Tweet
The Armenian Mirror-Spectator
755 Mount Auburn St.
Watertown, MA 02472
Tel: (617) 924-4420
Fax: (617) 924-2887
Web: http://www.mirrorspectator.com
E-mail: [email protected]
************************************************** ****************
1. From Armenian History to Black-American History: Elizabeth Cann Kambourian
2. Academic, Review: Activist Proposes Vision for Elimination of Mass Violence
3. Staub's Boots-on-the-Ground Work Based on Research
4. Commentary: Erdogan's Apology Opens a Pandora's Box For Turkey
************************************************** ****************
1. From Armenian History to Black-American History: Elizabeth Cann
Kambourian
By Aram Arkun
Mirror-Spectator Staff
RICHMOND, Va. - Elizabeth Cann Kambourian was a student at Virginia
Commonwealth University in Richmond, majoring in history when she decided
to write her honors thesis on the first Republic of Armenia. Many years
later she became an expert in an important American slave rebellion in
Richmond. In both cases, curiosity about people and things around her
stimulated her research.
Kambourian was 28 when she went to college, having already gotten married
and formed a family. She was working in a jewelry store run by her
husband's family, the Kambourians, and would walk to classes from work.
Kambourian explained that her husband's family history was interesting. The
Kambourians were a prosperous family in Erzerum. As a result of a quarrel
there, one young son, Manuel, was sent abroad in the early 1880s, initially
to France. He then came to New York and became a jeweler like his father.
After some business disagreements, he immigrated to Richmond and started a
rug business. He had three sons, two of whom took over the rug business -
which still is flourishing today in the hands of a fourth generation
Kambourian, and the youngest of whom went into the jewelry field.
One relative, Dikran Najarian, married to a Kambourian, was a Tashnag, or
member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. He went back to the
Ottoman Empire in the beginning of the 20th century and got arrested and
was executed. His final writing from jail is preserved by the family.
As Kambourian took an interest in the family's history, one of her
husband's uncles gave her various family documents, including photographs,
Ottoman travel papers and a work permit for the aforementioned Najarian.
Kambourian wrote her undergraduate thesis on the first Republic of Armenia
but gave background dating back to 1870. Her professor was able to give her
good guidance and she used contemporary French and English newspapers among
her sources.
Ironically, as Kambourian pointed out, while in college `I skipped American
history altogether, but ended up getting involved in it in the end.' It
turned out that the house that she and her family bought in 1974 played a
key role in this. The old lady who sold the house gave her a title search
done in 1918, which traced the plot of land back to 1745, when it was part
of a much larger tract. Eventually, in the late 1980s, out of curiosity
Kambourian went to the Henrico County records and found a plan of a
plantation, Quincy Plantation, which included her own plot.
She said, `I knew already that a slave rebellion had taken place in this
neighborhood. I thought that surely my house would have had participants
since it was adjacent to two other plantations where slaves participated.
And I did find a slave, George Smith, who was involved. He was a conjurer.
It was fascinating.'
The slave rebellion, called the Gabriel rebellion after its leader, a
blacksmith, was planned for the summer of 1800. Kambourian said, `The
rebels were well educated and belonged to lax owners - that is, they were
allowed to roam about. They did not have it that bad [compared to other
slaves]. They could, however, see during their trips for business into
Richmond how deprived they really were. Death or liberty was their banner.'
They had wide-ranging contacts with other slaves and hoped their act would
spark a broader rebellion.
The rebellion failed, due to betrayal by fellow slaves, as well as
torrential rains. Virginia's governor was then James Monroe, the future
fifth president of the United States. After he suppressed the rebellion by
force, he attempted to cover it up, fearing it could cause political
trouble. It was a presidential election year with another Virginian, Thomas
Jefferson, vying for the highest position in the American government.
However, Monroe was unsuccessful and newspapers in the North did write
about the event. The longterm consequences included the strengthening of
restrictions on the rights and activities of slaves.
Kambourian's research led her to locate the gallows where Gabriel was hung,
along with his fellow conspirators. They were immediately buried nearby in
a site which had been turned into a parking lot on Broad Street. This is
the African-American or Negro Burial Ground.
Kambourian tried to get people to listen to the results of her research in
the 1990s, but she found that nobody was interested until around 2000. She
gave a key presentation then in the Black History Museum and Cultural
Center of Virginia in Richmond, and an organization called the Defenders
for Freedom, Justice and Equality soon began to cite her discoveries. A
struggle was waged to memorialize the burial ground, and it no longer is
used as a parking site.
In 2002, Gabriel's death was commemorated by a resolution of the City of
Richmond, and in 2006 Gov. Tim Kaine informally pardoned Gabriel and his
collaborators in recognition of his struggle to end slavery and promote
equality for all people.
While Kambourian was reading in the State Library in the 1980s and 1990s,
she noticed that African-Americans were always coming in to ask about how
to start work on their family genealogies, and the librarians would tell
them to look at the Freedmen's Bureau records. She eventually decided to
write a book making this raw information more accessible, and in 1997
published The Freedmen's Bureau in Virginia.This volume provides a list of
former slaves and freedmen who received food and medical aid from the
Virginia Freedmen's Bureau, with maps and whatever personal information was
available in the records.
At present Kambourian is preparing a book on the Gabriel rebellion. She has
found interesting personal motivations for Gabriel and a number of the
chief conspirators which may have led them to rebel despite the relatively
good circumstances of their lives as slaves. For example, Gabriel, a
handsome young man, may have had his front teeth knocked out and have been
humiliated and disfigured by his master, though they were of the same age
and friends of sorts.
