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MAMIGONIAN: TLöN, TURKEY, AND THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
The Armenian Weekly Magazine
April 2012
Posted by Marc Mamigonian on June 4, 2012 in Opinion, Special Reports
· 0 Comments · Email · Print
"It has allowed them to question and even to modify the past, which
nowadays is no less malleable or obedient than the future."
--Jorge Luis Borges, 'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius'
It has long been clear--at least since 1950 and the publication of
Esat Uras' Tarihte Ermeniler ve Ermeni Meselesi,2 though, in fact,
probably since 1915 itself3--that the Turkish state, with its allies
and hirelings,4has sought to construct an alternative history in
which, at various times, the Armenians have either not existed,
or existed only as a tool of Western imperialist powers threatening
the integrity of Turkey or the Ottoman Empire; a history in which the
Armenian Genocide cannot be named independent of the words "alleged"
or "so-called." In this sense, the writing of history has served as
a continuation of the genocidal process.
Mainstream journalism and scholarship undertake the work--sometimes
knowingly, sometimes unknowingly--of constructing Turkey's Tlön.
In the past decade, even as a few scholars from Turkey and Turkish
citizens have begun to talk and write more openly about their history,
including the Armenian Genocide, Ankara, perhaps concerned that it is
losing the battle to erase and rewrite history, or, on the contrary,
perhaps because it believes that victory is achievable, has raised
its efforts to a new level. This article examines some of the ways
Turkey creates and disseminates its perversion of history and how
its narrative is (unknowingly or knowingly) passed along to mostly
uninformed readers, with the end result of skewing the discussion
towards a narrative acceptable to Turkey. A comprehensive history
and analysis is well beyond the scope of this article and, in fact,
calls for a book-length study.
Outside Turkey (and perhaps even inside the country) it is not too well
known that there has existed since 2001 an entity called, in Turkish,
Asılsız Soykırım ddiaları ile Mucadele Koordinasyon Kurulu (AS
MKK) or, in English, the Committee to Coordinate the Struggle with
the Baseless Genocide Claims.
According to Jennifer Dixon, a scholar who has researched the
development of the official Turkish historical narrative on the
"Armenian Question," the committee is "[c]o-headed by the Foreign
Minister and the general who heads the National Security Council"
and "also includes high-level representatives from a number of key
government ministries and organizations, including the Ministry of
the Interior, the Turkish Historical Society and the archives." Dixon
further explains that "it appears that its main goals have been
to coordinate and execute a centralized strategy for responding to
international pressures on this issue, and to shape public opinion
in Turkey and abroad on this issue."5
Turkey is thus perhaps the only state with an official or semiofficial
entity devoted exclusively to events that it maintains did not occur.
The committee has not been idle, and the number of publications
devoted to refuting the "Baseless Genocide Claims" has increased
substantially since 2001.6
On June 10, 2010, Turkey's state news outlet Anadolu Agency reported
that in 2011, the Turkish Historical Society (Turk Tarih Kurumu)
would publish a 20-volume encyclopedia that "aims to create the most
comprehensive resource on Armenian problem [sic]." Project director
Prof. Enis Sahin stated, "When we first started this project, we
thought it would be comprised of 5,000-6,000 pages . . . Now it seems
to be a set of books of nearly 20 volumes each with 600 or 700 pages.
It will become an encyclopedia."7 Although the encyclopedia has yet
to appear, this author is informed that it is still in the works.
The creation of the 20-volume Un-cyclopedia of the Armenian
Non-Genocide would likely represent a milestone of sorts in the
state's untiring efforts to negate history. Sahin wrote in 2003:
If Turkey wishes to become a global state or an influential power
in its region, it should overcome the difficulties it faces in the
Armenian Question just like in each issue and should formulate
highly realizable policies in line with its geopolitics and put
them in place. These policies should be adopted as imperatives for
the country; never should there be any concessions from them... It
is evident that Armenian allegations of genocide are a complete
deception... There should be an abundant number of works translated
into foreign languages supporting the Turkish thesis in libraries
and research institutions in these countries.8
Sahin's statements suggest that his agenda is to support and advance
the state's interests (as represented by its official thesis on the
"Armenian Question") by any means necessary. Such remarks might seem
unusual coming from a professor of history, but they are less so when
one remembers that the Turkish Historical Society was created in 1931
by Ataturk for the development and dissemination of Turkey's official,
state-generated history.9
A DIGRESSION BY WAY OF BORGES
The Turkish Historical Society's uncyclopedic undertaking--as a
part-for-whole representation of the entire monstrous apparatus
dedicated to creating a fake history--strongly calls to mind Jorge
Luis Borges' uncanny, nightmarish ficción "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis
Tertius." Not a short story in the usual sense, it is, as the author
points out in the foreword to the collection The Garden of Forking
Paths (1941) in which it first appeared, an example of what he calls
"notes upon imaginary books."10
It is difficult to summarize a commentary on an imaginary book. The
Borgesian narrator describes his dawning awareness of the land
called "Uqbar" (which, as coincidence would have it, is supposed
to be located near Armenia), which is mentioned in some copies of a
certain encyclopaedia. Doubting the very existence of such a place,
he reads that "the literature of Uqbar was fantastic in character,
and that its epics and legends never referred to reality, but to the
two imaginary realms of Mlejnas and Tlön..." (19).
Later, much to his surprise, the narrator encounters one volume of
A First Encyclopaedia of Tlön: "clearly stated, coherent, without
any apparent dogmatic intention of parodic undertone" (22).
It emerges, finally, that this is all part of a vast intellectual
conspiracy born in the 18th century: "A benevolent secret society.. .
came together to invent a country. . . [and] in 1914, the society
forwarded to its collaborators, three hundred in number, the final
volume of the First Encyclopaedia of Tlön. The edition was secret;
the forty volumes which comprised it (the work was vaster than any
previously undertaken by men) were to be the basis for another work,
more detailed, and this time written, not in English, but in some
one of the languages of Tlön. That review of an illusory world was
called, provisionally, Orbis Tertius11..." (31-32).
This might be the end of the story. Except that in a postscript
written seven years later (that is, seven fictional years later),
the narrator reveals, with quiet horror, that the "unreality" of
Tlön begins to intrude into the "reality" of this world:
Contact with Tlön and the ways of Tlön have disintegrated this world
[...] Now, the conjectural 'primitive language' of Tlön has found
its way into the schools. Now, the teaching of its harmonious history,
full of stirring episodes, has obliterated the history that dominated
my childhood. Now, in all memories, a fictitious past occupies the
place of any other. We know nothing about it with any certainty, not
even that it is false. Numismatics, pharmacology and archaeology have
been revised. I gather that biology and mathematics are also awaiting
their avatar. . . . A scattered dynasty of recluses has changed the
face of the earth--and their work continues. If our foresight is not
mistaken, a hundred years from now someone will discover the hundred
volumes of The Second Encyclopaedia of Tlön. Then, English, French,
and mere Spanish will disappear from this planet. The world will be
Tlön (34-35).
For those who follow closely the historiography of the Armenian
Genocide and the simultaneous anti-historiography of the Armenian
Non-Genocide, much of this should sound less like fantasy than like
grim realism. Because when it comes to the history of the Armenian
Genocide, to an alarming extent, we are already living in Tlön.
But how does this process work? How does the unreality of genocide
denial enter into and permeate our world? It is not by means of a
secret society as in Borges' fiction. Mainstream journalism and
scholarship undertake the work--sometimes knowingly, sometimes
unknowingly--of constructing Turkey's Tlön.
For the purposes of this article, one example must suffice: a work
of journalism that swallows whole the idea that the discussion of
the Armenian Genocide is a "debate" and the virtual unknowability of
what is actually a rather well-documented historic event or series of
events. The article by Jack Grove, which appeared last year in the
(London) Times Higher Education, "Can We Ever Know the Truth About
the Armenian 'Genocide?'"12 serves as a good case study, as it is
almost the apotheosis of a "neutral journalistic"13 approach to the
Armenian Genocide that probably unwittingly serves to advance the
cause of genocide denial and the dissemination of unreality.
The strategy of denying the Armenian Genocide outright has mostly
become the exception rather than the rule. This is not to suggest
that what one might call classic, old-school denial14--"There was no
Armenian Genocide and besides they deserved it" does not live on.
