Head Over Hat

Armenia’s Architectural Language: Getting Lost in Translation

2007-08-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

Armenia’s Architectural Language: Getting Lost in Translation

An Interview with Jane Britt Greenwood, AIA

By Khatchig Mouradian and Jason Sohigian
(Joint Exclusive: Armenian Weekly/Hetq Online)
Hetq.am
April 16, 2007

WATERTOWN, Mass.—Jane Britt Greenwood has seen some of Armenia's struggles first-hand. An associate dean at the College of Architecture, Art, and Design at Mississippi State University, Greenwood and her husband went to Armenia after the earthquake of 1988 to assist in the establishment of the American University of Armenia (AUA).

After leaving Armenia, Greenwood began looking for ways to be involved in the reconstruction of the country she had come to love. As an architect, the rebuilding of Armenia's infrastructure interested her, but she was disappointed to find that the new buildings generally lacked the traditional Armenian character.

Working with the environmental organization Earthwatch Institute, Greenwood is now organizing four 11-day architectural research expeditions that will take international volunteers to Gyumri in June and July 2007.

Volunteers will identify and document the historical architectural elements and patterns in the historic districts, which will contribute to a database of architectural information that can be accessed by planners, architects and designers in Armenia.

For more information about this project or to join as a volunteer, visit: www.earthwatch.org/expeditions/greenwood.html

The following interview with Greenwood was conducted by phone on April 4.

Armenian Weekly/Hetq—How did Earthwatch Institute become interested in the Armenia expedition?

Jane Britt Greenwood—I proposed a project to Earthwatch a few years ago in Haiti related to vernacular architecture. They were interested in that project, but there was a coup in Haiti so it was put on hold. My program manager for that project knew about my interest in Armenia, and he asked me for another proposal that dealt with architecture.

Earthwatch gets a lot of proposals for projects that do things like work with endangered species like turtles and manatees, but they don't have many projects that deal with architecture. When Earthwatch tries to promote sustainability and the environment, they recognize that architecture is a part of the issue of sustainability, so they asked me to write another proposal that dealt with vernacular architecture. Since my interest has been in Armenia for so long, I wrote a proposal for this Armenia project.

AW/H—What specific observations do you have about Armenia's architecture? What are the traditional features and what is being built today?

J.G.—From a scholarly point of view, the information that is being been written has been mostly about churches. That is part of the cultural identity of Armenia, but there are other smaller structures that have just as much to do with establishing the identity of this country. People often don't see the value of smaller buildings such as houses and municipal buildings, but they have a lot to do with placing a country within a context of social and political issues.

In recent years there has been an economic boom in Armenia, especially in Yerevan, and I have seen a homogenization that is taking place within the architecture there. Near the Opera, the buildings are like a mini Times Square where you have billboards that are illuminated and you've got these modern office buildings going up with the horizontal ribbon windows. And when you take photographs of them they could be going up anywhere in the world.

My fear is that—and this is typical for many cultures that are trying to move forward from an economic point of view and trying to position themselves on the world stage—they look at what is being built in other parts of the world and they think, “We need to build glass boxes, we need to be like everybody else.” While that is certainly good, it causes people to not understand the value of their history and their architectural history and heritage.

From my point of view, a lot of that heritage in terms of housing has already been destroyed in Yerevan—you just don't find it anymore. In Gyumri, in the Kumayri Historic District and the old Alexandrapol area, there still are existing examples of Armenian architecture from the early 20th century. And I haven't seen anything like that in other parts of Armenia.

In the long term, I would like to see this project branch out into other areas, because I think Goris has great a vernacular cave typology, and Dilijan has a different type of housing typology. You start to see that the architectural structures are really specific to a location and the different regional influences of the community and the people. From an architectural point of view and a research and an academic point of view, that is information that needs to be documented and preserved.

It would be a terrible shame for Armenia to lose that part of their culture and history.

AW/H—In some historic parts of the U.S., you can't even paint your house a certain color. Yet in a place as old and historic as Armenia, it seems like you can build just about anything. What is going wrong with architecture in Armenia?

J.G.—There are a few factors, from a housing point of view, and at least in Gyumri. People fundamentally want shelter, and they want shelter that is safe, dry and comfortable. In Gyumri, a lot of people are still living in domiks, or in one or two rooms of a house because the rest of house was damaged in the 1988 earthquake. Many of these families don't have the resources to repair the houses, or when they do they are not as concerned with maintaining this sort of historic character. It's not a high priority—and I certainly understand that.

While there is the Ministry of Culture and there are some entities that deal with preservation, I don't know how well standards are enforced. It really has to occur at the local, municipal level, but a lot of people are still struggling with the day-to-day issues of living and surviving, so these issues really aren't in the forefront for them right now.

AW/H—What are you expecting to get out of this expedition? What could it lead to?

J.G.—It is fundamentally an educational process, it's a way to educate citizens of the value of historic structures. There is value in the long term. There can be tourism value, if it can be promoted so people will travel to Gyumri to look at the houses in this historic district.

But we also have to be careful. Through the development of a “pattern language,” I would like to be able to establish design guidelines and a strategy for growth. When people want to build in this area, it's not that everyone has to build like historic Alexandrapol. But there are qualities and components about these buildings—in the way windows are designed, for example—there are sustainability issues that need to be maintained. There is a lot that we can learn from these structures that will help the planning of the future of Gyumri.

If and when the border of Kars and Gyumri opens up, there is going to be a big economic boom in Gyumri. So, that historic district is at risk of being destroyed through this whole notion of economic development, and if we go through this process of education and documentation and look at restoring some of these structures, we can get a foothold in helping people recognize the value of what they have.

AW/H—What are the prospects of getting work done on the ground in terms of implementation? Is there a framework for future suggestions for approaching the government or municipalities?

J.G.—One of my long-term goals is to purchase one of these historic structures and actually go through a preservation/restoration process. This is a way to create jobs in the area, because there are a lot of skills in masonry and ironwork.

Gyumri has a rich history of artists, so there is an artistic culture and crafts culture that is being lost. It's a way to create jobs for people, to create a niche in the country for creating these kids of artifacts, returning to ironwork, stonework, masonry work, and educating the public and educating people with specific skills. Through that we can approach the government, if we can show that we are creating jobs and creating an environment that is becoming pleasing for people.

I think Gyumri is a welcome relief from the heat and smog of Yerevan in the summer. It is a matter of trying to sell the vision of what Gyumri could be. I'm just one architect with these ideas—all I can do is start with my project. And with awareness at the grassroots level people will become more interested in this and we can see where it goes.

The politics in Armenia are very complex and I'm not the person to get into that, but through this project and by raising awareness maybe someone can work from these ideas and help move the government, or at least the Gyumri government, toward these ideas. I know it is not going to happen overnight—it is a very complex problem from a political point of view—but as an architect all I can do right now is try to document, preserve and gather oral histories from people about their lives in these houses, what has been important to them about these houses, what is the social structure of family life as a result of these houses.

AW/H—There is pressure on people if they speak out about these matters and say, for example, that construction projects are destroying the heritage of Armenian cities. The atmosphere in Armenia is difficult in that respect. Do you have local partners in Armenia that are helping you with this work so you can be successful?

J.G.—I have been working in Gyumri with the City Research Center. Over the past 5-6 years, they have been developing a digital database of the buildings—they have been photographing and cataloguing the buildings, which has been great. But they have not been analyzing the buildings, looking at trends, and looking at it from a social behavioral point of view. So my research is trying to take that to the next step. But I have heard that it is difficult if people try to speak out, so all I can realistically do is document it.

AW/H—Are the construction projects in Armenia following any guidelines or do you think they maintain the heritage of the country?

J.G.—My impression is that there are some guidelines but they are not being followed. But it is the complexity of the political system and the building codes. And you find that in the U.S. as well, so it is not something that is specific to Armenia. Even developers in the U.S. know there are rules but they try to get around them, and it really depends on how strong the entity is that is trying to monitor it. If you don't have a strong municipal government or preservation group, you really don't have a way to find out if the preservation guidelines are being followed.

Quite often money speaks louder than anything, especially in a country that has been deprived of economic development for so many years. And it is hard to argue with that—I understand that. So it is a matter or trying to take one step at a time so we can document this. These buildings could be destroyed by earthquakes—and a lot of the buildings have been damaged by water over the years. There may be a point where someone says it is not financially responsible or feasible to maintain the buildings. Even in the U.S. when they look at restoring a structure there is a financial bottom line.

AW/H—You mentioned earthquakes—is it true that some of the new buildings going up begin to crumble before they are even finished? Is the new construction being built to withstand earthquakes?

J.G.—It is my understanding that things are supposed to be built to meet earthquake standards, but whether or not they are, I can't answer without speaking to architects and building inspectors there. But that's what I find interesting about these historic buildings. A lot of the buildings in the Kumayri Historic District have withstood two earthquakes, while those built after the Second World War didn't. There are a lot of things we can learn about the way those buildings were constructed—there are thermal qualities to those buildings, and there are a lot of lessons we can learn from that to help guide us in the future.

AW/H—How is this expedition being promoted in the international community? How are you trying to recruit volunteers for the trip?

J.G.—Earthwatch has an aggressive marketing strategy for all of their projects. They are contacting people like yourself and other Armenian media, promoting the expedition among their own volunteer networks internationally, and there is information about the expedition on their website, www.earthwatch.org. In Armenia, we are going to distribute material at hotels around Gyumri and Yerevan, and we are hoping to do a TV spot when we get there in the summer.

AW/H—If this trip is successful, is there potential for other Earthwatch expeditions in Armenia?

J.G.—Absolutely. There are plenty of archeological areas that could be investigated. Earthwatch has expeditions that document flora and fauna. From my point of view, Armenia has some beautiful flowers and wildflowers. There is a lot of opportunity for Earthwatch to be involved in Armenia—it is just a mater of finding other individuals like myself who are interested in trying to do something like this.

AW/H—How did you get interested in Armenia?

J.G.—My husband and I were living in Boston and he was teaching and saw an ad in the Chronicle of Higher Education about an American university [American University of Armenia] that was being initiated by the Diasporan community in California. His background is in business and engineering, and those are two areas in which they were starting programs, so we went over in 1992.

The Armenian government had given AUA some property in Abovian to build a new American style university, and they hired me to be the university architect. So I was the liason with architects from the University of California.

There were a lot of changes. The original site we looked at was a munitions storage area, and the site literally blew up the day after I went to look at it, so we spent a lot of time looking for another site. My final recommendation was that they stay in downtown Yerevan because transportation was an issue for people and no one knew what the future would look like.

Being there for a year and a half, I found the people to be very warm and everyone makes you a part of their family. It is a beautiful country, with so many different facets—it is so small with a varied landscape. I really fell in love with it and was fascinated with it, and I was looking for some way over the years to get involved architecturally with what was going on there.

I left in 1993 and I didn't return until five years ago, and I have been going back every summer since then to develop partnerships and look for projects. And I finally connected with the City Research Center in Gyumri (www.alexandrapol.org). I have a real passion for the country and the people and I am interested in learning about the culture that built this architecture.

AW/H—In the Earthwatch Institute's catalogue you say, “Join me on this exciting expedition to Armenia—it will truly be a life changing experience.” How do you think people's lives will change if they participate in this expedition?

J.G.—They will have a better appreciation of another country and they will learn a lot about themselves. Going to Armenia was a life changing experience for me at many levels—I realized I was stronger than I thought I was both emotionally and physically, and I think other people will find this as well. It is still a hard life in Armenia, and people will understand from a sustainability point of view that, for example, you don't need to take a shower for 15 minutes and use that much water.

Those sorts of life experiences are what I mean—and with architecture we talk about sustainability, green design and waste—but when you can experience another culture that really does so much with so little, then people will understand that you can do a lot with a little, and there are a lot of things we can cut back on in our lives in the U.S. or in the UK or Australia or wherever you are from, and you can still have a rich and fulfilling life.

Volunteers will learn about themselves from this experience, and they will learn about Armenia and architecture. It will make them look at their environment in a different way. It will make them realize they can make a difference in their own environment. Any time you have an educational process, if you can reach one or two of your students each semester, you have done a good job because they can go and reach other people. Whatever little progress we make will be a big step toward change somewhere down the line. I may never see it, but someone else might see the work we are doing and carry on from there.

You have to start somewhere, and I think this is that start.

Khatchig Mouradian is the editor of the Armenian Weekly (www.armenianweekly.com).
Jason Sohigian is deputy director of Armenia Tree Project (www.armeniatree.org).

An Interview with Vahan Hovhannesian

2007-08-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

Dual Citizenship: An Interview with Vahan Hovhannesian
By Khatchig Mouradian
The Armenian Weekly
August 11, 2007

On February 26, the Armenian National assembly passed a law allowing dual citizenship. In this interview, conducted in Washington on April 23, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Vahan Hovhannissian discusses the importance of that law.
Khatchig Mouradian—My first question goes beyond the legalities of the dual citizenship law. In a sense, the dual citizenship law could bring the two divided wings of the Armenian nation together. What are your thoughts on this matter?

Vahan Hovhannisian—First, I must say that the passage of the dual citizenship law will be considered one of the greatest victories of the ARF in this term of the National Assembly. As you know, the law wasn’t passed easily. But at the end, it passed more or less the way we wanted it to. In the beginning, constitutional obstacles to dual citizenship were removed, and then the law itself was passed. Now the third act remains: the implementation of the law on the ground and the coordination of details. How do people apply? What documents will they need to present? How will the applications be processed?

You are right to point out that the law has many different layers. On the one hand, it has a huge moral significance. As we all know, the Armenian diaspora was not the result of emigration, it was the result of the genocide when people were forced to leave their homeland. Thus, if the homeland, though not complete, has been able to achieve independence, then it is forced to give all of its children the right to citizenship. In our opinion this law should have been passed as early as 1991, as soon as Armenia became independent. Due to various political reasons, that was not accomplished. But at least now we have been able to bring this process to its end, and now any Armenian who would like to receive Armenian citizenship can do so, thus gaining the rights of any citizen, not limited to voting.

Here I must emphasize that I hope the number of applications will be plentiful and the number of Armenian citizens will grow. In the international theater, a country with a population of three million and another country with a population of five million carry different weight. The dual citizenship law must strengthen Armenian’s position.

Aside from that, the introduction of dual citizenship in Armenia will encourage investments. It is one thing to make investments in Armenia out of a feeling of moral obligation toward the homeland. It is an entirely different thing to be a citizen and a full participant of the civic life of the nation, whether in politics, in the social sphere, or in other spheres.

In one word, the law will create new waves of Armenians heading toward Armenia. Thus, the law will have far-reaching positive results.

K.M.—Perhaps this was more widely felt in the past, but there are some in Armenia who say that the diaspora did not go through the difficult times that Armenians in Armenia had to endure in the last decade, and claim that this should be taken into consideration when thinking about dual citizenship. What do you think?

V.H.—Such thinking easily crumbles in the face of criticism, since a large section of the Armenian population did not go through those difficult days either, and did not participate in the war. The Armenian authorities back then shielded their sons from military service, had electricity and heating, and did not share the people’s suffering. Can we take away their citizenship because of this? I think this line of thinking is madness, especially since there is a price to pay for becoming a dual citizen of Armenia—that is, a dual citizen cannot run for the presidency or for a seat in the National Assembly. I think from the point of view of fairness, this law is perfect.

K.M.—Naturally the passing of this law was welcomed by the diaspora. The question in the minds of diaporan Armenians is when and how will this law be implemented? Can applications only be filed in Armenia or will embassies also be accepting them?

V.H.—We didn’t get to discuss the concrete steps to implement the law because the elections are upon us and naturally the Assembly is on a hiatus. But I think this will be one of the first issues discussed after the elections. A committee has already been established that is dealing with the details, including how one applies, what documents are needed, how applicants will have to prove their Armenian origin, etc. There are some points that need to be fine-tuned, and some time will be needed, but I think it is a matter of weeks and that it will be resolved quickly after the elections.

In reality, there are no obstacles for applying now. Meaning, just like before, any individual who wants Armenian citizenship must apply to the President of the Republic. It is natural, of course, that under the circumstances a new process for the applications must be created. It is also not a secret that the security services will need to review applications, as some will attempt to abuse the system.

K.M.—What are the expectations from those who will benefit from the dual citizenship law? What are their duties and what will they gain?

V.H.—As far as the Armenian government is concerned, dual citizens are first and foremost citizens of Armenia. Where their other citizenship was issued is of no interest to us. As such, they have the same duties toward the Republic as any Armenian citizen would. That includes serving in the military and other duties. Of course, when an individual is a citizen of Armenia and another country, we cannot allow him or her to become an Assembly member or President. But that doesn’t mean dual citizens will never be able to serve in those posts. After living in Armenia for 10 years, they may give up their other citizenship and receive full rights. There is one problem: How are people to pay taxes? There are international tax agreements and Armenia has signed such agreements with many countries. These will ensure that the individual doesn’t pay the same tax twice in two separate countries. And of course, those who have served in another army for 12 months will not have to complete compulsory military service in Armenia. Also, those who are past the age of 27 will not have to serve in the military, Dual citizens are also completely under the jurisdiction of the Armenian government. For example—and this is a rather bad example—if an individual commits a crime, the Armenian authorities will consider him as an Armenian citizen, and the individual won’t be able to claim, say, that he is a citizen of the U.S., or Syria, or France, and that he would like to be tried in those countries under their penal codes. As far as the authorities are concerned, a dual citizen of Armenia is a citizen of Armenia, and so if you were to commit a crime in Armenia, the Armenian authorities would prosecute you based on the Armenian penal code. The Armenian government’s approach to dual citizens is identical to the approach used by the United States. The U.S., too, recognizes dual citizenships, but treats all of its citizens, including its dual citizens, the same way. Armenia will do the same.

K.M.—In your view, what will the future bring and are there concerns for possible obstacles? Is it possible that the law will be transformed into an internal political tool?

V.H.—I don’t think that’s a concern, because in essence no one was opposed to the concept of dual citizenship. People’s hesitance had much more to do with voting rights—that is, there was the impression among many that diasporan Armenians, by becoming citizens of Armenia, were mostly going to vote for the ARF. This view, by the way, is far from the truth. I don’t think that kind of vote will be large enough to have any effect on today’s political landscape. On the other hand, if we really want the diaspora to be a political presence in our country, if we really want to create one nation in one state, and if we truly want to attract Western Armenians—the diaspora—into our political life, we must allow for their political preferences. So yes, all of those political parties that have come alive in Armenia over the last few years should start taking into consideration the interests of the diasporans, so they can gain their votes. This is a very normal process and there shouldn’t be any problems, especially since in the future the flow towards Armenia should be large. But I don’t think there will be enough applications in the next few months or enough citizenships granted that there will be a political imbalance in Armenia. I don’t think it will happen and I think the fears that it will are not grounded in reality.

K.M.—You said that this law would allow the Diaspora to inch closer toward Armenia. As for the opposite effect—how will it move Armenia closer to the diaspora?

V.H.—Here the issue is dual. If citizens of Armenia today were to gain citizenship in another country, they would not be immune from their obligations, such as serving in the Armenian army. This is one serious problem. The second problem is the issue of the Armenian population in Russia, who have close ties to Armenia, yet value their ties with Russia. We must work with the Russian authorities and come to some kind of agreement regarding the status of the Armenian population there, since it is the largest Armenian population outside of Armenia.

As for the rapprochement between Armenia and the diaspora, I think that’s going to take some time because the division between Western and Eastern Armenians, which was forcefully and artificially created by our enemies, was performed a long time ago. The division has been made. In that rapprochement between Eastern and Western Armenians, whole mentalities have to be reconciled with each other. And the issue is not just economic, it’s not about investing in Armenia or buying a house in Armenia. It is about Armenian grammatical rules, the literary language of Western Armenians and Eastern Armenians—which Armenian children in both Armenia and the Diaspora should start studying in equal amounts. These are very serious and far-reaching issues that need to be resolved. This rapprochement won’t be easy. For example, Armenia can’t just move a magic wand and pass a law forcing classical orthographic rules down peoples’ throats, because that means whole libraries will have to be corrected and a whole generation that doesn’t know the rules will become illiterate. Instead, this change requires long-winded efforts as well as a government plan. We have had a few Armenia-Diaspora summits to find solutions to these issues. Unfortunately, the solutions have not yet been found. The Armenia-Diaspora rapprochement, unfortunately, has not yet occurred.

An Interview with Hrag Yedalian

2007-08-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

An Interview with Hrag Yedalian
The Director of ‘The People’s Advocate’ Talks about His Debut Film
By Khatchig Mouradian

The Armenian Weekly
August 4, 2007

Criminal defense and civil rights attorney Charles R. Garry is associated with numerous high profile cases in the ‘60s, making him one of the leading attorneys of the 20th century. In his career, which abruptly came to an end when one of his clients, Rev. Jim Jones, led 900 of his followers to mass suicide, Garry defended Black Panther Party chairman Bobby Seale and the anti-Vietnam war activists known as the Oakland 7, among others. He died in 1991, at the age of 82.

In his autobiography Seize the Time Bobby Seale wrote, “We don’t know every detail of Charles’ life, but we can see that he is a man who is dedicated to the survival and the existence of the right to self-determination of human beings. We need a lot more history on Charles R. Garry so we can understand what motivates a man to be such a defender of the people’s human rights.” In the documentary The People’s Advocate: The Life and Times of Charles R. Garry, director Hrag Yedalian attempts to find out what motivated the Armenian-born Garry (Garabedian) to embark on that road.

Yedalian studies film at the American Film Institute Conservatory. The people’s advocate is his first documentary. This phone-interview was conducted on July 30.

K.M.—Why did you decide to do a documentary on Charles Garry?
H.Y.—I was this young person trying to get involved with different causes and all of that was pretty much motivated by my origin, by the fact that my grandfather was a survivor of the genocide. I wanted to take that motivation and channel it in a positive way. And quite frankly, I was born in the U.S, I grew up in the U.S., I went to school here. It’s pretty important for me to get involved with what’s going on here. Charles Garry’s story was fascinating for a number of reasons. Despite the fact that he was probably one of the most sought after civil rights attorneys during the ‘60s, here was this guy of Armenian descent, and he was defending all these people who were seen as the poster boys and girls for the “Revolution.” I wanted to look into the story but most importantly, I want to use the story as an example.
As an AYF member, I used to interact with literally dozens if not hundreds of youth my age, and I wanted them to see that in addition to Genocide recognition, there are so many profound issues that affect us. I felt that Garry’s example would serve as a positive influence. Garry was an individual of Armenian descent who went out of his way, became an attorney and defended human rights.
I’m sure Garry has been criticized for changing his name, etc. I’m sure Armenians of the time felt that he wasn’t “Armenian enough.” But if you look into his trial transcripts of any of the Panther cases, or any of the anti-Vietnam war cases, his opening and closing statements often include reference to his own people. When defending the oppressed, his essential argument for the jury was: These people are being oppressed, segregated in this country today. Throughout history, we’ve seen what has happened to, for example, the Armenian people, and we can’t allow our government to be oppressive in the same ways that other governments have been in the past. And that was his main thrust, that was the central focus, and he understood it. So addition to being an Armenian who was discriminated against in the Fresno area, he lived through the Depression, he knew how difficult it is for the poor to get by in the U.S. So it was the dynamic of all this that attracted me to his story and I really wanted to present it to the public in general and people my age in particular.

K.M.—Talk about the sources you used.
H.Y.—At Berkley, I took this history class titled “Rethinking the Sixties.” The purpose of the class was to work on a substantial paper that dealt with any topic of the ‘60s. After the first class I was already thinking of Charles Garry. I approached the Professor and told him that I’m very interested in writing about Garry, but because there isn’t a lot of printed material I want to go and interview people. After she gave me the OK, I called Roxanne and asked for her advice. She e-mailed me the contact information of people she had spoken to and interacted with, and that’s where it started. I started talking to people.
Roxanne had the benefit of dealing directly with Garry. I never had that benefit because Gary passed away in 1991. So I had to tell a story about Gary without Gary, basically. Obviously the best way to do that was to interview the people who were closest to him. So if you see the interviewee list, it includes everyone from, let’s say, Bobby Seal, the co-founder of the Panthers, to his longtime girlfriend, to his two brothers, who both passed away since. So you have all this oral testimony that’s actually quite fascinating. I wanted to intentionally make a film that was not the duplicate of Roxanne’s film. At the end, I wanted for someone who was really interested in Garry to get different pieces from each of the movies. The only interviewee that appears in both is Bobby Seal.
In addition to that, the main sources come from the archival footage that I found from local television stations in San Francisco. That’s where the gold was. I think I’ve used archival footage from at least six or seven sources if not more. Also, an important part of the film was Garry’s legal documents; they are all at UC Berkley and I spent a few months going through them. There are copies of paperwork and legal files that I was fortunate enough to obtain and go over. So it’s really the mix of four or five different types of sources in the film.

K.M.—Can you tell us briefly about your background? You mentioned your work in the AYF, but give us a more general background, your education, etc.
H.Y.—Well I went to two Armenian private schools. After I graduated from high school, what I really wanted to do was get firmly involved in the political process. During high school and after, I was involved with local political campaigns here in Los Angeles to get people registered to vote. I was fortunate enough to be a part of that process. And as I got more and more immersed, I decided to sort of take a different route. I got interested in organizational work, in international human rights work, and I wanted to go to law school so that I could try to do similar things. Garry’s a good example of what civil rights/human rights attorneys can do with their careers. After graduating Berkley, I started law school. I registered at UCLA Law, but a few weeks into it, because I was so involved with this documentary, I decided that it wasn’t the route to go. So I left law school for film school, and that’s sort of the route that I’ve decided on at this point—making films and hopefully trying to influence a few people through that work.

K.M.—So you’re still studying?
H.Y.—I’m still studying, yes. I’m going to start my second year in September.

K.M.—Let’s talk about the people you interviewed. Can you tell us how you made the selection, and about your experiences with interviewees like Howard Zinn?
H.Y.—To be in my position and to talk to these people was sort of an unreal experience because most of them are people who have influenced history. To have the privilege to talk to these people was a big deal for me.
You mentioned Howard Zinn. I’ll start with him. I’ve always been fascinated with his work, and I called him and told him that I was looking for a narrator for a film on Garry and whether he would be interested. Immediately, without hesitation—and I was actually shocked by it—he said he would definitely be interested in doing that.
I caught him at a very busy time in his life. He was going across the country, and if he was to do the narration, he would have had to spend a lot of time writing it. So we agreed to take a different route: He would be in the film, and he would provide the historic context. So, for example, when we’re talking about the anti-communist hunts during the 1950’s or the Vietnam War, he provides a brief context. There are four Panthers in the movie. There’s Bobby Seal, who was an obvious choice, and the other three are very interesting and important choices. One has to realize that although Charles Garry was defending Bobby Seal or others in court, he wasn’t constantly interacting with them because these were men in prison. He would visit them but he wasn’t interacting with them on a constant basis. He was interacting with the other people involved in the party. In fact, he was probably closest to David Hilliard, who was the chief of staff of the Panther Party. David talks about this on the phone. He and Charles Garry, they were partners during the late ‘60s. They would go around college campuses and David would represent the party, and Garry would talk about the legal aspects. And they would literally go on tours and raise money for these causes and talk about these cases. And then there is Ericka Huggins, who is an extremely sensitive person and truly admired Garry. I also interviewed Kathleen Cleaver because she knew the party inside and out, and she was very active with the first Panther trial. In addition to knowing Garry pretty well, she provides the historic background to most of these cases. Most of the interviewees were incredibly generous in lending their time and support to the film.

K.M.—Talk about Garry’s brothers, Harvey and Haig Garabedian.
H.Y.—Actually, the first interview I conducted was with both of the brothers in 2003. They were living in Fresno and I called them up, and we basically developed this friendship, and they would talk literally for hours.
They definitely didn’t know the details about, let’s say, his involvement with the Panthers, or his decision to take on this case or that case. They didn’t know any of that. What they did know, was about their roots, what Garry was going through as a child growing up in Fresno... That was the most important part.
Unfortunately, the brothers never saw my film. In fact, I don’t think Garry ever saw the final cut of Roxanne’s film, so it’s pretty unfortunate actually.

An Interview with Congressman Brad Sherman

2007-07-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

An Interview with Brad Sherman
By Khatchig Mouradian
The Armenian Weekly
Volume 73, No. 30, July 28, 2007

WASHINGTON (A.W.)—Congressman Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) serves on the House Committee on International Relations. I talked to him on July 16 about the Armenian Genocide Resolution and the prospects of passing it in the Committee and later in the House of Representatives. To watch the video of the interview, visit www.haireniktv.com.

Khatchig Mouradian—Congressman, now that we have a majority in the House supporting the Armenian Genocide Resolution, where do we go from here?

Brad Sherman—Well, we got to go to Committee. There, my biggest fear is the weakening of the resolution. As you know, six of us introduced the resolution and I’m the only one who was on the relevant committee at the time. And my fear is some will say they would support the resolution but ask for amendments. There are some amendments we can support. I, for one, wouldn’t mind if this resolution, with all humility, pointed out that the United Stated has done some terrible things in its history, and that we’re not lecturing others without looking at ourselves. We’ve passed many other resolutions in this Congress talking about the terrible things the United States has done in its history. So [our next step is] getting it through the Committee, and having a Speaker who has the courage to deal with the president when they try to vilify her for bringing this bill up.

K.M.—And how is the situation in the Committee now?

B.S.—We have co-sponsors representing roughly half of the Committee. A number of people are not co-sponsors in the Committee but will vote for it. Timing is part of this. Do we get a chance to mark it up in July? Do we have to wait till September?

And the other part is: Can the other side come up with some sneaky amendment (and their goal would be to eliminate the word genocide)? I mean, this resolution has many words, but there’s one word that has to be in it. And I’ll be there fighting in Committee. We’ve gotten through the Committee before, and we have to do it again, because we have a speaker who has the courage to put it on the floor.

K.M.—You referred to the “other side.” Can you talk about this other side and how they’re mobilizing in recent years?

B.S.—The Turkish government has hired the most expensive lobbyists here in Washington. They are flying my colleagues to Turkey for trips and they are making a variety of claims as to how the resolution would affect U.S.-Turkish relations. They fail to talk about how Turkey reacted to the French Parliament when it passed a similar resolution. French exports to Turkey have almost tripled since then.

We’re up against two of the most powerful former members of Congress [Dick Gephardt and Bob Livingston] who have been hired for some of the largest fees.

K.M.—What are the chances of having the resolution put on the floor?

B.S.—Pelosi is dedicated, but the community has to remember that the attack will come to the White House, and that attack will be the questioning of the dedication of all of us to the national security of America.

They will say, “Aha! You are hurting our troops in Iraq.” They will go beyond that and will claim that this is somehow politically motivated and is simply catering to one particular community. The fact is that this resolution represents the truth, and we in our Committee just a few weeks ago voted to chastise Japan’s sexual enslavement of women during World War II. And if we can criticize Japan, we can criticize Turkey.

K.M.—Why is it important for the United States to stand up and recognize a genocide that took place 92 years ago in a different part of the world?

B.S.—First, recognition is important because of what it means to the Armenian community and to those who actually survived those terrible events. Secondly, genocide denial is the last step of genocide: You destroy the people, and then you destroy the memory. Genocide denial is also the first step of the next genocide. After the Rwandan genocide, others in Africa thought they could get away with genocide in Darfur.

An Interview with Congressman Adam Schiff

2007-07-26T11:03:00.000-07:00

An Interview with Congressman Adam Schiff
By Khatchig Mouradian
The Armenian Weekly
July 21, 2007

On July 16, I flew to Washington to interview Congressmen leading the charge for Armenian genocide recognition. Below is the first of these interviews, with Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), conducted on July 17.

Khatchig Mouradian—You’ve been at the forefront of the work for the recognition of the Armenian genocide in the U.S. We now have a majority in the House supporting the Genocide Resolution. Where do we go from here?

Adam Schiff—Well, we want to make sure that when we bring up the Genocide Resolution for a vote both in the House International Relations Committee and the Floor, we can win. We have almost the majority in the Committee and we have a bare majority in the House. We’d like to expand that. We’d like to get some measure of comfort both in the Committee and the House Floor. When the vote gets scheduled, you’re going to see the efforts of the Turkish lobby doubled, tripled, quadrupled, and what that will mean is that there will be a major push to get people to kill the resolution, to find some rationale for why they were co-sponsors but they don’t have to vote for it. In the committee, we have to anticipate attempts to amend the resolution in the way Turkey wants. So we have to make sure that the strength is going to persist in the wake of the onslaught that we can expect. Right now, we want to beef up those numbers even more, which also helps us make the case to the leadership and say, “We’re ready, let’s bring it up.”

K.M.—You mentioned the opposition, and we’ve been talking about the Turkish lobby and former Congressmen making millions of dollars campaigning against the resolution. What has been different in the way the Turkish lobby has operated this year?

A.S.—This year, their efforts are far more intense than ever before, and I think it’s because there’s a new leadership in the House. The old leadership, [former Speaker] Dennis Hastert, had promised to bring up the resolution, and then reneged on that promise. I think the Turkish lobby felt safe under his Speakership. They still lobbied against it. I had amendments that I could offer to committees and the House Floor that the Speaker couldn’t stop. So the Turkish lobby was still active and spending millions on Livingston and others. But now the campaign is far more intense because I think both sides realize that this is the key year. What gets done this year is likely to be repeated every year. If we succeed in recognizing the Armenian genocide this year, we’ll succeed next year and the year after. It will become matter-of-fact—every year it’s brought up and every year it passes. If we fail this year, then it’s going to be more difficult to succeed next year or the year after. Once a precedent is set, it’s very hard to change it. So I think all sides realize this is crunch time.

K.M.—The decision to move the resolution to a vote rests on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. How do you think the Armenian community can contribute to a positive decision by the Speaker?

A.S.—I’ve had a number of meetings with the Speaker on this—and I don’t speak for her, she speaks for herself—but she’s always been very supportive of the Genocide Resolution, and that support continues, so I’m optimistic. I don’t have a date to give you, and I can’t promise anything 100 percent, but I’m optimistic. We’re still working to show that the strength is there and that it will withstand the pressure when this is scheduled for a vote, but I think our leadership certainly recognizes the fact of the Armenian genocide. There is strong opposition from Turkey and from all the people that Turkey has hired. They are raining down on the leadership saying the world is going to come to an end if we recognize the murder of a million and a half people in the beginning of the last century. But I think the leadership can withstand that pressure. What can the community around the country do? You know, it can contact all the members of our leadership and thank them for their support of the Armenian Genocide Resolution, urge them to take it up for a vote soon. I think that kind of positive message is the best message because the leadership has always been supportive. And it’s important for them to hear from the proponents because they will certainly hear from the opponents.

K.M.—Why is it important for the United States to recognize a crime that took place in a different part of the world more than 90 years ago?

A.S.—I think there are two reasons. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel described it best when he said that denial is the final phase of genocide. And in that sense, the Armenian genocide continues. There is a victimization that continues to go on with the denial, and I think there’s a moral obligation to set the record straight and not deny the loss, the pain, the grief that tremendous numbers of people have suffered due to this tragedy.

Secondly, I think [failing to recognize it] undermines our credibility in America on some of the pivotal issues of the day, like the genocide going on in Darfur. How do we stand up and call the world’s attention to the genocide in Darfur and have the kind of moral leadership we need to bring that to an end? Some will argue, “Well, sure, you’ll recognize the genocide committed by the Sudanese government. They’re weak. But when it comes to the murder of the Armenians, because Turkey is strong, you won’t recognize the facts.” What does that say? I don’t think that’s a position of great morality. I don’t it’s a position of great leadership and I think it undermines our credibility.

K.M.—Tens of thousands watched the video of your debate with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on the Armenian genocide. Where do you think the administration really stands? Do you think there is the intention of finding some sort of resolution to this issue?

A.S.—At this point I’d have to say no. I think that the Administration has just sort of dug its heels to oppose the genocide recognition. And I thought Secretary Rice’s answers were deeply disappointing. I asked her a question about the facts, the historic facts, and she didn’t answer. She doesn’t have a question—no one can have a question about the historical facts. But the Administration has made a decision other administrations have made before: The expedient thing is not to offend an ally. And where they’re coming from is, we don’t have that many allies left, certainly not in the Muslim world. And I recognize that. I think it’s important that we maintain an alliance with Turkey, but that alliance should not be at the cost of not speaking the truth about one of the most savage crimes of the last century. And I don’t think it does much for our alliance, or our friendship, to stick our head in the sand.

An Interview with Margaret Anderson

2007-06-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

Germany and the Armenian Genocide
An Interview with Margaret Anderson

By Khatchig Mouradian

ZNet
November 14, 2006

The issue of German responsibility in the Armenian Genocide has been researched by a number of scholars in the past decades. The Ottoman Empire was an ally of Germany during WWI, when up to a million and a half Armenians were uprooted from the Empire and perished in a state-sponsored campaign of mass annihilation.

On June 15, 2005, the German Parliament passed a motion honoring and commemorating “the victims of violence, murder and expulsion among the Armenian people before and during the First World War.” The Bundestag deplored “the deeds of the Young Turkish government in the Ottoman Empire which have resulted in the almost total annihilation of the Armenians in Anatolia.”

The Bundestag also acknowledged and deplored “the inglorious role played by the German Reich which, in spite of a wealth of information on the organized expulsion and annihilation of Armenians, has made no attempt to intervene and stop these atrocities.”

In this interview with Professor Margaret Anderson, conducted by phone from Beirut, we discuss issues related to Germany and the Armenian Genocide.

Margaret Anderson is a professor of history at the University of California in Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. from Brown University. She has researched electoral politics and political culture in Germany and in a comparative European perspective; democracy and democratic institutions; religion and politics; and religion and society, -especially Catholicism in the 19th century. She is the author of Windthorst: A Political Biography (Oxford University Press, 1981 and , Practicing Democracy: Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany (Princeton University Press, 2000). Her research has more recently revolved around Germany and the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian Genocide.

Khatchig Mouradian: How did you first become interested in the Armenian Genocide?

Margaret Anderson: It was quite an accident. When I finished my last book, I needed to do something different so that I didn’t get stale. A colleague of mine, who researched Italian history during the same period, said “You should work on the Armenians.” I told him that I can’t work on the Armenians, I don’t read Armenian, I don’t read Turkish. And he said, yes, but you read German and there is a lot of stuff to do on Germany.” He was right. There are 56 volumes in the German Foreign Office devoted to the Armenian persecutions, as well as many more under other titles—like the embassy in Constantinople—that are quite relevant to this horrible story.

I have a colleague, Stephan Astourian, a specialist in Armenian history, without whom I could never have begun this. He was immediately helpful in steering me to the proper Armenian sources and letting me understand the historiography.

K.M.: How thoroughly have these documents been researched?

M.A.: Vahakn N. Dadrian has used them, most notably in German Responsibility in The Armenian Genocide: A Review of the Historical Evidence of German Complicity (1996), and even before that several other people have done it. Ulrich Trumpener had an excellent chapter in his 1968 book, Germany and the Ottoman Empire 1914-1918. More recently, Rolf Hosfeld's Operation Nemesis: Die Türkei, Deutschland und der Völkermord an den Armeniern (2005); Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Cornell, Ithaca, 2005) and Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Armenians (Oxford, 2005) employ these documents to good effect. As far as I know, scholars in Turkey haven’t published anything using these materials; though when I was in the German Foreign Office Archives in Berlin, it was clear that some Turkish scholars had seen them. When you work in German archives you have to sign a sheet saying you have used these documents. So sometimes you can see who has used them ahead of you. Now, the documents from the German Foreign Office published by Johannes Lepsius in 1919 (under the title Deutschland und Armenien), along with the parts that his edition left out (which are not as significant as some scholars have thought) can be found online, edited by Wolfgang Gust. Gust has inserted in italics the parts that Lepsius's Deutschland und Armenien left out. Gust was able to do this by comparing Lepsius’s collection with the original documents. These are available online [at www.armenocide.de].