************************************************** ****************
2. Academic, Review: Activist Proposes Vision for Elimination of Mass
Violence
By Daphne Abeel
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
The founding director of the Psychology of Peace and Violence program at
the University of Massachusetts, Ervin Staub has pursued a lifelong study
of violence, its origins and the methods and strategies by which it may be
overcome.
While his career has been primarily in academia, he has taken on the role
of activist and field worker in his efforts to promote reconciliation in
several situations, most notably in Rwanda, but also through the creation
and administration of training programs with police in cities such as Los
Angeles and Boston.
This book, a sequel to a previous title, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of
Genocide and Other Group Violence (1989) is based on 32 years of research,
work in real life settings and publications on violence between groups and
its prevention. He notes in the introduction, `I wrote this book to advance
scholarship but also very much to promote practical efforts in prevention
and reconciliation.'
Born in Hungary where he lived until the age of 18, Staub experienced both
the Nazi Holocaust and then the effects of the Communist regime, and it is
these experiences, he says, that motivated him to work on the prevention of
genocide and the development of humane and caring behaviors in societies
that have undergone violence and mass killing.
The book is divided into two parts - the first explores the conditions that
lead to mass violence, while the second is devoted to the principles and
practices that can promote the prevention of violence and group
reconciliation.
Staub sets forth several conditions that can lead to active group violence:
a persistent conflict between groups, based on material and/or
psychological factors; difficult societal conditions such as economic
deterioration; political disorganization or great social/cultural change
that can often create confusion and chaos; difficult life conditions, which
can cause individuals to turn to a group that will give them a sense of
security, identity, a feeling of effectiveness and control and a meaningful
understanding of what is going on around them; harmful actions performed by
individuals or groups that enable a reversal in morality whereby killing
members of the targeted group becomes `right and moral'; a situation in
which one group has become devalued and is targeted for scapegoating;
passivity in the face of violence on the part of both internal and external
bystanders; support in a community for a small group devoted to a terrorist
ideology that can contribute to the evolution of terrorist violence; and
group violence, where the perpetrators refuse to accept responsibility and
blame the victim, thereby leading to fresh violence.
Staub identifies several situations that can become the catalysts for
violence. He groups these under the description `difficult life
conditions.' They include economic deterioration, political
disorganization, a situation where two factions are competing for political
power and rapid social/cultural change. Frustrated needs for security,
control, a lack of positive identity, a lack of connection to others, a
lack of comprehension of reality (knowing how the world operates), lack of
justice and the lack of transcendence of self, that is the ability to work
for the welfare of others, can all create the groundwork for mass violence.
Staub draws on the work of many scholars and researchers and using these
conceptual tools, surveys many situations in which mass violence has
occurred, including the Holocaust in Germany, the Genocide of the Armenians
in Turkey, the Hutu-Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, the massacres in the Congo,
and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to show, in each case, what led up to
violence and mass killings.
One of Staub's key concepts is that of the bystander - the internal
bystander, who actually witnesses what is happening, and the external,
bystander, often in another country who observes from afar. Passivity on
the part of either of these groups encourages perpetrators of mass
violence. He gives as examples the Allies who ignored the Nazi death camps
during World War II and the reluctance of the UN Security Council to
intervene in Rwanda as it argued over the definition of genocide. Staub, as
noted previously, has intervened personally in a number of situations to
promote the strategies of reconciliation and his involvement in Rwanda
provides a portrait of his idealism and willingness to involve himself in a
complex effort to heal a community.
With his colleague, Laura A. Pearlman, he set up a multi-faceted program of
workshops and dialogues between the Hutus and Tutsis that eventually led to
an atmosphere of reconciliation. One product of the program was a series or
radio broadcasts that created scenarios with which the population could
identify, portraying both victims and perpetrators. This focused and
intense effort in a particular situation bore results, but it's unclear
that the intricacies of these structures could be transferred to other
venues.
Staub has a positive and idealistic vision that can be so sweeping as to
appear unrealistic. He says, `Dialogue is essential to this process [the
creation of shared goals]. In the case of group conflict, mediation,
dialogue and other conflict resolution processes can be used to develop a
shared vision of society and shared goals, which then can provide a
framework for peace building.' This prescription is admirable, but the
practical obstacles can, clearly, be immense.
In Rory Stewart's observations of Iraqi society in his book The Prince of
Marshes, he quotes more than once a mantra that different sects and tribes
share: `In revenge, there is life.' How does a society that espouses that
thought make the leap to dialogue and conflict resolution?
The key to bringing about a world where people care for others, identify
with others, sympathize and empathize with others, Staub suggests, is
education. He says, `There are two outcomes of child rearing that can
affect group violence: the kind of persons children become and the kind of
group members they will be. Raising children so that they become adults who
care about the welfare of other people, who feel empathy and responsibility
for others' welfare and whose caring extends to people outside the
boundaries of their own group makes group violence less likely.' Yes, of
course, but the challenge is immense, particularly in societies where
families are torn apart by war and poverty, where there may few or no
resources to establish this sort of education system.
In sum, this is a book to admire for its broad based scholarship and
analysis of the origins of hated and mass violence. And just as admirable
is Staub's vision that reconciliation, even between the most intractable
enemies, is not only desirable, but possible. His example of personal
involvement should go a long way towards inspiring others to participate in
the process of healing and caring.
Staub has included an interactive feature in his book, asking readers to
post their thoughts and suggestions concerning the prevention of violence
and reconciliation on a blog. Interested readers should post their thoughts
and comments to http://overcomingevil.wordpress.com where they may be
incorporated into essays by researchers and students to further scholarship
in the field.
