FORMER IAGS PRESIDENT’S LETTER TO TATE GALLERY ON GENOCIDE DENIAL
Armenian Weekly Staff
Thu, Apr 22 2010
Below is a letter the former president of the International Association
of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) sent to the director and the curator of
the Tate Gallery, noting that "is beneath the dignity of the Tate
Gallery to succumb to the pressure of genocide deniers for any reason."
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Sir Nicholas Serota, Director, The Tate Gallery Mr. Matthew Gale,
Curator, The Tate Gallery
Dear Sir Nicholas Serota and Mr. Gale,
It has come to my attention that the Tate Gallery has responded to
massive pressure from the Turkish denialist lobby and has posted
a disclaimer about the use of the term "genocide" in the materials
accompanying the Tate’s excellent Arshile Gorky exhibit.
As the immediate past President of the International Association of
Genocide Scholars (the major body of genocide scholars in the world),
founding President of Genocide Watch, and Professor of Genocide Studies
and Prevention at George Mason University, I must request that the
disclaimer be immediately removed from the exhibit. It contains
statements that are untrue. It is beneath the dignity of the Tate
Gallery to succumb to the pressure of genocide deniers for any reason.
The term genocide is not only "emotive," as you have noted, but
more importantly, it is a scholarly and legal term and it applies
fully to the Turkish mass killing of the Armenians. Britain’s own
internationally respected Queen’s Council, Sir Geoffrey Robinson
stated in a report of October 2009 that from an international legal
perspective, "the treatment of the Armenians in 1915 answers to the
description of genocide."
Contrary to the statement in your disclaimer, the British government
has never stated that it has "found no pre-meditation and that,
therefore, the wartime events of 1915 do not constitute a ‘genocide’
in the legal definition." In fact the House of Lords in 1915, using
evidence from a report written by Lord Bryce and the great historian
Arnold Toynbee, accused the Ottoman Empire of "making government
by massacre part of their political system," and of "systematically
exterminating a whole race out of their domain."
British Foreign Ministers Arthur Balfour and Lord Curzon, and Prime
Minister David Lloyd George were instrumental in creating the tribunals
that convicted the Young Turk triumvirate – Talaat, Enver, and Jemal
– of "massacres of hundreds of thousands of their own subjects"
" which reduced the Armenian population "by well over a million."
The trials of these "crimes against humanity," as the British
government called them, proved the key charge of "pre-meditated mass
murder." The triumvirate was convicted and sentenced to death. Their
crimes precisely fit the modern definition of genocide.
So the statement in your disclaimer that "the British Government has
found no pre-meditation and that, therefore, the wartime events of
1915 do not constitute a ‘genocide’ in the legal definition" IS FALSE.
The disclaimer must be removed from the exhibit.
What strikes genocide scholars as most important to note is that the
Polish legal scholar Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide in large
part on the basis of the Turkish mass killing of the Armenians in
1915. Lemkin’s determination to get the United Nations to adopt the
Genocide Convention was first shaped by the Armenian Genocide, as he
notes in his own memoir, and then was realized after the Holocaust.
Lemkin, who invented the term "genocide" was the first legal scholar
to use the term Armenian Genocide. Every scholarly book on genocide
has a section on the Armenian Genocide. The International Association
of Genocide Scholars has repeatedly and unanimously passed resolutions
affirming that the massacres of Armenians constituted "genocide."
I realize that the Tate Gallery has been put under pressure by
the Turkish government to post its disclaimer, and I respect the
difficulties this pressure presents for the Gallery. Nevertheless I
suggest that if you must post a statement by the Gallery, that you
revise your statement so it is in accord with the facts. Language
such as the following might accomplish your purpose:
"While the British government for various reasons has never officially
used the term genocide in its description of the mass killings of
Armenians in 1915, it is important to note that Raphael Lemkin, the
legal scholar who coined the term genocide did so in large part on the
basis of the Ottoman government’s extermination of the Armenians in
1915. The International Association of Genocide Scholars, the largest
body of genocide scholars in the world, has repeatedly affirmed that
the scholarly record and the legal and archival evidence prove that
genocide is the accurate and necessary term to describe the mass
killings of the Armenians. It is for these reasons that we have
described the massacres as "widely held to be genocide."
Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope to hear from you.
I would be happy to discuss this issue with you. My phone number is
1-703-448-0222, and my e-mail address is [email protected].
Sincerely, Professor Gregory Stanton Immediate Past President,
International Association of Genocide Scholars Founding President,
Genocide Watch Professor of Genocide Studies and Prevention, George
Mason University, USA