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Germany’s century-long struggle with the Armenian genocide – Jerusalem Post

June 14, 2016 By administrator

f575ffdf6747a7_575ffdf6747e2.thumb

By Stefan Ihrig,  historian at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, book Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2014).

The Armenian genocide and the German dimension of it should make us rethink our perception of humanity – what does it mean that people knew of genocide and mass atrocities in progress? And did so already in the years before the Holocaust?

Perhaps Germany’s recent vote to recognize the Armenian genocide as well as its own role in it might come as a surprise to many there as well as abroad. But the Armenian genocide has a long German history. Already over a hundred years ago, in January 1916, the agenda of the German parliament featured a question about the Armenian genocide.

A month earlier the socialist parliament member Karl Liebknecht had submitted a written question to the German chancellor in which he mentioned that Armenians had been “butchered in the hundred thousands”: would Germany would do something for the remaining Armenians now? Liebknecht’s question had come on the heels of a similar request made a few weeks earlier by the Catholic and Protestant Churches of Germany to the chancellor. He had replied that Germany would ensure that nobody suffered from persecution on religious grounds. Political Germany, the Churches and Liebknecht knew that this answer was an outright rejection. People at the time understood what was happening not so much as a religious matter, but rather in terms of national or racial persecution.

When Liebknecht’s question was finally answered in parliament, it turned into a rather disgraceful performance by Germany’s parliamentarians.

After having received another evasive answer, Liebknecht responded that some experts after all spoke of the “extermination of the Armenians.” He was laughed off the stage and treated like a buffoon.

And yet, behind closed doors political Germany knew Liebknecht was right. Since May 1915 German diplomats in the Ottoman Empire had bombarded their Constantinople embassy and Berlin with reports of genocide in progress; many of these diplomats begged their superiors to intervene for the Armenians, to stop genocide, in vain.

After the end of World War I, the German Foreign Office published a collection from precisely this diplomatic correspondence on the Armenians to fend off accusations of German guilt during the Paris peace treaty negotiations. This attempt failed – not least because Germany had done nothing of real import for the Armenians, all the while enabling the Ottoman leadership to carry out genocide – but it kicked off a debate in Germany itself about this “murder of a nation” or “annihilation of the Armenians” which continued in some form until 1923.

This debate took shocking twists and turns: condemnation and denial, trivialization and shock, and finally broad acceptance of the charge of “murder of a nation,” i.e. genocide – only then to have some far-right voices, including the Nazis, to go on to outright justify genocide. All this merely a decade before Hitler came to power – and yes, already then (Jewish) commentators warned of the possible future implications of this shocking genocide debate for the Jews of Germany under Nazi or other radical far-right rule.

Germany’s own checkered history with the violence against the Ottoman Armenians (from the 1890s) is indeed and itself the link between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust. But this link is not at all necessary for recognizing the Armenian genocide for what it was, and neither are the comparisons to the Holocaust, which have often obscured the unique, intrinsic significance of the Armenian genocide. And often enough these have been used to fend off the application of the label.

The German diplomatic documents, first published in selection in 1919 and now available in expanded editions in German and English (2005 and 2013), edited by former Der Spiegel editor Wolfgang Gust, are the greatest advocates of the label “genocide.” Denialists generally choose to simply ignore the existence of these documents.

This is mainly because there is no easy way to dismiss them and no sensible (denialist) explanation as to why German diplomats would make up reports of genocide, continually so, when these caused such great anxiety in Berlin about the political fallout of genocide right from the start.

Thus a hundred years later, with the Bundestag’s resolution on the Armenian genocide Germany has found a (first) conclusion to its very own hundred-year conflict over the Armenian topic. Thus German parliament did not only deliberate on the history of another country, but made a statement about its own Armenian history. The Armenian genocide is, to some extent, also a German story. It cannot be relegated to the obscurity of specialist historical writing and historiographical debate; it is part of the core experiences and themes of our bloody and traumatic 20th century.