K.M.: In German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide, Dadrian argues that Lepsius left these sections out on purpose.

M.A.: I think Gust himself has now become a little more moderate on that issue. Most of the phrases and passages left out are completely insignificant from the standpoint of the question, Was there an Armenian Genocide and who was involved? They do not bear significantly on the question of the Genocide’s character. In some cases, Lepsius—if it was Lepsius who was responsible for the omissions—may have been protecting fellow Germans and Germany’s reputation, but in most of the cases, it seems to me, he was protecting Armenians. That is—and the national school of Turkish historians will be quick to jump on this—he would soften or leave out cases of Armenian revolutionary violence, and cover that up. Lepsius presents a picture of almost complete Armenian victimhood, of a people with no ability to strike back. Well, we know that is not true; the Armenians struck back when they could. But Lepsius was a churchman, and so disapproved of violence. And he was also trying to protect Armenians against what he had long known was the false charge of the German Turkophiles: that the Armenians were terrorists, that the “deportations” were a security measure against traitors, and that the CUP [Committee of Union and Progress] was only protecting the Ottoman state.

K.M.: Before we discuss Germany and the Ottoman Empire during WWI, can you put the pre-war German-Ottoman relations into perspective?

M.A.: Twenty years before the war and even right before the war, Germany didn’t have as many interests in the Ottoman Empire as, for example, the French and even the Austrians. It had less economic investment and fewer cultural institutions, but it certainly hoped to have a future there. Until the second Balkan war (1912-13), Germany worked very hard to keep the Ottoman Empire in operation because it was afraid, as many of the great powers were, that if the Ottoman Empire disintegrated, another European power would get it—probably Russia, and maybe even England or France. There was the fear that any country that annexed the Ottoman Empire, or parts of it, would grow too powerful, and the European equilibrium would grow dangerously unbalanced. Germany would suffer in particular, because unlike the others it had no foothold in the Mediterranean. This is why the Germans didn’t want the Ottoman Empire to dissolve.

After 1912, the Ottoman Empire began to look as if it were going to dissolve anyway, whatever Germany or the other European powers did. This feeling that it would soon go into “liquidation,” as the German Foreign Office called it, caused Germany to suddenly support the Armenians in 1913-14 in ways it had not done before. Germany in fact now so supported the reform deal in Eastern Anatolia that the powers finally forced the Ottomans to sign in February 1914, granting the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia a certain parity in public offices with the Muslim population there, and thus a kind of regional autonomy. Germany had not been in favor of insisting on reforms in the past, siding with the Ottoman government in resisting them. But in 1913 and the first half of 1914, seeing that the dissolution of the Empire might be near, it wanted to have friends in what would be the leftover pieces. These friends, they hoped, would be the Armenians.

K.M.: But this was far from materializing into something positive for the Armenians, wasn’t it? According to Hilmar Kaiser, from 1915-16 a uniform position toward the Ottoman Armenians did not exist.

M.A.: Well, yes. But by 1915-16, Germany was in the midst of a World War, which changed every calculation. And remember, the German government lacked a uniform position on many burning issues: about the future of the Ukraine, which the Germans were occupying in 1915, and the future of Belgium, which they had occupied since August 1914. There was no uniform German position on any of the central questions about the post-war settlement. Rather, there were huge conflicts within the German government itself during WWI as the right-wingers (much of the Army) and the moderates (mostly the Chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg, and the Foreign Office) struggled for control over future policy. So the absence of a uniform position on the Ottoman Armenians is not surprising. However, having said that, I think it is also true that at the higher reaches of the German government, the decision was that they had an ally—the Ottoman government—and they would not do anything that would jeopardize their alliance with it. Although there were many Germans in the Ottoman Empire itself—businessmen, bankers, engineers, diplomats—protesting the Ottoman policy, by the time the issue got to the top in Berlin, the Chancellor’s position was clear: Whatever the Turks may do, they are our allies and not the Armenians.

K.M.: So can we say that there was a policy of denying the extermination of the Armenians.

M.A.: Yes and no. Yes, it was denied to the public at large. This was a policy in which other sections of society were complicit. My work has been on German public opinion, and the elites knew what was going on. Top professors of oriental languages; some journalists; at least six superintendents (roughly bishops) in the Protestant church; certainly the lay leadership among German Catholics (such as the Center Party's leader in parliament Matthias Erzberger, who was assassinated by Right-wing thugs after the war); the pope; the head of the Deutsche Bank (as Hilmar Kaiser and Gerald D. Felman have shown); and other important members of the Reichstag, such as the later winner of the Nobel Peace Price, the liberal Gustav Stresemann, knew. Stresemann decided to keep silent about it. An Armenian-born graduate student in Berlin, Frau Elizabeth Khorikian, did a study of one of the largest circulation (and Left-wing) newspapers in Berlin during 1915, the Berliner Tageblatt. This paper issued sometimes three to four different editions a day, because every time there was war news, they brought another edition. And She looked at every single one. And in all of these issues, she found only five mentions of the Armenians during that whole period. Three were interviews with Talaat Pasha, Enver Pasha and Halil Pasha, and two were reproductions of Turkish news releases. That’s it. The newspapers knew very well what was going on. Both the Social Democratic and the Christian press knew it. Christian journals said the most, although they said it carefully and in guarded language. Lepsius gave an interview on the 5th of October, 1915, to a group of newspapermen in Berlin, to tell them what he had learned on his recent trip to Constantinople/Istanbul from late July to early August. An editor of a socialist newspaper wrote: “If one wanted to apply European concepts of morality and politics to Turkish relationships, one would arrive at a completely distorted judgment.” In general, the newspapers were willing to follow the view that, We are in a war and the government thinks this alliance is important to us, so we will continue this alliance.

K.M.: Are you saying that there was no direct censorship?

M.A.: There was also direct censorship. When Lepsius printed 20,500 copies of his documents, many of them were confiscated by the German General in charge of censorship for the Berlin area before the Turks had even protested. But I think that had the press wanted to break the story, they could have done it. There was so much self-censorship that the government didn’t have to intervene. We will never know what would have happened if the press had tried to distribute Lepsius’s material, but they didn’t try, because they believed that it was more important to have the Turks on their side. The Allied invasion of Gallipoli began in March 1915. The defense of Gallipoli, it was believed, was absolutely central to a German victory, which Germans equated with their survival. And remember: 1,303 German soldiers died, on average, every day between August 1914 and armistice in November 1918. Not surprisingly, Germans were preoccupied by what was happening in Belgium, France, Galicia and the eastern front. They were not thinking that much about Turkey.
For me, that is all the more reason to see Lepsius, for all his flaws, as a hero. He didn’t pay attention only to what was best for Germany. Five days after his son was killed on the eastern front, he arrived in Constantinople, and according to him interviewed not just Enver Pasha but also Talaat. In my view, nobody has looked into the genuine mysteries behind Lepsius’s trip to Constantinople/Istanbul enough: Why did the German Foreign Office give him permission to go? How was he able to get an interview with Enver, and if he was telling the truth, also with Talaat? An ordinary friend of the Armenians and an ordinary writer and journalist (he wasn’t a pastor anymore since he had been forced to give that up when he refused to stop agitating on behalf of the Armenians in 1896) certainly would not have been able to in wartime talk to the War Minister or the Interior Minister of his own country, much less a foreign one. I believe that he was only able to do that because the German Foreign Office put pressure on the Turks to receive him. Why do you think they would have done that? Isn’t that a question worth asking?

K.M.: Why do you think they did that?

M.A.: In my view, they did it because at that time Lepsius made the German Foreign Office believe that the Armenians were, in fact, militarily important. Lepsius was playing a very dangerous game. He tried to play up the military importance of the Armenians on the Russian side of the border, and argued that they could be rallied to the side of the Central Powers (Germany and Austria), and that if they weren’t rallied behind the German cause—and here was the dangerous corollary—that they could actually hurt the Germans and the Turks in the war. That is, of course, the very excuse the Turkish government uses to justify what happened. But I think that in fact Lepsius was trying to exaggerate the military danger of the Armenian revolutionary movement in order to get Germany to pressure the Turks to stop the deportations and massacres. But by the time he got to Constantinople, by late July or early August 1915, most Armenians had already been deported, and it was clear to the German government that they had nothing to offer the Germans and posed no military threat to the Turks.

K.M.: Are there any documents on this?

M.A.: Beginning in late May 1915, Lepsius began contacts with the German Foreign Office in connection with the Van massacres and offered himself as a mediator between the Turks and Armenians. He tried to impress the Foreign Office with how important the Armenians could be for Germany. “One cannot treat a nation of four million as a quantité négligeable,” he said. He described the Armenians as a rope stretching from Turkey to Russia, with one half of in Russia and the other in Turkey. “It cannot be to our advantage, if one half, the Russian half, is constantly courted and flattered, while the other, the Turkish half, faces only oppression.” Like a tug-of-war, the advantage would go to whichever side can pull that rope over to its side. “It is impossible to cut that rope. Language, Literature, Church, Customs are an unbreakable band. The extermination policy of Abdul Hamid only wove the rope even tighter.” In early June 1915, the Undersecretary of State at the German Foreign Office, Arthur Zimmermann, thought that it might be true and asked the German Ambassador to Constantinople, Hans vonWangemheim, to arrange an interview. Wangenheim said that the Turks don’t want to see Lepsius, and advised against any visit. But the Foreign Office insisted, I think, not out of any particular humanitarianism, but because Lepsius had managed to convince it that the Armenians would be helpful to them. Lepsius, of course, knew that they were being victimized. If Lepsius had been able to get to Constantinople right away, maybe in early June, he would not have been able to convince the CUP. But given his Foreign Office backing, he just might have been able to bring more German influence to bear on Turkish policy.

It is not only now that Turkey tries to deny what happened. Even then the CUP tried to keep everything absolutely secret in order to maintain “deniability” at all times. In my view, the major weapon against what was happening was publicity, and that is what the Turkish government, and later Lepsius, understood. But not everyone who supported the Armenians understood that. On the 16th of July, 1915, the U.S. Ambassador to Constantinople, Henry Morgenthau, wrote to the American State Department that “a campaign of race extermination is in progress,” yet he recommended against any protest, because he thought it would make the situation worse. Morgenthau is a hero among the Armenian-Americans (see, for example, Peter Balakian’s book, Black Dog of Fate), not only because of the efforts he made on behalf of the Armenians while he was in Turkey, but also, probably, because at the end of the war he writes memoirs in which he makes himself look brave and good—and the German diplomatic personnel look all bad. I don’t deny that Morgenthau helped the Armenians, and he gave information to Lepsius to publish. But he was also first and foremost an employee of the American government (just as German diplomats in Turkey were first and foremost employees of their governments). After he left Constantinople in the late winter of 1916, Morgenthau even went around making public appearances with the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. This infuriated an Armenian journal published in the United States. Pro-Armenians in America could not understand how Morgenthau would deign to appear on the same platform with a representative of the murderous Turkish government. They couldn’t understand why Morgenthau would do such a thing. He did it because he was an Ambassador of the USA and the USA was a neutral power interested in good relations with the Turks. In the summer of 1915, he reported everything to the American government, and privately did his best to help Armenians (as did German consuls on the spot). But he also advised his government that protests might only make matters worse, and suggested that it inform missionary groups to do the same, as well.

K.M.: What was the reason he did this?

M.A.: Well, don't forget that when diplomatic pressure was brought to bear upon Abdul Hamid in 1896, he responded by massacring the Armenians in Istanbul/Constantinople. People like Morgenthau did not think the Turks were civilized people, for good reason. I’m not saying there weren’t any civilized Turks in the Ottoman Empire, but Turks and Kurds had already behaved so horribly in the 1890s, that some people didn’t think the Ottoman government would respond to something like the pressure of European and American public opinion. Morgenthau didn’t. Noting that even men like Morgenthau believed this, I think, gives a little bit of respectability to other people—like the pope—who believed, however mistakenly, that you could get more accomplished for the Armenians by working behind the scenes to convince Turks to do this or that.

K.M.: Couldn’t the German government interfere in any way to stop the Genocide and the deportations?

M.A.: German soldiers in the Ottoman Empire were not part of the German Army but were all under Ottoman command—and that includes the worst of them, like the first assistant chief of staff of the Turkish General Staff, Colonel Bronsart von Schellendorf. There was no practical legal way that the German government could have ordered them to intervene. What the German government could have done was to have ordered them to withdraw from Ottoman service and come home. It is also sometimes asked, “Why didn’t the German government threaten to cut off their supplies to the Ottomans?” That is a good argument. I used to believe it myself before I read the interviews with Zimmermann in 1915—interviews that had nothing, by the way, to do with Armenians—which revealed that he was in constant anxiety because Germany was unable to get supplies to the Ottomans. It was not until mid-January 1916, after Serbia was conquered, that German trains could reach Istanbul. Before then, they could not ship supplies to Turkey (except for money, which was useless), so there were no supplies that they could cut off in 1915. Or at least, so Zimmermann said.

K.M.: What can you say about the Baghdad Railroad?

M.A.: I have seen documents from the company archives that show \ the company knew what went on. Representatives on the spot did in fact, as Kaiser said, try to hide Armenians and protect them; they also protested and reported to their home offices. However, the German officer delegated to be the liaison between the German army and the Baghdad railroad, Lt. Col. Böttrich, overrode the Baghdad (Anatolian) railway personnel and signed a deportation order for some of their Armenian workers himself. I’m not trying to say that there weren’t certain Germans in Turkey who clearly adopted the position of CUP.

K.M.: Reading the literature, I didn’t feel there was a concerted policy, and this could have been why some people behaved differently.

M.A.: I haven't done the kind of intensive research that I would like to on German military behavior; and most of Germany's military archives were destroyed by bombing in World War II, so we will never have the kind of certainty that we have with the diplomatic record. But there were two German officers, at least, who behaved differently. Field Marshall Liman von Sanders saved the Armenians in Edirne and Izmir. True, there weren’t many Armenians in those two towns, so they were less important to the CUP than the Armenians in Van or Urfa. In that sense, Liman probably faced less resistance from the Ottoman authorities than he would have had he attempted something similar in Eastern Anatolia. But he did meet resistance, and he absolutely refused to allow them to be deported. (Liman, however, had a personality that everyone disliked, and he disliked everyone, so you can almost predict that he would do the opposite of what other people wanted him to do. Had every German office and diplomatic official behaved like Liman, the results would probably have been terrible for Ottoman-German relations. On the other hand, the Ottoman Empire was by then so deeply involved in the war, and had so many enemies in the Entente powers already committed to gaining territory at its expense, that we have to ask, Would it really have left the German-Austrian alliance? Probably not. But if the Turks had made a separate peace with the Entente, it would have given them an even freer hand with the Armenians. The other German officer who behaved differently was Colonel (later General) Kress von Kressenstein, the chief of staff of Jemal Pasha. He apparently convinced Jemal not to deport 400 Armenian orphans.

In German-occupied territory in the Russian Empire, the German army prevented pogroms against the Jewsby local populations (Ukrainians and Russians, for example), which were incited by the retreating Tsarist armies. There was a very similar hysteria against ethnic minorities throughout Europe during World War I, and specifically Eastern Europe and encouraged by the Tsarist army. In some cases, it was the German minority that was the target; in others it was the Ukrainians or Poles or Baltic populations. But the targets almost always included the Jews. Wherever it went, the German army protected the Jews. But they had orders to do so from Berlin. And they were occupying territory they had conquered. Berlin couldn’t give orders to German officers who serve in the Ottoman army.

K.M.: Dadrian mentions that these German officers were misguided by information they received from Turkish subordinates. Was this a frequent occurrence?

M.A.: In some cases that may have been the case. It’s interesting that Wolffskeel von Reichenberg, a Major in Marash, was told that Armenians were massacring Turks. He was there and he saw that the story was not true and quashed that story. Later on, however, under the command of Fakhri pasha, he subdued Zeitun and the Armenians in Urfa, and was there at Mousa Dagh, so I don’t think that the best explanation for their behavior is that German officers were given false information, as much as they adapted and began to see things from the perspective of the people they worked for.

K.M.: Is the word “complicity” appropriate, in your opinion, in describing German involvement in the Armenian Genocide?

M.A.: In my view it gives a false impression. I think the German historians are harshest in judging the Germans (although Dadrian judges them harshly too), particularly Tessa Hoffman and Wolfgang Gust, as well as Swiss historian Christoph Dinkel. They tend to make these Germans look like early Nazis. That may be true of a few of these officers, but I think in general the Germans did what people in all countries do most of the time, which is to operate on what they think is best for their own country.

For example, the Jews in England were horrified at the treatment of the Jews in Russia before the war; yet just like the friends of Armenians in Germany with regard to Turkey, they didn’t want England to have an alliance with Russia. They really hated it when the Entente with Russia was established in 1907. Then came the war and England allied with Russia, even though the Russian army “evacuated” three million Jews. (You can call it deportation.) They didn’t usually massacre them, but they did forcibly evacuate them, as a “security measure,” and as a punitive measure, accusing them of collaborating with the Germans. In many cases, the evacuees lost everything they had: homes, furniture, businesses, everything. And the Tsarist armies were complicit in the pogroms that sometimes ensued. Jews in England protested, and they were allowed to protest. That is a difference. But did their protests against Russian treatment of the Jews affect the policy of the British government? No. And in fact, the British Ambassador to St. Petersburg, Sir George Buchanan, wrote back to his government saying that “There cannot be the slightest doubt that a very large number of Jews in German pay and have acted as spies during the campaigns in Poland.” That is, he believed and transmitted all those lies the Russian army was telling about the Jews. Well, I have to say that the German diplomats in the Ottoman Empire were more objective and honest than that. They carefully looked into the charges the CUP was making against the Armenians. They were convinced that the majority of the Armenians were innocent of the charges against them, that the mass of the Armenian people had not behaved as traitors. And they informed their own government of the truth. I think the term “complicity” sets up a false impression of the behavior of German officials. I don’t want to say the Germans were “good,” but they behaved the way officials of most countries would.

K.M.: What do you think about the view that the Armenian Genocide was a precursor to the Holocaust and that some officers who served in the Ottoman army were later high ranking Nazi officials?

M.A.: There are certainly some carry-overs, although the fact that men who later served the Nazis also spent time in Turkey is not surprising given the war and given the importance of the Constantinople post and the Ottoman Empire generally. Many of the same people also spent time in Belgium and France. One of the worst Germans, as far as being unwilling to help the Armenians, was Constantin von Neurath. He was chargé d’affairs in the German Embassy at Constantinople and later became the first Foreign Minister under Hitler, though he was not a member of the Nazi Party. He wrote Berlin, in the fall of 1915, that he hoped the friends of the Armenians in Germany [The German-Armenian Society founded by Lepsius] could be made to keep quiet, though he admitted that the German government couldn’t actually shut them down. He thought that the money they were collecting for Armenian relief would be better used for German relief. So he was clearly a heartless guy.

However, I should also mention one of the true ironies. Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter was the vice-consul of Erzerum and an officer in the Bavarian army. He had been sent out to eastern Anatolia to organize Muslim guerrillas behind the Russian lines, much like the way some people have argued the Russians were organizing Armenians. However, when he got there, the consul of Erzerum had just been captured by the Russians, and so Scheubner-Richter was made the vice-counsul in his place. This man constantly protested the treatment of the Armenians to his government. He was also extremely bold in protesting it to the Ottoman government. He got reprimanded by his own government for being too undiplomatic towards the Turks. He took out of his own money to feed some Armenian refugees going through Erzerum. At this stage, he is a true hero. After the war, he became a Nazi and in 1923 was shot down in Munich, marching next to Hitler in the Beer Hall Putsch. He was at that time Hitler’s main right-hand man for the party's finances. Hitler refers to him in letters from the period as “my delegate.” He served as the liaison between the early Nazi movement, the military interests, and the business interests.

The worst person in Germany, as far as the Armenians were concerned, was Ernst Jäckh, a journalist who also had some academic credentials. He founded an important pro-Turkish lobby in Germany, the German-Turkish Union, and advertised himself as close to Enver Pasha. His wartime activities were largely confined to propaganda, but he worked hard to see that a pro-Turkish message was constantly disseminated to the German public. He was practically an employee of the Turkish government, someone who joined the German-Armenian Society in order to spy on them. He also spied on Lepsius and reported on his activities to his government, and was always working to twist information in a pro-Turkish direction. After the war, he became a leading spokesman in Germany for the movement on behalf of the League of Nations. In 1933, he left Germany for New York, and became a professor in Columbia University and a big-time democrat and liberal. In fact, he had always been a liberal. So, I don’t think you can draw any straight line between the perpetrators in WWI and those later on in the Nazi regime.

K.M.: And what is the line that we can draw between the Armenian Genocide and German responsibility?

M.A.: In that regard, I think the connection is “ethnic cleansing.” The CUP was very influenced by integralist nationalism and—as Sukru Hanioglu has shown—social Darwinism and European racist thought as the basis of a powerful nation-state. German intellectuals were powerful contributors to these currents and German successes seemed to demonstrate the truth of the argument: homogeneous nation, powerful state.

K.M.: There is Marshal Colmar von der Goltz who has proposed something like ethnic cleansing.

M.A.: Some people say that but I haven’t seen the proof. They also say that about the publicist, Paul Rohrbach, which I doubt very much, at least in the sense attributed to him. Rohrbach was certainly a German nationalist and an imperialist—as were most men in the educated classes in those days—although he advocated “peaceful imperialism”: spreading German culture and “ideas” through development help, schools and cultural exchanges. He was actually a friend of Armenians, and on the board of directors of Lepsius’s Geman Armenian Society. People say Rohrbach thought it would be a good idea to remove the Armenians along the route of the prospective Berlin-Baghdad railway and plant Germans there, but I don’t think that can be true. When Rohrbach found out about the deportations he was devastated, and resigned his membership in Jäckh's German-Turkish Union. I don’t know about von der Goltz; I’d like to see the hard evidence on that.

The continuity between the two regimes—CUP and Nazi—is in their common desire to create an ethnically homogeneous state. The Young Turks got that idea from Europe, but the Nazis were the first European country to try hard to put it in effect in any consistent and rigorous way. I think the CUP were like the Nazis, but I don’t think they were that way because there were Germans who were allied with the Turks in WW1, and then these Germans did it themselves the second time around. Sukru Hanioglu, of Princeton, has shown in his two volumes on the CUP, that even before 1908 they had adopted Social Darwinist ideas. Rather, the both movements “drank from the same well” of integralist nationalism. I think the CUP was the Turkish version of what would later be called "Fascists."

A colleague of mine who teaches Turkish history in the United States (let us not give his name because I don’t think he could visit his family in Turkey if his name is published) told me that he has no doubt that there was a Genocide. For him, the only question is how far the responsibility goes within the CUP. How many people were involved in the decision? Because it was a dictatorship. An interesting difference between the CUP Genocide and the Nazi one is that in the Third Reich when the Jews are being killed, there are no protests from German officials ever! In Turkey, several valis and lower Ottoman officials did protest. And paid the price. In Turkey, also, some Kurds, Arabs and even some Turkish Muslims criticized the policy and rescued Armenians openly. In Germany, those few Germans who did rescue Jews did not do it openly. Unless you count the riot by the Christian wives at the Rosenstrasse Berlin railway station over the deportation of their husbands. And that was unique. Perhaps this difference with Turkey is because Germany was such an "organized" country and it was much harder to get away with behavior that was counter to official policy (or at least, so people may have thought) than it was in Turkey.

K.M.: What about Germany today? Does it have the moral responsibility to acknowledge the Genocide?

M.A.: Absolutely! As does Turkey. However, Turks have been raised on one view of history. If they are told by foreigners that they have to change their view of history, they may end up signing on the dotted line—if, for example, that is the price for entering the EU—but it won’t make them believe it. My hope comes from the fact that there are Turkish historians in Turkey today who absolutely know the truth and don’t dare to, right now, say what it is. But that is changing. As Turkey becomes more democratic and as the army becomes more and more discredited, there will be freedom of debate in Turkey. And I think then historians who want to be credible outside of Turkey will have to look at the evidence the same way we look at it.

An Interview with Elif Shafak II

2007-06-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

A Storyteller's Quest
By Khatchig Mouradian

ZNet
March 14, 2006

"Anatolia has always been a mosaic of flowers,
filling the world with flowers and light.
I want it to be the same today"
Yasar Kemal

The Anatolia Yasar Kemal, arguably the greatest Turkish author of the 20th century, wants to see and the Anatolia he can actually see today cannot possibly be considered the same region of Turkey. What was a century ago a mosaic of ethnic and religious groups (Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Turks, Kurds, etc.) is now almost homogenized through blood and destruction, and the memory of many of the peoples that once dwelled in the region of Eastern Turkey is being negligently allowed to pass into oblivion.

A number of Turkish intellectuals are striving to push Turkey to face its past and recognize the "mosaic of flowers" that Anatolia once was. Will their vision one day become reality? Much depends on the changes currently taking place in Turkey. Novelist Elif Shafak, one of the courageous intellectuals struggling today for the preservation of memory and recognition of cultural diversity, spoke to me of Turkey today and the Turkey she would like to see tomorrow.

The Two Faces of Turkey

"I feel connected to so many things in Turkey, especially in Istanbul. The city, the people, the customs of women, the enchanting world of superstitions, my grandmother's almost magical cosmos, my mother's humanism, and the warmth, the sincerity of the people," Shafak tells me, speaking of her native country. "At the same time I feel no connection whatsoever to its main ideology, its state structure and army," she notes.

Turkey is the country of opposites which oftentimes, defying the laws of physics, repel one another. Eastern and Western, Islamic and secular at the same time, the country is torn between democracy and dictatorship, memory and amnesia. These dualities, bordering on schizophrenia, are unsettling for Shafak, an author of five published novels. "I think there are two undercurrents in Turkey, both very old. One is nationalist, exclusivist, xenophobic and reactionary. The other is cosmopolitan, Sufi, humanist, embracing. It is the second tide that I feel connected to," she says.

Not surprisingly, the first tide she mentions is not at all happy with her line of conduct. Hate-mail and accusations of being a traitor to her country have become commonplace for the young writer.

"The nationalist discourse in Turkey-- just like the Republicans in the USA-- is that if you are criticizing your government, you do not like your nation. This is a lie. Only and only if you care about something you will reflect upon it, give it further thought. I care about Turkey. It hurts me to be accused of hating my country," she explains.

However, Elif Shafak, who spent most of her childhood and adolescence in Europe and later moved to Turkey to pursue her studies, is anything but wrong when she points out that her country has come a long way in the last few years. "There are very important changes underway in Turkey. Sometimes, in the West, Turkey looks more black-and-white than it really is, but the fact remains that Turkey's civil society is multifaceted and very dynamic. Especially over the past two decades there have been fundamental transformations," she says.

"The bigger the change, the deeper the panic of those who want to preserve the status quo," she adds.

A cornered tiger is the fiercest, however, as an Eastern proverb says. This is why the prospect of membership to the European Union (EU) is deemed necessary by the country’s cosmopolitan undercurrent, which is struggling against the status quo. For decades, those, who have dared to challenge the official rhetoric on a wide spectrum of issues, have faced oppression, persecution, and imprisonment, and they know well that the only way not to take the country back in time is to keep it going in the direction of the EU. Shafak herself believes that Turkey's bid to join the EU "is an important process for progressive forces both within and outside the country". She adds: "Definitely the whole process will reinforce democracy, human rights and minority rights. It will diminish the role of the state apparatuses, and most importantly the shadow of the military in the political arena."

Dealing with the Turkish Society's 'Underbelly'

"For me, the recognition of 1915 is connected to my love for democracy and human rights," says Shafak. 1915 is the year when the Turkish government embarked on a genocidal campaign to exterminate the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. This topic remained the greatest of all taboos in Turkey until very recently.

Although the Armenian genocide is acknowledged by most genocide scholars and many parliaments around the world, the Turkish government's official stand maintains that the Armenians were not subjected to a state sponsored annihilation process that killed more than a million and a half people in 1915-16. The Armenians were, the Turkish official viewpoint argues, the victims of ethnic strife or war and starvation, just like many Muslims living in the Ottoman Empire during WWI. Moreover, according to the official historiography in Turkey, the number of the Armenians that died due to these "unfortunate events" is exaggerated.

Like a growing number of fellow Turkish intellectuals, it is against this policy of denial that Elif Shafak rages. "If we had been able to face the atrocities committed against the Armenians in Anatolia, it would have been more difficult for the Turkish state to commit atrocities against the Kurds," she argues.

"A society based on amnesia cannot have a mature democracy," she adds.

Why did she choose to tackle this very sensitive issue, knowing well that harassment and threats were inevitable? "I am a storyteller. If I cannot "feel" other people's pain and grief, I better quit what I am doing. So there is an emotional aspect for me in that I have always felt connected to those pushed to the margins and silenced rather than those at the center", she notes. "This is the pattern in each and every one of my novels; I deal with Turkish society's underbelly."

Her upcoming novel, "The Bastard of Istanbul", is no exception. The Turkish translation of the novel, titled “Baba ve Pic” was released in Turkey on March 8, 2006. The original novel in English will be released in the U.S. in January 2007 out of Penguin/Viking press. "The novel is highly critical of the sexist and nationalist fabric of Turkish society. It is the story of four generations of women in Istanbul. At some point their stories converge with the story of an Armenian woman and, thereby, an Armenian-American family. I have used this family in San Francisco and the family in Istanbul as mirrors," she explains. "Basically, the novel testifies to the struggle of amnesia and memory. It deals with painful pasts both at the individual and collective level," she adds.

The Turkey she would like to see in 2015, a century after the Armenian genocide, stands in deep contrast to the Turkey the world has known for the better part of the past century. It is "a Turkey that is part of EU, a Turkey where women do not get killed on the basis of "family honor", a Turkey where there is no gender discrimination, no violations against minorities; a Turkey which is not xenophobic, homophobic, where each and every individual is treated as valuably as the reflection of the Jamal side of God, its beauty."

It would be hard to disagree with Shafak that only in the Turkey she envisions can cosmopolitism overshadow nationalism and remembrance emerge victorious over denial.

An Interview with Eren Keskin

2007-06-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

Against All Odds
Human Rights Activism in Turkey
by Khatchig Mouradian

ZNet
April 05, 2006

“I refuse to buy my freedom of speech by paying money,” said Eren Keskin, the Head of the Istanbul Branch of the Human Rights Association of Turkey, during a press conference in Istanbul on the 22nd of March. A few days earlier, a Turkish court had sentenced her to 10 months’ imprisonment for insulting the country’s military. The sentence was then converted to a fine of 6000 New Turkish Liras, which Keskin is refusing to pay, however, saying that she will go to prison instead. Moreover, she asserts: “I will continue to express both verbally and in writing my thoughts, which are banned unlawfully by the ruling powers, because we are not the ones who should change; they are.”

“The case will be heard by the Court of Appeals. It will take several months before it reaches a verdict. In the meantime campaigns in support of freedom of speech in Turkey both at home and abroad will help a lot to influence the general climate in Turkey for greater democracy,” told me Ayse Gunaysu, an activist in the organization headed by Keskin.

The court sentence against Keskin was based on the notorious Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which states that public denigration of Turkishness, the Grand National Assembly (Turkey’s legislature) or the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the state, as well as the military and security structures are punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years. In recent months, dozens of Turkish activists and intellectuals, including the world-renowned author Orhan Pamuk, have been charged under this article.

Keskin, who is also the founder of the Project for Legal Aid to Victims of Rape and Sexual Assault Under Custody, had been accused of “insulting” the Turkish military big time in 2002, after giving a speech in Köln, Germany about cases of sexual assault against women inmates by the state security forces in Turkey. Keskin explains: “In my presentation under the topic “Sexual Violence Perpetrated by the State,” I shared with the audience certain findings of our project, which had been going since 1997. I said that sexual torture was used as a systematic method of psychological warfare and that victims of such torture were afraid to file complaints against the security forces.”

I discussed with Eren Keskin issues related to human rights violations in Turkey in late March, a few days after the recent court ruling. Taking into account the oft-repeated assertions that Turkey had made great strides towards respect for human rights in the last few years in its quest for EU membership, I asked her whether these changes were radical or cosmetic. “I don't believe that the changes that have been made or are being made in this process are radical,” she replied. “I don't think that the state has any intention to change, because the changes introduced have no power to transform the essence of the system. Yet we have to admit that they have at least provided an atmosphere where certain issues are being discussed.”

Thou Shalt not Insult the Army

The generals in Turkey consider themselves the guardians of the country’s secular constitution and they have an established tradition of directly intervening in politics, including a number of direct and indirect military coups since 1960. In Keskin’s opinion, all legislative, executive and judicial powers in Turkey are still under their control. “The military in Turkey not only determines both domestic and foreign policy, but also enjoys huge economic power through one of Turkey's biggest business groups, OYAK, which operates literally in all sectors of the economy, from banking to tourism. Moreover, all OYAK companies are exempt from any tax liability,” explained Keskin. Hence, she believes that the main impediment to improving Turkey’s human rights record is the military.

“Today, even those who define themselves as being part of the left in Turkey do not question the taboos determined by the “red lines,” which the military has set,” she said, noting that overcoming the military’s domination of the state is extremely difficult in Turkey.

“Domestic Enemies”

As this article is being written, thousands of protesters, mostly Kurds, are clashing with the Turkish police in the southeast of the country. For decades, Turkey has failed to find a decent solution to its Kurdish problem. Ankara is reluctant to grant the most basic of cultural and political rights to the millions of Kurds, who live mainly in the country’s southeast, where the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, unleashed an armed struggle against the Turkish state in the 1980s.

“Kurds are one of the “domestic enemies” that this system, controlled by the military, needs to create in order to sustain its domination,” asserted Keskin. “Failure in providing any solution to this issue makes the military all the more powerful. Even the minor progress made lately in this field – achieved at enormous cost and partly the outcome of the EU accession process – does not change the fact that “the policy of ‘non-solution’ still dominates the government’s approach to the Kurdish issue.”

State of Denial

For decades, the greatest of all taboos in Turkey has been the Armenian genocide of 1915. In recent years, a number of intellectuals in the country have started to speak up about this issue, calling upon Turkey to face its past, oftentimes at the cost of being persecuted or sued under Article 301. “The Turkish official thesis regarding the Armenian genocide is still very influential in the street and in academia, although there are efforts to overcome this domination,” said Keskin, when asked about Ankara’s policy of denial towards the annihilation by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) and under the cover of World War I of an estimated a million and a half Armenians in the dying years of the Ottoman Empire.

The overwhelming majority of genocide scholars and many parliaments around the world recognize this instance of mass slaughter as a classic case of genocide. The descendents of the genocide victims, in turn, continue to demand that Turkey, too, recognize the genocidal intent behind the decimation of the Armenians, who lived on their ancestral land. The Turkish government vehemently denies, however, that there was a planned destruction of an entire ethnic group. It also argues that the number of victims is vastly exaggerated.

According to Keskin, “there is no real break with the ideology of the CUP not only among the extremists but also among those who consider themselves part of the democratic opposition in Turkey. The ideology that led to the Armenian genocide was a very important element of the founding ideology of the Republic of Turkey.”

Keskin has little faith that Turkey will come to terms with its past in the near future. “The general mindset of the majority of Turkish society, including a significant part of the left, has been shaped under the influence of this ideology. It is for this reason that I don't believe much progress can be made in the short run,” she said. “However, I believe recognition of the genocide is crucial. Turkish people should acknowledge the sufferings of the Armenians, empathize with them and apologize for what happened in 1915.”

* * *

Eren Keskin and many of her colleagues in Turkey operate in an environment of intimidation and threats. “We, the human rights activists, have learned, throughout these years, how to live with fear and to go on despite its persistence,” she said. “Up till now 14 executives and members of our Human Rights Association have been killed by what we call the counter-guerilla units. I myself have been the target of two armed attacks. I still receive death threats. Of course all these generate some fear in me, but if there is one thing, which we have learned by now, is to continue with our struggle despite fear. I guess we owe this to our faith in what we do.”

Indeed, it is on this faith that many people are counting.

An Interview with Jeffrey Tufenkian

2007-06-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

‘For Current and Future Generations’
An Interview with Jeffrey Tufenkian
By Khatchig Mouradian

The Armenian Weekly
March 10, 2007

Jeffrey Tufenkian is co-founder and president of Armenian Forests NGO (www.ArmenianForests.am), which focuses on restoring and protecting Armenia’s forests for the current and future generations. According to the website, “Armenian Forests NGO is the outgrowth of his concern and determination to do what is needed to protect and restore Armenia’s threatened forests while helping to create jobs and build the economy.”

Tufenkian is also co-founder of the Kanach Foundation, publisher of the book Adventure Armenia: Hiking and Rock Climbing (www.kanach.org).

In this interview, conducted on March 7, Tufenkian talks about the challenges facing the environment in Armenia today, be they deforestation, illegal logging or the absence of sufficient support for environmental NGOs.

Armenian Weekly—How is the Armenian government dealing with the problem of deforestation? Does it provide support to NGO’s like Armenian Forests NGO?

Jeffrey Tufenkian—The government voices concern about the deforestation problems and pledges to plant millions of trees and thousands of hectares of forests, but very little actually happens. Unfortunately given the current situation of powerful people involved in the cutting, there is not the political will to really stop deforestation from the highest levels of government. Having said that, we have decent relationships with the key ministries and there has been some progress. In recent years, there has been a small amount of money from the state budget put into reforestation and some reduction of cutting, but much more needs to be done.

A.W.—Talk about the problem of illegal logging.

J.T.—Of much greater importance than reforestation—as critical and difficult as that is—is stopping the mass deforestation. Armenia’s forests are being systematically destroyed; unless drastic improvements are made soon, Armenia’s forests won’t have a future. And with the loss of the forests comes the downfall of the fragile ecosystem of which it is the cornerstone—loss of springs, streams and rivers, loss of habitat for endangered animals, loss of biodiversity, increasingly severe weather, landslides, erosion and desertification.

Once covering 35 percent of Armenia’s current territory, forest coverage is at a historical low, covering only 7-8 percent. It has already lost many springs and even rivers due to deforestation, and according to the government, over 80 percent of the land is under some level of desertification.

Despite this bleak and worsening situation, oligarchs and other powerful people in Armenia cut trees not only to sell in Yerevan and elsewhere as fuel and other internal uses (construction, furniture, etc.), but actually export wood to countries including Spain, Italy, Iran and even Turkey. This is an outrage that should not be tolerated. In fact, there is still no process for legal productive cutting of forest trees in Armenia. Trees being cut now are done by permission as “sanitary” or other cutting aimed at protecting the health of the forests. Under the guise of this, they are taking many times more trees and healthy ones rather than getting the sick trees out of the forests. Almost by definition, any valuable wood cut in Armenia is illegal.

Export of wood from Armenia is something that would have been unthinkable in Soviet times. In the last half of the Soviet period, there was mass reforestation (up to 7,000 hectares per year) and proper care of the forests as they imported wood for domestic use and would never have cut for export. The limited forest territory Armenia had was recognized as critically important and therefore given a “protected” status.

