastern Syria. </p>
<p>With this statement, Erdoğan might have hoped to send signals addressing western <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/09/768697873/evangelical-christian-leaders-push-back-on-turkish-invasion-of-northern-syria">concerns</a> about the vulnerabilities of Christians in his own country, too. The percentage of Christians in Turkey declined from nearly 25% in 1914 to less than 0.5% today.</p>
<p>As I write in my <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/alien-citizens-state-and-religious-minorities-turkey-and-france?format=HB">recent book</a> on religious minorities in Turkey and France, international events and domestic political interests improved the status of Christians in the 2000s. </p>
<p>Yet, the current international and domestic context makes their future uncertain. </p>
<h2>Important center of Christianity</h2>
<p>Christians have lived in the region that is modern-day Turkey since the first century when Christianity emerged. </p>
<p>Many Christians escaping persecution in Jerusalem fled north and settled in cities across western, central and southeastern Turkey. </p>
<p>Some of the Christian apostles <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=NtJ_1ZE9rtoC&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false">traveled</a> and even settled in regions in Turkey. These included Saint Paul, Saint Peter and Saint John. Saint Peter <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=cBdFAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA515&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false">established one of the first Christian Churches</a> and Saint John is said to have taken Virgin Mary to Ephesus, which is two miles southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province in western Turkey. </p>
<p>Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul, and Antioch, modern-day Antakya, in Turkey were two of the five centers of Christianity along with Rome, Alexandria and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/religion/religion-general-interest/introduction-christian-orthodox-churches?format=PB">Jerusalem</a>. Istanbul was long home to the largest cathedral in the world, the Hagia Sophia. </p>
<p>From its construction in the sixth century until the conquest of Istanbul by the Turks in 1453, Hagia Sophia served as a religious center for Eastern Christianity and the <a href="https://ayasofyamuzesi.gov.tr/en/history">Byzantine Empire</a>. The grand building became a mosque under the Ottomans and was converted into a museum in 1935 after <a href="https://www.academia.edu/15532899/Hagia_Sophia_Museum_A_Humanist_Project_of_the_Turkish_Republic">Turkey became a secular republic</a>. </p>
<p>Today, the Hagia Sophia remains a top destination for Christians and Muslims alike from all over the world. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302535/original/file-20191119-111686-4qla0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302535/original/file-20191119-111686-4qla0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302535/original/file-20191119-111686-4qla0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302535/original/file-20191119-111686-4qla0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302535/original/file-20191119-111686-4qla0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302535/original/file-20191119-111686-4qla0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302535/original/file-20191119-111686-4qla0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Hagia Sophia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dspender/3904811506">David Spender</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Christians under the Ottomans</h2>
<p>Under the Ottomans, who ruled Turkey and the surrounding region between 1299 and 1923, the government employed a multi-legal system to manage religious diversity. </p>
<p>While Muslims were in power, judicial autonomy was granted to recognized religious minorities, including Christians. They were allowed to decide civil matters such as marriage and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449057.2015.1101845">inheritance</a> through their own religious laws. </p>
<p>Christians, though, had an inferior position to Muslims during the Ottoman Empire, and were required to pay a special tax. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/empire-difference-ottomans-comparative-perspective?format=PB">Compared to religious minorities in Europe</a>, however, Ottoman Christians were treated with tolerance. </p>
<p>With the weakening of the Ottoman Empire beginning in the 18th century, European powers gradually used coercion to secure rights for Christian minorities and used it as an excuse to intervene in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1845120?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">domestic politics</a> of the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/113/5/1313/41218">Ottoman Empire</a>. </p>
<p>To gain leverage against the European strategy, Ottoman sultans implemented new reforms in the 19th century. These reforms granted <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/middle-east-history/christians-and-jews-ottoman-arab-world-roots-sectarianism?format=PB">equal rights to Christians</a>. </p>
<p>However, the reformist era did not last long. During the rule of the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II, from 1876 to 1909, Christians felt alienated by <a href="https://brill.com/view/title/2230?language=en">pan-Islamist policies</a> that pursued unity among Muslims globally. This was a departure from the sultan’s predecessors’ principle of equality between Muslims and non-Muslims.</p>
<p>The Young Turks, a group of reformists who overthrew Abdulhamid II and took control of the Ottoman state between 1909 and 1918, embraced a new form of Turkish nationalism that discriminated against non-Turkish ethnic and religious minorities. Their exclusionary policies went so far that they caused <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674916456">massacre of Armenian Christians</a> during World War I. </p>
<h2>Christians under the Republic of Turkey</h2>
<p>After the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire after its defeat in World War I, the Republic of Turkey replaced it. The new state guaranteed the protection of the rights of non-Muslim minorities in the Treaty of Lausanne. </p>
<p>Yet Christians have seen discriminatory treatment in Turkey, especially during <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Turkish-Greek-Relations-The-Security-Dilemma-in-the-Aegean-1st-Edition/Aydin-Ifantis/p/book/9780714652726">times of political conflict</a> with non-Muslim countries.</p>
<p>In 1942, the Turkish state taxed the non-Muslim minorities with high rates. It deported those who were not able to pay taxes to forced <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/mediterranean-quarterly/article/23/2/14/1799/The-Mechanisms-for-Terrorizing-Minorities-The">labor camps</a> in eastern Turkey.</p>
<p>In the 1960s, at the height of a dispute with Greece over the status of the island of Cyprus, the Turkish state confiscated some properties owned by non-Muslim community foundations. Later in 1971, it closed down the Theological School of Halki, an important school of Greek Orthodox Christians in the island of Heybeliada in the Sea of <a href="https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/tyir/issue/49994/640870">Marmara</a>.</p>
<p>In the 2000s, the status of Christians improved thanks to Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union. Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party won 2002 elections, and used Turkey’s European Union membership bid as an opportunity to expand political and civil <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/polq.12180">freedoms</a>. This move helped Erdoğan strengthen his position against the bureaucratic authoritarian institutions such as the army. </p>
<p>The European Union reforms undertaken in this era also improved the religious rights of Christians. The state returned their properties confiscated after the 1960s, the construction of churches in Turkey became relatively easier and the right to publish and broadcast in the mother tongue was expanded to include all <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny/cp/2014/00000046/00000002/art00002">minorities</a>. </p>
<p>Before the reforms, only Armenian and Greek Christians, along with Jews, had the right to publish and broadcast in their languages.</p>
<h2>Decreasing tolerance</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302537/original/file-20191119-111640-ta5in4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302537/original/file-20191119-111640-ta5in4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302537/original/file-20191119-111640-ta5in4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302537/original/file-20191119-111640-ta5in4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302537/original/file-20191119-111640-ta5in4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302537/original/file-20191119-111640-ta5in4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302537/original/file-20191119-111640-ta5in4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Turkey’s Christians: Children pray with Orthodox priests during a ceremony in Izmir, Turkey.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Turkey-Epiphany/706f4a33740a40558b4fb0382bae772a/315/0">AP Photo/Emre Tazegul</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The conditions that produced the reformist moment in the 2000s radically changed in the 2010s. </p>
<p>Erdoğan reversed the liberal policies that he once initiated and took a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14683857.2018.1550948?casa_token=jQlzV5QBeIcAAAAA%3AlG3CoodSRL74Xgj1CDK0gEjB5Yz4vxZ9zGExyI7dZWvB3ayzsvrH6BC0ZV4tBGPyu5D0toe6BrczOA">populist authoritarian path</a>. The rising populist nationalism changed the reformist attitude toward Christian minorities. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09637494.2017.1411088?casa_token=pmucXCTTlDcAAAAA%3ARfR9rThnDUOBjGXOYk8fxTKWOvMhE-FZmbViL4RAQMr1X0pnc3odhWGWCmJdI2aFTCxQFewAlyqpvA">conspiracy theories about non-Muslim minorities</a> dominate the public sphere. At the root of these stories, Christians are depicted as collaborators with foreign powers to undermine the Turkish identity. </p>
<p>Andrew Brunson, a U.S. priest who lived in Turkey for more than two decades, was arrested for being a <a href="https://www.ahaber.com.tr/gundem/2017/05/17/trumpin-serbest-birakilsin-dedigi-rahip-brunsonin-gunah-defteri-kabarik">traitor</a> in October 2016 and released only after the U.S. intervened in October 2018.</p>
<p>Debates that are often part of the public conversation such as <a href="http://www.ekathimerini.com/246139/article/ekathimerini/news/turkish-paper-eyes-grounds-for-conversion-of-hagia-sophia-into-mosque">converting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque</a> make Christians feel that their heritage is overlooked. </p>
<p>Turkey is an an important country for the history of Christianity, yet the future of Christian presence in Turkey, I believe, is under threat. </p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research related to this piece has been partially funded by the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Opinions are the author's and do not represent the views of the University of Nebraska at Omaha</span></em></p>The percentage of Christians in Turkey declined from nearly 25% in 1914 to less than 0.5% today. Their future looks even more uncertain in today’s political climate.Ramazan Kılınç, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Nebraska OmahaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1267032019-11-18T11:08:26Z2019-11-18T11:08:26ZHow the Armenian diaspora forged coalitions to push for genocide recognition<p>When Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited the White House on November 13, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20191114-after-meeting-erdogan-us-senator-blocks-genocide-measure">he said</a> a landmark <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/296/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22armenian+genocide%22%7D&r=3&s=1">resolution passed by the House of Representatives</a> in October recognising the Armenian genocide had “hurt deeply the Turkish nation”, and had the “potential to cast a deep shadow over our bilateral relations”. </p>
<p>In 1915, the collapsing Ottoman Empire massacred an estimated 800,000 to 1.5m Armenians, but Turkey denies this was a genocide.</p>
<p>A subsequent resolution introduced in the US Senate also <a href="https://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/ranking/release/menendez-cruz-introduce-bipartisan-senate-resolution-affirming-us-recognition-of-armenian-genocide">aimed at genocide recognition</a> was <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/470386-graham-blocks-resolution-recognizing-armenian-genocide-after-erdogan-meeting">blocked by</a> the Republican senator Lindsay Graham after a meeting with Trump and Erdoğan. But the landmark House of Representatives resolution is nevertheless a significant step in an effort to recognise the massacres as a genocide for which the Armenian diaspora have fought for more than a century. </p>
<p>Although there have been <a href="https://r26i43wr32r1ccg5d18cllec-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BILLS-104hr3540.pdf">previous mentions</a> of the 1915 atrocities as a “genocide” by US legislators, and most <a href="https://anca.org/armenian-genocide/recognition/united-states/">US state legislatures</a> have passed their own recognition, the House resolution formally acknowledges the Armenian genocide.</p>
<p>It states that “it is the policy of the US” to commemorate the Armenian genocide through “official recognition and remembrance”, and to refuse association with genocide denial. It also asks the government to “encourage education and public understanding” of its facts, including to treat Armenian genocide in the context of “modern-day crimes against humanity” in order to prevent them.</p>
<p>These have been longstanding goals of the Armenian diaspora, which continues to seek official acknowledgement of the genocide in the US and across the globe. So far, 32 countries have recognised the Armenian genocide, in addition to the European parliament, the Council of Europe, the Catholic church and the International Association of Genocide Scholars, among others.</p>
<p>The diaspora has taken a lead role in pushing for the recognition of the 1915 genocide, particularly as Armenia itself has historically taken a back seat in this quest. It was a Soviet republic until it declared independence in 1991, and during the Soviet era the goal of genocide recognition was associated with diaspora parties based in the West and the Middle East that were banned from operating within Soviet territory. </p>
<p>The first Armenian post-communist government clashed with the diaspora over diverging foreign policy priorities. It sought to restore some neighbourly relations with Turkey, while the diaspora insisted on the pursuit of genocide recognition. Diaspora circles and local opposition eventually prevailed, and soon after a 1998 change in government, Armenia <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2010.489646">infused genocide recognition</a> in its foreign policy.</p>
<h2>Armenian diaspora in US</h2>
<p>Revered or attacked for its central mission of genocide recognition, the Armenian National Assembly of America (ANCA) is a major lobby group in the US. It maintains strong relationships with legislators in the two houses of Congress, and the <a href="https://anca.org/armenian-caucus/">Armenian caucus</a>, a group of legislators pursuing common objectives on Armenia-related issues.</p>
<p>ANCA has a strong organisational structure of grassroots chapters across the US, launches regular campaigns among citizens, and holds annual gala dinners. As my ongoing research shows, diaspora activists in Europe see ANCA as an important institution not simply for the US, but more widely, as it serves as a paragon to others with its lobbying practices. The Armenian Assembly of America is another lobby group.</p>
<p>Several high profile congresspeople, instrumental in the recent vote in the House, have been connected to ANCA, while driven to act on behalf of their Armenian-American constituencies. They have emerged from the Democratic Party and primarily from California, where over 150,000 Americans of Armenian descent live in Los Angeles and tens of thousands of others in Glendale and Fresno. The sponsor of the recent bill was Adam Schiff, the representative of a congressional district in California with the largest Armenian-American constituency in the country. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/denial-of-the-armenian-genocide-should-concern-us-all-76537">Denial of the Armenian Genocide should concern us all</a>
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<p>The politics of pushing for recognition of the Armenia genocide also relates to strategic friends and foes among other diaspora communities. Some Jewish diaspora organisations recognise the genocide, even if Israel still refrains from doing so. The American Jewish Committee (AJC) supported the House resolution prior to the vote in October. During the events marking the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-100th-anniversary-of-the-armenian-genocide-40434">100th anniversary</a> of the genocide in 2015, AJC <a href="https://armenian-assembly.org/2019/10/28/armenian-assembly-of-america-welcomes-american-jewish-committees-support-of-armenian-genocide-resolution/">joined the commemoration</a> to “pause in mournful tribute”. The <a href="http://engage.jewishpublicaffairs.org/p/salsa/web/blog/public/?blog_entry_KEY=7642">Jewish Council for Public Affairs recognised</a> the Armenian genocide in 2015, while the Holocaust Museum in New York hosted an <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/armenia">exhibition for that centennial</a>.</p>
<h2>Christians and Kurds</h2>
<p>My <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2019.1572908">research in Europe</a>, recently published in the Ethnic and Racial Studies journal, shows that the Armenian diaspora has also built coalitions with other groups to pressure Turkey against genocide denial.</p>
<p>Most notable are alliances with Assyrians and Pontus Greeks, smaller Christian communities. They are much less organised than the Armenians, but were also dispersed by Ottoman violence during the same period. Such coalitions have changed the nature of the campaign for recognition: not simply recognition of the Armenian genocide, but to counter wider atrocities. More recent recognitions in Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany also acknowledged these smaller groups. </p>
<p>Armenians have also formed on and off coalitions with Kurds, especially in Europe where Kurds are numerous and well mobilised. These coalitions have been more instrumental, pressuring Turkey to stop genocide denial and other human rights violations – something required of Turkey if it wants to join the European Union. Combining energy for a common cause has not been easy here, as Armenians still remember that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2019.1572908">Kurds participated in the 1915 genocide</a>, though many Kurdish organisations have acknowledged their participation in it and have already apologised.</p>
<p>In Armenia, some <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319589152">analysts and members of the opposition</a> see the diaspora as standing in the way of efforts to improve bilateral relations between Armenia and Turkey. This is because diaspora groups demand that Turkey recognises the Armenian genocide as a precondition for meaningful negotiations between them. </p>
<p>Campaigning for genocide recognition has been a matter of survival for diaspora Armenians, creating common identities among them for generations in the absence of the Armenian state. Genocide recognition is also a source of hope for obtaining future reparations from Turkey. The Armenian diaspora has stood up for a principled issue and brought attention to mass atrocities that must never be repeated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126703/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Koinova received funding from European Research Council Grant "Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty" (2012-2017)</span></em></p>A recent vote in the US House of Representatives recognised the Armenian massacre of 1915 as a genocide in a significant moment for the Armenian diaspora.Maria Koinova, Reader in International Relations, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1217662019-09-03T11:15:11Z2019-09-03T11:15:11ZHow American Christian media promoted charity abroad<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290355/original/file-20190830-165997-9xzlaa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An illustration from the Christian Herald showing famine-hit people in India.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Christian Herald Association, New York</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many religions urge their adherents to be charitable toward those in need. </p>
<p>Jesus directed his followers to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+12%3A33&version=NRSV">sell their possessions and give alms</a> to the poor. The Hebrew Bible instructed the Jews to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+15%3A1-15&version=NRSV">provide generously for neighbors and strangers</a>.</p>
<p>But as media technologies have raised awareness of global suffering, some have asked if the injunction to aid neighbors applies to distant strangers on the other side of the world.</p>
<p>During the late 19th century, a growing number of Americans insisted that the answer must be “yes.” In my recent book, <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737365">Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicals and Global Aid</a>, I show how Protestant missionaries, ministers and media moguls persuaded a significant segment of the U.S. population to embrace the ideal of international charity.</p>
<h2>Global suffering and Christian media</h2>
<p>The 1890s was a pivotal decade in the extension of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ZDznnjvvq6oC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">American philanthropy abroad</a>.</p>
<p>As the United States expanded its global reach, more citizens were traveling overseas. Technological innovations – especially the transatlantic telegraph – made possible the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Humanitarian_Photography.html?id=bBZoBgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false">rapid transmission</a> of reports on political conflicts, economic crises and natural disasters occurring around the world. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Humanitarian_Photography.html?id=bBZoBgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false">invention of the Kodak portable camera in 1888</a> enabled eyewitnesses to document humanitarian catastrophes, and advances in printing processes facilitated the mass reproduction of their photographs. </p>
<p>Hoping that sensational stories and graphic pictures of people in pain would <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/175183412X13346797481032">raise awareness</a> of global affliction while also increasing circulation, newspaper and magazine editors published heartrending images and tragic tales of distress they received from correspondents in foreign lands.</p>
<h2>The Christian Herald’s humanitarian campaigns</h2>
<p>No periodical did more to draw attention to distant suffering at the turn of the century than the <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737365">Christian Herald</a> – at the time the most widely-read religious newspaper in the United States.</p>
<p>Starting with his purchase of the New-York based weekly journal in 1890, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Life_work_of_Louis_Klopsch.html?id=UJwxAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false">the entrepreneurial philanthropist Louis Klopsch</a> worked to make the Christian Herald the nation’s premier purveyor of news about overseas disasters. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290152/original/file-20190829-106508-1sdi49n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290152/original/file-20190829-106508-1sdi49n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290152/original/file-20190829-106508-1sdi49n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290152/original/file-20190829-106508-1sdi49n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290152/original/file-20190829-106508-1sdi49n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290152/original/file-20190829-106508-1sdi49n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290152/original/file-20190829-106508-1sdi49n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290152/original/file-20190829-106508-1sdi49n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas de Witt Talmage and Louis Klopsh. From the Christian Herald, December 4, 1895.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Christian Herald Association, New York.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the help of his editorial partner, the charismatic preacher Thomas De Witt Talmage – pastor of the United States’ largest church – Klopsch solicited first-hand accounts and “exclusive” photographs of calamities from a vast network of missionary contacts stationed across the globe.</p>
