Genocide Denial Archives

Forbes: Armenian Genocide Denial Goes Viral: ‘The Promise’ And The IMDB

November 14, 2016 By administrator

(L-R) Actors Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Le Bon and Christian Bale attend the ‘The Promise’ premiere during the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2016 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

By Stefan Ihrig,

Dr. Ihrig is an author and professor in history at the University of Haifa.

Writing this is dangerous: Speaking out on the Armenian Genocide means taking a huge risk. At the very least, it will be an exhausting experience, getting harassed online, trolled, threatened, down-rated on Amazon and publicly vilified. Until now, this was true mainly for individuals—academics, artists and activists. Now, it seems to apply to Hollywood movies, too. The Armenian Genocide remains one of the most controversial topics of 20th-century history and, even after its centennial, there is little reason to believe that controversy will come to an end and that some sort of consensus will come into being any time soon. Quite the opposite. Just in the last weeks, Turkey left the European Union’s cultural program in protest over a piece honoring the victims of the genocide by the Dresden Symphonic Orchestra which was sponsored by the program. Most recently, Turkey prevented a concert—again the very same piece—at the German Consulate in Istanbul. And now, we are in the middle of the next anti-Armenian campaign. This time its object is a Hollywood movie, The Promise, an epic focusing on the Armenian Genocide, starring amongst others Christian Bale. Yet, this time it might actually backfire and go another way.

All this has a long tradition. Eighty years ago the Turkish government forced Hollywood to drop a movie project based on The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, then a best-selling novel on the Armenian Genocide by German-language author, Jew and outspoken Hitler opponent Franz Werfel. The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, originally written as a warning against Hitler through the prism of the Armenian Genocide, never saw the silver screen. Such a movie could have also raised awareness of the fate of the Jews in Nazi Germany at the time and later of the ongoing Holocaust. It could have shaped the “narrative” of the struggle against Hitler. Many have since been interested to finally turn the novel into a major production, most recently, for example, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone, but Turkish opposition and obstruction seemed insurmountable.

Much seemed to have changed in the last years, especially in the centennial last year. A whole barrage of new publications, academic and non-academic, add to recent milestone publications by the great historians of the Armenian Genocide, such as Raymond Kevorkian, Taner Akcam and Ronald Grigor Suny. Academic conferences were held all over the world. It was not without reason that, at all the conferences on the Armenian Genocide in Israel last year—at the Open University, at the Hebrew University, or at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute—participants and organizers made a point to talk about past efforts to put on a conference about the Armenian Genocide and how these had been thwarted by intervention of the Turkish government. Israel was a prized battleground in the conflict over acceptance and denial. Hollywood was and is another.

And while a lot has changed, a lot has stayed the same. One sure indicator is the lack of reviews these many new, well-written and well-researched books that appeared last year have received in the mainstream media outlets in the Western world. Furthermore, even a rudimentary survey of last year’s press coverage of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide shows that it were mainly authors of Armenian descent who spoke out for the Armenians and their story. Despite a series of resolutions by various European national parliament recognizing the Armenian Genocide, most of the public opinion-makers remain silent. This applies not only to journalists but also, for example, historians writing the big histories of the 20th century or World War I. It is thus not surprising that the press coverage of The Promise betrays the fact that the Armenian Genocide is still perceived as a “new” and relatively unknown topic to the public at large.

The Turkish government has constructed a very solid and relatively successful wall of enforced silence, blocking attempts not only to acknowledge, but even to discuss the topic through various forms of intimidation. Armenian Genocide denial must be counted as one of the most successful lobbying campaigns of the last 100 years when it comes to influencing our understanding of the past. Even if methods of intervention have changed, Turkish denialism is not a thing of the past. It is less often direct intervention by the government or the embassy, but rather a general atmosphere of intimidation, fear and enforced silence. One can only imagine what the threatened repercussions for media companies are—papers, networks and movie distributors—but we know that they exist and are very real. What is also real and tangible is the instant slandering, the bullying reflex of an amorphous body of Turkish nationalists and denialists who will use social media to attack people who speak out.

