ARMENIAN JOURNALIST REFUSES TO USE THE WORD GENOCIDE
13 November 2009
Los Angeles
In the month of September the Armenian public learned of a blatant
case of denial of the Armenian Genocide within Armenia. A court case
was initiated by the "ARARAT" Center for Strategic Research against
the Yerevan-based Caucasus Institute and its director Alexander
Iskandaryan for publishing and disseminating denialist literature.
Unfortunately, as the initiators of this court case noted during the
press-conference, this was not the only such instance of Armenian
Genocide denial within Armenia. Another case of such denial transpired
recently. A journalist named Emil Danielyan, a citizen and resident
of Armenia, in his article about Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s speech before
the Armenian National Congress leadership, intentionally refused
to use the word genocide when referring to the Armenian Genocide
( 1875375.html). His expression
of choice was the "1915 mass killings and deportations" so ubiquitous
in English-language publications supportive of the Turkish denialist
position. Furthermore, a news service operating in Armenia and staffed
by Armenians, the Azatutyun radio station, published this article
without any editing or disclaimers, assuming the responsibility of
the content.
The skeptic in all of us would compel us to give the author the
benefit of doubt. Perhaps the use of the term was unintentional and
an honest mistake or the content of the article was revised without
the author’s knowledge. Unfortunately, this is not the first time
this author has denied the reality of the Armenian Genocide. Earlier
in 2009 he had written another article in which he used the term
"mass killings of Armenians." A criticism that appeared on "ARARAT"
Center’s Foreign Press Review provided an Armenian translation
of that article and called upon the author to publicly reject
the use of "mass killings", giving him that very benefit of doubt
(). Yet the call rang hollow
and no explanations followed. Thus, the following two assumptions can
reasonably be made: either Emil Danielyan consciously thinks that the
Armenian Genocide was only a mass killing of Armenians, not genocide,
or he does not hold that view, but is willing to ascribe to it and
even propagandize it in his own articles, if the publisher pays the
right price. In either case, his use of the expression "mass killings"
is a deliberate choice.
Impunity breeds insolence. Some suggest that openly trying people
for denial of the Armenian Genocide in Armenia would offer fodder
to Turkey to cast further doubt on the Genocide. They argue that if
deniers exist even among Armenians and they are tried in Armenia,
then there must really be questions about the veracity of the Armenian
Genocide. Nothing could be further from the truth. We can only fool
ourselves by not wanting to see that denial exists in Armenia. In fact,
it is the continuous proliferation of Turkish denialist propaganda
by unprincipled Armenians that will give Turkey more fodder for
speculation. If some Armenians impudently doubt or even deny the
Armenian Genocide, then foreign denialists will have a more potent
argument in their countries. Turkey’s foreign sympathizers will argue
that if Armenians question and doubt the Genocide and their government
does nothing, then all historical questions must not yet be settled.
Severe punishment of all such attempts will only prove to the rest of
the world, including the Turks, that the Armenians and their government
are unanimous in their position and there can be no ambiguity on
this issue. Thus, those Armenians who falsely cast doubt on the
Armenian Genocide should be prosecuted and punished as criminals,
because genocide denial is a criminal offense. Denial is the final
phase of genocide.
Had Emil Danielyan been called to account for his first article,
he would have thought twice about insulting the Armenian nation the
second time.