GENOCIDE DISPUTE UNSETTLES TURKISH STUDIES INSTITUTE
Susan Kinzie
Boston Globe
July 8 2008
MA
WASHINGTON – The issue that has roiled US-Turkish relations in recent
months – how to characterize the mass killing of Armenians in 1915
– has set off a dispute over politics and academic freedom at an
institute housed at Georgetown University.
Several board members of the Institute of Turkish Studies have resigned
this summer, protesting the ouster of a board chairman who wrote that
scholars should research, rather than avoid, what he characterized
as an Armenian genocide.
Within weeks of writing about the matter in late 2006, Binghamton
University professor Donald Quataert resigned from the board of
governors, saying the Turkish ambassador to the United States told
him he had angered some political leaders in Ankara and that they
had threatened to revoke the institute’s funding.
After a prominent association of Middle Eastern scholars learned
about it, they wrote a letter in May to the institute, the Turkish
prime minister, and other leaders asking that Quataert be reinstated
and money for the institute be put in an irrevocable trust to avoid
political influence.
The ambassador of the Republic of Turkey, H.E. Nabi Sensoy, denied that
he had any role in Quataert’s resignation. In a written statement,
he said that claims that he urged Quataert to leave are unfounded
and misleading.
The dispute shows the tensions between money and scholarship, as well
as the impact language can have on historical understanding.
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed when the Ottoman Empire
collapsed after World War I. Armenians and Turks bitterly disagree
over whether it was a campaign of genocide or a civil war in which
many Turks were also killed.
In the fall, when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of
California, championed a bill that would characterize the events
of 1915 to 1917 as genocide, the Bush administration fought it and
several former defense secretaries warned that Turkish leaders would
limit US access to a military base needed for the war in Iraq.
The Turkish studies institute, founded in 1983, is independent from
Georgetown University, but executive director David Cuthell teaches
a course there in exchange for space on campus.
Julie Green Bataille, a university spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail,
"We will review this matter consistent with the importance of
academic freedom and the fact that the institute is independently
funded and governed."
The institute’s funding, a $3 million grant, is from Turkey.
A few years ago, Quataert said, members of the board checked on what
they thought was an irrevocable blind trust "and to our surprise
it turned out to be a gift that could be revoked by the Turkish
government."
Quataert, a professor of history, said the institute has funded
good scholarship without political influence. The selection of which
studies to support is done by a committee of academics on the associate
board, he said, and approved by the board, which includes business
and political leaders. Never once, he said, did he think a grant
application was judged on anything other than its academic merits.
He also noted that during his time there, no one applied for grants
that would have been controversial in Turkey. Asked if any of the
research characterized the events as genocide, Cuthell said, "My gut
is no. It’s that third rail."