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| THE KEY TO ARMENIA -SPURKAHYE ETCH |
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| ANABADAYIN ARMENIA |
| We all know that the key to Armenia is the Armenian LANGUAGE ,and as an effort to enrich our language and make it an irrisistable weapon in the hands of the new Generation to fight the white Genocide (that is the fear of fading away from our origins)I decided to work this site. I will try to provide some news and comments concerning Armenian issues and Genocide ,further more I would try to reach the new Generation by providing a special page for them ,it will include the life of some Armenian writers and pieces of their famous works in a very simple Armenian language and games such as bahvaz par in which I will concetrate on history .
hope u enjoy it and may GOD help us .
If u have any suggestions you are most welcomed to contact us .
liza/sharjah |
| The Armenian Genocide: Prof Vahakn Dadrian's Lecture at Harvard |
| Vahakn Dadrian, Ph.D.
Harvard University
April 24, 2001
I would like to discuss the significance of the Armenian Genocide in the light of Turkish denials. The Armenian Genocide has many significant characteristics, such as, that they were victimized in their own ancestral territories, that religion was a powerful instrument in inciting the masses,even though the perpetrators, the arch perpetrators, were themselves mostly either atheistic or agnostic.
The Armenian Genocide is also significant by the fact that there wasmassive, popular participation in the atrocities. It was also significant by thefact that, to quote Ambassador Morganthau, "to save shell and powder," the perpetrators deliberately used blunt instruments, thereby protracting the agony of dying of the victims. This should never be lost of sight, in terms of the
very significant nature of the Armenian Genocide: protracted agonies in dying,because of the decision of the perpetrators to avoid bullets and use instead blunt instruments.
And then, of course, the major feature of the Armenian Genocide, which deserves focal attention: the persistent denial of what Toynbee called "this gigantic crime that devastated the Near East in 1915."
This denial imparts to the Armenian Genocide extraordinary significance,not only for the Armenians themselves but also in terms of subsequent perpetrators that appeared on the horizon since World War I.
Because the denial is a function of impunity, people who escape punishment become defiant, become very bold in terms of rationalizing the crime, and most importantly, they embolden, by way of political contagion, other potential perpetrators.
Therefore, the denial of the Armenian Genocide requires special attention as it terribly encumbers the problem of documentation. Deniers are wont to withhold evidence; deniers are wont to destroy evidence. Therefore, a scholar of the Armenian Genocide has to be by necessity not only a scholar but also a detective.
Holocaust scholars are besieged - saturated - with overwhelming evidence because of the German, Teutonic passion for recordkeeping. That condition is totally absent in the case of the Armenian Genocide. Specifically, the denial syndrome has three major elements: the denial of the crime, the denial of the victim, and even the denial of third parties to pass or to render a judgment on
it.
Therefore, let me briefly outline the specific elements of denial, because,before a crime of such magnitude as the Armenian Genocide can be documented, you have to confront and overcome the specific elements of the denial.
The Turks - past and present - deny that the Armenians were subjected to massacres, but rather they were subjected to deportation. Number two, the point is made that not all Armenians of the Ottoman Empire but only a segment of the Armenian population, specifically in the war zones in the eastern provinces,were subjected to deportation. Number three, the Armenians provoked the
authorities to take drastic, draconian measures that ended in tragedy, but that the provocation came from the Armenian side.
Then there is the argument that if atrocities took place, they were reciprocal. Armenians killed Turks; Turks killed Armenians. And finally, I think the most overwhelming aspect of Turkish denial that deserves specifically confrontation and debunking is the argument of "civil war."
Because of brevity of time, I cannot deal with all the specifics of thisdenial. But I will focus very briefly on the argument of "civil war," because it is persistent and paramount. Even today, during dinner, one of the Armenian students in the business school at Harvard was telling me that a Turkish student, as fresh as recently, told her that the Armenian Genocide is notreality because what happened was simply a "civil war."
So this argument is being broadcast throughout the world by Turkish agents,by the Turkish ambassadors, by the Turkish consuls, and some very gullible third parties that are not informed ?about the case have absorbed this argument of
"civil war."