Unfortunately, virulent and blatant denial and victimblaming--unlike
analogous Holocaust denial, for instance--is readily available
and often is authored by figures associated with one or more of
the several Turkish-American groups one of the tasks of which is
to import Turkey's war on historical truth. More than 20 years ago,
the pioneering genocide scholar Roger Smith wrote that "[t]he Turkish
argument is elaborate and systematic and, though some of its surface
details have changed over time, its basic structure has remained one
of denial and justification."15 This is still largely the case today,
though one must qualify the phrase "Turkish argument" because not
only, of course, is this not an argument made by all Turks, but also
because denial and justification of the Armenian Genocide are not
limited to Turks.16
Overall, since Smith wrote his important essay, the language and
the content of Turkey's denial have evolved,17 and this evolution
has had its impact on the kind of genocide denial that the average
person might encounter. The blunt instrument of old-school denial
has been honed into a more precise dagger. In the U.S. and Europe,
in particular, in order to advance its agenda of spreading mistruth,
denial exploits cherished ideals such as freedom of speech and the
belief that there must always be two sides to each story.
Instead of confronting the genocide head-on, deniers play upon
widespread ignorance of the subject and seek to create doubt. By
reframing well-documented history as a "controversy" with at least
two legitimate "sides," they engage in spurious, circular debates
with the goal of indefinitely deferring genocide recognition and its
consequences. Prof. Taner Akcam has formulated it well: "we can observe
that on the subject of the Armenian Genocide, the Turkish government
and entities that support its positions follow a very systematic and
aggressive policy in the U.S. The essence of this policy is to make
the idea that '1915 was not genocide' be accepted as normal and as
equivalent to the idea that '1915 was genocide.'"18 Consequently,
if both "it was genocide" and "it was not genocide" are equally
acceptable positions, then of course there can be no such thing as
"genocide denial."
This policy is being pursued in at least two related ways. The first
is a campaign of legal intimidation. Examples include the failed
effort in Massachusetts to sue the Commonwealth's Board of Education
for not including denial-supporting materials in its curriculum on
genocide19 and the thus far dead-on-arrival defamation suit against
the University of Minnesota and its Center for Holocaust and Genocide
Studies for identifying the Turkish Coalition of America's website
as one of many "unreliable" sources.20 This tactic seems intended to
produce "a chilling effect on the ability of scholars and academic
institutions to carry out their work freely."21
Even when such lawsuits fail, they not only serve to intimidate
scholars but also to advance the idea that the subject of the Armenian
Genocide is inherently controversial and disputed, thus helping to
re-frame the discussion in terms congenial to the agenda of new-style
genocide denial. In competitive sports this is known as "working the
refs." If a coach complains constantly about penalties on his team,
the beleaguered referee may unconsciously start balancing things out,
if only to stop the complaints.
But, of course, the complaints never stop. Another form of this tactic
is on display nearly every time a journalist writes anything about
the Armenian Genocide and letters, emails, and phone calls follow
from Turkish officials or domestic pressure groups, to say nothing
of government and business entities seeking to assist a valued ally
regarding a "sensitive" matter.22 It is understandable, though not
excusable, that press outlets alter their coverage in a more "balanced"
way that they think will make these complaints stop or will safeguard
them against legal attacks.
Denial of the Armenian Genocide is only to be expected from advocates
of Turkish state interests. More pernicious, arguably, is the conscious
or unconscious adoption of denialist themes and rhetorical framing
by academics and mainstream journalists. These issues of language
and framing are familiar to anyone who follows media coverage of the
Armenian Genocide. One is accustomed, when reading the arguments of
advocates for the official Turkish position, to encounter leading
questions, euphemisms, distortions, and false equivalences, all
geared towards a certain "spin." Denialist phrasing includes such
old chestnuts as "so-called Armenian genocide," "alleged massacres,"
"Armenian relocation," "civil war," and "necessary wartime security
measure." It should be noted that this maximalist form of denial has
been, if not replaced, then augmented by an ostensibly humane approach
that takes note of Armenian suffering, even acknowledging massacres,
but invariably stresses that the First World War was a time of great
general suffering and that in no way was there a deliberate effort
to eliminate the Armenians.
Sometimes the maximalist approach and the quasi-humane approach rest
cheek by jowl within the same article. For example, Turkish Coalition
of America "resident scholar" Bruce Fein's "Lies, Damn Lies, and
Armenian Deaths" allows that "Armenians have a genuine tale of woe"
but states that they have concocted an exaggerated number of deaths
during the non-genocide to make a more convincing case as they seek
"a 'pound of flesh' from the Republic of Turkey," an eyebrow-raising
comparison of Armenians to Shakespeare's Shylock.23
One is accustomed, too, to the "he said/she said" treatment of the
Armenian Genocide that has become the most frequent fallback position
for many mainstream news media, particularly when (and this is almost
always the case), the writer has no background in the subject matter.
NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen provides a helpful guide to the
hallmarks of he said/she said reporting:
--There's a public dispute.
--The dispute makes news.
--No real attempt is made to assess clashing truth claims in the story,
even though they are in some sense the reason for the story. (Under
the "conflict makes news" test.)
--The means for assessment do exist, so it's possible to exert a
factual check on some of the claims, but for whatever reason the
report declines to make use of them.
--The symmetry of two sides making opposite claims puts the reporter
in the middle between polarized extremes.24
The effort to get influential mainstream newspapers such as the Boston
Globe and New York Times to stop mandating such inane formulations as,
"Armenians claim that as many as 1.5 million...." whereas "Turkey
states that Armenians and a larger number of Turks and Muslims died
as a result of wartime conditions..." met with success despite the
deeply entrenched tendency to engage in false equivalences in the
belief that this demonstrates a lack of bias and shows journalistic
objectivity.25 As Rosen writes, "Journalists associate the middle
with truth, when there may be no reason to...Writing the news so that
it lands somewhere near the 'halfway point between the best and the
worst that might be said about someone' is not a truthtelling impulse
at all, but a refuge-seeking one, and it's possible that this ritual
will distort a given story."26
The problems that Rosen identifies as endemic to he said/she said
journalism are on display in Grove's article "Can We Ever Know
the Truth About the Armenian 'Genocide?'" The problems start with
the title.
The title is a good example of what is known as a loaded question--a
question that is deployed for rhetorical purposes in order to frame
the discussion that follows. To choose another example that has more
current-day resonance that a journalist might ask innocently: "Which
side do you take in the global warming controversy?" Such a question
presupposes the existence of a "controversy," and a controversy
presupposes the existence of two or more opinions or sides with a
more or less equal claim on truth.
To ask the question "Can We Ever Know the Truth About the Armenian
'Genocide?'" is to adopt the language of the party that asserts the
existence of a controversy in the face of overwhelming evidence--a
party that desperately seeks to be recognized as half of a "heated
dispute" rather than as a trafficker in fake history.
The quotation marks around "genocide" signal to readers that the word
thus enclosed is somehow questionable. We cannot know the writer's or
editor's motivation for using those scare quotes. If the "controversy"
is the news, according to Rosen's model, perhaps the scare quotes are
meant to telegraph journalistic objectivity by positing the existence
of a "debate": i.e., was it a genocide or a "genocide"? They may be
read as: "We are not saying it was a genocide, we are not saying it
was not a genocide. We are just reporting on a controversy from a
neutral position." Nevertheless, the scare quotes within a loaded
rhetorical question support the reading that is most congenial to
genocide deniers. Far from staking out an already specious middle
position, the scare quotes place Grove and Times Higher Education
in apparent alignment with those who, "when not able to silence the
question of genocide altogether, [attempt] to sow confusion and doubt
among journalists, policy makers, and the general public."27
The first sentence of the article proper states what appears to be
a simple fact: "Few academic subjects are as politically explosive
as the dispute over the mass killings in Armenia." The writer has
correctly stated that this is an academic subject with political
repercussions. However, instead of proceeding to present an accurate
assessment of the academic consensus28 and the reasons for the
political controversy, which would clearly require a substantial
exploration of the subject, the author follows the path of least
resistance and presents "both sides" of the "dispute," which,
misleadingly, becomes located in the academic realm rather than in
the political.
