An interview with Ara Sarafian – Turkish review VIRGUL- Issue 95 – May 2006
23050)
dimanche 4 juin 2006, Stéphane/armenews
AN INTERVIEW WITH ARA SARAFIAN
published in the monthly book review Virgul, Issue 95, May 2006
OSMAN KOKER : If I remember right your name was first heard in Turkey
in the year 1995 when your research at the Ottoman Archives was
interrupted by the officials there. In the past few years your name is
mentioned in connection with the `Treatment of Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire 1915-1916′, known as the “Blue Book”.
At the conference in the Istanbul University on 15-17 March you made a
presentation about the Blue Book. Why did you choose the Blue Book as
your topic ?
ARA SARAFIAN : I chose this subject because it is topical in Turkey,
and because the Blue Book issue reflects the disturbing face of the
official Turkish thesis on the Armenian Genocide. The whole case
against the Blue Book, according to the official Turkish thesis,
relies on deliberate misinformation about the subject. This is why I
call many of my antagonists `denier’ of the Armenian Genocide rather
than people I disagree with.
O.K. : How was the Blue Book prepared ?
A.S. : The Blue Book was originally compiled as a report. We do not
know how the decision was taken to request such a report, but
certainly we do know that its compilers, Arnold Toynbee and James
Bryce, acted in good faith when putting it together. We can make this
assertions because we have Toynbee’s working papers from this period
(including his correspondence with Bryce), as well as his later
published works where he talks about the Blue Book and the Armenian
Genocide.
O.K. : What are the criteria employed in deciding to include a witness
account in the book ? Do you think these criteria are reliable ?
A.S. : The key criteria for the inclusion of reports in the Blue Book
was that sources had to be authentic primary records (eye-witness
accounts). Most of these reports were from a neutral United States,
which had its consulates in the interior of the Ottoman Empire until
April 1917. These consuls reported what they saw around them, and they
also forwarded other reports written by Americans and non-Americans in
these regions, such as the letters of American, German, or Swiss
missionaries.
Given these source of information, Toynbee and Bryce did not doubt the
originality of these accounts from the Ottoman Empire, and they judged
their value as primary sources on a record by record basis.
I think the criteria used by Toynbee and Bryce to gather and assess
their materials were creditworthy under the circumstances. They even
made provisions for possible errors creeping in by basing their case
on the weight of all the evidence without relying on one or two
documents. They also, for example, made sure that, the core narrative
of events rested on the evidence of Americans, Germans and other
foreigners, in case the `native evidence’ (those from Armenian or
Assyrian sources) may have overstated what they saw.
In fact, when they did so, they realised that the strongest reports
were provided by non-Armenians, and that the `native evidence’ merely
provided additional information.
According to the available evidence, the report that was compiled by
Bryce and Toynbee was accepted as a Parliamentary Blue Book in the
summer of 1916 because of the strong case it represented. Certainly
Toynbee had no idea that the report he compiled would become a
Parliamentary report.
The strength of the Blue Book today lies in the fact that we have a
complete record of how it was put together. We also know where (most
of) the original documentation came from, as well as how these
documents were selected from a wider body of archival records in the
United States. This is why we can still find the original records
today (and can not simply speculate about their real or fictitious
origins).
I used these archival and published sources to carefully annotate my
critical edition of the 1916 work.
O.K. : Do you think we can refer to the Blue Book as a propaganda
tool? What were the means/methods used by the British in their
propaganda efforts at that time ?
A.S. : The British used propaganda as part of their war effort. Some
of this was crude, and some of it not so crude. The British government
was careful such propaganda did not backfire. That is why they did not
publish anything on Ottoman Turkey early in the war (for example when
they were landing at Gallipoli), because they did not have reliable
information. They were concerned that, if they made a poor case
against the Ottoman Empire, it would offend the Muslim population of
the British Empire. The first pamphlet they printed, not under an
official title, was after October 1915-when they first began receiving
reliable information about the destruction of Armenians. In fact, the
basis of that booklet was a speech Bryce made in Parliament, based on
the new evidence from the USA. Toynbee was asked to create a
publication from Bryce’s speech, which is what he did, and it was
published under his own name.
As more evidence of atrocities against Armenians was revealed, Toynbee
and Bryce continued to collect such records in a more formal way in
February 1916, for a more critical and systematic report. Once the
decision was taken to publish the Blue Book, it was used for effective
propaganda purposes. However, the work itself was not compromised by
crude propaganda considerations, nor fabricated as some deniers of the
Armenian Genocide like to suggest. The Blue Book was compiled to a
high academic standard, and the archival records we have today support
this point out.
O.K. : As you know, Ottoman Empire too published a book, `Ermeni
Komitelerinin Amal ve Harekat-i Ihtilaliyesi’, for propaganda purposes
about the Armenian issue during the WWI. What can you say on this book?
