MURDERS, MYTHS, AND PUBLIC BROADCASTING

LA Voice, California
March 9 2006

When 1.5 million people die, you’d think it’d be a pretty open and
shut case. But PBS, the great provoker of thought, has an upcoming
documentary called “The Armenian Genocide”, which will be followed
on some stations by a panel discussion pitting genocide historians
against “so-called scholars” who claim the Armenian genocide was a
myth. Today’s L.A. Times carries an opinion piece by Aris Janigian,
local author and second generation Armenian-American, who denounces
PBS’ proposed debate.

Jacoba Atlas, the senior V.P. of programming at PBS says, “We believe
[the genocide] is settled history,” but thinks, “it seemed like a
good idea to have a panel and let people have their say.” And they’re
committed to it. According to genocide historian Peter Balakian,
PBS threatened to scrap the entire documentary if he and another
genocide scholar declined to participate in the panel.

Janigian denounces PBS’ idea as “perverse” and doubts whether people
would tolerate a panel discussion between David Irving, a “notorious
holocaust revisionist,” and Elie Wiesel, following a documentary on
Nazi concentration camps.

Janigian suggests the whole affair is an example of PBS “capitulation
to politics.” Turks, “America’s so-called allies” according to
Janigian, are fiercely protective of their country’s reputation and
even created Article 301 in their penal code, which makes it a crime to
“‘denigrate’ Turkey by, for instance, mentioning the Armenian genocide
in public.” And we all saw “Midnight Express”, so we know what the
Turkish penal system can do to a man.

It really is startling that there could be so much debate over such
an extensive crime. And yet I’m interested to hear how the deaths of
over a million people could be a “myth”. History becomes nebulous
almost immediately after it happens, with perspectives clashing
against perspectives, context colliding with subtext, all mixed
together with personal agendas, sealed over by the mists of time,
until reality becomes relative.