While Turkey says it wants to discuss “the events of 1915” with Armenia, its Ambassador to the United States has fired one of its own payroll scholars for doing the unimaginable – referring to the Armenian genocide as such.

Recounting the fiasco, The Armenian Reporter writes in its May 31, 2008 issue that a in a letter to Turkey’s government “the Middle East Studies Association [MESA] on May 27 condemned the forced resignation of Donald Quataert from the chair of the Institute of Turkish Studies after Prof. Quataert affirmed in a book review that ‘what happened to the Armenians readily satisfies the U.N. definition of genocide.'”

Expecting retaliation  from at least other scholars on Turkish payroll (but apparently not from the Ambassador himself), Prof. Quataert urged pro-Turkish historians “to take their rightful responsibility to perform the proper research” on the Armenian annihilation of 1915.

The above words, mentioned in a scholarly book review by Dr. Quataert, angered Turkish Ambassador Nebi Şensoy – honorary chairman of the Institute of Turkish Studies – who requested the scholar to retract them.

“We are enormously concerned that unnamed high officials in Ankara felt it was inappropriate for Professor Quataert to continue as chairman of the board of governors and threatened to revoke the funding for the ITS if he did not publicly retract statements made in his review or separate himself from the Chairmanship of the ITS,” wrote MESA president Mervat Hatem in the letter of protest to Turkey’s Prime Minister.

The Armenian Reporter states that:

[…]

A professor of history at the State University of New York at Binghamton, Mr. Quataert chaired the ITS board of governors from 2001 until December 13, 2006. In 1985, as an associate professor at the University of Houston, he was among the 69 Ottoman, Turkish, and Middle Eastern area scholars who petitioned against a House Joint Resolution that memorialized “the one and one half million people of Armenian ancestry who were victims of genocide perpetrated in Turkey between 1915 and 1923.”

As he recalled the emerging Ottoman and Turkish area scholarship of the 1980s from a vantage point twenty years later, Prof. Quataert wrote in his book review, “the authors were not writing critical history but polemics” and “many of their works were directly sponsored and published by the Turkish government.” To date, said MESA, most of the scholarship in this area still fails to adhere to the highest professional standards “and as such serves neither the field of Ottoman-Turkish studies nor the interests of the Republic of Turkey and its citizens.”

Nevertheless, both Prof. Quataert in his review and MESA with its 2005 Academic Freedom Award lauded the new wave of critical thinking in this field – specifically mentioning a conference held at Istanbul’s Bilgi University “despite official intimidation and public harassment,” as Prof. Quataert recalled.

[…]

While it is sadenning to see an academic being de facto fired by a politician, it is encouraging that a scholar on Turkish payroll has finally realized and admitted the truth of the Armenian Genocide.  

In his weekly column, California Courier publisher Harout Sassounian writes that “Prof. Quataert’s transformation from a denialist to a believer in the Armenian Genocide is based on the growing body of scholarship in recent years both within and outside Turkey. A comparison of the 2000 and 2005 editions of his book, ‘The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922,’ illustrates the gradual evolution of his position on the Armenian Genocide. In a sharp departure from the cautious language used in his first  edition, Dr. Quataert… comes to the conclusion in his 2006 book review that what had happened to the Armenians in 1915 was indeed a Genocide.”

Reminding that this is not the first controversy including the Turkish-sponsored organization, College of William and Mary professor emeritus Roger Smith wrote in a discussion forum on Armenian-Turkish relations that as a de facto lobbying organization ITS shouldn’t be tax-free.

[…]

Reflecting widespread lack of objectivity and often uninformed journalism in Armenia, A1Plus has a story in which Amberin Zaman, Turkey’s and the region’s reporter for The Economist, is wrongly depicted as an apologist for the Turkish state. Describing a discussion between Zaman, who is of Turkish and Bangladeshi descent, and Turkish politician Cem Toker in Armenia’s capital Yerevan, A1Plus reports:

[…]

“Turkey proudly states that 99.9% of its population are Muslims. And where are the Armenians, Jews, Greeks? Why are they gone? Doesn’t it mean that something is definitely wrong? You can see the investments of the Armenian people while walking in Istambul. I am greatly displeased with Turkey’s attitude towards Armenians”, declares Toker.