Overcoming Evil: Genocide, Violent Conflict and Terrorism by Ervin Staub.
Oxford University Press. 2011. 581 pp. $50. ISBN 978-0-19-538204-4
************************************************** ****************
3. Staub's Boots-on-the-Ground Work Based on Research
By Daphne Abeel
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
HOLYOKE, Mass. - In addition to writing many books, Ervin Staub has worked
in a number of situations on the problem of violence prevention.
`My work in various field settings has been guided by my academic work,'
said Staub in an interview from his home. `In my formal research, I study
mass killings and violence in the context of the history of the country,
the place and the relationships between people. I apply my understanding to
different situations, always asking how can we prevent violence.'
One of the situations where his help was requested was in Los Angeles after
the widely-publicized beating of Rodney King by the Los Angeles police.
`I got a call from the LA Times asking me to analyze what happened. And
then I was invited to an event organized around the Rodney King incident. I
was invited to develop a training program for the police officers which
involved the concept of the bystander. Police officers work in pairs. If
one of them gets emotional or threatening towards a citizen, the other
officer is apt to get involved to support his fellow officer.'
Staub added, `It's a difficult learning process on the part of the police.
What does it mean to support another officer? It can mean intervening to
stop an action.'
Because of his extensive work in Rwanda to promote reconciliation between
the Hutus and the Tutsis, Staub was asked to come to Amsterdam after
filmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed by a Muslim jihadist for having
criticized the treatment of women by Muslims. Following van Gogh's death,
there were 800 instances of violence against mosques.
`People were very upset. The mayor of Amsterdam invited me to study the
situation and to create proposals that would make violence less likely
between the Dutch and Muslim populations. I interviewed many people, and
discovered there was a great deal of segregation in the schools due to
where people lived. There were very few schools where the two populations
mixed. I developed a set of proposals to which the city administrator
responded and there were some mitigations.'
Staub also traveled to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated the
city.
`There was a need to promote racial reconciliation,' said Staub. `After
Katrina, there were certain attempts to make the city more white, to keep
black people out. The challenge was how to develop more positive relations
between blacks and whites, how to make it possible for people in one group
to see the humanity of people in the other group.'
As noted in his new book, Overcoming Evil, Staub has been deeply
interested in the education of children.
`I have always worked with groups of teachers and parents on the issue of
how you raise non-violent children. I've worked with Facing History and
Ourselves on curriculum. They use the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide
to teach people about history and also about the passivity of individuals.
Why do bystanders remain uninvolved? We teach that there is the potential
of a witness to become active, to become involved and oppose violence.'
Warmth and affection are necessary to raise children, said Staub, but they
are not enough. `You have to teach principles and show children that there
are consequences to their actions. We place a lot of emphasis on learning
by doing, getting children to help other people, getting them to engage
with people outside their own group.'
This program, Quabbin Mediation, has been in place for five years and can
be applied to other settings such as the workplace, said Staub. `Its goal
is to train active bystanders.'
Staub feels that the Occupy Wall Street movement is a reaction to the myth
of equality in America. `This myth cannot be maintained when the normal
democratic process is subverted by people with money and the lobbyists. I
think they are right about a lot of things except they lack a constructive
plan. But I think the movement does support a vision of community that
includes everyone - even the rich - not everyone who is rich wants to
maintain the current system. I think they are working to create a genuine
community where everyone deserves respect and consideration.'
************************************************** ****************
4. Commentary: Erdogan's Apology Opens a Pandora's Box For Turkey
By Edmond Y. Azadian
By all estimates, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a smart
politician and much of the credit of Turkey's rise on the international
stage goes to him personally and, to some extent, to his party. But his
country's history does not cooperate with him, since Turkey has too many
skeletons (figuratively and literally) in its closet and they may jump out
at any moment to embarrass the country and its leaders.
That is exactly what happened when the prime minister made a calculated
move to apologize for the mass murders of Dersim during 1937-38 operations,
when more than 100,00 Alevis and Kurds were massacred in the name of
suppressing a so-called revolt.
Erdogan's calculated political risk triggered incalculable reactions, which
are still piling up. He is a master of hypocrisy and demagoguery; he can
use anything and everything to pursue his political agenda.
But, it seems, this time, there is a boomerang effect that may cost Turkey
dearly as compared to the anticipated political dividends.
Currently there is a cutthroat competition between Erdogan's Justice and
Development Party (AK) and the main opposition Republican People's Party
(CHP) and both are trying not to leave any stone unturned when it comes to
embarrassing and bringing down the other.
The ruling AK Party successfully eliminated a powerful opponent, Deniz
Baykal, who was the head of the
Republican Party, by leaking a sex tape involving him and a former staffer.
The seemingly mild-mannered and moderate Kemal Kilicdaroglu replaced him,
though now he, too, is spewing fire against Erdogan, his party and his
administration.
At this time, accusations and counter accusations are flying from one party
to the other. Mr. Erdogan had multiple targets in mind when he touched upon
the Dersim issue, when he stated: `Dersim is among the most tragic events
in recent history. It is a disaster that should now be questioned with
courage. The party that should confront this incident is not the ruling
Justice and Development Party; it is the Republican People's Party which
is
behind this bloody disaster, who should face this incident and its chairman
from Tunceli (current name of Dersim).'