Although Armenia needs to import wood and does not have supplies internally to justify export, there are both customs fees and taxes to import wood, but to export it there are neither. Armenia should immediately stop exporting wood and change the laws to provide incentives for import of wood such as at least eliminating the fees and taxes charged to bring it in.

A.W.—How does Armenian Forests NGO coordinate with other environmental NGOs. Is duplication a problem?

J.T.—I must say that one of our priority approaches—one we put a lot of time and effort into—is cooperating with and forming coalitions with others including local NGOs—and it has been paying off. When we arrived on the scene in 2002, it was difficult to get more than two NGOs in a room at the same time and have constructive results working together, but there has been a real shift, and I think that the environmental sector is now a place where such cooperation among NGOs is really working and bringing good results. It is not surprising that in this individual-oriented society where everyone has his own organization rather than join someone else’s and there is fierce competition for limited funding, NGOs would be suspicious and fearful about cooperating. In this context, our first attempts at establishing a coalition was nearly a complete failure. But we and others kept at it and things really shifted in 2005 when the local WWF organization sounded the alarm about Shikahogh. We jumped in with about 40 local organizations to help lead a successful campaign to stop the government’s decision to put a major highway through the flagship nature reserve called Shikahogh—the last unspoiled forest of Armenia. This was not only a great win for the environment of Armenia, but an unprecedented win for civil society as these groups really set aside their individual egos and cooperated in an excellent way to bring this success.

We have been monitoring another situation and just this month publicly launched a new campaign—with many of the same NGOs from Shikahogh—to attempt to get a proposed mining operation at Teghut near Aleverdi in Lori Marz to stop until it complies with national laws and international conventions, and does not pose an undue danger to the environment and people. The current exploration violates 11 national laws and 7 international conventions; if approved, it would poison the water basin for this whole area, and destroy over 1,200 hectares (2,964 acres) of forests and its natural ecosystem as they would remove an entire small mountain and fill a valley with the unused rock and soil. Increased pollution from the smelter would further impact the already toxic zone of Aleverdi where birth defects and respiratory diseases are rampant.

A.W.—The mining issue has attracted a lot of attention in the past year. Mining also provides a lot of jobs. How are the environment NGOs planning to deal with that? Are there models providing a better alternative?

J.T.—Yes, there’s been lots of attention on mining in Armenia and lots of mining activity recently. I personally am still in a learning curve to get a grasp on the details of this industry and what alternatives are possible to allow for this industry without poisoning the water, air and devastating the natural environment for decades to come. Armenia is a small country with limited, threatened natural resources. Any major mining operation can potentially have a huge negative impact on current and future generations.

Armenia clearly needs more jobs and opportunities for income generation, and of course, the mining interests like other industries are promising lots of jobs. Unfortunately, as with much hype, the picture may not be as rosy as they try to paint it. The high paying jobs will likely be filled by people from Yerevan or from out of the country, the majority of the jobs will be low-paid, and many of the local villagers will have to gamble by sacrificing their land—which now provides consistent income and food—for a chance of a low-paying job. Unfortunately, even if they get one, it may not make up for the loss of productive fruit trees and land, and they’ll have less money, polluted water and a devastated environment, as well.

I personally am hoping that a couple of the more responsible international mining outfits can be models of an environmentally and socially responsible approach. Unfortunately, the current prevailing mode here is a “least common denominator” approach of paying off officials, paying lip service to health and environmental concerns, grabbing as much as possible and getting out, leaving destruction and little if any remaining benefit for the country and its people.

A.W.—What do you say to those in the Diaspora who ask: What can I do to help?

J.T.—There are things Diasporans can do. I believe starting and investing in businesses—especially those that pay off not only in profits and improved social wellbeing through more jobs, but have a positive payoff for the environment—could be the most important and helpful approach for Armenia now. Armenians are smart and creative, and they can use their expertise and financial investment to take advantage of business opportunities. It’s also great to donate to a good organization, and I realize easier for most than starting or running a business in Armenia. To that end, I can say we are happy to accept contributions. Armenian Forests NGO is doing outreach in the U.S. this spring with the other Tufenkian Foundation branches to raise support for some of our key projects aimed at protecting forests of the homeland.

An Interview with Congressman Frank Pallone

2007-06-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

An Interview with Frank Pallone
By Khatchig Mouradian

The following interview with Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) was
conducted on March 23 in Washington. He is co-chair of the Congressional
Caucus on Armenian Issues.

Armenian Weekly-On March 9, together with 16 colleagues, you introduced a
bill allowing Cypriot-Americans to seek compensation for their property in
Turkish occupied Northern Cyprus. What is the importance of this bill?

Frank Pallone-We don't recognize the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus.
Those who occupied Northern Cyprus took the property of Green Cypriots
without permission and appropriated it for their own purposes. The people
who own the land should either be able to go back or get compensation, and
the Turkish government has done nothing to provide compensation.

A.W.-Whenever Cyprus, the Kurds or the Armenian Genocide resolution come up,
one of the most common arguments heard is that Turkey is changing and that
we should wait until it comes to terms with its past rather than pressuring
it and potentially causing a backlash.

F.P.-I would differentiate between the government and the people. I think
that increasingly the public, particularly the intellectuals and educated
people, would like to see Turkey become a member of the EU, recognize the
Armenian Genocide, get out of Cyprus, and not treat the Kurds as lesser
citizens. I, too, believe that the Turkish people are moving towards a
democratic society, respect for human rights, but the leadership, the
government, doesn't share that. They continue to have a hard line on almost
every one of the issues I mentioned. I hope that at some point the
leadership catches up with the public. But that's not happening now. I don't
know when that will happen, but I just think at some point it will and we
just have to keep agitating and keep saying that the government policies in
Cyprus, and against the Armenians, against the Kurds are not acceptable.

A.W.-There is constant talk that Turkey and the Bush Administration are
putting enormous pressure on Congress so that it drops the Genocide
resolution. Can you talk about the specific actions taken by Turkey and the
administration?

F.P.-Every time Congressmen and elected officials go to Ankara or Istanbul,
they are lectured for hours about how the Genocide didn't occur. And they
receive threats about how if the Genocide resolution is passed, the soldiers
in Iraq are not going to be safe and that they are not going to provide any
help in the U.S. efforts in Iraq (not that they have done much anyway).
There's a combination of genocide denial and threats against American
soldiers and American policies. Congressmen have to hear about how genocide
never occurred, how we should have a commission that looks into what
happened, how Turks always treated the Armenians so well, and there were
even Armenians in the government in 1915.

They are doing the same thing here. They go around to the Members [of
Congress] and lobby them. In some cases, they have even had soldiers in Iraq
call Members of Congress and say, "I'm afraid the Turks are going to punish
us in some way if you pass the Genocide resolution."
And the administration goes along with it and does the same thing. They call
the Members, they meet with the Members, they say this is going to threaten
American soldiers, or they suggest that there was no genocide. It's
pathetic.

I don't think the threats have any impact. They have increasingly moved from
threats toward more denial, because I think the threats have backfired. And
I believe denial never ceases. You still have the denial of the Holocaust.
The German government put up monuments commemorating the Holocaust and Iran
is having conferences saying the Nazi Holocaust never occurred. Even some
Americans say it never happened.

There will always be people out there denying the Genocide. If the people
accused of committing genocide are one's ancestors or friends or somebody
they respect, one doesn't believe or doesn't want to believe that they are
capable of it.

An Interview with Raffi Hovannisian

2007-06-26T20:32:00.000-07:00

An Interview with Raffi Hovannisian
By Khatchig Mouradian
The Armenian Weekly
March 31, 2007

The following interview was conducted at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., on March 15.

Armenian Weekly-Rooting out corruption is one of the main challenges facing Armenia today. How do you perceive the solution to this issue?

Raffi Hovannisian-Important in the challenge to root out the disease of corruption is giving legitimacy to the government. A legitimacy earned by election. So far in Armenia, authority has never been transferred. It has always been reproduced.

I have not seen in any of the administrations the willingness to apply the law from the president to the last citizen in the Republic of Armenia. It is the administration’s responsibility to provide options and alternatives to the nation, and any president, past or president, acting or incumbent, legitimate or illegitimate, is not entitled to say, “There’s no alternative to me. L’etat c’est moi.”

Diplomacy and the ability to realize foreign policy objectives are directly related to our domestic demeanor, our conduct in our house. Armenia’s democratic integrity, human rights credentials, respect of the rights of each and every individual is critical. And if we knock on the world’s door demanding justice for our collective and historic rights, we have to live up to the very same standards in our country. For there to be justice in the world there must be justice at home.

Let no one speak to us of “haygagan mentalitet,” Armenian mentality. Our benchmarks and traditions are the opposite of that and there is no reason for us to demand any less from our own republic. When people, whether in government or the opposition, confuse national interests with less than national concerns or interests, you have a major catastrophe. I draw a parallel between each and every tree and the forest at large. We can run into a very respectable debate on the forest and the trees. We can argue that Armenia is newly democratic, it has only been independent for 15 years and that the western democratic nations took centuries to achieve their level. That’s no consolation to me as an Armenian, because we both know what potential we have.

A.W.-What difficulties is your party facing during this pre-election period?

R.H.- Sometimes we have to run the marathon alone. Despite all the difficulties and tribulations and the unnecessary treatments to which I have been subjected, the Heritage movement will take part in the parliamentary elections.

First, there is the campaign finance issue. Obviously there are those who spend millions of dollars in their campaigns. There are parties whose sole offices are closed down, and only when we come close to elections and I give a press conference and there is some interest by ambassadors of foreign countries do they come and open the door. Also, when we try to rent halls in the public domain, we are being told that all the halls are taken, while other political parties are using those halls all the time. I have to note that my access to Armenian sources of information has been limited not only in Armenia but also in the Diaspora. This is the first time that the son of the Diaspora is participating in the democratic process in Armenia. I think that this is something that might be of interest to those who are interested in the mustering of our worldwide resources in the strengthening and democratization and perpetuity of our homeland.

In Armenia, what I say is not covered. We are now entering the election cycle and I have not been shown on TV for two years now. The coverage, or rather the lack of coverage, by [Diasporan] newspapers of my activities speaks to a lack of strategic vision and a lack of a grasp of what’s necessary to run any legitimate broad based medium of information, even partisan. This is one of the challenges of your generation of Armenian analysts and writers.

A.W.-The opposition is extremely weak, disunited and unorganized, and many of its leaders suffer from their own problems of credibility. There have been attempts by some to receive support from Western governments and create a colored revolution in Armenia. Others speak of unfathomable concessions in Karabakh and Turkish-Armenian issues to garner foreign support. How do you explain the failure of the opposition?
R.H.-First and foremost, it is the government coalition that bears the responsibility for the policies. There are different takes on why this particular coalition is together. I was hoping that at least one of the parties represented [in the coalition] would have long ago turned to the conscience of the nation as opposed to being in a situation where one might read complicity into their position. I think the future is before us, and we might see certain-I will not say unexpected-developments in that respect in the months and years to come.

On the other hand, the opposition should accept its own share of accountability and responsibility. But as you know very well, the conditions in Armenia are very uneven. The opposition has failed be come together and become a viable democratic alternative to the powers that be. The people in the opposition have not done enough to deliver to the Armenian constituents a viable ethical response to the challenges.
A democratic systemic change is important, not only in model but in application. It is clear that evolution as understood by the West will not transform Armenia. On the other hand, I think it is pretty clear to everyone concerned that xeroxing a revolution from another state or situation and circumstances is not ipso facto an alternative for Armenia. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the relations between the state and its citizens. The Armenian national machine, based on national interest, national debate and a critical discussion of options, has to keep working regardless of who wins and who loses in the elections. That has not happened so far. We are in a very dangerous situation. The average Armenian citizen is apathetic, and is only open to a situational solution: taking a vote bribe, whether it is money, free fertilizer, potatoes or whatever. This constitutes a disdain of the Armenian citizen. That is not what the Armenian citizen is all about, and that is what your generations has to work on. Armenia is a small nation, landlocked, long on culture, and short on statecraft, and the role of international actors is important, but clearly it is the role of any sovereign government to pursue national interests.

A.W.-You blamed the presidency and the governing coalition for the state of affairs in Armenia. But do you think the current situation in Armenia supports something else?

R.H.-You raise an issue of strategic and existential importance: Can the system as it is support something else? As I said, on the one hand straight revolution and on the other hand xeroxed resolutions are not the answers to Armenia’s national democratic transformation. There has to be some other intersection of circumstances and values to bring Armenia to graduate beyond this parochialism and regionalism and become a viable nation-state that has a strategic role in the region.

I have to criticize the Armenian administration for their very weak policy vis-a-vis deals with Russia that have given them part of our energy system-industry pockets of Armenian sovereignty. I would say that is dangerous for Armenia. While I would want our strategic partner to have acted differently, I don’t blame Russia. I blame ourselves. There is no way that a self confident government would approve the ceding of such sovereignty in any direction, and this myopic, parochial approach jeopardizes the future of the country. And whatever government comes into power, it is going to inherit major problems.

There is a very rational progression of these values and we should not expose our compatriots, our fellow citizens, to a situation where they have to choose between supporting our national interest and being a proponent of democracy and the rule of law.

A.W.-How do you view Armenia’s relations with its neighbors and its regional foreign policy?

R.H.-I think there is little change in our foreign policy from 1992 until today. The delivery or presentation might have changed in accent or hue, but the policy has undergone very little qualitative change. Everything is based on the strategic relationship or the lack thereof in the Turkish-Armenian relationship. All other issues-including Karabakh’s self determination and ultimate recognition of the sovereign republic and the entire peace process connected with it-are derivates of the Turkish-Armenian relationship. This might not be a majority view, but I think that Turkish-Armenian relations are key, if the dividing lines in the Caucasus are ever to be overcome.

If Turkey and Armenia are to ever find themselves on the same security page in a larger partnership of values, they have to find a way to resolve the entire breadth and depth of the relationship through a diplomatic agenda that takes on all issues, contemporary and historic, and comes forth with a normalization of relations. It requires political courage and ethical fortitude on both sides of the frontier. In their history, the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Turkey have not signed agreements of any kind. There are different previous formulations of agreements between previous republics and the Ottoman Empire, the Bolshevik republic and nationalist Turks, but never between two sovereign republics. I think that Turkey’s desire for European integration is an important development and Armenia stands to gain from a truly European Turkey-a new and transformed Turkey that not only faces its history, but also knows how to respect historic heritage and provide for the right of return, which have to be negotiated with Armenia. There are all kinds of issues that must be resolved there.

Turkey should enter the EU only after having fully normalized relations with Armenia. It should not be able to enter the EU with an unregulated relationship with Armenia. I’ll go further and say that if Armenia gets its democratic act together, there is no reason for Armenia to be the odd man out. It could become a member of the EU if not before then at least in synchronization with Turkey, if Turkey ever gets in. European leaders who will be deciding on Turkey’s entry in 10 years are now in schools and universities. We’ll see how that plays out, but I think European integration offers great opportunities.

Regarding Karabakh, I believe there will be no solution to the issue without the participation of the Karabakh Republic. Karabakh should be part of the peace process and the exclusion from that process is not a positive trend.

BIO
Raffi K. Hovannisian is the founding director of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS), and was the first foreign minister of Armenia.
Hovannisian was born in Fresno, Calif., in 1959. He studied at the Georgetown University Law Center (JD awarded in 1985); the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University (MALD awarded in 1982; fields of specialization included international law, diplomatic history and foreign policies of communist countries, civilization and world affairs); University of California, Berkeley and Los Angeles (BA, summa cum laude, awarded in 1980 in history and Near Eastern studies; Justin Turner Prize for Outstanding Honors Thesis).
Hovannisian held the position of executive chairman of the “Hayastan” All-Armenian Fund (1998); chief of the department of information and publications, Republic of Armenia (March-April 1998); minister of foreign affairs, Republic of Armenia (1991-1992); project director of the Armenian Assembly of America Earthquake Relief (1990-1991); founder and director of the Armenian Bar Association (1989-1990); international lawyer and civil litigator in the firms of Hill, Farrer and Burrill, Whitman & Ransom, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, and Coudert Brothers (1985-1989); lecturer of Armenian history, Tufts University (1981-1982). His treatises, monographs, essays and articles have appeared extensively in Armenian, Russian, American, European and Middle Eastern publications. He is married and has five children.

An Interview with Congressman James McGovern

2007-06-26T20:27:00.000-07:00

From Armenia to Darfur: Genocide, Politics and Advocacy
An Interview with Congressman McGovern
The Armenian Weekly
April 21, 2007

WORCESTER, Mass. (A.W.)—Congressman James P. McGovern (D-Mass.) recently returned from a trip to Africa, where he witnessed the plight of the people of Darfur living in refugee camps in Chad. In an interview conducted by Weekly editor Khatchig Mouradian in Worcester on April 13, McGovern discussed the current situation in Darfur, what needs to be done to stop the genocide there, and the importance of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

When asked what he witnessed on the ground, McGovern responded, “I tried to get into Sudan and they refused to give me a visa to go in. Apparently because I had gotten arrested in front of the Sudanese embassy a year ago in protest of the genocide in Darfur.”

He continued, “So I instead flew into Chad, which is the neighboring country, and went to the border of Darfur and visited the refugee camps filled with Sudanese refugees along the eastern border of Chad.”

Speaking in awe of the people he saw there, he commented, “It was an experience, the likes of which I’ve never had before in my life. I visited two Sudanese refugee camps and visited dozens and dozens of refugees. Every one of them had a horror story.”

McGovern was then asked why the U.S. appeared to be so lead-footed when it came to taking decisive action to stop the genocide in Darfur. He asserted derisively, “I think the United States is not reacting for a number of reasons. First, we’re still bogged down in Iraq right now. Which is viewed by some in the Bush administration as, ‘We can’t do much more than we’re doing right now.’ Two, we have this tight relationship with China, and yet China is sending helicopters and weapons to the Sudanese government, which are being used against the people of Darfur.”

McGovern suggested the U.S. lead the charge in the world community by boycotting the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. “China isn’t concerned with human rights,” he added, “but it is concerned with how it’s viewed around the world.”

He quashed any support for U.S. intelligence services taking a blind eye to genocide in Darfur on account of Sudan being an anti-terrorism ally by stating,
“Some have told me that because the government of Sudan kicked Osama Bin Laden out of that country, that their may be some kind of intelligence cooperation that we [the U.S.] don’t want to upset, under the ‘War on Terror.’ Forgive me, but what do you call a genocide if not terror?”

McGovern called for an immediate UN Security Council Resolution to safeguard the Darfur region, but in the meantime rallied, “We need to start talking about things like a ‘no-fly zone’ that a combination of France and some other countries can enforce. There’s a French military base in Chad that could be placed to keep the planes to enforce a no-fly zone over Sudan.”

When queried whether he thought U.S. troops being a part of any peacekeeping missions would be well received in a post-Iraq world, McGovern admitted, “A UN peacekeeping force probably won’t consist of U.S. troops. Because quite frankly our credibility around the world is so diminished that having U.S. troops there would probably add fuel to the fire. Further, you want people who speak the language and are sensitive to the issues of Darfur.”

McGovern pragmatically outlined what he thought the U.S. role should be. “Seventy-three percent of the American people believe we should take action in Darfur. And we can provide the funding, or some of the funding, for a UN peacekeeping force. That’s what our role can be, to provide logistic support where it’s appropriate.”

He chided of the nation’s current efforts, “I am ashamed as a Congressman, a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the world that we’re not doing more.”

McGovern praised the Armenian community for its solidarity with the Darfur intervention activists, saying, “One of the things I think the Armenian community has been out front on is that issue of ending the genocide in Darfur. Because of the unique history of the Armenian people, I think they have a special understanding, a painful understanding of what a genocide is and what it feels like to be ignored.”

Promoting a resolute and motivated campaign of activism and letter writing, he said. “I tell people they need to raise hell with their Congressmen and Senators. Tell them, this is an issue I expect you, as my Senator, to take a leadership role on. Don’t tell me you’re sympathetic with the situation. Don’t send me back a letter saying you too believe it’s genocide. What I want is a letter back from you that you’re pushing the Bush administration and the international community.”

McGovern spoke about the Armenian Genocide Resolution in the U.S. Congress and the Turkish lobby’s attempts to prevent its passage. He was adamant in saying, “I’m tired of excuses. We need to do what’s right. We need to do what’s truthful. That means acknowledging that there was a genocide committed against the Armenians early in the last century. I’m sorry that Turkey doesn’t want to acknowledge the truth, but that’s the truth.”

Commenting on the importance of this bill, he said, “It says a lot about who you are today, when you acknowledge the past. If Turkey wants to have a fit over this, let them have a fit over this. If they want to remove their embassy from the United States, let them do it.”

He added, “I want the House to run the bill. I want the Senate to run the bill. Send it to the President.”

McGovern ended by emphasizing that it is our civic duty as Americans to honor those victims and survivors who came to this country by acknowledging the Genocide. “They’re our people. They’re our citizens. If for no other reason than to pay our proper respects to our citizens, we should do it.”

To watch the entire interview online, visit www.haireniktv.com.

An Interview with Arsinee Khanjian

2007-06-22T12:14:00.001-07:00

An Interview with Arsinee Khanjian
By Khatchig Mouradian

The Armenian Weekly
March 17, 2007

Arsinee Khanjian was born in Lebanon in 1958. Her family moved to Montreal
when the Lebanese civil war broke out in 1975. While a graduate student at
Concordia University, she met her future husband, Atom Egoyan, when
auditioning for his debut film, "Next of Kin" (1984). Khanjian has appeared
in most of Egoyan's films, and has gradually made a name for herself as an
accomplished actress. She has also appeared on the Canadian stage and
television shows. In 2002, Khanjian won the Genie Award for best actress in
"Ararat" and was nominated for the same award in 2005 for her role in
"Sabah."

Her most recent role is in "Lark Farm," the ambitious project of the Taviani
brothers, the titans of Italian cinema, which brings the Armenian Genocide
to the big screen. "Lark Farm" premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in Feb.
2007 and was highly acclaimed in the German media.

In this interview with Khanjian, conducted by phone on March 7, we discuss
her experiences with "Lark Farm," with flashbacks to "Ararat."

Armenian Weekly-How did you become involved in "Lark Farm"?

Arsinee Khanjian-A friend of the casting agent for the Taviani brothers was
on the jury of the second Golden Apricot Festival in Yerevan. I met her and
she told me that the agent was looking for my contact information because
the Taviani brothers wanted me to be a part of their next project, which is
about an Armenian family during WWI.
To hear that the Taviani brothers were searching for me was quite strange,
because I am quite easy to find through my agent. Then I figured out this
was the Italian way of having things done: Everything has to be complicated
so that it is simplified afterwards! I said I would be more than thrilled to
have a look at the project. The Tavianis, of course, are inescapable masters
of Italian cinema along with [Michelangelo] Antonioni, [Federico] Fellini,
[Bernado] Bertolucci. They are part of the foundation of Italian cinema.
A month later, I received a phone call from the agent saying that they would
send me the English translation of the script. And that's what I read. I
haven't read Antonia Arslan's book Skylark Farm, which was published in
Italian and recently translated to English. I suppose the script is a loose
adaptation of the book. I have no idea what the differences are between the
novel and the script of the movie.

A.W.-Talk about the script and how you felt about it on your first reading.

A.K.-Reading the script, I asked myself why the Tavianis would be interested
in this particular story of this particular history. How can people who have
not been part of this history understand with so much astuteness and
sensitivity the predicament of this culture, and also the individual lives
and experiences of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during that period?

In the actual script, they never locate the town or the city. But we can
deduce from the family's social status that this is a bourgeois family,
quite well off, educated, involved in business. They do not live in a
village. However, there are also interesting encounters in the film with
other Armenian families who are not necessarily of the same social status.
Reading the script was a very powerful, explosive experience for me, similar
to reading [Franz Werfel's] The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. As a culture, we
have been ignored for so long that when we see someone who is really
attentive to us, we are really taken aback. And I really was.

I had to deal with my own demons in the love story issue [in the story, an
Armenian girl and a Turkish officer fall in love]. However, this does give a
perspective of not demonizing every Turkish person in the history of the
Armenian Genocide. I was initially reticent towards the love story, but in
the end I must say that it was masterfully contextualized.

I was surprised that I was the only Armenian in the project apart from
Antonia Arslan. In a way, I was very curious to know how this would work. I
wasn't sure how all these actors would approach the historic background. Not
that it is always necessary for the artists to come from a certain culture
to be able to act; not only the British can play Shakespeare. But again
there was a hidden suspicion of mine, probably a cultural suspicion.

As the shooting of the film began, I realized that I had not been in a
multicultural project like this in my entire acting career. Young Spanish
star Paz Vega plays the role of Nounik. French actor Tcheky Karyo, who was
born in Istanbul and is of Jewish background, plays the role of my (Armine's)
husband. French actor Andre Dussollier plays the Turkish general. The
officer is an Italian star Alessandro Preziosi. Palestinian actor Mohammed
Bakri [who plays the role of a heroic beggar] is in it as well. The young
zabtiyye is played by German actor Moritz Bleibtreu. And then we had all the
Bulgarian actors with smaller parts. [The movie was a co-production of
France, Spain, Bulgaria and Italy, and was shot in Bulgaria].

There was a scene where one actor was speaking in English, others in
Spanish, French, Italian and Bulgarian. And the marvel is that when I
watched the film, I did not see even the slightest sign of disarray. It was
very harmonious and makes complete sense in terms of performances.

I guess the multicultural aspect of the project itself was a very
interesting backdrop to the interest of the Tavianis in this subject, which
is now of universal curiosity. The film has a very strong statement to make,
beyond its artistic quality, and it is done in a very tactful, considerate
and committed way. The music is also beautiful and evocative to the story.

A.W.-In an interview with Berliner Zeitung, Vittorio Taviani said, "As we
read Arslan's book, it became clear to us that we could tie the past with
the present together. As we were shooting the film, the entire team had the
impression that this was the most newsworthy and up-to-date film that anyone
could ever make" (Armenian Weekly, March 3). What do you have to say about
the "newsworthiness" of this film?

A.K.-It was great that the movie premiered [at the Berlin Festival] in
Germany. The country has a great Turkish population, but beyond that, it has
a lot of relationship with this history, because Germany was Turkey's ally
during WWI. There are a lot of things of interest for today's Germans,
because this is also their history. I am not sure how much the German press
pushed the debate in that direction and asked those questions looking at the
film. I think the general attitude was more in relation of where Turkey
stands today and what the possibility is of facing its past as a country
with European aspirations.
Yes, it is a timely subject because we aren't finished with this kind of
behavior in our societies. The history of the Armenian Genocide is very much
alive partly because it is a very archetypical example of what is currently
happening.

A.W.-Some German reviewers noted that there was too much violence in the
movie. What's your take on that?

A.K.-What am I supposed to say when critics make that kind of comment? Don't
we see a lot of violence in "Pulp Fiction" and in all the video games our
children play? Didn't we see on TV what has happened in Darfur, Rwanda,
Sarajevo? Didn't we see the hanging of Saddam Hussein? Why are they talking
about violence? Are they insinuating that the topic is being manipulated? Is
this why they are raising this question? As far as I am concerned, there
wasn't particularly shocking violence and the violence was absolutely
minimal compared to what the historical record on the Armenian Genocide
tells us.

I want to add that I think the violence is minimal but what the scenes with
violence suggest is very powerful indeed.

A.W.-What was the general reaction of the public in Berlin to "Lark Farm"?

A.K.-The press and theatre screenings of the film were packed, and people
were taken by this experience. A lot of people were very surprised and
undignified because they didn't know about the history. The film has not
opened anywhere else yet.

A.W.-It will open in France next.

A.K.-In France, it will open in June. I am in close contact with the French
producer and he really wants this to work. The French Armenian community
didn't go and see "Ararat." It is unacceptable and shameful. When there are
films made about these stories, it is our responsibility to be curious and
engage ourselves. It doesn't mean that we have to like it or defend it, but
we really have to know about it by going and seeing. I am hoping that the
Armenian community will do that this time around. The rest is going to be in
the hands of French critics and the French audience. We can only provide
curiosity through our own excitement.

I certainly hope that our intelligentsia will stop having ambivalent
commitment to the subject matter, because a lot of us still haven't sorted
out the impact of our identity. Our writers and social commentators should
put themselves outside of these experiences whether these are films or other
forms of artistic expression, and they should try to contextualize, in a
generous way, the meaning of a work of art on this history. This film or any
other film is the individual's connection with the subject matter and
therefore it will always be presented through the individual's perspective.
The job of any writer, especially an Armenian one, is to understand that
there is more than one perspective around the question of Armenian identity,
and that there is no right one.

A.W.-I can't help but think that you are referring to the critics of
"Ararat".

A.K.-Yes, you are absolutely right in saying that a lot of my comments are
based on my experience with "Ararat." Honestly it's not that it affected in
any way the success of "Ararat" in terms of where its sits in the history of
international cinema, but it was a great disappointment to me to see how
limited our community was in terms of its ability to open up to the reality
of what our identities are today.

The regressive kind of attention was not an issue for the filmmaker or
myself, but when generations to come decide to read about how the Armenian
intelligentsia dealt with these issues, it is unfortunate that we don't have
anything more intelligently and less subjectively vested. I would have liked
the coming generation to see how much multiplicity there is in our seeing
and understanding almost 100 years later the trauma of this identity. That
is what's going identity survival for the young generation. They ought to
see an exchange of ideas and experiences, and not just defensive criticism.

A.W.-Compare your experience with "Ararat" to that of "Lark Farm."

A.K.-[Laughs] Thank you for these questions. I would never have thought of
making a parallel between the two and I certainly did not make that parallel
when I read the script because the sensibilities of filmmakers as well as
the stories that they are choosing to tell are very different. But when I
saw the film, I said to myself: This is unbelievable. What "Lark Farm"
happens to be is what people expected "Ararat" to be.

In a way "Ararat" did deal with the history but not as a whole; the onus of
the film was not in the past, because "Ararat" wanted to be a film in today's
reality. It asked questions like: What does the Genocide do to us, the
children of the survivors? "Ararat" wanted to be a contemporary story about
our dilemma and trauma with this history. However, the film within the film
was where we saw flashbacks connecting us with the history. In some ways,
"Lark Farm" is the film within the film that Edward Saroyan was making in
"Ararat."

I didn't realize it until I saw the film, its texture, its story. I thought,
yes, many Armenians often need this kind of story, because so little of the
Genocide story has been told on the big screen. In a way, "Ararat" was ahead
of its time and "Lark Farm" should have been made 30 years ago.

A.W.-Many Armenians were expecting "Ararat" to be an epic movie telling the
history of the Armenian Genocide.

A.K.-We have to ask ourselves why weren't these epic films made? Why should
it have been Atom who made it when he goes way beyond this style of
filmmaking?
We keep saying that there are so many films about the Holocaust. Who made
those films? The Jews themselves made them. And did we not have that much
presence in the film community? Did we not have the money? Why didn't we do
it?

We didn't make these films because we don't invest enough-financially,
intellectually and artistically-in this issue. Isn't it unbelievable that
ultimately "Ararat" was made by a Canadian Jewish producer? Not even one
penny was provided by Armenians. We have to ask the right question before we
jump to criticism.

An Interview with Ambassador John Evans

2007-06-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

It's History, But It Does Matter
An Interview with Ambassador John Evans
By Khatchig Mouradian
The Armenian Weekly
May 5, 2007

WASHINGTON (A.W.)- Former U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Evans defied U.S.
State Department policy by using the word genocide in reference to the
destruction of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. He was soon after
dismissed from his post. In this interview, conducted in Washington on April
23, Evans talks about why he went against the policy, what changes that
policy has since undergone, and why and how it needs to change.

Khatchig Mouradian-Why would a distinguished ambassador like yourself speak
out on an issue that guarantees criticism and intervention from the State
Department?

John Evans-It came down to an ethical question, and I came to the conclusion
that I had no choice. I have to say that it is not something that any
diplomat does lightly. It goes against every grain of our being. It goes
against every teaching that we've ever had as diplomats, so it was not an
easy decision. But I did a lot of thinking and a lot of reading beforehand,
and you have to wait for my book to get the full story.

K.M.-Of all U.S. foreign policy issues, why did you choose to speak out on
the Armenian genocide?

J.E.-You have to remember that I was the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia. Had I
been the U.S. ambassador somewhere else, there would have been no sense in
this. My having been assigned to Armenia meant that I did a lot of reading
and studying. And it wasn't the first time, because I had studied Ottoman
history before, during the sabbatical year. So this was not totally foreign
historical territory for me. But it was a combination of factors, and I do
ask your patience. Wait until I finish my book and I hope to answer these
questions for everybody.

K.M.-Talk about your book.

J.E.-Since I left the State Department last fall, I have been working on a
book which traces my own intellectual journey from knowing very little about
Armenia and Armenians to knowing a little bit more-still not all that much
but quite a bit in the end-and I'm hoping that I will appeal to everyday
American readers who don't know very much and are even puzzled afraid of the
issue. I hope I can bring them with me on this intellectual journey and then
try to explain why it is important to deal with it and suggest some things
that should be done. That's the purpose of my book. It's with an editor now
and I hope it would be done with a publisher soon.

K.M.-When you consciously decided to make that statement, to say genocide,
what did you expect to happen? Is it what's actually unfolding now?

J.E.-No one ever knows exactly what is going to happen as a consequence of
one's actions. I did have a pretty good idea that it was going to cause some
controversy. And if you see the tape that was recently discovered of what I
said in Fresno, I didn't simply blurb out the word genocide to make an
effect. It was embedded in a deep context of lots and lots of other factors
that I was trying to discuss as honestly and sensitively as I could with my
audiences. And my audiences were not only Armenian-American, but also
university audiences. There were Turks and Azeris in some. I felt that the
impossibility under current situations of dealing with the issues frankly
was an impediment to everybody's understanding and to everybody's getting to
a better place on this issue.

K.M.-How did people you interacted with in Armenia deal with the genocide
issue?

J.E.-The issue of the Armenian genocide was never raised with me in Armenia
and I never raised it there. I talked about it during my trip through the
U.S. in February 2005. I did not raise it at my post of assignment. I know
there are polling data which reveal that the recognition of the genocide is
not on top of the list for most citizens of the Republic of Armenia. And I
certainly found that people I have talked to in Armenia are very sensible
about this issue, they are also deeply passionate about it, but there are so
many other things to deal with-questions of economy, politics, daily living.
Certainly U.S. programs there are focused primarily on these issues and that's
what we mainly dealt with.

K.M.-Why is it important for the U.S. to recognize an atrocity that took
place 92 years ago in another part of the world?

J.E.-The U.S. has all through its history prided itself on standing up for
historical truth, human rights, justice, and on trying to make the world a
better place. Although the foreign policy of every state is a combination of
factors, it's never based simply on ethics or simply on the truth as we may
perceive it; it's always a mixture of things. And honest men and women can
differ about the ingredients. On one side, there are those who would
practice realpolitik; on the other end of the spectrum you may have the
Wilsonian bent of mind. Somewhere between those two poles is a happy medium
and I personally think that on this issue, we have gone too far in one
direction and the balance needs to be redressed.

Obviously lots of other people are speaking out on this. We have 40 of the
50 U.S., which have in some way or the other recognized the historical
reality of the Armenian genocide. By latest count, there are now 191
co-sponsors of the bill currently in the House. So it's not by any means
just me. There are many other people who have spoken out about this issue
and written about it-the New York Times very recently in its editorial, the
L.A. Times, and many other of the media voices in this country.

K.M.-Many diplomats serving around the world may have problems with the
different aspects of U.S. foreign policy, but do not publicly speak against
it. What was the difference in your case?

J.E.-In 35 years of my diplomatic career, I never once found myself in
serious disagreement with U.S. foreign policy in an area on which I was
working or had responsibility. That's the difference. This is the first time
in my diplomatic career that I ran up into a policy and a situation. This
was not a case where one could simply call a staff meeting or interagency
group meeting and solve the problem or tweak the policy. It is much more
profound than that. I don't think all ambassadors are sitting on historical
problems.

K.M.-Yes, I wanted to know why you considered it important in the case of
the Armenian genocide.

J.E.-I do think it's important because history is important. History
matters. Unfortunately in the U.S., too often when you say it's history, we
mean it doesn't matter. But history does matter and if the questions left
over from history are not addressed, they tend to come back and back again
and again, and this is one of those questions. I also think this is very
much linked to security for all the countries in that region. It's an issue
that has not been fully addressed, and needs to be fully addressed. And all
the countries I am talking about Anatolia and the Caucasus, they need to
deal with the demons of the past, put them to rest, and create a better,
healthier and safer future for their people.

K.M.-What about the argument that Turkey is an important ally?

J.E.-I think we are good friends with the Turks and I think we should be
good friends with the Turks. And I think what we've been doing is not what a
good friend necessarily does. I bare today's Turks no ill will. I have
Turkish friends, my stokebroker is a Turk, and the people of present-day
Turkey are not culpable for the crimes that took place in 1915. But our
friendship cannot be based on the denial on historical truth.

K.M.-How do you see Turkey coming to grips with the past?

J.E.-I am not a great expert on the internal dynamics of Turkey. I do follow
them as every well-informed citizen should. It's a very important country.
We do see signs of change in Turkey, we see signs that ice is cracking a
little bit, and I think we need to encourage those voices who are speaking
for a better, more democratic Turkey in the future, which will be for us a
better ally.

K.M.-How do you think the State Department's policy regarding the Armenian
genocide will change?

J.E.-I think change is happening. A lot of changes have already happened,
and the recent testimony of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried on
March 15 marked an important milestone, when he used a new term "ethnic
cleansing." I also think there are other things that can be done. In my
book, I plan to suggest a number of these things-not just prescribe what
must happen, but throw out some ideas that could be done and in my view
should be done, and we will see then where we will go. Because I don't think
simply using the word genocide-which is a very powerful word, and it does
describe in my view what happened in 1915-will deal with the issue fully.
There's a great deal more that needs to be done in the future and we all
need to think about what some of those things could be.

An Interview with Carla Garapedian

2007-06-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

Documenting Truth: An Interview with Carla Garapedian
By Khatchig Mouradian
The Armenian Weekly
December 2, 2006

The LA Times has described film director Carla Garapedian's work as
"documenting truth in dangerous places." After documenting truth in
different parts of the world, Garapedian has returned to her roots, and
explores the continued denial of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey and its
allies in "Screamers," a documentary that will premiere in Los Angeles on
Dec. 8.

"Screamers" tells of how the world's major powers continually turned away
when genocide was being committed, whether in the Ottoman Empire, Rwanda or
Darfur. Multiple platinum selling rock band System of a Down partners with
Garapedian and producer Peter McAlevey to send a powerful message through
the band's music and activism. Also featured in the documentary are Pulitzer
Prize winning scholar Samantha Power, FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, and
Genocide survivors.

Garapedian earned her Ph.D. in international relations from the London
School of Economics. After working as a correspondent for NBC, she served as
a director and anchor at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Her
documentaries include "Lifting the Veil," "Children of the Secret State,"
"Iran Undercover," and "My Friend the Mercenary."

I talked to her by phone from Watertown, Mass., on Wednesday, Nov. 29.

A.W.-You have filmed various documentaries on crimes against humanity and
human rights abuses in Chechnya, North Korea, Iran and Afghanistan. Your
most recent documentary "Screamers" tackles the issue of the Armenian
Genocide. For the first time, it seems, you travel to the past, and explore
how the destruction of the Armenians in 1915 remains a pressing issue today.
Tell us about this journey.