A.S. : Regarding Ottoman wartime propaganda against Armenians, it
cannot be compared with the Blue Book. Turkish nationalists have
republished the Ottoman government’s anti-Armenian propaganda without
serious examination where the records came from, who compiled and
edited them, who forwarded them to the compilers, where the original
materials are today, how records were included or excluded from the
Ottoman publication, etc. It would be an interesting exercise for the
TTK (Turkish History Association) to undertake and publish such an
annotated republication, as the Gomidas Institute has done for the
Blue Book.
O.K. : You are the editor of the 2000 “uncensored” edition of the Blue
Book ? What does “uncensored” mean ?
A.S. : I am the editor of the 2000 and the 2005 `uncensored’ editions!
The latter one came out last year with minor additions in the
introduction.
I decided to call my annotated republication the `uncensored edition’
because I included information that was left out of the original
publication. In 1916, many of the witnesses whose reports appeared in
the Blue Book, were still in the Ottoman Empire (for example, the US
consuls in Trabzon, Harput, Aleppo, Mersin). The British could not
reveal the identities of these people for obvious reasons. In other
cases, the eyewitness accounts were so specific, that the identities
of the sources inside the Ottoman Empire could be revealed by the
witness statements, so some place names also had to be obscured as
well. When Toynbee censured such information he also placed it into a
confidential key, which was not made generally available-except to
trusted individuals.
Toynbee also explained all of this in his introduction to the main
volume.
The confidential key was made public after WWI and has been in print
for the past 50 years. So, when we reproduced the Blue Book at the
Gomidas Institute, we also put all of this information back into the
main work. This is why we called it the `uncensored edition,’ because
we put all of the missing information that was taken out in 1916 was
put back into the main text.
Deniers of the Blue Book today do not acknowledge these facts and
argue that the Blue Book hid its sources because the report used by
the British were fictitious ! Recently, at the Istanbul University
Symposium, Sukru Elekdag claimed that Justin McCarthy had just
`discovered’ a copy of the key in the British National Archives at
Kew, and that the key showed that the reports comprising the Blue Book
were not creditworthy. Of course, Elekdag’s assertions remain absurd :
as mentioned before, the key to the Blue Book has been available for
many decades. Furthermore, if one looked at McCarthy’s work over the
last 20 years, one can see in his bibliographies that he has been
consulting archival collections that have included the confidential
key (most notably the Toynbee Papers, Record Group of the State
Department). In fact the same is also true for other deniers, such as
Mim Kemal Ã-ke, Salahi Sonyel, Kamuran Gurun and others. The
publication of the `uncensored edition’ of the Blue Book has forced
McCarthy to change his position, but it is not enough to save him. He
has acknowledged the key only to claim (again wrongly) that the
content of the Blue Book is inadequate.
Other than collapsing the confidential key back into the main Blue
Book, I also used the Toynbee Papers in the British National Archives
to trace the original records that were sent to him. Having traced the
bulk of these records to the United States National Archives, I
checked if the reports sent to the British were selective (i.e. were
there any reports which did not support the Armenian Genocide thesis
?), and if the accounts that were sent were changed by communicants in
the USA or by Bryce and Toynbee themselves. I then annotated the blue
book with this additional information, including full citations where
the original records could be found, and I gave my analysis in a new
introduction to the `uncensored’ Blue Book.
What were the results ? The Blue Book was exactly what it claimed it
was in its original introduction. It was carefully put together with
the authenticity of each document examined. I can also say that the
U.S. reports appearing in the Blue Book were not selective nor
distorted. In fact, if we added all of the missing records from the
State Department files (i.e.including those which were not sent to the
British in 1916), the Blue Book thesis would actually be
strengthened. Some of the worst accounts about the Armenian Genocide
were not made public by the Americans-but we can certainly read them
today.
I have also published these sources in another book called `United
States Official Records on the Armenian Genocide 1915-17′ and these
records (and more) will soon appear on the internet on
_www.gomidas.org_ () .
O.K. : Turkish retired ambassador and member of parliament Sukru
Elekdag said, in the conference at the Istanbul University, that the
Blue Book was the “last fortress of the Armenian genocide
allegations”. Is this true ? Aren’t there any other publications or
archival records on Armenian genocide.
A.S. : Sukru Elekdag is like the captain of a sinking ship who
continues telling his passengers that he knows what he is doing. The
Blue Book issue is a personal debacle for him, as well as others who
have worked for him on this issue. The choice of staking Turkey’s
reputation on the denial of the Blue Book was a political blunder
which will only bring shame to the Turkish republic.
I say the Turkish republic because Elekdag managed to get the whole
TGNA behind him on this issue. I do not feel sorry for Elekdag, but I
feel sorry for those well meaning Turks who trusted his judgement.
Furthermore, at the Istanbul University symposium, Elekdag claimed
that his Blue Book campaign was part of the Turkish government’s peace
initiative last year to resolve the Turkish-Armenian issue and to hand
down a peaceful legacy to future generations of Armenians,Turks (and
presumably Kurds). If his Blue Book campaign is a measure of that
initiative, then we have to questions the actual peaceful intentions
of the Turkish authorities.