In a dramatic move, Mr. Erdogan went further by stating: `Is it me who
should apologize or you [Kemal Kilicdaroglu]? If there is the need for an
apology on behalf of the state and if there is such an opportunity, I can
do it and I am apologizing. But if there is someone who should apologize on
behalf of CHP it is you, as you are from Dersim. You were saying you felt
honored to be from Dersim. Now, save your honor.'
Erdogan, who is fond of asking for apologies from Israel, Germany and
Armenia, himself was engaged in this apology game.
One of the multiple targets of Erdogan's apology policy is to get at the
opposition Republican People's party, founded by Ataturk himself. The hot
target was Kilicdaroglu, head of that party. The cold and discrete target,
however, is Ataturk himself, whose legacy is being dismantled, brick by
brick, by the ruling Islamist party.
The Ergenekon investigations, the arrest of the army brass and the campaign
against the military establishment are all part and parcel of that
persistent policy. Another target, of course, was the Alevi population in
Dersim, whose votes the prime minister was wooing.
All these are on the domestic front. But Erdogan also was targeting his
international audience by indicating that Turkey is gradually coming to
terms with its bloody history.
Thus, he was expecting to win brownie points to be applied towards Turkey's
admission to the European Union. Some quarters in Armenia and the Armenian
Diaspora raised premature hopes that the floodgates of apologies were being
thrown wide open and that the next apology could come regarding the
Armenian Genocide. But Erdogan manipulated his debate with the opposition
party in such a way that he shut the door on that possibility. To begin
with, his statement about Dersim case was exclusionary as he began his
statement with the following sentence:
`Dersim is among the most tragic events in recent history,' which means
there is no event more tragic, thus the
Armenian Genocide is not even being considered. But Erdogan further
developed on that exclusionary theme when Kilicdaroglu suggested Erdogan's
policy may also force upon Turkey an apology for the Armenian Genocide,
much in line with the Diaspora-Armenian thinking. Erdogan retorted: `You
are putting me in the same basket with the Armenian Diaspora! Shame on you!
How dare you put me and the Armenian Diaspora in the same basket!'
Kilicdaroglu said that it is not enough to apologize for the Dersim
massacres and that the state has to open the archives on that incident.
Opening the archives will become another can of worms, where the military
leaders who had concocted the incident there, where the Alevi population
had managed to continue in a semi-autonomous system despite Ataturk's
policy of population engineering to homogenize Turkey, will be implicated.
One of the demands of the military, at that time, was for Alevi leaders to
hand over 25,000 Armenians who had survived the Genocide by finding a safe
haven in Dersim. Another case was the crimes committed by Sabiha Gokçen,
Ataturk's adopted daughter and Turkey first military pilot. Armenians in
Dersim were doubly hurt that their `sister' had joined the Turkish military
to shower bombs on them. Hrant Dink had discovered and publicized the fact
that Sabiha Gokcen was an Armenian orphan, much to the chagrin of Turkish
racists.
Of course, the Turkish military conducted carpet-bombing and exiled the
Dersim survivors to other regions of the republic to assimilate them, after
confiscating their properties. Despite Erdogan's careful delineation of his
apology, virtually avoiding and excluding the Armenian Genocide, an
avalanche of press commentaries are demanding apologies for the Armenian
Genocide.
It was impossible for Armenians to explode and explore the Genocide issue
in the Turkish media in current dimensions. But one statement by Erdogan
didn't.
He may live to regret it, or if we give too much credit to his political
acumen, his move may have been a deliberate one.
Eren Keskin, a contributor to Radikal newspaper, says that before anyone
else, Turkey should apologize for the 1915 genocide of the Armenians. He
has further conducted a survey among many academics who have come up with a
series of cases which need apologies. Thus Dr. Mourad Paker brings the case
of 5,000 inmates in Diyarbakir prison who were tortured. Another professor
reminds people of the massacre of Marash and Chorum. Rifaat Bali brings up
the cases of Jews in Thrace being bankrupted through confiscations in 1934
and the wealth tax on non-Muslims in 1941, which sent many to die in labor
camps. Regarding the Armenians, Keskin insists that an apology is not
enough. They also have to be compensated for their losses.
The Human Rights Committee of Turkey has released a communiqué requesting
the formation of Truth Committee to investigate the issues of the Armenian
Genocide and the forced assimilation of the Kurdish population.
But the most succinct and sharp questions were asked in the newspaper Sabah
by columnist Engin Ardic, informing that lawyers have already taken up the
issue of Dersim and they are planning to sue the Turkish state. Coming to
the Armenian case he states that there is a conspiracy of silence,
especially by the wealthy class. `If you dig down their past, you will find
out that they murdered Armenians and they usurped their properties. Should
the case be raised, there will be an issue of money. They think how could a
government compensate Armenians after spending $200 billion to suppress
Kurdish rebellion? But there is a basic question: is there a principle of
continuity in the government? If no, why apologize for Dersim? If yes, why
leave out 1915?'
These questions lead to the very fact that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, under the
guise of Europeanizing his country, conducted the racist policy of the
Nazis, as characterized by the above writer. In carrying that state policy,
he has used and collaborated by all the government officials who had
executed the Ittihadist plan of the Armenian Genocide.
>From Sultan Abdul Hamid to Talaat, the genocidal policy has worked
inexorably. Ataturk continued it, under the nose of the Great Powers, who
even now claim Turkey as our `trusted ally,' no matter how much blood has
stained that `ally's' hands.
The Genocide issue has become a hot topic for Turkish society, more than
Armenians could anticipate. Should
Turkey take the road to self-cleansing, maybe the turn will come to
apologize for the Armenian Genocide.
Erdogan has opened Pandora's Box inadvertently. Let us see what may come
out of it.