C.G.-Yes it's certainly the first time that I tackled a historical subject.
In fact, I really did not want to do it to begin with because there had been
some very good documentaries made about the Armenian Genocide and I didn't
know how I was going to add any value. In fact, I worked on a couple of such
documentaries by the acclaimed filmmaker Michael Hagopian ["Voices from the
lake" and "Germany and the Secret Genocide"].

When I talked to [System of a Down lead vocalist] Serj Tankian initially, he
said that what interests him is the politics of denial and doing a
documentary that would intersect with the band's work. Eventually, we made a
political film, and that was something I was more familiar with. In turn,
the BBC was interested in how something that happened in history had become
current politics. There was interest in Turkey's bid to join the EU, and in
that context, the issue of the Armenian Genocide was being raised in
Turkey-by the likes of novelist Orhan Pamuk-and in Europe. Also, System of a
Down (SOAD) was an interesting phenomenon for the BBC because the band had a
worldwide following and young people were becoming aware about the Armenian
Genocide through the band. There was also the fact that the issue of the
Genocide was still being debated in the U.S. and there was this scandal
surrounding [former Speaker of the House] Dennis Hastert [over his refusal
to bring the Genocide Resolution to the floor]. For all these reasons, the
BBC gave me the initial green light to make the film and I was lucky to have
that.

A.W.-Most of your previous work also deals with crimes against humanity and
human rights violations. Was your Armenian background a catalyst for that?

C.G.-My family was always involved in community events as I was growing up
here in LA. They had a very strong sense of being Armenians in America. So I
grew up with the feeling that our genocide was not being recognized and it
motivated me to look at other peoples' suffering-war crimes in Chechnya that
were not recognized as war crimes, for instance. I also did a film about
North Korea ["Children of the Secret State"] in a time when America was
trying to contain North Korea's nuclear issue and not talk about the human
rights violations there. As an Armenian, these issues resonated with me;
these people were victims and their voices were not being heard. Looking
back, I have been motivated by a sense of injustice and it made me want to
help other people get their story out.

A.W.-Talk about how you chose the title of your new documentary.

C.G.-Samantha Power uses the term "screamers" in her Pulitzer Prize winning
book [A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide] when referring
to people who speak up when genocide is taking place. In turn, Serj told me
that when the band first started, major label people approached him and
said, "You guys are really talented, but if you keep screaming and growling
the way you do, you probably won't get signed by a major label." Serj
thanked them for their advice and kept doing what they were doing. Later on,
when I was interviewing him, Serj told me that in politics, too, we should
all be screamers. That's how the title of the film came about.

A.W.-When I talk to genocide scholars, I often ask them whether we really
ever mean it when we say "Never Again." What do you think?

C.G.-We don't mean "Never Again." What I try to do is identify that
hypocrisy because by identifying it we can then move on to say, "OK, so we
don't mean it, and how does that reflect on us and what we want to achieve
in our foreign policy?" Maybe our policy is always non-intervention, maybe
it is always about how we perceive our national security interests. And in
genocide, what happens is that leaders think intervention is not worth it. I
think that part of the answer is how you define what your national interests
are. I think our national interest should be stopping genocide in the world.
Let's just say that you do not define intervention by morality or the right
thing to do, but by national security. I think it is in our national
security to stop genocide wherever it's happening, because it creates
pockets of hate, violence and vengeance, and that backfires. How can we live
peacefully in this world while we allow the most awful thing civilization
has ever known to occur?

I truly believe that genocide is an idea, a belief. And we can change
beliefs. It is like slavery. In the past, we believed that slavery was
perfectly all right and now we know better. We used to believe that it was
OK to make children work in mines and we don't believe that anymore. If
there are enough people who are indignant and morally outraged about
genocide, they will do something about it, too.

People do get involved when awareness is created. When the tsunami happened
in Indonesia, people here in America donated millions of dollars to help the
victims, sometimes without even knowing where that place was. They thought,
"That could happen to me. I could be sitting in my home and suddenly this
tidal wave comes and takes my whole family away."

A.W.-Television and the media had a role in that, in the sense that people
thought "These are real people just like us" and the same is true in the
case of genocide.

C.G.-Of course, in the case of the Armenian Genocide, there were many
missionaries and diplomats from different countries of the world, which is
why it was very well documented. What makes it hard to tell the story is
that we have the still pictures, but not the moving pictures. I do think
people would feel differently if we had the kind of pictures that we have
for the Holocaust. Yes, television is critical. A friend of mine, a
photographer who was in Sudan, was telling me how difficult it is to get to
places where the atrocities are taking place, and that when you get to the
burnt villages, the atrocities have already happened, so you see the
aftermath but you don't see it when it's happening. But still the images are
powerful enough to move people.

A.W.-Let's talk about the experience of working with SOAD.

C.G.-When I first saw them perform-jumping around and screaming-I was a
little intimidated. When I first heard their music I thought, "Oh my God,
how am I going to work with them?" I was turning the volume down when they
screamed. And when I heard Serj sing the beautiful melodic parts of the
songs, I would then turn the volume up again-there's an Armenian sound in
their music here. The more I listened to it the more I thought, "I can do
something with this." Now I listen to their music and I don't know what was
I thinking at first. I didn't understand it back then. The more I listened,
the more I got used to it.

So at first I was intimidated. Then I was worried about what happens when
one is around a rock group. Am I going to be able to take all these fans,
all these groupies? But they [SOAD] are nice Armenian boys, and I'm a nice
Armenian girl [laughs], so they knew that they had to treat me like a
relative. They tried to be very helpful to me and they knew that I was a
little bit intimidated by the experience of being around them so they tried
to "protect" me.

They are very nice people, and humble, and they haven't been spoiled by
success at all. The thing that surprised me about them most was that they
are pure musicians. They are not into the publicity or selling the music.
They are very much into the music, and try to be the best musicians they
can, and that surprised me. I used to think that rock musicians were these
kind of crazy, drugged out guys who don't care and go on stage and pluck a
few notes on the guitar and wonder off. These guys are not like that at all.
They are serious musicians. They put everything into their concert and they
totally exhaust themselves. So I was impressed by that. Working with them
was a very positive experience and I feel changed by it. I will never again
be judgmental about rock bands and musicians. I'm not saying they're all
like that but I realized I was being judgmental.

I was also being judgmental about the young generation. I thought they only
cared about material things-their clothes, getting the most expensive tennis
shoes, and whether they are going to get the best jobs. The fans I met were
just the opposite. They do care about what is happening in the world, and
they do want to make a difference.

Now, I even understand some of the head banging. It's kind of a tribal
thing. They get together and they have a sense of community and they also
feel like they are rebelling.

A.W.-What are your plans for the documentary?

C.G.-The first showing of the documentary will be on Dec. 8 in LA-home of
the band. Starting in January, the film will be shown in New York, Boston,
Chicago and Washington. We hope every Armenian shows up and brings a friend,
so that we have the core audience we need to send the message out. In recent
years, more people are going to the movie theatres to see documentaries, and
we are riding on that wave. Watching "Screamers" is also a sort of
entertainment. The people who watch it in the theatres will come out feeling
that they have been to a movie and not just a documentary that they may have
seen on TV. The reason we are having these theatrical screenings is to raise
political awareness. We wanted to do these screenings because the media will
cover it when it's in the theatres.

An Interview with Hratch Tchilingirian II

2007-06-04T12:50:00.000-07:00

The Challenges Facing the Armenian Church
An Interview with Hratch Tchilingirian
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily

“The Armenian Church hides, under its each and every stone, a secret path ascending to the heavens”, wrote the famous Armenian poet, Vahan Tekeyan. Yet, the Armenian Church is more than a religious institution that has acted as a “mediator” between Armenians and their God. Having survived the shifting tides of time for more than seventeen centuries, this “unique organization”, as Professor Hratch Tchilingirian calls it in this interview, has served its people as much as, if not more than, it has served God. Today, in the age of globalization, secularization and false crusades, the Armenians – despite their constant boasting about having the oldest Christian state in the world - are also following this global trend, by gradually distancing themselves from established religious institutions and, at times, looking for spiritual answers elsewhere.

What is the mission of the Armenian Church in the 21st century? What are the challenges that it faces in Armenia and the Diaspora? How effectively is the Church hierarchy tackling these challenges? I discussed these and a number of related issues with Professor Hratch Tchilingirian when he was visiting Beirut in July.

Hratch Tchilingirian is Associate Director of the Eurasia Programme, the Judge Institute, University of Cambridge. He received his PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science and his Master of Public Administration (MPA) from California State University, Northridge. His current research covers political and territorial disputes in the Caucasus and Central Asia, as well as the region's political, economic and geostrategic developments. He has authored over 120 articles and publications on the politics, economy, culture, religion and social issues of the Eurasia region, especially the Caucasus and the Armenian Diaspora.

Tchilingirian is closely involved in the affairs of the Armenian Church. He has a Master of Divinity degree from St. Vladimir's Theological School and a Diploma in Armenian Church Studies from St. Nersess Armenian Seminary in New York. He was the Dean of St. Nersess Seminary in 1991-1994. Tchilingirian was also co-founder and editor of “Window View of the Armenian Church” (1990-1995), a quarterly magazine dealing with issues related to the Armenian Church. He has authored many articles on contemporary Armenian affairs, including those relating directly to the Armenian Church.

Aztag- Currently, people are farther away from religion than they used to be, perhaps because in a highly secularized world, organized religion is giving way to other philosophies and teachings. How do you see the situation of the Armenian Church in this context?

Tchilingirian- This is a major and complex issue, but I would say there are internal and external reasons for the current situation. As you mentioned, secularization is part of the general trend globally. There is a steady decline of organized religion and church attendance. For instance, there are some studies which show that in Armenia only about 9% of the population attends church services regularly on Sundays. In America, the percentage is much higher; it's about 40%, but in Europe, it’s also low, about 6-7%. However, this does not necessarily mean that there is a decline of interest in spirituality. There are alternative religions, as well as various other philosophies and spiritual teachings that have gained currency in our world today. So the challenge to institutional churches is how to be relevant in the 21st century. In the case of the Armenian Church, the question is no different: How can a 1700-year-old church make itself relevant to Armenians living around a very-fast paced world in the 21st century? This is the major challenge. In fact, the Armenian Church has not addressed this issue collectively and seriously.

Aztag- Can we benefit from the experience of other churches in this respect?

Tchilingirian- Well, virtually all churches are facing great challenges, be it the Catholic or Orthodox or Protestant churches. They have various programs or mechanisms to address- not necessarily successfully- these challenges. For instance, homosexuality and gay marriage is a big issue in the Anglican Church and it is creating divisions. The Roman Catholic Church has its own sets of problems, with priests involved in cases of sexual abuse, and with the issue of celibacy and marriage of the clergy creating tensions. So, you have churches with particular issues and challenges, and other problems that are common to all churches.

In the case of the Armenian Church, I believe there is a lack of clear sense of mission. I have written about this quite extensively. What is the mission of the Armenian Church in the 21st century? At least personally, I am not aware of any well-articulated statement or program on the part of the church that spells out the Armenian Church's mission. Of course, if you ask the clergy or the hierarchs, they would tell you that the mission of the church is very obvious, it's based on the Gospel; it’s the salvation of souls. But how do we achieve this? How is this mission carried out? How do you make it relevant to the Armenian on the streets of Bourj Hammoud, Yerevan or Los Angeles? How does this translate into the everyday life of the Armenian faithful?

Each problem is unique and has a unique solution and one cannot take a one-size-fits-all approach when thinking about solutions. In America, there are many new ideas. There are churches that play modern music or Christian rock, but if you try to bring this to Lebanon, for instance, people would be scandalized; they would find that very foreign and reject it. So you have to find a solution based on the local culture, on how local people perceive things, or based on whether a particular community is ready for a particular change.

One of the most important functions of religion or faith is to provide meaning to human life. If a religion or a philosophy provides this role in your life, then you follow its teachings. If the Armenian Church provides meaning to Armenians from different walks of life, who are looking for something more than the Sunday liturgy, conducted in a language most people don't understand, then it would become relevant to them.

Aztag- The Armenian Church is also regarded as an institution with a national mission. Is there a lack of planning in that domain as well?

Tchilingirian- I think the church and the clergy feel more comfortable in the so-called "national mission" of the Church- Azkayin Arakeloutyoun, than its religious-spiritual mission. And yet when you ask about the national mission of the Armenian Church in specific terms, you realize that the answers are very vague. Obviously, the Church has played the role of a surrogate state in Armenian history and it has preserved our culture, but today, one has to be more specific also about what the national mission of the church is. Of course, the church can publish books, discuss Armenian philology and culture, and so on, but why does the church have to do these things? Why doesn’t the Church or the hierarchy relegate this role to other, perhaps more qualified organizations in the community to carry out such functions - and what could be termed as ‘non-religious’ services - so that the Church and clergy can dedicate more talent and resources to their main religious and apostolic mission?

Aztag- But throughout history, perhaps due to the circumstances, the Armenian Church has served the people by a number of ways that have little to do with its apostolic mission.

Tchilingirian- Every organization has its primary raison d'etre. But when you neglect and do not carry out your primary mission and you engage in secondary or other peripheral missions, then why exist? If an organization wants to change its raison d’etre and say, ‘henceforth, we are not this, but we are that’, fine! But if you say you're something, and you are doing something else, then you're not being true to your own calling, and you are not delivering what you say you are going to deliver. This is a matter of principle; it's a matter of stating your mission. What is your mission statement?

The Church is the only national institution that has existed continuously throughout Armenian history in the last 1700 years. So the church, as an institution, is beyond the individuals who run it. It is very powerful - it has an in-built power vis a vis the fact that it is a religious and national organization that has a very long history. And it will still be here in the coming centuries. It’s unlike a secular organization which is very temporary - it is here today, but might not be here in 50 years or 100 years. And yet, each generation has a responsibility to carry out the mission of the Church. If we want the Armenian Church to be what it's supposed to be, then we have to ask: What are the people who are running the church, namely the clergy and hierarchy, doing? What are the laymen doing? How are they carrying out their mission?’

I think this is the problematic issue -whether in Etchmiadzin or in the Diaspora. I should note that some Hierarchical Sees are more aware of these issues and are carrying out more serious work in their respective jurisdictions. The Catholicosate of Cilicia, for instance, is involved with serious mission work. Yet, collectively, we are still not clear about what the main purpose of the entire Church is. How do you reach the 90% of Armenians who are not affiliated with the Church, who do not come to church, except once or twice a year, for weddings or for funerals?

Aztag- Do you think changing the language of the liturgy into modern Armenian would make a difference? After all, religion seems to have become an individual quest for meaning in life, and it seems that the factors carrying people farther away from the church have little to do with the language.

Tchilingirian- If you conduct the liturgy in modern Armenian or English, there is no guarantee that suddenly you'll have thousands of Armenians flocking to the church. I think making the language understandable does help; but it’s not the solution.

In the old times, the church was the center of the community life. There was a church in every village and it brought the community together. People had a communal life around their faith, their everyday-life traditions. But in modern times, when people live in such remote places the situation is completely different.

I agree that religion has become a very individual matter. In fact, even if people go to church on Sunday, they go there as an individual; they go there to light a candle, to say a prayer; they don't go there from the beginning of the service, it's like they go in for 10-15 minutes and they don't necessarily feel a sense of commonality with everyone in the church, because probably they're not from the same neighborhood or have no meaningful affiliation with that community.

People choose various philosophies, various kinds of alternative religions or faiths that fit their particular choice or particular sense of where they are in their lives. For example, there are different types of Armenian believers, which I have identified through my own research in Armenia, Karabakh and the Diaspora. There are what I call Theist Believers, Deist Believers, ‘Agnostic Believers’ and ‘Atheist Believers’. For instance, the Armenian ‘atheist believer’ does not believe in the existence of God, but he may be baptized in the Armenian Church; he may go to church once in a while for weddings or on holidays, just to feel Armenian or to meet with friends, so on. And, interestingly, he is considered a ‘child of the Armenian Church’, at least by the hierarchy of the Church. If you ask the clergy, they include every Armenian in the ‘membership’ of the Armenian Church. But what is significant here – and generally overlooked – is the fact that if you are preaching to an atheist Armenian, you have to preach differently than if you are preaching to someone who is dedicated and attends church regularly.

Aztag- What are the challenges facing the Armenian Church particularly in Armenia and Karabakh?

Tchilingirian- As I mentioned, there are common problems facing the Armenian Church regardless of geography, but there are issues that are specific to the region where the church finds itself. For instance, in North America, the Armenian Church has different sets of problems; these problems have to do with language, the length of the liturgy, ordination of women, and so on. These are not problems, say, in Karabakh or in Armenia.

In Armenia, the major challenge is what the late Catholicos Karekin I used to call the
‘re-Christianization’ of Armenia, the re-evangelization of Armenia. This is still a major problem, because after almost seven decades of atheist regime, people don't even have the basic knowledge about Christianity and the Armenian Church. In the last 10-12 years, the Church has tried to educate the population and yet, as I mentioned earlier, there is the need to further clarify the mission of the Armenian Church.

As far as the so-called cults are concerned, I think people have exaggerated the problem. For example, there are about 30-40 Hare Krishnas in Armenia. It's not like tens of thousands of Armenians are following these cults. More important, at least sociologically, is the fact that all of these people who are following alternative religions are Armenians -- they are not foreigners who are coming and living in Armenia as Hare Krishnas or Jehovah's Witnesses. This fact is totally ignored in the anti-cult discourse in Armenia. The fact that hundreds of Armenians are following alternative religions indicates that these religions or teachings are appealing to a certain segment of the population. These are not necessarily brainwashed people, as anti-cultists would have us believe; in fact, many of them are highly educated individuals. They are people who are in search of something and it happens that a particular group or teaching provides them with what they are looking for, spiritually. My point is that we should not look at the issue of cults or alternative religions from a very nationalistic point of view. Some say, ‘This is causing a problem to our national security’, that’s too much. One way of addressing this problem is to carry out a similar mission. If, for example, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are going around in Yerevan knocking on people's doors, why isn't the Armenian Apostolic Church doing the same thing? Simply sitting in comfortable places and complaining about it doesn't resolve the problem. We have to be very realistic about this.

In Karabakh, I would say the church, headed by Archbishop Barkev Martirossian, has done a lot of work. The church has provided extensive pastoral services during the most difficult periods in the life of Karabakh. Especially during the war, the church has played an important role and, I believe, it is continuing to do so today. Of course, it has its own problems, but the clergy are doing their best to provide the type of pastoral mission and care the people expect from the church. In Karabakh, generally people are skeptical about any philosophy or any kind of teaching, so the Church faces a challenge there; but the younger generation, the children and youth, are much more receptive and open to the teachings of the church.

Aztag- In the Armenian Church, leaders constantly talk about reforms. What is your take on that?

Tchilingirian- The issue of reform is not new. There has been a continuous discussion about reforms in the Armenian Church at least in the last 100 years. There is some literature about this matter, for example, Patriarch Torkom Koushagian of Jerusalem has written "Paregarkoutyoun hayasdanyayts yegeghetsvo" (Improvements [or reform] in the Armenian Church), published in 1940. But, again, my point is that if you don't have a clear sense of mission, if you don't have a clear mission statement, you cannot organize the types of reforms you need to make. What are you trying to do? What are you trying to change or reform? Where are you trying to go with your reforms? From what point to what point? And as long as you don't have a clear idea about where you want to go and what you are supposed to do, then all this talk about reform is irrelevant. In business, for instance, people formulate a clear plan about the goals they want to achieve in, say, 5 years. My question is: Where is the plan in the Armenian Church that says in 5 years or 10 years time this is where we want to go and this is what we are doing today to reach that point. It’s like a tree. You plant a tree, so that in 5 years or 10 years you benefit from its fruits. If you wake up in 10 years and say ‘where are the fruits we need?’ people will tell you that you should have planted your tree a decade ago.

An Interview with Hratch Tchilingirian

2007-06-04T12:46:00.000-07:00

South Caucasus: A war-zone or a place for holidays?
An Interview with Hratch Tchilingirian
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
August 7,2004

`Abkhazia is not a place for holidays...it is a war zone,' said Georgian
leader Mikhail Saakashvili earlier this month, threatening to sink foreign
(implicitly understood as Russian) ships that enter the region without
permission from his government. His comments came as tensions escalated
between the central authorities of Georgia and two of its breakaway regions,
South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Saakashvili has promised to win back.
Saakashvili's pronouncements on South Ossetia and Abkhazia have been
furiously opposed by Moscow, whose relations with Georgia have plummeted
from bad to worse since a `rose revolution' brought pro-western Saakhasvili
to power.

Armenia and Azerbaijan, Georgia's South Caucasian neighbors, have been
struggling with problems of their own, the most important of which is the
Karabakh conflict. But despite the various international conflicts they are
engaged in, as well as their serious domestic economic and social problems
the three ex-soviet republics of the South Caucasus continue to struggle
towards political stability, reform and democracy. In this respect, the
example of Armenia is telling.

I discussed the conflicts in the South Caucasus with Hratch Tchilingirian,
who has written and lectured extensively on the region. He is Associate
Director of the Eurasia Program, the Judge Institute, University of
Cambridge. He received his PhD from the London School of Economics and
Political Science and his Master of Public Administration (MPA) from
California State University, Northridge. His research covers political and
territorial disputes in the Caucasus and Central Asia as well as the
region's political, economic and geostrategic developments. He has authored
over 120 articles and publications on the politics, economy, culture,
religion and social issues of the Eurasia region, especially the Caucasus
and the Armenian Diaspora.

Aztag- In the Caucasus region ethnic tensions existed during the Soviet era,
and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, these tensions were rekindled
and some of them became full-blown wars. Can you put these conflicts into
perspective?

Hratch Tchilingirian- One of the areas that has not been much researched
when it comes to these regional conflicts, and which I have made part of my
research, is what I call the management of minority-majority relations. You
have a number of minorities living within the majority nationalities in this
particular part of the former Soviet Union, and the tensions actually go
back before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991; indeed, to the
beginning of the Soviet period. The majority of these problems were not
resolved by the sovietization of the region, they were rather frozen and,
for decades, somehow controlled or managed. These conflicts also need to be
examined from the point of view of how titular nations deal with their
minorities. When the larger group or nationality is not able to deal with
its minorities, whether for objective or subjective reasons, it creates many
problems for both the minority and the majority. I believe this is an issue
that has been overlooked, especially by western scholars.

In addition to these minority-majority relations, there are territorial
claims which further complicate the situation. But, for the moment, if we
concentrate on the socio-political, cultural, and economic levels, we see
that the post-Soviet independent states in the South Caucasus have not been
able to create stable and dependable infrastructures for economic
development, democracy, human rights, and freedom of speech within their own
societies, let alone for their disgruntled minorities. The regimes in
Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia have been unpopular in the last 10-12 years.
In Azerbaijan, the opposition is almost completely wiped out. When a society
lacks healthy political development, it is easy to see where the other
problems are coming from. If an Azerbaijani opposition in Baku cannot freely
express himself or herself or is thinking about reprisal, how can we speak
about the issue of the rights of Armenians in Karabakh?

In my opinion, in order for these conflicts to be properly resolved, there
is, first and foremost, the need for basic political structures that are
stable and a certain level of democracy and openness.

Aztag- Some people argue that the rise of nationalism led to these land
issues and ethnic conflicts. What is your take on that?

Hratch Tchilingirian- Nationalism is, of course, a part of the whole fabric;
but I would argue that nationalism is not the only reason that you have a
conflict there. Some people say, rather naively, `These people have always
hated each other and have fought wars throughout history', they present the
issue as if it were an innate thing. They fail to appreciate the objective
reasons that contributed to the conflicts -- at least in the Soviet period
-- in Karabakh, Abkhazia, or Ossetia. There were policies dictated by the
centre which affected education, cultural preservation, language teaching,
socio-economic priorities, etc. When you look at the record, there are
objective reasons that made these minorities unhappy; these factors feed
into the nationalistic ideology that is driven by the elite; we have to look
at these other factors as well; we cannot fully explain these conflicts only
by theories of nationalism.

Aztag- You are saying that during the Soviet era, these conflicts were under
control. Don't you think that some of the policies of that time have, in
fact, worsened the situation?

Hratch Tchilingirian- Yes, but one also has to remember that the Soviets had
this internationalist ideology where the ultimate goal was to create the
Soviet People -- individual nationalities and separate territories did not
matter. However, individual or separate nationalities or ethnic groups still
preserved their sense of national identity.

Aztag- Some scholars argue that although the Soviets wanted to create a
homogenous country, the leaders of individual states were using a
nationalistic rhetoric when tackling key issues in their respective
countries.

Hratch Tchilingirian- If one looks at theories of nationalism, one sees that
it is useful as a political program. So we have to know why nationalist
ideology is being used in this particular era. What is the purpose? Is it to
resolve or address certain issues? What I'm trying to stress is the context
in which events develop; things don't happen in a vacuum. The elite or the
leadership exploits certain fault lines within a society for nationalistic
purposes. Indeed, existing problems and conflicts in society provide such
opportunities for exploitation. One should also ask why conflicts happen at
a given time: the time factor, the change of leadership, the change of
climate, the change of politics is very important.

During the late 80s and early 90s, the societies in this region, as in other
parts of the Communist world, allocated the necessary resources -- human,
financial, military, or other -- to gain independence or autonomy. The
weakening of the center (Moscow) was one of the most favorable factors which
provided the republics and peripheral autonomies to re-appropriate power
from the center. And this was occurring very rapidly. The central government
in Moscow was collapsing and you had two or three layers of the state
apparatus trying to appropriate power from the center. When the center
completely collapsed, the republics declared independence and the autonomies
forced a divorce.

Aztag- You are stressing the fact that history does matter. But in conflict
resolution, how far back in history can one go to address the core issues?

Hratch Tchilingirian- As time passes, people forget why the conflict started
and what the initial spark that triggered the conflict was. The present
moment becomes the starting point of analysis; history and the beginning
point become less relevant. And this is part of the problem in this region
specially. Indeed, when you look at the way the mediators work, for instance
the Minsk Group, you see that what matters is today, the year 2004, not what
happened in 1988 or 1991. Yet, for the minorities in the conflict the
starting point is very important.

You have the present moment, which dictates the process of dealing with the
issues. The points of reference for the various groups involved in the
solution could be very different. For instance, on the one hand, you could
have a powerful country trying to impose a solution; and on the other hand,
you have the very people who are going to be affected by such a solution.
Their references or `starting points' could be very different. This is where
the issue of compromise becomes very important: how far back do you go and
what kind of criteria do you use to resolve the conflict. For instance,
presently Armenia is viewed as an occupying force as far as Azerbaijanis are
concerned; on the other hand, there is no reference as to why or when these
regions were occupied; it's irrelevant. Yet this is relevant for Karabakh
Armenians, it is relevant for at least certain groups in Armenia. So it is
very important to understand and analyze these various layers that add to
the complexity of the matter.

Aztag- How practical is the approach of solving the conflict by force?

Hratch Tchilingirian- My argument is that any quick or imposed solution in
this region would not be a lasting solution. When one looks at the history
of Karabakh or Abkhazia in the last 200 years, it is easy to see that there
have been various types of political or military conflicts every few years.
Any solution that does not address the fundamental issues of the conflict
would not be lasting. If a solution is imposed just as it was during the
Soviet period, the problems will resurface whenever there is an opportunity.
I believe one of the key issues that should be addressed is the
majority-minority relationship. How you manage and maintain that
relationship will determine the durability of the solution.

Aztag- So you think that democratizing the region would make the situation
better.

Hratch Tchilingirian- Democratic regimes provide a more conducive ground for
conflict resolution.

Aztag- What about the issue of territorial demands? Even if we had a
democratic Georgia or Azerbaijan, the conflicts would still be there because
of the land issue, wouldn't they?

Hratch Tchilingirian- Yes, I believe so, because especially in this part of
the world, territory is very important. In Europe, throughout history, the
situation was the same. But the European Union has made territory less and
less important. In the Caucasus, territory is still a very important
identity marker, it is a very important political and strategic factor, so I
don't think this region will become like a mini-EU any time soon.

If you look at the European Union, the issue of territoriality is not
important anymore, you can travel within the EU as if you are in one
country. Today, territorial boundaries are not contentious in Europe, to a
large extent because nobody is suppressed; various national or ethnic groups
are free to practice their culture, to speak their language. But when you
have discrimination, when you have inequality, then people want to protect
their socio-political boundaries; they want to be their own boss!

Aztag- It is no secret that Russia and the US have their strategic interests
in the Caucasus and each tries to enlarge its own circle of influence in the
region. How does this affect the already volatile situation in the Caucasus?

Hratch Tchilingirian- This issue has two dimensions: internal and external.
If you look at the internal situation, when the regime is weak and not
stable, then it would be affected by the big powers, whether positively or
negatively; the ruling elite itself needs the backing of a "sponsor" or a
big power, to secure its position.

The external aspect is that Russia has definite interests in this region;
historically this region has been part of the Russian sphere of influence;
it has been part of the Russian Empire for centuries. Russia is interested
in preserving that influence and role. The US has its own strategic
interests in this region, especially in the Caspian, so there is going to be
rivalry among the superpowers, just like any other region. I would add that
this competition is not unique to this region, it happens throughout the
world.

The issue also depends on how the countries in this region view their
strategic interests. For instance, it's very important for Armenia to have
good relations with Russia for security and strategic reasons. Armenia also
has trade and economic dependency on Russia, not the least of which is the
large remittances that come from Russian-Armenians who send money to
Armenia. So if there were a choice, Russia would be a priority -- even
though Armenia tries to have good relations with both Russia and the US and
virtually with everyone else.

Aztag- What's your take on the current situation in Georgia and the way
President Saakashvili is dealing with the separatist movements?

Hratch Tchilingirian- Well, I think any leader would wish or would want to
resolve conflicts in his country. Saakashvili has an interest to do that as
the new leader of Georgia. On the one hand, he appears to project a strong
position when it comes to dealing with these conflicts; on the other hand,
he sounds like he is willing to compromise, provide autonomy and so on. But
I would come back to my earlier point: it would ultimately depend on how
Tbilisi is going to manage its relations with the various minorities within
Georgia.

Aztag- In Adjaria, Saakashvili had his way rather easily, didn't he?

Hratch Tchilingirian- Yes, that was because the problem was limited in one
person, Aslan Abashidze. However, after the removal of the immediate
problem, if you do not provide the guarantees, the opportunities that these
people expect, then you are not resolving the conflict.

On the other hand, he has said that he is willing to give Abkhazia a very
wide autonomy; but it is debatable whether at this point Georgia has the
capacity to deliver. Does Georgia have the capacity and the resources to
deliver? I am not sure. Georgia is hardly paying the salaries of state
employees. Is Georgia ready to help the Abkhazians or the South Ossetians
with their needs? The same goes for Azerbaijan. I do not think the central
governments in Tbilisi and Baku are in any position to make the lives of the
Abkhazians or Karabakh Armenians any better at this point. What clear
incentives or gains do the minorities have? I believe this is missing from
the various solutions that are being proposed. At the end of the day, the
population, the villager, the farmer living in Abkhazia or in Karabakh or
wherever, is going to ask: What am I gaining that I don't have now through
this agreement? What is this going to add to my current situation?

When mediators look at it purely from a political perspective, it looks like
you could resolve the conflict. On paper, it looks like it is just a matter
of sharing territory or changing flags or sending a governor. But as
scholars we look at it at a deeper level, on the everyday level, the
sociological level -- for instance, the fact that people were once neighbors
and became enemies overnight.

Aztag- In your opinion, how far are we from the resolution of the Karabakh
conflict?

Hratch Tchilingirian- In my opinion, the conflict will take a very long time
to resolve; probably 20-25 years. This is not something that can be resolved
in a few years. Even if a peace agreement is signed within months or a few
years, it will take a long time to implement that agreement on the ground.
When you look at Cyprus, it took more than 30 years just to come up with a
framework, not a solution. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more than 50
years old and nowhere near resolution.

Aztag- Could you give us a brief background about the conflict in Abkhazia?

Hratch Tchilingirian- The Abkhaz conflict is going to take a long time to
resolve. It has a long history. There were inter-ethnic tensions throughout
the Soviet period.

The Abkhazian Autonomous Republic -- situated on the eastern Black Sea coast
with an area of 8,700 sq km -- was part of the Georgian Soviet Socialist
Republic, with a population of over 500 thousand. The Abkhazians constituted
a minority of 18%, compared with the 46% majority of Georgians. However, in
the late 19th century, before the 'Georgianisation' of the region, as Abkhaz
scholars argue, Abkhazians were the majority, with some 55% and the
Georgians counted for only about 25%.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Abkhazian-Georgian relations
deteriorated, when, in 1992, the Abkhazians reinstated their 1925
Constitution to prevent Georgian attempts to curtail the political status of
the autonomous republic. A full-scale war broke out between the Abkhazians
and Georgia, after the fall of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the ultra-nationalist
president of Georgia, which resulted in the defeat of the Georgians in
September 1993. Obviously, the Abkhazians were assisted by Russia, whose
policy, at least at the time, was to use the conflicts in Abkhazia and
Karabakh to pressure Tbilisi and Baku, which were rapidly drifting away from
Moscow's "sphere of influence".

A ceasefire between the Georgian and the Abkhazian was reached in 1994;
since then the United Nations have been involved in mediating a solution.
While unrecognized by the international community, Abkhazia, like Karabakh,
has achieved de facto independence in what is now the 'Republic of
Abkhazia'. Nevertheless, Abkhazia remains extremely isolated and extremely
dependent on Russia. The international community recognized only the
independence of what were the 15 Soviet Socialist Republics. The
international community, in fact, discouraged further break up of
second-tier `states' in the Soviet system, such as autonomous republics like
Abkhazia, and third-tier autonomous regions like Karabakh. As such, the
international community puts more pressure on the secessionists than the
recognized states.

The Abkhaz problem has many similarities with Karabakh, especially in terms
of independence, in terms of breaking off with the center, in terms of
determining their own affairs and lives, and so on. But it also has some
important differences. The Abkhazians were willing to have a federative
relationship with Georgia, but because Georgia was not forthcoming and did
not take it seriously, the Abkhazians declared full independence from
Georgia in 1999. And nowadays they talk about having a special association
or a membership association with the Russian Federation. This proposed
association is a model that does not exist in any other place in the world
yet. Abkhazia would not become a member of the Russian Federation or a
federal entity, but it will have a special, still to be defined association
with Russia. In a way Abkhazia will keep its independence, but in many ways
will dependent on Russia, as it is now.

Aztag- So being part of Georgia in any way is not an option for Abkhazia.

Hratch Tchilingirian- It is not a desired option for the Abkhazians. When
you speak to political leaders and ordinary people in Abkhazia, they say
they do not want to be part of Georgia, they prefer to be part of Russia.
But Abkhazia is very isolated from the rest of the world; they are very
dependent on Russia, so ultimately, Russia's role in the resolution of the
conflict will be a determining factor. On the other hand, Karabakh is
different from Abkhazia because it has an outlet to the rest of the world
through Armenia -- Karabakh is a virtual province of Armenia. Perhaps
legally or on paper Karabakh is a separate entity, but de facto, it is part
of Armenia.

Aztag- What do you think about the recent pronouncements of President
Saakashvili?

Hratch Tchilingirian- The nationalistic pronouncements of the President of
Georgia are not surprising, but the logic of his threats to sink Russian
ships going to Abkhazia is hard to understand. Saber rattling with Abkhazia
is one thing, but with Russia it has serious consequences. Russia still has
enormous levers in this region. Hostility towards Russia is not going to
make Georgia's position any better nor is it going to resolve the Abkhaz
conflict to Georgia's favor. I believe, once Saakashvilli's `Rose
Revolution' honeymoon is over, he is going to realize that the resolution of
Georgia's major territorial, political and economic issues depend on good
relations with Russia.

An Interview with Igor Mouradian

2007-06-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

Interview with Igor Mouradian
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
May 8, 2004

Igor Mouradian has played a key role in the early stages of
the struggle for self-determination in Karabagh. A member
of The International Institute for Strategic Studies
(IISS), Dr. Mouradian is also the author of a number of
books, in Russian, about geo-politics and geo-economics
( http://news.artsakhworld.com/igor_muradian/main/eng/index.html ).
I spoke to him in Beirut.

Aztag- What is your take on the current ruling elite in Georgia?

Igor Mouradian- It was clear from a long time that the culinary change
in Georgian politics will be connected to the right wing and not
the leftists. The right in Georgia would become the most popular
and the most active in the political arena. This has something to do
with the connection with the United States. Georgia was always keen
to demonstrate its orientation towards the west. In fact, this was
only a declaration; the orientation was only towards the U.S. However,
the U.S. is maintaining a very rigid framework in its international
politics in general and regional politics in particular. Some people
think that U.S. politics is very wide, but that's an illusion. The
interests of Georgia and other countries in the region cannot really
fit into the framework of U.S. interest, and the situation is dramatic
for this very reason.

Armenia has chosen a different path. Some analysts accuse Armenia of
being isolated. This is rubbish! These people either do not understand
the realities on the ground, or they're simply lying. In fact, Armenia
has a well-balanced international policy. Because of their policies,
Georgia and Azerbaijan are much more isolated than Armenia. The
main problem of Georgia is that the regime is not adequate. The
ruling elite is more than a marionette, it is extremely dependent on
foreign signals. It is not capable of creating long-term international
policies, because the U.S. is demanding that they quickly solve very
important issues. The new Georgian president does not really understand
the problems of the Georgian foreign policies.

Aztag- What are these problems?

Igor Mouradian- This country has chosen its main political and
economic profile, which is based on the development of transit and
services. If they want to succeed as a transit country, they should
be keen on establishing good relations with their neighbors. Georgia
cannot really develop the model it had chosen when it is in conflict
or confrontation with Russia. Of course, one can understand why the
Georgian elite is behaving this way: Russia has been carrying
forward inconsistent policies in the area, and it has done little to
improve its relations with Georgia.

The main problem that the Georgian politics is facing at the moment
is not Adjaria or Abkhazia and not even the economical issues,
but creating an effective and a centralized administration. Most
members of the new administration have already had the experience of
administrative work, but with no positive results. In my opinion,
the present Georgian administration is illegitimate, inadequate,
and it is clear that it's not permanent.

Aztag- How can it be illegitimate? After all, it is the people that
brought this administration to power.

Igor Mouradian- No revolution can create legitimate governments; it can
create efficient regimes, but never legitimate governments. Georgia
has neither. The leaders are very ambitious, and they will refuse to
be consistent in setting up a well-balanced regime. The current regime
is doomed to catastrophe. The foreign influences are too strong. The
situation is very dangerous for Yerevan not because this experience
could also be applied to Armenia, but because the current situation
in Georgia is very inconvenient for our interests and us.

Aztag- And what are, in your opinion, the factors that make an unstable
Georgia a problem for Armenia?

Igor Mouradian- One and only one factor: Communication. Even the
situation of Armenians in Georgia is not that much of a problem. The
politicians in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East are interested
in the following question: Could the Georgian scenario happen in
Armenia as well? That's rubbish. We have a completely different
social and economical system, our country is developing very fast,
the shortcomings of the ruling regime in Armenia are being compensated
by the presence and the activities of very stable political structures
within the country, the parliamentary process, and other factors. We
have created a powerful army, and at the same time, a very efficient
security system.