<p>But Klospch and Talmage went further than merely chronicling catastrophes such as the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/125573?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">food shortage in Russia in the early 1890s</a>, the <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9573.html">Armenian massacres of 1894 to 1896</a>, or <a href="https://archive.org/details/italysgreathorro00mowbuoft/page/n4">the Messina earthquake</a> that devastated southern Italy in 1908. Insisting that Americans had a moral obligation to relieve suffering around the world, the two spearheaded massive fund-raising campaigns to assist the afflicted. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290151/original/file-20190829-106486-1j674kk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290151/original/file-20190829-106486-1j674kk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290151/original/file-20190829-106486-1j674kk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290151/original/file-20190829-106486-1j674kk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290151/original/file-20190829-106486-1j674kk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290151/original/file-20190829-106486-1j674kk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290151/original/file-20190829-106486-1j674kk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290151/original/file-20190829-106486-1j674kk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Missionary photographs of the famine in India from the Christian Herald, July 7, 1897.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Christian Herald Association, New York.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the India famine of 1900, for example, the Christian Herald collected <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Life_work_of_Louis_Klopsch.html?id=UJwxAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false">over US$1.2 million</a> for food assistance, medicine, and orphan care.</p>
<p>All offerings went directly to local volunteers – usually missionaries – who provided services for free. The missionaries knew the language, understood the culture, were familiar with the needs and conditions on the ground, and could therefore disseminate aid quickly and efficiently.</p>
<p>At the close of every campaign, the newspaper published audited financial statements accounting for each donation and disbursement. </p>
<h2>America - a redeemer nation</h2>
<p>In appealing for contributions, the Christian Herald urged readers to respond generously to descriptions and depictions of distress. </p>
<p>Sufferers on the other side of the world were not strangers, Klopsch and Talamge argued, but part of the same human family. The Bible proclaims that God “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+17%3A24-28&version=KJV">hath made of one blood all the nations of men</a>.” Therefore, <a href="https://archive.org/details/christianheralds20unse/page/260">the editors insisted</a>, charity “must not be limited to our household, nor to our own countrymen…. Neither distance, nor difference of race, nor unworthiness is to be a barrier.”</p>
<p>Like the Bible story of the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A25-37&version=NRSV">good Samaritan who stopped to help a foreigner</a>, the Christian Herald’s subscribers should extend mercy beyond geographical borders and social boundaries. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290150/original/file-20190829-106508-jwdvlj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290150/original/file-20190829-106508-jwdvlj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290150/original/file-20190829-106508-jwdvlj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290150/original/file-20190829-106508-jwdvlj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290150/original/file-20190829-106508-jwdvlj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290150/original/file-20190829-106508-jwdvlj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290150/original/file-20190829-106508-jwdvlj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290150/original/file-20190829-106508-jwdvlj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘America, the Almoner of the World.’ From the Christian Herald, June 26, 1901, cover. Courtesy of the Christian Herald Association, New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Christian Herald Association, New York.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By sending relief abroad, Klopsch and Talmage contended, their newspaper would help the United States fulfill its God-given humanitarian mission. “America,” the editors proclaimed, was destined to become “<a href="https://archive.org/details/christianherald24unse/page/565">the Almoner of the World</a>” – a redeemer nation that possessed unique power and resources to rescue the needy and oppressed.</p>
<p>The Christian Herald’s pleas for international charity proved remarkably persuasive. By the time Klopsch died in 1910, the newspaper’s readers had <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UJwxAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">donated over $3.3 million</a> – approximately $89 million in today’s money – to domestic and foreign aid. </p>
<p>No other humanitarian organization in this period came close to matching the Christian Herald’s fundraising record or ability to arouse concern for affliction both within the United States and world wide.</p>
<h2>Why the Christian Herald’s work remains relevant</h2>
<p>Although largely forgotten today, the Christian Herald’s relief campaigns left a lasting mark on American efforts to alleviate distant suffering.</p>
<p>From Klopsch’s time to our own, presumptions about the United States’ divinely-ordained responsibility to rescue the afflicted have inspired <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15591.html">numerous humanitarian interventions</a>. Aid agencies have continued to rely on photographs of strangers in distress – from the victims of India’s famine that filled the Christian Herald’s columns in 1900, to the lifeless body of Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi that <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/download/file/30317/irc_97_900-9.pdf">went viral in 2015</a> – to publicize disasters and prompt donations.</p>
<p>While many relief efforts since the late 19th century have saved lives, critics of the aid industry have cautioned that <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/7711.html">they can also have negative consequences</a>. </p>
<p>According to scholars such as <a href="https://fletcher.tufts.edu/people/alex-de-waal">Alex de Waal</a> and others, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Famine_Crimes.html?id=UV3XROXhn5oC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false">disaster remediation and development schemes</a> have often <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Road_to_Hell.html?id=639_Bh413xsC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false">fueled corruption, exacerbated poverty</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Crisis_Caravan.html?id=xNdZnPXsKN4C&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false">bolstered authoritarian regimes</a>.</p>
<p>Ethicists warn that <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/jha/archives/411">graphic images of affliction</a> reinforce <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Humanitarian_Photography.html?id=bBZoBgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false">inequalities</a> between privileged donors and relief recipients, leaving in place the structural disparities that cause and perpetuate global suffering. </p>
<p>But even if the Christian Herald’s methods of mobilizing support for distant strangers have produced mixed results, I argue, the newspaper’s arguments for extending compassion beyond national borders and social barriers remain relevant. </p>
<p>At a time when <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/sc13570.doc.htm">nationalism</a> and <a href="https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/refugees-racism-and-xenophobia-what-works-to-reduce-discrimination">racism</a> are hampering efforts to reduce suffering both at home in the United States and around the world, Klopsch’s contention that true charity knows no bounds is worth remembering.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather D. Curtis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For International Day of Charity on Sept. 5, a history of how the Christian Herald mobilized Americans in the late 19th century to give millions for the relief of global suffering.Heather D. Curtis, Associate Professor of Religion, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1212342019-08-02T12:22:30Z2019-08-02T12:22:30ZThere’s a dark political history to language that strips people of their dignity<p>Dehumanizing language often precedes genocide.</p>
<p>One tragic example: Extreme dehumanizing language was a strong contributor to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0261927X11425033">As I have written</a>, the Hutu majority used a popular radio station to continually refer to Tutsi tribal members, a minority in Rwanda, as “cockroaches.” </p>
<p>As support for this characterization grew among Hutus, it essentially stripped away any moral obligation to see Tutsis as fellow humans. They were just <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/rwanda-shows-how-hateful-speech-leads-violence/587041/">vermin that needed to be eradicated</a>. </p>
<p>Students of 20th century history will also recognize this pattern of dehumanizing language in the lead-up to the <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/sites/default/files/Armenian_Genocide_full.pdf">genocide committed by the Turks against Armenians</a>, where Armenians were “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/armenia/11559779/Armenian-massacres-What-happened-during-the-genocide-and-why-does-Turkey-deny-it.html">dangerous microbes</a>.” During the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134956180/criminals-see-their-victims-as-less-than-human">the Holocaust</a>, Germans described Jews as “Untermenschen,” or subhumans.</p>
<p>On July 27, President Trump tweeted that Baltimore was a “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-attacks-rep-cummingss-district-calling-it-a-disgusting-rat-and-rodent-infested-mess/2019/07/27/b93c89b2-b073-11e9-bc5c-e73b603e7f38_story.html?utm_term=.6407427d4871">"disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess”</a> and “No human being would want to live there.” </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-0728-trump-baltimore-20190727-k6ac4yvnpvcczlaexdfglifada-story.html">Baltimore Sun charged back with an editorial</a> headlined “Better to have a few rats than to be one.” </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tRawgvcAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of conflict management</a>. This back-and-forth got me reflecting on how extreme, dehumanizing exchanges like this can escalate into destructive outcomes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286536/original/file-20190801-169702-k0kv26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286536/original/file-20190801-169702-k0kv26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286536/original/file-20190801-169702-k0kv26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286536/original/file-20190801-169702-k0kv26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286536/original/file-20190801-169702-k0kv26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286536/original/file-20190801-169702-k0kv26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286536/original/file-20190801-169702-k0kv26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286536/original/file-20190801-169702-k0kv26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Donald Trump.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/3550b1e040f34a71a7f7b417094b2ab9/66/0">AP/Carolyn Kaster</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Insults and conflict</h2>
<p>The goal of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mZyl34QAAAAJ&hl=en">my research in hostage negotiation and divorce mediation</a> is to help police negotiators and court mediators shift out of a charged situation into problem solving. </p>
<p>Generally, when people respect one another they have a fairly easy time problem solving. But when one person challenges the other’s identity with personal insults, both parties forget about the problem-solving task and focus only on what I call “identity restoration,” which means trying to save face and restore personal dignity. </p>
<p>This shift pushes them into a <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993-97742-000">charged conflict that can quickly escalate</a>. </p>
<p>After all, many studies over the last several decades have reinforced the finding that <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/0162-895X.00230">a human being’s group identity is their most prized possession</a>. People craft their identities to fit into a core group – as a member of a family, a profession or a tribe, for example – that is vital to our social standing. In some cases, such as adopting the identity of a U.S. Marine, for example, group belonging may be necessary to personal survival. </p>
<p>Most of the time identity challenges are fairly minor and easily ignored so that problem solving doesn’t get off track too quickly. A boss might say at a meeting, “Weren’t you supposed to have that report ready today?” A quick defense of one’s identity as a competent professional for that company and the matter is dropped and we’re back to work. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286535/original/file-20190801-169684-1nrl2c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286535/original/file-20190801-169684-1nrl2c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286535/original/file-20190801-169684-1nrl2c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286535/original/file-20190801-169684-1nrl2c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286535/original/file-20190801-169684-1nrl2c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286535/original/file-20190801-169684-1nrl2c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286535/original/file-20190801-169684-1nrl2c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286535/original/file-20190801-169684-1nrl2c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Baltimore Sun published an editorial in response to President Trump.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-0728-trump-baltimore-20190727-k6ac4yvnpvcczlaexdfglifada-story.html">Screenshot, Baltimore Sun</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Conflict and Escalation</h2>
<p>When the challenges are more severe, the identity defense becomes fiercer. Voices get raised, emotions swell and people become locked in a spiraling conflict, which is characterized by a sustained attack-and-defend cycle. </p>
<p>Hostage negotiators and divorce mediators are trained to shift dialogue away from identity threats and into problem solving by isolating divisive issues and coming up with specific proposals to address them.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, if there are no controls over language escalation, and parties start making references that can be interpreted in extreme, dehumanizing terms, they may come to believe that the only way to restore their identities is by physical domination. </p>
<p>Words no longer work. When parties cross over this very thin line, they fall into an identity trap with little hope of escape until the violence ends. </p>
<p>While I don’t expect the conflict between the president and Baltimore to escalate into actual violence, these kinds of exchanges can make it more acceptable for followers to use this kind of language. </p>
<p>When the President encourages crowds to chant, “Lock her up,” and “Send her back” at rallies, or describes a city as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being” would want to live, it sets a climate in which using lethal, dehumanizing language seems normal. That is simply dangerous. </p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121234/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William A. Donohue does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Extreme, dehumanizing language like the words used by President Trump to describe Baltimore can escalate into destructive outcomes, writes a scholar of hostage negotiation.William A. Donohue, Distinguished Professor of Communication, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/854872017-11-06T10:27:17Z2017-11-06T10:27:17ZThe Nansen passport: the innovative response to the refugee crisis that followed the Russian Revolution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193020/original/file-20171102-26426-msh1ty.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C7%2C374%2C273&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian refugees in Europe after the evacuation of Odessa, Ukraine, in 1919. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AOdessa_refugees_1919.JPG">Wikimedia Commmons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The triumph of revolution in Russia in 1917 brought an end to the 300-year old Romanov dynasty and the empire over which it ruled. The collapse of the German, Austrian and Ottoman war effort in 1918 precipitated the end of the remaining continental European empires. </p>
<p>In each instance, imperial dissolution went hand in hand with the formation of new states. The Russian Civil War, between 1918 and 1921, led to an exodus of people who opposed the Bolsheviks who had seized power in November 1917. In Europe’s new nation states, minority ethnic groups were exposed to the chill wind of nationalism. They were encouraged to leave – or chose to leave – before their lives became intolerable. </p>
<p>In the Ottoman Empire, Armenians had already been persecuted to the point of extermination in 1915. In the aftermath of the war, contemporaries began to speak for the first time not of refugees but of “the refugee problem”, evoking a sense that the war had produced a distinct kind of victim and a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3020054?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">new challenge to international relations</a>.</p>
<p>Among the millions of people on the move, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DYUr7-1xRXMC&pg=PA316&lpg=PA316&dq=Neutrality+and+humanitarianism:+Fridtjof+Nansen+and+the+Nansen+Passports%E2%80%99,+in+Rebecka+Lettevall&source=bl&ots=ebb6OPlsJU&sig=2dVGs8AfI8udsGYWpaHnl4iwQIU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwix1bbe2p_XAhUMfxoKHVdnBocQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=Neutrality%20and%20humanitarianism%3A%20Fridtjof%20Nansen%20and%20the%20Nansen%20Passports%E2%80%99%2C%20in%20Rebecka%20Lettevall&f=false">Russian and Armenian refugees stood out</a> by virtue of having been deprived of their nationality. </p>
<p>In 1921, member states of the new League of Nations affirmed that Russians who had fled their homes and not acquired another nationality <a href="https://www.icrc.org/ara/assets/files/other/727_738_jaeger.pdf">deserved to be recognised</a> as refugees. It’s <a href="https://www.icrc.org/ara/assets/files/other/727_738_jaeger.pdf">estimated</a> that there were up to 1.5m Russians scattered across the globe and particularly in major cities such as Constantinople, Prague, Berlin and Paris by 1921. Armenian refugees numbered between 300,000 and 400,000, and they too became recognised by the League of Nations.</p>
<h2>Nansen’s office</h2>
<p>At the behest of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the League of Nations established an office to assist both Russian and Armenian refugees. The <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1922/nansen-bio.html">Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen</a> became the first head of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. Everyone assumed that his appointment would be temporary, like his earlier and successful efforts to repatriate prisoners of war.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193040/original/file-20171102-26456-2lc2uh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193040/original/file-20171102-26456-2lc2uh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193040/original/file-20171102-26456-2lc2uh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193040/original/file-20171102-26456-2lc2uh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193040/original/file-20171102-26456-2lc2uh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193040/original/file-20171102-26456-2lc2uh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193040/original/file-20171102-26456-2lc2uh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fridtjof Nansen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fridtjof_Nansen_LOC_03377u-3.jpg">George Grantham Bain collection at the Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The League of Nations <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UAkarK3gLDgC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=their+allocation+to+the+various+countries+which+might+be+able+to+receive+them+and+to+find+means+of+work+for+them&source=bl&ots=zfzBJ2bNje&sig=tZBo5AutD1wUFeLNXz4USh8mrKM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT4oPj_J_XAhXBrRoKHT6mBo0Q6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=their%20allocation%20to%20the%20various%20countries%20which%20might%20be%20able%20to%20receive%20them%20and%20to%20find%20means%20of%20work%20for%20them&f=false">invited Nansen</a> to organise the repatriation of refugees or arrange for “their allocation to the various countries which might be able to receive them and to find means of work for them”. He initially hoped to promote the repatriation of Russian refugees so that they might contribute to the reconstruction of Russia, but few refugees wanted to return and Nansen eventually abandoned the idea.</p>
<p>With no funds at his disposal and only a tiny office, Nansen could not assist refugees directly. He did, however, employ refugees as clerical staff in local branches. Assisting Russian refugees became instead a story of self-help and private philanthropy, in which non-governmental organisations (NGOs) played a lead role in providing schooling, vocational training, basic medical treatment and assistance for children and the elderly, many of whom were in dire straits. These NGOs included the Russian Red Cross and Zemgor – a continuation of a leading wartime organisation in Tsarist Russia for the relief of civilians victims of war.</p>
<p>In 1922 Nansen convened a conference of the League of Nations in Geneva where he obtained states’ agreement to <a href="http://doc.rero.ch/record/291404/files/220036.pdf">a “Nansen certificate”</a> to be issued to Russian refugees who could afford <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1938/nansen-lecture.html#not6">five gold francs</a>. Two years later the scheme was extended to Armenian refugees. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193006/original/file-20171102-26430-3cov4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193006/original/file-20171102-26430-3cov4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193006/original/file-20171102-26430-3cov4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193006/original/file-20171102-26430-3cov4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193006/original/file-20171102-26430-3cov4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193006/original/file-20171102-26430-3cov4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1205&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193006/original/file-20171102-26430-3cov4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1205&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193006/original/file-20171102-26430-3cov4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1205&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Nansen certificate issued by the UK to a Russian Jewish refugee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A1927_British_issued_Nansen_identity_certificate.jpg">By Huddyhuddy via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The certificate, popularly known as a “Nansen passport” was normally valid for up to one year, at the discretion of the issuing authority. It could be renewed, but not indefinitely. It enabled holders to travel to a third country to look for work. The underlying purpose was to help relieve the pressure on overcrowded places such as Varna and Constantinople and also to begin to distribute Russian and Armenian refugees more “equitably” among member countries of the League of Nations. However, it offered no guarantees about a place to live or the right to a job. </p>
<p>In 1926, more than 20 member states of the League of Nations agreed that holders of a Nansen passport could leave the country of issue and be allowed back in. For example, if France issued a certificate to a Russian refugee, he or she could travel to Belgium on the passport and then be readmitted to France.</p>
<p>The Nansen passport served as a valid form of identity. Its significance was summed up well by historian Michael Marrus <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Unwanted.html?id=hhiOAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">in his survey of European refugees</a> in the 20th century: “For the first time it permitted determination of the juridical status of stateless persons through a specific international agreement.” In essence, it provided a new form of international protection, over and above the authority of the state.</p>
<p>Approximately <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=y13nBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=nansen+passports+450,000&source=bl&ots=lc3jkcPbqd&sig=EHHs5aHjs3a9d4tdk7f7v3E1aOU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrr-ux9p_XAhUJtBoKHW4oCooQ6AEIbjAL#v=onepage&q=nansen%20passports%20450%2C000&f=false">450,000 refugees</a> used Nansen passports, which were issued until 1942 and recognised by <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1938/nansen-lecture.html#not6">52 countries</a>. </p>
<h2>Creativity in the face of mass displacement</h2>
<p>In the longer term, the concept that recognised refugees should be entitled to a travel document issued by the country of asylum became incorporated into the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/1951-refugee-convention.html">1951 Refugee Convention</a>, giving the bearer the right to enter any country that accepted these documents. In other words, the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/rsq/article-abstract/22/1/21/1602977?redirectedFrom=fulltext">main features of the Nansen passport were incorporated</a> into international refugee law.</p>