From: A. Papazian
755 Mount Auburn St.
Watertown, MA 02472
Tel: (617) 924-4420
Fax: (617) 924-2887
Web: http://www.mirrorspectator.com
E-mail: [email protected]
************************************************** ****************
1. From Armenian History to Black-American History: Elizabeth Cann Kambourian
2. Academic, Review: Activist Proposes Vision for Elimination of Mass Violence
3. Staub's Boots-on-the-Ground Work Based on Research
4. Commentary: Erdogan's Apology Opens a Pandora's Box For Turkey
************************************************** ****************
1. From Armenian History to Black-American History: Elizabeth Cann
Kambourian
By Aram Arkun
Mirror-Spectator Staff
RICHMOND, Va. - Elizabeth Cann Kambourian was a student at Virginia
Commonwealth University in Richmond, majoring in history when she decided
to write her honors thesis on the first Republic of Armenia. Many years
later she became an expert in an important American slave rebellion in
Richmond. In both cases, curiosity about people and things around her
stimulated her research.
Kambourian was 28 when she went to college, having already gotten married
and formed a family. She was working in a jewelry store run by her
husband's family, the Kambourians, and would walk to classes from work.
Kambourian explained that her husband's family history was interesting. The
Kambourians were a prosperous family in Erzerum. As a result of a quarrel
there, one young son, Manuel, was sent abroad in the early 1880s, initially
to France. He then came to New York and became a jeweler like his father.
After some business disagreements, he immigrated to Richmond and started a
rug business. He had three sons, two of whom took over the rug business -
which still is flourishing today in the hands of a fourth generation
Kambourian, and the youngest of whom went into the jewelry field.
One relative, Dikran Najarian, married to a Kambourian, was a Tashnag, or
member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. He went back to the
Ottoman Empire in the beginning of the 20th century and got arrested and
was executed. His final writing from jail is preserved by the family.
As Kambourian took an interest in the family's history, one of her
husband's uncles gave her various family documents, including photographs,
Ottoman travel papers and a work permit for the aforementioned Najarian.
Kambourian wrote her undergraduate thesis on the first Republic of Armenia
but gave background dating back to 1870. Her professor was able to give her
good guidance and she used contemporary French and English newspapers among
her sources.
Ironically, as Kambourian pointed out, while in college `I skipped American
history altogether, but ended up getting involved in it in the end.' It
turned out that the house that she and her family bought in 1974 played a
key role in this. The old lady who sold the house gave her a title search
done in 1918, which traced the plot of land back to 1745, when it was part
of a much larger tract. Eventually, in the late 1980s, out of curiosity
Kambourian went to the Henrico County records and found a plan of a
plantation, Quincy Plantation, which included her own plot.
She said, `I knew already that a slave rebellion had taken place in this
neighborhood. I thought that surely my house would have had participants
since it was adjacent to two other plantations where slaves participated.
And I did find a slave, George Smith, who was involved. He was a conjurer.
It was fascinating.'
The slave rebellion, called the Gabriel rebellion after its leader, a
blacksmith, was planned for the summer of 1800. Kambourian said, `The
rebels were well educated and belonged to lax owners - that is, they were
allowed to roam about. They did not have it that bad [compared to other
slaves]. They could, however, see during their trips for business into
Richmond how deprived they really were. Death or liberty was their banner.'
They had wide-ranging contacts with other slaves and hoped their act would
spark a broader rebellion.
The rebellion failed, due to betrayal by fellow slaves, as well as
torrential rains. Virginia's governor was then James Monroe, the future
fifth president of the United States. After he suppressed the rebellion by
force, he attempted to cover it up, fearing it could cause political
trouble. It was a presidential election year with another Virginian, Thomas
Jefferson, vying for the highest position in the American government.
However, Monroe was unsuccessful and newspapers in the North did write
about the event. The longterm consequences included the strengthening of
restrictions on the rights and activities of slaves.
Kambourian's research led her to locate the gallows where Gabriel was hung,
along with his fellow conspirators. They were immediately buried nearby in
a site which had been turned into a parking lot on Broad Street. This is
the African-American or Negro Burial Ground.
Kambourian tried to get people to listen to the results of her research in
the 1990s, but she found that nobody was interested until around 2000. She
gave a key presentation then in the Black History Museum and Cultural
Center of Virginia in Richmond, and an organization called the Defenders
for Freedom, Justice and Equality soon began to cite her discoveries. A
struggle was waged to memorialize the burial ground, and it no longer is
used as a parking site.
In 2002, Gabriel's death was commemorated by a resolution of the City of
Richmond, and in 2006 Gov. Tim Kaine informally pardoned Gabriel and his
collaborators in recognition of his struggle to end slavery and promote
equality for all people.
While Kambourian was reading in the State Library in the 1980s and 1990s,
she noticed that African-Americans were always coming in to ask about how
to start work on their family genealogies, and the librarians would tell
them to look at the Freedmen's Bureau records. She eventually decided to
write a book making this raw information more accessible, and in 1997
published The Freedmen's Bureau in Virginia.This volume provides a list of
former slaves and freedmen who received food and medical aid from the
Virginia Freedmen's Bureau, with maps and whatever personal information was
available in the records.
At present Kambourian is preparing a book on the Gabriel rebellion. She has
found interesting personal motivations for Gabriel and a number of the
chief conspirators which may have led them to rebel despite the relatively
good circumstances of their lives as slaves. For example, Gabriel, a
handsome young man, may have had his front teeth knocked out and have been
humiliated and disfigured by his master, though they were of the same age
and friends of sorts.