Armenia is approaching a time when the opposition will be represented
by nationalistic forces. The political parties oriented towards
Russia, Europe, or the U.S. will refuse to maintain policies that have
anything to do with external factors. Armenia will become a patriotic
nationalist state. In this respect, we can become an example to the
other independent states. And of course, our main problem will be the
problem of the elite, but our administration is much more adequate. The
problem of elite is a problem that runs for decades, and therefore,
it is not worthwhile to speed up any process; a revolution is not
something that is necessary. Revolution would make sense in only one
instance: if the ruling regime ignores the national interests.

Aztag- The western media refers to the current Georgian elite as
"nationalists" and "pro-western". You are saying that Sahakashvili's
government is extremely dependent on the U.S. How can this dilemma
of nationalism-dependence be explained?

Igor Mouradian- Every nation has its own notion of
nationalism. Nationalists cannot be "anti". If nationalism is directed
against a political pole or a major political force then it is
defective. Nationalism is not only about maintaining the uniqueness
of your own nation but also that of other people. Liberalism and
cosmopolitism, especially imperialistic liberalism and communism,
do not respect the notion of nation. But nationalism is fighting for
the uniqueness of all nations. Perhaps the ruling elite in Georgia is
not really nationalist. Or it might be a pseudo-nationalist regime,
or a racist regime. After all, any idea could be perverted. The thing is that
Georgia has established a European political system; the leftists and
the rightists are very obvious. Armenia doesn't have that; Armenia
has a different scheme: the conservatives and the liberals. I don't
think that any of those is better or worse than the other. Georgian
nationalism has not become a uniting force; it has not created
national ideas. Moreover, the policies of the regime have divided the
society. Of course, the situation in Armenia is not ideal; there, the
clash between fake liberalism and conservatism will become fiercer
with time. One has to be reminded that in Armenia, nationalism has
very deep roots. One can even speak of national fundamentalism.

Unfortunately, our social situation does not allow this national
ideology to become a real thing. One has to be reminded that
Pan-Armenian National Movement and the satellites of this movement
are not incidental. The basic aim of this movement was ideological
modernization, a desire to modernize Armenian politics...it would
have had positive results, of course, but their aims were very low.
Aztag- Currently, Ankara is bringing up the issue of opening the
borders with Armenia more frequently. Some analysts say that the
Armenian side might gain from such a move on the economic level, but
it has things to lose on the political front. What are the factors
at work here?

Igor Mouradian- The economic interests and the national interests
are not necessarily conflicting. currently, we do have trade relations with
Turkey. According to different estimates, we buy goods from Turkey
worth something between 100 and 160 million U.S. dollars. Our exports
to Turkey are worth about 20 million U.S. dollars. Politically, all this
doesn't change much.

There are two major problems for the U.S. in the region: The
Russo-Georgian relations and the Turkish-Armenian relations. Both
problems are connected with the idea of getting rid of Russian
influences. Despite the fact that the relationship between the
U.S. and Turkey have deteriorated recently and it continues to
deteriorate because the Americans are not insisting on solving
the Cyprus problem, the U.S. continues to insist on improving the
Armenian-Turkish relation. The American idea is very simple: once
they improve the relations, this will create security; Armenia
will be much more secure. It's a lie or failure to appreciate
the situation. The relations can be improved, the border may get
opened at some point and investments might start flowing to Turkey
and Armenia, but the threat will still be there. Turkey appreciates
only strong positions. We must be strong in order to become partners
with Turkey. Now we have a strong army, an efficient security system,
and developed international relations. We are more prepared to start
relations with Turkey. However, one has to separate two things that
have little to do with each other: our economic development and our
relations with Turkey, which include the issue of Genocide recognition.
Aztag- but couldn't the economic factor be used to pressure Armenia
to get other concessions on the political front?

Igor Mouradian- We speak of Armenia as some other country that has
nothing to do with us. Armenia is us. It all depends on us. We should
sort our own problems and not the problems of Turkey. We should do
everything we can to make sure that we have a government that has a
nationalistic agenda and is not a marionette. Refusal to push for the
recognition of the Armenian genocide, concessions in the Karabagh issue
will not improve our relations with Turkey. Turkey is not interested
in Karabagh at all and they are not interested in the opinions of
Azerbaijan. This is an illusion that has been created. Turkey has its
own tasks, its own problems. Turkey is more interested in the question
of genocide than in the question of Karabagh. It wants to show the
western community that apart from the genocide problem there's also
the Karabagh problem that Turkey is interested in.
Aztag- What are the strategic aims of Turkey in the region?

Igor Mouradian- They want to achieve firsthand political and economic
dominance in the region. Apart from pan Turkism, there's also the
doctrine of neo-Ottomanism. When it became clear that Turkey is not
capable maintaining its important presence in central Asia, and that
the U.S. is doing nothing to help Turkey become a Eurasian power,
Turkey has become more interested in neo-Ottomanism. I couldn't find a
better term to describe this doctrine, according to which Turkey must
suck non-Turkish people (Albanians, Bosnians, Georgians, Chechens,
and Uzbekistanis) into Turkish politics. Turkey is now interested in
closer regions like the Caucasus, the Balkans, Ukraine, and Iraq. It's
very important that the Armenian communities in the U.S. and the Middle
East appreciate one thing: the U.S. is now carrying out anti-Turkish
policies in the Caucasus. They are doing everything they can to make
sure that Turkey loses its influence on Azerbaijan, they are doing
everything they can to pressure Turkey by creating alternative air
bases in Georgia and they are also using the Armenian factor as a
tool for pressure. It seems that the U.S. likes to create a little
Israel in Armenia, simply because Armenia is the most stable, the
most organized country in the region.
Aztag- What do you mean by "a small Israel"?

Igor Mouradian- Israel means an isolated country serving as an aircraft
carrier for the U.S. It's a very dangerous perspective for us, we
shouldn't allow this to happen, we should maintain very good relations
with the Arab countries, Iran, and central Asian countries. This
is extremely important for us. Armenia has demonstrated that under
conditions that are far from perfect, it can make breakthroughs in
many areas. Georgia and Azerbaijan cannot be genuine partners of the
U.S. They are very unreliable partners not only for the U.S. but also
for Russia, Iran, and Europe. There are only two countries in the
south Caucasus capable of maintaining the role of strategic partners:
the republic of Armenia, and the N.K.R.
Aztag- Armenia boasts excellent relations with Iran, despite the
religious and cultural differences between the two countries. What
are the foundations of this alliance?

Igor Mouradian- The region is coming up with new alliance and with
new blocks that have nothing to do with religious affiliation. These
blocks they are called geo-civilizations, which are not formed within
a cultural-religious framework.

Aztag- So you don't believe in Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations"
theory.

Igor Mouradian- I do believe in the clash of civilizations, but I
think alliances based merely on historical and cultural factors do not
work. The geo-civilizations which are based on geopolitical interests
are the ones that work. The Slavic countries are acting against
Russia and there's lots of conflict between Christian countries, and
between Muslim countries. And the major conflict of them all is not
the conflict between the Islam and Christianity, but between U.S. and
Europe. Islam civilization does not have a common policy. The Islamic
world is being used by many, even by Israel. The Islamic world is not
capable of creating a common policy; even the Arab world isn't capable
of doing that. Accordingly, however well the relations with Turkey and
Azerbaijan develop, Iran will never refuse to maintain good relations
with Armenia. This is because of fundamental geopolitical interests.
Aztag- What does the future hold for the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict? The
status quo cannot be maintained forever, can it?

Igor Mouradian- The conflict is not going anywhere. One
should understand a few things: Russia is not interested in any
changes. Russia is now maintaining its relations with Azerbaijan in
a completely different dimension. There are the other issues where
Russia and Azerbaijan understand each other well. Russia is supportive
of the political regime in Azerbaijan; there are also the issues
of Caspian oil, the Russian gas imports, the question of the Azeri
economic migrants in Russia, and some security questions connected
with Russian interests in northern Caucasus. The Azeri leadership
has no illusions about Russian intentions in the Karabagh problem.

On the other hand, Europe has no operational abilities in Caucasus at
all and has no goals or aims in the region. The only European task
is to make sure that Americans feel uncomfortable; this is the only
thing that they are interested in.

Turkey has no time at all for Karabagh. The Turks are terrified
of this topic, because if they are accused of supporting one side,
the Azeri side, it will create for them another problem in terms of
joining the EU. Iran is also very happy with the status quo.

In turn, the U.S. has only three aims: oil, oil and oil. Sometimes
people confuse priorities and goals; the priority is stability,
and the status quo perfectly corresponds to the U.S. interests. The
U.S. administration has had the chance to see for itself in Key West
that there's no political solution to the Karabagh problem, which
can only be solved militarily. The U.S. will not accept a military
solution, they're afraid of military solution, and they are supportive
of the current administration on one condition: Ilham Aliev should
not try to solve the Karabagh problem by resorting to the option of
war. For the U.S., if there is no political way, there is no other way.

If you had asked me three years ago "what is the future of Karabagh?" I
would have told you that it will stay like this for decades and it
will be capable of developing successfully in its current state. But
now, seeing the current movements and tendencies, I've come to
understand that the western community will have to decide the status of
uncontrolled territories (Kosovo, Bosnia, Taiwan, Sumatra, Palestine,
Karabagh, Adjaria, Abkhazia, the Iraqi Kurdistan and Northern Cyprus
and possibly another 10 more territories including Kashmir and some
territories in Afghanistan).

Sometimes they ask the question "how many U.S. congressmen know the
surname of the Nigerian president?" I don't think that many do.
It's a country with 100 million people. However, Ghougasian,
the president of Karabagh, is known to many congressmen and so is
Denktash. They're playing an extremely important role in the external
balance of power. And this problem will persist and it should be
solved. Moreover, there's another question of task or problem: not
all the territories will receive its formal status, and the Americans
have discussed this publicly. Nevertheless, Karabagh has more chances
than anyone else does to become internationally recognized. Of course,
there is a danger when discussing the recognition of the N.K. state;
the question of territories will arise, but there is probably a way
out. Perhaps Karabagh will play an exceptional role in political
history by demonstrating how a tiny country coming out of the fierce
and bloody war can create a fascinating democratic society.

An Interview with Peter Balakian

2007-06-03T07:46:00.000-07:00

An Interview with Peter Balakian
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
November 13, 2003

"Aztag Daily" contacted Peter Balakian while he was on tour in the United
States, promoting "The Burning Tigris". The acclaimed author agreed to do an
interview by phone. During our one-hour talk, we discussed issues related to
"The Burning Tigris", the Armenian Genocide and the human rights movement it
engendered in the USA , Turkish-Armenian dialogue, and much more...

Aztag- In "The Burning Tigris" you argue that the Armenian genocide
triggered the first human rights movement in US history…

Peter Balakian- The effort to rescue the Armenians in the 1890s from Sultan
Hamid's massacres, which took the lives of around 200000 Armenians before
1896 was over, engendered the first human rights movement in the US. During
the 1890s some 300,000 dollars were raised by Americans and in the genocide
period (from 1915 to 1920) 110 million dollars were raised by what was first
called the "American committee on Armenian atrocities", which became later
"Near-East relief".110 million dollars in today's terms is about 2.5 billion
dollars. It is important to note that both of these movements were
orchestrated by major American intellectual and cultural elites.

Aztag-You are stressing the humanitarian factor. But during calamities of
this enormity, humanitarian efforts are not enough, are they?

Peter Balakian- It's never enough…

Aztag- So intervention should have gone beyond that…

Peter Balakian- "The Burning Tigris" tells the history of the grid-lock
between American cultural philanthropic and relief efforts and the wall in
the state department in the white house preventing these relief efforts from
becoming active intervention in a military or political way. That's part of
the tragic story of the American response.

Aztag-In this respect, can't we draw parallels between what happened in the
USA back then, and what is happening now?

Peter Balakian- I think the Armenian case inaugurated a modern paradigm for
human right issues in the USA. Which is to say that there can be a great
deal of passionate commitment at the grassroots level and among
intellectuals but we have not figured out how to get beyond the barriers
created by the White House. It is still the same problem we are wrestling
with, that's why the Armenian case has so much to teach us.

Aztag-Samantha Power's award-winning book "A Problem from Hell" also
addresses America's response to the Armenian genocide, as well as other
genocides of the 20th century. What are the differences between your and
Power's approach?

Peter Balakian- Samantha Power wrote a brilliant book about America's
ineffective response to genocide throughout the 20th century. My book deals
with how Americans tried hard to help save the Armenian people and the
obstacles they faced from their government.

Aztag-How can such books help create social change?

Social change is complex; it is not a neat and clean process. It is the
result of decades of proper education. If one studies the evolution of the
African-American human rights movement one will see that it took decades and
decades before blacks and whites could sit in the same restaurant and eat
together.

Aztag-Let us talk about the sources you used. A couple of reviews noted that
you have limited yourself to English-language sources.

Peter Balakian- I have used dozens of foreign office records in the UK. The
French and German sources I used were translations. The same goes for
Turkish sources. I have also used hundreds of US State Department sources.

Aztag-Is "The Burning Tigris" a continuation of "Black Dog of Fate" in terms
of your quest to discover your roots?

Peter Balakian- It is a continuation of my pursuit of historical truth. I
don't want to make a simple comparison, because "Black Dog of Fate" was a
memoir. It was a literary exploration of my coming of age as an Armenian
American. It had history in it and it brought history to the reader but it
wasn't history in the methodological sense. "The Burning Tigris" is a
history and its assumptions and conventions are different.

Aztag-What was your motive for writing this book?

Peter Balakian- As an Americanist, as I began to discover how rich the
American history was, I decided to write a story from that perspective. I
knew I would also write a history of the Armenian genocide. I also felt that
our history has never portrayed in a trade book, so I wanted to do that.

Aztag-How and when did the idea of writing "The burning Tigris "come to you?

Peter Balakian- The idea for "The Burning Tigris" came to me while I was on
Tour with "Black Dog of Fate". It came as a result of reading more about the
Armenian genocide and massacres and finding out about Americans who were
involved. I started working on the book in 1999, and continued for 4 years
without a break.

Aztag-Last year, Egoyan's Ararat created widespread awareness about the
Armenian genocide. Now, your book is doing the same. What do you feel about
the politicization of the book? After all, "Black Dog of Fate" was a memoir,
but with this book you have thrown yourself right in the middle of the war
against denial.

Peter Balakian- My motivation was to write a deep, rich history of this
major event in the 20th century. The rest comes with the terrain. Since
there is denial, anybody who writes about this history enters a degree of
political dimension. But I don't want to overemphasize the denial, because
its only a tiny group of corrupt people who are perpetuating it, and nobody
really listening to them, nobody believes. They are able to coerce and bully
at certain levels and I think we are going to see that go away too.

Aztag- Taking into account the strategic importance of turkey in the region,
and in a context where real politics, the "war against terror", and oil
diplomacy, are having an increasingly heavier role, can we see that change
in the near future?

Peter Balakian- Social and political change are unpredictable, they happen
sometimes very quickly after years of preparing the ground for it. I think
that there is no need to deny the Armenian genocide by anybody. Turks must
come to terms with it. It will help them immensely, making them more
progressive in the eyes of Europe and the West. I think the denial is
untenable for Turkey, and as people become educated, the denial becomes more
absurd. Sooner or later they have to acknowledge that this is a waste of
their time and money.

Aztag- The human rights movement you discuss in your book is less explored
by genocide scholars. Are there any parallels to this story in other
countries?

Peter Balakian- Absolutely, One could write books about the pro-Armenian
movement in Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Russia. My hope is
that my book will spawn ideas for many books.

Aztag- Can you compare the awareness of Americans about the Armenian
genocide back then and now?

Peter Balakian- It's a dramatic reversal. Its ironic! President Hoover, as
he was looking back at those years, said that probably only the word
"England" was more deeply embedded in the mind of the American schoolchild
than the word Armenia. That's how popular Armenia was in American mind in
the first decades of the 20th century. Then, that completely evaporated and
the Armenian genocide fell into the amnesia hole. Americans forgot about
it. Now, it is being revived, so I think it's a very exciting time in that
respect. We are recovering lost cultural memory.

Aztag- What was the reason for that amnesia?

Peter Balakian- There were several factors. First the Turkish government's
denial campaign aimed at wiping Armenia out of popular memory. Mustafa
Kemal's new Turkish republic of 1922 wanted the West to drop Armenia from
the radar screen. The United States, for example, caved into Kemal's wishes
because America was interested in making friends with Turkey in the hope of
obtaining the rights to the Mosul oil fields, which were under Turkish
control in the early 1920s. Other American cultural factors made historical
memory of the 1915 Armenian genocide more difficult to achieve until the
late 1960s when the cultural climate changed. I address this in my book.

Aztag- What do you think about Turkish-Armenian dialogue, which is "en
vogue" these days?

Peter Balakian- I think any true and meaningful dialogue can only happen if
there is truth. We can't have debate without truth. Those who come to
converse around a table must acknowledge the truth about the Armenian
genocide and the moral nature of what genocide is, and then we can move
forward.

Aztag- So, in this respect, the recognition of the Armenian genocide is a
prerequisite for you?

Peter Balakian- Yes.

Aztag- Your book relates to Americans. That helps when you are presenting
atrocities that took place in the Middle East a century ago, doesn't it?

Peter Balakian- Yes, Armenian Genocide often seems like Middle Eastern
history that happened long ago in another place, now Americans and Europeans
have the chance to see how deeply the Armenian catastrophe affected the
west, and in the case of my book, the USA in particular.

Aztag- Do you have any plans to travel to the Middle East?

Peter Balakian- Lebanon and Syria are 2 of the most important places in the
history of the Armenian Diaspora and I want to visit them in the near
future.

An Interview with Norman Naimark

2007-06-03T07:44:00.000-07:00

An Interview with Norman Naimark
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
December 31, 2003

A senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Norman M. Naimark is also
the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies
and chairman of the Department of History at Stanford University. He
is an expert in modern East European and Russian history, Poland
since 1863, and the history of the German Democratic Republic since
World War II. His current research focuses on the Soviet occupation
of Eastern Europe after World War II and ethnic cleansing in the
twentieth century.

His book "Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth Century
Europe", published in 2001, studies "cases from twentieth-century
European history that help illuminate the process of ethnic cleansing,
its causes and effects". Aztag Daily contacted professor Naimark
requesting an interview and he gladly agreed to answer our questions
about genocide and ethnic cleansing in general, and the Armenian
genocide in particular.
AZTAG - Does one find any distinctive features in ethnic cleansing in
Europe in the 20th century when one compares it to ethnic cleansing
and genocide on other continents? Does the fact that Europe is the
"epicenter" of human rights and high levels of culture make such
calamities all the more shocking?

Norman Naimark - I think one has to consider Europe -- broadly
speaking, including Russia and the Turkey/Ottoman Empire -- the home
of ethnic cleansing. If one thinks of episodes of ethnic cleansing and
genocide outside the European continent, like the partition violence
in India in 1946-47, the Rwandan genocide, or the Cambodian genocide,
one could argue that the preconditions for these horrible events were
"exported" in some senses from Europe.

That Europe in the 20th Century was home to ethnic cleansing and
genocide is indeed more shocking, I think, because of the high
levels of culture and society. What could be more disorienting than
the Holocaust, for example, which saw one of the most civilized and
developed countries in Europe -- home of Goethe, Schiller, Weber,
Einstein, and Benjamin – turn on the Jews in such a vehement and
murderous fashion?

AZTAG - In "Fires of Hatred" you underline the difficulties of
differentiating ethnic cleansing from genocide, especially because
ethnic cleansing more often than not turns violent. What is the
importance of differentiating between violent incidents of ethnic
cleansing and Genocide?

Norman Naimark - I think intentionality is important in understand the
phenomenon of mass killing. In Bosnia, for example, or in postwar East
Central Europe, the intention of the perpetrators was to drive the
"enemy" (Bosnian Muslims and Germans) out of a concrete stretch of
territory, thus ethnic cleansing. This is not genocide; they didn't
care how they left, just as long as they left, using whatever violence
they thought was necessary to accomplish it. In the cases of genocide,
like that of the Jews or Armenians, the intent of the perpetrator is
murder, genocide. Both ethnic cleansing and genocide are crimes against
humanity. Genocide, I believe (as does international law), constitutes,
however, a higher level of criminality and it much harder to prove.

AZTAG - Is there any legal framework based on which people could be
held accountable for "ethnic cleansing" today?

Norman Naimark - The International Tribunal for Yugoslavia has included
ethnic cleansing among its listed crimes against humanity. Again,
it is an important crime, but not of the order of genocide. There
seems to be no special attempt to place ethnic cleansing in a separate
category. Instead it is joined with ideas of "forced deportation."

AZTAG - What about the moral accountability of bystanders?

Norman Naimark - I am not a moral philosopher and am unwilling to
judge the culpability of bystanders in this connection. Clearly,
they share some responsibility for what is going on. But I have been
much more concerned with demonstrating, historically, that ethnic
cleansing and genocide are the products of government planning and
the nationalist political elites that control those governments.

AZTAG - Do you think September 11th and the war on terror will change
the way the West responds to genocidal acts?

Norman Naimark - Yes, I believe the trajectory of the international
system has shifted dramatically from one that seemed increasingly
willing to deal with acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide, for
example in Kosovo, to one that is mesmerized by the "war against
terrorism." It is unclear where the "system" and its guiding star
at the moment, the U.S., will go from here. But I think it less
likely (take a look at Liberia, for example), that the U.S. and U.N.
will intervene in genocidal situations than in 1990.

AZTAG - How did your become interested about the Armenian genocide
and in what ways did your research on the Armenian genocide unfold?

Norman Naimark - I had heard about the Armenian genocide from Armenian
friends and found myself very confused by the contradictory nature
of Armenian claims on the one hand and Turkish protestations on the
other. The scholarly literature on the genocide is growing -- people
like Vahakn Dadrian, Richard Hovanissian, Taner Aksam, and Ronald
G. Suny have made important contributions -- but it is not nearly
as solid and developed as that on the Holocaust. As I consequence,
I wanted to study the documents myself, as a way to understand what
happened for myself. The older I get as an historian, the more I want
to see the documents myself in order to judge controversial problems.

AZTAG - Also in "Fires of Hatred" you say that "the concept of
Genocide does not fit the Armenian case perfectly", citing the fact
that Armenians in Constantinople and Smyrnia were left intact due to
the presence of foreign observers in the city and that some Armenians
were converted to Islam, and some Turkish officials ignored the order
etc. Some of these are, fortunately for Armenians, some "gaps" in
the plan to annihilate a whole race; do these gaps make a genocidal
act less genocidal, or less "perfect"?

Norman Naimark - What I tried to say in the book is that, first
of all, we are short of the kinds of documentation we have for the
Holocaust. Because intentionality is so critical for the determination
of genocide, it would be an easier case if we had more internal
Turkish documents that would demonstrate the intention of murdering the
Armenians. Also, genocide seeks to destroy all of a nation. Armenians,
as you know, could sometimes convert, escape to the mountains, stay in
certain locations, survive as Protestants or Catholics, etc. I don't
think there is a perfect or imperfect genocide. But conceptually,
the Armenian case does not fit neatly into our idea of genocide. I
believe it was genocide, as you know from my book. But it is not the
same kind of case as that of Hitler and the Jews.

AZTAG - In the book, you do not hesitate to use the "G" word when
you speak about the Armenian massacres and deportations. What were
the "pieces of information" that led you to conclude that this was,
in fact, Genocide?

Norman Naimark - The "G" word is important and I do believe it fits
the Armenian case. What convinced me more than anything was reading
the documentation of the various consuls and doctors and observers who
witnessed what was going on around them and reported it to Ambassador
Morgenthau back in Constantinople or to their respective governments
or bosses. Thus, there is an accumulation of first-hand eyewitness
evidence about what was being done to the Armenians that -- combined
with some other documents, the post-WW I trials of the Young Turks,
some remarks by the Young Turk triumvirate itself, and a few others --
convinced me this was intentional murder of a nation, thus genocide.

AZTAG - Do you consider the Armenian Genocide a template for other
genocides that followed?

Norman Naimark - I think the Armenian genocide was not so much a
template for genocide as an historical precursor of other genocides,
especially the murder of the Jews. We know Hitler and his circle knew
about the Armenian genocide. There is some question whether he actually
made the statement "And who remembers the Armenians now." Still,
the example of mass murder and the inability and unwillingness of the
"international community" to do anything about it -- which was clear
in the Armenian case -- certainly had some kind of influence on the
Nazi sense that one could do these sorts of things with impunity.

AZTAG - The Armenian Genocide is denied by Turkish governments, and
it is not recognized by a number of other countries, including the
USA. Naturally, without recognition and some form of reparation the
wounds would not heal. In your opinion, how can this issue be resolved?

Norman Naimark - You are right, there is only one way for healing
to take place, and that is for the Turkish government not only
to recognize what was done to Armenians, but to give historians
unrestricted opportunity to use Ottoman archives. I have participated
in conferences where, in a very preliminary way, Turkish historians
(usually from outside Turkey, but not only), and Armenian historians,
have discussed the genocide from their own perspectives. There IS
progress on this score. But there is much more work to be done,
including the building of a museum in Washington commemorating and
documenting the genocide. Healing will come, but it will take time
and it will take honesty. I hope soon the Turkish government will
come to this realization, as well.

An Interview with Rudolph Rummel

2007-06-03T07:42:00.000-07:00

An Interview with Rudolph Rummel
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
January 15, 2004

Rudolph J. Rummel is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science in
University of Hawaii. He has dedicated his career to the study of
causes and conditions of collective violence and mass murder,
and has written about two dozen books and around a hundred
professional articles on the subject. According to his website
( www.hawaii.edu/powerkills ), he was finalist for Nobel Peace Prize
in 1996.

Aztag- What brought the issue of murder by government to your
attention, making you dedicate yourself to the research of war and
mass murder?

Rudolph J. Rummel- I have spent much of my career in the study of
war in order to understand how to stop this massive killing, I was
increasingly surprised to come across references to murdered in
China, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere. I began to wonder if more
were murdered by governments than died in war.

Secondly, it became clear in my research that democratic freedom was
a solution to war. The natural question was then: Is this also true
of democide?

Aztag-What lessons does your research teach us about human nature
and how human society should be "constructed" to ensure a safer future?

Rudolph J. Rummel- What I've learned that is most important is that
war, democide, and famine are not matters of psychology, economics,
or bad rulers, but a matter of the social structure of society. When
society is so structured that the people of a society determine
its policies and leaders (democratic freedom), then war, democide,
and famine will disappear (note that no democracies have ever had
a famine).

Aztag- Your research has revealed that the number of people killed
by absolutist governments in the 20th century far exceeds that for
all wars. Is this unique for the 20th century?

Rudolph J. Rummel- No, although the numbers for the previous centuries
are very uncertain, my feeling for it, having gone through all the
data on this I could find, is that in all previous centuries democide
far exceeds war dead.

Aztag-You say that "the more democratic freedom a nation has,
the less likely its government will commit foreign or domestic
democide". However, such nations have rarely interfered when calamities
like the Armenian genocide and later genocides have taken place. Is
interference in such situations not a moral responsibility that comes
with being a democratic country?

Rudolph J. Rummel- In my view, the democracies have a moral
responsibility to intervene and stop massive democide. I would go
further, since it is the absolute dictators of the world that are the
major source of war and democide, I would rule dictatorship itself
a crime against humanity.

Aztag-Your work with numbers, statistics, calculations, and estimations
related to democide is impressive. In historiography, when can numbers
speak louder than words?

Rudolph J. Rummel- When they are large enough. Just take the number
murdered by communist governments, which is about 110,000,000. that
number alone speaks volumes. Add to it that this is more 3 times
the number killed in all international and domestic wars. This adds
more highly significant volumes still to our historical knowledge. I
would add the visualizations of the numbers to this. See, for example,
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/RM1.RINGS.OF.TEARS.HTM

Aztag- Some of your conclusions have been criticized for "not
considering the number of deaths due to anarchy and the lack
of government, through mechanisms such as civil conflict, the
breakdown of society, and foreign invasion". What would you say to
such criticism? If we accept this criticism, does it change anything
of the "big picture" you have helped create?

Rudolph J. Rummel- The criticism does not realize that we live in
the world's largest anarchy, which is the international system. Then
compare the number killed in wars within this anarchy to the numbers
within a state killed by its governments in democide and its civil
wars. Some of the most violent wars have been civil (up to 40 million
in the Teiping Rebellion, for example, whereas WWII killed in combat
about 16 million; the American Civil War was the deadliest war between
the Napoleonic Wars and WWI). Unknown to many is the we can test this
argument about anarchy empirically, and what in shown is that the most
peaceful society (if peace is one's only value) would be anarchy. I am,
however, not an anarchist, but a libertarian who believes in minimal
government--there are other values besides peace).

Aztag- How did you first become interested in the Armenian genocide?

Rudolph J. Rummel- In the process of collecting data on and histories
of democide. The Armenian genocides is, of course, a big one, and
I wrote a chapter on it in my Death By Government--my statistics on
this are in a chapter on the genocide in my Statistics of Democide
(see URL below).

Aztag- You say about 2.1 million Armenians were murdered by Turkish
regimes, while many scholars put the number somewhere between 1-1.5
million. Can you elaborate a little on on how you made that estimate?

Rudolph J. Rummel- Too many scholars stop their analysis at the end
of the Young Turk Regime. But genocide also occurred after that, even
involving the Turks invasion of the new, postwar Armenian state. See my
statistical analysis at: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP5.HTM

Aztag-The fact that the murder committed against Armenians is genocide
is never in doubt in your work. Many Other genocide scholars have
provided a great body of evidence which indicates the same. However,
there are still many historians (mainly Turkish) and a far larger
number of governments (Turkish and other) who deny/refuse to
acknowledge the Armenian genocide. How do you visualize recognition
and reparation in the case of Armenian genocide?

Rudolph J. Rummel- No reparations. Too much time has passed, virtually
no one in authority during this period is alive, and Armenians loses
in property and income are too diffuse to determine now anyway. The
other side of this in the injustice that would be committed against
Turks that had no role in the genocide and may have opposed it, and
whose even may have fought against it (many Turks did try to help
the Armenians).

What I do think is right is recognition internationally and especially
by Turkey that the genocide occurred, and a formal government to
government apology.

An Interview with David Barsamian

2007-06-03T07:36:00.000-07:00

An Interview with David Barsamian
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
February 12, 2004

Journalist, author, and lecturer David Barsamian is the founder
and director of Alternative Radio, based in Boulder, Colorado
(www.alternativeradio.org). His interviews and articles appear
regularly in The Progressive and Z Magazine. He is the author of a
number of books, including "propaganda and the Public Mind:
Conversations with Noam Chomsky", "Eqbal Ahmed: Confronting
Empire", "The decline and Fall of Public Broadcasting", and "The
Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati
Roy".

Aztag- In "The Pen and the Sword" you say "I feel a kinship towards
Edward Said rooted perhaps in my own background, in which the themes
of exile and dispossession were so prominent". Can you speak about
this feeling?

David Barsamian- It has to do with a sense of loss. My mother lost 22
out of 25 members in her family. The situation was not very different
on my father's side. 3 of my 4 grandparents were murdered. My parents
were thrown out from our ancestral homes in Anatolia (my mother was
from a village near Dikranagert and my father from one near Kharpet)
and found themselves in New York in 1921. The culture was completely
different. It was very difficult. My parents couldn't speak English.
They were poor. I was born in New York, so I was not traumatized
directly in the way that they were. My parents were qughatsis
(peasants). They were uneducated like most of our people in the rural
areas. So they didn't know what had happened to them. I wanted to know
and understand. How did we end up in New York? What happened to my
grandparents? Why were they killed? Why were the Turks so savage to
our people? But they couldn't give me any answers. They literally
didn't know the answers themselves. One day they were living fairly
normal lives and the next day this genocidal attack came upon them. So
I had these questions while growing up as a child in NY and hearing
about yergir (homeland). Yergir was some kind of magical place. When I
heard the old timers talking about their villages it sounded like
heaven. They had all kinds of wonderful fruits, vegetables; the water
was so pure, et cetera. I knew instinctively it was
exaggerated. Understandably, they wanted to keep the memory of the
good things alive. Throughout those years, I felt a certain distance
from reality. I was the product of 2 cultures. I am speaking Armenian
at home going to Armenian church and Armenian school, but also
becoming thoroughly Americanized.

Aztag- And the fate of the Palestinians was somehow similar.

David Barsamian- The Palestinians were uprooted in a different set of
circumstances but again, an external force came to bear upon a
population and flung into a diaspora. They basically settled in
countries surrounding Palestine like Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt.

Aztag- Where incidentally many Armenian refugees have settled.

David Barsamian- Yes, but not in the same large numbers. Most of our
people were killed, and most of the Palestinians were driven out,
there were those who were killed of course, but the number aren't
comparable. Back to memories, We always kept looking at the Middle
East as a place of traditions, food. A while ago I was thinking that
its been so long since I had lokhum and baytsegh (dried grapes) that
I've forgotten how they taste. I am 58 and I feel a kind of loss and
nostalgia for the past. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It happens
quite naturally.

Aztag- In the process of adapting to a new country, how readily do you
think one should replace one's own values with the host environment's
culture and traditions?

David Barsamian- I think one's heritage, culture, and history are
things to be cherished and maintained as much as possible. A diasporic
community cannot be as authentic as the community that is in place in
the homeland but we here are not in that situation. There is
tremendous pressure in the US to adopt American culture and
English. That is something almost inevitable but one can adapt oneself
to one's new country but also take pride and interest in one's
history. Most people in the US do not pronounce my name correctly,
they call me anything you can imagine with "Bar." and then they say
"well, that's not an American name. What kind of name is that? So my
entire life, I have been trying, first of all, to correct their
pronunciation and to explain that this is an Armenian name and that
Armenian names end with "ian". Most of them cannot find Armenia on the
map. When I was a kid my schoolmates would call me Albanian or
Bohemian they didn't where Armenia was. So I remember telling them "Do
you know where Iran is? Do you know where Turkey is?"

Aztag- Armenia is somewhere in between.

David Barsamian- Yes, we are "in between" people.

Aztag- The current generation growing up in the diaspora is even more
"in between" than the previous ones. Many know about their heritage,
but they often choose to ignore it, and if it happens that they try to
get involved and become active, the only thing that interests them
politically is lobbying for recognition of the Armenian genocide.

David Barsamian- You have touched an important point. This concerns me
very much. It's as if the genocide issue is the only thing in the
world that is of any value. It's an obsession, and when you are
obsessed with anything, you have distortion. You lack a panoramic 360
degree vision. You can only see one particular degree. This is, of
course, because the issue is unresolved and the pain is
lingering. Nevertheless, it is very disturbing that the only issue
that seems to galvanize them is April 24th. I have grown up with
this. It is a crucial issue and we should definitely keep it
alive. But we have to be skillful and creative and not operate out of
a feeling of victimhood. We should find allies and build coalitions
with kindled spirits in other communities like Native Americans,
Latinos, and African Americans who are struggling for social
justice. But I'm afraid that doesn't happen very much. A lot of
particularly well-off Armenian Americans seem to be content with
giving George Bush thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.
Then they are invited to the White House to shake hands and be
photographed with the Great Emir, thinking yergink hassan-they have
gone to heaven.

Aztag- The Armenian lobby groups in the US, as well as in other
countries, are more geared to working with the administration than
broadening their field of work, aren't they?

David Barsamian- It is definitely the case, and my observation is that
it's the same thing with the Arabs (and this is something that
irritated Edward Said very much), because in a way we are colonized
people here. Thus, we think we should be careful about what we say and
what kinds of friendships we make. So what has happened, also with the
Arabs, is that here in the US, they've become very timid. They also
send checks to Bush or to some big powerful political person, they
want to be invited to some "hafleh" or "hantes" for some fancy food
and that's it. They think that's political activism, "Oh now, I gave
Bush 10 thousand dollars so he is going to be kind to me. I'll have
influence" Are you kidding? You need to have a lobotomy if you think
10 thousand dollars is going to move Bush. Maybe 1 million dollars
will move him but not 10 thousand".

To be frank, I also have to say that some of the Lebanese Armenians
I've met here have very conservative, retrograde political ideas. They
tend to support very aggressive US military policies

Aztag- Why do you think that is the case?

David Barsamian- It's hard to say. Maybe amot ge zkan (They feel
ashamed), they see the atmosphere here, which is so fanatically pro
Israel, and they are easily intimidated. After all they are an
immigrant group. Every immigrant group tries to be more American than
the Americans, it's not just the Armenians; it is the same with all
groups. They try to be even more patriotic to prove that they really
deserve to be in this country.

Aztag- It's an inferiority complex.

David Barsamian- They feel as if they are second-class people and they
must conform.

Aztag- Do you think the atmosphere in the US is contributing to this?

David Barsamian- There is pressure and it's very noticeable since
September 11. Sometimes it is overt but most often it's unspoken,
it's under the surface.

Aztag- How, in your opinion, should Armenians reach out to others?

David Barsamian- You participate in issues that are important to other
communities. You can't just be focused on your single April 24th
event to the exclusion of everything else. It's a very diverse and
complex world out there but you can always find common ground. For
example, issues on immigration are very important to Latin Americans
trying to come to US. The Armenian genocide is not an Armenian issue.
It's a universal issue and we make a mistake in making it a sectarian
identity cause.

Aztag- And why do you think we don't see many Armenian activists
confronting empire?

David Barsamian- That's a very interesting question. Historically we
are a mercantile community, a nation of shopkeepers, some of them very
wealthy, others poor. Because of our historical situation, we didn't
get involved in politics. For us, it was a dangerous area. So there
was very little participation. We have to break those old patterns and
get involved, or else we have no control or influence. I see some
Armenians here that are breaking those stereotypes and thinking
outside the box. That's a positive development.

Aztag- Jews were "mercantile" as well, but they don't seem to have
such problems, do they?

David Barsamian- Why have Jews been successful? They have a longer
history in the US. They are not Middle Eastern. Most of them came to
the US from Europe. They have advantages of language and culture that
Armenians didn't have. For a highly organized and focused segment of
American Jews, the creation of Israel in 1948, has given them a raison
d'etre. And they promote Israel with great intensity, attentiveness,
and acumen.

Aztag- Speaking of Israel, what do you think is coming on in the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict?

David Barsamian- More death, more chaos, and more dislocation! The
bellicose US policies are keeping the region in a tremendous state of
turmoil and instability. It has now injected a huge military force
into Iraq. This reckless, illegal and immoral action will only inflame
the already very precarious situation in the Middle East. I don't
trust the US. They say one thing, and do another. I think anyone who
thinks the US is looking out for the best interests of the people in
the Middle East is extremely naïve.

Aztag- But then again the Palestinian prime minister is asking the
Americans to interfere to broker a deal with Sharon.

David Barsamian- That has historically been a big mistake. The PLO
always thinks Americans are going to deliver for them and provide some
kind of deal. The Americans will only do what is in the best interest
of Israel. They don't give a damn about the Palestinians. They are a
nuisance for Washington. It's Israel and oil that they are concerned
about. What you describe is a perfect example of how deeply colonized,
even an oppressed people like Palestinians, have become. They believe
that the patron of their oppressor is going to be their
liberator. This kind of thinking has made the PLO lazy and
ineffective. They may as well believe in the tooth fairy.

Aztag- Do you thing public opinion in the US has recently become more
sympathetic towards the Palestinians?