Amber Zaman, a Turkish journalist, contradicted him in the description of the current situation in Turkey. Zaman, who introduced herself as a free journalist, is the wife of Joseph Penington, the US temporary Chargé d’Affaires in Armenia. Mrs. Zaman stated that Turkey’s steps towards Democracy are quite evident.

“Turkey still has much to do but it has made a great progress towards democracy lately. Ten years ago the Kurds were imprisoned simply for calling themselves Kurds. Whereas, today they are even allowed to have broadcasts in their mother tongue. Besides, the capital punishment has been abolished in my country. You give a tough assessment of the situation, Mr. Toker”, noticed Amber Zaman.

[…]

A1Plus only describes part of the conversation (and consistently misspells the journalist’s first name). Zaman, who is a good friend as I have mentioned before, has sent me and other pen pals the following e-mail. In Amberin Zaman’s words:

This article misrepresents the discussion that took place at the conference on Turkish-Armenian relations held in Yerevan last week.. It makes it sound as if I were defending the treatment of Armenians in Turkey.

Not in the least, I was merely responding to Cem Ozer’s portrayal of Turkey as a banana republic where elections are a total sham and there has been zero progress towards democracy.

Amazingly, he was in the same breath able to defend the closure case [by nationalist groups] against the [ruling Islamic party] AK on the grounds that it was a  way of restoring democracy!!!

This gentleman is the chairman of a party that stood up for Dogu Perincek, the ultra nationalist politician who made a point of publicly denying the genocide in Switzerland so that he could be prosecuted and draw attention to the Turkish “cause.”

Moreover, I  reminded the Turkish participants who chided Armenia for not embracing Turkey’s proposal for a historic commission that the proposal presupposed the  outcome of the research that would be undertaken that “there was no genocide”.

I also expressed my revulsion at [Turkish Prime Minister] Erdogan’s comments before the National Press Club in Washington that “we even gave the deportees pocket money.”

Finally, I noted that if the Turks thought that in establishing formal ties with Armenia, the diaspora would somehow disappear they were quite wrong,  that the past would not simply disappear and that it was wrong to view the diaspora as some monolithic bloc, that there was a plurality of views  within it.

I deplored the Turkish official efforts to portray the diaspora as  some “malevolent wedge” between Turkey and Armenia and reminded the Turkish participants that some 60 percent of Armenian citizens came from Anatolia too.

While I am not a believer in conspiracies, I suspect one reason behind A1Plus’ inaccurate and selective depiction of the conversion to be sexism. Firstly, Amberin Zaman is a young beautiful woman, and the stereotype in Armenia states that women (especially young and beautiful) are not as intelligent and capable as (especially older) men. Secondly, being the wife of the acting U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, she is expected to be obedient and, thus, behave and say things the way that her own husband is supposed to do (as any United States State Department employee who wants to keep their job under the Bush administration, her husband cannot afford to publicly talk about the Armenian Genocide).

A1Plus’ particular report also resonates with blind anti-Turkish sentiment in Armenia which sees any criticism of the Turkish state as “good.” While Turkey’s current Islamic establishment is not in any way pro-Armenian, nationalist “secular” forces who want to overthrow the current party in charge are far more radically anti-Armenian. Being “secular” in Turkey doesn’t mean believing in freedom of religion (and also in freedom not to be religious); “secular” in Turkey more than often means being fascist ultra-nationalist for whom believing in the greatness of “Turkishness” is more important than believing in any idea including God and spirituality.

A1Plus should write another, more objective and more informed story about the discussion. Amberin Zaman, with her articles in The Economist, has been telling stories of ignored parts of the Armenian Genocide. She is a courageous woman with an objective outlook and needs recognition for her efforts to bring Turkish and Armenian people together through writing.

