Genocides

Ok i have such a strong view on this .
I have met a holocaust survivor and i was in the front row of this speech she gave and afterwards i came up to her and i cried my eyes out ! She was really nice though .
But that’s not to the point i feel like nobodies perfect yet Hitler wanted us to be perfect so thousands of Jews were brutally killed for it .
I do not think that the UN is to blame its democracy as Eva Clarke a holocaust survivor once said the democracy is a fragile thing that’s why when you turn 18 vote for what you believe in .
I don’t no if that was on the topic but i just had to say it .
Aymee

I've never really thought about it.
I actually didn't know about the Darfur thing. I mean I saw save Darfur stuff every where, but didn't know what it was about.
I seriously thought that it ended with the Holocaust.
I think people should just get it in their heads that everyone is diffferent and no one is alike. Plus I don't know how people can be so cruel as to kill an etire nation just because they are Jewish, African American, etc. I think that if people would come to their senses, genocide could be prevented.

Genocide is bad, m'kay?

xXxLadyofSorrowXxX:

Genocide is bad, m'kay?

Ummm... I'm pretty sure that everyone on here agrees with that. Though unfortunately, my username is not helping.

KendallSaurusxxx:

I only think its okay if they were bad people like sudan becsause he DESERVED to die . little mother fuckerr .

Wow! I can't believe your ignorance. Under no circumstance is Genocide okay.

as far as i believe, every race, nation or religion has the right to live. but that doesnt mean i dont think there are people out there trying to wipe out certain groups.

Genocide is not only evil because it kills an entire race, its evil because it destorys everything about them. Their homes, belongings, businesses, lives...everything. As if they never were.

Oh, well i don't know much about genocides, but there was a guy who was one of the main guys in the rwandan genocide, and he lived near me. he pushed in front of my sis in the supermarket, and my mum was like "how rude", causing a rant and all that. so later we went home, put on the news, and he was arrested! they found him, and i think they're gonna take him back to rwanda. there was raids in london and somewhere up north, where they found all the other genocide men. our house was even on tv >.<

I know that their was a Armenian Genocide, perhaps as terrible as the Holocaust. I looked it up on wikipedia and the pictures were really disturbing. Maybe someone could explain why this genocide took place?

Cute Shoes!:

I know that their was a Armenian Genocide, perhaps as terrible as the Holocaust. I looked it up on wikipedia and the pictures were really disturbing. Maybe someone could explain why this genocide took place?

I don't think you can say it was 'as terrible as the holocaust'. In the holocaust, the death toll is estimated at between 6 and 12 million, the Armenian Genocide's death toll is estimated between 300,000 and 1.5million. Yes, still terrible, but there is a big difference.

There are genocides still going on, and thats what I think needs addressing. People should be educated about the holocaust, and other genocides, but they should also be educated about the current world happenings e.g. Darfur.

Princess Tinkerbell:

I don't think you can say it was 'as terrible as the holocaust'. In the holocaust, the death toll is estimated at between 6 and 12 million, the Armenian Genocide's death toll is estimated between 300,000 and 1.5million. Yes, still terrible, but there is a big difference.

I wouldn't say that to an Armenian person.

The 300,000 estimate is that used by Turkish officials. Most international historians estimate as between 1.2 and 1.5 million; 90% of the Christian Armenian population. No; not as massive casualties as the Holocaust, but just as terrible.

Also, in a way, the Armenian genocide contributed to the Holocaust. When Hitler was questioned of how he would manage his plans to systematically kill the Jews without international notice and intervention, he responded with something along the lines of, "No one remembers the Armenians."

i think the Holocaust in the 1940's was horrible, part of my family is from Russia and Hungary and if they hadn't left before it happened, maybe i wouldn't be here right now. I know of the one that is going on in Darfur and so many people don't know about it, we need to make more people aware.

i hate how some ppl say WE SHOULD GO 2 AFRICA AND HELP THOSE PPL!! fuck the people in africa. we're in our own war right now and did africa help? no, who gives a shiot?

it's just amazing ppl who think that genocide doesn't exist anymore............it' s kinda sad that they won't open their eyes.................what ppl should do is get involved in programs that help stop this help stop the pain.............i actually know a couple of websites that are helping end genocide in sudan africa if u want to kno anything just message me about it and i'll tell u as soon as possible

ilovegerardway2much:

i hate how some ppl say WE SHOULD GO 2 AFRICA AND HELP THOSE PPL!! fuck the people in africa. we're in our own war right now and did africa help? no, who gives a shiot?

Africa can't help us because most places have been ravaged by wars and their natural resources stolen by old Imperial powers.
We however, can help Africa. America is supposed to be the protector of liberty and freedom, after all.
Also, no chatspeak or cursing on the Discussion Board. Rules.

On April 24, 2007 Armenians across the world commemorated the 92th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. 92 years ago, in 1915, the crumbling Ottoman empire systematically murdered some 1.5 million Armenians, in an effort to save itself through a nationalist campaign of "purification." The modern state of Turkey was enabled through the criminal acts of its Ottoman predecessor. Yet, to this day, no reparations have been made, for Turkey refuses to recognize the Armenian Genocide. For 90 years, Turkey has engaged in the most deceitful forms of denial and revisionism, in political as well as academic circles. Within Turkey itself, denial is of course unnecessary -- younger generations of Turks are simply not told about the bloodbath out of which their country emerged.
Turkey wants desperately for the Armenian Genocide to be ignored and forgotten. I submit that we cannot adequately address any crime against humanity without addressing them all.

-Sevan G. Ficiciyan

Article in Holocaust and Genocide Studies
The following is an article concerning Heath Lowry that appeared in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 9, Number 1, Spring 1995, pages 1-22

Professional Ethics and the Denial of Armenian Genocide
By:
Roger W. Smith
College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia


Eric Markusen
Southwest State University Marshall, Minnesota


Robert Jay Lifton
The City University of New York


This article examines Turkish efforts to deny the Armenian genocide of
1915-17. Specifically, it exposes an arrangement by which the government
of Turkey has channeled funds into a supposedly objective research
institute in the United States, which in turn paid the salary of a
historian who served that government in its campaign to discredit
scholarship on the Armenian genocide. After a short review of the Armenian
genocide and a range of Turkish denial efforts, three documents are
reproduced in full. They include a letter that Robert Jay Lifton received
from the Turkish Ambassador to the United States, and two documents that
were inadvertently included with the Lifton letter, a memorandum to the
Turkish Ambassador and a draft letter to Lifton for the Ambassador's
signature. After a critical analysis of each document, we discuss the
harmfulness of genocide denial and explore why intellectuals might engage
in the denial of known genocides. The article concludes with reflections
on the relationship between scholars and truth.

The will to truth is cowed by pressure of numerous kinds, reasons
of state on the one hand, economic necessities on the other, and,
not least, the pure careerism of intellectuals who put their
expertise in the service of power as a matter of course. When
governments and professional elites find reward in the sophistries
of might makes right, truth is bound to suffer. [1]

Terrence Des Pres


It has been said that gentlemen do not read other gentlemen's mail. But
suppose that one receives a letter from the Turkish ambassador to the United
States rebuking one's scholarship because one has written about what the
ambassador refers to as "the so-called 'Armenian genocide,' allegedly
perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks during the First World War." And suppose
that, inadvertently, the envelope also contains an internal memorandum written
by the executive director of what claims to be a non-political, scholarly
institute and that memorandum reveals much about the mentality of those who
engage in denial of the Armenian genocide. What then?

The attempt to confuse and intimidate academics by such letters is an ongoing
process. The letter that we shall present is from the current ambassador, but
two of us have received such letters from his predecessor. The difference is
that only in the letter to Robert Jay Lifton is there created an opportunity
to see what takes place behind the scenes, what assumptions guide the work of
scholars who engage in denial, and what the implications are in terms of
professional ethics.