The Armenian genocide and the German dimension of it should make us rethink our perception of humanity – what does it mean that people knew of genocide and mass atrocities in progress? And did so already in the years before the Holocaust? It has long been assumed that there had been silence on the Armenian genocide in interwar Germany and that this silence had been “a signal for the Shoah” – but it turns out the opposite was true. There had been a debate, a real genocide debate (about the extent, intent and implications of this murder of a people). What does this mean for our understanding of the Holocaust? This latest recognition should also make us discuss when and where this bloody 20th century really began. In Eastern Anatolia during the Armenian genocide? In the sands of Libya during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912? Or in German Southwest Africa during the genocide of the Herero and Nama people (1904-07)? Was there not, historically, a trajectory of large-scale violence which led from colonial spaces to the Middle East and Anatolia and from there back to Europe? Parliamentary recognition is not enough (and the Herero and Nama are still waiting for it), but it can be a starting point for coming to terms with a past that is vaster, more complex and so much bloodier than often assumed.

And nothing of this relativizes the Holocaust or minimizes Germany’s guilt and responsibility – quite the contrary.

The author is a historian at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and the University of Haifa. His most recent books include: Justifying Genocide – Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler (Harvard University Press, 2016) and Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2014).

Filed Under: Genocide, News Tagged With: Armenian, Genocide, german, struggle

Turkey: The GodFather of ISIS Davutoglu in power Struggle with Erdogan Could Resign

May 4, 2016 By administrator

Davutoglu Erdogan Power Struggle.

Davutoglu Erdogan Power Struggle.

Despite efforts to present a unified front, tensions between Turkey’s President Erdogan and Prime Minister Davutoglu could soon reach a boiling point, and result in the latter’s resignation.

Fourteen years ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Legally, Erdogan can not serve as party head while serving as president, and he personally chose Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to replace him as the party’s chief.

But mounting evidence suggests that Davutoglu is tired of being second-in-command, and Erdogan is none too thrilled about an underling challenging his authority.

The Erdogan administration is currently pushing to abandon the country’s secular constitution, in favor of one that would cement broader powers for the president. Given Erdogan’s imprisonment of academics and journalists, his new sovereignty would likely be used to further Ankara’s clampdown on free speech.

This is one of the issues with which Davutoglu has tried to assert himself. But in his thirst for influence, the prime minister has pursued his own troubling interests. According to Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute, Davutoglu is the mastermind behind Turkey’s confused Syria policy.

“This was a foreign policy that was meant to make Turkey a regional star, not only shape the outcome of the Syrian war,” Cagaptay said.

Last week, Erdogan launched his own power grab, when the AKP’s executive committee – a body in which the president still maintains influence – voted to remove the prime minister’s authority to appoint local leaders.

“This decision will weaken Davutoglu’s power over the party,” said one official familiar with the decision, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Davutoglu’s job will not be easy after this.”

On Wednesday evening, both men held an unscheduled meeting behind closed doors. While some experts considered the possibility that Davutoglu would deliver his resignation, no public announcement was made. Other reports suggest that the prime minister may step down at the end of the month.

“While Erdogan and Davutoglu may appear keen to dispel any notions that divisions are emerging between them, the writing on the wall shows that a rift is in fact developing on a number of levels, and it is just a matter of time before this erupts in earnest,” Semih Idiz wrote for Hurriyet Daily News.

If the prime minister does, in fact, resign, he will likely be replaced by an Erdogan loyalist.

“Erdogan is intent on fully controlling both the executive but also the political agenda of the country and he can only do that if he has this degree of control,” said former Turkish diplomat Sinan Ulgen.

Despite these clear signs of trouble, the AKP has done its best to downplay the recent decision to remove Davutoglu’s appointing power.

“This authority has been taken back by the MKYK [AKP’s executive committee] so that issues concerning the party can be discussed intensively and in more detail,” party spokesman Omer Celik told reporters last Friday.

“It is not right to consider this change as a very radical move.”

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Davutoglu, Erdogan, power, struggle, Turkey

France: 1ST RELEASE OF MOVEMENT CHARJOUM- The Armenian people is struggling

April 21, 2016 By administrator

Paris 125155-480x275Paris, 21 April 2016

Here is the call published by Charjoum-Movement, on the occasion of the commemorations of the Armenian Genocide of 2016.

Charjoum is a new movement made up of activists who want to promote a new approach to the Armenian cause, supporting the Armenian struggle for emancipation.