<p>Innovative though it was, the Nansen passport was as much about assisting host states as it was about giving refugees a degree of legal status, since it enabled the state to keep track of refugees who came and went. It was available mainly to recognised refugees from Russia and Armenia but hundreds of thousands of other displaced people, such as those in the Balkans, were not entitled to it. It did nothing to make refugees feel welcome or valued.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it represented a degree of creativity that is sorely lacking in the contemporary world of mass displacement. The emphasis on enabling mobility stands in sharp contrast to the current global emphasis on deterrence that is keeping refugees in their country of origin or in the country where they first claim asylum.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Gatrell has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, and The Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>The certificate gave a new form of international protection to stateless Russian and Armenian refugees.Peter Gatrell, Professor of Economic History, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/800712017-06-29T20:14:20Z2017-06-29T20:14:20ZCould there be a link between genocide and suicide?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175558/original/file-20170626-32760-1hceq06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Legacies of genocidal phases have scarred the Aboriginal psyches.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Neda Vanovac</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Genocide and suicide are connected in some contexts. Sometimes the connection is direct; occasionally it is indirect. </p>
<p>This relationship hardly figures in suicide studies. Only a handful of case studies are to hand – and they tell us little. We can start with Namibia (1904 to 1906), then the Armenian genocide (1915 to 1923), move to the Holocaust (1933 to 1945), and then to Rwanda and Bosnia in the 1990s.</p>
<p>We know very little about suicide and suicide attempts during modern genocides. But we do know there is an aftermath of suicide among victims.</p>
<h2>Namibia</h2>
<p>Namibia – formerly German South-West Africa – has 2 million people. In one year (2013–14), 477 people <a href="https://www.newera.com.na/2014/10/23/hundreds-namibians-commit-suicide/">took their lives</a> and 1,305 attempted suicide (that are known). Speculation as to why ranges from broken relationships to fears of AIDS.</p>
<p>Herero women <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8250985-the-kaiser-s-holocaust">refused to procreate</a> for at least a decade following their sexual degradation by German troops between 1904 and 1906. That was a form of collective genocide-suicide, a self-imposed extinction by non-reproduction.</p>
<h2>Turkey</h2>
<p>Armenian women killed themselves rather than surrender to Turkish rape. And during the death marches into Syria, many Armenian women <a href="http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/Humanities/History/Regional%20%20national%20history/European%20history/The%20Armenian%20Genocide%20A%20Complete%20History.aspx">threw themselves into rivers</a> rather than face their torment to come.</p>
<p>Rape was a systematic form of sexual humiliation. Torture, forced marriages and prostitution were part of the attack on women and their “Armenianness”.</p>
<p>Akin to Holocaust survivor families, there is a pall over Armenians – even today, a century later. There is a deprivation of pleasure, a suffusion and suffocation from a dark history.</p>
<p>It is an abiding history, fuelled daily by the ferocity of the Turkish denial, which insists that nothing genocidal ever happened to that Christian minority.</p>
<h2>The Holocaust</h2>
<p>Konrad Kwiet <a href="https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article-abstract/29/1/135/937237/The-Ultimate-Refuge-Suicide-in-the-Jewish?redirectedFrom=PDF">wrote that</a> suicide was the “ultimate refuge” for German Jews during the Holocaust. Some 10,000 of 550,000 German Jews killed themselves between 1925 and 1945 – a huge number at an inordinate rate.</p>
<p>At first it was the boycott of Jewish businesses, then the “outing” of those baptised who had believed they were Christians but were suddenly exposed as having Jewish origins, and then those who took their lives rather than have the Nazis take them. </p>
<p>Suicide is not a cultural or religious phenomenon <a href="http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/suicide-in-jewish-tradition-and-literature/">in Jewish life</a>. Two precepts stand out: first, one may suicide rather than betray the faith, and second, born out of the Warsaw Ghetto, one may take one’s life rather than have someone else take it. This was seen as resisting and defiant suicide.</p>
<p>Later came the torment of survivor guilt and the suicides that resulted. <a href="http://www.jta.org/1982/01/19/archive/a-new-film-about-the-holocaust-is-a-dramatic-reminder-that-it-did-happen">A mantra</a> was “we will outlive them” – the seemingly relentless determination to stay alive no matter what. But that turned out not to be universal.</p>
<h2>Rwanda</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25488977">2014 study in Rwanda</a> found a consistently high suicide rate among those who were convicted of genocide crimes. </p>
<p>Being a survivor, or a member of a family with a first-degree relative killed, or having been a victim of sexual abuse, did not emerge as a suicide risk. This is surprising. But again, we have a study that set out to look for “mental health issues” – in this case, evidence of epidemic post-traumatic stress disorder. Most of these studies begin with that premise. </p>
<p>There is no mention of shame, dishonour, or guilt – the more usual emotional responses to what they did and how they were punished. And again, there was no attempt to probe the overall impact and legacy of the events of 1994.</p>
<h2>Bosnia</h2>
<p>Surprisingly, perhaps, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24197489">one study</a> shows that the Serbian war on Bosnia-Herzogovina between 1992 and 1995 did not affect the suicide rates. The one exception is that the rates for women in Sarajevo increased.</p>
<p>There was a marked increase in suicide rates among Serbs who were involved in the genocide, particularly of those indicted for trial.</p>
<p>The few suicide scholars who write in this field suggest stress from economic depression. But they ought to look beyond that immediacy.</p>
<h2>Australia</h2>
<p>Among Aboriginal Australians, from the end of the 19th to the start of the 21st centuries, <a href="http://www.xlibris.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-001133401">some 2.9% of the population endured</a> physical killings, forcible child removals, and regimes of incarceration on government-run settlements and church mission agencies that caused them serious bodily and mental harm. These are three of the five actions defined as genocide in the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CrimeOfGenocide.aspx">UN genocide convention</a> and the <a href="http://legal.un.org/icc/statute/99_corr/cstatute.htm">Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court</a>.</p>
<p>The legacies of genocidal phases have scarred the Aboriginal psyches. Once highly ordered societies have become disordered in many instances. </p>
<p>The social, political, legal, geographical and historical contexts have led not only to anomie and alienation, but to violent behaviour towards others – and, more particularly, towards selves. Homicide has a flip-side: suicide.</p>
<p>Aboriginal youth today are taking their lives <a href="https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-suicide-rates#axzz4l53zlzr7">at extraordinary rates</a>. Very dark shadows surround Aboriginal life. Youth take in their their kin history by osmosis, and Aborigines <a href="http://www.indigenousaustralia.info/languages/oral-traditions.html">are renowned</a> for their quite remarkable oral history tradition.</p>
<h2>What all this means</h2>
<p>Italian suicide scholar Marzio Barbagli <a href="http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0745662447.html">defines two kinds of suicide</a>: those who do it for themselves and sometimes for others, and those who do it against others. The Armenian and Jewish experiences are revelatory of both categories. They saved themselves from barbarisms, and they resisted their perpetrators’ objectives by such defiance.</p>
<p>After 25 years studying Aboriginal suicide, mainly that of youth, my conclusion is that much of it is “political” – that is, an exercise of power over the one thing they possess: their bodies.</p>
<p>Do Aboriginal or Native American or Inuit youth know the details of their genocidal history? As likely not. Do they live in a deep daily shadow, and do they osmose sadness? Certainly – at least in my experience.</p>
<p>Jewish grandchildren know of their grandparental tattoos, and Aboriginal generations know that their parents were in assimilation homes – in which they were incarcerated after forcible removal from parents – where they were always known by their numbers, never by their names.</p>
<p>Searching for factors involved in youth suicide is, assuredly, less of a speculation than finding a depression gene, a suicide gene, or a chemical imbalance in the brain. For one thing, there is a lot more source material for the “genocidal gene” than there is for the “mental issue gene” in the case of ethnic minorities with that kind of history.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>If you or someone you know need someone to talk to, for any reason, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 – 24 hours a day.</em></p>
<p><em>This piece is based on a presentation delivered on June 29, 2017, to the Critical Suicidology 2.0 Conference.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin Tatz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Very little is known about suicide and suicide attempts during modern genocides – but we do know there is an aftermath of suicide among victims.Colin Tatz, ANU Visiting Professor, Politics and International Relations, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/765372017-04-24T08:59:23Z2017-04-24T08:59:23ZDenial of the Armenian Genocide should concern us all<p>April 24 marks the anniversary of the start of the <a href="http://www.armenian-genocide.org/genocidefaq.html">Armenian Genocide</a>, during which the Ottoman state murdered 1.5m Ottoman Armenians. But while it might have begun 102 years ago, in a sense, the genocide did not end; the inheritor Turkish state then embarked on a project of denial – the <a href="http://www.genocidewatch.org/genocide/tenstagesofgenocide.html">final stage of genocide</a>. </p>
<p>The Turkish state’s denialism continues to subvert and undermine the memories of the survivors and the claims of their descendants, now scattered throughout the globe. This denialism is a foundation of the Turkish state and a cornerstone of its foreign policy, extending to ever-more creative and expansive international campaigns and efforts <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3552070/Pro-Turkish-skywriters-scribble-slogans-New-York.html">international campaigns</a>. </p>
<p>That <a href="http://armeniangenocide100.org/en/states/">only 23 countries</a> currently officially recognise the genocide reflects Turkey’s geopolitical importance. It’s a crucial NATO ally and world player, and most of the international community is keen not to antagonise it. Each time a country acknowledges the Armenian genocide, Turkey is quick to retaliate, breaking diplomatic ties and tearing up trade deals while issuing harsh denouncements and threats.</p>
<p>The latest episode in the denialist game is the response to The Promise, the first mainstream Hollywood film about the genocide that was recently released in the US. </p>
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<p>Despite only being shown to small festival audiences so far, the film has drawn <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/the-promise-film-christian-bale-armenian-genocide-imdb-turkey-oscar-isaac-a7378881.html">vast numbers of negative online ratings</a>, apparently thanks to an online campaign by <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-is-losing-battle-online-trolls-992582">Turkish denialists</a>. Turkish funders, meanwhile, backed the production of <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/15/hollywood-classic-love-story-does-double-duty-as-armenian-genocide-whitewash.html">The Ottoman Lieutenant</a>, a film set in the same period, which critics have <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/markets-festivals/the-ottoman-lieutenant-film-review-1202001137/">derided</a> as “Turkish propaganda”.</p>
<p>One may legitimately wonder why recognising a genocide that took place more than a century ago remains controversial. All states are based on some history of violence, and collective amnesia; nations are understandably reluctant to face up to their violent past or acknowledge their part in crimes and injustices. It is always painful to deal with a less-than-glorious chapter of national history, whether it is done symbolically (like the US’s <a href="http://indianlaw.org/node/529">2009 apology to Native Americans</a> to Native Americans) or materially (like German <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/world/europe/for-60th-year-germany-honors-duty-to-pay-holocaust-victims.html">reparations and restitution</a> for the Holocaust). </p>
<p>But while the Turkish state’s efforts have used various tropes and approaches over the decades, its denialism remains undiluted. Under Article 301 of Turkey’s penal code, citizens and cultural luminaries are regularly prosecuted for “insulting” the Turkish nation or state or bringing “shame” on the republic by mentioning the genocide, even subtly. The narrative of denial of state genocide is pursued at all costs.</p>
<h2>Turn for the worse</h2>
<p>In April 2015 the centenary of the genocide was marked in Turkey by a burgeoning civil society movement, that has been bravely engaged in these issues for more than a decade. Since then the situation in Turkey has deteriorated sharply. The Turkish state’s list of “enemies” is growing every day; it includes <a href="https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/academics-peace">Academics for Peace</a>, who dared to call on the government to stop its war against the Kurds in Anatolia, and anyone suspected of links to the Islamist <a href="https://theconversation.com/fethullah-gulen-public-intellectual-or-public-enemy-62887">Gülen movement</a>, the ruling party’s former ally. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/turkey-struggles-to-make-sense-of-a-surreal-failed-coup-detat-62596">failed coup</a> against the government in July 2016 was followed by purges of state employees, many from the education sector. </p>
<p>Then a majority of the Turkish electorate voted to grant President Erdoğan vastly expanded powers, which many regard as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/erdogan-declares-victory-in-his-pursuit-of-one-man-rule-76032">building blocks of authoritarianism</a>. Erdoğan won after a contentious campaign and by only a narrow margin, an indication of just how divided Turkish society now is, and how his government is exploiting these divisions to consolidate its power. </p>
<p>Erdoğan has repeatedly shown his willingness to crush anyone who opposes him, and his government is clearly closing up the space for dissent in the Turkish public sphere. Denying a historic genocide perfectly serves the interests of this regime, one that normalises state violence, relentlessly promotes its own narrative, and punishes any opposition.</p>
<p>It is crucial to remember that this phenomenon is far from confined to Turkey. Societies around the world witness it on a daily basis: state-sponsored genocide is repackaged as civil war, victims are recast as instigators, state violence is sold as national security, and fabrications or “alternative facts” are presented as news. If this is allowed to stand, this will not just be a post-truth world, but one without a moral compass.</p>
<p>Too often, the powerful are unrestricted and unaccountable for their actions, while weak are rendered invisible and irrelevant. For the sake of all victims of state violence all over the world, past and present, speaking truth to power has never had greater urgency.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76537/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sossie Kasbarian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Wherever past atrocities are denied, truth must be spoken to power.Sossie Kasbarian, Lecturer in Middle Eastern Politics, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/628852016-07-27T02:07:03Z2016-07-27T02:07:03ZWhy Turkey wants to silence its academics<p>After the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/jul/15/turkey-coup-attempt-military-gunfire-ankara">July 15 coup attempt</a> in Turkey, one of the first actions of the Turkish state and government was to purge thousands of academics and deans <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/07/turkish-academics-targeted-government-reacts-failed-coup">from office</a>. </p>
<p>In a crackdown that rapidly spread across civil and military services, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the closure of thousands of private schools and many universities. Some <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/19/turkey-sacks-15000-education-workers-in-purge">15,000 employees at the education ministry</a> were fired, while more than 1,500 university deans were asked to resign.</p>
<p>So, why did Turkey’s government go after academics, and how were they able to force so many to resign? </p>
<p>I am a sociologist who grew up in Turkey and went through its university system. Even after moving to the United States, I have been in close contact with academia in Turkey – organizing many academic events with Turkish universities and collaborating with faculty.</p>
<p>I believe that the answer to the above question lies in the unique design of the institutions of higher education in Turkey. </p>
<h2>Let’s start with history</h2>
<p>Soon after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, a law bringing all educational institutions <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038012109000238">under state control</a> was promulgated. </p>
<p>Prior to that – in the Ottoman Empire – Western-style institutions of higher education established by the state, by Western missionaries and non-Muslim minorities as well as by religious institutions (<em>medrese</em>) had coexisted. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132046/original/image-20160726-7064-1cukyfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132046/original/image-20160726-7064-1cukyfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132046/original/image-20160726-7064-1cukyfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132046/original/image-20160726-7064-1cukyfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132046/original/image-20160726-7064-1cukyfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132046/original/image-20160726-7064-1cukyfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132046/original/image-20160726-7064-1cukyfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Istanbul University.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chemicalbrother/3166337501/in/photolist-5PNiPT-q7mFoX-4kYcE9-7eaa4W-9nsbP6-8Y4kMa-7e6f3x-7e62CK-7e5Xre-7e65E6-6XPZE3-8KgHv8-6N2ENY-7e6bCK-nkxho-5PSz7s-TknsB-nFVkM-6orSqe-q4iHrW-bFDMHT-Z3pM9-9WdddR-bsKbEE-fAaYES-3cGhes-5QHQMF-byMZKv-bsKkgy-bEZChR-ekmkk2-n8eHU-5tPNw5-bs5PNy-9r9Gy-xXkQ1-pv1hi1-n8eHZ-dth97X-n8eHY-bsJUtm-gmKTRz-6PprGV-4o4BNm-b4QvEx-dTfgQ7-nqRTuZ-82bSh4-bFDLbR-bEZGw2">Andreas Hunziker</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But, in the newly established republic, the control of all institutions, including institutions of higher education, came to rest with the Republican elite.</p>
<p>Most of the faculty were treated by the state and its governments as state officials. The faculty too often regarded themselves as such. In fact, to this day, they are even issued different color passports to mark their distinction from ordinary citizens. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/1980-coup-facts.aspx?pageID=238&nid=17628">1980 military coup in Turkey</a> further institutionalized state control over higher education institutions. The constitution was rewritten, <a href="http://muftah.org/i-only-remember-fear-the-legacy-of-the-1980-coup-in-turkey/">restricting the rights and freedoms of all citizens</a>. As part of the 1982 constitution, the military-led government set up <a href="http://www.yok.gov.tr/documents/10348274/10733291/TR'de+Y%C3%BCksek%C3%B6%C4%9Fretim+Sistemi2.pdf/9027552a-962f-4b03-8450-3d1ff8d56ccc">the Higher Education Institution (HEI)</a> – an umbrella organization overseeing all universities administratively, academically and financially.</p>
<p>State control over universities had always been substantial, but with this action, it got institutionalized. For even though the HEI, like the judiciary, was in name fully independent, appointments to the HEI were overseen and approved by the state. </p>
<p>For instance, while university faculty voted to elect their chairs, directors, deans and presidents, the appointment of university presidents was contingent on the approval of the president of the Turkish Republic and the appointment of deans contingent upon <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20151114084616491">the approval of HEI</a>.</p>
<h2>Opening up Turkey’s markets</h2>
<p>In 1984, Turkey began a process of economic liberalization. Turkish elites started to gradually <a href="http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/8">transform the state-controlled economy</a> into a market-centered one. That ended the period of dominance of state-run universities. </p>
<p>Given the vast, unmet demand for universities in Turkey where <a href="http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTECAREGTOPEDUCATION/Resources/444607-1192636551820/S._Hatakenakas_report_on_Higher_Education_in_Turkey_for_21st_Century_Nov_2006.pdf">only one in three applicants could get into a university</a>, the state relinquished its control. Many private, nonprofit universities <a href="http://www.academia.edu/201911/Globalisation_higher_education_and_urban_growth_coalitions_Turkeys_foundation_universities_and_the_case_of_Koc_University_in_Istanbul">were established</a>. </p>
<p>Today, there are about <a href="http://blog.milliyet.com.tr/turkiye-deki-universite-sayisi-193-e-ulasti/Blog/?BlogNo=498323">193 universities in Turkey</a>, of which 109 are state universities and 84 private. The private universities in Turkey were established either by wealthy individuals or private foundations. </p>
<p>I would argue that these private universities weakened state control over education – especially research and faculty recruitment. As they did not receive public funds, the internal administration of these universities was somewhat less influenced by the state. </p>
<p>These private universities also strengthened civil society: More faculty came to be involved in education, research and teaching courses that stimulated students to think differently. The faculty could now openly design courses that tackled Turkey’s problems, such as a critical analyses of Turkish nationalism and culture on the one side, and domestic violence and gender issues on the other.</p>
<p>Despite this change, state influence on private universities was still visible to many of us in academia. For example, we would hear about the pressure from the Turkish state to hire former state bureaucrats as faculty and to host conferences where people with particular pro-government views were invited.</p>
<p>So, while all universities and also the HEI were autonomous bodies – just like the judiciary – that was not how things worked in practice. </p>
<h2>AKP and academic control</h2>
<p>When the Justice and Development Party (AKP) initially came to power, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/turkish-higher-education-reform-20147106282924991.html">it did take some steps</a> to address some of the problems in higher education. For example, the ban on women wearing veils on campuses was lifted and funding for scientific research was substantially increased. The tenure process was made more fair and less arbitrary. </p>
<p>However, all universities, including private universities, continued to be under <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/turkish-higher-education-reform-20147106282924991.html">the constant scrutiny of HEI</a>. And checks on academic freedom continued.</p>
<p>For example, when the the German Parliament passed the Armenian Genocide resolution anonymously on June 2, 2016, university presidents came under pressure to <a href="http://www.milliyet.com.tr/amasya-universitesi-nden-almanya-ya-amasya-yerelhaber-1405333/">issue public statements</a> supporting Turkish foreign policy. </p>
<p>To this day, the <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/04/armenia-massacre-turkey-kurds-history/">Armenian Genocide of 1915</a> – in which a million Armenians lost their lives – remains a highly sensitive issue in Turkey. This issue is similar to Turkey’s <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33690060">ongoing conflict with Kurds</a>. Public discussions of such issues have always been problematic. </p>
<h2>Connection of state and knowledge</h2>
<p>It is a truism that knowledge is power. Those who control knowledge have ultimate power in a society. Since educational institutions are among the most significant places for research, their control becomes crucial in autocratic states. Rulers want to closely monitor access to knowledge and therefore to power. </p>
<p>Scholar <a href="https://eksisozluk.com/busra-ersanli--572343">Büşra Ersanlı, a political scientist</a> studying the connection between between state and knowledge in Turkey, <a href="http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/stable/3879831">points out</a> how the Turkish state has constantly taken measures to imbue all school textbooks with nationalist discourse glorifying the state.</p>
<p>Schools and campuses are regarded as sites of potential social change in Turkey.