The second sentence virtually constitutes a statement of the locus
classicus of genocide denial: "Almost 100 years after the alleged
atrocities of 1915-16, arguments still rage over whether the deaths
of between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenian civilians constitute
genocide." "Alleged atrocities": that is to say, even the fact of
atrocities, whether as part of the execution of a genocide or not, is
called into question. A wide range of estimated deaths reinforces the
idea that even after "almost 100 years" we are no nearer to the truth.
The already tenuous grip on logic is altogether lost in the sentences
that follow. "Most historians agree that Ottoman Turks deported
hundreds of thousands of Armenians from eastern Anatolia to the
Syrian desert during the First World War, where they were killed or
died of starvation and disease." Actually all historians agree that
hundreds of thousands of Armenians were deported from Anatolia to the
Syrian desert and that large numbers of them died. Even the Turkish
Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledges the death of as many as
300,000 Armenians.29 Yet Grove cannot deign to present even this as
a firmly established fact.
"But was this a systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenian
people?" Grove asks, "[o]r was it merely part of the widespread
bloodshed--including the deaths of innocent Turkish Muslims--in the
collapsing Ottoman empire?"
A false choice is presented here, because the extermination of the
Armenians was both a systematic attempt to destroy them--a genocide--as
well as part of the overall bloody collapse of the Ottoman Empire
during a world war in which many Turks and Muslims also died.
Likewise: Was the Holocaust a systematic attempt to destroy the Jewish
people? Or was it part of the widespread bloodshed--including the
deaths of innocent German civilians--in the war-torn Nazi empire?
Clearly it was both. Such false opposition, which masquerades as
objectivity in its pretense of emphasizing the tragedy of all loss
of life, is a staple of genocide denial--any genocide denial.30
Our suggestion is not that Grove knowingly drew on the rhetorical
tools of genocide denial or deliberately trivialized the extermination
of the Ottoman Armenians. However, he made no attempt to answer the
questions he posed or to provide any factual information that a reader
could use to formulate a response. In short, he failed to do his job.
The fog of doubt hovering over the author's references to the "alleged
atrocities" and quote-genocide-unquote obscures other facts as well.
Having noted that "Hrant Dink was assassinated by a 17-year-old
nationalist in 2007 after criticizing the country's denialist
stance," he then retreats and states that "[b]efore Dink's death,
such claims had resulted in his being prosecuted for 'denigrating
Turkishness.' The Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk was also prosecuted
for making similar claims." Claims? Did they make claims or did they
make factual statements that brought them into conflict with Turkey's
"denialist stance"? And what, for that matter, is Turkey's denialist
stance? Who formulates it and how is it disseminated? Surely these are
questions whose answers a reader of this article would find relevant,
but Grove either doesn't know or doesn't think this is important
enough to share with readers.
The bulk of the story consists of a collection of quotes from "both
sides" of the spurious "debate." Jeremy Salt of Bilkent University
takes up the classic "Yes, Armenians died, but..." position,
emphasizing "the scale of the catastrophe that overwhelmed the
Ottoman Empire."
All peoples of the dying empire suffered and died from "massacre,
malnutrition, disease, and exposure. Armenians were the perpetrators
as well as the victims of largescale violence...These are the facts
that any historian worth his salt will come across," declares Salt.
Salt's statements call to mind part of Roger Smith's enumeration of the
rhetorical tropes of Turkish denial in 1989: "Armenians suffered and
died, but this was due to wartime conditions and to elements beyond the
control of the government--Kurds, criminals, officials who disobeyed
orders" but "the number of Turks who died was far greater."31 Since
Grove makes no effort to explore the reliability of Salt's account,
the questions need to be asked: What is the purpose of the article
and what is Grove's responsibility towards his readers?
The comments of Hakan Yavuz of the University of Utah department of
political science32 shift the discussion away from history itself and
towards a "debate." He identifies "the Armenian diaspora" as "the key
obstacle to advancing the debate over the causes and consequences of
the events of 1915." The diaspora promotes what he calls "the genocide
thesis" and works towards "silencing those who question their version"
of history.
That is, these are simply two "narratives" of history and neither can
be privileged over the other. Such an approach again calls to mind
Akcam's assessment: "The essence of this policy is to make the idea
that '1915 was not genocide' be accepted as normal and as equivalent
to the idea that '1915 was genocide.'"
Yavuz presents another common talking point: "One may conclude
that the Armenian diaspora seeks to use the genocide issue as the
'societal glue' to keep the community together." Such a statement
deftly avoids addressing what actually occurred historically, and
shifts the discussion away from a discussion of facts and toward the
realm of identity politics.33
While Salt along with Yavuz handle the role of "he said," Akcam is
forced into "she said." His presence in the article appears to result
not from his authorship of numerous significant books and articles on
the Armenian Genocide but because he "told a conference at Glendale
Public Library, Arizona [sic, the event took place in Glendale,
Calif.], in June that he had been informed by a source in Istanbul,
who wished to remain anonymous, that hefty sums have been given to
academics willing to counter Armenian genocide claims."
"Beyond the legal writs, however, the episode has raised questions of
whether free historical investigation of the genocide claims can ever
take place amid the frenzied Turkish-Armenian political climate,"
writes Grove, making use of the doubt-raising term "claims." Akcam
is quoted making no such statement.
Grove writes that Akcam "believes pressure from Ankara has made it
impossible for Turks to look into the subject at home." That assertion
is certainly supportable. But the fact that researchers in Turkey
feel real pressure not to address the Armenian Genocide does not mean
that there is no "free historical investigation of the genocide,"
since Akcam is himself engaged in such work--but not inside Turkey.
Giving the impression that such work is impossible suits the purposes
of those promoting denial, however, inasmuch as it questions the
validity of the large body of scholarship on the Armenian Genocide.
Grove's readers are given no real opportunity to understand the actual
state of "historical investigation" or who actually creates obstacles
and how. A great many readers will come away from it knowing only of
the existence of a somewhat nebulous "debate" that might be historical,
might be political, or might be legal, but the true facts of which are
either unknowable or not important. Or, in Jay Rosen's formulation:
"No real attempt is made to assess clashing truth claims in the story,
even though they are in some sense the reason for the story."
Words written more than 25 years ago by Richard Hovannisian are
perhaps even more applicable today:
As the number of persons who lived through World War I and who have
direct knowledge of the events diminishes, the rationalizers and
debasers of history become all the more audacious . . . At the time
of the deportations and massacres, no reputable publication would
have described the genocide as 'alleged.' The clouding of the past,
however, and the years of Turkish denials, diplomatic and political
pressures, and programs of image improvement have had their impact on
some publishers, correspondents, scholars, and public officials. In
an increasingly skeptical world, the survivors and descendants of the
victims have been thrust into a defensive position from which they are
required to prove time and again that they have indeed been wronged,
individually and collectively.34
The Times Higher Education coverage shows how genocide denial has
evolved a more effective model that seeks to establish itself as
the legitimate "other side of the story." A journalist who can write
without irony of "the alleged atrocities of 1915-16" clearly has fallen
for this tactic. The "competing narratives" approach to the Armenian
(scare-quotes please) "genocide" is the wolf of denial in the sheep's
clothing of "objective reporting." Journalists who fail to see beyond
the trap of "reporting the controversy" have effectively ceased to
engage in journalism and are merely serving as conduits for genocide
denial. Which brings us back to Borges. Each time an "objective,
neutral" outlet uncritically passes along the Turkish state's
historical fictions, the world is that much closer to becoming Tlön.
ENDNOTES
1. The author would like to thank Dr. Lou Ann Matossian for many
helpful suggestions and comments during the writing of this article.
2. The English translation, The Armenians in History and the Armenian
Question, appeared in 1988 with substantial additions and was widely
distributed to libraries. Uras, aka Ahmed Esat, was a former Young
Turk official and a participant in the organization of the Armenian
Genocide. See Hilmar Kaiser, "From Empire to Republic: The Continuities
of Turkish Denial," in Armenian Review 48.3-4 (Fall-Winter 2003),
pp. 1-24.
3. Official Ottoman publications were issued concurrently with
the genocide in order to offer justification of the process
then unfolding. See, for example, The Armenian Aspirations and
Revolutionary Movements (Istanbul, 1916; in English, French, and
German) with its copious photographs of menacing-looking Dashnaks and
Hnchaks and heaps of "confiscated weapons." Taner Akcam has observed
that Talaat Pasha himself "laid the groundwork for the 'official
Turkish version' of the deportation and killings" at the Union and
Progress Party's final congress in November 1918 (A Shameful Act
[New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006] p. 184). For a succinct account
of the importance of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in "the consolidation of
Turkish denial within official Turkish history" see Fatma Ulgen,
"Reading Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on the Armenian Genocide of 1915,"
in Patterns of Prejudice 44.4 (2010).