Charjoum movement means in Armenian, and his goal is to move the lines.

Charjoum is not an additional or a combination of more chapel. This movement wants to defend the interests of Armenians with freedom of thought and in a participatory form. It is also in favor of a cultural approach, political and social struggles of the Armenian people.

Charjoum is an independent movement of the political parties, but it will support initiatives and associations that fight for the rights of Armenians and peoples, for the conquest of freedoms, the affirmation of human dignity, for equality and justice.

Here is the website of the movement: http://www.charjoum.org/

We invite you to follow us on Twitter (@Charjoum) and Facebook (Charjoum movement):

https://twitter.com/charjoum

https://www.facebook.com/Charjoum-le-mouvement-167478733646233/? fref = ts

Charjoum – The Movement

contact@charjoum.org

The centennial year is officially over. During this time of commemoration, the structures of Armenian communities worldwide, various associations, churches and some public institutions have honored the victims of the 1915 genocide and their descendants. The Armenian and Armenians of Diaspora we are, and without claiming to be representative of all we nevertheless remain interrogative on the overall project of this tangle of commemorations.

For indeed, it is symbolically important to honor our dead. But these deaths, as the harm caused by the genocide against the Armenian people not only fall under the symbol or the past. For proof, the nationalism of the Turkish and Azerbaijani states have lost nothing of their death designs against our people.

Armenian associations have conducted considerable work that is not for us here underestimate or question. But in a more global thinking, we believe that the Armenian people can not build sustainable if it comes out of the celebration process of suffering and sorrow.

It appears essential to us to take a deep reflection on the future of our post genocide claims. This reflection should be open and democratic; it can not be confined to the circle of community structures in loss of representativeness. For us, Armenian and Armenians committed and concerned about the future of our people, it seems that the only memory can be a real project up to the challenges of the Armenian people. Our memory must move past in the present to take lessons and augur a different future.

That’s a different future that we are calling for, with all the required determination and hope when it comes to the future of a people, so weakened by the crimes but also the domination or indifference of the powerful. Think the future is our responsibility to all.

For our part, we envision a future of struggle for our people, who 101 years after the crime, stopped crying. This struggle is that of all the peoples, groups, individuals against principalities imposed on us, be they military, physical, or intellectual.

Fighting is first to assert his rights, claiming its freedom to determine its future and to present to the world as an upright people, who does not want to be chained by suffering or threats from neighboring states. Our rights are for all people and we naturally demand justice consecutively to genocide. This justice is not a mere acknowledgment of the past and must repair all the damage suffered by the Armenian people. But it would be fragmented and sterile if it only concerned our relationship with the Turkish state. Justice, we also demand within our people. Thus, we stand in solidarity with our sisters and of Armenia and Artsakh brothers who struggle daily to defend their land, but also to improve their living conditions, against the corruption of their leaders that stifle reconstruction a people who finally saw freedom, for equality between all citizens and citizens and the establishment of genuine democracy.

Finally, we call on all those and all those who are weary of inaction, all those and all those who wish to fight peacefully, to appear in street processions of 24 April 2016 and can bloom wherever the debate on new claims .

We have finished crying. Long live the Armenian people in struggle!  www.charjoum.org

Thursday, April 21, 2016,
Ara © armenews.com

Filed Under: Articles, Genocide Tagged With: Armenian, charjoum, people, struggle

Experts on Yerevan protests: social struggle with political hues #YerevanElectric

June 25, 2015 By administrator

f558bf0b324bd3_558bf0b324c0e.thumbAccording to Russian and Ukrainian mass media, the protests against rising electricity prices in Armenia are acquiring not only political, but also geopolitical importance, which may have unpredictable consequences, political analyst Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan told Tert.am.

“A number of media outlets are trying to cover the Yerevan protests in a certain light. Specifically, Russian and Ukrainian mass media are discrediting the protesting Armenian citizens. As a result, the international community is inadequately responding to the Yerevan protests, viewing them as being of not only political, but also geopolitical importance,” the expert said.

Such world media outlets as Associated Press, BBC, France-Press have responded to the Yerevan protests.