In this context, it is no accident that <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-13503361">the Gülen movement</a> – launched by a Muslim cleric with the professed intent to improve first Turkish civil society and then humankind – started by providing K-12 and higher education to those in Turkey and abroad. </p>
<p>The movement, which today has gained extraordinary influence is allegedly behind the failed coup attempt in Turkey. To this day, it operates thousands of schools throughout the world, <a href="http://gulencharterschools.weebly.com/">including the United States</a>. </p>
<p>President Erdoğan too used schools to start a revival movement in <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2014/12/26/erdogan-launches-sunni-islamist-revival-turkish-schools-292237.html">Sunni Islamic studies</a>. At one time, in fact, both President Erdogan and Islamic scholar Gulen were <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/01/akp-gulen-conflict-guide.html">considered to be allies</a>. </p>
<h2>Stranglehold over academia</h2>
<p>The current Turkish government’s stranglehold over academia started in 2013 when Erdoğan, who had been prime minister was elected president. </p>
<p>Over the past three years, human rights in Turkey have been increasingly curbed, although the president and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have continually denied <a href="https://www.hrw.org/europe/central-asia/turkey">any such restrictions</a>. </p>
<p>I personally felt his wrath in January 2016 when I signed a petition, along with thousands of like-minded academics, calling for the conflict with the Kurds to be solved by peaceful, not military, means. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/A-History-of-the-Turkish-Kurdish-Conflict-20150728-0042.html">The Turkish-Kurdish conflict</a> has existed since the establishment of the Turkish Republic. Erdoğan himself started a peace process with the Kurds in 2011, while he was prime minister of Turkey. But after becoming president, he ordered military operations against them. </p>
<p>It was in this context that we protested the violence. Erdoğan’s <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/03/turkey-erdogan-introduces-new-thought-crimes.html">response</a> to our petition was emphatic: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There is no difference between a terrorist with a gun and bomb in his hand and those who use their work and pen to support terror. The fact that an individual could be a deputy, an academic, an author, a journalist or the director of an NGO [nongovernmental organization] does not change the fact that that person is a terrorist.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He asked the HEI president to investigate, and many university presidents were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/15/turkey-rounds-up-academics-who-signed-petition-denouncing-attacks-on-kurds">forced to fire the signatories</a>.</p>
<p>Having formed a Listserv, we signatories were still trying to decide how to resist this violence wreaked upon us when the new wave of purges commenced. </p>
<h2>Where will Turkey go next?</h2>
<p>I, for one, have decided not to travel to my country of origin this summer for the first time ever for fear of arrest.</p>
<p>Where will Turkey go from here? I spend many sleepless nights, feeling just as I did when I first read <a href="http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/">George Orwell’s “1984.”</a> Just like Orwell’s dystopian society – a society with oppressive controls – the current Turkish state and the government are, it seems, out to silence all people capable of producing new and independent thinking and research in Turkey.</p>
<p>As most of such minds are concentrated in Turkish academia, they will all be destroyed unless they turn into obedient and pious consumers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62885/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fatma Müge Göçek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar who grew up in Turkey explains the important role Turkey’s academics play and why, following the recent coup, the government went after them.Fatma Müge Göçek, Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/595612016-05-19T11:29:04Z2016-05-19T11:29:04ZLaw can enshrine a country’s history, but it is a citizen’s right to question it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123054/original/image-20160518-13478-1pjwsmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In memoriam: Holocaust monument on the banks of the Danube in Budapest.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Neil via Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Lithuanian capital Vilnius has a public monument honouring the US rock star <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2000/jan/29/lithuania">Frank Zappa</a>. To place the statue in a prominent public space required a special law to be passed in 1992. It was seen as a deliberate symbol of the country’s break from its Soviet-bloc past, the remnants of which were being swept away – including statues of Communist era heroes such as Lenin and Stalin.</p>
<p>Was this a frivolous use of law? Sure, it was deliberately eccentric – yet all nations <a href="http://www.law.qmul.ac.uk/research/funded/MELA/index.html">use law</a> in one way or another to mould collective understandings of the past.</p>
<p>The Vilnius law happens to stand at a rather extreme end of what law is and does. After all, there’s no obvious way one can violate it. It’s certainly not the kind of law that punishes anyone for doing anything. A judge might slap a fine on you for defacing the monument, but that is true of most property, public or private, whether it’s the bust of a rock star, the door of a local tax office, or your neighbour’s grinning garden gnome.</p>
<p>If we swing to the opposite extreme, the use of law to shape popular historical memory suddenly becomes bleaker. Systemic <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/17/north-korea-human-rights-abuses-united-nations">executions and labour-camp</a> imprisonment of whole families threaten any North Korean who openly challenges the state’s official history.</p>
<p>A particular group of laws – as old as law itself, yet only recently studied as a <a href="http://www.law.qmul.ac.uk/research/funded/MELA/About%20the%20project/index.html">distinct type</a> – can be called “memory laws”. They embody the countless ways in which nations use law to mould popular understandings of history.</p>
<p>As we probe the Vilnius law more closely, it turns out to be less whimsical than it might at first appear. The sculpture overtly satirises a chilling past, when ubiquitous, taboo-laden images of state-approved heroes had been planted throughout Soviet-dominated nations. During the Cold War, such “art” could be ridiculed only in whispers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122874/original/image-20160517-17030-1xtf2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122874/original/image-20160517-17030-1xtf2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122874/original/image-20160517-17030-1xtf2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122874/original/image-20160517-17030-1xtf2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122874/original/image-20160517-17030-1xtf2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122874/original/image-20160517-17030-1xtf2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122874/original/image-20160517-17030-1xtf2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Satirical: Frank Zappa memorial in Vilnius.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ville Hyvönen via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The lesson is one we must learn forever anew: a government’s legitimacy is reflected in the degree to which it tolerates its citizens <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-erdogan-lawsuit-idUSKCN0W42ES">lampooning and deriding it</a>. Lithuanians have today gained the freedom to detest Zappa the man as loudly as they wish, along with any understandings of history that his image memorialises.</p>
<p>To be sure, not all Lithuanian laws and practices are equally enlightened. Pandering to local post-Soviet nationalism, the state has brought a few nasty prosecutions against elderly <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/11958563">Holocaust survivors</a> on trumped-up charges of wartime collaboration.</p>
<p>Still, in a curious way, the Zappa display shows at its very best how a government can use law to promote a view of the past. The monument exists precisely to invite responses openly critical of any state-approved history.</p>
<h2>Passionate debates</h2>
<p>Along that spectrum from Vilnius to Pyongyang, states devise countless ways to inscribe their preferred versions of history into law – not only of their own past, but of any number of historical events.</p>
<p>In several countries – <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/europe-court-backs-reject-armenian-genocide-151015104909932.html">Switzerland, for example</a> – it is illegal to openly deny the Armenian Genocide. Those laws have been challenged, however, on grounds of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/oct/15/swiss-authorities-wrong-to-prosecute-politician-for-denying-armenian-genocide-court-rules">free speech</a>. Meanwhile Turkey has prosecuted citizens who question state policies denying that any genocide occurred, notably the novelist <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/world/europe/popular-turkish-novelist-on-trial-for-speaking-of-armenian-genocide.html">Orhan Pamuk</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123058/original/image-20160518-13481-e3yumd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123058/original/image-20160518-13481-e3yumd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123058/original/image-20160518-13481-e3yumd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123058/original/image-20160518-13481-e3yumd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123058/original/image-20160518-13481-e3yumd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123058/original/image-20160518-13481-e3yumd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123058/original/image-20160518-13481-e3yumd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armenian Genocide: still a matter for debate in some countries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Project SAVE</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The fact that European standards governing the Nazi and the Turkish genocides often differ has sparked furious <a href="http://verfassungsblog.de/perincek-v-switzerland-between-freedom-of-speech-and-collective-dignity/">debates</a>. The <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/deniers_01.shtml">denial of the Jewish Holocaust</a> is treated differently by European states – because, according to some, of <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/eric-heinze/historical-memory-is-not-about-victims-it-s-about-us">Europe’s</a> closer <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/eric-heinze/what-is-holocaust-commemoration-for-remembering-kristallnacht">ties</a> to it.</p>
<p>Even if we accept that distinction, however, European laws are scarcely unanimous. Many Germans <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11993382/German-Nazi-grandma-sentenced-to-10-months-in-prison-for-Holocaust-denial.html">passionately support</a> laws against Holocaust denial, while <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4436275.stm">Britain</a> looks sceptically on imposing criminal penalties as a means for structuring either popular or academic discussions.</p>
<h2>Human rights</h2>
<p>The use of law to shape historical memory is sometimes benign, then, and yet sometimes atrocious. But despite the vast range of memory laws, from silly to solemn to sinister, what unites them is that states rarely bother with law for non-contentious histories. So perhaps the best way to judge a state’s overall attitude towards human rights is to observe its attitude towards history.</p>
<p>We may certainly question, for example, the wisdom of Holocaust denial laws in states such as Germany or Switzerland. But what stands out in such democracies is that those laws are the exception that prove the rule – in general these countries admit the most relentless scrutiny of their pasts and their politics. At the same time they are states with, if not impeccable, certainly solid records within the post-World War II systems of international human rights.</p>
<p>That’s no coincidence. There are vital human rights, such as prohibitions on torture or guarantees of a fair trial – to which many states further add rights to minimum levels of food, clothing, shelter, education, or employment. Yet it is an error to see free expression about controversial issues as “just another right” on a “checklist” of human rights. The fundamental attitude necessary for a state to secure human rights is an attitude inviting <a href="http://freespeechdebate.com/en/discuss/ten-arguments-for-and-against-no-platforming/">no-holds-barred criticism</a> of its actions both present and past.</p>
<p>That is what memory laws reveal. If you want to know where a state’s ethical compass lies, if you want to know its attitude towards human rights, then yes, look by all means at its official version of past events – but look above all at the freedom of its citizens to challenge that version.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59561/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Heinze is Project Leader of a four-nation European consortium awarded a major NWO-HERA three-year grant, 2016-19, for the research project "Memory Laws in European and Comparative Perspective". </span></em></p>It’s not just a nation’s memory of itself, but what it does to citizens who disagree that reveals its ethical compass.Eric Heinze, Professor of Law, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/400132015-07-16T19:29:43Z2015-07-16T19:29:43ZGenocide isn’t history – it’s part of the long-term human experience<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88316/original/image-20150714-21719-1knw9qm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People attend the remembrance of the victims of the Srebrenica massacre on the Plein, in The Hague last week.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ Martijn Beekman</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The purpose of this article is to explore several fundamental propositions that underlie my recent book manuscript, A World History of Genocide, which I hope will appear before the end of the year with Oxford University Press. </p>
<p>The general idea behind the book is to historicise genocide in the <em>longue durée</em> of world history, making it clear that mass killing of the sort experienced, for example, by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/join-the-dots-between-gallipoli-and-the-armenian-genocide-40067">Armenians in 1915-16</a> (the centennial of which we mark this year), the Jews during the Holocaust, or the North American Indians (at the hands of European and American settlers in the 18th and 19th centuries), is part and parcel of human history, rather than standing outside the historical experience. </p>
<p>Moreover, the sources, the dynamics, and the consequences of genocide become clearer in light of comparison with other genocides. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78139/original/image-20150416-31670-1pe6czp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78139/original/image-20150416-31670-1pe6czp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78139/original/image-20150416-31670-1pe6czp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78139/original/image-20150416-31670-1pe6czp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78139/original/image-20150416-31670-1pe6czp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78139/original/image-20150416-31670-1pe6czp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78139/original/image-20150416-31670-1pe6czp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Darfur genocide intervention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/genocideintervention/1331214746/in/photolist-32CPLo-8MBDdG-4Ep6Yr-4B7Xpr-4BceN1-2VgGKT-9xZhh2-32CPLW-tVf6G-4B7WB4-4B7Wqc-4B7W52-4B7WfF-4B7WMe-4Bceu5-4B7VWZ-6DqiwL-cqxVth-cqxJmW-cqxWes-cqxHeN-cqxYuq-n6Ke5-cqxYWY-Jr47J-cqxRZW-cqxNLo-cqxGGQ-cqxK2J-cqxKAQ-cqxFWw-cqxUS9-cqxT8S-cqxHLb-cqxWUj-cqxRqd-cqxY21-cqxUi7-cqxMnh-cqxXxf-cqxQRf-cqxSxW-cqxN1o-cqxPV3-cqxTJm-cqxLyf-5ByDcA-2XGHNX-64YgDV-cqxPnq">Genocide Intervention Now!/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The propositions about the character of genocide that are at the foundations of the book are not uncontroversial. Each of them requires a long and systematic explanation. But for the sake of keeping the article to size, let me simply enumerate them with the briefest of descriptions of their importance.</p>
<h2>Genocide through the ages</h2>
<p>Genocide has occurred throughout history, from the very beginnings of the social organisation of human communities until the present. </p>
<p>This approach is best exemplified by Ben Kiernan’s masterful 2007 volume, <a href="http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300100983">Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide</a>. In it, Kiernan explores the <em>longue durée</em> of the history of genocide based on four themes: </p>
<ul>
<li>the memory and recitation of classical cases of genocide into later periods of history</li>
<li>the relationship between agricultural pursuits, land, and the mass murder</li>
<li>the emergence of race thinking, racism, and the creation of the other, and </li>
<li>expansionism, the seizure of territory and the killing of its inhabitants.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>Kiernan, and after him <a href="http://www.southampton.ac.uk/history/about/staff/ml1.page">Mark Levene</a>, who has authored four impressive volumes on the history of genocide, make the case that the history of genocide can and should be broken down into general periods that reflect the stages of the development of state and society over the centuries. </p>
<p>Kiernan is ready to begin his history with the ancient world, the Old Testament, the Greeks, and the Romans, an approach I now share. Levene argues that genocide cannot be thought to have taken place before the foundations of the modern state, which he dates from the 17th and 18th centuries. </p>
<p>Many historians – I was once one of them – claim that one should not speak of genocide before the 20th century. </p>
<p>Wherever one begins his or her narrative, genocide both has a constant set of characteristics, yet also changes its aspects over time. </p>
<p>Genocide in the ancient world should be distinguished from genocide of the great conquerors from Alexander the Great to the Mongols. </p>
<p>Crusader genocide against the “Saracens” in the Middle East and the Cathars or Albigensians in southern France in the 13th century should be differentiated from the genocidal actions of the Spanish in the New World in the first half of the 16th century. </p>
<p>The category of settler genocide, which spans the murderous campaigns by European settlers against Aboriginal people in the Antipodes, against native Indian peoples in North America, and against the so-called “Bushmen” in southern Africa, among many others, has its own particular set of dynamics that only in part reproduce genocides of earlier and later periods. </p>
<p>The transition to modern genocide, which one might date from the German attacks on the Herero and Nama in southwest Africa, 1904-7 and the Armenian genocide of 1915, reflect aspects of both settler genocide and of modern genocide. </p>
<p>Finally, genocide in our own era – Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, eastern Congo – has its particular history, closely tied to changes in the norms of the international system regarding human rights and genocide prevention. </p>
<h2>Genocide is global</h2>
<p>Genocide has occurred in various parts of the world and in different types of civilisations and cultures. We will never know all of the genocides that have taken place in the past. </p>
<p>While working on this article, I happened to read a March 2015 <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/30/a-loss-for-words">article in The New Yorker</a> on dying languages, which discusses the genocide of the Sel’knam, a “nomadic tribe of unknown origin,” which lived in Tierra del Fuego in Chile. </p>
<p>In an all too familiar scenario (think about the fate of the Yuki Indians in Mendocino County in the 1860s or of the Aborigines in Tasmania in the 1820s and 1830s), at the end of the 19th century gold prospectors and sheep ranchers coveted the Sel’knam’s lands, massacred them in large numbers, and reduced them from a population of approximately 400,000 to some three hundred. </p>
<p>Sometimes there are no records remaining of the elimination of peoples and even historical memory of past atrocities disappears. Sometimes genocidal events in history, like that of the Sel’knam, simply escape our gaze. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78136/original/image-20150416-31678-1pif5xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78136/original/image-20150416-31678-1pif5xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78136/original/image-20150416-31678-1pif5xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78136/original/image-20150416-31678-1pif5xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78136/original/image-20150416-31678-1pif5xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78136/original/image-20150416-31678-1pif5xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78136/original/image-20150416-31678-1pif5xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Commission for the Fight against Genocide CNLG Headquarters Kigali Rwanda.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACommission_for_the_Fight_against_Genocide_CNLG_-_Headquarters_-_Kigali_-_Rwanda.jpg">Adam Jones/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lemkin’s definition</h2>