Elekdag and his supporters seem to be mocking us when addressing the
Armenian issue. They seem to believe that they are in a position of
power, and that they think they can get away with anything they
want. They are part of the problem in Turkish-Armenian relations
today, not part of the solution.
I suggest Turkish intellectuals consider carefully the case I am
making here. The Blue Book issue is very instructive how Turkey looks
in the outside world-especially as the TGNA has made it into an
international issue.
I believe the most important sources that are available on the
Armenian Genocide are the memoirs of Armenian survivors. Many of these
sources are incredibly detailed and provide the perspective of
victims. Then there are the diplomatic records of the United States,
Germany, Italy and other countries. Of course Ottoman records have
their own significance, though I cannot comment on them. I was only
recently readmitted back into Ottoman archives and I hope to have the
opportunity to return to Turkey and work with such materials as well.
The Gomidas Institute has published the memoirs and diaries of foreign
diplomats and missionaries, such as the diaries of Ambassador
Morgenthau. The latter manuscript was published in its entirety,
because it is a crucial primary source. It also supports Morgenthau’s
stance on the Armenian issue. Most people in Turkey know about
Morgenthau because of Heath Lowry’s booklet which misrepresents
Morgenthau’s reports and diaries and castigating the American
ambassador as some sort of an Armenian puppet. Heath Lowry’s
assessment of Morgenthau is wrong and part of Elekdag’s denialist
campaign from the 1980s. Lowry and Elekdag have worked together
closely to deny the Armenian Genocide. In fact, there was a big
scandal about this very subject not so long ago, following a clerical
error at the Turkish embassy, when Lowry’s correspondence with
Elekdag, where they discussed the denial of the Armenian Genocide, was
sent to an American scholar. That scholar exposed this correspondence
and there is plenty of information about that scandal on the internet.
The Gomidas Institute is currently fund-raising so that it can
continue its research and publishing work, in English, Armenian and
hopefully Turkish. Right now we have a number of key books to
publish, including translations in our new Turkish language series.
However, as an independent academic institution, the Gomidas Institute
has no government or other institutional backing. We are also not a
lobbying organisation. We have to raise funds for each project we
undertake and each book we publish. Sometimes we have to refuse
funding because potential sponsors try to twist our work for partisan
purposes. Like many other institutions, we have to remain vigilant to
maintaining our academic integrity. There is no question where we
stand in such matters. I hope we will continue our work and start
cooperating with similar institutions in Turkey.
O.K. : Have you come across reference to a specific incident mentioned
in the Blue Book in some other records/archival documents or books ?
A.S. : Yes. For example, the events in Harpout, including the mass
murder of Armenian community leaders are corroborated in the diaries
of Maria Jacobsen and Tacy Atkinson, as well as the memoirs of Henry
Riggs. Similarly, the appalling condition of Armenian deportees in
Osmaniye are corroborated by many sources, including the diaries of an
Armenian schoolboy from Corum, Vahram Dadrian. There are many such
examples.
O.K. : What do you think is the significance of the Istanbul
University symposium on the future of Turkish Armenian relations ? And
what are your expectations to follow ?
A.S. : By holding this conference, the participants at the Istanbul
University symposium demonstrated a fundamental point : the treatment
of Armenians in 1915, including the Armenian Genocide thesis, is a
legitimate topic of discussion in Turkey today. This is a radical
departure from the past, when the subject was both a taboo and
proscribed by law. This does not mean that the official Turkish
thesis, which does not recognize the Armenian Genocide, has
changed. But it does mean that the subject is open to scrutiny and
discussion.
I expect that there will be many participants in future discussions,
where Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian and other historians will agree and
disagree on concrete historical issues regarding their common
history. I hope it will be a fruitful endeavour.
Even now, many ethnic Turks do not agree with the official Turkish
thesis, just as many Armenian historians do not agree with the
established Armenian one. The important thing is that the Armenian
Genocide (and the genocide of Assyrians) can now be addressed within
the boundaries of sensible academic debates.
O.K. : It was a big surprise for us that Yusuf Halacoglu, head of the
TTK (Turkish History Association), offered you to make researches
together and you accepted it. Doesn’t the Gomidas Institute and the
TTK stand in opposition to each other on the events of 1915 ?
A.S. : Despite all our differences in the past, I accepted
Dr. Halacoglu’s offer in good faith. I will try to work with him and
the TTK as well as I can. The TTK and the Gomidas Institute stands in
opposition to each other on the events of 1915. But I hope we can show
by our example that it is still possible to agree and disagree with
each other in a scholarly manner, in the interest of truth, as well as
peace. Besides, the TTK is not the only body that discusses the
Armenian issue in Turkey. There are many other official and unofficial
organisations, as well as private individuals, who already take part
in such work and discussions. The Gomidas Institute is only one party
in this debate.
O.K. : Don’t you see any pitfalls and difficulties ahead ?
A.S. : Yes, there is always the possibility of failure for all sorts
of reasons. But that is not a reason not to try. Peace is a great
prize we can all share together.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