************************************************** ****************
2. Academic, Review: Activist Proposes Vision for Elimination of Mass
Violence
By Daphne Abeel
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
The founding director of the Psychology of Peace and Violence program at
the University of Massachusetts, Ervin Staub has pursued a lifelong study
of violence, its origins and the methods and strategies by which it may be
overcome.
While his career has been primarily in academia, he has taken on the role
of activist and field worker in his efforts to promote reconciliation in
several situations, most notably in Rwanda, but also through the creation
and administration of training programs with police in cities such as Los
Angeles and Boston.
This book, a sequel to a previous title, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of
Genocide and Other Group Violence (1989) is based on 32 years of research,
work in real life settings and publications on violence between groups and
its prevention. He notes in the introduction, `I wrote this book to advance
scholarship but also very much to promote practical efforts in prevention
and reconciliation.'
Born in Hungary where he lived until the age of 18, Staub experienced both
the Nazi Holocaust and then the effects of the Communist regime, and it is
these experiences, he says, that motivated him to work on the prevention of
genocide and the development of humane and caring behaviors in societies
that have undergone violence and mass killing.
The book is divided into two parts - the first explores the conditions that
lead to mass violence, while the second is devoted to the principles and
practices that can promote the prevention of violence and group
reconciliation.
Staub sets forth several conditions that can lead to active group violence:
a persistent conflict between groups, based on material and/or
psychological factors; difficult societal conditions such as economic
deterioration; political disorganization or great social/cultural change
that can often create confusion and chaos; difficult life conditions, which
can cause individuals to turn to a group that will give them a sense of
security, identity, a feeling of effectiveness and control and a meaningful
understanding of what is going on around them; harmful actions performed by
individuals or groups that enable a reversal in morality whereby killing
members of the targeted group becomes `right and moral'; a situation in
which one group has become devalued and is targeted for scapegoating;
passivity in the face of violence on the part of both internal and external
bystanders; support in a community for a small group devoted to a terrorist
ideology that can contribute to the evolution of terrorist violence; and
group violence, where the perpetrators refuse to accept responsibility and
blame the victim, thereby leading to fresh violence.
Staub identifies several situations that can become the catalysts for
violence. He groups these under the description `difficult life
conditions.' They include economic deterioration, political
disorganization, a situation where two factions are competing for political
power and rapid social/cultural change. Frustrated needs for security,
control, a lack of positive identity, a lack of connection to others, a
lack of comprehension of reality (knowing how the world operates), lack of
justice and the lack of transcendence of self, that is the ability to work
for the welfare of others, can all create the groundwork for mass violence.
Staub draws on the work of many scholars and researchers and using these
conceptual tools, surveys many situations in which mass violence has
occurred, including the Holocaust in Germany, the Genocide of the Armenians
in Turkey, the Hutu-Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, the massacres in the Congo,
and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to show, in each case, what led up to
violence and mass killings.
One of Staub's key concepts is that of the bystander - the internal
bystander, who actually witnesses what is happening, and the external,
bystander, often in another country who observes from afar. Passivity on
the part of either of these groups encourages perpetrators of mass
violence. He gives as examples the Allies who ignored the Nazi death camps
during World War II and the reluctance of the UN Security Council to
intervene in Rwanda as it argued over the definition of genocide. Staub, as
noted previously, has intervened personally in a number of situations to
promote the strategies of reconciliation and his involvement in Rwanda
provides a portrait of his idealism and willingness to involve himself in a
complex effort to heal a community.
With his colleague, Laura A. Pearlman, he set up a multi-faceted program of
workshops and dialogues between the Hutus and Tutsis that eventually led to
an atmosphere of reconciliation. One product of the program was a series or
radio broadcasts that created scenarios with which the population could
identify, portraying both victims and perpetrators. This focused and
intense effort in a particular situation bore results, but it's unclear
that the intricacies of these structures could be transferred to other
venues.
Staub has a positive and idealistic vision that can be so sweeping as to
appear unrealistic. He says, `Dialogue is essential to this process [the
creation of shared goals]. In the case of group conflict, mediation,
dialogue and other conflict resolution processes can be used to develop a
shared vision of society and shared goals, which then can provide a
framework for peace building.' This prescription is admirable, but the
practical obstacles can, clearly, be immense.
In Rory Stewart's observations of Iraqi society in his book The Prince of
Marshes, he quotes more than once a mantra that different sects and tribes
share: `In revenge, there is life.' How does a society that espouses that
thought make the leap to dialogue and conflict resolution?
The key to bringing about a world where people care for others, identify
with others, sympathize and empathize with others, Staub suggests, is
education. He says, `There are two outcomes of child rearing that can
affect group violence: the kind of persons children become and the kind of
group members they will be. Raising children so that they become adults who
care about the welfare of other people, who feel empathy and responsibility
for others' welfare and whose caring extends to people outside the
boundaries of their own group makes group violence less likely.' Yes, of
course, but the challenge is immense, particularly in societies where
families are torn apart by war and poverty, where there may few or no
resources to establish this sort of education system.
In sum, this is a book to admire for its broad based scholarship and
analysis of the origins of hated and mass violence. And just as admirable
is Staub's vision that reconciliation, even between the most intractable
enemies, is not only desirable, but possible. His example of personal
involvement should go a long way towards inspiring others to participate in
the process of healing and caring.
Staub has included an interactive feature in his book, asking readers to
post their thoughts and suggestions concerning the prevention of violence
and reconciliation on a blog. Interested readers should post their thoughts
and comments to http://overcomingevil.wordpress.com where they may be
incorporated into essays by researchers and students to further scholarship
in the field.