David Barsamian- Public opinion is manipulated by the media. The media
has been extremely hostile towards the Palestinians. Everything they
do is always reported as violent, and everything the Israelis do is
retaliation. The Israelis are constantly portrayed as acting in self
defense. So the picture the average American gets of the Palestinians
is very distorted and skewed to favor Israel. The negative portrayal
of Palestinians extends in general to Arabs, Muslims and
Islam. However, Americans in great numbers, when asked the question,
say they believe that there should be an independent Palestinian
state. So it is a mixed kind of opinion but the atmosphere that the
media create is extremely negative. Their pro-Israel bias is
embarrassingly blatant. Every time there is a suicide bombing it
creates an electronic wave of sympathy for Israel. Just a few days
ago, for example, a bus in Jerusalem exploded 11 people were killed,
but that was because the day before 8 Palestinians were killed in Gaza
and then 15 a few days later. But most people don't know about
that. And they keep asking, "Why are these Palestinians doing this?
Are they crazy? Have they no sense of morality?" I want to tell your
readers, Americans are not naturally ignorant, even though some people
may think that. This ignorance is constructed. It is the product of
the propaganda system and the media which makes Americans so
uninformed about the rest of the world and particularly about the
Middle East. But the fact that it is constructed thing is a good
because it can be deconstructed. There are some good journalists such
as Robert Fisk and David Hirst covering the conflict but sadly no
Americans. But you'll have to read the British press to read Fisk and Hirst.

Aztag- Yes. And I am even inclined to think that despite the corporate
media and the brainwashing, people in the US often know what is going
on.

David Barsamian- There's a lot of new information coming
forward. Young people are using the Internet. They aren't depending on
corporate TV, "Time Magazine", "The Washington Post" and the "New York
Times" for their info. They are going to commondreams.org, reading
dispatches from "The Guardian" or "Le Monde Diplomatique", reading
different types of media from around the world and all that is
contributing to a more realistic view of what is going on.

Aztag- And what do you think is the impact of alternative media?

David Barsamian- Alternative media is increasing tremendously. Just in
the last 3-4 years there has been huge surge in alternative media, not
just the internet, but also video, radio et cetera. All kinds of
documentaries have been made because young people in general are very
dissatisfied with the corporate media. My own media project
Alternative Radio, www.alternativeradio.org, is growing rapidly.

Aztag- But some people would argue that Globalization is here to stay,
and the anti- globalization movement can do little to change things.

David Barsamian- If you think that, then the outcome will be
certain. We have to resist this notion of inevitability. Again, it's
the same issue, if you submit yourself, then it shows the effect
colonization and propaganda. What progressive leftists like me are
saying is that we are not against Globalization, which is as old as
history. It's corporate capitalist driven globalization that is the
problem. We are seeking fair trade, not exploitive trade where I make
an enormous amount of profit and you just make a few dinars. We seek a
globalization based on a sense of equality and justice.

Aztag- Another export of the US is democracy (not to say forced
democratization). However, democracy in the United States itself does
not seem to be full blown. For instance, democracy also means
information and I'm not sure about the way information is handled by
the US media. How independent is the media there?

David Barsamian- If you look, you can find independent information,
but it's not easily available. It's a relatively free country, not a
dictatorship. I have a weekly national radio broadcast; I give
lectures all over the US. No one is interfering with me, but we don't
speak to a large audience because we don't have capital, so we exist
on the margins. The goal is to reach a large mainstream
audience. Michael Moore is an example of just such a success. His
films and books are seen and read by many millions.

First of all people have to have a sense of skepticism, maybe the
government is lying about Iraq, maybe it's not telling the truth about
Israel. You have to be suspicious about the intentions of the
government or the corporate media when they report on a particular
story. If you give the power to the state and media and believe what
they say is true, then it's very difficult to change the
situation. Nowadays, a lot of young people are rejecting the status
quo and I think the attack on Iraq has been a lighting bolt for many;
because this time the lying has been so brazen, so in your face, that
you cannot avoid it.

Aztag- Is there any concerted attempt to fight this lie?

David Barsamian- There's a problem in the US. Democracy is in a very
weak state and it's not thriving. We have 2 political parties that are
largely controlled by big money Wall Street interests, corporations,
and lobbies. We don't have an effective opposition like in some other
countries. Look what happened in the election 2000 in the state of
Florida, how can anyone talk about democracy after that?

Aztag- Internationally as well, the rigid stance towards US foreign
policy in Iraq is melting down, isn't it?

David Barsamian- That's because you have Americans in Iraq. They're
going to create a fictitious government which is going then to
"invite" them to stay in Iraq as an occupying force in order to
maintain stability and internal peace. Ahmed Chalabi and his friends
are a bunch of quislings. They are pawns of the Americans. They have
no credibility in Iraq. Chalabi left the country when the king was
overthrown in 1958. He was convicted by a Jordanian court and
sentenced to 22 years in absentia for crimes of fraud and
embezzlement. In a word, he's a crook. And this is the guy the
Americans are betting on? Please! These people have no future. You
know where most of the propaganda came from about WMD? It was from
Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. They were anxious for this war
because they wanted to seize power in Iraq, and Americans like Paul
Wolfowitz and Richerd Perle and the others, who don't know one word of
Arabic (maybe they know bazaar and inshallah), believed these lies
because they wanted to, they wanted to be misled. Look at how the
propaganda works in the US now. What is the big discussion currently?
It's not that this was a criminal war against a country that was not
threatening the US or its own neighbors, the question is: "How did we
get the intelligence wrong and should there be an inquiry into the
intelligence gathering process?" I just gave a speech in Aspen,
Colorado last week. I said George bush should be sent to The Hague,
sit next to Milosevic and be tried for international war crimes. The
corporate media wouldn't say that. Even the Democrats, who are now
trying to replace Bush, are very careful and circumspect about what
they say. Oh he didn't plan properly, he didn't have enough troops, he
didn't anticipate the problems of post-war Iraq, he should have gotten
UN approval, et cetera. What do you think will happen if you invade a
country and destroy the government? Of course there are going to be
problems. One doesn't have to be a Harvard PhD to understand this.

Aztag- The United States is now trying to please the Turks saying that
they'd like to keep the territorial integrity of Iraq intact. On the
other hand, the Kurds were promised many things prior to the war,
weren't they?

David Barsamian- The most important issue there is what going to
happen to Kirkuk, if it comes inside the Kurdish region the Kurds will
have economic power, which will give them an enormous amount of
leverage to create an independent state. Turkey will not allow
that. The US has a history of selling out the Kurds. It will probably
happen again.

Aztag- Turkey and Israel are the allies of the United States and its
main "law-enforcers" in the region. The US can't afford to have
problems with them, can it?

David Barsamian- Yes, but this is an old story. The US has devised a
system of domination which relies on local cops, local gendarmes that
maintain control. Historically, it has been Iran, Turkey, and Israel,
all non-Arab countries. Now of course Iran is out of the picture and
the job is left to Israel and Turkey. They are the primary enforcers
of US imperialism in the region. But some of the work of empire
requires heavy lifting. And only Washington can do that.

Aztag- Turkey is currently trying to have the Cyprus issue solved and
boost its chances to start membership talks with the EU. Here too, the
US seems to have work to do in order to push forward the Turkish
application.

David Barsamian- The US sees Turkey as a strategic ally and as a tool.
So it wants to please Turkey and it will push the Turkish application
forward in the EU. But right now the US is not very popular in Europe
so this can actually backfire on Turkey. I cannot recall a period in
the history when the US was so unpopular in the world. This has
happened because of extremely militaristic policies of the Bush
administration (the attack on Iraq, the continued occupation of
Afghanistan, blind support for Sharon's aggressive policies). There's
so much hostility and antagonism towards this country. Yes, people
might like Coca Cola and things like that but I'm talking about
politics where, Bush has created many enemies. Yes, there are
terrorist threats but no one is addressing the reasons for
terrorism. You remember the assassination of Turkish diplomats in
1970s and 80s? Why was that happening? There was a historical reason.
It doesn't mean you support the action but one has the address the
roots of the problem not its symptoms. I don't think it's a good idea
to hijack planes and fly them into buildings and kill people who are
basically innocent. But we have to understand the background. Why are
people motivated? There are reasons. The corporate media have
completely failed to explain to the American people why there is so
much hostility towards this country. They either say it's envy,
"Everyone wants to be like America but they can't" or the
ever-popular, "They just hate us".

Aztag- It's a clash of civilizations, Huntington would say.

David Barsamian- More like a clash of fundamentalisms. Bush and bin
Laden have some things in common. They are both mujahids, holy
warriors. One fights for imperialism and the other for a warped view
of Islam. They both claim to speak for God. We began with Edward Said,
let's end with him. I miss him, as do many others, very much. He was a
fervent advocate against monochromatic thinking. He embraced pluralism
and open debate and rejected any kind of narrow thinking. He was
inspired by the poem of Aime Cesaire of Martinque:

But the work of man is only just beginning
and it remains for man to conquer all
the violence entrenched in the recesses of his passion.

And no race possesses the monopoly of beauty, of intelligence, of force,
and there is a place for all at the rendezvous of victory.

An Interview with Diamanda Galas

2007-06-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

An Interview with Diamanda Galas
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
April 8, 2004

Belgian writer Henri Michaux, Romanian-Jewish poet Paul Celan, Italian
filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, French symbolist Gérard Nerval, Peruvian poet
Cesar Vallejo, Armenian poet Siamanto, Syrian poet Adonis, Assyrian poet Dr
Freidoun Bet-Oraham, and Diamanda Galas' 4-octave weapon of a voice come
together in `Defixiones, Will And Testament' (Defixiones refers to the words
engraved on the graves of the dead warning against desecrating the corpse) ,
a double album (www.mute.com) `investigating the Armenian, Assyrian and
Greek genocides carried out by Turkey between 1914 and 1923', and raging
against the continued Turkish denial of these atrocities. `Defixiones'
received its world premiere performance on 11 September 1999 in Ghent,
Belgium and has since been performed in South America, USA, Europe, and
Australia.

Galas was raised in San Diego, where she received training in classical
music and opera. She studied biochemistry at USC and then continued her post
graduate studies in Europe, before embarking on a journey in music and
activism that would earn her `titles' ranging from the sublime `Diva of the
dispossessed' to the ridiculous `the devil's maiden'. Many miss the point of
her sometimes outrageous, often electrocuting voice, lyrics, and public
statements, but it seems she couldn't care less. After all, `I am doing this
for myself' she says, `so that I continue living an interesting life'.

The word "myself" probably should not be taken literally. Galas' `self' is
rather extended and includes the diseased, the oppressed, the exiled, and
the unburied. Her rage, far from being the expression of a soul gasping for
blood and bitterness, is a genuine refusal of the lies, fabrications, and
misconceptions that surround us.

I spoke with her by telephone on April 5, 2004.

Aztag- Your work in the 80s and 90s was chiefly about AIDS. How did you
decide to tackle the issue of Genocide?

Diamanda Galas- My father's people are Pontic Greeks from Anatolia. Since I
was a little girl, he told me all these stories about the Turks kicking his
people out of Turkey and how they had to escape. He showed me the stories of
Elia Kazan. He told me how they escaped and went to other regions (for
example Smyrna) and then I heard what happened in Smyrna. I have been
hearing these stories for 35 years. So I knew that I was going to work on
this, and then I heard more about the Armenian genocide, which was so
similar to the stories he had told me and the time periods were at times
similar.

I later started to study these (genocides), as well as the Assyrian
genocide, intensively. I realized that the 3 of them were very connected,
even though they were very different as well. I also felt that it is very
important to discuss all 3 and started a process of intensive research. This
meant going into the texts of poets and writers who had witnessed and
documented the crime (like Siamanto). I also studied the works of Nikos
Kazantzakis, Yannis Ritsos and many others, who have talked so much about
the domination of the Turks.

Then I decided to choose certain poets that I would work with musically. At
this stage, I had to study with speakers. For example I studied with Shakeh
Kadejian, an actor in New York. She's an Armenian from Lebanon who performs
Siamanto every year. I studied with her the delivery of Siamanto. As you
know, in the album, she is speaking it and I am singing it. For Adonis'
poem, I studied with Egyptian speakers. It all took five years.

Aztag- I saw the bibliography on your website (http://www.diamandagalas.com)
, it's a good place to start with if someone is interested in researching
these events.

D.G.- You know it is really one tenth of everything; there are so many
papers, and I am not very organized, so I have boxes and boxes of research
papers and printouts. My house is a nightmare...

Aztag- It is evident that you aren't an artist trying to find causes just to
give an extra dimension to her art...you are really into this, aren't you?

D.G.- My father is 87 years old now; when I was little he played Kazan's
film `America, America' and told me these stories so long that it resonates
in my brain. There is another equally important factor here. In the States,
if you are Greek, and especially Middle Eastern/Anatolian Greek, you really
are invisible. Nobody knows anything about your culture.

Aztag- A few years ago, Thea Halo's `Not Even My Name' created some interest
towards Pontic greeks.

D.G.- That's a good book from the genocide perspective but even this book
does not discuss the incredible culture that existed there and was wiped
out, because the Turks were jealous of all of us. They were jealous of the
Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek cultures. Our cultures were so superior to
theirs. They had nothing. They stole their Koran from the Arabs, the art and
everything else from the Greeks and the Armenians. Everything they had was
stolen from somebody, somewhere. And then all they wanted was the money,
they didn't want the people. But when they got the money and the property
they didn't know what to do with it, and those lands became a desert.

It's a question of invisibility. For me, as a second generation, I walk
around this huge country that does not recognize my culture except when
seeing people who sell souflaki, and, at best, they know we had a great
writer, Socrates...

Aztag- Or they have seen `My Big Fat Greek Wedding'.

D.G.- Yeah. That movie is actually very funny but it's the only thing that
anyone knows -although I was not raised like that in my family- Here, there
is a concept of what is white culture, which means culture from the south or
culture from LA, and then there is what people consider black culture, and
there is Hispanic culture, and that's it. Everybody else is invisible. Until
September 11th, Arabic culture was also invisible but now it is visible in a
negative perspective.

I was supposed to be part of the Olympic thing, they didn't want me to do
Defixiones, `Oh, no we don't want you to do Defixiones because the Turks
will get angry', I was so angry and I thought `Jesus Christ, where am I
going to perform this...'

Aztag- It's ironic, because you had difficulty arranging a performance in
Armenia as well.

D.G.- It's so ironic. The places that I want to perform before anywhere
else...I bet we're going to perform it in Istanbul before anywhere else. I
never even call it `Istanbul'; I say `Constantinople'...we'll do a tour in
America for the first time in the fall, I have one performance in Italy,
this is in Serara in June...I don't make my living doing Defixiones. I make my
living from doing more the blues stuff because I could never support myself
doing Defixiones, no one would pay for it.

The reason I am doing it is because I am totally angry at this country for
making the Greeks invisible. I cannot stand to be out with a group of people
who are talking about this culture and that culture and my culture is
invisible...they have these generalizations, for example they consider all
Christianity the same...this is totally insane. Then there is this stupid film
`The Passion'... It's so boring, I think it's a cross between the Tour de
France and a bad menu for spaghetti Bolognese, that's it. You have no
director and there are all these Italians who are hired to do beautiful
effects, just like you have in the film, the Jews hiring Romans to beat
Christ. What's really bizarre in this film is that everyone knows that by
caning you should be able to break someone's spine if you hit him twice. So
you're not going to hit someone a hundred times and he would still be able
to walk with a cross. The Greeks that I know, if they're going to think
about a Christ, they're going to think about him as Kazantzakis' Christ...As
far as I am concerned, if you care about Christ, he was a man. `The Passion'
is like a Steven Spielberg film, why should I be interested in someone from
Malibu riding his motorbike writing a piece about Christ? `Shut up, you
don't know what you're talking about'...

The Coptic, Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian cultures are invisible in this
country. Nobody knows about these cultures, just like nobody knows about the
Pasolini Film on Christ ("The Gospel According to St. Matthew'). It's a very
hard country to live in this sense...I don't work here, I work in Europe, I
work in south America, I work in Mexico, because they respect my culture.

The side of the `New York Times' here is the side of the US, Israel, and
Turkey, that's it. The only concerns they have at all is Israel and
Palestinians. Nothing else exists. And the only reason they're interested in
Palestine is because of the Israelis and because of the Jews in this
country. Nobody else matters and you find yourself in this very curious
position. I get these horrible fights in my living room which has become so
dangerous for me...This is because I don't like seeing my culture castrated,
and it is being castrated by a bunch of ignorant politicians...

Aztag- You have said "My voice was given to me as an instrument of
inspiration for my friends, and a tool of torture and destruction to my
enemies." Who are your enemies?

D.G.- The enemies are people who chose to remain ignorant because they are
cowards and they like to run in packs. They like to be like dogs and they
don't like to speak for themselves. In this country I see a lot of people
like that, I discuss what I'm talking about and they say `what do you mean
`genocide', that's not an important genocide' the only important genocide is
the one that took place in Western Europe' the only people that were chosen
were those people". I have fights with people who don't think for themselves
or who don't think, who really have an agenda and they don't want to change
it. I can think of a million ethnic groups but it really comes down to
individuals. It's a weird story...

I have friends in different areas of the world and they are working in the
same situations over and over again. The same type of situations where you
have missing people, like El Salvador in Argentina...when I went to Mexico to
perform `Defixiones' they said `no one's going to be interested in
`Defixiones' and Armenians' and I said `you are wrong'.

Aztag- People do relate. I know people related when you performed in
Australia as well...

D.G.- The people who were cynical have been the people who are only thinking
about their own genocide.

Aztag- Some individuals want their people to be recognized as the first even
in misery.

D.G.- They want to be first in misery, only celebrate their holidays.My own
father is horrified when I say these things. He's first generation and when
they came to this country they were taught to be quiet just like the Greeks
in Turkey were told to wear the fez and be quiet, be invisible...I don't have
to be that because I'm American and in America nobody is going to threaten
my life because to of the things I'm saying here, nobody!

When you have freedom of speech it's your obligation to use it because of
all the people who don't have it, and that's what I told the Greeks when I
went to Greece I said "I have it, so I can use it and you can say this is
the Greek American who's saying this and you can excuse yourself".

Aztag- You have made some additions to `Defixiones', let's talk about that.

D.G.- When the Turks invaded Cyprus in 1974, `Hurriyet' published this poem
called `Hatred', which talks about how they want to kill the Greeks and cut
them up into a thousand pieces. I added this poem and I do it in Turkish.

Aztag- Was the timing intentional? After all, there are renewed efforts
underway to solve the Cyprus issue.

D.G.- No, I started adding 6 months ago. You know my stuff never has timing;
I'm always doing something when it's the least interesting to everybody.
I started "Plague Mass" in 1983-84 and everybody said `oh, I don't
want to hear this shit about AIDS', then I performed it in 1990 people were
so interested. With me, it takes 5 or 6 years to create these works.

Aztag- Let's talk about the cancellation of your performance in Armenia 2
years in a row. What happened?

D.G.- The reason that I became angry about it was because they invited me
twice at the last minute -the first was 6 months and the second was 4 months
before- saying `we really want you to perform'. So we planned to do it,
everything was set up and they cancelled it the last minute and they said
they had to cancel because there was a national holiday, it became a
national holiday so they had to cancel. I said "ok, fine!"

The second year was after September 11th and I was supposed to do it at the
end of September 25th or something. I booked Aeroflot and all my flights
that were taking me from England to Holland to Armenia, and it cost me a lot
of money and they weren't paying me at all. They were only going to pay me
for the flight, that's it. And then at the last minute they cancelled. They
said that the theater (The Opera House) was being rebuilt and it would not
be ready for my performance the dressing room wasn't going to be ready, I
said `oh, come on, forget the dressing room lets just do it the way it is, I
have done performances with a trailer next to the theater. And then they
wrote this lie that Diamanda needed such incredible technology like Madonna,
and this was just a pile of shit, all I do is sit at the piano and I have 2
other microphones in other parts of the stage and that's it. It's a very
simple show, not a rock show, so they lied 2 years in a row...so I said `you
think you can f--- me like this' , and I wrote a press release and sent it
out everywhere...I don't want to overdo it, I don't want to focus on that
forever, but I felt so bad because after September 11th I felt that I wanted
very much to do this performance because of what happened in NY and because
of what America had done, it was like somebody tying your hands...

Aztag- You have performed `Defixiones' in the US, Europe, and Australia. How
much interest did it create among Greek and Armenian communities on these
continents?

D.G.- The Armenians have been interested in my work much more than the
Greeks. I performed the work in LA, of course there are many more Armenians
in LA, but still, I've noticed a gigantic support from the Armenians and
some support from the Greeks. I think Greeks are not as mobilized (as the
Armenians)...the Greek are trying to do this Turkish-Greek friendship crap,
with friendship committees etc. When I was in Greece, some people told me
`oh, no Diamanda, were now trying to make Greek-Turkish friendship' and I
said `well, good for you but that doesn't mean I can't perform `Defixiones'
because people don't know the history, they have to know before they can get
past it'. And they said `Can't you just sing folk music?' I'm like `f---
you!'

Aztag- `Defixiones' contains works in more than 10 different languages.What
is the message here? Would it not have been easier for Americans to grasp it
if it were in English?

D.G.- What would they get out of it. Would they get an emotional message?
No, they would get my a little political view `isn't it terrible what the
Turks did to the Armenians?' well any idiot can say that. But I am Diamanda
and I work in a certain way, when I'm using different languages each
language has an emotional component, and active component, right out of the
blood that tells you a lot more than just a simple piece of information. And
I think that when you invest time in a language you know more about the
culture and how the culture thinks. At the end of the day I have to say I do
this for me, so that I can keep living an interesting life. I am not
somebody who is thinking `oh well, if I do it in 10 languages then 10
different people will understand it'. No, no, no, that's not me. That's a
politician's job, I'm not a politician and I'm not a rock singer, I'm just
doing this for me. So it's a little different. I do it as a composer.
Composers have traditionally worked with masses in many languages, they used
parts of the Old Testament then they take poets that have expressed their
point of view and they integrate the poets and they always do the poets in
the original language. That's the music of his soul. You don't take Adonis
and suddenly do it in English. A lot of Americans would do that but I just
say, you know, why don't you just write it yourself?

If they want to read it in English they can do research, they can get
scholarly work like the books of Hovannisian, Dadrian, and some Turkish
scholars. They shouldn't come to me if they want to do basic research
because after all I'm a composer.

An Interview with Henry Theriault

2007-06-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

Free Speech, 'Open Mindedness', and the Denial of the Armenian Genocide
An Interview with Henry Theriault
by Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily

Professor Henry Theriault received his B.A. from Princeton University and
his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts. He serves as
Associate Professor of philosophy and coordinates the Center for the Study
of Human Rights at Worcester State College (Massachusetts, USA). His
research interests include genocide, nationalism, and the philosophy of
history.

Henry Theriault visited Beirut in April. His visit was initiated by the
Lebanese-Armenian Heritage Club of the American University of Beirut. He
gave public lectures at the American University of Beirut, Haigazian
University, the Hagop Der Melkonian hall, and the Armenian Catholicosate of
Cilicia. Despite his tight schedule, he managed to spare some time for an
interview, which ended up being more of a lively discussion. Excerpts:

Aztag- Having specialized in philosophy, you bring a fresh perspective to
the study of the Armenian Genocide. This is evident from the few papers you
have so far published as well as from your lectures. In what way can
philosophy be helpful in the study of genocide and mass murder?

Henry Theriault- One issue where such an approach is necessary is that of
denial. People often respond to denial on the level of presenting the facts.
However, denials are really never about the facts, they are about trying to
manipulate a target audience and make them see the realities of the world in
a way that's not accurate. To achieve this end, there are a number of
techniques that deniers use. For example, they introduce ideas that every
perspective on a historical event is equally valid. And if you approach the
deniers from a historical perspective, you state the facts and you end up
getting into a debate about which facts count and which ones don't. In my
opinion, you can almost never win that debate. A denier can always reject
whatever fact you have, any document you produce, no matter how good the
evidence. A denier can always bounce back and you get in an ongoing battle
over the facts; a battle that doesn't end, and the ultimate result is a kind
of stalemate where whatever historical facts you are trying to prove is
never really proven. In case of the Armenian genocide, for instance, the
Turkish deniers sometimes just make the same arguments over and over again
to new audiences. The arguments can be discredited, they can be completely
fallacious and yet, every time they make them, they get taken seriously
again and again, and you have to fight that battle forever.

Aztag- You put this very bluntly when you said in one of your lectures in
Beirut that it is not important for the deniers to make people believe in
what they say, the important thing for them is that what the Armenians say
is not believed.

Henry Theriault- Exactly! They create a situation where there's no clear
truth; for a denier, that's victory! The audience doesn't have to believe
any version. I find the claim put forth by some extreme deniers that the
Armenians committed genocide by killing Turks and other Muslims very
striking. If anyone with a basic understanding of history just looks at the
number of Armenians who were in the Ottoman Empire and what possible access
of arms they had, the notion that Armenians committed genocide becomes so
absurd. But when deniers make that claim, people end up balancing:
`Armenians say Turks committed genocide against them; Turks say the
Armenians committed genocide against them. These two groups hate each other,
and who knows what is the truth is and what's not, we can't commit to either
side."

As I said, there are also things like the appeal to free speech. Deniers
insist that that every opinion should be heard and taken seriously no matter
what it is. One of the problems in the US is that people are very simplistic
about free speech. Every opinion should be heard doesn't mean every opinion
should be taken equally seriously, and what happens is that people make that
mistake; they think "oh, this is an opinion, that's an opinion too. I'll be
open minded and take them BOTH seriously". That's great if you're talking
about complicated political issues where you're really trying to reach an
understanding of different positions. But when we're talking about a basic
historical fact, then you want to make sure you get the evidence, the
available information, and then you take it and you try to make some sense
out of it.

>From a philosophical standpoint, there are other problems as well. There is
this idea of absolute positivism where no historical fact is ever proven
unless somehow there's absolute evidence on it. But the problem is the
evidence standards that a lot of deniers try to get people to commit to are
so extreme that no person really thinking rationally would accept them. The
deniers say, for instance, that to prove that Armenian genocide happened,
you have to have absolute data, a huge number of valid data that support
every particular point you're making and there should be no ambiguous data
and so forth. But sometimes even in the hard sciences, absolute data is not
available. People ought to be very careful when they claim that evidence of
the genocide isn't sufficient because it really accepts the deniers' view
that whatever evidence you give, the bar goes up a little bit higher to the
point that it becomes irrational.

People have a lot of very simplistic ideas about critical thinking. For
instance, they think one should listen to the both sides of the story and
you never judge, or the proper way that objectivity is the same as
neutrality, which is completely false. I think anyone claiming that he knows
anything about history should be willing to accept that some basic facts are
beyond doubt. One may disagree on the number of Armenians killed in the
Armenian genocide, but the fact that a large number of Armenians were killed
because of a systematic state policy is something that's either a fact or it
isn't.

In a murder case, it's very rare to have direct and conclusive evidence of a
crime. You trust this witness, you trust that witness. Somebody was supposed
to be somewhere at 10 o'clock at night, and somebody says he saw a car like
the one that person drives on the street, miles away...you put the evidence
together and the bottom line is that you eventually have to come to a
conclusion. Deniers would like to keep the question open forever. So by
saying that there's not enough evidence of genocide you're essentially
giving a victory to denial, because you're not settling the question. As
soon as you say you need more evidence then it's your job to make sure you
get it. I'm an academic and I certainly have this `disease' as well. We tend
to think in terms of decades of thinking and research and so forth, but when
you're dealing with Human Rights issues, like the Armenian genocide, lives
can be on the line and future human rights issues could be at stake. So I
think we have to hurry ourselves up occasionally and make some tough
decisions.

Aztag- And, of course, that doesn't mean that the research should stop.

Henry Theriault- No it doesn't. The way you test whether someone is being
reasonable in their opinions, you ask him `what kind of evidence you would
it take to make you change your position?' and if the person says there is
no evidence that could possibly make him change his mind, then you know that
the person is committed to the idea without really weighing it through the
process of evaluation. If someone asks what it would take to make me change
my mind about, say, the Armenian genocide or the Rwandan genocide, I would
answer that if I suddenly found out I've been brainwashed or something, then
I would have to accept the argument that these genocides didn't occur.
However, the evidence is so overwhelming that it will be entirely irrational
and unreasonable for me not to take it seriously. Anyone who studies the
events in the Ottoman Empire during that period of time would conclude that
what took place was genocide.

Aztag- But we have to be realistic. People cannot research every single
issue to form an opinion about it. At some point, they have to accept the
views of professionals specialized in that field. You are saying that anyone
who researches these events will conclude that what took place was genocide.
The deniers can, in turn, say that anyone who does some research will find
out that what took place wasn't genocide. No wonder some people are confused
and approach the issue with `open-mindedness'.

Henry Theriault- I would like to say two things about this. First, in the
field of philosophy there's a debate about whether you can have something
called theory neutral data. If you just collect the data, will it point to
some theory or is it always necessary to have some kind of framework? The
use of a bad relativist framework convinces people that this is a good way
to look at the world, and then when they're confronted with data of the
Armenian genocide or any other human rights violation they see it within a
framework where it doesn't look like genocide, it doesn't look like a one
sided violence.

Second, I'd like to say that in life there is no absolute certainty. People
300 years ago thought that Newton's equations of motion were the absolute
last word in physics. I'm not an expert on this, but the universe doesn't
fit together in quite the neat way. And human reality is so much more
complicated than the hard sciences. And of course, nothing fits together in
a nice neat package. If the deniers apply their evidence standards on the
Holocaust, and even on issues of hard sciences, they would sound equally
convincing.

Aztag- This atmosphere that denial creates is intolerable for the ever
decreasing number of Armenians who faced these atrocities as well as for us,
their descendents. However, the Turks who are not aware of the facts, and
who are brought up in schools where the denialist or, at best, the
relativist approaches are being taught, would feel great frustration as well
when they face the `Armenian claims'. Denial's detrimental effects are felt
on both sides and on many levels, aren't they?

Henry Theriault- If I were a Turk today, I would be reaching back to the
Ottoman Empire to think of something good about my country. Today, Turkey is
in a very weak position, it looks very strong but Turkey is effectively a
state of the United States; the US government more or less tells turkey what
it wants and Turkey has to do it. Of course, if you look back to the days of
the Ottoman Empire, the contrast is striking. Nowadays, Turkey is not only
very dependent on the USA, but also it's not much liked in the region by
most governments. It also has internal problems (Islamism, democracy
standards, Kurds). And you can understand, maybe on a human level that Turks
would want to identify with the good things in their history. The problem is
when they takes that to the level of "I desperately need to have a proud
identity and anybody that says anything negative at all about Turkey as my
enemy and it's got to be wrong". But the anger that an Armenian feels at
denial and the anger that a Turkish person might feel at having to confront
the fact of the genocide are not the same angers, they're not coming from
the same source and they shouldn't be evaluated in the same way.

Aztag- You are working on a paper where a new approach to the interpretation
of the motives that led to the Armenian genocide will be presented. What was
your `problem' with the previous theories?

Henry Theriault- A lot of important and invaluable research has been done on
the Armenian genocide. But there are two issues that I often think about.
One is that people tend to look for one mechanism that accounts for the
genocide. The way I understand genocide is in terms of the particular
perpetrators who participate at the high levels, at the ground level and in
between. There are different kinds of perpetrators, there are different
kinds of motives: some perpetrators have overlapping multiple motives;
economic, ideological, psychological etc.

Some theories of Holocaust would reduce it down to "Hitler was insane, and
hated his grandmother who was a Jew" or something like that; that's just
ridiculous because that may be a piece of the bigger puzzle and it might
very important to include it, but when people take one piece and present it
as the whole truth, that's too much. One should know what the historical
facts are, and then try to understand why they are as they are.
One needs to look at economic issues, clerical issues, prejudice on the
ground, racism, if there were religious issues, historical trends and
shifts, demographics, migration patterns, one needs to look at a whole range
of issues to understand genocide. In this respect, there are some missing
pieces in the Armenian genocide historiography because a lot of the scholars
try to reduce it down to one or two mechanisms.

This is somehow related to Nietzsche's Perspectivism. One of the things
Nietzsche does in his writings is work through different perspectives and
different ideas; people think he's contradicting himself, but what he's
actually doing is bringing different things into perspective, and going
through that takes a fairly sophisticated intellectual sense of what's going
on.

What I'm saying is that if one is going to explain a complicated historical
event that involves millions of people, one has got to recognize that your
understanding of that event is going to be very complicated. It doesn't mean
that you can't focus in on certain clear pieces that help to reduce it down
for easy kind of understanding, and it doesn't mean you can't say that the
Turkish government committed genocide of Armenians; of course they did, but
that genocide was complicated, the way it works. In my paper, a draft of
which you saw, I'm not giving a comprehensive view of the genocide, but I'm
trying to pay attention to some things that have not been paid attention to,
such as the interior issues among the Turks and within the Armenian
community.

Aztag- In an interview conducted in January, I asked Professor Rudolph
Rummel about the issues of recognition and reparation. He said, `No
reparations. Too much time has passed, virtually no one in authority during
this period is alive, and Armenians loses in property and income are too
diffuse to determine now anyway. Theother side of this in the injustice that
would be committed against Turks that had no role in the genocide and may
have opposed it, and whose even may have fought against it (many Turks did
try to help the Armenians)'.
What do you think about his comment?

Henry Theriault- The amount of time that passed doesn't matter; it's whether
the repercussions of the genocide and the loss of land still have an impact.
For example, I fully support the case of land claims of native Americans,
and part of the reason why I do that is the impact of the loss of lands.
Native Americans today are facing great difficulty because of the legacy of
the genocide; I don't care if a thousand years go by. The case of Armenians
is similar. If you just look at the delicate political situation of Armenia,
its vulnerability to Turkey, the dependence on Russia and the US and others
for basic survival, what I mean becomes clear. So I think that part of the
reparations is to help rebuild the victim community in a way that makes it
secure and viable.

An Interview with Ben Kiernan

2007-06-03T07:18:00.001-07:00

An Interview with Ben Kiernan
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
10th of June 2004

In April 1998, Pol Pot departed from this world leaving behind a legacy of death and destruction matched only by a few other leaders in world history. His Khmer Rouge regime is responsible for the genocide of more than a million people in Cambodia. A year before his death, Pol Pot said in an interview, “I did not join the resistance movement to kill people, to kill the nation. Look at me now. Am I a savage person? My conscience is clear.”

Like the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust before it, and the Rwandan genocide after it, the Cambodian tragedy reminded us once again, that the so-called “International Community” is an accomplice or, at best, a bystander when the “problem from hell” surfaces. However, most probably its conscience is clear as well. What lessons, if any, have we learned from “the Age of Genocide”? The current situation in Darfur does not help one to give an optimistic answer. This does not mean that the lessons aren’t there; just that the word is looking the other way over and over again.

In an email interview conducted in April 2004, I discussed with Ben Kiernan the Cambodian genocide, comparative studies of genocide and what change such studies can make.

Ben Kiernan is a Whitney Griswold Professor of History and Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University. He gained his B.A. (1975) and his Ph.D. (1983) in Southeast Asian History from Monash University.

Arguably the most knowledgeable observer of Cambodia anywhere in the Western world, Kiernan is the author of a number of books and monographs including “How Pol Pot Came to Power” (London, 1985), “The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1999” (New Haven, 1996). He is the editor of “Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, The United Nations, and the International Community” (New Haven, 1993) and the co-editor of “The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective” (Cambridge University Press, 2003). He founded the Cambodian Genocide Program at Yale University in 1994 and the Genocide Studies Program, also at Yale, in 1998.

Aztag- Why is the comparative study of genocides important?

Ben Kiernan- During 25 years of research on the history of the Khmer Rouge regime and the Cambodian genocide, it became clear to me that the Khmer people were victims of unusual historical circumstances, such as the expansion of the Vietnam War into their country, as well as unique elements of Khmer Rouge ideology. But I also came across many common features shared by the Cambodian genocide and other cases of mass murder. Sometimes the links were political lessons, such as when Pol Pot watched from Beijing in 1965 as the Suharto military regime in Indonesia massacred half a million communists in Java and Bali. Pol Pot later wrote that, “If our analysis had failed, we would have been in greater danger than the communists in Indonesia.” Pol Pot resolved to prevent such a disaster from happening to his own communist party, so he in turn massacred his opponents in Cambodia ten years later. Sometimes, the shared features were ideological, such as the warped lessons Pol Pot also learned from Mao’s disastrous "Great Leap Forward" in China. From these and other elements of the historical record, I concluded that if the essential common features of genocides and the links between them could be studied and identified, perhaps they could be detected in advance in future cases, giving opponents of genocide the prior knowledge, the time and thus the opportunity to intervene to prevent vast human tragedies from recurring.

Other links between disparate global tragedies also merit attention. The twentieth century opened with the genocide of the Hereros in the German colony of Southwest Africa. Participants in this brutalizing colonial experience included the father of Hermann Göring (until recently Göring Street was the name of a main thoroughfare in Namibia's capital, Windhoek). Immediately after the genocide, Eugen Fischer carried out his racialist research on miscegnation among the mixed Dutch/Hottentot ‘Rehoboth Bastards’ of Southwest Africa. In his 1913 study, Henry Friedlander has pointed out, Fischer advocated protecting “an inferior race…only for so long as they are of use to us; otherwise free competition, that is, in my opinion, destruction.” Fischer, who became head of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, also denounced "coloured, Jewish, and Gypsy hybrids," and provided Hitler with a copy of his book before the latter wrote Mein Kampf. In 1933, Hitler appointed Fischer as Rector of the University of Berlin, with the task of removing its Jewish professors.

Vahakn Dadrian's study, German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide, provides further illustration of the linkage between genocidal events of the early twentieth century. Later, while launching his attack on Poland, Hitler reportedly said in answer to a question on its international legality, "Who ever heard of the Armenians?” suggesting a calculation that genocide could conceivably be perpetrated with impunity. Regarding more recent events, there is evidence that the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 took the slow pace of the world's reaction to genocidal crimes in the former Yugoslavia as a sign that even worse ethnic cleansing in central Africa would not provoke rapid international intervention. While perpetrators of genocide seem to have benefited from their own comparative analysis of the potential and possibilities for genocide in the modern era, the rest of humanity has failed as yet to learn lessons from the past that could lead to meaningful intervention in such catastrophes.

Aztag- It is often said that creating awareness about past genocides will help prevent future ones. Is the international community learning the lessons that need to be learned?

Ben Kiernan- The recent attention given to the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide is overdue, but important. Lessons are being learned from past mistakes, in this case by the United Nations. The UN has now established a Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide who will report to the Secretary General on genocidal threats. It is now a responsibility of scholars of genocide to make sure this Special Adviser's office has the most accurate information possible. Even without attempting comparative research, just by analysing past cases and publishing the research results, it is possible to help upgrade the capacity and will of the international community to respond to future dangers. At least some genocides can be prevented by better information and more timely action. Comparative research offers an additional dimension of information.

Aztag- Can you tell us about the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University?

Ben Kiernan- The Genocide Studies Program (GSP) at Yale University (www.yale.edu/gsp) aims to contribute to this awareness through its comparative, interdisciplinary research program. The GSP is developing and applying new approaches to the documentation and study of genocide and trauma, and evaluating policy-oriented solutions to detecting and preventing genocide as well as alleviation of its far-reaching sequelae. We assemble and display evidence of genocides in large publicly-accessible databases and satellite imagery of atrocity sites. The GSP is based on the belief that comparing and contrasting genocidal movements and regimes can help to detect and analyse the ideological preoccupations that drive political leaders to order extermination campaigns. We also hope to point to social and historical factors that foster the growth of such genocidal movements and enable them to come to power and implement their ideas.