The Promise made it further than the past grand projects—mainly because it was independently financed. It is one of the most expensive independent movies ever. It has been actually made and seems to have made it. Well, almost: It still has to take a crucial hurdle. It still lacks distributors. And it is here that Turkish intimidation, threat of boycott and retaliation strikes. The movie was screened in September at the Toronto International Film Festival to rather small-sized audiences. Like any movie of note, it has its IMDB entry ready where you can find all the information on the movie and where people can rate the film from one star to ten. And here this movie, for all intents and purposes is not yet available to the public, has become something of an online sensation, or rather an online battlefield. Over the last weeks it has attracted over 91,000 votes, largely split between ten- and one-star votes. The majority, over 57,000, are one-star votes. This is an obvious campaign to downrate the movie which then triggered pro-Armenian voting. We are witnessing yet another anti-Armenian denialist campaign playing out abroad, far away from Turkey, in open, democratic societies. While it is not clear who is orchestrating the campaign, it has to be assumed that, as with other campaigns, connections go back to the Turkish government and/or nationalist groups.

This seems to be something new. Armenian Genocide denialism has gone through various phases of development in the last decades. It has now fully endorsed, it appears, post-modern lingo, and often one finds pieces talking simply about “stories” and “discourses” where in the past facts and archival documents reigned supreme. If this was the post-modern turn of Armenian Genocide denial, we are witnessing now the social media turn of the phenomenon. Denialism has entered the age of Twitter and online mob-rule. And, unfortunately, quite successfully so.

But what do over 91,000 votes on IMDB really tell us? Who votes when, how many actual people are behind it, and thus how representative is it? And for what exactly? Just as Trump’s presidential campaign can tell us a lot about the future of politics—say, for example, about the role of online bullying, social media message policy, and mobilizing hardcore supporters—so the IMDB hype surrounding the The Promise can tell us something about highly fragmented and mobilizable societies as well as, in many ways, radical groups mainly existing as such groups only in the universe of social media (for now). Until we understand this better and are more careful in falling into the traps of social media polls, likes and reviews, more than 91,000 votes make for fine advertisement and should help the movie secure good distribution so that we, and all those over 32,000 who voted for it, can actually see the movie. Few movies have ever experienced such a pre-release buzz on IMDB. That much is clear. Thank you, denialists.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/11/14/genocide-denial-goes-viral-the-promise-and-the-imdb/#546557133ca7

To Ban Genocide Denial, Court Incites Armenians to Commit Violence

October 20, 2015 By administrator

BY HARUT SASSOUIAN

In the case of Dogu Perincek vs. Switzerland, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) sustained in a 10-7 vote the Turkish politician’s right to free expression, finding that Swiss courts had wrongly convicted him for denying the Armenian Genocide.

More importantly for Armenians, the Grand Chamber contradicted the Lower Chamber’s unwarranted opinion of Dec. 17, 2013, which had questioned the validity of the Armenian Genocide. On October 15, 2015, ECHR’s Grand Chamber rectified that jurisdictional issue, ruling that the Court was “not required to determine whether the massacres and mass deportations suffered by the Armenian people at the hands of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 onwards can be characterized as genocide within the meaning of that term under international law, but has no authority to make legally binding pronouncements, one way or another, on this point.” This was the judgment of the majority of 10 judges who ruled in favor of Perincek.

The remaining seven judges, not only disagreed with the majority’s ruling in support of Perincek, but went on to set the record straight on the Armenian Genocide: “That the massacres and deportations suffered by the Armenian people constituted genocide is self-evident…. The Armenian genocide is a clearly established historical fact. To deny it is to deny the obvious. But that is not the question here. The case is not about the historical truth, or the legal characterization of the events of 1915. The real issue at stake here is whether it is possible for a State, without overstepping its margin of appreciation [limited room to maneuver], to make it a criminal offence to insult the memory of a people that has suffered genocide. In our view, this is indeed possible,” the seven judges wrote in their dissenting opinion.

