Author: Ani Kharatian

The Times (London)

February 9, 2019 Saturday

 

by Matthew Parris

 

 

'Ashocking three million Britons," reported a newspaper at the end of last month, "don't believe the Nazi death camps ever existed, according to a new survey released on Holocaust Remembrance Day." The rest of the news media reported this only slightly less breathlessly. The survey they cited had been commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, a government-funded charity. The report from (and about) Britain was widely headlined abroad, including in Israel, as a worrying truth about our country.

 

Though the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust stand by their poll, I knew something must be wrong. I've never met anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened, and my social circle cuts across class, race and religion and includes a fair few Muslims. A clutch of Islamists, antisemites and right-wing nutters in Britain do believe this poisonous rubbish, but they can be nothing like five per cent of our fellow citizens. So I wrote a paragraph in Wednesday's Times Notebook suggesting it was more likely that one in 20 don't know what the word "Holocaust" means.

 

BBC Radio 4's More or Less programme, which takes a quizzical look at statistical claims in the news, then tackled this poll finding, with Peter Lynn, professor of survey methodology at the University of Essex, remarking that it "sounded a bit unlikely". All the more so, he suggested, because when asked how many people were murdered in the Holocaust, only five out of 2,000 (0.25 per cent) assented to "zero". Professor Lynn speculated that respondents may have assented to the "never happened" question by mistake because the two questions that preceded it (about it being important "to know about the Holocaust" and to "educate people about the Holocaust") called for an obvious "yes".

 

Whatever the explanation, few would honestly think it likely that one in 20 of us are Holocaust deniers. And, as the radio programme pointed out, there's a history of skewed surveys on issues that arouse (righteous) passions among campaigners. A 1990s survey in the United States put Holocaust deniers at a shocking 20 per cent but after eliminating the distorting effect of a confusing question, the true proportion of deniers worked out at a tenth of that figure.

 

This column, though, goes wider than the Holocaust. It's about the inbuilt and usually innocent desire of campaigning organisations to bring us bad news. I remember from the 1980s the fury of some gay rights campaigners when a West End play about homosexuals, badged with pink triangles and gassed in Hitler's extermination camps, was greeted with scepticism that the number was even significant compared with six million murdered Jews. It was a pity that either side chose to argue about this; not unlike the tensions aroused by the Armenian wish that the appalling Turkish mass slaughter of Armenians from 1915 to 1917 should qualify them for inclusion in Holocaust Memorial Day. An unedifying spat ensued.

 

It's an objective fact that Jewish loss dwarfs all others in sheer horror and numbers, but any impression of competition for the outrage of history is a tricky road to travel. It's an objective fact that Armenian losses were massive and cruel and Turkish slaughter systematic. Does more need to be said? Perhaps these issues are too freighted with anxiety, pain and passion for rational discussion to be possible. So let me take an infinitely smaller and less stark example. I write this from Catalonia, where yellow-ribbon symbols are painted across highways and hang from lampposts and balconies everywhere, even appearing on brooches and earrings; where the restaurant I dined in last night has switched to yellow napkins; and where my sister is preparing to join a new campaign of public demonstrations. The judicial trial of imprisoned Catalan separatist politicians is starting.

 

I'm deep in separatist territory and personally sympathetic to Catalan outrage at the incarceration of their elected politicians, but I cannot help noticing a certain grisly satisfaction that some Catalanistas take in stories of persecution. On social media, images of injured and bloody Catalan demonstrators beaten by Spanish police circulate to clucks of indignation that are justified yet (to me) have the ring of … I will not say "gratification" but there's something almost satisfied in the response. Some Catalans do have a problem with victimhood, and succumb to a temptation to wallow in it: a pity not because they have no right to, but because as a frame of mind it doesn't help. Though victimhood may be a reality, it is possible to get psychologically stuck in its rehearsal. This is not good for people and can actually hurt a cause.

 

Just as we British have a tendency to see our history through the sometimes distorting prism of victory and success (the Armada, Waterloo, two world wars, the Falklands; the industrial revolution, votes for women, the splitting of the atom), Catalans prefer to enjoy their history as a catalogue of reverses and injustices: military defeats (Catalonia has lost every war it has been involved in) and persecution by Madrid (General Franco's laws against the use of the Catalan language); and now the imprisonment of Catalan politicians. It risks becoming a habit of mind.