4. As early as 1924, Edward Hale Bierdstadt would assert, "So far as
I have been able to ascertain, the direct propaganda in which Turkey
indulges is comparatively small...because Turkey has evolved an even
better method of concealing truth and spreading untruth. She makes
her friends work for her" (The Great Betrayal: A Survey of the Near
East Problem [New York: R. M. McBride & Company, 1924], p. 84).
5. Jennifer Dixon, "Defending the Nation? Maintaining Turkey's
Narrative of the Armenian Genocide," in South European Society and
Politics, 15:3, p. 478. Dixon's 2011 UC Berkeley dissertation,
"Changing the State's Story: Continuity and Change in Official
Narratives of Dark Pasts," is by far the most informative source
to date on the production, dissemination, and evolution of Turkey's
official narrative of genocide denial.
6. ibid., pp. 478-479.
7. Original link (no longer operative):
www.armenialive.com/armeniannews/ANKARA--Turkish-Historical-Society-launches-project-on-
Armenian-issue. See
www.armeniandiaspora.com/showthread.php?244763-ANKARA-Turkish-Historical-Society-launches-project-on-Armenian-issu#.T2yH89m1Vw4.
8. "Armenian Question and Turkey: What Hasn't
Been Done and What Should Be Done?" See
http://www.stradigma.com/english/april2003/articles_02.html.
9. Jennifer Dixon describes the Turkish Historical Society as
"quasi-official" and a "nominally an independent foundation" whose
"publications frequently reproduce and advance official ideologies
on a range of topics, including the Armenian question" ("Changing
the State's Story," p. 77 and p. 56, note 140). See also Fatma Muge
Göcek's observation that "[i]n an attempt to place the blame for the
past as well as present violence squarely on the Armenians, the Turkish
state then drew upon its retired diplomats and 'official scholars'
to reconstruct a mythic version of 1915. Through the selective use
of archival documentation, the official Turkish Historical Society
in particular started to build a large body of literature around the
imagined narrative of past events" (The Transformation of Turkey:
Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era
[London: I.B. Tauris, 2010], p. 152).
10. Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones, edited and with an introduction
by Anthony Kerrigan (New York: Grove Press, 1962), pp. 15-16. The
translation of "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is by Alastair Reid.
Further citations given in the text parenthetically.
11. Borges' "Orbis Tertius"(Latin: Third World) is undoubtedly intended
to suggest the Nazi Third Reich. Connections between Orbis Tertius
and Karl Popper's World 3 are worth exploring.
12. The article appeared on Sept. 22, 2011. See
www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=417484.
13. That is to say, one cannot and should not assume that Grove has
any nefarious agenda. On the contrary, it is the very assumption that
he is coming to the topic from an "unbiased" perspective that makes
the article significant.
14. A very partial list of earlier analyses of the evolution of denial
of the Armenian Genocide includes: Rouben Adalian, "The Armenian
Genocide: Revisionism and Denial," in Michael N. Dobkowski and Isidor
Wallimann. eds., Genocide in Our Time: An Annotated Bibliography
with Analytical Introductions (Ann Arbor. Michigan: Pierian Press,
1992); Roger Smith, "Genocide and Denial: The Armenian Case and Its
Implications" (Armenian Review, 42.1 1989) and Richard Hovannisian,
"The Critic's View: Beyond Revisionism" (International Journal of
Middle East Studies, 9.3, Oct., 1978); "The Armenian Genocide and
Patterns of Denial," in The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, ed.
Richard G. Hovannisian (New Brunswick and Oxford: Transaction Books,
1986); "Denial of the Armenian Genocide in Comparison with Holocaust
Denial," in Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide,
ed. Richard G. Hovannisian (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
1999).
15. Smith, p. 6.
16. Nonetheless, because deniers frame the issue as an argument
about (judgment of, accusation of, attack on) Turks, Turkey, or
Turkishness--and, hence, increasingly play the "anti-Turkish" or
"anti-Muslim" card--as opposed to a matter of historical truth, the
"defenders of Turkey" respond by attacking the ethnic/national identity
of their opponents. Hence the tu quoque counterassaults on Armenians,
Armenia, or Armenianness; Western "colonialists," "genocidaires,"
"religious bigots," or "racists," etc.
17. See Dixon, "Changing the State's Story," esp. chapters 3-5.
18. As stated in lecture at the National Association for Armenian
Studies and Research (NAASR), May 2011.
19. See Memorandum and Order, C. A. No. 05-12147-MLW, U.S. District
Court, District of Massachusetts, June 10, 2009.
http://pacer.mad.uscourts.gov/dc/opinions/wolf/pdf/griswold%20opinion%20june%2010%202009.pdf.
20. See
http://www.mndaily.com/sites/default/files/Cingilli%20v%20U%20of%20MN.pdf
for Judge Donovan W. Frank's 3/30/11 dismissal of the case. The
dismissal has been appealed.
21. The quote is from a Jan. 18, 2011 letter from the Middle
East Studies Association (MESA) Committee on Academic Freedom to
Turkish Coalition of America President G. Lincoln McCurdy. See
http://mesa.arizona.edu/committees/academic-freedom/intervention/lettersnorthamerica.html#US20110118.
22. This is not to say, of course, that individual Armenians and
Armenian groups do not also attempt to achieve influence; but the
fact is that the Republic of Armenia cannot be compared as a global
player to Turkey, nor are Armenians able to draw on the considerable
influence of international corporations, ex-government officials,
and lobbyists that support Turkey. See, for example, Luke Rosiak,
"Defense contractors join Turkish lobbying effort in pursuit of arms
deals," http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/
2009/defense-contractors-join-turkish-lobbying-effort-in-pursuit-of-/.
In 2008, Turkey was ranked fifth among foreign governments
in total money spent on lobbying activity and first in
the number of contacts with members of Congress. See
http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/adding-it-top-players-foreign-agent-lobbying/.
23. See
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-fein/lies-damn-lies-and-armeni_b_211408.html.
Fein is also one of the two attorneys at Turkish American Legal
Defense Fund, a project of the Turkish Coalition of America.
24 See http://archive.pressthink.org/2009/04/12/hesaid_shesaid.html.
25. See, for example, Christine Chinlund, "Should We Call It a Massacre
or a Genocide?" Boston Globe, May 5, 2003. The Globe would announce
its change in policy in July 2003.
26. Rosen, "He Said, She Said Journalism."
27. Smith, p. 18.
28. The repeated statements of unanimous affirmation by the
International Association of Genocide Scholars, for instance,
go unmentioned.
29. See "Armenian Claims and Historical Facts,"
http://www.mfa.gov.tr/data/DISPOLITIKA/ErmeniIddialari/ArmenianClaimsandHistoricalFacts.pdf.
This document is part of the Ministry's treatment of the "Controversy
between Turkey and Armenia about the Events of 1915."
30. See, for example, Richard J. Evans, Lying About Hitler (New York:
Basic Books, 2001), for a discussion of David Irving's willingness
to acknowledge large numbers of Jewish deaths but not a systematic
policy of genocide.
31. Smith, p. 19.
32. Yavuz is also the director of the Turkish Coalition
of America-funded program "The Origins of Modern Ethnic
Cleansing: Collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Emergence
of Nation States in the Balkans and Caucasus" at the
University of Utah. For Utah's announcement of the program,
see http://unews.utah.edu/old/p/031009-1.html. The university's
Middle East Center announced in its June 2009 Newsletter (29.2,
p. 11) that "TCA has provided a gift of over $900,000.00
to be used towards research and scholarship." Online at
http://www.humis.utah.edu/humis/docs/organization_302_1249062720.pdf.
33. This does not necessarily mean that the quest for justice for
the victims of the genocide and their descendants is not an important
force in Armenian Diasporan identity, of course. Obviously one can--and
many do--examine the prominence of the genocide in diasporan identity
without fostering doubts about the historical facts themselves. See,
for example, Anny Bakalian, Armenian-Americans: From Being to Feeling
Armenian (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1993).
