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The taboo breaker: Turkish scholar speaks of cracks in the wall of genocide denial

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Gayane Abrahamyan is reporting from Turkey with the support of the Global Political Trends Center (GPoT) and Internews Armenia

Turkish scholar Cengiz Aktar and a few dozen “taboo breakers” like him are changing many stereotypes about Turks, raising hopes that one day Turkey’s denialist policy regarding its past may end.

Aktar, 56, is one of the progressive intellectuals who recognize the Ottoman-era genocide of Armenians and take action to help the Turkish society face its past.
When in 2008 Aktar initiated the “I Apologize” campaign whereby for the first time Turks offered apologies to the genocide victims, Armenians, little did he think that the action would become a “tsunami” and would cause cracks on “the concrete wall of denial”. [Read more…]

Taner Akcam: “In Turkey, genocide denial is an industry”

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10:44, January 26, 2012

Taner Akçam, Ph.D.

Born in the province of Ardahan, Turkey. Taner Akçam graduated from Middle East Technical University in Ankara and emigrated to Germany, where he worked as a research scientist in the sociology department at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. Akçam earned his doctorate from the University of Hannover with a dissertation on The Turkish National Movement and the Armenian Genocide Against the Background of the Military Tribunals in Istanbul Between 1919 and 1922.
The following interview with Prof. Taner Akcam, the Robert Aram, Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marion Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University, appeared in Le Monde on Jan. 7. The interview was conducted by Guillaume Perrier. Below is the interview in English.
Q. What is your opinion, not about the genocide denial law itself, but about the effects it can have on the debate among intellectuals and civil society in Turkey? [Read more…]