Overcoming Evil: Genocide, Violent Conflict and Terrorism by Ervin Staub.
Oxford University Press. 2011. 581 pp. $50. ISBN 978-0-19-538204-4
************************************************** ****************
3. Staub's Boots-on-the-Ground Work Based on Research
By Daphne Abeel
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
HOLYOKE, Mass. - In addition to writing many books, Ervin Staub has worked
in a number of situations on the problem of violence prevention.
`My work in various field settings has been guided by my academic work,'
said Staub in an interview from his home. `In my formal research, I study
mass killings and violence in the context of the history of the country,
the place and the relationships between people. I apply my understanding to
different situations, always asking how can we prevent violence.'
One of the situations where his help was requested was in Los Angeles after
the widely-publicized beating of Rodney King by the Los Angeles police.
`I got a call from the LA Times asking me to analyze what happened. And
then I was invited to an event organized around the Rodney King incident. I
was invited to develop a training program for the police officers which
involved the concept of the bystander. Police officers work in pairs. If
one of them gets emotional or threatening towards a citizen, the other
officer is apt to get involved to support his fellow officer.'
Staub added, `It's a difficult learning process on the part of the police.
What does it mean to support another officer? It can mean intervening to
stop an action.'
Because of his extensive work in Rwanda to promote reconciliation between
the Hutus and the Tutsis, Staub was asked to come to Amsterdam after
filmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed by a Muslim jihadist for having
criticized the treatment of women by Muslims. Following van Gogh's death,
there were 800 instances of violence against mosques.
`People were very upset. The mayor of Amsterdam invited me to study the
situation and to create proposals that would make violence less likely
between the Dutch and Muslim populations. I interviewed many people, and
discovered there was a great deal of segregation in the schools due to
where people lived. There were very few schools where the two populations
mixed. I developed a set of proposals to which the city administrator
responded and there were some mitigations.'
Staub also traveled to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated the
city.
`There was a need to promote racial reconciliation,' said Staub. `After
Katrina, there were certain attempts to make the city more white, to keep
black people out. The challenge was how to develop more positive relations
between blacks and whites, how to make it possible for people in one group
to see the humanity of people in the other group.'
As noted in his new book, Overcoming Evil, Staub has been deeply
interested in the education of children.
`I have always worked with groups of teachers and parents on the issue of
how you raise non-violent children. I've worked with Facing History and
Ourselves on curriculum. They use the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide
to teach people about history and also about the passivity of individuals.
Why do bystanders remain uninvolved? We teach that there is the potential
of a witness to become active, to become involved and oppose violence.'
Warmth and affection are necessary to raise children, said Staub, but they
are not enough. `You have to teach principles and show children that there
are consequences to their actions. We place a lot of emphasis on learning
by doing, getting children to help other people, getting them to engage
with people outside their own group.'
This program, Quabbin Mediation, has been in place for five years and can
be applied to other settings such as the workplace, said Staub. `Its goal
is to train active bystanders.'
Staub feels that the Occupy Wall Street movement is a reaction to the myth
of equality in America. `This myth cannot be maintained when the normal
democratic process is subverted by people with money and the lobbyists. I
think they are right about a lot of things except they lack a constructive
plan. But I think the movement does support a vision of community that
includes everyone - even the rich - not everyone who is rich wants to
maintain the current system. I think they are working to create a genuine
community where everyone deserves respect and consideration.'
************************************************** ****************
4. Commentary: Erdogan's Apology Opens a Pandora's Box For Turkey
By Edmond Y. Azadian
By all estimates, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a smart
politician and much of the credit of Turkey's rise on the international
stage goes to him personally and, to some extent, to his party. But his
country's history does not cooperate with him, since Turkey has too many
skeletons (figuratively and literally) in its closet and they may jump out
at any moment to embarrass the country and its leaders.
That is exactly what happened when the prime minister made a calculated
move to apologize for the mass murders of Dersim during 1937-38 operations,
when more than 100,00 Alevis and Kurds were massacred in the name of
suppressing a so-called revolt.
Erdogan's calculated political risk triggered incalculable reactions, which
are still piling up. He is a master of hypocrisy and demagoguery; he can
use anything and everything to pursue his political agenda.
But, it seems, this time, there is a boomerang effect that may cost Turkey
dearly as compared to the anticipated political dividends.
Currently there is a cutthroat competition between Erdogan's Justice and
Development Party (AK) and the main opposition Republican People's Party
(CHP) and both are trying not to leave any stone unturned when it comes to
embarrassing and bringing down the other.
The ruling AK Party successfully eliminated a powerful opponent, Deniz
Baykal, who was the head of the
Republican Party, by leaking a sex tape involving him and a former staffer.
The seemingly mild-mannered and moderate Kemal Kilicdaroglu replaced him,
though now he, too, is spewing fire against Erdogan, his party and his
administration.
At this time, accusations and counter accusations are flying from one party
to the other. Mr. Erdogan had multiple targets in mind when he touched upon
the Dersim issue, when he stated: `Dersim is among the most tragic events
in recent history. It is a disaster that should now be questioned with
courage. The party that should confront this incident is not the ruling
Justice and Development Party; it is the Republican People's Party which
is
behind this bloody disaster, who should face this incident and its chairman
from Tunceli (current name of Dersim).'
In a dramatic move, Mr. Erdogan went further by stating: `Is it me who
should apologize or you [Kemal Kilicdaroglu]? If there is the need for an
apology on behalf of the state and if there is such an opportunity, I can
do it and I am apologizing. But if there is someone who should apologize on
behalf of CHP it is you, as you are from Dersim. You were saying you felt
honored to be from Dersim. Now, save your honor.'