Nevertheless, the Grand Chamber still reached some unwarranted conclusions that defy logic and common sense. The majority of the judges advanced the meaningless argument that since 90 years had passed between Perincek’s statements and “the tragic events” of 1915, there was no need for Switzerland to regulate his speech. Supposedly, the passage of time had made his denial less traumatic on Armenians. As the dissenting seven judges pointed out, the majority’s position violates “the principle that statutory limitations are not applicable to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

The majority of the judges also put forward a questionable argument to justify why denying the Holocaust was a crime, and not a violation of freedom of expression. They considered Holocaust denial an “antidemocratic ideology” and “anti-Semitism,” whereas they claimed that Perincek’s denial of the Armenian Genocide did not result “in serious friction between Armenians and Turks” in Switzerland. Furthermore, while asserting that there was a direct link between Holocaust denial and many of the European “States which had experienced the Nazi horrors,” they found no such link between Switzerland and the Armenian Genocide.

There are several problems in the Judges preceding arguments:

— There should not be a double standard in dealing with denial of any genocide. If denial of the Holocaust is a crime, so should the denial of other genocides. The preferential treatment of victims of certain genocides, but not others, is shameful and disgraceful. As editor of a newspaper in the United States, I naturally support the highly protective American notion of freedom of expression rather than the European model of a more restrictive freedom of speech. However, regardless of which legal system one adheres to, discrimination among genocide victims is not acceptable.

— Majority of the judges repeatedly claimed that since Perincek’s denial did not result in causing public disorder by the Armenian community, Swiss courts should not have convicted him. Ironically, by making such a dangerous assertion, the Grand Chamber is actually inciting Armenians to resort to violence to satisfy the Court’s requirement that genocide denial could only be criminalized if it is followed by some sort of violent reaction. Since Swiss-Armenians acted in a civilized manner by calling the police and filing a lawsuit instead of bashing Perincek’s head, they are now being told that their legal claim is invalid because they did not cause a public disturbance!

— It is historically wrong to state that there was no link between Switzerland and the Armenian Genocide. Over 400,000 Swiss citizens signed a petition in 1890’s to protest the Hamidian massacres. Swiss missionaries saved countless orphans during the Genocide and helped provide new homes for them in Switzerland.

Fortunately, the Grand Chamber did not require Switzerland to amend its laws on genocide denial, implying that the law was simply misapplied in Perincek’s case. Therefore, Greece, Cyprus, and Slovakia also do not need to change their laws on criminalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide.

Thankfully, the Court rejected Perincek’s claim that he is entitled to 135,000 euros ($142,000) in damages and court costs.

International lawyers Geoffrey Robertson and Amal Clooney, and Armenia’s Prosecutor General Gevork Kostanyan should be commended for their exceptional efforts in representing Armenia in Court and defending the truth of the Armenian Genocide.

Professor Threatened by Turkish Nationalists says United States is Complicit in Armenian Genocide Denial

September 24, 2015 By administrator

“The United States is 100% complicit in the denial of the Armenian Genocide” – says Humboldt State University Professor of Genocide Studies Maral Attallah in an interview with Nvard Chalikyan from Panorama.am, in which she shares her personal story of being threatened by Turkish nationalists in her pursuit against the Armenian Genocide denial.

Maral Attallah, who has been teaching a course Narrating Genocide for many years in the United States, says that, unlike Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide is not widely known. However, due to a number of events that took place during the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide this year (such as the message of Pope Francis), the level of awareness of the issue has risen.
She also says that those who learn about the Armenian Genocide, display increased interest in knowing more about what has happened. Professor Attallah’s elective course on genocides for instance is attended by such a great number of students that there is a waiting list.
“At the end of the course my students feel empowered. I even had students who told me that they were going to call the White House and advocate on behalf of the Armenian Genocide. These are students who before coming to the course never knew what the Armenian Genocide was about”, – says Maral Attallah.

Professor Attallah has written her Master’s thesis on the issue of the Armenian Genocide and particularly of its denial by Turkey. She is telling her personal story of how she was contacted by a Turkish nationalist group, which openly threatened her for writing about the Armenian Genocide and told her to stop working on that issue.

At that time one of her mentors – sociologist Dr. Samuel Oliner, who is a Holocaust survivor, urged her to go on with her work and not to give up.