<p>The definition of genocide developed by the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in the 1930s and 1940s, which was codified in the December 1948 <a href="http://legal.un.org/avl/ha/cppcg/cppcg.html">UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide</a>, is a useful one, especially as adumbrated since the 1990s in the international tribunals. </p>
<p>In his first stab at the concept of genocide – what he then called “barbarism” – in the early 1930s, Lemkin presented to a League of Nations sponsored conference of international lawyers the concept of the crime of mass murder that included social and political groups as potential targets, as well as ethnic and religious ones.</p>
<p>Lemkin coined the term “genocide” in his 1944 book <a href="http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/AxisRule1944-1.htm">Axis Rule in Occupied Europe</a>. No doubt under the influence of the Holocaust, which had engulfed many members of his own family, he limited genocide to ethnic, religious, and national groups. As I argued in my 2010 book, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9278.html">Stalin’s Genocides</a>, it was primarily the influence of the Soviet Union on the deliberations connected with the December 1948 genocide convention that confined genocide to ethnic, national, religious and racial groups. </p>
<p>Genocide, in my view, should include such cases as the Cambodian genocide, where social and political groups were the main categories of victims, the mass murder of some 5-600,000 Indonesian communists in 1965-6, which was focused on a political group, and Stalin’s elimination of “kulaks”, Ukrainians peasants, “asocials”, and a series of imagined groups of alleged political “enemies of the people” in the 1930s.</p>
<h2>Overly politicised?</h2>
<p>Some scholars believe that the term genocide has ceased to have serious meaning because of its overly-politicised use by victim groups of the most variable and diverse character. It is certainly the case that the word has the kind of resonance that makes many victim groups anxious to use the appellation as a way to underline their own suffering. But both the international courts and reputable genocide scholars continue to argue for the need for a “high bar” for genocide. </p>
<p>The intentionality of the perpetrators to eliminate a group in whole or in part, as defined by the genocide convention and the international tribunals, must be clearly demonstrated. The victim group must be the object of campaigns of mass killing, as well as other attacks on their very existence that are detailed in the 1948 convention. </p>
<p>As long as scholars and jurists continue to think about genocide as “the crime of crimes”, there is every reason to think that it will continue to be relevant to scholarly research and judicial prosecutions. </p>
<p>Other scholars lament that the term genocide is too all-encompassing and too imprecise to be of much use. They prefer terms like ethnicide, democide, politicide, sociocide, or even genderocide as a way to focus more concertedly on the specificities of the victim groups. Recently the Italian scholar, Andreas Graziozi, has suggested the term “demotomy” to indicate the surgical nature of the removal of peoples, especially as experienced in Stalin’s Soviet Union in the 1930s. </p>
<p>My own view is that Lemkin’s term works - and works well - when rigorously applied, based on the 1948 definition, to events past and present. Using newly devised social science terms artificially separates the legal discourse about genocide - which has been influential and important to the evolution of our understanding of genocide - from scholarly discussions.</p>
<p>Moreover, it creates a gulf between the popular understanding of genocide and the academic. This can only confuse questions of “naming” genocide, like the contemporary problems associated with the Turkish denial of the Armenian genocide or in past debates (inside and outside of government) about intervention in Rwanda and Darfur. </p>
<p>After Lemkin, our problem is not naming the crime of crimes; it is to understand it and prevent it from happening. </p>
<p><br>
<em>Norman Naimark is participating in the Australasian Association for European History (AAEH) XXIV Biennial Conference, War, Violence, Aftermaths: Europe and the Wider World, in Newcastle, July 14-17. Details <a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/events/faculty-of-education-and-arts/aaeh-conference">here</a></em>.</p>
<p><em>The Conversation is currently running a series looking at <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/history-of-violence">the history and nature of violence</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40013/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Norman Naimark does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Genocide has occurred throughout history, from the very beginnings of the social organisation of human communities until the present. But working out what do about it is no easy task.Norman Naimark, Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies, Stanford UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/404342015-04-24T09:46:17Z2015-04-24T09:46:17ZThe 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide<p><em>Editor’s note: Today, April 24, marks a day of recognition for the deaths of more than 1.5 million Armenians in what Pope Francis characterized as “the <a href="http://armenianweekly.com/2013/06/05/in-vatican-pope-francis-recognizes-armenian-genocide/">first genocide</a> of the 20th Century.” As historians and scholars have noted, about two million Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire in the years before World War One; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/ref/timestopics/topics_armeniangenocide.html">there were fewer than 400,000 by 1922,</a> the rest systemically killed or dying from starvation and forced relocation. Turkey has long denied that Armenian deaths constituted “genocide,” which is <a href="http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/genocide">defined </a>as “the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.” Turkey has insisted the Armenian deaths resulted from violence in a civil conflict. Turkey <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32272604">withdrew</a> its envoy from the Vatican after the pope’s remarks about genocide. We asked scholars to examine issues raised by today’s <a href="http://armeniangenocide100.org/en/">anniversary</a>.</em> </p>
<hr>
<h2>What Turkey might learn from a history of acknowledgments, apology and reparations</h2>
<p><strong>By Alexander Hinton, Rutgers University-Newark</strong></p>
<p>In 1915, the late Ottoman Empire committed genocide against its Armenian population. Even if this point is still politically charged and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/pope-calls-armenian-slaughter-1st-genocide-of-20th-century/2015/04/12/a66e8560-e0e3-11e4-b6d7-b9bc8acf16f7_story.html">sparks the ire</a> of the Turkish government, almost all scholars agree that a genocide took place. Eventually, perhaps within a decade if recent trends continue, the Turkish position will change. </p>
<p>How might this process of recognition unfold?</p>
<p>A first step would be acknowledgment, that is, the Turkish government’s acceptance of what occurred. A “thin” acknowledgment would be more passive, perhaps simply the cessation of its active program of domestic and diplomatic denial. Such a shift would allow small non-governmental spaces of dialogue about the genocide, <a href="http://www.armenianproject2015.org/groundbreaking-academic-conference-on-armenian-genocide-in-istanbul/">ones</a> that <a href="ww.armenianproject2015.org/turkish-government-must-recognize-armenian-genocide-account-for-crimes-of-prior-government/">recently </a>have begun to emerge in Turkey, to gain momentum and grow. </p>
<p>A “thicker” acknowledgment would take things further, involving a more formal and official admission about what occurred in 1915. German president Richard von Weizsäcker’s <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/richard-von-weizscker-germanys-president-who-served-in-hitlers-army-but-later-promoted-tolerance-and-became-his-countrys-conscience-10021845.html">recognition</a> of the Holocaust provides an illustration of such a “thick” acknowledgment.</p>
<p>A second step, building on a “thick” acknowledgment, would be an apology. A number of governments have formally apologized for historical genocides (and some have not, including the US, which has not apologized for the <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/Colonial-Genocide-in-Indigenous-North-America/">genocide committed against Native Americans</a>), although this has sometimes been done in a halting, half-hearted, or qualified manner. </p>
<p>Examples include the <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/pm-moves-to-heal-the-nation/story-e6frfkw9-1111115539560">apologies</a> of Australia’s Kevin Rudd to Australian aboriginals, Germany’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/17/world/world-briefing.html">Johannes Rau</a>for the Holocaust, and Canada’s <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prime-minister-stephen-harper-s-statement-of-apology-1.734250">Stephen Harper</a> for the Aboriginal residential schools. </p>
<p>Apologies are complicated, ideally involving, as psychiatrist Aaron Lazare has <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/on-apology-9780195189117?cc=us&lang=en&">argued</a>, proper acknowledgment of who was involved, what happened, how the event breached the moral contract, and what were the impacts and consequences of the violating act.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79166/original/image-20150423-25533-1terlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79166/original/image-20150423-25533-1terlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79166/original/image-20150423-25533-1terlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79166/original/image-20150423-25533-1terlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79166/original/image-20150423-25533-1terlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79166/original/image-20150423-25533-1terlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79166/original/image-20150423-25533-1terlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Armenian intellectuals who were arrested and later executed on April 24, 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide#/media/File:April24Victims.jpg">Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia, Seventh Volume, Yerevan: 1981, p. 423.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another step might involve reparation, an issue that has been a factor in Turkey’s denials since there are possibly high financial stakes. But reparations come in many forms. An apology is a sort of symbolic reparation. Alternatively, reparations may involve the return of property or even monetary payments that, while significant, would be acceptable to both Turkey and descendants of Armenian victims. </p>
<p>The road to Turkey’s recognition of the Armenian genocide may be long. But as we gaze back at 100 years of denial, it is a good time to look forward to consider the possibilities for acknowledgment, apology, and reparation. </p>
<h2>The effect of 100 years of amnesia on the Turkish population</h2>
<p><strong>By Doga Ulas Eralp, American University</strong></p>
<p>The greatest obstacle for Turkey in coming into terms with the humanitarian tragedy of 1915 is not necessarily the recognition of events as genocide but rather the simple but complicated act of collective remembrance. </p>
<p>Following its inception after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish Republic has built its model of new Turkish citizenship around an imposed amnesia of events predating 1923. Accounts of Armenians’ sufferings in forced pogroms and violent ethnic cleansing by the Ottoman militia have been <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josi.12001/abstract">conveniently brushed</a> under the carpet, as detailed by University of Massachusetts scholar Rezarta Bilali in “National Narrative and Social Psychological Influences in Turks’ Denial of the Mass Killings of Armenians as Genocide,” in the Journal of Social Issues. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79157/original/image-20150423-25574-1rlty1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79157/original/image-20150423-25574-1rlty1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79157/original/image-20150423-25574-1rlty1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79157/original/image-20150423-25574-1rlty1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79157/original/image-20150423-25574-1rlty1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79157/original/image-20150423-25574-1rlty1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79157/original/image-20150423-25574-1rlty1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1923 map of the Armenian Highlands =</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The areas where historically Armenians have lived in Central and Eastern Anatolia were subjected to a process of Turkification. Properties and wealth confiscated from the Armenians were <a href="http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/53896165/acts-defacement-memory-loss-ghostly-effects-the-armenian-crisis-mardin-southeastern-turkey">redistributed</a> between local Kurdish notables and Muslim refugees the Balkans and the Caucasus who were resettled in the vacant Armenian villages. </p>
<p>During the following decades the Ankara Government replaced the old Armenian names of towns and villages with Turkish ones while the now empty churches crumbled and <a href="http://www.ejiltalk.org/state-identity-continuity-and-responsibility-the-ottoman-empire-the-republic-of-turkey-and-the-armenian-genocide/">fell into ruins</a>.</p>
<p>Turkish society was forced to confront the issues of 1915 for the first time in the 1970s with the the militant violence of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) when prominent Turkish diplomats were assassinated as <a href="http://www.worlddialogue.org/content.php?id=551">described </a>) by historian Uğur Ümit Üngör. </p>
<p>However, the killings did not induce any cathartic awakening in Turkish collective memory. Turkish government responded by emphasizing the “treasonous” behavior of the Armenian revolutionaries during World War One in the Turkish public education system. The Armenian diaspora responded by launching a global campaign of recognition by 2015. </p>
<p>The diaspora’s recognition campaign has been successful as more governments across the globe recognize the events of 1915 as genocide. Yet such global political pressure only serves to make officials in the Turkish government more defiant and further strengthens the hands of Turkish nationalists who frame this campaign as proof of ongoing prejudice against <a href="http://www.rubincenter.org/2014/04/the-issue-of-the-recognition-of-the-armenian-genocide-as-a-political-phenomenon/">Turkey</a>.</p>
<p>A more fruitful avenue to pursue may be encouraging civil society initiatives that focus on public remembrance and recognition between the Armenian diaspora and Turkey rather than pushing for a political solution to a 100-year old human tragedy. </p>
<hr>
<h2>The Importance of Being Clooney: can celebrities sway Turkish public opinion about the genocide?</h2>
<p><strong>By Ted Bogosian, Duke University</strong></p>
<p>Aside from a small, but growing, Turkish intellectual elite – privately educated outside of the country – most Turks either aren’t aware of the extent of the Armenian genocide, or aren’t able to freely debate it. </p>
<p>It’s rarely a part of public conversations: the Turkish government suppresses any form of public acknowledgment of the genocide by designating it a crime under the guise of “denigration of the Turkish nation.” (In 2006, a Turkish author was <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6196764">brought to trial</a> for having a fictional character mention the Armenian genocide.) </p>
<p>And Turkey’s state-controlled media seems to be doing a good job shaping public opinion. According to a survey from earlier this year, only <a href="http://www.edam.org.tr/en/AnaKategori/edam-public-opinion-surveys">9% of Turks</a> want their government to acknowledge the genocide. </p>
<p>Is there any hope for reaching the Turkish public, for raising awareness of atrocities committed 100 years ago?</p>
<p>Enter celebrities. Like it or not, we’re in an era of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19392390903519156#">celebrity diplomacy</a>, and the Armenian genocide has become their most recent cause célèbre. Perhaps the 100th anniversary has something to do with it; nonetheless, they’ve come out in force.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Last month, George Clooney <a href="http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/gwens-appearance/100-lives-armenian-genocide-gwen-ifill-talks-george-clooney-ruben-vardanyan">told</a> journalist Gwen Ifill that “just because the term ‘genocide’ wasn’t coined for 30 more years [after 1915] doesn’t mean [the Armenian genocide] didn’t happen.” On CNN, he <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/03/11/orig-oth-george-clooney-power-couple-zef.cnn">argued</a> that the Armenian genocide “needs to be acknowledged” so similar atrocities are never committed again.</p></li>
<li><p>In January, Clooney’s wife, Amal – who, <a href="time.com/3687958/amal-clooney-turkey-armenian-genocide/">according to Time</a>, is “the most famous human rights lawyer in the world” – argued on behalf of Armenia before Europe’s top human rights court in a case against a Turkish politician who denied the genocide.</p></li>
<li><p>The web was atwitter earlier this month as the Kardashian clan – including power couple Kim Kardashian and Kanye West – traveled to Armenia, where they visited the Genocide Memorial in Yerevan. During their trip, whenever someone entered “Where is…” on Google, “Armenia” was the first suggestion (meaning it was the most popular search term). </p></li>
<li><p>Meanwhile, actor Hugh Grant and singer Cher have <a href="https://twitter.com/HackedOffHugh/status/570911912692723712">each</a> posted <a href="https://twitter.com/cher/status/459016536502837248">tweets</a> bringing attention to the genocide. </p></li>
</ul>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"570911912692723712"}"></div></p>
<p>This matters. Celebrities wield extraordinary influence in raising public awareness and swaying public opinion. One recent study <a href="http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=215841">showed</a> how Katie Couric’s public health campaign on colon cancer screenings had “a substantial impact on public participation in preventive care programs.” Another <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J199v06n04_04#.VTjjz0uJluY">found</a> that young people are more likely to agree with a political position if it’s been endorsed by a celebrity. </p>
<p>While the Turkish public may get censored versions of the news on their TVs and in their newspapers, surely some make up a portion of “Kimye’s” 45 million Twitter followers.</p>
<p>And where are all the celebrities supporting the Turkish denial, countering the Clooneys and the Kardashians, Grant and Cher? </p>
<p>Virtually nowhere.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Forgetting is not the same as denying</h2>
<p><strong>By Noëlle Vahanian, Lebanon Valley College</strong></p>
<p>Why won’t the Armenians forget about the past? </p>
<p>If there is a point that is forgotten, it is that one can only forget what one has acknowledged. In the interest of moving on, Turkey must recognize what it denies. That logic is incontrovertible in spite of so many efforts to take the shortcut to forgetting.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79167/original/image-20150423-25563-1ndiwrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79167/original/image-20150423-25563-1ndiwrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79167/original/image-20150423-25563-1ndiwrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79167/original/image-20150423-25563-1ndiwrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79167/original/image-20150423-25563-1ndiwrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79167/original/image-20150423-25563-1ndiwrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79167/original/image-20150423-25563-1ndiwrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79167/original/image-20150423-25563-1ndiwrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armenians killed during genocide taken from account by Ambassador Henry Morgenthau published in 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Morgenthau336.jpg">Ambassador Morgenthau's Story Doubleday, Page p314,</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To wit, when Pope Francis called the mass killing of Armenians “the first genocide of the 20th century,” Volkan Bozkir, the Turkish minister for European affairs, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/world/americas/stung-by-popes-remarks-on-armenian-genocide-turkish-minister-insults-argentina.html?_r=0">responded</a> that because the pope is Argentine, and because Argentina housed many Nazis, the Pope could not judge.</p>