Mr Melik-Shahnazaryan notes that his messages are a warning to Armenia’s society that it should not be exposed to external influence or allow Russia and Ukraine to draw it into their conflict.

“For the struggle being waged on Yerevan streets to serve its purpose, and for them to consistently deal with the problems raised by the protesters,” the expert said.

Becoming a tool for Ukrainian and Western propaganda poses a threat of unpredictable consequences, Mr Melik-Shahnazaryan concluded.

Ara Papyan, Director of the Yerevan based analytical center Modus Vivendi, also agrees that the campaign somewhat incurs the influence of both foreign and domestic policies.

“Although ostensibly economic, this problem is, in essence, a political one. Let us not forget that it is the result of a poor management and corrupt administration, which stems from the political system,” he said, referring to the transactions that led to the privatization and sale of the Electric Networks of Armenia to the Russian side.

Commenting on the West’s reaction, Papyan highlighted their specific set of values which he said is expected to have its influence on absolutely every corner of the world. He said their accentuation in Armenia’s case would be the call on people to control the government expenditures.

The expert said he finds that the greatest disservice was done by Yevgeny Bibin, the CEO of the Electric Networks of Armenia, whose decision to seek higher tariffs for power eventually led to a public rebellion (destabilizing the situation in Armenia).

Papyan said he finds that the problem’s root cause is poor management resulting from an awkwardly structured political system.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Protest, social, struggle, Yerevan

Khatchik Der Ghougassian: We must move from Genocide Recognition policy towards struggle for Reparation

June 5, 2014 By administrator

Interview by Nvard Chalikyan

Parorama.am has talked to Professor of International Relations at the University of San Andrés in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dr. Khatchik Der Ghougassian on the issues Khatchik Ghougassianbetween Armenia and Turkey on the eve of the Armenian Genocide centennial. Dr. Der Ghougassian says that Armenia should double its diplomatic efforts to ensure the presence of international leaders in Armenia in 2015 given the fact that Turkey is going to divert the attention of the international community away from it. He also says that a shift should be made from the policy of the international recognition of Genocide towards the struggle for the reparation.

– Dr. Der Ghougassian, how do you assess the policies pursued by the Armenian leadership towards Turkey on the one hand and the policies pursued by the Turkish leadership towards Armenia on the other hand in the context of the Genocide centennial?

– Willingly or not, the Armenian and Turkish governments have gotten engaged in a diplomatic race the “outcome” of which will be seen next year on April 24. As it is known, the Turkish government announced that it will mark the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli battle on April 24, 2015 and had started inviting heads of states for the public ceremonies. Its aim, of course, is to overshadow the global remembrance of the Genocide at its centenary. Yerevan has no other choice but to double the diplomatic efforts to assure a high level of presence and participation of international leaders on the same day. Consciously or not, this is yet another chapter of the power struggle between denial and truth. Yet, more important is the question whether the centenary would mark the beginning of a new phase in what we might conceptualize as the Armenian Cause. In other words, would we move on from the struggle for the international recognition of the Genocide to the struggle for the reparation in a very broad understanding? If serious, this shift that engages both the Armenian state and Diaspora could be the best preemption to any Turkish denialist novel initiative in the logic of the “common sorrow” that both people share.

– What is your view regarding the fact that the President of Armenia has invited the President of Turkey to Armenia to commemorate the Genocide centennial? What do you think will be the result of this?

– It was definitely a political move, much in the style so proper to Serge Sarkisian to make surprise announcements, answering and challenging Erdogan’s public declaration on April 24. This is the second time Sarkisian invites his Turkish counterpart to Armenia. He made the first one on June 2008 in Moscow, it was the first step to what would later become the so-called “football diplomacy.” In that first invitation, Sarkisian gave a dangerous sign of concession to the Turkish thesis almost accepting the proposal for a “commission of historians.” This time, however, there was no concession at all; quite the opposite, much in Kocharian’s line when he sent a letter to Gul in 2005 and rejected the offer to form a mixed commission of historians Sarkisian clearly stated that for Armenia such a commission is out of question. Hopefully this would become a state policy. There is no room for any kind of concession when it comes to Genocide.

Interview by Nvard Chalikyan

Filed Under: Articles, Interviews Tagged With: Genocide Recognition, struggle

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