 

I'm afraid that if inquiries were to reveal beyond question that the apparent assaults by the police on Catalan referendum demonstrators in Barcelona in 2017 were in fact carried out in self-defence, then the first, instinctive response of many Catalans would be disappointment; and the second would be www.denial.No inquiry could conclude this, of course, but the question "would you be pleased or sorry if your complaint turned out to be unfounded?" can be instructive in cases beyond just the Catalan one.

 

When is it right to want the news to be bad? I have not yet properly acknowledged the best defence of actively seeking bad news. It's the reason for the very existence of organisations like the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, and it's a noble aim. If the truth is shocking then we should make sure it is uncovered and made public. Campaigners must highlight it, spread the news abroad, rub mankind's face in it if necessary. Ask William Wilberforce, Florence Nightingale, Mahatma Gandhi, Primo Levi, Nelson Mandela. Or even (in his own estimation on a much humbler scale) the Times's Andrew Norfolk, who uncovered sexual abuse in Rotherham.

 

But a burning desire to expose callousness and ignorance can edge imperceptibly into a wish to find evidence of it. Without meaning to, and though they acted only in good faith, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust's poll has defamed this country. Its findings deserve sceptical scrutiny.

 

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust's poll defamed Britain

Public Television of Armenia

Feb 3 2019

Armenian TV debate highlights concerns over Karabakh talks

[Armenian News note: the below is translated from Armenian]

Armenian Public TV hosted a debate on 3 February on the recent statements about the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan preparing their nations for peace as part of peace talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen, who mediate work towards a peaceful settlement to the Karabakh conflict, and the UN Secretary General, came up with similar statements after a meeting between Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Paris on 16 January.

During the debate on 3 February, presenter Petros Ghazaryan said that peace is good but it should be "mutual" and there should be a consensus between the conflicting parties.

Ghazaryan wondered why Armenian should get ready for peace "if the opponent is going to attack us".

Calls for peace 'not new'

Ruben Rubinyan, the head of the parliament's standing committee on foreign relations of the ruling My Step bloc, insisted that calls for peace were not new, and had been repeatedly voiced since 2006.

He reiterated the new government's position that no decision will be taken on Karabakh without the agreement of the Armenian and Karabakh people. The MP also underscored that the option of "peace for territories" has not and must not be discussed in Armenia unless the issue of the recognition of the Karabakh people's right for self-determination is discussed in Azerbaijan.

"It has been stated that there is no document or list of provisions on the table of negotiations now. No scenario is being discussed at the moment," Rubinyan said.

He called on all political forces to avoid "seeding unfounded doubts" or "inspiring defeatist fears".

No clear-cut strategy on Karabakh

Pundit Hakob Badalyan noted that the international calls for peace are an indication that no peace agreement is on the table.

He also stated that the Armenian public is concerned about the state of the talks because, for the last 25 years, Armenians had been made to believe that they must be "the first one to cede" in the Karabakh conflict settlement.

Propaganda of hatred

The pundit added that the two countries' view of the conflict is radically different. In Armenia, the Karabakh issue is seen as a matter for the country's leadership to solve, Badalyan noted.

But in Azerbaijan, he said, it is seen as a matter of state identity. He said that the main problem is that the Armenian public has assumed a passive stance, and suspects every succeeding government of ceding territories.

Badalyan said it is wrong for Armenia to assume an "obedient constructive stance" in front of the international community – and it is wrong for society to think that it is what they expect from Armenia.

The pundit added that the issue to focus on is not whether or not Armenia should adopt a policy of hatred towards Azerbaijanis. "The problem we have is to formulate our state strategy," Badalyan said.

Opponent or enemy

Gegham Manukyan, the head of the news department of Yerkir Media TV affiliated with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun, pointed out that surveys have shown Armenian society is more tolerant.

"What do we call Azerbaijan on TV? We call it our opponent, do we not? All the TV stations have called it our opponent for years and even during the [2016] April war. Watch any TV channel in Azerbaijan, they call [Armenia] dusman [enemy in Azeri]. They do not say opponent, they say enemy," Manukyan said.

He argued that Armenia needs to be "intolerant".

"I do not speak about total militarisation but the Armenian society should be psychologically ready for what happened in April [2016]. Society must be as ready as the [soldiers on the] frontline so that the connection between the society and the frontline does not break up," Manukyan said.

But MP Rubinyan argued that Armenia is not a militant society.

"Unlike Azerbaijan, we are not militant, we do not hate anyone but at the same time, we, our society, our armed forces will simply destroy the enemy, if, at any moment, there is any encroachment on the borders of the Republic of Armenia or Republic of Artsakh [Karavakh]. And no context of peace preparation can neutralise this," he said.