A commentary in Guardian discusses European Union’s recent refusal to refer to the Armenian genocide as such.

This week the European parliament will seek to introduce a new euphemism for genocide into the lexicon of international relations. Diplomats who follow MEPs’ advice will no longer have to run the risk of offending countries with a dishonourable history by uttering the ‘g’ word. They can, instead, refer to the most egregious crimes against humanity as “past events”.

That is the phrase our fearless elected representatives use in a report they are about to formally endorse on Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union. Although it advocates a “frank and open discussion” between Turkey and Armenia about “past events”, the report is anything but frank and open about what those events could be.

In the absence of more explicit guidance, I can only assume the “events” in question were the slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman forces in 1915. There is ample evidence to suggest that this was the 20th century’s first holocaust and that it partly inspired the efforts to exterminate Europe’s Jews that Hitler initiated two decades later. No less a personage than Winston Churchill described the “massacring of uncounted thousands of helpless Armenians, men, women and children together, whole districts blotted out in one administrative holocaust”. Political bodies across the world have passed resolutions recognising that a genocide occurred, including the European parliament itself back in 1987 (a fact conveniently omitted from the new report).

[…]

And is it too much to ask from our elected representatives that they call a spade a spade and a genocide a genocide?

Given Azerbaijan’s linguistic exercise on the word genocide in their anti-Armenian rhetoric, it is interesting to come across to some Azeris who do not deny the Armenian Genocide.

In a private communication with a YouTube member from Baku, who originally contacted me asking why Armenians like Azeri music, I discussed nationalism suggesting that fascism hurts – and doesn’t help – Azerbaijan.  Interestingly, the user invited me to meet with him (not even bothering to tell me his name after I introduced myself) but changed the subject when I asked why. As further communication revealed my pen pal’s ultra-nationalism, although he (unlike official Azerbaijan) didn’t deny the destruction of Djulfa, I told him that nationalists are not true patriots to any country.

After the YouTube member (whom I will keep anonymous out of respect of privacy) said he was not xenophobic but feared that “in the next 20 years my country will cease to exsist” because of Armenian territorial claims, I compared his analysis to Russian skinheads who kill Azeris and Armenians in Moscow in the name of patriotism.

In his next e-mail, he became inconsistent and said that if “Armenian Dashnaks” try to attack Azerbaijan “Turkey will be on [Armenia] like there is no tomorrow, and iam sure you know that the Turks are very infamous 🙂 .”

This is at least the second time when in private communication an Armenian-hater (who’d conventionally deny the Armenian Genocide) is indirectly recognizing the Genocide. That “recognition” is usually in the form of threats reminding what has happened before.

This indirect “recognition” by ultra-nationalists shows that not every denier of the Armenian Genocide truly believes that it never happened.

Ara Sanjian has an interesting summary analysis of Azerbaijan’s growing denial of the Armenian Genocide and the misuse of the word “genocide” in many aspects of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

While the continuing struggle between Armenian and Turkish officials and activists for or against the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 shows no sign of abating, and while its dynamics are becoming largely predictable, a new actor is increasingly attracting attention for its willingness to join this “game.” It is Azerbaijan, which has—since 1988—been engaged in at times lethal conflict with Armenians over Mountainous Karabagh.

In modern times, Armenians have often found it difficult to decide whether they should view the Turks (of Turkey) and the Azerbaijanis as two separate ethnic groups—and thus apply two mutually independent policies towards them—or whether they should approach them as only two of the many branches of a single, pan-Turkic entity, pursuing a common, long-term political objective, which would—if successful—end up with the annihilation of Armenians in their historical homeland.