Erdogan, who is fond of asking for apologies from Israel, Germany and
Armenia, himself was engaged in this apology game.
One of the multiple targets of Erdogan's apology policy is to get at the
opposition Republican People's party, founded by Ataturk himself. The hot
target was Kilicdaroglu, head of that party. The cold and discrete target,
however, is Ataturk himself, whose legacy is being dismantled, brick by
brick, by the ruling Islamist party.
The Ergenekon investigations, the arrest of the army brass and the campaign
against the military establishment are all part and parcel of that
persistent policy. Another target, of course, was the Alevi population in
Dersim, whose votes the prime minister was wooing.
All these are on the domestic front. But Erdogan also was targeting his
international audience by indicating that Turkey is gradually coming to
terms with its bloody history.
Thus, he was expecting to win brownie points to be applied towards Turkey's
admission to the European Union. Some quarters in Armenia and the Armenian
Diaspora raised premature hopes that the floodgates of apologies were being
thrown wide open and that the next apology could come regarding the
Armenian Genocide. But Erdogan manipulated his debate with the opposition
party in such a way that he shut the door on that possibility. To begin
with, his statement about Dersim case was exclusionary as he began his
statement with the following sentence:
`Dersim is among the most tragic events in recent history,' which means
there is no event more tragic, thus the
Armenian Genocide is not even being considered. But Erdogan further
developed on that exclusionary theme when Kilicdaroglu suggested Erdogan's
policy may also force upon Turkey an apology for the Armenian Genocide,
much in line with the Diaspora-Armenian thinking. Erdogan retorted: `You
are putting me in the same basket with the Armenian Diaspora! Shame on you!
How dare you put me and the Armenian Diaspora in the same basket!'
Kilicdaroglu said that it is not enough to apologize for the Dersim
massacres and that the state has to open the archives on that incident.
Opening the archives will become another can of worms, where the military
leaders who had concocted the incident there, where the Alevi population
had managed to continue in a semi-autonomous system despite Ataturk's
policy of population engineering to homogenize Turkey, will be implicated.
One of the demands of the military, at that time, was for Alevi leaders to
hand over 25,000 Armenians who had survived the Genocide by finding a safe
haven in Dersim. Another case was the crimes committed by Sabiha Gokçen,
Ataturk's adopted daughter and Turkey first military pilot. Armenians in
Dersim were doubly hurt that their `sister' had joined the Turkish military
to shower bombs on them. Hrant Dink had discovered and publicized the fact
that Sabiha Gokcen was an Armenian orphan, much to the chagrin of Turkish
racists.
Of course, the Turkish military conducted carpet-bombing and exiled the
Dersim survivors to other regions of the republic to assimilate them, after
confiscating their properties. Despite Erdogan's careful delineation of his
apology, virtually avoiding and excluding the Armenian Genocide, an
avalanche of press commentaries are demanding apologies for the Armenian
Genocide.
It was impossible for Armenians to explode and explore the Genocide issue
in the Turkish media in current dimensions. But one statement by Erdogan
didn't.
He may live to regret it, or if we give too much credit to his political
acumen, his move may have been a deliberate one.
Eren Keskin, a contributor to Radikal newspaper, says that before anyone
else, Turkey should apologize for the 1915 genocide of the Armenians. He
has further conducted a survey among many academics who have come up with a
series of cases which need apologies. Thus Dr. Mourad Paker brings the case
of 5,000 inmates in Diyarbakir prison who were tortured. Another professor
reminds people of the massacre of Marash and Chorum. Rifaat Bali brings up
the cases of Jews in Thrace being bankrupted through confiscations in 1934
and the wealth tax on non-Muslims in 1941, which sent many to die in labor
camps. Regarding the Armenians, Keskin insists that an apology is not
enough. They also have to be compensated for their losses.
The Human Rights Committee of Turkey has released a communiqué requesting
the formation of Truth Committee to investigate the issues of the Armenian
Genocide and the forced assimilation of the Kurdish population.
But the most succinct and sharp questions were asked in the newspaper Sabah
by columnist Engin Ardic, informing that lawyers have already taken up the
issue of Dersim and they are planning to sue the Turkish state. Coming to
the Armenian case he states that there is a conspiracy of silence,
especially by the wealthy class. `If you dig down their past, you will find
out that they murdered Armenians and they usurped their properties. Should
the case be raised, there will be an issue of money. They think how could a
government compensate Armenians after spending $200 billion to suppress
Kurdish rebellion? But there is a basic question: is there a principle of
continuity in the government? If no, why apologize for Dersim? If yes, why
leave out 1915?'
These questions lead to the very fact that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, under the
guise of Europeanizing his country, conducted the racist policy of the
Nazis, as characterized by the above writer. In carrying that state policy,
he has used and collaborated by all the government officials who had
executed the Ittihadist plan of the Armenian Genocide.
>From Sultan Abdul Hamid to Talaat, the genocidal policy has worked
inexorably. Ataturk continued it, under the nose of the Great Powers, who
even now claim Turkey as our `trusted ally,' no matter how much blood has
stained that `ally's' hands.
The Genocide issue has become a hot topic for Turkish society, more than
Armenians could anticipate. Should
Turkey take the road to self-cleansing, maybe the turn will come to
apologize for the Armenian Genocide.
Erdogan has opened Pandora's Box inadvertently. Let us see what may come
out of it.
From: A. Papazian