By any definition, "civil war" means the collapse of central authority, andthe subsequent onset of a vacuum. As a result, factions begin to fight one another in the absence of central authority. Let's examine whether this was the case in World War I affecting the Ottoman Empire.
Let me briefly describe what the authorities did before the Genocide was enacted. First and foremost, this is one of the basic conditions of the Armenian Genocide: Several months before embarking upon the Armenian Genocide, the Young Turk Ottoman authorities dissolved the Ottoman parliament. Talaat Pasha in his subsequent post-war memoirs indicates that he didn't want any argumentation or discussion in his own parliament as some humanitarian Turks might have objected;he wanted total freedom and control. And this is an exact replica of what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust. Before the Holocaust was initiated,the Reichstag was destroyed and the entire authority was transferred to the executive branch of the government.
Secondly, the Turks declared martial law. You know what martial law is:total control of movement, censorship, isolating provinces from one another,total control of communication, and the threat of swift and severe military punishment. And then, of course, the secret service was mobilized.
In other words, the Ottoman authorities not only were in full control, but they also had concentrated power in their hands to run the affairs of the Ottoman Empire. But I think that ?the most significant feature of the futility of the argument of "civil war" is this fact: On August 2, 1914, three days before World War I broke out, the Ottoman authorities declared general mobilization, as a result of which all Armenians, citizens of Turkey, in the age category of 20 to 45, were conscripted into the Ottoman army.
You can imagine the agony, the petrified feelings of the remaining Armenian population, which consisted of old men, children, and women - very much aware of the fresh massacres of 1909 in Adana and still remembering the harrowing massacres of 1894-96. There was terror in the population, and to think that this collection of old men, women, and children would even dare to think to confront the Ottoman army, to confront fully armed Muslims throughout the empire.
Where is going to come the logistics Where is going to come the weaponry Where is going to come the command and control system of this terror-stricken population whose main concern was how to survive the war
The frivolity of the argument of "civil war" is exceeded only by its absurdity. And even today, some enlightened Turkish historians are advising their colleagues not to use this argument, because not only is it absurd, it undermines the Turkish position. Any application of simple logic will demolish this argument.
Let me now point out that, if denial is persistent, if denial is truculent, what is to be done to overcome the problem in terms of documentation. Any documentation has to be adjusted to the specifics of the problem at hand. I submit to you that the documentation of the Armenian Genocide in the light of this persistent denial requires specific methodology. It cannot be simple documentation. It has to be documentation of a special kind that overwhelms the
deniers.
And I call this, in my definition, "compelling evidence." Not simple evidence but compelling evidence is needed.
What are the specific elements of compelling evidence There are four of them. Number one: The evidence has to be reliable. By this I mean that the source has to be more or less unimpeachable. For instance, to illustrate the point: American Consul Leslie Davis from Kharpert is graphically describing the atrocities in Kharpert province; he had taken a Turk to be a guide to him, and it was this Moslem Turk who showed all the spots, all the sites of atrocities
while providing graphic details. To me, this is reliable. I would be skeptical if his guide and informant were an Armenian. But here is authentic Turkish evidence supplied to an American consul. That I consider adequately reliable.
The second element in my definition of compelling evidence is what I call "explicitness." Was it deportation Or was it the destruction of the deportee population My research suggests categorically that the deportation was a cover to enact the intended goal of deportation, which was the destruction of the deportee population.
The third element in my definition of compelling evidence is"incontestability." I think incontestability applies largely to official documents, and I will briefly explain to you German, Austrian, official Turkish documents which attach extraordinary significance to the evidence in terms of incontestability.
And finally, in my definition of compelling evidence, the fourth element is "verifiability." If I make a point and suggest a reference, a document, anybody should be able to go to the source of that document, verify its existence and its content. That is called verifiability.
Therefore, the overcoming of the Turkish denial requires compelling evidence in terms of these four elements I just described.
So the question arises, given the present conditions, what are the avenues by which compelling evidence can be located, secured, and obtained I use a methodology for this purpose, which I call the "exclusion/inclusion polarity."
In other words, I exclude from my research all evidence, all data that may be one way or another associated with the enemies of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. By this definition, I avoid if I can, documents emanating from British archives, from French archives, and from Russian archives. All these three countries were enemies of the |
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