Indeed, almost at the same time that the Armenian Question in the Ottoman Empire was attracting worldwide attention, extensive clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis first occurred in Transcaucasia in 1905. Clashes—accompanied, on this occasion, with attempts at ethnic cleansing—resumed with heightened intensity after the collapse of tsarism in 1917. They were suppressed only in 1921, by the Russian-dominated communist regime, which reasserted control over Transaucasia, forced Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to join the Soviet Union, and imposed itself as the judge in the territorial disputes that had plagued these nations. The communists eventually endorsed Zangezur as part of Armenia, while allocating Nakhichevan and Mountainous Karabagh to Azerbaijan. This arrangement satisfied neither side. A low-intensity Armenian-Azerbaijani struggle persisted during the next decades within the limits permitted by the Soviet system. Repeated Armenian attempts to detach Mountainous Karabagh from Azerbaijan were its most visible manifestation.

[…]

Hence, it is still difficult to know what Soviet Azerbaijani historians thought about the Armenian Genocide of 1915: Were they more sympathetic to arguments produced by Soviet Armenian historians or those who had the blessing of the authorities in Ankara? The polemic between Soviet Armenian and Soviet Azerbaijani historians centered from the mid-1960’s on the legacy of Caucasian Albania. A theory developed in Soviet Azerbaijan assumed that the once Christian Caucasian Albanians were the ancestors of the modern-day Muslim Azerbaijanis. Thereafter, all Christian monuments in Soviet Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan (including all medieval Armenian churches, monasteries and cross-stones, which constituted the vast majority of these monuments) were declared to be Caucasian Albanian and, hence, Azerbaijani. Medieval Armenians were openly accused of forcibly assimilating the Caucasian Albanians and laying claim to their architectural monuments and works of literature. This was probably the closest that Soviet Azerbaijanis came—in print—to formally accusing the Armenians of committing genocide against their (Caucasian Albanian) ancestors.

Since 1988, however, as the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Mountainous Karabagh has gotten bloodier and increasingly intractable, the Azerbaijani positions on both negating the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and accusing Armenians of having themselves committed a genocide against the Azerbaijanis have become more pronounced and now receive full backing from all state institutions, including the country’s last two presidents, Heydar and Ilham Aliyev. Azerbaijani officials, politicians, and wide sections of civil society, including the head of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of the Caucasus, Sheikh ul-Islam Haji Allahshukur Pashazada, as well as numerous associations in the Azerbaijani diaspora, now fully identify themselves with Turkey’s official position that the Armenian Genocide is simply a lie, intentionally fabricated in pursuit of sinister political goals. Even representatives of the Georgian, Jewish, and Udi ethnic communities in Azerbaijan have joined the effort. Unlike in Turkey, there is not yet a visible minority in Azerbaijan that openly disagrees with their government’s stand on this issue. This probably explains the absence of the Azerbaijani judiciary in the campaign to deny the 1915 genocide. If there are officials or intellectuals who remain unconvinced with this theory propagated by their government, it seems that they still prefer to keep a very low profile.

[…]

Turkish-Azerbaijani cooperation against the Armenian Genocide recognition campaign is also evident among the Turkish and Azerbaijani expatriate communities in Europe and the United States. Indeed, some of the demonstrations mentioned above as the activities of the Azerbaijani diaspora were organized in conjunction with local Turkish organizations. Within Turkey, among the Igdir, Kars, and Erzerum residents, who consider themselves victims of an Armenian-perpetrated genocide, and who filed a lawsuit against the novelist Orhan Pamuk in June 2006, were also ethnic Azerbaijanis; their ancestors had moved from territories now part of Armenia.

Azerbaijanis, like Turks, are very interested in having the Jews as allies in their struggle against the Armenian Genocide recognition campaign. Like Turks, Azerbaijanis do not question the Holocaust. However, they liken the Armenians to its perpetrators—the Nazis—and not its victims—the Jews—as is the case among Holocaust and genocide scholars. The Azerbaijanis argue that Jews should join their efforts to foil Armenian attempts at genocide recognition because there was also a genocide perpetrated by Armenians against Jews in Azerbaijan, at the time of the genocide against Azerbaijanis in the early 20th century. They repeatedly state that several thousand Jews died then because of Armenian cruelty. The support of Jewish residents of Ujun (Germany) to public events organized by the local Azerbaijanis was attributed to their being provided with documents that listed 87 Jews murdered by Armenians in Guba (Azerbaijan) in 1918.(7)