Aztag- Can you please briefly describe the genocidal campaign of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge?

Ben Kiernan- Five years after the Vietnam War spilled over into Cambodia, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge forces occupied the capital, Phnom Penh, in April 1975. They deported the city's two million residents into the countryside, and established the new state of Democratic Kampuchea (DK). Pol Pot became DK prime minister while remaining secretary-general of the secretive Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK). Other members of the CPK ‘Center’ (mocchim), including Nuon Chea, Son Sen, Mok, and Khieu Samphan, also moved into Phnom Penh.

The conquered urban populations were now labeled ‘new people.’ Driving them from the capital in all directions, the Khmer Rouge forcibly settled the urbanites among the rural ‘base people’ (neak moultanh) who had lived in the countryside during the 1970-75 war. They were all put to work in agricultural labour camps without wages, rights, or free time. Before the rice harvest in late 1975, the Khmer Rouge again rounded up 800,000 of the urban deportees in various regions and dispatched them to the Northwest Zone, doubling its population. Tens of thousands died of starvation there during 1976, while the new regime began exporting rice. Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge hunted down and killed thousands of defeated Cambodian officials, army officers, and increasingly, soldiers, schoolteachers, and alleged ‘pacification agents’ (santec sampoan) who in most cases had merely protested the repression or just the rigorous living conditions imposed on them. In 1976-77, the CPK Center and its Security apparatus, the Santebal, headed by Son Sen and Kang Khek Iev (alias Deuch), also conducted massive internecine purges of the Northern and Northwest Zone CPK administrations, arresting and killing large numbers of peasant “base people” who were relatives of the purged local officials. Starvation and repression escalated in 1977 and especially in 1978. By early 1979, approximately 650,000 people or 25% of the Khmer ‘new people,’ and 675,000 Khmer ‘base people’ (15%), had perished from execution, starvation, overwork, disease, and denial of medical care.

This severe Khmer Rouge repression of the majority Khmer rural population was accompanied by intensified violence against ethnic minorities, even among the ‘base people’. Over half of the ethnic Chinese, a quarter of a million people, perished in the countryside in 1975-1979, the worst human disaster ever to befall the large ethnic Chinese community of Southeast Asia. The Khmer Rouge expelled 150,000 Vietnamese residents from Cambodia in 1975, and ferociously repressed a Cham Muslim rebellion along the Mekong River. Pol Pot then ordered the deportation of 150,000 Chams living on the east bank of the Mekong and their forced dispersal throughout the Northern and Northwest Zones. In November 1975, a Khmer Rouge official in the Eastern Zone complained to Pol Pot of his inability to implement “the dispersal strategy according to the decision that you, Brother, had discussed with us.” Officials in the Northern Zone, he complained, “absolutely refused to accept Islamic people,” preferring “only pure Khmer people.” In a message to Pol Pot two months later, Northern Zone CPK leader Ke Pauk listed “enemies” such as “Islamic people”. Deportations of Chams began again in 1976, and by early 1979, approximately 100,000 of the country’s Cham population of 250,000 in 1975 had been killed, starved or worked to death. The 10,000 or so Vietnamese residents remaining in the country were all hunted down and murdered in 1977 and 1978. Oral evidence suggests that other ethnic groups, including the Thai and Lao, were also subjected to genocidal persecution; even the relatively favoured upland minorities suffered enormous losses.

The 1975 Cham rebellion against the CPK regime was followed in 1978 by another serious uprising in the Eastern Zone, led by ethnic Khmer. From late 1976, the Pol Pot regime accelerated its violent internal purges of the CPK regional administrations. The Santebal and the CPK Center’s armed forces subjected all five regions of the Eastern Zone to concerted largescale arrests and massacres of local CPK officials and soldiers. In May 1978, these purges reached a crescendo, and provoked a mutiny by units of the Zone armed forces. The rebels, led by Heng Samrin and Chea Sim, held out for several months before retreating across the Vietnamese border and requesting assistance from Hanoi’s army.

Meanwhile, from early 1977, the Pol Pot regime also mounted cross-border attacks on Thailand, Laos and especially Vietnam. Hanoi was now ready to intervene. On 25 December 1978, 150,000 Vietnamese troops launched a multi-pronged assault and took Phnom Penh on 7 January 1979. They drove the retreating Khmer Rouge forces across the country and into the Cardamom Mountains along the Thai border. Cambodians welcomed the end of the genocide which had taken 1.7 million lives of a population of 7.9 million. The People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) was established, headed by Heng Samrin and Chea Sim. Foreign Minister Hun Sen became prime minister in 1985. Vietnamese troops withdrew in 1989, and after UN-sponsored elections in 1993, the regime was re-named the Kingdom of Cambodia.

Aztag- What are some of the common features shared by the Armenian and Cambodian genocides?

Ben Kiernan- In 1919, an Istanbul court convicted Enver Pasha, the former Young Turk Minister of War, for "the crime of massacre" during the Armenian genocide. Following this in absentia conviction, Enver made his way to Central Asia. On 1 September 1920, Enver caused a sensation at the Conference of the Peoples of the East at Baku, in Soviet Azerbaijan. Enver expressed regret for having fought on the side of "the Imperialists of Germany whom I hate and I curse, precisely as I do those of Britain." But he carefully justified his First World War alliance: "We ranged ourselves with Germany, who had consented to let us live. The German Imperialists used us to obtain their own brigand ends; but our aim was solely to preserve our independence. The sentiments which drove us ... were not Imperial sentiments." He said he now "recognised" that Azerbaijan "should belong to its own people". But Enver didn't mention Armenia. He disguised his genocidal chauvinism as a desire to live and let live, cherishing national independence; and even as international solidarity, such as when he praised his Turkish army for helping to bring down the Tsar.

In this speech, Enver gave further interesting clues to his political philosophy. His famed Turkish army, he said, drew 'all its strength from the rural class." While denouncing imperialism, he noted: "To my mind, all who seek to enrich those who do not work should be destroyed." And he predicted that "the Oriental world," which he defined as "all oppressed peoples," would "annihilate" the imperialist and capitalist "monsters." Enver later led several thousand troops against the Soviet regime, with the professed aim of "driving the Europeans out and creating the great Central-Asian Muslim state."

Pol Pot would have recognised this amalgam of peasantism, 'class' violence, and Third World racism. Enver dismissed the notion of any fellow oppressed peoples in Europe, even outside that very European construction, "the Orient". Enver's ironic imprisonment in a Western ideology was quite comparable to that of Pol Pot. They both justified their racialist campaigns of destruction as class struggle, both portrayed their militaristic expansionism as national self-defence, and both romanticized the peasantry of their country while spectacularly failing to improve rural living conditions.

Enver was convicted in absentia, and was later killed in battle against Soviet forces. Pol Pot died in 1998 without facing any legal punishment. But Cambodia and the United Nations agreed last year to establish a special tribunal to judge the crimes of surviving Khmer Rouge leaders. Pol Pot's military commander, Mok, and his security chief Deuch, are both in jail in Phnom Penh awaiting trial.

Aztag- You have been instrumental in unveiling thousands of documents about the Khmer Rouge regime. In the case of the Armenian Genocide, detailed documentation is even harder for historians partly because of the inaccessibility of the Ottoman archives. What can you say about the difficulties you faced when trying to unearth the truth?

Ben Kiernan- ‘You are stupid,’ Pol Pot’s deputy Nuon Chea told Deuch, former commandant of the Khmer Rouge’s Tuol Sleng prison, after learning that Deuch had failed to destroy the prison’s archives before fleeing from Phnom Penh in 1979. Deuch had stayed behind for several hours after Vietnamese forces entered the city on January 9, but instead of burning the archives, he had preferred to ensure that his last prisoners were murdered. Over 100,000 pages of evidence fell into the hands of the Vietnamese and were soon made available to scholars. A ‘Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide’ was set up, with an archive of the Khmer Rouge ‘bureaucracy of death.’ British journalist Anthony Barnett visited Cambodia in early 1980 and brought back an extensive set of photocopies, which formed the basis for a cover story we wrote in London's New Statesman magazine (2 May 1980). When another journalist presented copies of these documents to Pol Pot’s brother-in-law Ieng Sary, he was caught off-guard and admitted that they were genuine. This admission was quickly denied by an anonymous Khmer Rouge aide, in an unsigned letter to the Far Eastern Economic Review. A decade later, another leading Khmer Rouge official, Son Sen, read through the Genocide Convention and underlined passages that might be used to prosecute him, including the definition of the crime, and sections asserting that, “whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, [genocide] is a crime under international law.” In 1996, Yale University's Cambodian Genocide Program located another 100,000 pages of secret documents, the archive of the Santebal, run by Son Sen. A few months later, Ieng Sary defected to the Cambodian government and set up his own "Documentation Center" to defend his record. Pol Pot murdered Son Sen the next year, and Pol Pot himself died in 1998. But Ieng Sary could still be tried by the forthcoming UN tribunal.

The evidence against them is strong. A handwritten document dated April 17, 1978, includes a list of names of relatives and associates of a prisoner named San Eap. A Zone commander had sent the list to ‘Committee 870’, a title reminiscent of the royal plural, used by Pol Pot. Using a similar personal alias, Angkar (‘the Organization’), Pol Pot scribbled on the cover letter in thick red pencil: ‘A/k 19/4/78 Follow up’ (taam daan). This was an order to arrest those named in the list.

Khmer Rouge leaders became uncomfortable at the publication of such incriminating internal records. They had had absolutely no idea that one day their signed murder commands would be made available on the World Wide Web. Perhaps this possibility will serve as a small deterrent to future genocidists. Their inability to deny their genocide deprives the perpetrators of a powerful weapon against the memory of their victims.

Aztag- In recent years, you have written a number of papers related to the Armenian genocide. When did you start researching this genocide and comparing it to other cases of mass murder?

Ben Kiernan- I began researching the Armenian genocide in 1989, after fifteen years' research on Cambodia. I read work by Ronald Suny on the social history of the Armenian genocide, before reading other studies of Young Turk leaders and their ideology. At first, I saw a parallel between the destruction of the medieval Armenian kingdom in 1375, and that of the Southeast Asian kingdom of Champa in 1471. In the twentieth century, the stateless Cham Muslim population of Cambodia became major victims of the Khmer Rouge, just as the Armenians became victims of the Young Turks.

I also found intriguing comparisons between Pol Pot, Enver Pasha and some other genocidal leaders, including marginal connections to royalty. The Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler was the godson and namesake of a Bavarian prince. Enver Pasha married a daughter of the Ottoman Sultan. Pol Pot's sister and cousin were respectively a consort and second wife of the Khmer king. Many modern genocidists also shared marginal geographic origins. Hitler and other Nazi leaders were of Austrian background. Enver and other Young Turk leaders like Talaat and Dr. Nazim came from Turkish minority communities of Eastern Europe. Khmer Rouge leaders Son Sen and Ieng Sary were from the Cambodian minority in Vietnam.

Though the French revolution influenced both the Young Turks and the Khmer Rouge, and the latter were communist, both regimes were also racist and expansionist, like the Nazis.

An Interview with Roger Smith

2007-06-03T07:14:00.000-07:00

Looking Back, Moving Forward
An Interview with Roger Smith
by Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily

The best way to move forward is through looking backward, it is said. This
might not be a good idea when you are driving a car, but whenever "backward"
signifies turning your eyes toward the past, memory or history, this statement rings
as true as any established cliché.

"The Armenian Genocide provides many clues to why contemporary genocide
occurs, what its warning signs are, and thus offers some hope, that if the
nations will act, genocide in the making can be prevented," says Professor
Roger Smith in this interview. In a world plagued with genocide and ethnic
cleansing, we, the human race, have often failed to look back, acknowledge
our mistakes, learn from them, and hence move forward. Unfortunately, world
leaders today are more interested in making history - no matter how twisted
it comes out to be - than learning from it. "We learn from history that we
learn nothing from history," said George Bernard Shaw.

According to Paul Valery, "History is the science of what never happens
twice." Yes, probably Armenians will not be marched to the desert and
slaughtered again. But as Armenians continue to reflect on the uprooting and
the near extermination of their people in 1915, they cannot help but see the
path that led humanity to the Holocaust, to Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and
most recently, Darfur.

"Perpetrators of genocide have learned from their own "study" of genocide
that they can commit the crime under the cover of war, in the name of
self-defense, will receive impunity, can deny that they committed genocide,
and that the world will forget," says Roger Smith. The message is loud and
clear. If you want to have the killing of 1.5 million Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire acknowledged worldwide, if you want the millions of Jews and
Gypsies slaughtered in Europe to rest in peace, then do something about
Darfur now! And act in a way so as to prove that Bernard Shaw was wrong and
that Paul Valery was right.

Roger W. Smith is Professor Emeritus at the College of William and Mary in
Virginia, where he taught courses in political philosophy and the
comparative study of genocide. Educated at Harvard and the University of
California, Berkeley, Smith has written widely on the nature, history, and
the possibilities of preventing genocide. He has dealt, among other topics,
with the roles of gender, denial, and the thirty-five year-long reluctance
of the United States to ratify the Genocide Convention that was broken only
in 1988. Smith has written the introduction to a recent edition of
"Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" (first published in 1918), a classic account
of the Armenian Genocide. His other works include "Women and Genocide" and
"Professional Ethics and the Denial of the Armenian Genocide," both
published in the journal Holocaust and Genocide studies in 1994 and 1995
respectively. One of Prof. Smith's most recent publications is "American
Self-Interest and the Response to Genocide," published in The Chronicle of
Higher Education on July 30, 2004. He is also the author of the entry on
"Perpetrators" in the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against
Humanity, which will be published in November 2004.

Professor Smith's public lectures have taken him to Armenia, Western Europe,
Canada and to numerous prestigious universities across the United States. He
has also given interviews to the Voice of America, the National Public
Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Public Broadcasting
Service, participated in documentaries on genocide, and provided testimony
before the US Congress.
Professor Smith is co-founder and past president of the International
Association of Genocide Scholars. Currently, he is Program Director of the
Zoryan Institute's Genocide and Human Rights Program in Toronto (Information
about the course is available at www.zoryaninstitute.org ).

In this interview, he looks back at a century of Genocide.

Aztag- In an article published lately in the "Chronicle of Higher
Education," you say: "Relatively small, well-organized lobbying groups are
more likely to be effective in moving policy makers to act against genocide
than broad, but somewhat amorphous public opinion." Citing, among others,
the facts that public opinion doesn't have direct access to policy makers
and that human-rights groups have the expertise to be persuasive.
How effective have human-rights groups dealing with this specific issue been
when lobbying for a more assertive stance against genocides? Do you envisage
a better strategy for a more effective functioning of such groups?

Roger Smith- Human rights groups in recent years have multiplied, but the
effect on policy, whether in Bosnia or Rwanda, was not great. Budgets are
small, agendas differ, and resources and efforts tend to be scattered. But
mainly, they have run into the reluctance of the United States and other
countries to take action to prevent, or end, genocide. But things change:
Somalia cast a shadow over involvement in Rwanda; now the costs of not
acting in Rwanda cast a shadow over Darfur. In the present climate, perhaps
direct lobbying of decision-makers, whether in national governments or the
United Nations, will be more productive. But human rights organizations
must also create ways to lobby more effectively; this will require access to
greater resources, but in some instances internal changes and change of
focus; for example, away from individuals and toward policy and
institutions. Some organizations (Amnesty International) have been oriented
toward prisoners of conscience (that is individuals) rather than mass
killing; Human Rights Watch has taken a different approach, concentrating on
policy and institutions. Other organizations have been primarily concerned
with providing relief, and have seen themselves as having to be neutral
between perpetrators and victims (perhaps even removing such distinctions
from their vocabulary). Fewer, but stronger, organizations might also be
needed: effectiveness is not necessarily increased by a multiplicity of
groups. Nevertheless, I believe that human rights organizations, unlike a
somewhat amorphous public opinion, can help move policymakers to act against
genocide.

Aztag- During the annual meeting of the institute for the Study of Genocide
you said, referring to Samantha Power's Pulitzer prize book "A Problem from
Hell": " My one concern for Power's book is that in a few years she will
have to issue an updated edition, listing yet another genocide: one in
which, yet again, the United States stood by."
What is your take on the West's reaction to the atrocities in Darfur? Do you
think the chapter on Sudan will not differ from the previous ones?

Roger Smith- I am hopeful that Darfur may turn out differently, that the
world's reaction may bring the killing and destruction to a close. But
there are mixed signals: the US Congress calls what is taking place
"genocide," but just what it proposes to do other than some kind of
sanctions through the UN is not clear; on the other hand, the European Union
says that genocide is not taking place in Darfur, and thus would not be in
favor of active intervention. The UN Security Council has given a month's
deadline to Sudan to show improvement; the African Union seems to more
active than in the past, and various countries (including Rwanda) intend to
place monitors in the region. But Sudan continues to maintain that no
intervention is necessary, that the militias are outlaws, not proxies for
the regime. It is hard to say what will happen next, but my guess is that
no direct intervention will take place.

Aztag- In your testimony before the House Committee on International
Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights you
said: "The Armenian case is the prototype for much of the Genocide that we
have seen since 1945; it was territorial, driven by nationalism, and carried
out with a relatively low level of technology."

Can you please draw parallels between the Armenian Genocide and the other
genocides in terms of territory, nationalism, and technology?

Roger Smith- Many scholars and the general public thought of the Holocaust
as the model of genocide: they saw it as driven by racial ideology, that it
was transnational, killing persons from all over Europe, and that it used a
complicated technology to transport and kill in assembly line fashion
millions of persons; by those standards, genocides that took place before or
after the Holocaust tended to be described as "tragedies," but not genocide.

This had the effect of demeaning the victims of those genocides and
blinding us to the ongoing nature of genocide in the 20th century.
But most of the genocides that have taken place since 1945 do not fit the
characteristics ascribed to the Holocaust. Whether it was Bangladesh,
Burundi, Rwanda, or Bosnia, there was a pattern that the Holocaust did not
illuminate to any extent: where the killing was largely territorial, the
ideology was nationalism (Cambodia is different in this respect), and the
technology employed was at a relatively low level (hoes, machetes, bullets,
fire, death due to exposure, and starvation). Rather, the Armenian Genocide
of 1915 was where the parallels could be found; indeed, it is the prototype
for much of the genocide that has taken place since 1945 and is taking place
now in Darfur. In addition to the elements already mentioned, there is the
perpetrators claim that they were only defending themselves against
revolutionaries and subversives; that what took place was civil war, not
genocide. The Armenian Genocide provides many clues to why contemporary
genocide occurs, what its warning signs are, and thus offers some hope, that
if the nations will act, genocide in the making can be prevented.

Aztag- During a panel organized by the Zoryan Institute you said that "a
precondition for reconciliation is a shared, accepted historical account."
What do you think about the attempts to sidestep the issue of genocide in
order to achieve reconciliation (for example TARC)? Do you think "a shared,
accepted historical account" is achievable when the Turkish government
continues the policy of denial and the education system in Turkey is
bringing up generations with the same distorted view of history?

Roger Smith- I think that a precondition for reconciliation in any genocide
is a shared, accepted historical account. But this is lacking with Turks and
Armenians, both at the State level and the individual level. The issues
have little to do with actual history: rather Turkish denial and the
rewriting of history involve a defense of Turkish self-image and political
concerns. A mythological history would have to be replaced; but identity has
been built on this history; change would have disturbing effects, leading to
confusion and questioning the very legitimacy of the state. But in the long
term, this is the only way Turkey can master its past; the acknowledgment of
the Genocide will, if it comes, coincide with a greater democratization of
Turkey, and with a more open and pluralistic society. We will know that
Turkey has come close to democracy when its citizens can openly discuss what
was done in 1915 and how it has been denied and covered up for 90 years.
The Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC) was an attempt to
bypass a common version of history. Its very title tells us something: it
contains "reconciliation," but not "truth." But ultimately, is not truth,
acknowledgment, necessary if full reconciliation is to be possible? The
commission was ill-conceived: it lacked legitimacy in how it came into
being, and in terms of its members, who were hardly representative of the
Armenian community. It was widely-viewed as a dodge, created by the State
Department and the Turkish government to delay Congressional and
international resolutions affirming the Genocide.

Partial steps toward reconciliation without public acknowledgment by Turkey
of the genocide could happen: Japan has never accepted responsibility for
its war guilt, yet enjoys good relations with the U.S. Some steps Turkey
could take, but may not unless pressured by the European Union: diplomatic
recognition of Armenia; opening borders; lift embargo against Armenia, allow
for free development of Armenian culture within Turkey; allow for free
public discussion of the Genocide; rescind its policy of educating its youth
(Armenian included) in genocide denial; stop building monuments blaming
Armenians for genocide; and abandon denial. But the issue of genocide would
remain; until this is acknowledged, no full reconciliation is possible.
It seems to me doubtful that Turkey will acknowledge the genocide. And what
would follow if it did? Armenians are not of one mind about this. But for
now, I think Armenians are right to look to public opinion in many countries
and to seek affirmation of the Genocide by national and international
bodies. Even the Pope has signed on.

Aztag- A New York Times book review mentions that there are 37,000 works on
Nazism, 12,000 of which have appeared in the previous five years alone.
The Armenian genocide, among others, is far less researched and documented
and, adding insult to injury, the campaigns of denial force historians to
dedicate much time and effort in order to falsify the claims of deniers and
revisionists.

What are, in your opinion, the challenges facing historians dealing with the
Armenian genocide a century after the fact?

Roger Smith- Although works on Nazism and the Holocaust continue to appear
at a rapid pace, there is increasing awareness among scholars that the 20th
century presented numerous other examples of human destructiveness There
is now an effort to research the many other cases of genocide, and to put
them in comparative perspective. What do the cases have in common? How do
they differ? Why were they previously ignored? How has denial affected
writing about them? What can genocides other than the Holocaust teach us
about the dynamics of destruction, warning signs of genocide, and possible
prevention?

The Armenian Genocide was well-known at the time it took place, but after
the 1920s almost dropped from sight. When I began teaching about genocide
some 20 years ago, there were few materials available on the Armenian
Genocide that I could assign in class. That has changed greatly in the past
few years; in fact, I am currently reviewing five books on the Genocide that
were published last year alone. But much needs to be done: research
completed, dissemination of the historical record, making the story of the
Genocide available to a wide audience.

But there are special problems that face those who write about the Armenian
Genocide. First, there are the linguistic skills needed. Then there is the
fact that many of those who deal with the genocide spend more than half
their time refuting the denial and falsification of the Turkish government
and its accessories in academia and the foreign offices of the U.S., Israel,
and Britain. There is also the problem of audience: outside the Armenian
community, there has been little public interest in what took place 90 years
ago. The Armenian example does not stand alone: how much do we hear about
Pol Pot and his utopian experiment of only 25 years ago? To reach a broad
audience and place the narrative of the first major genocide of the 20th
century before the public may require that the story be incorporated into a
larger, even universal, history. Several recent books, for example, have
attempted to connect the history of the destruction with the rise of an
international humanitarian movement in the United States. In this way, the
Armenian case remains what it is; a crime against a particular people, but
it also becomes part of a broader history. The challenge is to find
additional ways in which such connections can be made.

Aztag- In a recent interview with Professor Ben Kiernan, I asked him about
the importance of comparative genocide studies. Part of his answer was:
"While perpetrators of genocide seem to have benefited from their own
comparative analysis of the potential and possibilities for genocide in the
modern era, the rest of humanity has failed as yet to learn lessons from the
past that could lead to meaningful intervention in such catastrophes".
What have we learned from the comparative study of genocides? How realistic
is the belief that these studies will contribute in driving policy makers to
actively oppose genocidal campaigns wherever they happen?

Roger Smith- I agree with Professor Kiernan that perpetrators of genocide
have learned from their own "study" of genocide that they can commit the
crime under the cover of war, in the name of self-defense, will receive
impunity, can deny that they committed genocide, and that the world will
forget. Even many of the techniques of destruction are transportable and
easily available: concentration camps, deportations, destruction of food
supplies.

Comparative genocide studies can help us understand the conditions under
which mass violence, including genocide, is likely to take place; it can
help identify warning signs of the impending violence; and it can suggest
ways in which genocide can be prevented. But it will also, as discussed in
my essay in THE CHRONICLE, indicate the patterns of governmental inaction
where genocide is concerned and the reasons for that. Thus, the problem of
prevention of genocide is not simply a question of knowledge, but of
political will. My own view is that the single most effective means to end
the slaughter of so many millions is for states to expand their concept of
national interest to include the prevention of genocide. The arguments for
this are humanitarian, but also follow political realism: genocide
frequently spawns regional wars, leads to the outflow of huge numbers of
refugees (some 10 million from Bangladesh in 1971, millions from Rwanda and
Darfur), the economic costs are far greater than the cost of early
intervention. Whether scholars and human rights activists can persuade
policy makers to redefine national interest is not clear, but it is a goal
that should be high on their agenda.

There are many other things that I have learned from the comparative study
of genocide: differences between ancient and modern genocide; the fact that
genocide throughout most of its long history was committed almost
exclusively by men, but that this began to change in the 20th century; the
evolution of the technology of destruction, yet the reappearance of many of
its "primitive" methods (fire, starvation, handheld weapons) in the
contemporary period. I also learned that in ancient times rulers boasted of
destroying whole groups: no denial for them. Indeed, they erected monuments
so that their annihilation of whole groups would not be forgotten. And,
yes, I learned much about human nature.

Aztag- You have taught courses on Genocide for 20 years. In what way have
your approaches to teaching methods changed? In what way has the approach of
student to the subject matter changed?

Roger Smith- My seminar on genocide had 15-20 advanced undergraduates and
graduate students. The course was comparative in scope and dealt with the
following questions: what is genocide? Why does it occur? Who is
responsible? How can genocide be prevented? My approach was to involve the
students as much as possible in discussion and to get them to confront the
issues instead of just taking notice of them. Much of the discussion was on
responses of students themselves: their assumptions about human nature,
about how it is possible for anyone to commit genocide, about our
responsibility as citizens, about our own stereotypes and prejudices.
My own approach to the course did not change much over the years, but I
added new material and we had to add new cases studies. But one had to
guard against becoming "numb" after confronting so many cases of genocide
over the years. I remember too that students worried that they would fall
into either despair over their inability to prevent genocide, or, faced with
so many examples of mass killing, throw up their hands and say about yet
another genocide, "What's the big deal?"

I do think, though, that the students changed somewhat over time in how they
responded. When I first started the course in 1981, the students were
fixated on the horror of genocide and could not believe that anyone other
than monsters could commit such acts. As we proceeded, they came to realize
that ordinary men and women could do these terrible things. But the groups
I had in the 1990s had greater awareness of the frequency of genocide; they
grew up, so to speak, with Bosnia and Rwanda. Their focus was less on the
horror and more on how they could prevent genocide, how they could become an
active force for the protection of human rights.

I retired three years ago, and since there are still few scholars who work
in the area of genocide studies, no one at my university has continued the
course. On the other hand, the past three summers I have taught in the
Zoryan Institute's Genocide and Human Rights University Program, a two week
intensive course (9-5) at the University of Toronto. Again, this is a
seminar, with about 22 students, who come from many different countries and
ethnic groups. There are Armenians from Canada, Lebanon, Uruguay, the U.S.;
Turks and Kurds from Turkey; students from Germany, France, the Netherlands,
and several countries in Latin America. The students have found it a
powerful experience: they bond closely, rid themselves (to a large extent)
of misunderstandings, and, in many cases, leave the course determined to
pursue further study in genocide studies. In its own way, on a small scale,
the seminar contributes to dialogue, understanding, and maybe personal
reconciliation. As one of the students said, "We became family."

An Interview with Thea Halo

2007-06-03T07:09:00.000-07:00

Companions in suffering
An Interview with Thea Halo
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily

`Memory is the only way home,' says the American author, Terry Tempest
Williams. And memory was Sano Halo's only guide, as she embarked, with her
daughter, Thea, on a journey to Turkey in search of Sano's home, 70 years
after her exile. It also seems that home is the only way to memory; it is
only there, in modern-day Turkey, that Thea `fully embraced' herself. `It
was the first time I felt connected to my heritage,' she says in this
interview. `I didn't have a heritage until I stood on my mother's land and
then on my father's land. For the first time in my life I felt connected to
these people, who were finally my people,' she adds.

A journey is incomplete, I believe, if it does not pave way for another
trek. After Thea Halo had visited her Pontic Greek mother's and Assyrian
father's lands, she embarked on another pilgrimage, that of the mind and the
soul, to discover and help preserve a history much forgotten and a genocide
barely remembered. The culmination of this pilgrimage was `Not Even My
Name,' a book that recounts, through Sano Halo's survival story, the
genocides of the Armenians, Pontic Greeks and Assyrians that took place in
Ottoman Turkey during and in the immediate aftermath of World War I.
However, "Not Even My Name" is also a book about the beautiful things in
life. `I wanted to show the beauty of the Pontic Greek culture, at least in
these three villages, and what they actually lost, because it is only by
seeing the beauty of what was that you can you understand more fully the
tragedy and injustice of what has been taken away,' says Thea Halo.

`Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear,' says Shakespeare.

I dedicate this interview to the memory of the hundreds of thousands of
Assyrians and Pontic Greeks that perished in Turkey almost a century ago,
just about the same time that a million and a half Armenians were marching
to their deaths.

Aztag- You often speak about "the exclusivity of suffering." In an interview
you say, `It's truly unfortunate that many late 20th Century activists, who
work so hard to make the Armenian genocide known to the world, fail to
include their fellow sufferers.' In your opinion, what is the reason for
this `failure'?

Thea Halo- I have many contacts with Armenians and great affection and love
for them. It was an Armenian family who rescued my mother when she found herself
destitute and alone in Diyarbekir, and they took her to safety as their
daughter. My aunt was also Armenian. So I feel a very great affinity for the
Armenian people. That's why I found it truly disturbing when I discovered
that the failure to mention the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians
by many Armenian historians and activists was not just an oversight, but an
actual agenda of exclusion and denial. The Genocide of the Greeks of Asia
Minor are referred to as "an exchange of population," even though these
historians know that by the time of the exchange in 1923, at least one
million Asia Minor and Pontic Greeks had already been slaughtered. The
Assyrians are never mention at all. Someone once explained this behavior by
telling me, "I'm sure you understand that these
Armenian historians feel so personally tied to this history because it was a
Genocide of their own families and people." And of course I do understand,
because it is the story of the Genocide of my family and my people, which
makes their exclusion even more painful when the exclusion comes from those
who should know better. It also makes it more reprehensible, and it should
stop. The inclusion of the Greeks and Assyrians does not diminish the horror
of what happened to the Armenians. Even my mother, who lost her own family
and people, always describes the slaughter of the Armenians as truly
horrific.

I've come to realize that there is a kind of tribalism in the world that is
the cause of almost all the world's misery. When one thinks of tribalism,
one thinks of underdeveloped or backward nations. But I use this word
"tribal" even for the United States. There is the greater tribe that makes
up the country, and then the sub tribes, which are the various ethnicities.
And there is another tribe, and that's the handful of elite who are ruling
the world, almost all of whom do so from behind the scenes, behind the
presidency. The differences of the peoples of the world: language, look,
customs, food, dress, dance, etc., has been something quite exquisite to me
throughout my life. But on the other side of that coin, we have this drive
by the more powerful tribes who think nothing of obliterating others for
their own greed or ideologies. Then we have Genocide. That's what happened
in Turkey in the first part of the 20th century during and after WWI. It's
what happened during WWII. It's what's happening today.

I do think what happened in Turkey was a Christian Genocide. But I don't
think one can simply use that term without differentiating who the
Christians were, because although the Assyrians, Greeks, and Armenians lived
in the same land for thousands of years, their languages, cultures and
histories were unique. It's important to acknowledge that there was an
Armenian, Assyrian, and a Greek Genocide, but overall it was a Genocide of
the Christian of Asia Minor. I even differentiate between the Asia Minor
Greeks: the Ionians, Pontians, and Cappadoccians, first because the Pontians
had their own empire, and second, because I think it's important that we
remember their distinctive historical names and regions in Asia Minor.

One of the reasons I think the Armenians do themselves a great disservice by
failing to mention the Genocides of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians is
because there was a small faction of Armenians in Turkey who were fighting
for an independent state for Armenians... obviously for very good reasons.
These so-called "trouble makers" gave the Turks and their supporters, then
and now, the excuse to blame the victims for their own Genocide, even though
the vast majority of Armenians were simply trying to live their lives. It's
only when one looks at the scope of the Genocides that the Young Turk regime
perpetrated, and Mustafa Kemal "Attaturk" continued, against the Armenians,
Greeks and Assyrians, that we see it was not because some Armenians were
causing troubles. Rather, it was a plan to rid Turkey of the Christian
population to fulfill the edict of "Turkey for the Turks."

Aztag- Why is it that few people have heard about the Genocide of Assyrians
and Pontic Greeks?

Thea Halo- In Greece there are a lot of Pontic Greeks and a number of books
about the Pontic Greek Genocide. They have been working for recognition for
at least 35 years, even here in America. Assyrians have also worked for many
years to get this issue on the table without much success. I blame this
failure mainly on two factors: One, there were no viable books that told the
story of what happened to the Greeks and Assyrians, until my book, Not Even
My Name was published. But perhaps equally or more important, those with the
strongest voices in our society, have traditionally had this tribal
mentality I speak of. They have wanted to portray their own people as being
exclusive in their suffering, and therefore, have failed to even make
mention of the Genocide of other ethnic peoples. Until quite recently,
Jewish historians and activists only focused on what happened to the Jews
during WWII. There was a doctrine that the Holocaust is the definitive
Genocide and therefore one need not look further to understand the phenomena
of Genocide. The study of the Holocaust became a mandatory part of the
curriculum in many, if not all, schools in the US. But the other ethnic,
religious, or social groups slaughtered by the Nazis were not mentioned, and
other Genocides were overshadowed or ignored, even the Armenian Genocide.
Now many Jewish Historians have recognized the Armenian Genocide and
Armenians have finally gained a voice. But in turn the
Armenian historians and activists fail to mention the Genocides of their
fellow sufferers: the Assyrians, the Pontic Greeks, and the other Asia Minor
Greeks, even while including other Genocides, such as those in Rwanda and
Cambodia, in so-called "comparative studies" programs.

Fortunately, not all Armenians believe that the exclusive approach is the
right one.

Aztag- In an interview, you say: `To remember does not mean stirring up
hatred within or without. Hatred destroys what was good and pure in the past
and the present. It simply means to embrace what is ours'. It is not easy to
overcome feelings of hatred, especially for the very victims of genocide and
their immediate descendants, is it?

Thea Halo- My mother lived through this Genocide; she lost everybody and
everything by the age of ten. She had lived side by side with the Turks.
Turkish villages surrounded the Greek villages. My mother said they bartered
together and had no problems. One can't say that no Turk ever attacked a
Greek, Armenian or Assyrian. Of course some did, for various reasons. But
overall, they lived together peacefully. I've heard countless stories from
Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, of how Turks saved the lives of their
families. My mother says that you must put blame where blame belongs, on the
Turkish government. If you begin to single out the people of a country, and
forget that whatever they did was instigated or sanctioned by the
government, you will then never get rid of the hatred. This tribal mentality
takes over and goes on and on until we're all gone, because there are
hatreds that go back thousands of years between almost every tribe on earth.
We must learn to acknowledge the past without living in the past.

We don't understand how the past has affected us. Because I was born and
raised in New York City, I can say it hasn't affected me, but that's not
true. My parents went through this Genocide. They raised me, and we don't
know all the subtle ways that their lives and experiences have affected us.
We are the product of our parents. If we don't acknowledge their past, and
embrace it as part of ours, we never fully embrace ourselves. Only if we try
to understand where we come from, can we really understand who we are.

Aztag- And when did you yourself come to this understanding?

Thea Halo- It was first when I visited Turkey. It was the first time I felt
connected to my heritage. Here in America, nobody knew who the Pontic Greeks
are. And everybody told me that I couldn't be Assyrian, because the
Assyrians don't exist anymore. `How I can be something that doesn't exist?'
I used to think. Consequently, I didn't have a heritage until I stood on my
mother's land and then on my father's land. For the first time in my life I
felt connected to these people, who were finally my people. And after
writing my mother's part of the story, which included the Genocide of the
Pontic Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians, I began to research the general
history for the book, and I realized how important their story really is.
The thought that people who had lived in a land for 3 thousand years and
more, could just be wiped from the face of that land and all memory of them
seizes to exist, not only there, but from the face of the earth, was a
powerful testament. That certainly makes the Genocide complete, when no one
has even heard of your people. People ask me sometimes why I titled the book
"Not Even My Name." The reason was that my mother lost everything, family,
home, language, and country, even her name. But many Pontic Greeks and the
Assyrians tell me that for them the title also has a bigger meaning. It
means that even the names, Pontic Greek and Assyrian, was lost to the world.
It was an interesting revelation for me.

Aztag- Many Armenians attach great importance to the land they lost. For
them the genocide isn't `simply' the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians,
it is also the expulsion of an entire people from its land and the wiping
out of a culture. When you speak about your "father's land" and your
"mother's land", do you have similar feelings?

Thea Halo- Almost every ancient culture has this attachment to the land.
What else is there without a place to call home? When I stood on that land,
for the first time in my life I could actually feel my ancestors, my
grandparents. They became real to me for the first time. They were as much a
part of that land as the trees, the rocks, the grasses. Their blood and
sweat is mingled with the earth for thousands of years. How can one walk
away from that without feeling that a part of oneself is somehow left
behind, somehow missing, like an amputated leg or arm that continues sending
out sensations to the brain, even though it's gone? Just the other day my
mother said to me, "you know, when you are born in a country, there is a
part of you that always feels that that country is your true home."

Aztag- Do you think the recognition of these genocides should be a
prerequisite to Turkey's accession to the EU?

Thea Halo- I don't think that only the recognition of the Genocides is
important,
I think many factors are important for Turkey's inclusion into the EU. But
by recognizing the Genocides they would resolve some of the other important
issues as well. For instance, journalists, publishers, and teachers are
still being jailed for talking about the Genocides. If you recognize the
Genocides, then you don't have to keep jailing your teachers, publishers,
and journalists on this issue. As my father used to say, you kill 2 birds
with one stone. And there are other human rights issues that Turkey has to
deal with. I must tell you, when I went to Turkey I found a very beautiful
land visually, and I found the people to be exceptionally sweet and
hospitable. It's a shame that they can't speak freely and learn what
happened in their own country without fear.

The sad thing is that they lost so much, because the Greeks, Armenians, and
Assyrians had so much culture there. They brought so much vibrancy to the
country that was lost. They were wonderful artisans, intellectuals,
teachers, musicians. At the time, there were Europeans who were saying "What
in the world will Turkey do without the Christians?" After all, it was the
Christians who were the intellectuals and business people, who had the
education to help Turkey progress into the 20th century. When Turkey got rid
of the Christian populations, they set themselves back, way-way back. The
general Turkish population was not well educated at that time, because the
Turkish government didn't bother to educate them the way the Christian
missionaries educated the Christian populations. For the most part, the
government wouldn't allow Muslims to attend the Christian schools, for fear
of conversion, so most Turks of the time remained peasants and farmers.
Consequently, the Turks did themselves a great disservice, because the
removal of the Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians left a great vacuum in
Turkey.

Aztag- What was the impact of your book? To what extent did it help raise
greater awareness about the genocides of the Pontic Greeks, the Assyrians,
and the Armenians?