<p>For instance, we can <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/world/europe/turkeys-century-of-denial-about-an-armenian-genocide.html?_r=0">read</a> that Turkey is “defined by its divisions, between the secular and the religious, rich and poor, liberal and conservative,” and yet that it is united it its refusal to recognize its genocidal past.</p>
<p>We here in the United States have our own issues. President Obama has reportedly <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/obama-armenian-massacre-shun-genocide-117202.html">declined</a> to use the word “genocide” about the mass deaths in Armenia. </p>
<p>And there’s our own history to consider. While the <a href="https://nativevotewa.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/president-obama-signs-native-american-apology-resolution/">2009 Native American Apology Resolution </a> recognizes the Federal Government’s official depredations of Native Americans, but the word “genocide” does not appear. Instead, the resolution “serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States.”</p>
<p>Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called the European Parliament’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/16/world/europe/european-parliament-urges-turkey-to-recognize-armenian-genocide.html">resolution</a> to urge Turkey to recognize the genocide “a new reflection of the <a href="http://www.afp.com/en/news/turkish-pm-says-genocide-recognition-european-racism">racism in Europe</a>.”</p>
<p>Would Europe be so insistent if the Armenians had not been Christians, but “savage” or “primitive” natives? We only have to look to the case of Native Americans to answer that. But, surely, that does not make the wrong of genocide a right. Nor does it make the Armenian genocide a lie.</p>
<p>If even the Pope is not “innocent,” who are we to judge? But recognizing genocide is not about Turkey alone conceding guilt for what happened in the past. It’s not about giving a pass to those who benefit from war and conquest. It is about forgetting.</p>
<p>That is also why we remember April 24, 1915.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, we asked scholars to reflect on the significance of Armenian insistence on remembering and Turkey’s insistence that the genocide never happened.Alexander Hinton, Director, Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights & Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University, Rutgers University - NewarkDoga Ulas Eralp, Professorial Lecturer, American University School of International ServiceNoelle Vahanian, Professor of Philosophy, Lebanon Valley CollegeTed Bogosian, Visiting Professor of Film, Brown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/405762015-04-24T05:08:57Z2015-04-24T05:08:57ZIt’s time the world recognised the Armenian genocide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78728/original/image-20150421-9028-11ah8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tsitsernakaberd Genocide memorial in Yerevan, Armenia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/31223088@N08/14155532662/in/photolist-nySNFY-6hWSUJ-6hWVmf-6hSPsa-46AJvL-5z581d-7XD5sc-6hSHn4-46ANmd-6hSMPH-6hWUdJ-fY3FPU-6fir7i-7m1giy-5vHsVv-8wbfSQ-6Kbm6j-5qwJsj-6ccpyG-5qwKXC-opHAHj-5qsrr8-5qwJGo-bcCSz-5vHxJ8-5vHsjV-5gJfsA-P8PVW-5vMQMN-9xLDVZ-agM2W4-5gDUMe-9A7X3a-9A7XSn-fY3Sc6-fY4KVW-fY63xR-fY4BJp-fY43Z9-fY4X34-fY58R1-fY61Eo-fY6c4i-fY5eRW-nbCD7N-nbDoQj-9RwjEq-bcCZi-2oZwxE-t4P66">Stefan Fotos</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Even now, 100 years on, the slaughter of 1.5m Ottoman Armenians which began in April 1915 has two of the world’s most powerful people at loggerheads. While Pope Francis recently referred to “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/12/pope-francis-armenian-slaughter-first-genocide-20th-century">the first genocide of the 20th century</a>”, Barack Obama has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/22/barack-obama-will-not-label-1915-massacre-of-armenians-a-genocide">made it known</a> he will once again break a campaign pledge by stopping short of using what has become a politically loaded term to mark the centenary of one of the darkest episodes in modern history.</p>
<p>On April 24 1915, 250 Armenian community leaders and intellectuals were rounded up in Istanbul, marking the start of an Ottoman Empire policy to annihilate the Armenian population, either through murder or deportation in death marches across the Syrian desert. </p>
<p>The contemporary Armenian diaspora, dispersed throughout the world, was born in this genocide. Its descendants have grown up with grandparents and great-grandparents who experienced it firsthand. The continuing potency of the genocide as the unifying thread of the complex, scattered and multi-layered Armenian diaspora is largely due to the fact that it has never been recognised by Turkey.</p>
<p>A hundred years have passed since the Medz Yeghern (the Great Calamity) yet it remains an emotive political issue. The Turkish Republic, which was founded in the ashes of Ottoman Christians – and benefited from the usurping of their assets and properties – denies it was a genocide. Official Turkish historiography considers the Ottoman Armenians to be traitors who collaborated with the Russians, thereby justifying their fate. The official position is that Armenians and Turks died in the context of a civil war – a similar narrative to the one employed by comparative cases such as the Rwandan genocide. </p>
<h2>In denial</h2>
<p>While the language of denial, methodologies and nuances have shifted over the past century, in essence the formal stance remains unwavering. The Turkish state has invested a great deal of money and effort to maintain and spread its narrative, <a href="http://www.anca.org/genocide/denial.php">co-opting scholars</a>, <a href="http://www.atour.com/%7Eaahgn/news/20040212a.html">endowing universities</a>, <a href="http://forward.com/news/14518/effort-to-align-jewish-community-with-turkey-on-ge-02787/">hiring PR companies and lobbyists</a>. </p>
<p>It has punished countries that have recognised the genocide, most memorably its <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/24/turkey-warns-france-armenian-genocide">aggressive rhetoric and policies against France</a>. It has also found ever more creative ways to divert attention from its commemoration. This year Turkey has chosen to mark the centenary of the Allied landings at Gallipoli on April 24 – as opposed to April 25 which the rest of the world recognises as the anniversary. This can only be seen as a blatant move to deflect focus from the genocide commemorations in Armenia, putting world leaders in the position of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/16/turkey-armenia-1915-centenary-gallipoli-massacre-genocide">having to choose which to attend</a>.</p>
<p>Turkey’s strategic importance means it has steadfast allies like the UK, where Prince Charles is expected to attend the Gallipoli celebrations. It is not in any state’s interest to challenge Turkey on this issue or its poor human rights record, the increasing numbers of journalists languishing in its jails, its treatment of minorities, <a href="https://theconversation.com/twitter-ban-erdogan-bringing-down-democracy-in-turkey-24643">its deteriorating commitment to democratic freedoms</a>, or the normalisation of state violence as evident in the squashing of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/turkish-urban-uprising-has-smashed-national-wall-of-fear-14916">Gezi Park protests</a> two years ago. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78730/original/image-20150421-9032-1w54iyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78730/original/image-20150421-9032-1w54iyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78730/original/image-20150421-9032-1w54iyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78730/original/image-20150421-9032-1w54iyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78730/original/image-20150421-9032-1w54iyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78730/original/image-20150421-9032-1w54iyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78730/original/image-20150421-9032-1w54iyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78730/original/image-20150421-9032-1w54iyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More than 1.5m Armenians perished in the conflict and the diaspora that followed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/youngshanahan/13927095763/in/photolist-5vHyXF-6z4MS9-2oZFJA-ndG6Kv-8m1dFh-8EQJZ8-6yZHFt-nbCR1X-2ndx8x-8ETUDN-8ETTTo-5qwJPf-nbCv3a-6yZFMR-2Ma39N-5vMQ4f-8m1fcN-5qsrYg-4d2zAJ-AQTPE-5qsswV-ndG1mK-5qwK5m-5vMPej-658dx5-8m1eGd-5qwLrY-5qsr58-5AMETh-5AHpWp-5AMEKj-5AMEDq-3mdq5G-P8PUY-LMbkn-nbD7Hi-ndFdZe-2oVKdc-nySNFY-6hWSUJ-6hWVmf-6hSPsa-46AJvL-5z581d-7XD5sc-6hSHn4-46ANmd-6hSMPH-6hWUdJ-fY3FPU">Young Shanahan</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Western allies, including the UK and the US, are still wedded to the fairy tale of Turkey as a “model” for the Arab states, combining democracy, a booming neo-liberal economy, state secularism, Islamic roots and culture.</p>
<h2>Insulting Turkishness</h2>
<p>One may wonder why the Turkish state is obsessed with denying something that happened 100 years ago, in the face of mounting international consensus. Despite greater openness in Turkish society over the past decade or so, discussing the fate of the Ottoman Armenians is still an act that can land you in prison or worse. The murder of Armenian-Turkish newspaper editor and public intellectual <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-turkey/murder_freedom_4274.jsp">Hrant Dink</a> in 2007 serves as a recent reminder. The infamous <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/world/europe/25turkey.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">Article 301 of the Turkish penal code</a> makes “insulting Turkishness” a crime, as writers Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak and many other individuals have found. </p>
<p>The Armenian genocide lies at the very foundation of the Republic of Turkey and as such is viewed as a threat to the integrity and unity of the national narrative that the Kemalists worked so hard to craft. It is not so much the fear of reparations or compensation that account for the intransigent Turkish position – though these certainly play a part – but the perceived denigration to the honour and (self)image of the Turkish state.</p>
<p>All this is in stark contrast to a small but growing movement within Turkish civil society. Liberal Turks and Kurds have come together in the past decade to confront and deconstruct the complexities of Turkish national identity, and with it, the “Armenian issue”. This transnational movement of Turks, Kurds, Armenians and others, is rooted in a vibrant Turkish civil society and based on sincere and committed (political) friendships, connections and networks. Although it is limited in size, its transformative potential in society is huge, and offers real hope in contrast to the position of the state.</p>
<p>Activists of Turkish or Kurdish origin are among those leading the way, painstakingly carving out a small but widening alternative space from which to speak and act. This space harks back to a buried, but retrievable shared historical memory, when many Ottoman Armenians, Greeks, Turks and Kurds (and others) lived peacefully alongside each other. Many Armenian families have a personal story of Kurds or Turks protecting or attempting to save their Armenian neighbours during the massacres. </p>
<p>There is also a growing movement of “hidden” or <a href="http://armenianweekly.com/2013/11/15/the-islamized-armenians-and-us/">“Islamised” Armenians</a> in Turkey now claiming Armenian roots through their grandmothers, who were taken in as children by Muslim families. All these developments challenge the founding tenets of the Turkish nation and present a poignant human face to a history that have become bitterly politicised.</p>
<h2>International recognition and solidarity</h2>
<p>Days after Pope Francis’ intervention on the genocide, the European Parliament adopted a resolution commemorating the genocide and urging Turkey to acknowledge it. Germany is expected to do the same, joining 23 states that have passed resolutions recognising the genocide. In the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have done so. However, not upsetting Turkey is now more important than ever, due to the key role it plays in the battle against Islamic State and the desperate situation in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Many states – including Britain – are built on violent and imperial pasts and revisionist narratives. Whether the tragic plight of the Native Americans, the Palestinian Nakba and countless others, the attempted obliteration of people’s historical presence, their suffering and their memories, is a matter of grave concern. By choosing to deny the genocide of the Armenians, the Turkish state seeks to continue to invalidate their very existence; indeed many have called <a href="http://www.genocidewatch.org/genocide/tenstagesofgenocide.html">denial the final stage of genocide</a>. </p>
<p>By attempting to silence the escalating numbers of historians, academics, intellectuals, journalists, activists and ordinary folk who contradict Turkey’s official stance, both within and outside its borders, Turkey remains entrenched in a 100-year-old conflict. The lack of recognition means the Armenian diaspora remains debilitated by “<a href="http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/21445/too-much-memory-remembering-and-forgetting-at-the-">too much memory</a>”.</p>
<p>Yet, the remembrance and recognition of the Armenian genocide is not just an issue for Armenians and Turks. What it represents speaks to our shared humanity – the fragility of our daily lives, but also the potential and transcendence of the human spirit. This is why, in my view, the centenary has captured so much popular attention, with the number of global advocates increasing on a daily basis. Its commemoration is a symbol of our collective pain, our commitment to atonement and to the restoration of human dignity where it has been violently breached – in every context and every epoch.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40576/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sossie Kasbarian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A century on, the murder of 1.5m Armenians by the Ottoman Empire must be recognised as genocide.Sossie Kasbarian, Lecturer in Middle East politics, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/400672015-04-23T20:23:11Z2015-04-23T20:23:11ZJoin the dots between Gallipoli and the Armenian genocide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77707/original/image-20150413-4084-vn5sen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C12%2C1288%2C948&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Livestock wagon with Armenians in the Summer or Autumn 1915. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Historisches Institut der Deutschen Bank, Frankfurt.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week marks the centenary not only of the Gallipoli campaign, but – today – of the Armenian genocide. The destruction of the Armenians coincided with the planned Allied attack against the Ottoman capital, Istanbul. </p>
<p>For the Young Turk Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) at the reins of the Ottoman Empire, Spring 1915 was a watershed moment. Together with its defence of the Dardanelles, this conspiratorial group of right-wing revolutionaries made its war “total” in a way that Europe did not know before the second world war.</p>
<p>In 1915 and 1916, the Ottoman Armenians were destroyed as an organised community, while more than half of them, around one million people, were killed. After the Allies had failed in its naval breakthrough through the Isthmus on March 18 1915, they launched a landing on the Gallipoli peninsula, east of the Dardanelles, on April 25. </p>
<p>This occurred just a few hours after the Ottoman minister of the interior, Mehmed Talat, the CUP’s strong man, issued orders to destroy his fellow Ottoman Armenians. Even if the Ottoman Empire eventually lost the war, which it had considerably prolonged by joining it, the CUP achieved its minimal war goal: exclusive Muslim power in Asia Minor by destroying the Armenians.</p>
<p>Its Kemalist successors, most of them former CUP members, built the Republic of Turkey in a “cleansed” Asia Minor. Like Mehmed Talat, Kemalists exalted Gallipoli as a victory of Muslim Anatolia against imperialist invasion. For them, it paved the way to a successful nation-state. </p>
<p>For the pioneer of the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, <a href="http://www.genocidepreventionnow.org/Home/tabid/39/ctl/DisplayArticle/mid/742/aid/339/Default.aspx?skinsrc=%5BG%5D/Skins/GPN/printskin">Raphael Lemkin</a>, the suffering:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>of the Armenian men, women, and children thrown into the Euphrates River or massacred on the way to Der-el-Zor […] prepared the way for the adoption for the Genocide Convention by the United Nations. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lemkin based his work on what Armenians and Jews experienced during the two world wars.</p>
<h2>Why genocide?</h2>
<p>Genocide was a means of total war. For the CUP, the war served both to secure a sovereign and safe home for Muslims in Asia Minor (its minimal, “existential” goal), and to restore and expand the Empire (its maximal war goal). </p>
<p>Many leading members of the CUP hailed from the Balkans, once part of the Ottoman Empire, but which had been lost during the Balkan Wars in 1912–1913. In 1913, triggered by the loss of Macedonia, the CUP established a dictatorial regime and redefined what it understood as a nation.</p>
<p>The CUP was already unwilling to share power equally with Ottoman non-Turks and non-Muslims before the constitutional revolution of 1908, but after the loss of Macedonia (divided among Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria), leading members of the CUP embarked on defining the Empire as a Turkish nation in which only Muslims could be successfully assimilated. Asia Minor was to become the Turk’s Homeland (Türk Yurdu). </p>
<p>In this new and more exclusive vision of the Empire, Ottoman Christians were seen as aliens and acting as a fifth column. In June 1914, for example, the CUP expelled about 150,000 Greek Orthodox Christians from the Aegean coast and settled Muslim refugees from the Balkans in their houses.</p>
<p>The CUP, looking through Social Darwinist “Macedonian glasses”, then turned to another topical conflict of the late Ottoman world – the ‘Armenian question’ in the eastern provinces. </p>
<p>The European powers had instituted article 61 of the Berlin Treaty (1878) in an effort to safeguard a secure future for Armenians with their Muslim neighbours through reform. The Ottoman government belatedly signed the Reform Agreement on 8 February 1914. By that time, however, the Agreement was at odds with the CUP’s exclusive outlook on its core land and its co-optation with anti-constitutional forces in the region. </p>
<p>In a time of peace, the Reform Agreement might have worked. </p>
<h2>Europe in crisis and the Armenians</h2>
<p>What changed the situation was the crisis of European diplomacy in July 1914 and the German Kaiser’s order to accept a CUP request for a war alliance. </p>
<p>Germany’s paramount goal was military victory. When the CUP consequently annulled the Reform Agreement, Germany did not protest. The highly influential German military mission in Istanbul contributed to a comprehensive mobilisation of Ottoman forces and pressed for Ottoman military action according to the terms of the alliance signed on August 2 1914.</p>
<p>Once the overstretched Ottoman forces went on the offensive, however, they began to lose. The failure of the Allied naval assault on March 18 1915 in the Dardanelles saved the CUP and instilled in it the audacity to achieve its minimal war goal in a radical way: by doing away with the Armenians.</p>
<p>Talat Pasha felt confident in both a successful Ottoman-German defence of the capital and a window of opportunity in the shadow of this effort directed at the Armenians. </p>
<p>On April 24 1915, he ordered the arrest and deportation of Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople – and then began to target the Armenians as a whole after he had implemented regional anti-Armenian measures and disarmed Armenians serving in the army.</p>
<p>Evidently, Ottoman Armenians could not share the CUP’s notion of a Turk Homeland (Türk Yurdu). </p>
<p>From the Autumn of 1914, Armenians became deeply worried by Islamist and Turkish war propaganda and the CUP’s obstruction of the Reform Agreement. Several thousand young men had joined the Russian army, but for others the future looked bleak. One can sense the exasperation and frustration of Armenian voices during those early months of the war, but still hoped on German help.</p>
