The term ‘genocide’ was created by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish scholar in 1944. The word was derived from two different roots: the greek word ‘genos’ which means race and the Latin word ‘cidium’ which means killings. Lemkin first used the word ‘genocide’ to explain and justify the events that took place in 1915. Genocide is an inhumane form of killing who’s main goal in the end is to completely wipe out a targeted group or nation. Many genocides have taken place over the years and they all have had a great amount of impact on history. One may wonder, if a country sees that another is suffering from genocide and inhumane acts, why would they want to repeat the barbarity that effected so many people. The answer is simple, selfishness. Those who kill in masses or those who kill in general, kill for their benefit only. They only take into account how they feel, instead of opening their eyes to the world and seeing what really is going on. Nonetheless, genocides have happened and they still continue to take place. Moreover, the issue of the Armenian Genocide is one that has been addressed and analyzed numerous amounts of times. There have been analyses made as to why the genocide is being denied in the states and what can be done for the genocide to be recognized. However, the issue as to why the Turks repeatedly deny the genocide hasn’t been really put into question. It is important to understand the roots of the Turkish State Policy of the genocide denial and what the modern forms of genocide denial entail.
Unlike Holocaust denial, which is not the product of any state (and certainly not an official policy of the Federal Republic of Germany); Armenian Genocide denial originates from the Turkish state. The initial position of the post World War I government in Turkey was to condemn the massacres and favored holding trial for those involved. There were clear indications that the Turks were ready to punish perpetrators in order to secure their sovereignty. However, this sentiment quickly gave way to protecting suspects and avoiding prosecution once the Treaty of Sévres , a peace treaty between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies, and partitioning of territories became a likely reality. When it was no longer in the interest of postwar Turkey to punish the perpetrators of genocide, a policy shift to denial was implemented. By 1920 most of the victors no longer included punishing Turkish war criminals in their postwar objectives. The inability to prosecute led to a large portion of relevant documents being lost or destroyed and never gave an opportunity for eyewitness testimony, on the record, in a court of law. While it is incomprehensible to understand why Allied authorities did not pressure Turkey to turn over the myriad documents showing the genocidal intent of the Young Turk regime, the lasting effect their destruction has caused can be seen in Turkey’s current denialist policies.
Since this time period, the Turkish government has used different revisionist tactics to steer away attention from the genocide. These include claiming that Armenians and Turks had lived together for centuries in peace and harmony, and what happened during World War I, while regrettable, was a necessary national security precaution in response to Armenians taking up arms against the Ottoman Empire. After all, it was World War I and the killings that occurred were done on both sides. Any accusation of massacre is perceived to be not just an insult to Turkey, but to Islam as whole because no Turk could ever have been conceivably responsible for a crime as heinous as genocide.This sentiment is highlighted by a message by the League of Nations secretariat saying:
“A long intolerable whine from the Turkish Minister, the burden of which is that no Turk ever hurt a living creature, but that everyone bullies Turks and the Assembly was
monstrously unfair.”
Turkey’s lead negotiator for the Treaty of Lausanne laid out the first declaration of what would become the official Turkish position on the killings: “[T]he Turkish government and nation were forced to take punitive measures and to respond fully, but always and without exception only after their patience was exhausted, the responsibility for the disasters that befell the Armenian community within the Turkish Empire belongs entirely to the Armenian community itself…For as long as the Christian elements did not abuse the generosity of the country in which they lived for centuries in comfort and plenty, the Turks never denied them their rights.”
The main reason for enduring contentiousness which surrounds the Armenian Genocide is the efforts made on behalf of the Turkish government to avoid responsibility for the events that are in question.However, this policy of avoiding responsibility has transformed into an active policy of genocide denial. This denialism is represented in academia through sponsored “university chairs” and is present in various areas of parliamentary aspects such as: the high-priced lobbying firms who are paid to convince legislators to avoid using the “G-word”, it is present in the public through Turkish consulates around the world who monitor and “counter Armenian claims”, and it is omnipresent in Turkish itself, where “insulting the Turkish nation” is a crime that is followed with a prison sentence. Moreover, Turkish dissident scholar Taner Akçam states that: “Denial of the Armenian genocide has developed over the decades to become a complex and far-reaching machine that rivals the Nazi Germany propaganda ministry…This machine runs on academic dishonesty, fabricated information, political pressure, intimidation and threats, all funded or supported, directly or indirectly, by the Turkish state. It has become a huge industry.”
Within the academic society, “scholars” such as Bernard Lewis, Justin McCarthy and Health Lowry (who all receive funding from the Turkish government), work to show the events of 1915-23 to be “an Armenian version of history” which is not genocide. This is done by trying to minimize the numbers of Armenians killed, blaming famine and disease for the deaths, and putting fault on Armenians for instigating civil war by siding with Russian troops. While the overwhelming majority of legitimate scholars in the field recognize the events of World War I to be genocide, individuals like Lewis, McCarthy and Lowry seek to raise doubt with the guise of academic objectivity.