34. "Patterns of Denial," p. 131.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
The Armenian Weekly Magazine
April 2012
Posted by Marc Mamigonian on June 4, 2012 in Opinion, Special Reports
· 0 Comments · Email · Print
"It has allowed them to question and even to modify the past, which
nowadays is no less malleable or obedient than the future."
--Jorge Luis Borges, 'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius'
It has long been clear--at least since 1950 and the publication of
Esat Uras' Tarihte Ermeniler ve Ermeni Meselesi,2 though, in fact,
probably since 1915 itself3--that the Turkish state, with its allies
and hirelings,4has sought to construct an alternative history in
which, at various times, the Armenians have either not existed,
or existed only as a tool of Western imperialist powers threatening
the integrity of Turkey or the Ottoman Empire; a history in which the
Armenian Genocide cannot be named independent of the words "alleged"
or "so-called." In this sense, the writing of history has served as
a continuation of the genocidal process.
Mainstream journalism and scholarship undertake the work--sometimes
knowingly, sometimes unknowingly--of constructing Turkey's Tlön.
In the past decade, even as a few scholars from Turkey and Turkish
citizens have begun to talk and write more openly about their history,
including the Armenian Genocide, Ankara, perhaps concerned that it is
losing the battle to erase and rewrite history, or, on the contrary,
perhaps because it believes that victory is achievable, has raised
its efforts to a new level. This article examines some of the ways
Turkey creates and disseminates its perversion of history and how
its narrative is (unknowingly or knowingly) passed along to mostly
uninformed readers, with the end result of skewing the discussion
towards a narrative acceptable to Turkey. A comprehensive history
and analysis is well beyond the scope of this article and, in fact,
calls for a book-length study.
Outside Turkey (and perhaps even inside the country) it is not too well
known that there has existed since 2001 an entity called, in Turkish,
Asılsız Soykırım ddiaları ile Mucadele Koordinasyon Kurulu (AS
MKK) or, in English, the Committee to Coordinate the Struggle with
the Baseless Genocide Claims.
According to Jennifer Dixon, a scholar who has researched the
development of the official Turkish historical narrative on the
"Armenian Question," the committee is "[c]o-headed by the Foreign
Minister and the general who heads the National Security Council"
and "also includes high-level representatives from a number of key
government ministries and organizations, including the Ministry of
the Interior, the Turkish Historical Society and the archives." Dixon
further explains that "it appears that its main goals have been
to coordinate and execute a centralized strategy for responding to
international pressures on this issue, and to shape public opinion
in Turkey and abroad on this issue."5
Turkey is thus perhaps the only state with an official or semiofficial
entity devoted exclusively to events that it maintains did not occur.
The committee has not been idle, and the number of publications
devoted to refuting the "Baseless Genocide Claims" has increased
substantially since 2001.6
On June 10, 2010, Turkey's state news outlet Anadolu Agency reported
that in 2011, the Turkish Historical Society (Turk Tarih Kurumu)
would publish a 20-volume encyclopedia that "aims to create the most
comprehensive resource on Armenian problem [sic]." Project director
Prof. Enis Sahin stated, "When we first started this project, we
thought it would be comprised of 5,000-6,000 pages . . . Now it seems
to be a set of books of nearly 20 volumes each with 600 or 700 pages.
It will become an encyclopedia."7 Although the encyclopedia has yet
to appear, this author is informed that it is still in the works.
The creation of the 20-volume Un-cyclopedia of the Armenian
Non-Genocide would likely represent a milestone of sorts in the
state's untiring efforts to negate history. Sahin wrote in 2003:
If Turkey wishes to become a global state or an influential power
in its region, it should overcome the difficulties it faces in the
Armenian Question just like in each issue and should formulate
highly realizable policies in line with its geopolitics and put
them in place. These policies should be adopted as imperatives for
the country; never should there be any concessions from them... It
is evident that Armenian allegations of genocide are a complete
deception... There should be an abundant number of works translated
into foreign languages supporting the Turkish thesis in libraries
and research institutions in these countries.8
Sahin's statements suggest that his agenda is to support and advance
the state's interests (as represented by its official thesis on the
"Armenian Question") by any means necessary. Such remarks might seem
unusual coming from a professor of history, but they are less so when
one remembers that the Turkish Historical Society was created in 1931
by Ataturk for the development and dissemination of Turkey's official,
state-generated history.9
A DIGRESSION BY WAY OF BORGES
The Turkish Historical Society's uncyclopedic undertaking--as a
part-for-whole representation of the entire monstrous apparatus
dedicated to creating a fake history--strongly calls to mind Jorge
Luis Borges' uncanny, nightmarish ficción "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis
Tertius." Not a short story in the usual sense, it is, as the author
points out in the foreword to the collection The Garden of Forking
Paths (1941) in which it first appeared, an example of what he calls
"notes upon imaginary books."10
It is difficult to summarize a commentary on an imaginary book. The
Borgesian narrator describes his dawning awareness of the land
called "Uqbar" (which, as coincidence would have it, is supposed
to be located near Armenia), which is mentioned in some copies of a
certain encyclopaedia. Doubting the very existence of such a place,
he reads that "the literature of Uqbar was fantastic in character,
and that its epics and legends never referred to reality, but to the
two imaginary realms of Mlejnas and Tlön..." (19).
Later, much to his surprise, the narrator encounters one volume of
A First Encyclopaedia of Tlön: "clearly stated, coherent, without
any apparent dogmatic intention of parodic undertone" (22).
It emerges, finally, that this is all part of a vast intellectual
conspiracy born in the 18th century: "A benevolent secret society.. .
came together to invent a country. . . [and] in 1914, the society
forwarded to its collaborators, three hundred in number, the final
volume of the First Encyclopaedia of Tlön. The edition was secret;
the forty volumes which comprised it (the work was vaster than any
previously undertaken by men) were to be the basis for another work,
more detailed, and this time written, not in English, but in some
one of the languages of Tlön. That review of an illusory world was
called, provisionally, Orbis Tertius11..." (31-32).
This might be the end of the story. Except that in a postscript
written seven years later (that is, seven fictional years later),
the narrator reveals, with quiet horror, that the "unreality" of
Tlön begins to intrude into the "reality" of this world:
Contact with Tlön and the ways of Tlön have disintegrated this world
[...] Now, the conjectural 'primitive language' of Tlön has found
its way into the schools. Now, the teaching of its harmonious history,
full of stirring episodes, has obliterated the history that dominated
my childhood. Now, in all memories, a fictitious past occupies the
place of any other. We know nothing about it with any certainty, not
even that it is false. Numismatics, pharmacology and archaeology have
been revised. I gather that biology and mathematics are also awaiting
their avatar. . . . A scattered dynasty of recluses has changed the
face of the earth--and their work continues. If our foresight is not
mistaken, a hundred years from now someone will discover the hundred
volumes of The Second Encyclopaedia of Tlön. Then, English, French,
and mere Spanish will disappear from this planet. The world will be
Tlön (34-35).
For those who follow closely the historiography of the Armenian
Genocide and the simultaneous anti-historiography of the Armenian
Non-Genocide, much of this should sound less like fantasy than like
grim realism. Because when it comes to the history of the Armenian
Genocide, to an alarming extent, we are already living in Tlön.
But how does this process work? How does the unreality of genocide
denial enter into and permeate our world? It is not by means of a
secret society as in Borges' fiction. Mainstream journalism and
scholarship undertake the work--sometimes knowingly, sometimes
unknowingly--of constructing Turkey's Tlön.
For the purposes of this article, one example must suffice: a work
of journalism that swallows whole the idea that the discussion of
the Armenian Genocide is a "debate" and the virtual unknowability of
what is actually a rather well-documented historic event or series of
events. The article by Jack Grove, which appeared last year in the
(London) Times Higher Education, "Can We Ever Know the Truth About
the Armenian 'Genocide?'"12 serves as a good case study, as it is
almost the apotheosis of a "neutral journalistic"13 approach to the
Armenian Genocide that probably unwittingly serves to advance the
cause of genocide denial and the dissemination of unreality.
The strategy of denying the Armenian Genocide outright has mostly
become the exception rather than the rule. This is not to suggest
that what one might call classic, old-school denial14--"There was no
Armenian Genocide and besides they deserved it" does not live on.