<p>Hopes set on Germany were misplaced. The Armenians were alone, except the asylum offered by Alevi and Yezidi Kurdish neighbourhoods, a number of Muslim families and some support given by American and Swiss missionaries on the spot. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armenian refugees from Musa Dagh on the deck of one of the French ships, September 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARefugies_arm%C3%A9niens_du_Musa_Dagh_sur_un_croiseur_francais_en_1915.jpg">Unknown/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a few places, Armenians organised resistance. The most prominent was the resistance on Musa Dagh, a mountain in the Turkish province of Hatay, that later gave birth to a novel by Franz Werfel, a contemporary Austrian writer. His book was translated into Yiddish and avidly read in Jewish ghettos during the second world war. </p>
<h2>An organised destruction</h2>
<p>The destruction of the Armenians ordered by Talat Pasha took place in several phases. </p>
<p>He first ordered the arrest, torture and murder of Armenian leaders, beginning on the night of April 24. </p>
<p>In a second step, he organised the removal of the Armenian people to Syria. He began in the eastern provinces where elderly men, boys and other men not serving in the army were massacred before removal. </p>
<p>At several places en route, mass killing included women and children. Rape was systematic. Removal from Western Asia Minor as well as Thrace started in July 1915, and included the displacement of men that partly took place by train.</p>
<p>The second phase of genocide concerned the survivors of deportation who starved to death in camps in the Syrian desert. </p>
<p>About 150,000 Armenians were formally Islamised, resettled in the south and were thus saved by Jemal Pasha, the military governor of Syria. Apart from that, any attempts at resettlement were frustrated. In August 1916, more than 100,000 survivors of starvation and renewed forced marches to the southeast, including children, and were killed east of the Euphrates next to Dair az-Zor. These were scenes of indescribable horror.</p>
<p>In guise of a conclusion, a question that’s<a href="http://theconversation.com/100-years-on-australias-still-out-of-step-on-the-armenian-genocide-39792"> being asked elsewhere today</a>: Can the Allies’ failed invasion of Gallipoli be honestly commemorated without remembering the Armenian genocide? </p>
<p><br>
<em>Hans-Lukas Kieser will be speaking at the Australasian Association for European History (AAEH) XXIV Biennial Conference, War, Violence, Aftermaths: Europe and the Wider World, to be held in Newcastle, from July 14-17 2015. Details <a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/events/faculty-of-education-and-arts/aaeh-conference">here</a></em>.</p>
<p><br>
<em>The Conversation is currently running a series looking at <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/history-of-violence">the history and nature of violence</a>.</em></p>
<p><br>
<strong>See also:</strong><br>
<em><a href="http://theconversation.com/100-years-on-australias-still-out-of-step-on-the-armenian-genocide-39792">100 years on Australia’s still out of step on the Armenian genocide</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hans-Lukas Kieser receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>In 1915 and 1916, the Ottoman Armenians were destroyed as an organised community and more than one million of their number were killed – just as the Allies’ failed invasion of Gallipoli took place.Hans-Lukas Kieser, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/359962015-01-30T10:43:55Z2015-01-30T10:43:55ZHow foreign governments can influence American media – and tried to block my documentary<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70329/original/image-20150128-22325-qq0dfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Foreign PR campaigns have been waged for decades. Films like 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front were significantly altered to appease Germany's Nazi Party.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.filmjunk.com/images/weblog/2011/07/allquiet.jpg">filmjunk.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Feature films and television shows notoriously play fast-and-loose with the facts. When prologues proclaim “Based on a True Story,” they’re gracefully implying that what follows is mostly fiction.</p>
<p>Awards shows and moviegoers seem to have few problems distinguishing narrative films from documentaries – and assign different editorial standards accordingly. Case in point: last year’s box office behemoth Gravity <a href="http://science.time.com/2013/10/01/what-gravity-gets-right-and-wrong-about-space/">was rife with scientific inaccuracies, large and small</a> – and took home seven Academy Awards. </p>
<p>Foreign governments are another story. No matter if films are purported to be fact or fiction, governments care how their countries are being portrayed. And though some may think of the media as immune to foreign influence, history – along with my personal experience – tell a different story. </p>
<h2>Foreign PR campaigns have been waged for decades</h2>
<p>Last month, North Korea conducted a now-infamous cyberterrorism campaign against Sony Pictures in an attempt to block the company from releasing The Interview. </p>
<p>North Korea may have lost the war, but they did win one censorship battle: before Sony distributed the film overseas, its rattled producers <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/15/exclusive-kim-jong-un-assassination-comedy-the-interview-will-allegedly-be-censored-abroad.html">decided to tone down the gore</a> in Kim Jung Un’s death scene. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Showtime’s Homeland has come under fire from the Pakistani government.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7126/7710721506_c6abcaa32c_b.jpg">blur95/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And Pakistan <a href="http://nypost.com/2014/12/27/pakistani-officials-furious-over-countrys-portrayal-in-homeland/">recently complained</a> about the Showtime series Homeland for portraying its country as “a grimy hellhole and war zone where shootouts and bombs go off with dead bodies scattered around.” </p>
<p>“Nothing is further from the truth,” a Pakistan embassy spokesman said. </p>
<p>If Pakistan looks like a much more welcoming place on Homeland next season, maybe their not-so-quiet diplomacy will have fostered subtle censorship.</p>
<p>In fact, American media outlets have feel external editorial pressures for decades. Whether it was Hollywood executives <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-hollywood-helped-hitler-595684?page=showT">running scripts by Nazi officials for approval in the 1930s</a>, or studios <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/12/entertainment/la-et-china-censorship-20120612">inserting subtle, pro-China messages into their films</a> to cull favor with China’s notoriously strict censors, foreign countries have long exerted influence on the final products emerging from America’s television and film studios.</p>
<p>And studios have ample reasons to capitulate. From overseas box office receipts to retaining access to foreign filming locations, it doesn’t hurt to be on the good side of a foreign regime.</p>
<h2>Hired from within?</h2>
<p>But unless more emails of diplomats and media executives are hacked and published, we can only guess how frequently these events are unfolding among insiders. What many don’t know is that American lobbyists also play a part in the process – and work as paid mouthpieces for foreign governments. Aside from an act of cyberterrorism or a diplomatic complaint, if a foreign country wants to lawfully –- and effectively – influence the editorial direction of American news and entertainment, it hires a Registered Foreign Agent.</p>
<p>Registered Foreign Agents are individuals and organizations paid by a foreign government or business for lobbying, public relations and advocacy within the United States. The <a href="http://www.fara.gov">Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)</a> was passed in 1938 to levy criminal penalties against Nazi propagandists from unduly influencing the US political process. The law forces strict reporting requirements on every means of communications and every meeting. </p>
<p>Some lobbyists <a href="http://www.law360.com/articles/270024/time-to-be-aware-of-fara-enforcement">choose to break the law rather than do the paperwork</a>. But those who violate the FARA regulations have to pay hefty fines and risk up to five years in prison. The Justice Department also can seek an injunction that would bar violators from acting as a foreign agent for a certain amount of time.</p>
<p>Today, thousands of Registered Foreign Agents collect – and spend – many millions of dollars each year to make sure that their foreign clients’ interests are represented in the corridors of Capitol Hill.</p>
<h2>Joseph Califano, Jr., Turkey, and my documentary film</h2>
<p>Joseph Califano, Jr. has been in the news recently. In an op-ed penned for the Washington Post, the former adviser to President Lyndon B. Johnson declared the film Selma <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-movie-selma-has-a-glaring-historical-inaccuracy/2014/12/26/70ad3ea2-8aa4-11e4-a085-34e9b9f09a58_story.html">unfit for awards consideration</a>.</p>
<p>“Contrary to the portrait painted by Selma,” Califano wrote, “Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. were partners in this effort. Johnson was enthusiastic about voting rights and the president urged King to find a place like Selma and lead a major demonstration… The movie should be ruled out this Christmas and during the ensuing awards season.” </p>
<p>As an expert witness, Califano effectively exercised his right to discredit a fiction film for its supposed historical inaccuracies. But how, then, does he contend with the fact that he was paid by a foreign country to lobby for the censorship of my 1988 documentary film, which sought to unearth historical truths related to events surrounding the Armenian Genocide? </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hYT0R-l2ovs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Author Ted Bogosian’s 1988 documentary An Armenian Journey.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1988, according to his “Short-Form Registration Statement Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended,” Joseph A. Califano, Jr. served as Registered Foreign Agent No. 3759.</p>
<p>Califano listed his business address as his prestigious Washington, D.C. law firm, Dewey Ballentine, and his occupation as “Attorney.” Asked to “describe in detail the services you have rendered” on behalf of the “foreign principal” (The Embassy of the Republic of Turkey) that “made it necessary to you file this form,” Califano entered</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Representation involves the application of Section 396(g)(1)(A) of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to the broadcast of the film “An Armenian Journey.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In April 1988, PBS scheduled a nationwide, primetime broadcast of the WGBH-Boston presentation <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYT0R-l2ovs">An Armenian Journey</a>. This hour-long documentary – which I wrote, directed and produced – would focus on a historical event that remains controversial 100 years later:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A bitter debate has raged over the deaths of more than a million Armenians in Eastern Turkey during World War I. Were they simply casualties of war, or the victims of a calculated effort by Turkish officials to exterminate the Armenian people?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The press kit describes the film as “a personal quest for the truth” by “an American journalist of Armenian descent” to reconcile “stories of the atrocities committed against our people by the Ottoman Turks…with Turkish government denials.”</p>
<p>Califano and several other Registered Foreign Agents working for the Republic of Turkey, including the late Frank Mankiewicz, organized a strong effort to dissuade PBS from broadcasting the film, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/02/arts/tv-notes.html?emc=eta1">according to the New York Times</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Frank Mankiewicz, the vice chairman of Hill & Knowlton, the public relations firm that is representing the Turkish Government, said that the [Turkish] Embassy and an umbrella group called the Assembly of Turkish American Associations were considering such actions as picketing and a lawsuit.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Califano, Jr. – whom Turkey paid $122,334.37 – sought to block the author’s film from being broadcast on PBS.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lbjlibrarynow/13744903365/">LBJ Foundation/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Unlike Sony’s response to North Korea’s cyber attack, PBS, WGBH and hundreds of other local public television stations resisted this attempt by Turkey and its Registered Foreign Agents to censor a motion picture presentation inside the United States. </p>
<p>The Times continued: “PBS said there was nothing wrong with the film, as did WGBH, the public television station in Boston that was co-producer. Letters have gone back and forth, one side enumerating alleged flaws, the other refuting, and the accusers refuting the refutations.”</p>
<p>An Armenian Journey was broadcast as scheduled around the day of the annual Armenian Genocide commemoration, April 24. Nielsen ratings indicated that more than two million US households tuned in to the broadcast that week.</p>
<p>TV Guide touted the program as “fascinating viewing.”</p>
<p>For his unsuccessful efforts to block the broadcast, Califano reported under FARA that his compensation was $122,334.37. In fact, his private, personal attempt at censorship earned Joseph Califano, Jr. more money than I did. His fellow Registered Foreign Agents were also well compensated, according to FARA records.</p>
<p>Thankfully, all of us were able to compete freely in the marketplace of ideas, but the events in France this month prove how perilous editorial disputes can be. Je Suis Charlie.</p>
<p>I have yet to meet Califano, but if I ever do I will thank him for filing his FARA paperwork so thoroughly, even though it was his legal obligation. Otherwise, the American public would be much less informed about how foreign censorship is waged against the media elite and producers.</p>
<p>Fortunately for myself and the makers of Selma, Califano and others like him were unable to steer audiences away from our efforts to present well-made films with high standards of journalism and craft that offer alternative points of view.</p>
<p>Months from now, the Registered Foreign Agents of North Korea and Pakistan will file their FARA paperwork. Anyone who wants to uncover the roster of Americans who profited from the attempts of these countries to censor the theatrical release of The Interview or the transmission of Homeland can do their patriotic duty: follow the money trail that leads to censorship by visiting www.fara.gov.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35996/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Bogosian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Feature films and television shows notoriously play fast-and-loose with the facts. When prologues proclaim “Based on a True Story,” they’re gracefully implying that what follows is mostly fiction. Awards…Ted Bogosian, Instructor and Visiting Filmmaker, Duke UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/321462014-10-03T05:53:36Z2014-10-03T05:53:36ZHistory repeating: from the Battle of Broken Hill to the sands of Syria<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60487/original/rh8q775x-1412140892.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Known as White Rocks, this quartz outcrop was the site of a three-hour gun battle in 1915 between police and two Afghans, who had shot and killed picnickers leaving Broken Hill.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amanda Slater/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s another hot Australian New Year’s Day, and 1200 people are aboard a train bound for a picnic when a burst of gunfire shatters the festive atmosphere. Police return fire, killing the attackers – but not before four picnickers are killed and seven more wounded.</p>
<p>This is not a fantastic scenario: for several terrifying hours, this was Broken Hill in outback New South Wales on January 1, 1915.</p>
<p>A century on, religion is still being abused for political purposes by extremists. We have recently heard Islamic State (also known as IS or ISIS) calling on Muslims around the world to attack and “kill a disbelieving American or European … or an Australian or a Canadian or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers”. </p>
<p>Those recent pronouncements have some echoes of the now little-remembered 1915 Battle of Broken Hill. Similarly, the current delays in protecting civilians in Syria and Iraq from the horror unleashed by the IS – particularly the slow response of neighbouring countries like Turkey – mirror the situation in 1915. </p>
<p>Then, as now, the world was acutely aware of the humanitarian catastrophe that was unfolding in those same parts of the world. When unarmed civilians were trapped in the <a href="scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1233&context=gsp">Hakkari Mountains or the city of Van</a>, drastic action was required to save lives. Action that was too slow in coming for too many. </p>
<p>The question now is whether we learn from history, or sit back and watch more civilians die.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60486/original/qz9kq59c-1412140815.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60486/original/qz9kq59c-1412140815.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60486/original/qz9kq59c-1412140815.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60486/original/qz9kq59c-1412140815.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60486/original/qz9kq59c-1412140815.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60486/original/qz9kq59c-1412140815.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60486/original/qz9kq59c-1412140815.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60486/original/qz9kq59c-1412140815.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">1200 picnickers were on 40 open ore railway trucks like this one in 1915 when two unaffiliated extremists opened fire on the crowd, killing four.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amanda Slater/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<h2>A call to action</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60490/original/r6dtwy7k-1412141519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60490/original/r6dtwy7k-1412141519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60490/original/r6dtwy7k-1412141519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60490/original/r6dtwy7k-1412141519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60490/original/r6dtwy7k-1412141519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60490/original/r6dtwy7k-1412141519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60490/original/r6dtwy7k-1412141519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60490/original/r6dtwy7k-1412141519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Memorial plaques.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amanda Slater/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The attack in outback New South Wales came only a few weeks after Sheikh-ul-Islam, the Ottoman Turkish Empire’s primary religious leader, declared a jihad (or holy war) on behalf of the government, urging his followers to take up arms against Great Britain and the Allies on November 14, 1914.</p>
<p>The sheikh’s declaration urged Muslims all over the world – including those living in Allied countries – to rise up and defend the Ottoman Empire. In part, his declaration read: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Of those who go to the Jihad for the sake of happiness and salvation of the believers in God’s victory, the lot of those who remain alive is felicity, while the rank of those who depart to the next world is martyrdom. In accordance with God’s beautiful promise, those who sacrifice their lives to give life to the truth will have honour in this world, and their latter end is paradise.</p>
</blockquote>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amanda Slater/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>In modern parlance, Broken Hill could be classified as a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/wests-greatest-threat-lone-wolf-terrorist-say-security-experts-267936">“lone-wolf attack”</a>. The attackers were former Afghan cameleers named Badsha
Mohammed Gool, an ice-cream vendor, and Mullah Abdullah, a local imam and halal butcher. </p>
<p>While the attack was apparently politically inspired, the attackers confessed in notes they left behind that they were not involved in any organised group or militia.</p>
<h2>Remembering the lessons of genocide</h2>
<p>Now, just as in 1914, Yazidis, Christian Armenians and especially indigenous Christian Assyrians are <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/08/08/they-left-n-door-targeting-christians-iraq">being targeted</a> in the name of Islam.</p>
<p>Just as it was in 1914, the 2000-year-old Christian presence in the Middle East is threatened with extinction, even as we approach the eve of the centenary of the 1915 Armenian and Assyrian genocides.</p>
