EXCERPTS FROM THE PAPER, "THE ARMENIAN, ASSYRIAN, GREEK, KURDISH AND ‘OTHER’ GENOCIDES
Kurdish Aspect, CO
A pril 28 2008
The Politics of Genocide Recognition and Denialism"
Presented at The Armenian/Assyrian Genocide Day Conference, The Grand
Committee Room, The House of Commons, The UK Houses of Parliament,
24th April 2008. Organised by Armenian Solidarity with the Victims
of All Genocides (ASVAG) and Nor Serount Cultural Association, and
supported by The Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle
East, The European NGO Working Group Recognition – Against Genocide,
for International Understanding, The Seyfo Centre, The Aegis Trust
and The Genocide Prevention UK All-Party Parliamentary Group.
In recent years, … even as there has been greater international
public recognition of the Armenian, Assyrian, Greek, Kurdish and
‘Other’ genocides (as a consequence of concerted initiatives
by concerned individuals, Armenian, Assyrian, Greek and Kurdish
communities and other people and organisations interested in exposing
and confronting international genocidal crimes), certain governments,
politicians, academics and lobbying groups have mobilized (and often
collaborated with each other) to engage in denialism of these "events"
due not to genuine uncertainty about the fate of these targeted
"peoples/groups", but to advance cynical personal and/or nationalist
and/or geopolitical/economic/ideological agendas …
Thomas O’Dwyer, writing in Ha’aretz … has commented upon the manner
in which, "not for the first time, we have witnessed the State of
Israel’s complicity in the lie … This is political expediency at its
most morally bankrupt. Tripping over itself in its stupid defense of
the untenable Turkish position [which denies the Armenian genocide],
the Israeli Foreign Ministry has again and again played an active role
in suppressing even discussion of the issue … What is shocking is
that there should be any question whatsoever of Israel denying the
murder of a nation … Turkey’s denials of the Armenian massacre will
not endure – but the memory of Israel’s refusal to speak out against
the denial just might". To Rabbi Kenneth I. Segal, spiritual leader
of the Beth Israel Congregation in Fresno, California, "a ‘political
stench’" has, indeed, "emanated from the role played by the Israeli
Embassy in the United States in the matter" …
Larry Derfner [has] also noted the following in The Jerusalem Post:
"What does the State of Israel and many of its American Jewish
lobbyists have to say about it[?] … If they were merely standing
silent, that would be an improvement … Israel and the US Jewish
establishment may say they’re neutral over what happened to the
Armenians … but their actions say the opposite. They’ve not only
taken sides, they’re on the barricades … Ninety years after the
Armenian genocide, there is a decent Jewish response to the sickening
behavior of the State of Israel, the American Jewish Committee and
[many] other US Jewish organizations: Not in our name".
The Israeli academic Yair Auron argues that "the Israeli government’s
abetting of Turkey’s denial is not only a ‘moral disgrace’, it also
‘hurts the legacy and heritage of the Holocaust" … To Robert Fisk,
we need to be aware that "the holocaust deniers of recent years –
deniers of the Turkish genocide of … Armenian Christians in 1915,
that is – include Lord Blair" … Concerning the British government’s
stance over the matter, it is, in Fisk’s view, based upon "a cynical
premise by the Blair government, namely that it could get away with
genocide denial to maintain good relations with Turkey". R.J. Rummel
remains critical of the manner in which, "for political reasons, the
[US] State Department refuses to … even acknowledge that the genocide
took place" … What is even more shocking about the US official State
Department position is that its own genocide analyst in its Legal
Department privately would appear to be clearly convinced that what
occurred was genocide … Despite this type of private acknowledgement,
however, the US government officially and publicly asserts a denialist
position …
The US government and many "establishment" figures, it should be
noted, have a habit of refusing to acknowledge certain past and
ongoing genocides. Those genocides, for example, that might be seen to
embarrass the US government and perceived geostrategic and economic
"pivotal" client states’ governments, such as Turkey. It is in this
political context, as Edward Herman has observed, that "establishment
politicians, media, and [establishment] intellectuals use the word
genocide with great abandon, but with a hugely politicized selectivity"
that we must be appreciative of:
Genocide was used often to describe the "killing fields" of Pol
Pot, but not the killing fields of Vietnam where the United States
ravaged the country, killed many more people than did Pol Pot, and
left a destroyed country and chemical warfare heritage of hundreds
of thousands of children with birth defects.
The word was never used in the US mainstream to describe Indonesian
operations in East Timor, where the invasion of 1975 and murderous
occupation killed off between a quarter and a third of the population
…
The word genocide is rarely if ever applied to Turkish ethnic cleansing
and massacres of its Kurds, and in fact Turkey was mobilized to
participate in the 78-day NATO (de facto US) bombing war against
Yugoslavia in 1999, supposedly to terminate "genocide" in Kosovo,
although Turkey’s attacks on its local Kurds were far more deadly than
any pre-bombing-war Yugoslav violence against the Kosovo Albanians.