Unfortunately, virulent and blatant denial and victimblaming--unlike
analogous Holocaust denial, for instance--is readily available
and often is authored by figures associated with one or more of
the several Turkish-American groups one of the tasks of which is
to import Turkey's war on historical truth. More than 20 years ago,
the pioneering genocide scholar Roger Smith wrote that "[t]he Turkish
argument is elaborate and systematic and, though some of its surface
details have changed over time, its basic structure has remained one
of denial and justification."15 This is still largely the case today,
though one must qualify the phrase "Turkish argument" because not
only, of course, is this not an argument made by all Turks, but also
because denial and justification of the Armenian Genocide are not
limited to Turks.16
Overall, since Smith wrote his important essay, the language and
the content of Turkey's denial have evolved,17 and this evolution
has had its impact on the kind of genocide denial that the average
person might encounter. The blunt instrument of old-school denial
has been honed into a more precise dagger. In the U.S. and Europe,
in particular, in order to advance its agenda of spreading mistruth,
denial exploits cherished ideals such as freedom of speech and the
belief that there must always be two sides to each story.
Instead of confronting the genocide head-on, deniers play upon
widespread ignorance of the subject and seek to create doubt. By
reframing well-documented history as a "controversy" with at least
two legitimate "sides," they engage in spurious, circular debates
with the goal of indefinitely deferring genocide recognition and its
consequences. Prof. Taner Akcam has formulated it well: "we can observe
that on the subject of the Armenian Genocide, the Turkish government
and entities that support its positions follow a very systematic and
aggressive policy in the U.S. The essence of this policy is to make
the idea that '1915 was not genocide' be accepted as normal and as
equivalent to the idea that '1915 was genocide.'"18 Consequently,
if both "it was genocide" and "it was not genocide" are equally
acceptable positions, then of course there can be no such thing as
"genocide denial."
This policy is being pursued in at least two related ways. The first
is a campaign of legal intimidation. Examples include the failed
effort in Massachusetts to sue the Commonwealth's Board of Education
for not including denial-supporting materials in its curriculum on
genocide19 and the thus far dead-on-arrival defamation suit against
the University of Minnesota and its Center for Holocaust and Genocide
Studies for identifying the Turkish Coalition of America's website
as one of many "unreliable" sources.20 This tactic seems intended to
produce "a chilling effect on the ability of scholars and academic
institutions to carry out their work freely."21
Even when such lawsuits fail, they not only serve to intimidate
scholars but also to advance the idea that the subject of the Armenian
Genocide is inherently controversial and disputed, thus helping to
re-frame the discussion in terms congenial to the agenda of new-style
genocide denial. In competitive sports this is known as "working the
refs." If a coach complains constantly about penalties on his team,
the beleaguered referee may unconsciously start balancing things out,
if only to stop the complaints.
But, of course, the complaints never stop. Another form of this tactic
is on display nearly every time a journalist writes anything about
the Armenian Genocide and letters, emails, and phone calls follow
from Turkish officials or domestic pressure groups, to say nothing
of government and business entities seeking to assist a valued ally
regarding a "sensitive" matter.22 It is understandable, though not
excusable, that press outlets alter their coverage in a more "balanced"
way that they think will make these complaints stop or will safeguard
them against legal attacks.
Denial of the Armenian Genocide is only to be expected from advocates
of Turkish state interests. More pernicious, arguably, is the conscious
or unconscious adoption of denialist themes and rhetorical framing
by academics and mainstream journalists. These issues of language
and framing are familiar to anyone who follows media coverage of the
Armenian Genocide. One is accustomed, when reading the arguments of
advocates for the official Turkish position, to encounter leading
questions, euphemisms, distortions, and false equivalences, all
geared towards a certain "spin." Denialist phrasing includes such
old chestnuts as "so-called Armenian genocide," "alleged massacres,"
"Armenian relocation," "civil war," and "necessary wartime security
measure." It should be noted that this maximalist form of denial has
been, if not replaced, then augmented by an ostensibly humane approach
that takes note of Armenian suffering, even acknowledging massacres,
but invariably stresses that the First World War was a time of great
general suffering and that in no way was there a deliberate effort
to eliminate the Armenians.
Sometimes the maximalist approach and the quasi-humane approach rest
cheek by jowl within the same article. For example, Turkish Coalition
of America "resident scholar" Bruce Fein's "Lies, Damn Lies, and
Armenian Deaths" allows that "Armenians have a genuine tale of woe"
but states that they have concocted an exaggerated number of deaths
during the non-genocide to make a more convincing case as they seek
"a 'pound of flesh' from the Republic of Turkey," an eyebrow-raising
comparison of Armenians to Shakespeare's Shylock.23
One is accustomed, too, to the "he said/she said" treatment of the
Armenian Genocide that has become the most frequent fallback position
for many mainstream news media, particularly when (and this is almost
always the case), the writer has no background in the subject matter.
NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen provides a helpful guide to the
hallmarks of he said/she said reporting:
--There's a public dispute.
--The dispute makes news.
--No real attempt is made to assess clashing truth claims in the story,
even though they are in some sense the reason for the story. (Under
the "conflict makes news" test.)
--The means for assessment do exist, so it's possible to exert a
factual check on some of the claims, but for whatever reason the
report declines to make use of them.
--The symmetry of two sides making opposite claims puts the reporter
in the middle between polarized extremes.24
The effort to get influential mainstream newspapers such as the Boston
Globe and New York Times to stop mandating such inane formulations as,
"Armenians claim that as many as 1.5 million...." whereas "Turkey
states that Armenians and a larger number of Turks and Muslims died
as a result of wartime conditions..." met with success despite the
deeply entrenched tendency to engage in false equivalences in the
belief that this demonstrates a lack of bias and shows journalistic
objectivity.25 As Rosen writes, "Journalists associate the middle
with truth, when there may be no reason to...Writing the news so that
it lands somewhere near the 'halfway point between the best and the
worst that might be said about someone' is not a truthtelling impulse
at all, but a refuge-seeking one, and it's possible that this ritual
will distort a given story."26
The problems that Rosen identifies as endemic to he said/she said
journalism are on display in Grove's article "Can We Ever Know
the Truth About the Armenian 'Genocide?'" The problems start with
the title.
The title is a good example of what is known as a loaded question--a
question that is deployed for rhetorical purposes in order to frame
the discussion that follows. To choose another example that has more
current-day resonance that a journalist might ask innocently: "Which
side do you take in the global warming controversy?" Such a question
presupposes the existence of a "controversy," and a controversy
presupposes the existence of two or more opinions or sides with a
more or less equal claim on truth.
To ask the question "Can We Ever Know the Truth About the Armenian
'Genocide?'" is to adopt the language of the party that asserts the
existence of a controversy in the face of overwhelming evidence--a
party that desperately seeks to be recognized as half of a "heated
dispute" rather than as a trafficker in fake history.
The quotation marks around "genocide" signal to readers that the word
thus enclosed is somehow questionable. We cannot know the writer's or
editor's motivation for using those scare quotes. If the "controversy"
is the news, according to Rosen's model, perhaps the scare quotes are
meant to telegraph journalistic objectivity by positing the existence
of a "debate": i.e., was it a genocide or a "genocide"? They may be
read as: "We are not saying it was a genocide, we are not saying it
was not a genocide. We are just reporting on a controversy from a
neutral position." Nevertheless, the scare quotes within a loaded
rhetorical question support the reading that is most congenial to
genocide deniers. Far from staking out an already specious middle
position, the scare quotes place Grove and Times Higher Education
in apparent alignment with those who, "when not able to silence the
question of genocide altogether, [attempt] to sow confusion and doubt
among journalists, policy makers, and the general public."27
The first sentence of the article proper states what appears to be
a simple fact: "Few academic subjects are as politically explosive
as the dispute over the mass killings in Armenia." The writer has
correctly stated that this is an academic subject with political
repercussions. However, instead of proceeding to present an accurate
assessment of the academic consensus28 and the reasons for the
political controversy, which would clearly require a substantial
exploration of the subject, the author follows the path of least
resistance and presents "both sides" of the "dispute," which,
misleadingly, becomes located in the academic realm rather than in
the political.