<p>A century ago, the ideological forebears of IS targeted Christian Hellenes, Armenians and Assyrians. Once the people were largely gone, their physical heritage was targeted: churches, monasteries, schools, hospitals, community centres, homes. Thousands of Christian holy sites were systematically destroyed across Turkey, Iraq and Syria.</p>
<p>Just as before, religion is being abused for political purposes by groups of extremists. Late last month, IS destroyed the <a href="http://www.lragir.am/index/eng/0/politics/view/33008">Armenian Church of the Holy Martyrs</a> at Deir-e-Zor in north-eastern Syria, part of their campaign to “cleanse” their “caliphate” of the presence of “unbelievers”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"515913694363262976"}"></div></p>
<p>In a sea of inhumanity unleashed by IS, this was a particularly barbaric act, as the Church of the Holy Martyrs and its associated museum are dedicated to the victims of the Armenian Genocide. </p>
<p>The church served as a massive reliquary containing the bones of Christian Armenians deported by the Ottoman Turkish Empire to the desert wastes around Deir-e-Zor to die of hunger, dehydration or worse.</p>
<p>The sands in this corner of war-ravaged Syria contain dozens of mass graves from World War One, the victims of a systematic campaign of extermination by a government against its own citizens. The descendants of the survivors are now part of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia of <a href="https://theconversation.com/saving-koban-the-town-that-the-world-cant-afford-to-lose-to-isis-32427">Kobanê</a>, including units of indigenous Christian Assyrians who refuse to permit another genocide to occur.</p>
<p>Just as in 1915, while claiming to be unable to restrain the extremists who hide behind the veil of religion, over recent months the Turkish authorities have done little to help the international efforts to confront IS, while permitting IS fighters vital access across its borders with Syria and Iraq. This includes not doing enough to crack down on alleged <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/turkey-islamic-state-group-oil-smuggling-militant-jihadists/2469047.html">IS oil smuggling</a>.</p>
<p>Turkey still denies that it has allowed the oil smuggling. But in June, Turkish opposition MP Ali Ediboglu said that <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2014/06/turkey-syria-isis-selling-smuggled-oil.html##ixzz3F3PD1fRT">US$800 million worth of oil</a> from IS-occupied areas of Syria and Iraq had been sold in Turkey. This equates to about US$1.2 million per day flowing into IS coffers, <a href="http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Who-Is-Buying-The-Islamic-States-Illegal-Oil.html">according to industry sources</a>.</p>
<p>While <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29455204">Turkish MPs have just voted</a> to allow NATO to use the 60-year-old Incirlik air base and potentially allow the Turkish military to enter Iraq and Syria to join the fight against IS, it’s still unclear exactly what action Turkey will take. Turkish Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz has been reported as saying: <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29455204">“Don’t expect any immediate steps.”</a></p>
<h2>Rescuing defenceless civilians</h2>
<p>In World War One, small groups of specialist forces such as the Dunsterforce rescued tens of thousands of Yazidis, Christian Armenians and indigenous Christian Assyrians, placing themselves between the largely defenceless genocide survivors and those who would wipe them out.</p>
<p>The actions of men such as Stanley Savige (later <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/savige-sir-stanley-george-11617">Sir Stanley George Savige</a>) should be a source of pride for all Australians: individuals standing up for what is right. Australia should draw inspiration from such men in the long fight against extremism that lies ahead.</p>
<p>There have been enough parallels with 1915. Time to break the cycle and save the fragments of Yazidi, Armenian and indigenous Assyrian civilisation that cling to existence in Iraq and Syria today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Panayiotis Diamadis receives funding from, and is affiliated with, the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.</span></em></p>It’s another hot Australian New Year’s Day, and 1200 people are aboard a train bound for a picnic when a burst of gunfire shatters the festive atmosphere. Police return fire, killing the attackers – but…Panayiotis Diamadis, Lecturer, Genocide Studies, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/309332014-08-28T05:30:59Z2014-08-28T05:30:59ZNationalism sparks a summer of deadly violence in the Caucasus<p>The world has been brutally reminded of the unresolved conflict in <a href="http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13995/nagorno-karabakh-s-summer-of-violence">Nagorno-Karabakh</a>, an enclave in the South Caucasus which Armenia and Azerbaijan have locked horns over for more than 25 years. While the situation is clearly at a low ebb, the facts of what is happening are far from clear.</p>
<p>The two sides’ accounts of the violence are, as ever, directly contradictory. In the absence of third-party monitoring, the only certainty seems to be that dozens of Azeri (or Azerbaijani) and Armenian soldiers have lost their lives in tit-for-tat exploratory and retaliatory raids, while civilians around the line of contact have been plagued by an upsurge in <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/caucasus-report-karabakh-war-dance/26521123.html">shelling and sniper fire</a>. </p>
<p>Mediation between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan by <a href="http://iwpr.net/report-news/putin-mediates-azeri-armenian-talks">Russia’s Vladimir Putin</a> appears to have calmed the situation on the ground for now. Any such calm, though, can only be temporary. </p>
<p>Azerbaijan’s government has repeatedly stated its readiness to change the status quo <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/07/azerbaijan-president-threatens-war-armenia-twitter">by force if necessary</a>, and the Armenian side is not in any mood to compromise on its central demand – and the conflict’s main bone of contention - the “Nagorno-Karabakh people’s <a href="http://www.mfa.am/en/artsakh/">right to self-determination”</a>.</p>
<p>But rather than being the product of some inevitable, eternal enmity between Armenians and Azeris, this conflict is the result of competing narratives that emerged in modern times – and which were reinforced at the fall of the Soviet Union. </p>
<h2>The official story</h2>
<p>The pressure to establish at least an impression of democracy after the Soviet era forced both Azerbaijan and Armenia to invest in strong nation-building ideologies. The competing nationalisms that resulted are deeply embedded in the region’s two centuries of Russian and Soviet imperial rule.</p>
<p>For instance, while the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/ref/timestopics/topics_armeniangenocide.html">1915 genocide</a> was at worst suppressed and at best minimised in the official narratives of Soviet Armenia, the Russians and the Bolsheviks were invariably portrayed as the saviours of the Armenian nation from annihilation at the hands of Persians and Turks. </p>
<p>Soviet Azerbaijan’s official history, meanwhile, often emphasised both the country’s Caucasus Albanian heritage (especially when a line had to be drawn between the Turkic Azeris and Turkey) and its Persian cultural inheritance – for instance, when Stalin began coveting Iranian Azerbaijan after World War II.</p>
<p>The audience for these new histories was not just the local population, but also late-Soviet Moscow, where all decisions affecting the Union Republics were made. In the strange and intensely ideological Soviet empire, only the dictats of Marxism-Leninism stood in the way of the unbridled nationalism this thinking could have unleashed.</p>
<p>But the the liberalisation of the final years of Soviet rule fuelled the output of this revisionist history. Moscow held sway over the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh, and a flurry of history-writing in both republics saw them fight to bolster their claims to the territory.</p>
<h2>Breaking free</h2>
<p>At the same time, the Gorbachev-era policy of <a href="http://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/glasnost/">Glasnost</a> (“openness”) gave oxygen to both sides’ nationalist zeal. Some Armenian claims portrayed the Caucasus’s Azeris as Central Asian, Turkic interlopers; some Azeri historians tried to completely expunge the Armenians from the history of the region.</p>
<p>As nationalism became the ideology of choice for elites on both sides of the divide, unbridled revisionist histories and sometimes plainly nonsensical claims were eagerly adopted by these newly independent states – and propagated by their media, by textbooks, and by institutions of higher education.</p>
<p>Today, instead of doing justice to this region’s immense complexity, these countries’ official histories still traffic in selective, self-serving readings of “facts”, and ultimately unfalsifiable assumptions on how “historical ownership” of a given territory is established. </p>
<p>These deeply nationalist official histories have helped push their respective nations’ identities to directly contradictory and mutually exclusive extremes, each side dehumanising the other. The upshot is a mess of absurd nationalist claims made with equally absurd confidence.</p>
<h2>Give me liberty …</h2>
<p>Consider how, just as in many other nationalist conflicts, the concept of “liberation” is liberally applied by both sides. For many Armenians, the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh are “<a href="http://armenpress.am/eng/news/516841/book-on-liberated-territories-presented.html">liberated</a>”, a term that blithely justifies the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Azeris with nothing more than a nod to the tortured history. </p>
<p>Azerbaijan’s president has himself similarly stated his willingness to “liberate” Nagorno-Karabakh in the future, pointedly inviting any ethnic Armenian “guests” disagreeing with Azeri rule <a href="http://archive.president.az/print.php?item_id=20080101021742200&sec_id=135">to leave</a>.</p>
<p>The absurdity of designating historically imagined territories as in need of “liberation” is ignored in both cases. But this is what happens when nationalist history becomes a guide for moral action. It ends up normalising the idea of ethnic cleansing by basing what should be on a contrived notion of what used to be – and by prioritising that historical abstraction over everything (and everyone) else. </p>
<p>In the end, it’s quite simple: one cannot liberate territories, one can only liberate people. But of course, authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes don’t particularly like to see the concept of “freedom” extended towards individual citizens.</p>
<h2>People before nations</h2>
<p>The Karabakh dispute desperately needs to be refocused on the rights and integrity of humans, rather than “nations” and artificially sacralised territories. But this is a distant prospect indeed; the South Caucasus’s elites still draw too much power from the nationalism they whipped up to bolster their legitimacy decades ago.</p>
<p>After all, in pseudo-democracies, nationalism just helps keep things together. It diverts attention from the difficult things and people that matter; most of all, <a href="http://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Regions-and-countries/Azerbaijan/Crackdown-on-human-rights-in-Azerbaijan-155040">as recent events in Azerbaijan have shown</a>, it provides a valuable tool for demonising regime opponents as traitors. And as the two presidents well know, any leader trying to move away from the consensus would risk the ire of new a political opposition pushing a reinvigorated nationalist myth.</p>
<p>National histories will always be full of internal contradictions, omissions, and double standards – but allowing nationalism to proceed unchecked this conflict deteriorate further. These official histories are emperors with no clothes. It is time for their distortions to be directly and aggressively addressed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevork Oskanian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The world has been brutally reminded of the unresolved conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in the South Caucasus which Armenia and Azerbaijan have locked horns over for more than 25 years. While the…Kevork Oskanian, Research Fellow in International Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207472013-12-19T01:24:24Z2013-12-19T01:24:24ZTurkey, the Armenian genocide and the politics of memory<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/36302/original/tjb374xs-1385528662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Next year marks 100 years since the Gallipoli landings and the start of the genocide Armenians, Assyrians and Hellenes in Ottoman Turkey.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Australian Government</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Victims of genocide die twice: first in the killing fields and then in the texts of denialists who insist that “nothing happened” or that what happened was something “different”. </p>
<p>On the eve of two centennial anniversaries in 2015 — the Gallipoli landings, and the start of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide">genocide</a> of long-settled Armenians, Assyrians and Hellenes in Ottoman Turkey – the Turkish denial of events of the latter continues to evoke serious political debate in Australia.</p>
<p>The South Australian and New South Wales state parliaments have officially recognised the genocide of these three minorities. After the NSW parliament’s vote recognising the Assyrians and Pontian Greeks as genocide victims (the genocide of Armenians was recognised earlier), the Turkish foreign affairs ministry announced that parliamentarians will not get visas to attend the centenary commemorations at Anzac Cove. </p>
<p>Led by NSW premier Barry O’Farrell, the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/22/gallipoli-ofarrell-turkish-bar-mps">response</a> to this announcement has been one of outrage at the politicisation of Anzac memory.</p>
<p>For all Turkey’s threats that officially recognising the genocide would destroy the Australian–Turkish friendship, elaborate plans to mark the Anzac centenary continue, with Turkey set to reap rich financial rewards from battlefield tourism.</p>
<p>At this stage, the Australian federal government does not officially recognise the genocide, but may well do so after Gallipoli 2015.</p>
<h2>‘Demographic’ change</h2>
<p>The Ottoman Empire (and, later, the Republic of Turkey) implemented a plan of unprecedented forced demographic change from 1914 to 1924. It sought the physical elimination of the long-settled non-Muslim populations as the only way of securing their territorial, cultural, religious and linguistic integrity.</p>
<p>The Turkish imperial parliament adopted the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehcir_Law">Tehcir Law</a> in May 1915. It squarely blamed the Armenians, Assyrians and Hellenes for their own destruction: those living near the war zones had hindered the movements of – and logistical support for – the Ottoman armed forces. It said they had collaborated with the enemy, attacked the Ottoman troops and innocent Muslim civilians, and so on.</p>
<p>The international community acknowledged the events at the time. In the words of British Secretary of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, this “administrative holocaust” prompted immediate international reaction. Relief committees arose worldwide. A <a href="http://www.armenian-genocide.org/popup/affirmation_window.html?Affirmation=160">Joint Allied Declaration</a> in May 1915 stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In view of these new crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilization, the Allied governments announce publicly…that they will hold personally responsible…all members of the Ottoman government and those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a decade, between two and three million Armenian, Assyrian and Hellene men, women and children were <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F30917FA385C13738DDDAD0A94DD405B858DF1D3">murdered</a>, while another two million became destitute refugees. Tens of thousands of female teenagers and children were abducted and forcibly assimilated. The Christian minorities of Anatolia were virtually wiped out.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/36204/original/vsj5h5xt-1385505195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/36204/original/vsj5h5xt-1385505195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/36204/original/vsj5h5xt-1385505195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/36204/original/vsj5h5xt-1385505195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/36204/original/vsj5h5xt-1385505195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/36204/original/vsj5h5xt-1385505195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/36204/original/vsj5h5xt-1385505195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armenians are marched out of Harput by Turkish soldiers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">American Red Cross</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Denialism in Turkey</h2>
<p>Since president <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk">Kemal Ataturk</a> came to office in 1923, the official Turkish position has been constant: there was no plan to destroy the long-settled Christian populations of Anatolia. Those who died were “merely” and “only” victims of international war, civil war, famine and disease.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_301_(Turkish_Penal_Code)%20of%20the%20current%20Turkish%20Constitution%20%E2%80%93%20though%20no%20longer%20enforced%20%E2%80%93%20makes%20it%20a%20criminal%20offence%20to%20discuss%20the%20genocides%20as%20%22denigrating%20Turkishness%22.%20Among%20those%20%5Bprosecuted%5D(http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&n=orhan-pamuk-will-pay-compensation-for-his-words-court-decided-2011-03-27">Article 301</a> was Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk. </p>
<p>The battle for the memory of the destruction of non-Muslim minorities rages on, with the denialists now very much on the defensive, inside and outside Turkey.</p>
<h2>International responses: France</h2>
<p>France’s parliament not only recognised the genocide, but under former president Nicolas Sarkozy, denial of the Jewish and Armenian genocides was criminalised. Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20120124-turkish-pm-erdogan-hits-out-racist-french-genocide-bill-france-senate">attacked</a> the statute as a “discriminatory, racist” bill, and a:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…grave, unacceptable and historic mistake…which denigrates Turkish history. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>That bill was declared unconstitutional in February 2012, though current French president Francois Hollande asserts he will re-introduce the legislation.</p>
<p>When France officially recognised the genocide in 1998, Turkish sanctions were threatened. In 2012, France retained its position yet <a href="http://www.economy.gov.tr/index.cfm?sayfa=countriesandregions&country=FR&region=8">bilateral trade</a> with Turkey was worth US$13.5 billion.</p>
<h2>The Australian context</h2>
<p>With Turkey using the 2015 Gallipoli event to threaten Australia not to further recognise the genocide, the relevance and sensitivity of the issue even today is clearly on display.</p>
<p>Recently, controversial history professor Justin McCarthy was invited by the Australian Turkish Advisory Alliance (Stand Up Against Armenian Lies) to give lectures in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra on “What Happened During 1915–1923? The Armenian Question”. </p>
<p>Melbourne University’s Faculty of Arts and the NSW Art Gallery <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/not-a-genocide-visiting-professors-views-on-turkey-and-its-historic-role-anger-australias-armenians-20131122-2y1h8.html">cancelled the events</a> scheduled there when apprised of the tenor of the lectures. McCarthy is known for <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3897302.htm">arguing</a> that there is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…no evidence, no proof that the Turks wanted to act in this way. What is said is based on emotion in this case and a desire to prove there is genocide instead of first looking at the facts.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>McCarthy <em>did</em> <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-15/armenian-genocide-denier-to-speak-at-parliament-house/5095656">address</a> a very small “invitation-only” gathering in a federal parliament committee room, organised by Labor MP Laurie Ferguson. Two MPs and one senator attended. </p>
<p>These genocides are recognised by 22 nation states, 60 regional governments and a dozen world bodies. It’s time for the Australian government to do the same.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin Tatz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Victims of genocide die twice: first in the killing fields and then in the texts of denialists who insist that “nothing happened” or that what happened was something “different”. On the eve of two centennial…Colin Tatz, ANU Visiting Fellow, Politics and International Relations, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.