Yevda Abramov, currently the only Jewish member of the Azerbaijani parliament, is prominent in pushing for such joint Azerbaijani-Jewish efforts. He consistently seeks to show to his ethnic Azerbaijani compatriots that Israel and Jews worldwide share their viewpoint regarding the Armenian Genocide claims. In August 2007, he commented that “one or two Jews can recognize [the] Armenian genocide. That will be the result of Armenian lobby’s impact. However, that does not mean that Jews residing in the United States and the organizations functioning there also recognize the genocide.” He explained that because expenditures for election to the U.S. Congress are high, some Jewish candidates receive contributions from the Armenian lobby and, in return, have to meet the interests of this lobby. According to Abramov, “except [for the] Holocaust, Jews do not recognize any [other] event as genocide.”(8)

Azerbaijani arguments that Armenians perpetrated a genocide against Azerbaijanis and Jews in the early 20th century have received little attention outside Azerbaijani circles. However, when the issue was touched upon in a contribution to the Jerusalem Post by Lenny Ben-David, a former Israeli adviser to the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 4, 2007, his article was also quickly distributed by the Azeri Press Agency. Ben-David called on Israel and Jewish-Americans to be careful regarding Armenian claims against Turkey. He listed a number of instances when—he believed—Armenians had massacred hundreds of thousands of Turkish Muslims and thousands of Jews. “Recently, Mountain Jews in Azerbaijan requested assistance in building a monument to 3,000 Azeri Jews killed by Armenians in 1918 in a pogrom about which little is known,” he wrote.(9)

[…]

However, mutual accusations of the destruction of monuments are just the tip of the iceberg in a larger interpretation of demographic processes in Transcaucasia in the last 200 years as one, continual process of ethnic cleansing. Within this context, the term “genocide” is often used as shorthand to indicate slow, but continuing ethnic cleansing, punctuated with moments of heightened violence also serving the same purpose. Indeed, where the contemporary Azerbaijani attitude toward Armenia departs from Turkey’s is now the official standpoint in Baku that the Armenians have pursued a policy of genocide against the Azerbaijanis during the past two centuries.

While the Turkish state and dominant Turkish elites vehemently object to the use of the term “genocide” to describe the Armenian deportations of 1915, and while some Turkish historians, politicians, and a few municipal authorities have accused the Armenians themselves of having committed genocide against the Ottoman Muslims/Turks—in their replies to what they say are Armenian “allegations”—this line of accusation has never been officially adopted, to date at least, by the highest authorities. It has not become a part of state-sponsored lobbying in foreign countries.

[…]

Image received from Jean Eckian in an e-mail

via PanArmenian.net:

The Memorial to the Armenians Genocide victims was desecrated in Valence, France, on May 15 [2008] night. The vandals painted an illegible inscription on the monument base, independent French journalist Jean Eckian told PanARMENIAN.Net.

The Coordination Council of the French Armenian Organizations from Drome-Ardeche area’s (COADA) deposited a complaint to the Police office of Valence.

7 Armenian memorials – in Saint-Chamond, Creteil, Lyon, Valence (France), Cardiff (UK), Budapest (Hungary) and Lviv (Ukraine) – have been desecrated since January 2008.

Globe and Mail from Canada reports that a nationalist Turkish group has succeeded in banning a recommended High School book on Genocide. The banned book, which included a chapter on the WWI extermination of Ottoman Armenians, has been replaced by works of two genocide deniers.

A book about genocide has been pulled from the recommended reading list of a new Toronto public school course because of objections from the Turkish-Canadian community, the author says.

Barbara Coloroso’s Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide was originally part of a resource list for the Grade 11 history course, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, set to launch across the Toronto District School Board this fall.

The book examines the Holocaust, which exterminated six million Jews in the Second World War; the Rwandan slaughter of nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994, and the massacres of more than a million Armenians in 1895, 1909 and 1915.