Our concern is not with the person who wrote the memorandum and drafted the
letter, but with the role such scholars perform in the subversion of
scholarship and with their assumptions which substitute a narrative of power
for the search for truth. In such narratives, as Terrence Des Pres has noted,
"knowledge" is what serves the interest of the powerful (particularly the
state), the goal of knowledge is seen as control rather than freedom, and
"truth" is whatever officials (and their adjuncts) say it is. [2]

The Armenian Genocide and Turkey's Attempt to Deny It

From 1915 to 1917 the Young Turk regime in the Ottoman Empire carried out a
systematic, premeditated, centrally-planned genocide against the Armenian
people. One of the documents authenticated by Turkish authorities in 1919 is
a telegram sent in June 1915 by Dr. Sakir, one of the leaders of the secret
organization that carried out the planning and implementation of the genocide.
He asks the provincial party official who is responsible for carrying out the
deportations and massacres of Armenians within his district: "Are the
Armenians, who are being dispatched from there, being liquidated? Are those
harmful persons whom you inform us you are exiling and banishing, being
exterminated, or are they being merely dispatched and exiled? Answer
explicitly...." [3]

The evidence of intent is backed also by the outcome of the actions against
the Armenians: it is inconceivable that over a million persons could have died
due to even a badly flawed effort at resettlement. Moreover, the pattern of
destruction was repeated over and over in different parts of Turkey, many of
them far from any war zone; such repetition could only have come from a
central design. Further, the reward structure was geared toward destruction of
the Christian minority: provincial governors and officials who refused to
carry out orders to annihilate the Armenians were summarily replaced. [4]

Armenian men were drafted into the army, set to work as pack animals, and
subsequently killed. Leaders were arrested and executed. Then the deportations
of women, children, and the elderly into the deserts of Syria and Iraq began.
The American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, immediately
recognized that the forced marches into the desert, and the atrocities that
accompanied them, were a new form of massacre. "When the Turkish authorities
gave the orders for these deportations, they were simply giving the death
warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and in their conversations
with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact." [5]

The ambassadors of Germany and Austria, representatives of governments allied
with Turkey, also quickly realized what was taking place. As early as July
1915, the German ambassador reported to Berlin: "Turks began deportations from
areas now not threatened by invasion. This fact and the manner in which the
relocation is being carried out demonstrate that the government is really
pursuing the aim of destroying the Armenian race in Turkey." And by January
1917 his successor reported: "The policy of extermination has been largely
achieved; the current leaders of Turkey fully subscribe to this policy." [6]

More than one million Armenians perished as the result of execution,
starvation, disease, the harsh environment, and physical abuse. A people who
lived in eastern Turkey for nearly 3,000 years lost its homeland and was
profoundly decimated in the first large scale genocide of the twentieth
century. At the beginning of 1915 there were some two million Armenians within
Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000.

Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to the historical reality of
the Armenian genocide_eyewitness accounts, official archives, photographic
evidence, the reports of diplomats, and the testimony of survivors [7], denial
of the Armenian genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has gone on from 1915
to the present. [8]

The basic argument of denial has remained the same, it never happened, Turkey
is not responsible, the term "genocide" does not apply. The tactics of denial,
however, have shifted over the years. [9] In the period immediately after
World War I the tactic was to find scapegoats to blame for what was said to be
only a security measure that had gone awry due to unscrupulous officials,
Kurds, and common criminals. This was followed by an attempt to avoid the
whole issue, with silence, diplomatic efforts, and political pressure used
where possible. In the 1930s, for example, Turkey pressured the U.S. State
Department into preventing MGM Studios from producing a film based on Franz
Werfel's The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, a book that depicted aspects of the
genocide in a district located west of Antioch on the Mediterranean Sea, far
from the Russian front. [10]

In the 1960s, prompted by the worldwide commemoration of the fiftieth
anniversary of the genocide, efforts were made to influence journalists,
teachers, and public officials by telling "the other side of the story."
Foreign scholars were encouraged to revise the record of genocide, presenting
an account largely blaming the Armenians or, in another version, wartime
conditions which claimed the lives of more Turks than Armenians. [11]
Thereafter, Turkey tried to prohibit any mention of the genocide in a United
Nations report and was successful in its pressure on the Reagan and Bush
administrations in defeating Congressional resolutions that would have
designated April 24 as a national day of remembrance of the Armenian
genocide. [12] The Turkish government has also attempted to exclude any
mention of the genocide from American textbooks. Stronger efforts still have
been made to prevent any discussion of the 1915 genocide being formally
included in the social studies curriculum as part of Holocaust and genocide
studies. [13]

There have also been attempts by the Turkish government to disrupt academic
conferences and public discussions of the genocide. A notable example was the
attempt by Turkish officials to force cancellation of a conference in Tel Aviv
in 1982 if the Armenian genocide were to be discussed, demands backed up with
threats to the safety of Jews in Turkey. [14] The U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Council reported similar threats over plans to include references to the
Armenian genocide within the interpretive framework of the Holocaust Memorial
Museum in Washington. [15] At the same time, Turkey has sought to make an
absolute distinction between the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide, defining
the latter as "alleged" or "so-called." The documents we have, however, show
that, in private, such labeling drops off (a point to which we shall return
and discuss in detail).

Finally, in the 1980s the Turkish government supported the establishment of
"institutes", whose apparent purpose was to further research on Turkish
history and culture. At least one also was used to further denial of Turkish
genocide and otherwise improve Turkey's image in the West. To our knowledge,
the memorandum and letters that we reproduce in full provide the first direct
evidence of the close relationship between the Turkish government and one such
institute. Before turning to that evidence, we shall provide background
information on the origin, funding, stated purposes, and tax status of the
institute from which that evidence comes.

The Institute of Turkish Studies

The Institute of Turkish Studies, Inc., located in Washington, D.C., was
established in 1982 with a grant of three million dollars from the Republic of
Turkey. [16] Information about its current finances is not readily available,
but in 1989 it had expenditures of $264,593, of which $121,062 was for grants.
That year it received gifts of nearly $240,000. The sources of the gifts are
unknown to us, but in the past much of its financial support has come from
American corporations that sell military equipment to the Turkish government.
In 1992 the Institute began a fund-raising campaign to double its endowment to
six million dollars, with funds to be raised from businesses in America and
Turkey.

The organization itself has a staff of two: an executive director and a
secretary. There is also a board of directors, which includes several
academics among its members.

In various directories of associations, its purposes and activities are listed
as:

To provide funding for research centers and scholars interested in
Turkish studies; to encourage development of Turkish studies in
university curricula. Bestows awards. Maintains 5000 volume library
on the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, and Turkish history.

Grants for the academic community of U.S. specialists in the field
of Turkish studies; support includes awards to individual scholars
and to institutions.

The Institute's fields of interest are said to be "Turkey, higher education."
In terms of activities, it is said to provide grants to individuals and
institutions for "research, publications, scholarship funds, fellowships, seed
money, conferences and seminars, including matching funds, grants to
individuals."

Its own brochure published within the first years of the founding of the
Institute, however, throws a somewhat different light on its stated purpose.
The Institute states that it has received grants from major defense
contractors, such as General Dynamics and Westinghouse, and with this support
the Institute "shall continue to play a key role in furthering knowledge and
understanding of a key NATO ally of the United States, the Republic of Turkey,
among citizens of our country." [17] Unfortunately, the phrase "furthering
knowledge and understanding" includes measures that have been construed as
denial of the Armenian genocide.

Under United States tax law, the Institute falls within section 501(c)3 of the
Internal Revenue Filing Status:

Charitable organization; educational organization; literary
organization; organization to prevent cruelty to children;
organization for public safety testing; religious organization;
or scientific organization.

Given its tax filing status, the Institute for Turkish Studies is exempt from
taxation. Contributions to the Institute are tax deductible.

The executive director of the Institute from its inception to 1994 was Dr.
Heath W. Lowry, who received his doctorate in history from UCLA. His mentor at
UCLA was Professor Stanford Shaw, whose history of Turkey strenuously denies
the reality of the Armenian genocide, while, at the same time, blaming the
victims, who are depicted as disloyal, rebellious, and terroristic. [18] It is
Lowry who wrote the memorandum and drafted the letter for the ambassador that
are now made public for the first time.