The second sentence virtually constitutes a statement of the locus
classicus of genocide denial: "Almost 100 years after the alleged
atrocities of 1915-16, arguments still rage over whether the deaths
of between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenian civilians constitute
genocide." "Alleged atrocities": that is to say, even the fact of
atrocities, whether as part of the execution of a genocide or not, is
called into question. A wide range of estimated deaths reinforces the
idea that even after "almost 100 years" we are no nearer to the truth.
The already tenuous grip on logic is altogether lost in the sentences
that follow. "Most historians agree that Ottoman Turks deported
hundreds of thousands of Armenians from eastern Anatolia to the
Syrian desert during the First World War, where they were killed or
died of starvation and disease." Actually all historians agree that
hundreds of thousands of Armenians were deported from Anatolia to the
Syrian desert and that large numbers of them died. Even the Turkish
Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledges the death of as many as
300,000 Armenians.29 Yet Grove cannot deign to present even this as
a firmly established fact.
"But was this a systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenian
people?" Grove asks, "[o]r was it merely part of the widespread
bloodshed--including the deaths of innocent Turkish Muslims--in the
collapsing Ottoman empire?"
A false choice is presented here, because the extermination of the
Armenians was both a systematic attempt to destroy them--a genocide--as
well as part of the overall bloody collapse of the Ottoman Empire
during a world war in which many Turks and Muslims also died.
Likewise: Was the Holocaust a systematic attempt to destroy the Jewish
people? Or was it part of the widespread bloodshed--including the
deaths of innocent German civilians--in the war-torn Nazi empire?
Clearly it was both. Such false opposition, which masquerades as
objectivity in its pretense of emphasizing the tragedy of all loss
of life, is a staple of genocide denial--any genocide denial.30
Our suggestion is not that Grove knowingly drew on the rhetorical
tools of genocide denial or deliberately trivialized the extermination
of the Ottoman Armenians. However, he made no attempt to answer the
questions he posed or to provide any factual information that a reader
could use to formulate a response. In short, he failed to do his job.
The fog of doubt hovering over the author's references to the "alleged
atrocities" and quote-genocide-unquote obscures other facts as well.
Having noted that "Hrant Dink was assassinated by a 17-year-old
nationalist in 2007 after criticizing the country's denialist
stance," he then retreats and states that "[b]efore Dink's death,
such claims had resulted in his being prosecuted for 'denigrating
Turkishness.' The Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk was also prosecuted
for making similar claims." Claims? Did they make claims or did they
make factual statements that brought them into conflict with Turkey's
"denialist stance"? And what, for that matter, is Turkey's denialist
stance? Who formulates it and how is it disseminated? Surely these are
questions whose answers a reader of this article would find relevant,
but Grove either doesn't know or doesn't think this is important
enough to share with readers.
The bulk of the story consists of a collection of quotes from "both
sides" of the spurious "debate." Jeremy Salt of Bilkent University
takes up the classic "Yes, Armenians died, but..." position,
emphasizing "the scale of the catastrophe that overwhelmed the
Ottoman Empire."
All peoples of the dying empire suffered and died from "massacre,
malnutrition, disease, and exposure. Armenians were the perpetrators
as well as the victims of largescale violence...These are the facts
that any historian worth his salt will come across," declares Salt.
Salt's statements call to mind part of Roger Smith's enumeration of the
rhetorical tropes of Turkish denial in 1989: "Armenians suffered and
died, but this was due to wartime conditions and to elements beyond the
control of the government--Kurds, criminals, officials who disobeyed
orders" but "the number of Turks who died was far greater."31 Since
Grove makes no effort to explore the reliability of Salt's account,
the questions need to be asked: What is the purpose of the article
and what is Grove's responsibility towards his readers?
The comments of Hakan Yavuz of the University of Utah department of
political science32 shift the discussion away from history itself and
towards a "debate." He identifies "the Armenian diaspora" as "the key
obstacle to advancing the debate over the causes and consequences of
the events of 1915." The diaspora promotes what he calls "the genocide
thesis" and works towards "silencing those who question their version"
of history.
That is, these are simply two "narratives" of history and neither can
be privileged over the other. Such an approach again calls to mind
Akcam's assessment: "The essence of this policy is to make the idea
that '1915 was not genocide' be accepted as normal and as equivalent
to the idea that '1915 was genocide.'"
Yavuz presents another common talking point: "One may conclude
that the Armenian diaspora seeks to use the genocide issue as the
'societal glue' to keep the community together." Such a statement
deftly avoids addressing what actually occurred historically, and
shifts the discussion away from a discussion of facts and toward the
realm of identity politics.33
While Salt along with Yavuz handle the role of "he said," Akcam is
forced into "she said." His presence in the article appears to result
not from his authorship of numerous significant books and articles on
the Armenian Genocide but because he "told a conference at Glendale
Public Library, Arizona [sic, the event took place in Glendale,
Calif.], in June that he had been informed by a source in Istanbul,
who wished to remain anonymous, that hefty sums have been given to
academics willing to counter Armenian genocide claims."
"Beyond the legal writs, however, the episode has raised questions of
whether free historical investigation of the genocide claims can ever
take place amid the frenzied Turkish-Armenian political climate,"
writes Grove, making use of the doubt-raising term "claims." Akcam
is quoted making no such statement.
Grove writes that Akcam "believes pressure from Ankara has made it
impossible for Turks to look into the subject at home." That assertion
is certainly supportable. But the fact that researchers in Turkey
feel real pressure not to address the Armenian Genocide does not mean
that there is no "free historical investigation of the genocide,"
since Akcam is himself engaged in such work--but not inside Turkey.
Giving the impression that such work is impossible suits the purposes
of those promoting denial, however, inasmuch as it questions the
validity of the large body of scholarship on the Armenian Genocide.
Grove's readers are given no real opportunity to understand the actual
state of "historical investigation" or who actually creates obstacles
and how. A great many readers will come away from it knowing only of
the existence of a somewhat nebulous "debate" that might be historical,
might be political, or might be legal, but the true facts of which are
either unknowable or not important. Or, in Jay Rosen's formulation:
"No real attempt is made to assess clashing truth claims in the story,
even though they are in some sense the reason for the story."
Words written more than 25 years ago by Richard Hovannisian are
perhaps even more applicable today:
As the number of persons who lived through World War I and who have
direct knowledge of the events diminishes, the rationalizers and
debasers of history become all the more audacious . . . At the time
of the deportations and massacres, no reputable publication would
have described the genocide as 'alleged.' The clouding of the past,
however, and the years of Turkish denials, diplomatic and political
pressures, and programs of image improvement have had their impact on
some publishers, correspondents, scholars, and public officials. In
an increasingly skeptical world, the survivors and descendants of the
victims have been thrust into a defensive position from which they are
required to prove time and again that they have indeed been wronged,
individually and collectively.34
The Times Higher Education coverage shows how genocide denial has
evolved a more effective model that seeks to establish itself as
the legitimate "other side of the story." A journalist who can write
without irony of "the alleged atrocities of 1915-16" clearly has fallen
for this tactic. The "competing narratives" approach to the Armenian
(scare-quotes please) "genocide" is the wolf of denial in the sheep's
clothing of "objective reporting." Journalists who fail to see beyond
the trap of "reporting the controversy" have effectively ceased to
engage in journalism and are merely serving as conduits for genocide
denial. Which brings us back to Borges. Each time an "objective,
neutral" outlet uncritically passes along the Turkish state's
historical fictions, the world is that much closer to becoming Tlön.
ENDNOTES
1. The author would like to thank Dr. Lou Ann Matossian for many
helpful suggestions and comments during the writing of this article.
2. The English translation, The Armenians in History and the Armenian
Question, appeared in 1988 with substantial additions and was widely
distributed to libraries. Uras, aka Ahmed Esat, was a former Young
Turk official and a participant in the organization of the Armenian
Genocide. See Hilmar Kaiser, "From Empire to Republic: The Continuities
of Turkish Denial," in Armenian Review 48.3-4 (Fall-Winter 2003),
pp. 1-24.
3. Official Ottoman publications were issued concurrently with
the genocide in order to offer justification of the process
then unfolding. See, for example, The Armenian Aspirations and
Revolutionary Movements (Istanbul, 1916; in English, French, and
German) with its copious photographs of menacing-looking Dashnaks and
Hnchaks and heaps of "confiscated weapons." Taner Akcam has observed
that Talaat Pasha himself "laid the groundwork for the 'official
Turkish version' of the deportation and killings" at the Union and
Progress Party's final congress in November 1918 (A Shameful Act
[New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006] p. 184). For a succinct account
of the importance of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in "the consolidation of
Turkish denial within official Turkish history" see Fatma Ulgen,
"Reading Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on the Armenian Genocide of 1915,"
in Patterns of Prejudice 44.4 (2010).