“He told me “you have to do this! They want you to stop, they want to silence you”… When a survivor of Holocaust tells you to get it together, you get it together… And I did it, I finished. For me that experience shed light on why the denial is so important to attack. This is the reason – I was just someone in a rural area in Northern California, and I was receiving threats by Turkish nationalist groups because I wanted to bring attention to the Armenian Genocide. So we see multiple levels of Genocide denial – we see it on the official level as a national policy, we see it in personal relationships, but we also see it in the sense of trying to squash, to quell the freedom of expression”, – she says.

“[I] take that instance and juxtapose it with the United States staying silent… When they are staying silent, it’s as if in this personal attack against me they are turning their backs. I made that connection and I thought – even more so, I have to bring attention to this! And I was very critical in my paper about the need to recognize the Armenian Genocide, that the United States is 100% complicit in this denial; because when we choose to do nothing, that’s still an action!”

“The knowledge of my students about the Armenian genocide is something of the past, as if it is no longer relevant; but the denial is the continuation of Genocide. So if denial is still taking place and people are being not only prosecuted but persecuted for speaking the truth, that’s an extension of it, it’s the reality, it’s right now.”

In the context of why genocide recognition is important today, Maral also mentions the work of Rubina Pirumian who studies the psychological effects of the trauma and the denial on present generations and shows how the people living today are affected by it.

Maral Attallah visited Armenia as a participant in the 12th meeting of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that took place in Yerevan in July. Her grandfather is a Genocide survivor, and she was the first in her family to visit Armenia. For that reason, she says, this visit was something like a pilgrimage, as she came here not just for herself but for her family.

In the book at the Genocide Memorial she left the following note for her grandfather, “I came for you I stayed for us”.

Professor Attallah’s story is an encouraging example for all those who work on the Armenian issues and who pursue justice.
* Maral Attalah is a professor of Genocide Studies at Humboldt State University in the United States; she is the recipient of the 2013/2014 Humboldt State University Excellence in Teaching Award.

Interview by Nvard Chalikyan

Source: Panorama.am

‘Turkey’s National Struggles Rooted in Genocide Denial,’ Says Taner Akcam

November 22, 2014 By administrator

BOSTON—“Modern Turkey is constructed on top of denial,” renowned Turkish scholar Taner Akcam said at a recent lecture at Boston College.

Christian Solidarity International (CSI) released a video Friday of Akcam’s Oct. 22 lecture, entitled, “The Anatomy of Religious Cleansing: Non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire,” in which Akcam explains that the Armenian Genocide’s buried legacy helps explain “why Turkey has such so much difficulty today in its Middle East policy towards Christians, Alawites, and Kurds.”

Working from a broad range of Ottoman and other contemporary sources, Akcam argued against the usual analysis of the Armenian Genocide, the Assyrian Genocide, and the Greek Genocide as “separate events,” when they should be seen as parts of a “comprehensive policy of ethnic homogenization, implemented by one government, carried out as part of a general plan.”

Akcam spoke instead of an “Ottoman Genocide against Christians” during World War I, which was part of a broader “genocide process” in Turkey lasting from 1878 to 1924. “By end of this period, at least one-third of the population of Anatolia had either been resettled, deported or annihilated,” Akcam said.

Responding to a question about the connection between the genocide in Turkey 100 years ago and similar acts today committed by contemporary Islamist terrorists in Syria and Iraq, Akcam noted that while the leaders of the Ottoman Empire were then progressive nationalists and not religious zealots, they nevertheless “declared a jihad” and “used religion extensively” to mobilize local support for the genocide. Akcam also observed that many Armenian girls and women were “forcibly converted and married to Muslims.”Akcam added that he is in the process of going through League of Nations records of 2,000 Armenian children recovered from “Arab, Kurdish and Turkish households” after the war. “There is a story of each child with a picture – horrendous stories. You can take the stories, change the date to 2014, and it looks like ISIS enslaving Christian women and children.”

Ultimately, Akcam concluded, the genocide was driven by the unwillingness of Turkey’s rulers “to share power with the Christians,” who then constituted as much as 25% of the population. Turkey today faces “exactly the same problem” in its struggles with the Kurds and its broader Middle East policy, Akcam said.

Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry, Departments of Slavic and Eastern Languages and Literatures and Political Science, and Islamic Civilization and Society Program, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research joined CSI as co-sponsors of Akcam’s lecture as a part of a series on “The Future of Religious Minorities in the Middle East.”

Canadian Turks Should Condemn, Not Condone, Genocide Denial

January 8, 2014 By administrator

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN
Canadian Turks launched a petition last month seeking the removal of all references to the Armenian Genocide from the 11th grade curriculum of Toronto high schools.
This petition is a part of Turkish denialists’ long-standing efforts to reverse the Toronto District School Board’s (TDSB) 2008 decision to educate students about the Armenian, Jewish, and Rwandan genocides. TDSB’s action follows the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the Canadian Senate in 2002 and the House of Commons in 2004. In addition, since 2006, successive Canadian Prime Ministers have issued official annual statements acknowledging the Armenian Genocide, despite intensive political pressure and economic blackmail by the Turkish government.
Back in 2008, a similar Turkish petition failed to sway TDSB to amend the genocide curriculum, after gathering over 11,000 signatures, mostly from Turkey. Indeed, the Ankara government and its Turkish proxies in Toronto have done everything possible during the past seven years to undermine this curriculum.
Below are the baseless claims made by the Turkish petition against TDSB’s genocide curriculum, followed by my rebuttal:
– Turkish Petition: “As the Turkish/Turkic speaking parents of students attending the Toronto District School Board, we are deeply concerned about the negative impact of the current curriculum module on ‘Armenian Genocide’ and the learning resources adopted by the Board since 2008.”
My response: There has been NO violence or intimidation against a single Turkish student in Toronto schools even though the genocide curriculum has been taught there for several years. The reason is that Armenians do not hold today’s Turks responsible for the crimes committed by the Government of Ottoman Turkey almost 100 years ago, except those who associate themselves with these crimes by their denial. The Republic of Turkey, on the other hand, as successor to the Ottoman Empire, is responsible for the continuing consequences of the Armenian Genocide. Denying the facts of the Genocide has a far more serious negative psychological impact on Armenians than its inclusion in the curriculum on Turks. Furthermore, the truth cannot be concealed in order not to offend the sensibilities of those who wish to cover up historical facts. Would anyone advocate erasing all references to the Jewish Holocaust from history books not offend present-day Germans?
– Turkish Petition: “The textbook on the Genocide of the Armenians and other readers, such as Barbara Coloroso’s Extraordinary Evil, unremittingly discredits one community’s narrative over the other; and, adversely affects the students of TDSB with Turkish and Turkic heritages.”
My response: There cannot be two narratives or two versions of the proven facts of the Armenian Genocide. There can only be one version — the truth!
– Turkish Petition: “We firmly believe that the values of mutual respect, understanding and peaceful coexistence can be achieved through an honest and open dialogue on history. Moreover, fair and unprejudiced learning should be based on historical facts and not solely on the narratives of select communities while ignoring others. It should also be noted that there are no court decisions on any of these historical claims and the opinions of historians differ regarding the details and the definitions of these events.”
My response: ‘Mutual respect, understanding and peaceful coexistence’ cannot be achieved through distortions and lies. Only after acknowledging the truth and making appropriate amends, Canadian Turks can talk about such lofty ideals. Furthermore, contrary to the Turkish claims, there are several court verdicts on the Armenian Genocide, starting with the Turkish Military Tribunals of 1919, and judgments by Argentinean, Swiss, and U.S. courts. Significantly, the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities adopted in 1985 a report acknowledging the Armenian Genocide. The ultimate arbiter of any genocide is the United Nations, since the Genocide Convention is a UN document.
To sum up, this latest Turkish petition is a total failure since its initiator, the Federation of Canadian Turkish Associations, has so far collected less than 2,000 signatures out of a claimed membership of 200,000 in Canada. Interestingly, most of the signatories are not from Canada, but Turkey where the petition has been widely circulated.
A more worthwhile initiative for Canadian Turks would be to start a petition urging the Turkish government to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide and make proper restitution to the descendants of this heinous crime on the occasion of the Genocide’s Centennial.