In politics, Turkish denialism is represented by multi-million dollar paid lobbying firms where former Congressmen are hired to use their connections to block legislative recognition of the Armenian Genocide. People like former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and former Louisiana representative Robert Livingston are on the direct payroll of the Turkish government. “In 2003, Gephardt cosponsored a resolution that put the “Armenian genocide” in company with the Holocaust and mass deaths in Cambodia and Rwanda. In 2000, the Missouri lawmaker backed a similar measure, [saying] he was ‘committed to obtaining official U.S. government recognition of the Armenian genocide.’ Now Gephardt is a foreign agent lobbying on behalf of Turkey, and he’s got a different view of the world. He’s working to stymie the latest version of an Armenian genocide resolution.” Bob Livingston went so far as to record an online video plea to Congressmen not to support House Resolution 106 in 2007. By stating that Turkey is a secular democracy in the Middle East who is a needed ally in the war on terror, these lobbyists continue to play off of American national security concerns to put aside affirmation by the United States.
Until now, lobbying efforts have had a keen effect, helping to prevent the full House of Representatives from voting on Armenian Genocide recognition resolutions in 2007 and 2010. Furthermore, President Obama, who was outspoken about the genocide as an Illinois Senator, has steered away from describing the events as “genocide” in his annual statements, instead referring to the massacres as “Meds Yeghern” the Armenian term for “great calamity”.
“Turkish groups have also recently attempted to take denialism into United States
courtrooms. In January the United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on a case filed by a Turkish group which sought to force inclusion of Armenian Genocide denial materials in the Massachusetts education curriculum. In March of this year US District Court Judge Donovan Frank said that the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies was protected by academic freedom when it told students that the Turkish Coalition of America’s (TCA) web site was unreliable and rejected the TCA’s claims of defamation. These lawsuits, although unsuccessful, show the evolution of the Turkish government’s strategy on dealing with the genocide issue.”
Perhaps the most dangerous facet of Turkey’s attempts at historical revisionism is the
suppression of free speech within the Republic of Turkey itself. Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code states:
1. Public denigration of Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly
of Turkey shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three
years.
2. Public denigration of the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security structures shall be punishable by
imprisonment of between six months and two years.
3. In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in
another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.
4. Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.
Amnesty International has called Article 301, “a direct threat to freedom of expression, as enshrined in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and in Article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR)” this statute has been used to prosecute human rights activists, journalists and civil society members who have spoke out in public about the Armenian Genocide.
Notable examples of those who have been prosecuted under Article 301 include, Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk, Turkish dissident Ragip Zarakolu, and Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Dink, who was the founding editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, was an outspoken figure who called on dialogue and understanding to overcome the evils of the Armenian Genocide. He has served as a viable voice on behalf of the Armenians and was one who advocated peace and justice.He considered himself to be a proud Armenian and a proud Turkish citizen; however he was prosecuted three times under Article 301 for “insulting Turkishness”. These prosecutions made Dink into a public enemy in the eyes of nationalist Turks. As a result, Dink was assassinated in front of his office in January of 2007 by a 17-year old gunman.
Article 301 not only restrain free intellectual expression in Turkey, it prevents any discourse related to Turkey’s pre-1923 history. In a letter to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, seven former presidents of International Association of Genocide Scholars said, “Because Turkey has denied the Armenian Genocide for the past nine decades, and currently under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, public affirmation of the genocide is a crime, it would seem impossible for Turkey to be part of a process that would assess whether or not Turkey committed a genocide against the Armenians in 1915.”
Whether or not Turkey will ever accept the Armenian Genocide is a question that may or may not be answered. For as much as we know, denial of the Armenian Genocide on behalf of the Turks will continue, and until Turkey doesn’t recognize the atrocities of 1915 as “genocide” neither will United States.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. KEITH DAVID WATENPAUGH, THE ORIGIN OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIAL
AND LEAGUE OF NATIONS’ HUMANITARIANISM 1920-1922. Armenian Review Vol. 52
Number 1-2. p. 45 (2010).
2. FRENCH SOCIALIST PARTY TO SUBMIT BILL ON PENALIZING DENIAL OF
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN FRENCH SENATE. http://news.am/eng/news/53356.html
3. TANER AKCAM, A SHAMEFUL ACT: THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE
QUESTION OF TURKISH RESPONSIBILITY. p. 366 (2006).
4. KEN SILVERSTEIN, DICK GEPHARDT LABOR AND LOBBYING. Harper’s Magazine.
5. BOB LIVINGSTON: HR 106: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE?”
6. SENATOR OBAMA DISCUSSES THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE.
7. STATEMENT OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA ON ARMENIAN REMEMBRANCE
armenian-remembrance-day-2/
8. TURKISH SUIT AGAINST U. OF MINNESOTA DISMISSED, Asbarez Daily Newspaper.
9. Turkey: Article 301 is a threat to freedom of expression and must be repealed now!
10. LETTER TO TURKISH PRIME MINISTER RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN. Written by seven former presidents of IAGS (Helen Fein, Roger W. Smith, Frank Chalk, Joyce Apsel, Robert Melson, Israel W. Charny, and Gregory Stanton). (2009).
Im so glad you wrote about this. It makes me so mad that the Turks go around lecturing the Israelis on "human rights" and get their panties in a bunch about flotilla's and they can't even admit they their own founding father perpetrated a freaking genocide and have never been held accountable for their disgusting actions.
ReplyDeleteIt also really upsets me that US Presidents have had the policy they have when it comes to the Armenian Genocide and refuse to just admit the reality...if people had accepted it then, maybe it wouldn't have happened the way it did in WWII. Never again should refer to more than the Holocaust.