Thea halo- One of the first emails I got when the book was published was
from a young Pontic Greek girl living in Holland. She said, the Pontic
Greeks lived in Asia Minor for 3 thousand years and I go to school and no
one in Holland knows we ever existed. It really touched my heart. I knew
what she was talking about because no one knew that we exist in New York.
So, of course, it makes a difference. They could then start to teach this
history in schools. My book was picked up by UCLA and they began to teach
high school teachers how to teach Not Even My Name to their students.

Aztag- "Not Even My Name" is already translated to Greek and Dutch. Are
there any plans to translate it to other languages, including Armenian?

Thea Halo- I think it would be important and I would love to see `Not Even
My Name' translated into Armenian. A Turkish publisher also wanted to
publish it and an Icelandic publisher recently contacted me for the rights.

Aztag- You are one of the very few who are speaking out about the Genocides
of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians; with this comes great responsibility. A
Scholar or an author, who deals with the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide
for instance, might be under less pressure, because there are many others in
the field. How do you deal with this pressure?

Thea Halo- I do feel very responsible and when I'm asked to give a lecture,
I do feel I should go, but I also enjoy going out there. I usually bring my mother
with me. She loves doing this because it's something very important to her.
It's nice to see her with some of the older people who have lived through
this. They hug and kiss each other; because my mother's memory helped put
this history on the map. She became a very important person and a symbol,
and she feels this importance. There's an immediate connection between them
when they meet, even with the younger generations, that's just so wonderful
to see. One young Pontic Greek girl in one of our audiences in New York
stood up and said to my mother, "you are our history; our history alive." It
was very moving. So I do enjoy doing this, but I also feel a great
responsibility, and will continue to feel that way, until there is proper
recognition of the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians.

Aztag- What about your mother? She is very much involved in this as well,
isn't she?

Thea Halo- My mother is 94. I was amazed the first time we had a radio
interview on NPR. My mom was on the phone and I was in the studio in Boston.
During the interview she laughed and she cried. Then I found Lisa Mullins'
website on the internet for "The World." Mullins said her favorite
interviewees were Thea and Sano Halo. I was surprised, but I could
understand why. My mother was perfect. Her answers were very sweet and
natural. When I read the passage from the book about her mother giving her
away to save her, my mother began to cry. She had to take a moment to
collect herself. Then she said she never saw her mother again. Soon after
she told a funny story about how people would ask her husband if she was his
daughter, and then she laughed. She had a natural instinct not to allow the
interview to become morbid. When I asked her about it later she said, "a
little bit of laughter and a little bit of tears." I again realized how much
there was about her I didn't know. She always loved to sing, and when we go
on our events, she sings old Greek and Turkish songs for the audience that
she learned as a child. She even sings an old Armenian love song she learned
when living with Zohra and Hagop.

Aztag- During a lecture, speaking about your book you said, `The story is my
mother's but the sunsets are mine.' Can you elaborate on this?

Thea Halo- Well, of course she doesn't remember when the sun came up and
when the sun went down, when it was raining, etc. But I wanted to help
people be there, really experience the story. All the facts are hers; the
story of the village, what happened to the people, the couple who ran away
and married, that's all true. But the part where they stare into the puddle
of water as they stand before their parents, of course, that's part of the
things I added to help the reader enter the story. From what people tell me,
it does help them be there. They feel they were actually walking with my
mother on that harrowing death march to exile.

Aztag- Any plans for another book?

Thea Halo- I do think of many other books. The book that I would like to
write is a collection of interviews with people who have experienced
Genocide, because in that way we will see how similar the suffering really
is. Maybe in this way some of the tribalism will be put away. But it's
impossible to get rid of all the tribalism. Unfortunately, Genocide has
become big business. It's not simply a moral issue anymore, and this is what
I find the most objectionable. Some Armenians have told me that certain
survivors have passed away but they have already been interviewed, and
they'll turn over the tapes to me. Same goes for Assyrians and Pontic
Greeks. So I am hoping that for the ones I can't interview directly, I can
at least access the tapes of their interviews.

I guess my focus in life has always been both the beauty of the world and
the injustices. I think that those two things often go together. If you look
at the various cultures that once inhabited Turkey, for instance, they are
all unique and very beautiful. They created great works of art and
architecture and they developed communities that allowed them to survive and
prosper for thousands of years, at least in the periods when they weren't
being slaughtered and oppressed. And that's why I wrote the book the way I
did. I wanted to show the beauty of the Pontic Greek culture, at least in
these three villages, and what they actually lost. Because only by seeing
the beauty of what was, can you more fully understand the tragedy and
injustice of what has been taken away.

An Interview with Muge Gocek

2007-06-03T07:06:00.002-07:00

On the Foundations of Turkey
An Interview with Muge Gocek
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
17 January, 2005

"Historians have primarily been concerned with protecting the interests of
the state. This has been the dominant historiography since the founding of
the Turkish Republic," says Muge Gocek in this interview. She adds, however,
"Today, there are new works, like the works of Taner Akcam and the
interviews of Halil Berktay that approach the State's views critically.
These, put together with the fact that recently - in the last two decades -
especially the Aras publishing house in Turkey has been translating
Turkish-Armenian literature into Turkish, make me think, or hope and wish
that there may be a post-national critical narrative developing."

Gocek, Associate Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies at the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, certainly does much more than hoping and
wishing, however, regarding what she calls a "post-national critical
narrative." She is one of the few Turkish voices in wilderness, organizing
conferences that bring together Turkish and Armenian scholars who are
prepared to set aside prejudices and confront history with all
its ugliness. She writes papers and gives lectures on the Armenian genocide,
and is currently, authoring a book on the subject.

The number of Turkish scholars that challenge the state's point of view
regarding the Armenian genocide - any Turkish diplomat would immediately
tell you it is the "so-called Armenian genocide" -- is not extensive.
However, their work speaks for itself. It is already catching the attention
of their Armenian colleagues, as well as historians, publicists and
politicians in the West.

Will the dominant Turkish elite have the courage to confronts its past and
acknowledge the suffering that the government of the Young Turks in the
Ottoman Empire inflicted on a considerable segment of its subjects? Will the
souls of more than a million Armenians that perished because of
state-sponsored killings finally rest in peace? For what they believe will
be for the good of all on both sides of the divide, Gocek and some of her
like-minded Turkish colleagues want to make sure that the answers to these
questions are all in the affirmative.

You can call them 'turncoats' or you can call them 'pioneers'. They will not
feel intimidated by the first label. Nor will they be blinded by the second.
However you will describe them, one thing is certain: their work is a
harbinger of things to come.

Aztag- How did your research interests lead you to research the fate of the
Armenians in the early 20th century Ottoman Empire?

Muge Gocek- When I came to do my doctoral degree here in the US, I was
interested in the decline of the Ottoman Empire, especially in the elements
that led to its demise, and also in the rise of the Turkish Republic--my
dissertation was titled "the Rise of the Bourgeoisie and Demise of the
Empire". During my research, I was alerted to the role the religious
minorities played in the Ottoman Empire and how, with the emergence of the
nation-state, these minorities were drawn out of the picture, and how their
exclusion led to the formation of a different type of society in Turkey. But
at that particular juncture, my interest in the minorities didn't go beyond
that.

However, as a historical sociologist, I was very interested in writing about
the histories of social groups that had not had a voice in history; this was
eventually compounded by my interest in the lack of democratization and the
lack of the participation of social groups in determining the Turkish
political structure. I was especially distressed about what was happening to
the Kurds and to other minority groups in Turkey today.

The way that the Armenians came into the picture had to do with my
particular location in the US. Whenever I told Armenians I was a Turk, I was
immediately asked to account for killing all those Armenians; I'm still
telling them that I honestly had nothing to do with it!

Initially, the issue was extremely politicized for me to venture into that
field. Anyhow, at the time I was working on other projects, and that is why
I put off getting involved in this matter. But then all my interests came
together and after I established my professional standing here and got
tenure, I figured that, as an academic, this was an issue I had to research
for a number of reasons. The most important reason is something which is
not covered much and that has to do with the emotional aspect of what
happened: The Armenians I talked with were so hurt because of this awful
thing that had happened in the past; they were not able to mourn it properly
because it was not recognized. Regardless of what happened, if one doesn't
recognize something that has happened to someone, and something that has
been an extremely traumatic experience, it increases the trauma even more
and warps them emotionally. That's why when I said "look, I feel for you as
a human being, I'm willing to listen to what made you suffer so much, made
your life so miserable, tell me what happened to you," people were
immediately so much relieved that they almost became speechless. That was
an extremely eye-opening experience for me: I never realized how much
acknowledging and sharing people's emotions and sufferings can make them and
you better people, part of a humane community.

Just as eye-opening for me was that in Turkey, when this issue came up, the
Turks I talked to became extremely angry. That made me realize how much the
official historiography there had left out what had happened in the past. I
got the best education Turkey had to offer before I came to the US and I
myself wasn't aware of what happened, because there are no sources that I
could have read and critically studied other than the ones that presented
the Turkish State's version of history. This was, of course, very hard to
overcome and I was able to do so because I came to the US and continued my
scholarship. The position that emerges in Turkey is unfortunately one based
on the ignorance of our own past, partly because of the partial knowledge
that exists out there in what passes as Turkish scholarship and also
because, as a consequence of the alphabet reforms, people cannot read the
original Ottoman texts themselves, and the translation of those Ottoman
sources into Latin script has been controlled by the government as well.
Still, because of personal experiences and hearsay, there is a general
awareness in society that things are not what they are portrayed to be and
that in the public rhetoric there are some missing elements. In Turkey,
there is general criticism of the State control over knowledge today and I
think that criticism is also reflected on the Armenian issue as well.

Given the existing state of affairs --the strong emotions of the Armenians
here and the strong emotions in Turkey-- and the fact that I had now
established my own credentials as an academic, I thought it was the right
time for me to pick this topic up for further analysis. Of course, the first
thing I had to do was to prove that I really was not an Armenian. This had
to be done because the nationalist Turks thought I had to have some Armenian
blood in me since no Turk in is his/her right mind would engage in such
"destructive" behavior toward the Turkish state, because they see what I'm
doing as leading to the destruction of the Turkish nation-state. Likewise,
whenever I presented my thoughts to the Armenian audiences here in the US,
they would say that I had to be Armenian, since they couldn't think of any
Turk who could say such things, because they believed Turks in general were
not capable of being so reasonable or say things that are critical of Turkey
and the Turks. What is of course very striking here is that both sides have
the same prejudice. That's how I am probably going to start the book I'm
writing on the subject. But I had to go back and trace all my ancestors to
see if there was one part which was Armenian.

Aztag- They really got you doubting didn't they?

Muge Gocek- Well, if there was an element of truth in it, I wanted to make
sure it was I who discovered it first, rather than have them discover it at
some point. My ancestors all come from Anatolia-I do not have any Balkan
origins at all. One of my ancestors was from Agn (Kemalye), from a village
called Bashvartenik, however. I went there to discover who my ancestors
were--my mother's grandfather had left there in 1903-- and it turns out we
are Sunni Muslims to the core, and came there from the Caucasus in the 16th
century. I asked the people there why the place is called Bashvartenik, an
Armenian name meaning 'large rose bushes', and they said, "Before we came,
there were Armenians here, but they had migrated to Agn". Obviously, my
ancestors had no connection to the Armenians in any way, especially to 1915.
However, I still cannot convince them that I'm not an Armenian.

What I'm trying to do is to come to terms with how the historiography on
1915 was created in Turkey. I'm writing a book on this as we speak, with the
hopes that if we see the dynamics behind the creation of this
historiography, if we understand the dynamics, people can go from denial to
remembrance to respect.

Another thing that I tell audiences here is that recognition of what
happened in 1915 will be very cathartic for the Armenians, but for the
Turks, it will be the beginning of a very long process, an arduous process
because there are many other social groups in Turkish history that have also
suffered; there are the Greeks, the Assyrians, of course, the Kurds, and, at
certain junctures, the Islamists. Turkey has a lot to come to terms with and
it is going to be a very long and difficult process.

Aztag- In one of your papers, you refer to "the other silences" in Turkish
history.

Muge Gocek- Exactly! I was originally going to write on the silences of
Turkish history and speak about all the different groups that suffered - in
addition to the groups I mentioned previously, I was also interested about
the terrible fate of the leftist intellectuals in Turkey and how they too
were suppressed. But Ronald Suny was here, and he and I would meet and talk
about these things, and he thought I was the only Turk who thought
critically about Turkish history and about the Armenian problem. I said no
there are others, and that's how we started thinking about bringing together
scholars from both sides. The first workshop we held was at the University
of Chicago in 2000 and we had another at the University of Michigan in 2002
and one at Minnesota in 2003. In all these workshops, what we first tried
to do was develop a common language; I think we have been able to do this,
the group keeps growing and hopefully we can now start working on joint
projects together.

Aztag- You have come a long way. At the very beginning, there were many
historians who had reservations and refused to take part in the workshops.

Muge Gocek- Yes. Quite a number of them initially stayed out of it; some
wanted us to write declarations stating that we are recognizing the Armenian
genocide before we even started. It was interesting because Ron himself
said, "look, we are scholars and that goes against the nature of
scholarship". We just went along with the ones who were willing to take the
risk and come, and then of course time proved us right.

Aztag- Some even confused your workshop with the meetings of the
Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC), didn't they?

Muge Gocek- Yes. It is very interesting, because that confusion was there on
both sides; both the Armenians and some of the Turks I talked to thought
that I was inviting them to this place where we were going to advocate the
views of the Turkish State. I think this demonstrates how ingrained and
dominating the political narrative of the Turkish state is in this matter.
It's very hard for people to perceive that there is scholarship done
independently of the Turkish state, that there is a Turkish society that is
separate from the Turkish state. Even in the Armenian Republic, some
newspaper editorials appeared stating that the scheduling and timing of our
workshop had been strategically planned in relation to the reconciliation
meetings. This was very ironic because the scheduling was actually done with
respect to when Ronald Suny, I, and others had free time in our teaching
schedules...

The whole politics around the subject was actually one of the reasons why we
decided at the very beginning that the workshop should be closed to the
public. We didn't want participants marching in and declaring what we should
be doing, but nevertheless we thought that there ought to be a public
component to the workshop where we shared the results of our workshop with
others. Now we have a public presentation session at each workshop where we
summarize what we have accomplished. We also invite some journalists to
attend so that they could see for themselves what's happening and report on
it to the larger public.

Aztag- You speak about three phases in Turkish historiography. Based on what
criteria did you make this distinction?

Muge Gocek- When Ronald Suny and I decided to do the workshops, he said that
we should start them off by presenting surveys of existing historiographies
on 1915, suggested he would look at the English-language historiography
himself and I could look at the Turkish-language historiography. He thought
that the critical analysis of the historiography would set the tone for the
workshop very nicely. I said "ok, sure no problem." I figured it wouldn't
take me long to get the official historiography down since it just keeps
repeating itself. However, because I am an Ottoman specialist, I didn't stop
with the official Turkish historiography, went further back, and researched
the Ottoman historiography on the Armenians starting from the late 1800's.

And that is when I realized that at first, there was an Ottoman
interrogative narrative; the Ottoman state was trying to understand what was
going on, was attempting to decipher it, and this continued all the way
until sultan Abdul Hamid's reign. In 1878, when the subject of reform comes
up, when the Ottoman administrators talk about the reform, some like Ahmed
Izzet Pasha try to undertake the reforms, others resist them entirely.
Furthermore, the first incidents were seen as the subjects being unhappy
with the situation and initially there is no rhetoric that developed against
them. The hostile stand against the Armenians developed later when they
gradually started to be portrayed as "the other".

The rhetoric of the Committee of Union and Progress to justify what was
going on was much more different and proto-nationalist, and this rhetoric
was then adopted by the Turkish Nation-State. The ensuing Republican period
acquired a defensive narrative as the historians were primarily concerned
with protecting the State's interests. This has been the dominant
historiography since the founding of the Turkish Republic. I call it the
Republican defensive narrative.

Today, there are new works, like the works of Taner Akcam and the interviews
of Halil Berktay that approach the State's views critically. These, put
together with the fact that recently in the last two decades, especially the
Aras publishing house in Turkey has been translating Turkish-Armenian
literature into Turkish, make me think, or hope and wish, that there may be
a post-national critical narrative developing.

Aztag- Is being a Turkish historian an advantage when you are dealing with
the Archives in Turkey?

Muge Gocek- The problem is that the type of research that's done by Turkish
historians tends to be extremely scholastic in nature; it either focuses
exclusively on just deciphering one or two documents or describing the state
of affairs through lots of documents with very little analysis. Of course,
since the alphabet reform severed the connection of most Turks with their
own past, there wasn't a very large body of historians in Turkey to start
with; in addition, the Republic was moving forward and did not want to look
back and study its past - it was much more concerned with progress. There
aren't too many Turkish students and faculty - that is, in relation to the
size of our country -
who conduct research in the archives and the ones who do tend to, as I said,
focus on institutions and such and are not willing to risk or are not
encouraged to work on politically charged issues.

What happened to me was that when I was very interested in the
westernization of the Ottoman Empire - which is what the first two of my
sole-authored books are on-I did an interim project on education.
Considering the fact that the ways western knowledge was brought into the
Ottoman Empire varied according to the type of school that brought this
knowledge, I thought it would be very interesting to compare a State school,
like the Galatasaray lyceum, with a quasi-missionary school like the Robert
College and a minority school, like the Uskudar Djemaran. I picked Djemaran
just by chance - it could have been a Greek school or a Jewish one instead,
but I wanted it to be a minority school that was established around the same
time period with Galatasary and Robert College and that was still in
existence today in one form or another, and that happened to point out
Djemaran.

When I went into the Ottoman archives to research the documents existing on
these three schools, I had no trouble getting documents on the first two,
but then had all the trouble on the third one. I was very surprised because
this was education; what I was looking at really did not have any political
bearings at the time. The fact that I was systematically not shown any
documents that the Ottoman Armenians themselves had written not only on this
school but on education as a whole made me realize that even though the
archives were open, the documents that the people got to see were actually
inspected by a group of people/officials before they were permitted out. I
was told that all such documents I located in the catalogues were either
missing, miscataloged, in repair or actually not related to my topic. There
was something strange about this and I did write to them about this and said
that I both as a scholar and a Turkish citizen was very disillusioned by the
fact that it wasn't as open as it should be. The archives may be open to
others who use them selectively and who upfront tell what it is that they're
going to "find" from the archives. Obviously, that's not how scholarship
works. Therefore, although the archives are there and technically indeed
open, how much of an advantage that gives the Turkish scholars or anyone is
debatable.

Aztag- Where do you go from here?

Muge Gocek- Well, there is the next workshop we're planning in Salzburg in
April 2005 and the increasing number of scholars participating in our
workshops is, in my opinion, a step in the right direction. We are also in
the process of putting out edited volumes out of all the papers presented at
our workshops. Most of the papers were of very high quality, so we decided
to do an edited volume on the ones that focused on the Armenian massacres
and another one on the background of those events. This way, there will be a
new body of scholarship that all scholars could draw upon.

There have been other examples of such undertakings as well and I laud them
all. Recently, other conferences are also bringing together Turkish and
Armenian scholars. Nobody should have any monopoly over this. It should be a
general movement. Given the current world context, I think with time, there
is going to be more and more scholarship that is critical of the official
stand in Turkey. A stand manned -I'm saying "manned" because there are no
women among them- by people who are not even professional academics, but
rather retired bureaucrats or historians who do their work in an amateurish
manner. With time, people in Turkey will recognize the things that
transpired in their past and will come to terms with it; I know that they
have the courage and perseverance to do so. What I want to be extremely
careful about, however, is that because this process is being introduced
after a very long silence, one should work in a way that recognizes the
total lack of knowledge among the Turks concerning what happened to the
Armenians of Anatolia. I think that it is probably going to take us a decade
or so to see Turkish society reconcile with its past, to get concrete
results. That's how I think when the days are sunny and I'm in a good mood!

Aztag- Well then, I wouldn't dare ask you what you think if you aren't in a
good mood!

Muge Gocek- Well I also get distressed at times. We hear of Turks living in
the US who think people like me are 'turncoats'; that we are out to destroy
the Turkish Republic. There are these nationalist Turkish-Americans out
there, mostly professionals dying to be the mouthpieces of the Turkish
State, who know nothing about the Armenian issue other than what the State
has instructed them to believe, or who have maybe read at most one
propaganda piece on the topic, but are of course sure everything in there is
correct because they have no scholarly training to assess its quality. Then
they have the guts to get out in public and denigrate you without even
bothering to read what you have written!

But this also happens to my Armenian colleagues: nationalism and scholarship
do not go well together. They have to see that you cannot scare scholars
into not doing research, into getting them to fear you and censor
themselves. That isn't healthy and pleasant -- and it also won't work. But
obviously that conflict comes with the territory, it comes with the subject,
and we are in this profession to do what we want and choose to do, and
thankfully the freedom of thought and expression is something guaranteed to
those academics among us who live and practice scholarship in the United
States, and I'm going to practice that for good, and that's the way it goes.
It's just that at times it becomes difficult and unpleasant, but life is
sometimes unfair, so what can you do, right?

Aztag- We spoke about the Armenians not having the chance to fully mourn,
but you've also written that even Turkey hasn't had the chance to mourn. Can
you explain what you mean by that?

Muge Gocek- Turkey has not had the chance to mourn either. I think because
of building this new nation on new Republican principles, the Turkish people
themselves have never had the chance to come into terms with the traumas in
their own past; the Balkan wars, the traumatic expulsion from the Balkans,
the various uprisings, rebellions, and other murders in Turkey itself that
were put down so violently. These haven't been acknowledged and publicly
mourned either. All these societal issues will have to come up, hopefully in
a constructive way. That's what I meant.

Nations usually come to a point in their histories when they are able to
face their past and undertake such mourning in order to heal for a healthier
future, and I think Turkey has reached that point because the level of
education in Turkey has increased dramatically and with education the
capacity to think as a society increases as well.

Aztag- Some historians and sociologists argue that the Armenian genocide and
other tragedies are at the foundations of the Turkish Republic, so
recognizing the Genocide would really shake those foundations and that is
why Turkey is so reluctant to face its past.

Muge Gocek- Well, it would definitely shake it, but Turkey has gone through
many earthquakes and is nevertheless still there. If there is a foundation
and you know there are problems with it, would you live in that house? You
would have to if you have no place to go, but you would know that
eventually, at one point it's going to cause trouble. You know you'll
eventually have to fix the foundation. Otherwise, the whole thing will
eventually collapse. So you have to get the tools out and start working on
it; you can't keep pretending all is fine, you can't keep painting the
surface over and over again with expensive paint to make it appear strong -
none of that is going to work in the long run if the foundations are shaky.

Aztag- And scholars like you are not only looking at the building, but also
studying the foundations.

Muge Gocek- Exactly. I think in Turkey most people look at the building and
judge things by appearance alone. And they see of the foundations only what
Mustafa Kemal and the official historiography built for them. They don't
realize that those foundations run deeper and include many things that
happened before the founding of the Turkish Republic. I think that's where
the problem with the foundations is located.

Aztag- I read that you like translating novels from Turkish into English;
there must be a story there.

Muge Gocek- Oh yes, I do. I did translate one of the novels of Elif Shafak.
Why did I become interested in that? In a society where the official
historiography and official documents don't give you much information about
what has actually transpired in history, literature becomes extremely
important in capturing the past. Literature conveys the spectrum of meanings
in a society and that's why I'm very interested in novels that highlight the
multi-ethnic, multi-cultural fabric of Turkish society, past and present.
These works haven't been translated enough, however; that's why I have
translated Elif Shafak because I think she is a very important Turkish
novelist who captures that fabric.

Aztag- I'm currently reading "Snow", Orhan Pamuk's latest novel.

Gocek- I'm including that book in my 'post-nationalist narrative'. There
recently appeared one or two critical articles in Turkey on all the Armenian
elements in it. When you go to Kars--I was in Kars this summer--you cannot
avoid seeing all the Armenian houses, buildings, and structures, and the
fact that Pamuk does mention all that has been noticed in Turkey.
Interestingly enough, I think in that novel he does a much better job
capturing those multi-ethnic elements than the Islamic ones on which he is
rather weak. Still, he's obviously cognizant of those elements of Turkey's
past and it's good that people outside of Turkey see that.

I mean the Turkish standpoint is so dominated by the State narrative that
the people do not realize that many Turkish intellectuals are aware of these
dynamics and write about them, until, of course, their works are translated
into English. That's why the works that deal with those dimensions have to
be translated. And it is a shame only Orhan Pamuk gets to be translated
because there are many others who do just as good a job who are not yet
translated into English.

An Interview with Robert Melson

2007-06-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

Revolution and Genocide
An Interview with Robert Melson
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
February 10, 2005

“All victims of disasters think their disaster is unique in the world. It's a bit like having someone very close to you die in your family; you really don't want someone rushing to you saying, "I'm sorry this person died, but let me tell you that somebody else also died!" says Robert Melson in this interview.

As a survivor of the Holocaust, Melson has reason to feel that the suffering of his people was unique. However, trained in comparative politics, he also finds it important to draw parallels between the Holocaust and other Genocides. “If you're going to have some understanding, you have to compare,” he notes. In his book “Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust” (University of Chicago Press, 1992), Robert Melson does exactly that.

For him, “uniqueness does not mean incomparabilty, and comparability does not mean equivalence.”

Robert Melson has received his PhD in Political Science from MIT (1967). His research covers genocide and ethnic conflict in plural societies. Currently, he is the President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. His book, “Revolution and Genocide” won the PIOOM Award from Leiden University for the best book in the field of Human Rights for 1993 and was also nominated for the Grawemeyer award. His other publications include, “False Papers: Deception and Survival in the Holocaust” and “Nigeria: Modernization and the Politics of Communalism” (with Howard Wolpe).

In this interview, conducted by phone on January 13, 2005, we discuss a number of issues related to genocide.

Aztag-You define genocide as “a policy initiative that uses massacre and other means to eliminate a communal group or social class from a social structure.” This definition is, as you yourself have noted, both wider than the UN definition and narrower. Why did you opt for this specific definition?

Robert Melson- Well, what I was trying to do is to solve the problem of the UN Convention (on Genocide). Many argue that the UN definition is too narrow, because it doesn't include political and socio-economic groups. It is also argued that the definition is too broad because it doesn't make a distinction between genocide in whole and genocide in part. My definition takes into consideration both criticisms. However, I'm not fixated on definitions; What I'm really interested in is the process, the reality of what leads to genocide and what stops genocide. Genocide, to me, is a planned wide-scale destruction of innocent human beings in its largest sense, and what I was doing in the book was trying to be scholarly and more exact as far as definitions are concerned, but it's not the most important thing.

Aztag- In one of your lectures, you say, "My parents began to discover the truth about what had happened to the jewish people, but it was knowledge without understanding." Was it the need to "make sense of the insensible" that shaped your research interests?

Robert Melson- Yes, I think that's a good way of putting it. I'm trained as a political scientist, and as I was doing political research I found that on the one hand I was practicing my profession and on the other hand, what was uppermost on my mind and what was most worrying to me was my past; the Holocaust, the destruction of my family. So the personal solution for me was to bring my research and my thinking in line with my interest and that's what I did; I have to say that it took a number of years to work this out.

Aztag- And why is this “understanding” important for a survivor of genocide?

Robert Melson- That's a very good question. Understanding doesn't bring anybody back to life, I'm not even sure understanding helps to prevent future genocides --although people have stressed that without understanding, prevention is not possible. At its most fundamental psychological basis, without understanding you're at the mercy of the past; you feel that you have no control over it, you feel that you're victimized by it. Although understanding does not start a process of rebuilding the past, or bringing back the people who are victimized, but at least it gives you some control over your own thoughts. Understanding is, in a way, a selfish process, it's a way of dealing with your own crisis. I guess the analogy would be someone who has a serious illness --let's say cancer-- and knows it's a terminal cancer. One of the things he would do is to try to understand cancer; this won’t make the cancer go away, but the understanding helps him to deal with it. Maybe that's as good as an answer as I can give you.

Aztag- What about comparing?

Robert Melson- I'm not a historian, I'm not a sociologist and i'm not a psychologist; I do comparative politics. So I naturally use the methodology and the approaches that I've been trained with, and I happen to think that it's the best way. I think that is the way; if you're going to have some understanding, you have to compare. Comparison is, in a way, the basis of all science. Without it, you can't understand or even measure something! You have too have a reference point; how big is the lamp that is on my desk? The question is, “compared to what?”

Aztag- And being a Holocaust survivor and a researcher of the Holocaust, there is the sensitive issue of uniqueness, which can make comparison a harder endeavor, can't it?

Robert Melson- I guess all victims of disasters think their disaster is unique in the world. It's a bit like having someone very close to you die in your family, you really don't want someone rushing to you saying, "I'm sorry this person died, but let me tell you that somebody else also died!" You're not in the mood for that; it’s not appropriate. However, if you're a physician and you're trying to understand a disease, you look for different cases of this disease --again going back to the notion of comparison--to be able to see under what conditions does this disease manifest itself.

Some parts of the Jewish community have been sensitive to the issue of comparison, both because the Holocaust was recent and so many people were affected by it, but there is another reason the uniqueness issue came up for the Jews; very often they were told "Well, yes, it's terrible that there was Holocaust, but many other people have suffered, so don't make such a big fuss about it, be normal like everybody else." And the honest reaction has been "Give us a chance to grieve a little bit! Give us a chance to bury our dead before you tell us to become normal." So there was a kind of an emotional reaction toward the comparison. But by now - we're not in 1955 - by 2005, with the Cambodian and Rwandan Genocide and with increased awareness on the Armenian Genocide, I think most people do recognize that there are more things in the world than one particular people being destroyed.

Aztag- Can you please briefly explain the argument you present in “Revolution and Genocide”?

Robert Melson- The main points are both in the introduction and the conclusion of the book. I was trying to compare the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, and I was trying to look not only into the ideology of the Young Turks or of the Nazis, but also the circumstances under which both of these Genocides occured. A revolutionary transformation that occured in the Ottoman Empire with the coup against Abdul Hamid, and the circumstances were WWI. And then if you look at the Holocaust, it was the coming to power of Hitler which was also a kind of a revolution - he made it quite clear that he was a revolutionary and that the Nazis were revolutionaries - and the circumstances were WWII. So in both cases you have revolutionaries coming to power and then a genocide occuring during wartime.

And then a question comes up: Why? What is it about revolution and wartime that can, under certain circumstances, lead to genocide? I think the simple idea behind it is that revolutionaries try to transform their societies in profound ways, and one way to transform a society is to eliminate groups that don't fit into the identity that the revolutionaries would like their society to have. And what war does is that it enables these radical measures to take place, because wars close off societies and they call for military solutions to social problems. Now it's not true that every revolution leads to genocide - the American Revolution didn't lead to genocide, the English Revolution didn't lead to genocide - but under some conditions, some revolutions do lead to genocide. Similarly, not all genocides are products of revolutions. The destruction of Native Americans and the destructions of peoples in Africa were products of Imperialism, not revolution.

Aztag- When I was reading your book, I kept thinking about other cases of genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide…

Robert Melson- Yes, I just wrote and article about this in the book "The Specter of Genocide" edited by Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan. In that chapter, what I do is extend the analysis from the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust to Rwanda. And again we have the pattern of revolution in the 1950s – the revolution in 1959 - and the Hutu coming to power, displacing the Tutsi, articulating a racialist ideology, the Hamitic ideology claims that the Tutsis were not originally a part of the nation, that they had come from Somalia or Ethiopia and, therefore, they ought not to have any power and they ought to be demoted from any postions that they have; very soon after, massacres occured. When you talk to people in Rwanda, they tell you that the genocide did not start in 1994, noting that the process of the genocide started in 1959. The war was the war between RPF (the Rwanda Patriotic Front) starting in 1990. Therefore, again, in Rwanda you have the conditions of revolution and war leading to genocide.

Aztag- What about Darfur? The events that have lately caused the displacement of more than a million people and the death of thousands of others; many are calling what is happening there genocide, others are falling short of using the word.

Robert Melson- Again, I know that president Bush and the US Congress have used the term "genocide", then again, if you go back to the UN definition, it talks about genocide in part and genocide in whole. Genocide in whole means extermination; this is what happened to the Tutsis, the Armenians, and the Jews in Europe. I think in Darfur there is genocide, but it's more like ethnic cleansing, it resembles more what happened in Yugoslavia, where people were being driven out and were being “punished” for political activities; this is not a planned extermination, but it's bad enough! Tens of thousands people have been killed already, and if there's not enough support, more people will be killed, so it is a genocide in part, but it is not the kind of extermination that I wrote about.

Aztag- When talking about the causes of the Armenian Genocide, Dadrian and Suny do give a minimal credit to the “provocation thesis”, according to which the actions of the Armenians caused the perpetrators to react with violence, but you completely dismiss it.

Robert Melson- I think the difference between Dadrian and Suny and me is a matter of emphasis. We all recognize that there were Armenian bands, that Russian troops committed atrocities against Turkish villagers in the Eastern Vilayets and so on. The real question is: Did these provocations cause genocide? Bernard Lewis and Turkish "explainers" argue that the provocations were the basis of genocide. My argument was rather simple, in any provocation, whether it's the Armenian genocide or when you're provoked by a colleague at work, how you react doesn't depend on the provocation, it depends on you-- what you are thinking , what your attitude is towards your colleague. Your action is not an automatic reaction to the provocation. If you're walking down the hall, and a colleague accidentally bumps into you, and you push him hard, your reaction is not automatically a product of his action. It's a product of you being mad that morning or disliking that person or being an aggressive person yourself. Consequently, to understand the actions of any person who is conducting violence you have to understand what motivates that person; it's not enough to look at what the victim has done. The victim might have done something, or the victim might have done nothing. That's it, that's really the basis of the argument. So what I was trying to argue is “let's look at what was happening to the Young Turks, what was going through their minds, rather than what the Armenians were doing.”

Aztag- You say in one of your papers that people sometimes emphesize the nationalism of the Armenians without looking at the nationalism of the Turks.

Robert Melson- Exactly. I mean, sure, there was nationalism - the Dashnaks, the Henchaks- yeah, there were nationalist movements. but what about the Turks?

Bernard Lewis's book "The Emergence of The Modern Turkey" is a wonderful book, a great book, but when it comes to the Armenian Genocide, his treatment is very strange. It's as if somehow the Turks became some kind of an automatic pilot, and had no conceptions of their own, no ideology of their own. Their ideology was nationalism, of course.

Aztag- What are your research interests currently?

Robert Melson- Well, since then, I've thought about the Rwandan Genocide and I wrote that article on that. I've also written a memoir of my family's experiences during the war, it's called "False Papers."

Lately, I've been thinking about prevention. At some point, one has to think, “This analysis should be helpful, it should lead to helpful policies”. Therefore, in terms of the study of genocide, I've become interested in the question of prevention and the question of resistance. These are two questions I've been thinking about, and, probably, will write about comparatively, using the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, and the Rwandan genocide.

I teach a course here on the Holocaust and Genocide, and very often, one of the questions the students ask me is: "Why didn't these people resist being killed?" And my answer is: "Because they were not prepared to resist. They were not an armed population, and they were being attacked by an armed organisation; usually it takes a while to organise resistance, and by the time that while has passed by, it's too late, most of the people are already dead.

Aztag- What cases of resistance do you have in mind?

Robert Melson- Exactly. For example the resistance at Van, or the resistance at the Warsaw Ghetto, the resistance in parts of Rwanda. In some cases there was resistance, in many cases there was none! And very often what the victims do is they blame themselves, or they blame their culture.

The very same generation that suffered the Holocaust has been accused of being too aggressive, too armed, and too expansive. On the one hand, it's too passive, on the other hand it's too aggressive. so I don't think that cultural explanation is very good, I think a better explanation is the situational/structural explanation; people who don't expect to be killed are not prepared to resist, and therefore, they won't resist! And it's a kind of a waste of time to look at the culture and try to explain, in that context, why they don't resist. So that's my thesis.

There have been heavy-duty studies of Jewish cultures, of how, for centuries, the Jews looked the other way while violence was meted out to them, because they had no chance to resist, just like the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

The fact of the matter is that, if people can get organised, and if they can get weapons, they resist.

Aztag- This can also make the provocation thesis less and less sustainable, doesn't it?

Robert Melson- That's a good way of putting it. If people are so provocative, why didn't they resist? And that's right! I mean, that's a very good point that you're making, at the same time people are accused of provoking the genocide, and they're also accused of being passive and not resisting. The other thing is this whole issue of denial. They provoked the genocide, they were too passive, but of course, there was no genocide! It's a wonderful package of demonizing and humiliating the victims all over again. First they're killed, then they're told they were killed because they provoked the killing, then they're told they should have resisted, then they're told they weren't killed! It's a great package!

Aztag- Historians and political scientists often speak about comparative genocide as a way of understanding and then being able to prevent genocide. But the fact of the matter is that we say “Never Again” and then we have it again and again and again, so how helpful is it? Isn't everything in the end about real politics? One might think: "No matter how much you compare and analyze, you won’t change much, because everything boils down to real politics and the interests of superpowers.”

Robert Melson- Well I think there's a grain of truth in what you're saying. In Samantha Power’s book "A problem from Hell: America and the age of Genocide", the basic argument is that it’s not an accident that the United State does not prevent genocide; it doens't want to prevent genocide, unless its interests, as you put it, are immediately hurt. It doens't want to risk its people, it doens't want to risk its wealth. We have beautiful words, we have beautiful sentiments but nothing much happens, and the best example of that is Rwanda, because the Holocaust occured under conditions of World War, and so did the Armenian Genocide and it was very hard to intervene. However, in Rwanda, a few battalions of US Marines could have prevented the whole business. The Real Politic played an important role.

I guess scholars and researchers contribute a little bit, but they cannot substitute their decision making for the decision making of people in power. I think what they can show is that there are signs, that a genocidal situation is developing, and that prevention in an early stage is not that expensive. It's not necessarilly the sending in of troops and of having a loss of life on the part of those people who are saving others. For example in the Rwandan Genocide, there was call for genocide on the radio and the US and the UN didn't want to jam that radio for example. There were public statements made by people in power threatening genocide, no one reacted to it, no one said "look, we're going to impose severe sanctions on you, we're going to freeze your external balances, bank accounts".

There are many things that can be done if people pay attention to signs, to warning signs, and I think that this is where scholars can be useful. What are the some warning signs that a genocide is about to occur? I do think that if you have a deeply divided society that’s undergoing a revolution, heading into war, I think those are warning signs; people can pay attention to it or not pay attention to it, but at least as a scholar, you can say "look, why don't you pay attention to that early and not before it's too late?" That's where you can be helpful, but of course, our influence is limited. I'm a professor, I type! I don't command armies!

Aztag- And you might also help create greater awareness…

Robert Melson- Sure, sure. The world is complicated, it's not only real politique. Out there, there is a worldwide human rights sensitivity, people do react to, for example, the Tsunami. You have the tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the world got mobilized around this right away, millions of dollars were spent to help people and so on...Why wasn't this mobilization there for when Rwanda occured? So there is a human rights movement, it's almost like an anti-slavery movement in the 19th century, in the 20th and the 21st century there are lot of people around the world who are concerned about these things and they can be mobilized for action and they should be mobilized for an action, but there's also Real Politique; people who are in power define things narrowly, and they pay attention to public opinion, they pay attention to the costs of actions, and if the actions are expensive in terms of money and lives they won't do it. If the actions are not so expensive, and there was public pressure to do something, they might do something, I'm stressing the obvious here, I think.