[…]

Ms. Coloroso, a best-selling author of parenting books, said she wasn’t surprised her work was removed, given that “ever since the book came out, the Turks have mounted a worldwide campaign objecting to it, which is not surprising because of the denial of the genocide.”

She said what upset her was not so much that her book had been pulled, but that it was replaced by works by Bernard Lewis and Guenter Lewy, whom she refers to as deniers of the Armenian genocide.

“I knew when I wrote Extraordinary Evil that I would anger some genocide deniers,” she wrote to Ms. Connelly. “I am disappointed that a small group of people can bully an entire committee. …”

[…]

A Spanish journalist, who was accidentally injured in an 80s attack by Armenian fighters in their radical efforts for recognition of the Armenian Genocide, has written another book on a forgotten topic that almost had him killed.

Image: The cover of “Armenia: The Forgotten Genocide” from José Antonio Gurriarán’s official website

According to the Spanish-language El Pais, José Antonio Gurriarán’s second book on the extermination of Ottoman Armenians during WWI, “Armenia: The Forgotten Genocide,” was released on May 2, 2008 in the Cultural Club of Barcelona.

Telling the forgotten history of the Armenian Genocide to a Spanish audience, Gurriarán’s new book on the subject is the second one two and a half decades.

Back in 1982 Gurriarán had published “La Bomba,” a book referencing his injury in an attack by ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) members that opened his heart to a silenced story he has not been able to forget.

According to Wikipedia, in December 1980 José Antonio Gurriarán, a 39-year-old journalist at the time:

“left the building of the newspaper “The People” (Pueblo) and entered a telephone booth to talk to his wife. The plan was to go to see a movie by Woody Allen and then to have a dinner at a restaurant. It was the end of the year. When Jose Antonio put down the headset two bombs exploded in the nearby headquarters of airlines Swissair and TWA was. Nobody died but among the 9 injured was Jose Antonio.

As soon as he was released from the hospital, Jose Antonio wanted to know who made that attack. Still in the hospital, where he struggled to save both his legs, he started to read books and materials about the case and the history of the Armenians.

Combining therapy recovery with the detailed study of a nation, in 1982 he found and met the leaders of ASALA (Armenian Liberation Army for the Liberation of Armenia) in Lebanon. Militants were covered their faces with balaclavas and never left the Kalashnikov throughout the day. The Spanish journalist, relied on his cane, gave a gift, a book by Martin Luther King, to the leader of the Armenian group, to think about the path they have chosen.

Soon after the incident, “La Bomba” was released, telling the personal experience of a Spanish journalist and the tragic story of survival of a whole nation.”

New Jersey’s Turkish and Islam Cultural Center, according to its website, offers courses on Armenian Genocide denial to children as young as six.

The list of activities offered at 203 Fountain Avenue, Burlington Twp, New Jersey 08016, are English as a second language for adults, Friday prayers, weekend school for children and discussion groups. 

The only class in the list not written in English is “Ermeni Iddialari hakkinda Cocuklarimiz Ne biliyor?.” That translates as “What do our children know about the Armenian allegations?”

According to the website, that class is offered for two age groups: 6-15 and 16-25.

A fouding father of Israel died yesterday, and his close friend told Haaretz that the “commander of exodus” was inspired by Armenian resistance during the Genocide.

In the words of Haaretz:

The man who commanded the clandestine operations that brought in four ships carrying some 24,000 illegal immigrants between 1945 and 1948, Yossi Harel, died yesterday in Tel Aviv at the age of 90.

The writer Yoram Kaniuk, a friend of Harel, told Haaretz that when the ships he commanded sailed past the coast of Turkey, Harel would think of the Armenian village in Franz Werfel’s novel “40 Days of Musa Dagh,” which described the Armenian genocide. “He loved the Armenian people and felt close to them,” Kaniuk said, adding that he wanted to mention Harel’s sensitivity to the Armenians as a sign of the great humanitarianism and compassion that were central to his Harel’s character.

[…]