4. As early as 1924, Edward Hale Bierdstadt would assert, "So far as
I have been able to ascertain, the direct propaganda in which Turkey
indulges is comparatively small...because Turkey has evolved an even
better method of concealing truth and spreading untruth. She makes
her friends work for her" (The Great Betrayal: A Survey of the Near
East Problem [New York: R. M. McBride & Company, 1924], p. 84).
5. Jennifer Dixon, "Defending the Nation? Maintaining Turkey's
Narrative of the Armenian Genocide," in South European Society and
Politics, 15:3, p. 478. Dixon's 2011 UC Berkeley dissertation,
"Changing the State's Story: Continuity and Change in Official
Narratives of Dark Pasts," is by far the most informative source
to date on the production, dissemination, and evolution of Turkey's
official narrative of genocide denial.
6. ibid., pp. 478-479.
7. Original link (no longer operative):
www.armenialive.com/armeniannews/ANKARA--Turkish-Historical-Society-launches-project-on-
Armenian-issue. See
www.armeniandiaspora.com/showthread.php?244763-ANKARA-Turkish-Historical-Society-launches-project-on-Armenian-issu#.T2yH89m1Vw4.
8. "Armenian Question and Turkey: What Hasn't
Been Done and What Should Be Done?" See
http://www.stradigma.com/english/april2003/articles_02.html.
9. Jennifer Dixon describes the Turkish Historical Society as
"quasi-official" and a "nominally an independent foundation" whose
"publications frequently reproduce and advance official ideologies
on a range of topics, including the Armenian question" ("Changing
the State's Story," p. 77 and p. 56, note 140). See also Fatma Muge
Göcek's observation that "[i]n an attempt to place the blame for the
past as well as present violence squarely on the Armenians, the Turkish
state then drew upon its retired diplomats and 'official scholars'
to reconstruct a mythic version of 1915. Through the selective use
of archival documentation, the official Turkish Historical Society
in particular started to build a large body of literature around the
imagined narrative of past events" (The Transformation of Turkey:
Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era
[London: I.B. Tauris, 2010], p. 152).
10. Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones, edited and with an introduction
by Anthony Kerrigan (New York: Grove Press, 1962), pp. 15-16. The
translation of "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is by Alastair Reid.
Further citations given in the text parenthetically.
11. Borges' "Orbis Tertius"(Latin: Third World) is undoubtedly intended
to suggest the Nazi Third Reich. Connections between Orbis Tertius
and Karl Popper's World 3 are worth exploring.
12. The article appeared on Sept. 22, 2011. See
www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=417484.
13. That is to say, one cannot and should not assume that Grove has
any nefarious agenda. On the contrary, it is the very assumption that
he is coming to the topic from an "unbiased" perspective that makes
the article significant.
14. A very partial list of earlier analyses of the evolution of denial
of the Armenian Genocide includes: Rouben Adalian, "The Armenian
Genocide: Revisionism and Denial," in Michael N. Dobkowski and Isidor
Wallimann. eds., Genocide in Our Time: An Annotated Bibliography
with Analytical Introductions (Ann Arbor. Michigan: Pierian Press,
1992); Roger Smith, "Genocide and Denial: The Armenian Case and Its
Implications" (Armenian Review, 42.1 1989) and Richard Hovannisian,
"The Critic's View: Beyond Revisionism" (International Journal of
Middle East Studies, 9.3, Oct., 1978); "The Armenian Genocide and
Patterns of Denial," in The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, ed.
Richard G. Hovannisian (New Brunswick and Oxford: Transaction Books,
1986); "Denial of the Armenian Genocide in Comparison with Holocaust
Denial," in Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide,
ed. Richard G. Hovannisian (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
1999).
15. Smith, p. 6.
16. Nonetheless, because deniers frame the issue as an argument
about (judgment of, accusation of, attack on) Turks, Turkey, or
Turkishness--and, hence, increasingly play the "anti-Turkish" or
"anti-Muslim" card--as opposed to a matter of historical truth, the
"defenders of Turkey" respond by attacking the ethnic/national identity
of their opponents. Hence the tu quoque counterassaults on Armenians,
Armenia, or Armenianness; Western "colonialists," "genocidaires,"
"religious bigots," or "racists," etc.
17. See Dixon, "Changing the State's Story," esp. chapters 3-5.
18. As stated in lecture at the National Association for Armenian
Studies and Research (NAASR), May 2011.
19. See Memorandum and Order, C. A. No. 05-12147-MLW, U.S. District
Court, District of Massachusetts, June 10, 2009.
http://pacer.mad.uscourts.gov/dc/opinions/wolf/pdf/griswold%20opinion%20june%2010%202009.pdf.
20. See
http://www.mndaily.com/sites/default/files/Cingilli%20v%20U%20of%20MN.pdf
for Judge Donovan W. Frank's 3/30/11 dismissal of the case. The
dismissal has been appealed.
21. The quote is from a Jan. 18, 2011 letter from the Middle
East Studies Association (MESA) Committee on Academic Freedom to
Turkish Coalition of America President G. Lincoln McCurdy. See
http://mesa.arizona.edu/committees/academic-freedom/intervention/lettersnorthamerica.html#US20110118.
22. This is not to say, of course, that individual Armenians and
Armenian groups do not also attempt to achieve influence; but the
fact is that the Republic of Armenia cannot be compared as a global
player to Turkey, nor are Armenians able to draw on the considerable
influence of international corporations, ex-government officials,
and lobbyists that support Turkey. See, for example, Luke Rosiak,
"Defense contractors join Turkish lobbying effort in pursuit of arms
deals," http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/
2009/defense-contractors-join-turkish-lobbying-effort-in-pursuit-of-/.
In 2008, Turkey was ranked fifth among foreign governments
in total money spent on lobbying activity and first in
the number of contacts with members of Congress. See
http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/adding-it-top-players-foreign-agent-lobbying/.
23. See
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-fein/lies-damn-lies-and-armeni_b_211408.html.
Fein is also one of the two attorneys at Turkish American Legal
Defense Fund, a project of the Turkish Coalition of America.
24 See http://archive.pressthink.org/2009/04/12/hesaid_shesaid.html.
25. See, for example, Christine Chinlund, "Should We Call It a Massacre
or a Genocide?" Boston Globe, May 5, 2003. The Globe would announce
its change in policy in July 2003.
26. Rosen, "He Said, She Said Journalism."
27. Smith, p. 18.
28. The repeated statements of unanimous affirmation by the
International Association of Genocide Scholars, for instance,
go unmentioned.
29. See "Armenian Claims and Historical Facts,"
http://www.mfa.gov.tr/data/DISPOLITIKA/ErmeniIddialari/ArmenianClaimsandHistoricalFacts.pdf.
This document is part of the Ministry's treatment of the "Controversy
between Turkey and Armenia about the Events of 1915."
30. See, for example, Richard J. Evans, Lying About Hitler (New York:
Basic Books, 2001), for a discussion of David Irving's willingness
to acknowledge large numbers of Jewish deaths but not a systematic
policy of genocide.
31. Smith, p. 19.
32. Yavuz is also the director of the Turkish Coalition
of America-funded program "The Origins of Modern Ethnic
Cleansing: Collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Emergence
of Nation States in the Balkans and Caucasus" at the
University of Utah. For Utah's announcement of the program,
see http://unews.utah.edu/old/p/031009-1.html. The university's
Middle East Center announced in its June 2009 Newsletter (29.2,
p. 11) that "TCA has provided a gift of over $900,000.00
to be used towards research and scholarship." Online at
http://www.humis.utah.edu/humis/docs/organization_302_1249062720.pdf.
33. This does not necessarily mean that the quest for justice for
the victims of the genocide and their descendants is not an important
force in Armenian Diasporan identity, of course. Obviously one can--and
many do--examine the prominence of the genocide in diasporan identity
without fostering doubts about the historical facts themselves. See,
for example, Anny Bakalian, Armenian-Americans: From Being to Feeling
Armenian (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1993).
34. "Patterns of Denial," p. 131.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress