RUBEN POGHOSIAN’S BOOK ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Azg/am
22 July 2004

The Azg Daily’s library enriched recently with Ruben Poghosianâ=80=99s
book titled “Different approaches to the Armenian Genocide”. The book
was published by the Tekeyan Cultural Center in Aleppo in 2000. This
small in size but rather interesting book consists of a prologue, 10
chapters and an epilogue. The appendix of the book presents facts from
all over the world concerning the Armenian Genocide.

It is interesting that the name of Mustafa Kemal, founder of modern
Turkey, is among those recognizing the Genocide. Famous Turkish
sociologist Taner Akcam agrees with the author saying that Kemal
accepted the fact of 800 thousand Armenians being slaughtered during
the WW I.

The preface of the book, written by Alexan Keshishian, briefly
presents the scientific and social activities of the author, stressing
his profession of lawyer and his Ph.D. at Sorbonne University in
1952. The author participated in many scientific conferences including
ones on the Armenian Genocide. He is an author of many monographs, of
more than 100 articles in Armenia, French, English and Arabian
languages. In 1960 the UN invited Ruben Poghosian to work as a judge
and then as a supreme prosecutor in Congo.

In his book Poghosian deals with such issues as Armenians and the
concept of Genocide, the official pose of the Armenian and the Turkish
governments, attitudes of the Turkish intelligentsia, approaches of
the neighboring countries, views of the foreigners, general views in
the Arabian countries and the states openly acknowledging the fact of
the Genocide. He concludes at the end: “This preview of the existing
approaches to the Armenian Genocide reveal all complexity of the
problem and consciously bring to a conclusion that we, Armenians, were
unable to unite and systemize our efforts in order to level the issue
with international problems”.

All these stress the importance of Ruben Poghosian’s work, and his
thoughts over the scientific conference dedicated to the 80-th
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide are very up-to-date. The former
Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosian and his counselor Zhirayr
Liparitian headed the above-mentioned conference. If one of them
trying to emphasize the impertinence of the Armenian Genocide said:
“Today Armenia and Turkey have a great task to overcome the historic
challenges by establishing good relations”, than the second one tried
to transform the Armenian Genocide into a “phenomenon” evading the
word “genocide”.

The author touches upon the issue on the 16-th page: “This process,
launched by Zhirayr Shalian in 1983 and carried on by Zhirayr
Liparitian was to Turkey’ s delight and was unacceptable for us, the
Armenian Diaspora”. Though Liparitian has left Armenia and
Ter-Petrosian is president no more, the American non-scientific
structures keep on benefiting from the Armenian Genocide.

It is obvious that those structures have unlimited opportunities. In
other words if they are willing the recurrence of 80-th anniversary
this year during the upcoming conference then they can put forward
another representative, in the title of “enemy of patriotism”, of the
American intelligentsia instead of Liparitian. Financial support will
be enough for such a person to find effete snobs in Armenia. In this
case the task could be considered carried out. Consequently Ruben
Poghosian’s book is not just interesting but also teaches how to learn
on our mistakes and avoid all possible fraudulent activities during
the scientific conference dedicated to the 90-th anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide.

By Hakob Chakrian