In 1994 Dr. Lowry became the first incumbent of the Ataturk Chair in Turkish
Studies at Princeton University. The chair was established through a $1.5
million grant from the Republic of Turkey. In its Report of the Institute of
Turkish Studies, Inc., 1982-1992, the Institute cites its "key role . . . in
encouraging the Government of Turkey to embark upon a plan of endowing a
series of Chairs in Turkish Studies at major American Universities. In an
advisory capacity the Institute has been involved in every stage of this
process." The report notes that the chair at Princeton is "fully established
and funded" and that the Institute supports "the further creation of endowed
chairs at three other U.S. Universities." [19]

Analysis of the Lowry Memorandum

Let us now consider what Lowry's memorandum reveals about the mentality and
tactics of denial, then turn to the letter, commenting on its style and
content.

Memorandum from Dr. Heath Lowry, Executive Director of the Institute of
Turkish Studies, Inc., to Nuzhet Kandemir, Turkish Ambassador to the
United States, September 26, 1990


M E M O R A N D U M
- - - - - - - - - -

_TO_: H.E. AMBASSADOR NUZHET KANDEMIR:

_FROM_: DR. HEATH W. LOWRY;

_REG_: COMMENTS ON THE "ARMENIAN GENOCIDE" INCLUDED IN THE ROBERT
JAY LIFTON STUDY ENTITLED: _THE NAZI DOCTORS, MEDICAL KILLINGS
AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GENOCIDE_;

_DATE_: SEPTEMBER 26, 1990.


PER YOUR REQUEST CONVEYED TO ME BY MS. HILAL BASKAL OF YOUR STAFF, I HAVE
LOCATED AND READ LIFTON'S _THE NAZI DOCTORS_, WITH AN EYE TO DRAFTING A LETTER
FOR YOUR SIGNATURE TO THE AUTHOR. LIFTON'S WORK, A MASSIVE TOME OF XIII + 561
PAGES, IS AUTHORED BY A PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY AND PSYCHOLOGY AT JOHN JAY
COLLEGE AND THE GRADUATE CENTER OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK [NOTE: THE
LATTER IS THE SAME INSTITUTION WHERE PROFESSOR RUSTOW OF THE I.T.S. BOARD
TEACHES]. HE IS A WELL KNOWN AUTHORITY ON THE TRAUMA OF WAR AND HIS MAJOR
WORKS INCLUDE:

_DEATH IN LIFE_ (196
_HOME FROM THE WAR_ (1973)
_THE LIFE OF THE SELF_ (1976)
_THE BROKEN CONNECTION_ (1982)

IN SHORT, LIFTON IS A RECOGNIZED AUTHORITY IN HIS OWN FIELD WHO CLEARLY KNOWS
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT THE SO-CALLED "ARMENIAN GENOCIDE." INDEED, A CAREFUL
PERUSAL OF HIS BOOK, REVEALS THAT IN ITS 561 PAGES HE MAKES THE FOLLOWING FEW
REFERENCES TO THE SUBJECT:

_P. XII._ "BUT I FOUND THAT NAZI DOCTORS DIFFERED SIGNIFICANTLY
FROM THESE OTHER GROUPS, NOT SO MUCH IN THEIR HUMAN
EXPERIMENTATION BUT IN THEIR CENTRAL ROLE IN GENOCIDAL
PROJECTS . . . _(PERHAPS TURKISH DOCTORS, IN THEIR
PARTICIPATION IN THE GENOCIDE AGAINST THE ARMENIANS,
COME CLOSEST, AS I SHALL I LATER SUGGEST) . ."

[NOTE: LIFTON DOES NOT PROVIDE ANY SOURCE FOR THIS
STATEMENT FOLLOWING THIS PASSAGE;

_PP.466-7_: I SHALL REFER TO OTHER GENOCIDES -- NOTABLY THE TURKS'
ANNIHILATION OF ABOUT ONE MILLION ARMENIANS IN 1915-
_NOT WITH ANY CLAIM TO COMPREHENSIVENESS_ BUT ONLY TO
SUGGEST WIDER APPLICATION

NOTE: AGAIN NO FOOTNOTED SOURCE. MORE IMPORTANTLY IS
LIFTON'S ADMISSION THAT HE DOESN'T CLAIM ANY EXPERTISE
ON THE SUBJECT HE IS GOING TO ADDRESS;

_P. 470_: THERE SEEM TO HAVE BEEN DEFINITE PARALLELS IN TURKISH
HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE PRIOR TO THEIR MASS MURDER OF
ARMENIANS IN 1915. WITHIN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, THROUGHOUT
THE LATTER PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, THERE WAS
AN ATMOSPHERE OF PROGRESSIVE 'DECAY AND DISINTEGRATION',
ALONG WITH A CONTINUOUS IF LOSING STRUGGLE FOR SPIRITUAL
AND POLITICAL UNIFICATION. THE TURKS ALSO EXPERIENCED
HUMILIATING FORMS Of FAILED REGENERATION IN THEIR DISASTROUS
MILITARY ENTERPRISES DURING THE 1912 BALKAN WAR (IGNOMINIOUS
DEFEAT AT THE HANDS OF THEIR FORMER SLAVES AND WARDS, THE
GREEKS AND THE BULGARIANS) AND THEIR ABORTIVE RUSSIAN
CAMPAIGN IN 1915 AS A GERMAN ALLY. _VAHAKN N. DADRIAN_ OBSERVES
THAT THE TURKS MOVED CLOSER TO GENOCIDE AS THEIR PERCEPTION
OF THEIR SITUATION PROCEEDED 'FROM THE CONDITION OF MERE
STRAIN, TO THAT Of CRISIS, TO A PRECIPITATE CRISIS, AND
EVENTUALLY TO THE CATACLYSM OF WAR.' [19]

_FOOTNOTE 19_: VAHAKN N. DADRIAN, "THE ROLE OF TURKISH
PHYSICIANS IN THE WORLD WAR I GENOCIDE OF OTTOMAN ARMENIANS,"
_HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES_ I (1986, FORTHCOMING); DADRIAN,
"THE COMMON FEATURES OF THE ARMENIAN AND JEWISH CASES OF
GENOCIDE: A COMPARATIVE VICTIMOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE," IN ISRAEL
DRAPKIN AND EMILIOI VIANO, _VICTIMOLOGY; A NEW FOCUS, VOL. IV
(LEXINGTON, MASS: D.C. HEATH, 1974, PP. 99-120. SEE ALSO, HELEN
FEIN, ACCOUNTING FOR GENOCIDE: VICTIMS -- AND SURVIVORS -- OF
THE HOLOCAUST (NEW YORK: FREE PRESS, 1979, PO. 10-18.

_NOTE_: THE SOLE SOURCE FOR LIFTON'S COMMENTS IS THE ARMENIAN
AUTHOR: VAHAKN DADRIAN.

P. 473: "AGAIN, THERE ARE SUGGESTIONS OF SIMILAR CURRENTS IN THE
TURKISH SITUATION. THE YOUNG TURKS' WHO SOUGHT TO REFORM
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE SPEARHEADED 'A MAJOR CAMPAIGN TO CHANGE
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF OTTOMAN SOCIETY AS AN ANTIDOTE TO
INTERNAL DISCORD AND CONFLICT, AND ALSO AS A MEANS OF
RECAPTURING. IMPERIAL, PANTURKIC GLORY.' THEIR CURE INCLUDED
AN ADMIXTURE OF RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES,' AND
AND GENOCIDE BECAME A MEANS FOR [ BRINGING ABOUT ] A RADICAL
..... CHANGE IN THE SYSTEM.'" [34]

_FOOTNOTE 34_: SEE DADRIAN, "TURKISH PHYSICIANS" AND "COMMON
FEATURES" [19]

_NOTE_: AGAIN, LIFTON'S SOLE SOURCE FOR HIS VIEWS ON THE TURCO-
ARMENIAN QUESTION ARE THE TWO ARTICLES OF DADRIAN CITED IN
FOOTNOTE 19.

P. 475: IN THE CASE OF THE TURKS, WHATEVER THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARDS
SCIENCE, THEY DID PUT FORWARD A MYSTICAL VISION OF PAN-
TURANIANISM (OR 'TURKIFICATION') _WHICH ALLEGED A PREHISTORIC
MYTHIC UNITY AMONG TURANIAN PEOPLES BASED ON RACIAL ORIGIN_'
[43] AND ONE CANNOT DOUBT THE EXPERIENCE OF TRANSCENDENCE
OF TURKISH NATIONALISTS IN THEIR REVERSION TO FUNDAMENTALIST
MOHAMMEDANISM AS A CALL TO AN ANTI-ARMENIAN-CHRISTIAN CRUSADE --
ALL ON BEHALF OF A NEW VISION OF OTTOMAN GLORY."

_FOOTNOTE 43_: DADRIAN, "TURKISH PHYSICIANS" [19].

_NOTE_: ONCE AGAIN, LIFTON'S _SOLE_ SOURCE ID DADRIAN

P. 488: "ARMENIANS WERE DESCRIBED AS '_A CANCER, A MALIGNANCE WHICH LOOKS
LIKE A SMALL PIMPLE FROM THE OUTSIDE, WHICH, IF NOT REMOVED BY A
SKILLFUL SURGEON'S SCALPEL, WILL KILL THE PATIENT'" [108]

_FOOTNOTE 108_: A YOUNG TURK ACTIVIST, QUOTED IN KUPER,
_GENOCIDE_, P 40 [LEO KUPER, _GENOCIDE: ITS POLITICAL USE IN THE
TWENTIETH CENTURY_ (NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1981), PP.
19-23, 210-214

_NOTE_: AGAIN, LIFTON IS SIMPLY CITING AN ALREADY PUBLISHED (AND
VERY WELL KNOWN) BOOK BY A JEWISH EXPERT ON THE HOLOCAUST.

P. 493: "ONE CANNOT SAY THAT ANY PARTICULAR LEVEL OF TECHNOLOGY IS
REQUIRED FOR GENOCIDE: THE TURKS KILLED ABOUT A MILLION ARMENIANS
BY MEANS OF SHOOTING, CLUBBING, BEATING, SLAVE LABOR, STARVATION,
AND OTHER FORMS OF TORTURE,"

_NOTE_: THERE IS NO FOOTNOTE APPENDED TO THIS STATEMENT, BUT
IT IS CLEARLY TAKEN FROM THE DADRIAN ARTICLES AS WELL.

**********

IN SUMMATION, WHAT WE ARE FACED WITH HERE ARE SEVEN REFERENCES
(COMPRISING ABOUT ONE FULL PAGE OF TEXT) IN A BOOK OF 561 PAGES. THEY ARE
BASED ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY ON THE ARTICLES BY DADRIAN (EACH OF WHICH HAVE BEEN
THE SUBJECT OF DETAILED MEMOS BY THIS WRITER IN PAST YEARS), TOGETHER WITH
REFERENCES TO THE WORK OF HELEN FEIN (WHOSE BOOK INCLUDES A FULL CHAPTER ON
THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE) AND LEO KUPER (WHOSE BOOK CONTAINS A VERY LONG CHAPTER
ON THE GENOCIDE). STATED DIFFERENTLY, LIFTON, IN HIS BOOK PUBLISHED FOUR
YEARS AGO IN 1986, IS SIMPLY USING THE EXISTING LITERATURE ON THE HOLOCAUST
AND GENOCIDE. CONSEQUENTLY, OUR BASIC PROBLEM IS WITH AUTHORS SUCH AS DADRIAN,
FEIN, AND KUPER, EACH OF WHOM ARE NOW SERVING AS SOURCES FOR AUTHORS SUCH AS
LIFTON. THESE FACTS MAKE IT RATHER DIFFICULT TO REGISTER OUR UNHAPPINESS WITH
LIFTON PER SE, AS HE WILL QUITE JUSTIFIABLY RESPOND BY GIVING US REFERENCES TO
HIS SOURCES, I.E. DADRIAN, FEIN, AND KUPER.

OUR PROBLEM IS LESS WITH LIFTON THAN IT IS WITH THE WORKS UPON WHICH HE
RELIES. LIFTON IS SIMPLY THE END OF THE CHAIN, THAT IS, FROM NOW ON WE WILL
SEE _ALL_ WORKS ON GENOCIDE OF THE JEWS, INCLUDING REFERENCES SUCH AS THOSE
MADE BY LIFTON ON THE BASIS OF THE WORKS OF DADRIAN, FEIN, KUPER, HOVANNISIAN,
ET. AL. THOUGH THIS POINT HAS BEEN REPEATEDLY STRESSED BOTH IN WRITING AND
VERBALLY TO I.A.D.A.-ANKARA, WE HAVE NOT YET SEEN AS MUCH AS A SINGLE ARTICLE
BY ANY SCHOLAR RESPONDING TO _DADRIAN_ (OR ANY OF THE OTHERS AS WELL).

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT IT BE POINTED OUT TO ANKARA THAT LIFTON'S BOOK
IS SIMPLY THE END RESULT OF THE TURKISH FAILURE TO RESPOND IN A PROMPT FASHION
TO THE DADRIAN ARTICLES AND THE FEIN AND KUPER BOOK.

ON THE CHANCE THAT YOU WILL STILL WISH TO RESPOND IN WRITING TO LIFTON,
I HAVE DRAFTED THE FOLLOWING LETTER, WHICH, DUE TO THE ABSENCE OF AN ADDRESS
FOR LIFTON WILL HAVE TO BE SENT TO HIM IN CARE OF HIS PUBLISHER.


Draft of letter to Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, prepared by Dr. Heath Lowry,
to be signed by Ambassador Nuzhet Kandemir

D R A F T L E T T E R
- - - - - - - - - - -


MR. ROBERT JAY LIFTON
% BASIC BOOKS, INC.
10 E 53RD. STREET
NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10022

DEAR MR. LIFTON:

YOUR 1986 PUBLICATION ENTITLED: _THE NAZI DOCTORS, MEDICAL KILLING
AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GENOCIDE_ WAS RECENTLY BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION. NEEDLESS
TO SAY, I WAS SHOCKED BY REFERENCES IN YOUR WORK (PP. XII., 466-7, 470, 473,
476, 488, & 493) TO THE SO CALLED "ARMENIAN GENOCIDE," ALLEGEDLY PERPETRATED
BY THE OTTOMAN TURKS DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR. I WAS EVEN MORE DISTURBED
WHEN YOUR CITATIONS REVEALED THAT YOUR SOURCES CONSISTED Of ARTICLES AND BOOKS
BY THREE INDIVIDUALS (VAHAKN N. DADRIAN, HELEN FEIN AND LEO KUPER), NONE OF
WHOM ARE HISTORIANS OF THE PERIOD IN QUESTION AND NONE OF WHOM RELY ON PRIMARY
RESEARCH IN THEIR OWN WORKS.

IN SHORT, YOU HAVE SIMPLY PASSED ALONG QUESTIONABLE SECONDARY SOURCES
AS EVIDENCE fOR A NUMBER OF CONTENTIONS WHICH ARE, TO SAY THE LEAST, HOTLY
DEBATED AMONG CONTEMPORARY SCHOLARS WRITING ON THE PERIOD AND EVENTS IN
QUESTION.

IT IS PARTICULARLY DISTURBING TO SEE A MAJOR SCHOLAR ON THE HOLOCAUST,
A TRAGEDY WHOSE ENORMITY AND BARBARITY MUST NEVER BE FORGOTTEN, SO CARELESS
IN HIS REFERENCES TO A FIELD OUTSIDE HIS OWN AREA OF EXPERTISE. FOR TURKS, WHO
ARE JUSTIFIABLY PROUD OF OUR LONG AND CONTINUING ROLE AS A HAVEN FOR
MINORITIES (INCLUDING THE JEWS EVICTED FROM SPAIN BY THE INQUISITION), IT IS
PARTICULARLY DISQUIETING TO FIND OUR OWN HISTORY DISTORTED IN WORKS DEVOTED TO
THE HOLOCAUST OF WORLD WAR II.

TO COMPARE A TRAGIC CIVIL WAR (PERPETRATED BY MISGUIDED ARMENIAN
NATIONALISTS) AND THE HUMAN SUFFERING IT WROUGHT ON BOTH THE MUSLIM AND
CHRISTIAN POPULATIONS, WITH THE HORRORS OF A PREMEDITATED ATTEMPT TO
SYSTEMATICALLY ERADICATE A PEOPLE, IS, TO ANYONE FAMILIAR WITH THE HISTORY IN
QUESTION, SIMPLY LUDICROUS

I AM ENCLOSING COPIES OF WORKS BY TWO AMERICAN EXPERTS ON THE HISTORY
OF TURCO ARMENIAN RELATIONS, PROFESSORS JUSTIN MCCARTHY AND HEATH LOWRY, AND
WOULD HOPE THAT IN THE INTERESTS OF OBJECTIVITY AND FAIRNESS YOU WILL NOT ONLY
READ THEM, BUT REFLECT HAVING DONE SO IN ANY FUTURE WORKS YOU MAY PUBLISH.


SINCERELY YOURS,

NUZHET KANDEMIR
AMBASSADOR, REPUBLIC OF TURKEY
WASHINGTON, D.C.

Letter from Ambassador Nuzhet Kandemir to Robert Jay Lifton, October 2,
1990


TURKISH EMBASSY 10/16 certified mail
WASHINGTON, D.C.

4047-434

October 2, 1990

Mr. Robert Jay Lifton
c/o Basic Books, Inc.
10 E 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022

Your 1986 publication, _The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the
Psychology of Genocide_, was recently brought to my attention. Needless to
say, I was shocked by references in your work (pp x11, 466-7, 470, 473, 476,
486, and 493) to the so-called "Armenian genocide" allegedly perpetrated by
the Ottoman Turks during the First World War. I was even more disturbed when
your citations revealed that your sources consisted of articles and books by
three individuals: Vahakn N. Dadrian, Helen Fein, and Leo Kuper, none of whom
are historians of the period in question and none of whom rely on primary
research in their own works.

In short you have simply passed along questionable secondary sources
as evidence for a number of contentions which are, to say the least, hotly
debated among contemporary scholars writing on the period and events at issue.

It is particularly disturbing to see a major scholar on the Holocaust,
a tragedy whose enormity and barbarity must never be forgotten, so careless in
his references to a field outside his area of expertise. For Turks, who are
justifiably proud of our long and continuing role as a haven for minorities
(including the Jews evicted from Spain by the Inquisition), it is particularly
disquieting to find our own history distorted in works devoted to the
Holocaust of World War II.

To compare a tragic civil war (initiated by Armenian nationalists) and
the human suffering it wrought on both the Muslim and Christian populations
with the horrors of a premeditated attempt to systematically eradicate a
peaceable people is, to anyone familiar with the history in question, simply
ludicrous



I am enclosing copies of works by two American experts on the history
of Turco-Armenian relations, Professors Justin McCarthy and Heath Lowry, and
would hope that an the interests of objectivity and fairness you will not only
read them but also reflect having done so in any future works you may publish.


Yours Sincerely

[ signed ]


Nuzhet Kandemir
Ambassador




The memorandum indicates that Lowry has been engaged in an ongoing
relationship with the Turkish government, and that he has regularly offered
advice on denial both to the Turkish ambassador to the United States and to
other persons in Turkey (IADA-Ankara).

The memorandum also provides evidence of the desire to check scholars from
referring to an Armenian genocide. Indeed, the process by now may even be
almost bureaucratic. It is easy to surmise that someone at the embassy
identifies books and articles that mention the genocide (is denial part of his
or her official duties?), the list is turned over to Lowry at the request of
the ambassador, and Lowry examines the works in question, provides a report in
the form of a memorandum, and then prepares a letter for the ambassador's
signature.

Lowry reads Lifton's book, not out of interest or to be informed: he does it
as a service to the Turkish government, "with an eye to drafting a letter for
your [the ambassador's] signature to the author." Why a scholar would conceive
of his or her craft in this fashion is not a question that admits of easy
answers. But as we shall suggest in another section of the article, it is not
uncommon. What is clear from the memorandum, though, is that Lowry identifies
with the power of the Turkish government. He twice refers to "our problem,"
that is, the availability of works that discuss the Armenian genocide,
suggesting that he sees himself as part of a power constellation engaged but
in furthering the perceived interests of the government of Turkey.

Lowry is critical, in fact, of the ineptitude of the deniers who thereby fail
to serve what he assumes are Turkey's interests. He has repeatedly told,
verbally and in writing, those in power that they must attack and discredit
articles or books by Dadrian, Fein, Kuper, and others, yet not a single attack
has been written. He underlines the date of Lifton's book -1986- and suggests
implicitly that four years is simply too long: material must be subjected to
damage control at the earliest possible moment. And one does wonder why it
took so long in this case, since Markusen and Smith received letters along the
lines addressed to Lifton within months of the appearance of their essays in
_Genocide and the Modern Age_. [20]

Lowry's own work contains many questionable assertions and conclusions. He
denies that Hitler ever uttered the widely quoted remark: 'Who, after all,
speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" [21] And in his recent
book, _The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story_, he asserts that
Morgenthau's account of the genocide is nothing but "crude half-truths and
outright falsehoods . . . from cover to cover." [22] His conclusions do not in
fact follow from his analysis or the evidence he can marshal. Quite
astonishing, however, is his claim that what Talaat, a principal architect of
the Armenian genocide, had in mind for the Armenians was not destruction, but
"segregation," that the fate of the Armenians was to be that of African-
Americans in the South in 1915. [23]

Lowry apparently seeks to discredit the work of any author who treats the
Armenian genocide as historical reality. But those in Ankara, with whom he has
communicated again and again on how to discredit works on the Armenian
genocide, have not heeded his words. "I strongly recommend that it be pointed
out to Ankara.... " Had people listened to me, he suggests, "we" wouldn't be
faced with "our" present "problem."

Analysis of the Letter to Lifton

Various perspectives on denial can be brought to bear on the content of the
letter. Smith notes that typically the denial of genocide involves denial that
the events took place, that the perpetrator bears any responsibility for the
destruction, or that the term "genocide" is applicable to what occurred.
Deborah Lipstadt, in her work on the Holocaust, speaks of the "Yes, but" mode
of denial: applied to the present case, Yes, Armenians died, but so did Turks.
Yes, Armenians were killed, but they brought it upon themselves. Yes, the
conflict took place, but it was a civil war within a global war. Likewise,
Israel Charny has pointed to a "template of denial," the rules of which
include: do not acknowledge that the genocide took place; transform it into
other kinds of events; portray the victims as the perpetrators; insist more
victims were from the perpetrator's group; and relativize the genocide in
whatever way possible. [24] The letter is too limited in purpose to display
all of the elements depicted in these overlapping perspectives, but they are
found in the larger literature of denial of the 1915 genocide.

In terms of the letter itself, however, we want to call attention to two
aspects of denial that are part and parcel of Turkey's denial tactics. The
goal of each is to prevent recognition of the fact that what the Ottoman
government did to the Armenians in 1915 constitutes genocide.

First, there is an attempt to remove the label "genocide" from the Armenian
experience. This is done in part by not differentiating between the victims of
the massacre and of warfare, of blaming the victims as the initiators of
violence (thus suggesting that they got what they deserved, even though it
never happened), and describing the genocide as a civil war within a global
war. In the end, the genocide of over a million Armenians is made to appear
like an "amorphous human disaster." [25]

A second theme, unique to the Turkish case, is the determination to deny the
Armenian genocide by acknowledging the Holocaust. [26] This involves in part
special efforts by Turkey to recognize the tragedy of the Holocaust and show
compassion for its victims. But Turkey has also gone to extraordinary lengths,
including threats and disruption of academic conferences, to prevent Jews from
learning about the Armenian genocide. Moreover, one notes that Lowry'
memorandum stresses that Lifton relied upon the work of other scholars, but
this, he argues, is precisely why it is necessary to discredit at the outset
authors such as Dadrian, Fein, and Kuper. The danger Lowry sees is that "from
now on we will see all works on the genocide of the Jews" containing
references to the Armenian genocide. Such references would allow for
comparison and the conclusion that, for different reasons, both Jews and
Armenians have been victims of genocide. There is another aspect to this,
however, that can best be addressed in terms of the letter -- the attempt of
the Turkish government and its intellectuals to draw a sharp and decisive
distinction between the Holocaust and the experience of the Armenians in 1915.

The letter states that to make any comparison of the Holocaust and the
Armenian genocide is ludicrous. But it is not ludicrous: the similarities have
been pointed out by many scholars, most recently by Robert Melson in his major
work on Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and
the Holocaust. [27] Other leading Jewish scholars of the Holocaust, in fact,
describe the Armenian massacres and deportations into the desert as genocide,
and one that approximates the Holocaust in important respects. Yehuda Bauer,
for example, not only points out the similarities between the Armenian
genocide and the Holocaust, but states that on a "continuum of murderous
behavior, the Armenian massacres would figure nearest to the Holocaust. [28]
Similarly, the late Lucy Dawidowicz stated that the Armenian genocide in its
"extent and horror most closely approximated the murder of the European Jews."
She continued: "The once unthinkable 'Armenian solution' became, in our time,
the achievable 'Final Solution,' the Nazi code name for the annihilation of
the European Jews." 29]

Concluding Reflections on the Memorandum and Letter

To confront denial is to face a recurrent question: do those who engage in
denial of a well-documented genocide actually believe their own words, or do
they know better, but disregard the facts for personal or political reasons?
The issue is complicated in that denial is, at times, a deliberate distortion
of the facts to serve some presumed advantage. But denial may also be a
"defense mechanism" that functions to reduce stress and inner conflict. As a
defense mechanism, the events and feelings that one wants to deny are not
completely removed from consciousness, but are rather placed in a more
favorable light through a kind of selective emphasis and reappraisal. While
this distorts the truth, the person who uses such a strategy may not be aware
that he or she is doing so to make the situation less threatening.
Nevertheless, denial as distortion of truth and as self-serving
rationalization are often intertwined and reinforce each other.

In the case of Lowry and the ambassador, there is a sense in which their whole
enterprise involves a retelling of the Armenian genocide to place Turks in a
favorable light and Armenians in a bad light: in such accounts the victim is
invariably blamed for the genocide; indeed, is cast in the role of
perpetrator. But for all the reinterpretation and selective uses of history,
there is a clue that the ambassador and Lowry know that the Armenian genocide
took place, which would make their public statements to the contrary appear to
be calculated distortions of the truth.

To return to the documents at hand. The letter Lifton received and the draft
of it by Lowry are explicit in denying the genocide, and speak of the
"so-called 'Armenian genocide,' allegedly perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks
during the First World War." However, when we examine the memorandum, a
different story appears, with a decided gap between the public discourse of
the letter and the private discourse of the memorandum. On the first page of
the memorandum, the executive director of the Institute of Turkish Studies
approaches the subject, and the ambassador, delicately, referring to the
"so-called 'Armenian Genocide.'" Yet a few pages later, when he gives his
"summation," Lowry speaks openly without using such terms as "alleged" or
"so-called": he now writes, without quotation marks, about "the Armenian
Genocide" and "the genocide." It is hard to believe that he would present such
language to the ambassador unless he knew that the ambassador would not be
offended.

The Harmfulness of Genocide Denial

We should not be surprised by instances of what many would consider to be
inappropriate use of academic credentials and skills, since, after all,
academics and professionals have contributed in direct ways to genocidal
killing projects, including the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust. They have
done so by lending their talents and prestige to racist, victimizing
ideologies that are central features of many genocides, by helping to create
and administer the policies and technologies of mass killing, and by actually
engaging in the killing. [30] If highly educated academics and professionals
have been able to repudiate their ethical codes and serve as accomplices and
perpetrators of actual genocides, it is likely that they would be even more
able to engage in an activity in which no one is killed.

It would be a mistake, however, to underestimate the serious harm caused by
denial of genocide, particularly denial wrapped in the guise of legitimate
scholarship. In this section, we examine the harm done by pseudo-scholarly
denial of known genocides and consider the assertion, put forth by some
scholars, that deliberate denial is a form of aggression that ought to be
regarded as a contribution to genocidal violence in its own right. Then we
briefly address the question of what might motivate academics to make a career
out of denial of genocide.

Some of the ways in which denial of genocide causes "violence to others" have
identified by Israel W. Charny in his essay on "The Psychology of Denial of
Known Genocides," in which he emphasizes that denial conceals the horror of
the crimes and exonerates those responsible for it. [31] This point is echoed
by Deborah Lipstadt, who, in her recent book on denial of the Holocaust,
writes that "Denial aims to reshape history in order to rehabilitate the
perpetrators and demonize the victims." [32] Denial also, according to Charny,
"attacks the historical spirit and morale" of the survivors and the
descendants of those killed and places "further burdens on their recovery."
[33] In short, denial prevents healing of the wounds inflicted by genocide.
[34] Furthermore, it constitutes an "attack on the collective identity and
national cultural continuity of the victim people." [35]

A number of scholars have argued, in fact, that the deliberate denial of a
known genocide is a harmful act that deserves to be included in the same moral
domain with indirect and direct contributions to the actual genocides. Thus,
Charny states that "Denials of genocide make no sense unless one sees in them
renewed opportunities for the same passions, meanings, and pleasures that were
at work in the genocide itself, now revived in symbolic processes of murdering
the dignity of the survivors, rationality, dignity, and even history itself'
(emphasis in original). [36] Indeed, denial may be thought of as the last
stage of genocide, one that continues into the present. A kind of double
killing takes place: first the physical deed, followed by the destruction of
remembrance of the deed.

Historian (and Holocaust survivor) Erich Kulka regards the denial of genocide
as an offense in its own right, asserting that "Attempts to rewrite Holocaust
history on the pretext of 'revisionism,' aided by scholars with academic
backgrounds, must be viewed as intellectual aggression," a repetition in
thought of what was enacted earlier as physical deed. [37] In his recent book
on denial of the Holocaust, Pierre Vidal-Naquet characterizes Robert
Faurisson, whose "scholarly" denials of the Holocaust have been widely
disseminated, as a "paper Eichmann." [38]

We concur with Charny, Kulka, and Vidal-Naquet in regarding denial of genocide
as an egregious offense that warrants being regarded as a form of contribution
to genocidal violence. Denial contributes to genocide in at least two ways.
First of all, genocide does not end with its last human victim; denial
continues the process. But if such denial points to the past and the present,
it also has implications for the future. For by absolving the perpetrators of
past genocides from responsibility for their actions and by obscuring the
reality of genocide as a widely practiced form of state policy in the modern
world, denial may increase the risk of future outbreaks of genocidal killing.

Why Might Intellectuals Engage in the Denial of Known Genocides?

There are several possible motivations for denial of genocide, and these can
be complex. The motivations to which we would call attention include: self-
serving ideology, bigotry, intellectual confusion, careerism, identification
with power, and a particular conception of knowledge. It seems unlikely,
however, that denial rests only on one of these motivations; moreover, the
particular combinations of motivations may vary with individuals. Also, what
prompts denial may vary with different examples of genocide: anti-Zionism, for
example, may help explain denial of the Holocaust, but in terms of its content
tells us nothing about why the Armenian genocide has been denied. On the other
hand, if we focus not on the content of the motivation, but on its form
(ideology) and goals (political and psychological purposes), then the
motivations for denial in these two cases may have more in common than appear
at first glance.

Ideology, Bigotry and the Denial of the Holocaust

Scholars who have analyzed deniers of the Holocaust have concluded that they
are primarily motivated by ideology. Thus, Vidal-Naquet, in his examination of
Faurisson and other French "revisionists," asserts that "all revisionists are
resolute anti-Zionists." [39] Similarly, on the basis of her even more
comprehensive survey of Holocaust deniers, Lipstadt concludes that "it is
clear that deniers have no interest in scholarship or reason. Most are
antisemites or bigots." [40]

These answers are no doubt correct, but they are incomplete. It may be that
all revisionists are anti-Zionists, but there are surely anti-Zionists (some
of them Jewish) who do not deny the reality of the Holocaust. Similarly, there
are people who are highly antisemitic, but are well aware that the Holocaust
took place.

Intellectual Confusion, Rationalization

Clues to the thinking of academics who question the reality of the Armenian
genocide have been provided by Israel Charny and his colleague Daphna Fromer,
who sent questionnaires to sixty-nine scholars who signed an advertisement
which, in the words of Charny and Fromer, "questioned insidiously the evidence
of the Armenian genocide" and appeared in several newspapers, including the
New York Times and the Washington Post. [41] In analyzing the comments of the
seventeen scholars who provided "active responses" to their mailing, Charny
and Fromer discerned a number of "thinking defense-mechanisms" that enabled
the scholars to engage in "the denial of genocide." These mechanisms included
what the authors term "scientificism in the service of denial," i.e., the
claim that not enough empirical evidence is available to justify an
unequivocal position on the reality of the genocide; and "definitionalism,"
i.e., acknowledging deaths, but denying that they were the result of
"genocide," thus shifting responsibility for the genocide away from the
Turkish government and trivializing the killing of over a million Armenians as
the inadvertent result of famine, war, and disease.

Whether anyone is led into denial by such reasoning is an open question, but
such thinking does serve to make denial easier thereafter, while, at the same
time, it preserves the appearance of objectivity.

Careerism, Power, Knowledge

"Careerism" is a complicated phenomenon, but for our purposes we would
identify two (non-exclusive) forms that it may take: one that is oriented more
toward material goals, and one that involves more the satisfactions that go
with power. Both share the "thoughtlessness" that Hannah Arendt saw as the
essence of the "banality of evils": an imaginative blindness that prevents one
from reflecting upon the consequences of one's actions. [42] But elsewhere
Arendt also speaks of a "willed evil," and the second type of careerism is not
far removed from this: not simply the obliviousness to hurt, but the
infliction of hurt. [43]

Intellectuals who engage in the denial of genocide may be motivated in part by
either type of careerism, or by both. The more insidious form, however, is the
second type of careerism. Here material rewards are important, but more so,
the opportunity for certain psychological and social satisfactions: a sense of
importance, of status, of being in control, all of which can come through
identification with power, something we believe we have shown in the
memorandum we have analyzed. The price for intellect in the service of denial,
however, is a particular conception of knowledge, one in which knowledge not
only serves the ends of those in power, but is defined by power But to define
truth in terms of power is to reveal the bankruptcy, irrationality, and above
all, danger, of the whole enterprise of denial of genocide. Inherent in such
a view of knowledge is both a deep-seated nihilism and an urge to tyranny.

Concluding Comments: Scholars and Truth

Scholarship is, or should be, a quest for truth. What scholars write and say
in that quest matters a great deal. Directly or indirectly, our words
contribute to a shared consciousness -- to the constellation of beliefs that a
society forms in connection with issues of any kind. Scholars' contributions
to that shared consciousness become especially important in relation to a
society's struggles with large, disturbing, and threatening historical events.

Nowhere is scholarly research and commentary more significant than in
connection with genocide. Here the scope of mass murder and the depth of its
moral violation defy understanding and arouse every kind of confusion, whether
in the form of diffuse passions or resistance to painful evidence. Careful
scholarly evaluation can hardly eliminate these confusions, but it can
diminish them in favor of reasoned interpretation and the channeling of
passion into constructive policy. Generally speaking, the extremity of human
harm brought about by genocide raises the stakes of scholarly commentary.

Where scholars deny genocide, in the face of decisive evidence that it has
occurred, they contribute to a false consciousness that can have the most dire
reverberations. Their message, in effect, is: murderers did not really murder;
victims were not really killed; mass murder requires no confrontation, no
reflection, but should be ignored, glossed over. In this way scholars lend
their considerable authority to the acceptance of this ultimate human crime.
More than that, they encourage -- indeed invite -- a repetition of that crime
from virtually any source in the immediate or distant future. By closing their
minds to truth, that is, such scholars contribute to the deadly
psychohistorical dynamic in which unopposed genocide begets new genocides.

Those of us who wish to be true to our scholarly calling have a clear
obligation here. We must first expose this form of denial. At the same time we
must ourselves bear witness to historical truths -- to the full narrative of
mass murder and human suffering. To be witnessing professionals in this way
requires that we take in grim details so that we can tell the story with
accuracy and insight. It is a task to which we must bring both heart and mind,
an approach that combines advocacy and detachment. We require sufficient
detachment to maintain rigorous intellectual standards in evaluating evidence
and drawing conclusions. At the same time our moral advocacy should require us
to open ourselves to suffering as a way of taking a stand against cruelty and
killing, whatever its source.

Notes

1. Terrence Des Pres, "Introduction: Remembering Armenia," in Richard G.
Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian Genocide in Perspective (New Brunswick, NJ:
Transaction Books, 1986), p. 10.

2. On scholarship as commitment to power, see Terrence Des Pres, "On Governing
Narratives: The Turkish-Armenian Case," Yale Review, 75:4 (October 1986), pp.
517-531.

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post provides an excellent example of
"truth" being whatever officials say it is. He recounts in an article entitled
"Killing Truth," how after a brief reference to the Armenian genocide in a
previous column, the Turkish ambassador invited him to the embassy for a talk.
Cohen writes:

I found myself sitting at one end of an enormous table in the embassy of
Turkey. At the other end was the ambassador himself and what he was
telling me was that the crime I had always thought had happened, simply
had not.... What the world persisted in calling a genocide was actually a
civil war -- one with atrocities on both sides and one in which the
central government in Constantinople lost control of its own troops and
could not protect the Armenians. There never was a policy to exterminate
the Armenians.

Cohen, who thought that "the genocide was a given -- that no one could
possibly dispute that it had happened," was thrown into turmoil by the
ambassador's claims, and now found that the ambassador had "dented his
confidence." The problem of denial had now included Cohen: "And so year by
year, person by person, the genocide blurs, doubt corrodes it, and the easy
word, 'alleged,' creeps in to mock the Armenian anguish. The goal of such
denial, he believed, was not so much the rewriting of the past as such, but
the control of the present and the future. He concluded his article with the
observation that perhaps the "last victim of any genocide is truth." Richard
Cohen, "Killing Truth," The Washington Post, 31 May 1983, p. B 1.

3. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "A Textual Analysis of the Key Indictment of the Turkish
Military Tribunal Investigating the Armenian Genocide," Armenian Review, 44:1
(Spring 1991), pp. 26-27.

4. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Documentation of the World War I Armenian Massacres
in the Proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal," International Journal of
Middle East Studies, 23:4 (November 1991), p. 560.

5. Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, Page: 191, p. 309.

6. Dadrian, "The Documentation," p. 568.

7. Here we can cite only a few of the many works that document the Armenian
genocide. Among the contemporary accounts, see: Leslie Davis, The
Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian
Genocide, 1915-1917 (New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher, 1989);
Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
Page; 191; and Arnold J. Toynbee, ed., The Treatment of the Armenians in
the Ottoman Empire: Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon,
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1916).
The Armenian Genocide in the U.S. Archives, 1915-1918 (Alexandria, VA:
Chadwyok-Healey Inc., 1990) provides 37,000 pages of documentation in
microfiche. For recent studies, see three articles by Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The
Secret Young-Turk Ittihadist Conference and the Decision for the World War
I Genocide of the Armenians," Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 7:2 (Fall 1993),
pp. 173-201; "The Documentation of the World War I Armenian Massacres in the
Proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal," International Journal of Middle
East Studies, 23:4 (November 1991), pp. 549-576; and "Documentation of the
Armenian Genocide in Turkish Sources," in Israel W. Charny, ed., Genocide: A
Critical Bibliographic Review (London: Mansell Publishing; New York: Facts on
File, 1991), Vol. 2, Ch. 4; Tessa Hofmann and Gerayer Koutcharian, "'Images
that Horrify and Indict': Pictorial Documents on the Persecution and
Extermination of the Armenians from 1877 to 1922," Armenian Review, 45:1-2
(Spring/Summer 1992), pp. 53-184; Robert Melson, Revolution and Genocide: On
the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1992); and Donald E. Miller and Lorna Touryan Miller,
Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993). For an extensive bibliography on the Armenian
genocide, see Richard G. Hovannisian, The Armenian Holocaust: A Bibliography
Relating to the Deportations, Massacres, and Dispersion of the Armenian
People, 1915-1923 (Cambridge, MA: Armenian Heritage Press, 1980). On the
availability of survivor testimony in the form of oral history, see Miller and
Miller, pp. 212-213. Most of the oral histories are in Armenian and have not
been translated; on the other hand, many survivor memoirs exist in English:
among the more detailed are Abraham H. Hartunian, Neither to Laugh nor to
Weep: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide (Boston: Beacon Press, 196 and
Ephraim K. Jernazian, Judgment Unto Truth: Witnessing the Armenian Genocide
(New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1990).

8. There is a substantial literature on denial of the Armenian genocide. See,
Rouben Adalian, "The Armenian Genocide: Revisionism and Denial," in Michael N.
Dobkowski and Isidor Wallimann, eds., Genocide in Our Time: An Annotated
Bibliography with Analytical Introductions (Ann Arbor, MI: Pierian Press,
1992), Ch. 5; Marjorie Housepian Dobkin, "What Genocide? What Holocaust? News
from Turkey, 1915 1923: A Case Study," in Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian
Genocide in Perspective, Ch. 5; Richard G. Hovannisian, "The Armenian Genocide
and Patterns of Denial," in Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian Genocide in
Perspective, Ch. 6; Clive Foss, "The Turkish View of Armenian History: A
Vanishing Nation," in Richard G. Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian Genocide:
History, Politics, Ethics (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), Ch. 11;
Vahakn N. Dadrian, "Ottoman Archives and Denial of the Armenian Genocide,"
in Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian Genocide, Ch. 12; Vigen Guroian, "The
Politics and Morality of Genocide," in Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian
Genocide, Ch. 13; and the following articles by Roger W. Smith, "Genocide and
Denial: The Armenian Case and Its Implications," Armenian Review, 42:1 (Spring
1989), pp. 1-38; "Denial of the Armenian Genocide," in Charny, ed., Genocide,
Vol. 2, Ch. 3; and "The Armenian Genocide: Memory, Polities, and the Future,"
in Hovannisian, ed., Armenian Genocide, Ch. 1. See also the wide-ranging
discussion by Israel W. Charny, "The Psychology of Denial of Known Genocides,"
in Charny, ed., Genocide, Vol. 2, Ch. 1.

9. See, for example, Hovannisian, "The Armenian Genocide and Patterns of
Denial," in Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, pp. 115
131; and Roger W. Smith, "Genocide and Denial," pp. 15-20.

10. Edward Minasian, "Musa Dagh: The Film That Was Denied,"Journal of Armenian
Studies, 11:2 (Fall/Winter 1985 86), pp. 63-73; Hovannisian, "Patterns of
Denial," pp. 120-21.

11. Hovannisian, "Patterns of Denial," pp. 113-14, 124-27, 129 30.

12. Leo Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981), pp. 219-20; Smith, "Genocide and
Denial," pp. 22-23.

13. Leo Kuper, "Problems in Education on Genocide," Internet on the Holocaust
and Genocide, 14, (Feb. 198, Special Supplement, p. 1.

14. Israel W. Charny and Shamai Davidson, eds., The Book of the International
Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide: Book 1, The Conference Program and
Crisis (Tel Aviv: Institute of the International Conference on the Holocaust
and Genocide, 1983), pp. 269-315, and Israel W. Charny, ed., Toward the
Understanding and Prevention of Genocide (Boulder, Colorado and London:
Westview Press, 1984), pp. 364-372.

15. New York Times, 22 June 1982, p. A 4.

16. Our description of the Institute of Turkish Studies, Inc. is drawn from
the following sources: "The Institute of Turkish Studies, Inc.," a brochure
published in Washington, DC, by the Institute, not dated, but includes the
Director's Report for 1983 84; Report of the Institute of Turkish Studies,
Inc., 1982-1992 (Washington, DC: Institute of Turkish Studies, Inc., 1992);
Encyclopedia of Associations, 26th ed-1992 (Detroit and London: Gale Research,
Inc., 1991), 1:l 133; Stan Olson, ed., The Foundation Directory 1992 Edition
(New York: The Foundation Center, 1992), p. 228; William Wade, ed., National
Directory of Nonprofit Organizations, 1991, Volume 1: Organizations with
Revenues of $100,000 or More, Part 1: A-O (Rockville, MD: The Taft Group,
1991), pp. ix, 1078; and Speros Vryonis, Jr., The Turkish State and History:
Clio Meets the Grey Wolf, 2nd ed. (Thessaloniki and New Rochelle, NY:
Institute for Balkan Studies and Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher, 1993), Part
3. We are grateful to Dr. Rouben Adalian for making a copy of the brochure
published by the Institute of Turkish Studies available to us.

17. "The Institute of Turkish Studies, Inc.," p. 11.

18. Smith, "Denial of the Armenian Genocide," in Charny, ed., Genocide, 2:83.
In his most recent work, Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey's Role in Rescuing
Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945 (New York: New
York University Press, 1993), pp. 22, 27, Shaw accuses some Armenians residing
in Turkey during World War II of being pro-Nazi and antisemitie. See the
devastating review of Shaw's book by Bernard Wasserstein in the Times Literary
Supplement, 7 January 1994, pp. 44.

19. Report of the Institute of Turkish Studies, Inc., 1982-1992, pp. xi-xii.
The next chair in Turkish studies will be in the School of Foreign Service at
Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The Turkish government will
contribute $1.5 million toward establishing the professorship. See Georgetown
Magazine, Spring/Summer 1994, p. 12.

20. Isidor Wallimann and Michael N. Dobkowski, ed., Genocide and the Modern
Age (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 1987).

21. Heath W. Lowry, "The U.S. Congress and Adolf Hitler on the Armenians,"
Political Communication and Persuasion, 3:2 (1985), pp. 111-140. For a
thorough discussion of the Hitler remark, and its authenticity see Kevork B.
Bardakjian, Hitler and the Armenians (Cambridge, MA Zoryan Institute, 1985).

The remark attributed to Hitler is contained in a summary of Hitler's
speech to his generals about his plans to wage a ruthless war against Poland
on August 22, 1939. Within days, Louis P. Lochner of the Associated Press in
Berlin received from an "informant" a copy of the document, which is based on
notes taken by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of Hitler's military
intelligence. Lochner immediately brought the account to the attention of the
American and British embassies. He subsequently published the document in
translation in his book What About Germany? (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.,
1942), pp. 1-4.

The important issue is less the authenticity of the remark than what
lessons Hitler drew from the Armenian ease,

Fezzik:

ilovegerardway2much:

i hate how some ppl say WE SHOULD GO 2 AFRICA AND HELP THOSE PPL!! fuck the people in africa. we're in our own war right now and did africa help? no, who gives a shiot?

Africa can't help us because most places have been ravaged by wars and their natural resources stolen by old Imperial powers.
We however, can help Africa. America is supposed to be the protector of liberty and freedom, after all.
Also, no chatspeak or cursing on the Discussion Board. Rules.

EXACTLY!! how could you even say that!! how could you expect africa to help us!!?!?

ilovegerardway2much:

i hate how some ppl say WE SHOULD GO 2 AFRICA AND HELP THOSE PPL!! fuck the people in africa. we're in our own war right now and did africa help? no, who gives a shiot?

The world is not a sandbox and nations should not act like five year old children, shunning others for not sharing their toys. Nations are made up of millions of people and run by the few in charge--just because those few do not or cannot do what we want them to does not mean that we should ignore the tragedies inflicted on their people. That's childish at best, and downright malicious at worst.

Not to mention that Africa was destroyed by westerners, so it's the least we can do to grant them unconditional aid, without ulterior motives. And that goes for anyone--we're all people and borders drawn out on maps shouldn't be able to change that.