The obvious explanation of the varying word usage is that Turkey was
a US ally, and its ethnic cleansing and killings were facilitated by
greatly increased US (Clinton administration) military aid, just as
Indonesia’s violence in East Timor was greatly helped by greater US
(Carter administration) aid to the killer state. Yugoslavia, on the
other hand, was a US target …
The word genocide … is never used in the mainstream to describe
the "sanctions of mass destruction" that are credibly estimated to
have killed over a million Iraqis. The establishment institutions
have avoided all but passing mention of the numbers dead, and they
suppress even more completely the evidence that the killings were a
consequence of deliberate actions, including the US and British use of
the sanctions system to block the import of medicines and equipment
to repair water and sanitation systems that were destroyed with full
recognition of the disease-threatening consequences …
It [also] remains a power-out-of-the-gun truth that … the United
States can commit blatant aggression with only slightly delayed
UN accommodation, and it and its clients don’t aggress, ethnically
cleanse, or commit genocide.
Consequently, they are NOT adequately held to account for international
genocidal crimes. In Turkey’s case, internationally respected genocide
scholars such as Tove Skutnabb-Kangas point out that Turkey remains
in breach of two articles of the United Nations’ Genocide Convention
… For geo-political reasons, the US, UK, and German governments,
particularly in the post-Second World War period, due to NATO linked
agendas, ‘post-9/11’ and other geostrategic and economic concerns,
have not only chosen to not recognize any [Kurdish] "genocide",
they have been complicit and instrumental in facilitating this
very genocidal process. It is important to note that complicity in
genocide is identified as a major international crime by the 1948
Genocide Convention … [Moreover], according to Cengiz Candar, the
Turkish journalist, Turkey continues to practice cultural genocide
against the Armenians in Turkey. According to the internationally
respected Turkish investigative journalist Ahmet Kahraman, currently
in exile, the Turkish state continues to engage in cultural genocide of
Armenians, Kurds and Greeks. And yet, despite this, from the US and UK
governments who supposedly stand for "human rights", "humanitarianism"
and a commitment towards speaking out against ‘genocide’, there
is no condemnation or serious examination or appraisal of these
"genocide" charges that have been levelled, just as there is no
serious appraisal or "recognition" of the past Armenian, Assyrian,
and Greek genocides. Or, indeed, serious appraisal or "recognition"
of the genocides in Vietnam, or Iraq (under sanctions, or after). The
list goes on …
Concerning the question:
Do the UK and US governments hinder the process of reconciliation by
their one-sided pro-Turkish government stance?
I think they do. Reconciliation cannot meaningfully take place even
as cultural genocide continues, and the Turkish state refuses to
acknowledge its own ongoing and past genocidal policies and practices,
that themselves derived "inspiration" from the even earlier – also
denied (alongside with the US and UK governments) – genocidal phase
under late Ottoman (CUP) rule. As Andrew Kevorkian has commented:
What is eminently clear is that there is a genocide of the Kurds
going on (since about 1925) … But, as long as Turkey can lie about
the Kurds, with American support, the genocide will continue – like
an inexorable spreading cancer.
And with a genocide continuing in its many manifestations against
Kurds, Armenians and ‘Others’, there is little chance of reconciliation
developing meaningfully.
As the Turkish Human Rights Association noted on Armenian Genocide
Recognition Day (24th April) in 2006 (and this has to be reflected
upon, given knowledge of the Turkish, US and UK governments’ continuing
denial of the "reality" of the Armenian and ‘Other’ genocides):
Denial is a constituant part of the genocide itself and results in
the continuation of the genocide. Denial of genocide is a human
rights violation in itself. It deprives individuals the right to
mourn for their ancestors, for the ethnic cleansing of a nation,
the annihilation of people of all ages, all professions, all social
sections, women, men, children, babies, grandparents alike just
because they were Armenians regardless of their political background
or conviction. Perhaps the most important of all, it is the refusal
of making a solemn, formal commitment and say: "NEVER AGAIN" …
Turkey will not be able to take even one step forward without putting
an end to the continuity of the Progress and Union manner of ruling.
Indeed, for the Turkish Human Rights Association: "Unless the Turkish
state agree[s] to create an environment where public homage is paid
to genocide victims, where the sufferings of their grandchildren is
shared and the genocide is recognised", there can be no progress.
If we ask ourselves the question:
Will the planned state visit by HM the Queen to Turkey in May be a
seal of approval on the Turkish government’s distortion of the truth
of the genocide, and the continuing cultural genocide in Turkey?
It very much will, in my opinion, depend upon the nature of the visit,
and the statements and endorsements that will accompany that visit
(relating to what is said or unsaid concerning the Turkish state’s
ongoing and past genocidal record, and its and the UK government’s
continuing Armenian/Assyrian/Greek/Kurdish genocide denialist
position). The Queen and those in her entourage and the UK government
should also reflect upon the Turkish Human Rights Association’s
observations on Armenian Genocide Recognition day in 2006, which
remain relevant today:
Turkey has made hardly any progress in the field of co-existence,
democracy, human rights and putting an end to militarism since the
time of the Union and Progress Committee. Annihilation and denial had
been, and continues today, to be the only means to solve the problem
… Today’s ongoing military build up of some 250,000 troops in the
[Kurdish] southeast of Turkey is the proof of a mindset wh[ich] is
unable to develop any solution to the Kurdish question other than
armed suppression.