Denial of Genocide in the Digital Age | CAS Inquire
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01/30/2025
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Bedross Der Matossian gave this talk for the Jan. 28, 2025 CAS Inquire event.
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- [00:00:00.560]- For those of you who don't know me,
- [00:00:01.400]my name is Pat Dussault.
- [00:00:02.440]I'm Acting Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
- [00:00:05.160]I'm excited to welcome you back to the Inquire series.
- [00:00:09.080]Whether you're here in person,
- [00:00:10.320]and I guess I can't see the screen
- [00:00:12.240]about how many are joining us remotely,
- [00:00:13.780]but we typically have some.
- [00:00:15.800]We're really glad you're here,
- [00:00:17.200]and I'm thinking by the time the talk is over tonight,
- [00:00:19.680]you're gonna be really glad you're here as well.
- [00:00:22.440]The theme for the Inquire series this year
- [00:00:24.320]is War, Peace, and Reconciliation.
- [00:00:27.360]And as with the previous CAS Inquire series,
- [00:00:30.360]the theme really is meant to raise
- [00:00:32.220]really fundamental questions about the nature of humanity.
- [00:00:35.340]And the relevance of this year's theme
- [00:00:36.840]is pretty obvious in the world we live in, right?
- [00:00:38.820]There's persistent and devastating ravages of war,
- [00:00:41.580]and there are no less persistent and urgent calls
- [00:00:45.900]for peace and reconciliation.
- [00:00:48.520]The College of Arts and Science is unique in having,
- [00:00:51.020]we have faculty and we have staff and we have students
- [00:00:54.360]dedicated to a critical examination
- [00:00:56.420]of the kind of issues
- [00:00:57.360]that form the core of the Inquire series.
- [00:00:59.880]And this can be seen in the intellectual orientations
- [00:01:02.320]and the disciplines that have been represented
- [00:01:04.200]in the series thus far this year,
- [00:01:06.360]which has been political science,
- [00:01:08.200]classics and religious studies,
- [00:01:10.060]evolutionary biology, and now history.
- [00:01:13.100]And every one of these has had a different pin
- [00:01:17.260]on the issue of war, peace, and reconciliation.
- [00:01:19.840]For our Inquire scholars,
- [00:01:22.680]these are the intellectually curious and inquiring students
- [00:01:25.360]enrolled in this experience
- [00:01:27.360]who have been involved in this project for a long time.
- [00:01:30.520]This is also a chance to foster
- [00:01:32.400]a meaningful academic engagement with the topic
- [00:01:35.600]through the lectures, but also through the discussions
- [00:01:37.860]with the talented faculty who are in our speakers
- [00:01:40.880]and through their own year-long research projects.
- [00:01:43.780]And they're also aided along the way,
- [00:01:45.420]for those of you who aren't in the program,
- [00:01:46.680]by a peer leader.
- [00:01:48.080]We want to recognize the scholars and the peer leader.
- [00:01:50.540]Would the students who are part of the CAS Inquire program
- [00:01:52.960]and the peer leader please stand?
- [00:01:54.720]And all you're making is possible.
- [00:02:02.480]And I also want to recognize Dr. June Griffin,
- [00:02:06.060]Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education
- [00:02:08.560]and Strategic Initiatives, who is actually
- [00:02:10.280]leading the CAS Inquire program.
- [00:02:11.660]This evening, we have the pleasure of a presentation
- [00:02:20.080]by Professor Bedross Der Matossian.
- [00:02:22.600]He's Vice Chair of the Department of History
- [00:02:24.680]and Hyman Rosenberg Professor of Judaic Studies.
- [00:02:28.180]Professor Der Matossian earned his two master's, an MA
- [00:02:31.620]and a master's in philosophy, and a PhD degree
- [00:02:35.120]from Columbia University, and has
- [00:02:36.560]been a member of the college faculty since 2010.
- [00:02:41.200]His primary research explores a broader understanding
- [00:02:43.860]of the history of the modern Middle East,
- [00:02:46.100]and with a particular focus on what he calls in his materials
- [00:02:51.080]ethno-religious violence.
- [00:02:52.680]And so I think you can--
- [00:02:54.640]this has been explored through a remarkable body of publication.
- [00:02:58.060]I really urge you to do a quick Google after this
- [00:03:00.820]and look at Google Scholar and see what he's been up to.
- [00:03:04.120]But articles in prestigious journals, edited volumes,
- [00:03:09.680]and probably most publicly visible,
- [00:03:12.760]two really major monographs, academics
- [00:03:15.700]for single topic books, the prize winning Shattered Dreams
- [00:03:20.140]of Revolution from Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman
- [00:03:23.140]Empire, and the more recent--
- [00:03:24.600]The Horrors of Adana, Revolution and Violence
- [00:03:27.860]in the Early 20th Century.
- [00:03:29.820]So Professor Der Matossian's topic tonight
- [00:03:32.480]will be Denial of Genocide in the Digital Age.
- [00:03:36.060]After the talk, we're going to have time for a conversation
- [00:03:38.700]and questions from the audience.
- [00:03:40.060]And we'll talk about that.
- [00:03:41.840]And for those who are listening online,
- [00:03:44.040]you can submit your questions at any time.
- [00:03:46.360]And we'll monitor them and ask those questions for you.
- [00:03:49.900]So in the few minutes remaining to him, Dr. Der Matossian
- [00:03:54.560]will be speaking.
- [00:03:56.420]And let's please welcome him to tonight's talk.
- [00:03:58.360]Thank you very much for everyone.
- [00:04:10.120]It's an honor to be here.
- [00:04:12.120]And it's an honor to be here as part
- [00:04:15.320]of being required for students who want to delve deeper.
- [00:04:21.220]And the topic is very time-consuming
- [00:04:23.800]for peace and reconciliation.
- [00:04:28.000]The topic I'm going to discuss today is an important topic.
- [00:04:32.120]Of course, it's important because I'm discussing it.
- [00:04:34.300]But nevertheless, it's about denial of genocide.
- [00:04:37.900]As long as there is denial of genocide,
- [00:04:39.920]there is no reconciliation.
- [00:04:41.760]Perpetrator states who keep denying genocide,
- [00:04:46.860]they are putting a major obstacle
- [00:04:50.300]in front of any type of reconciliation
- [00:04:53.040]of the victim.
- [00:04:53.760]So this topic of denial of genocide,
- [00:04:57.540]it's a part of a larger project that I'm working on.
- [00:05:01.920]It's an edited volume of denial of genocide
- [00:05:05.160]in the digital age that's going to be published next year
- [00:05:09.180]by Nebraska University Press, University of Nebraska
- [00:05:12.300]Press, BNP.
- [00:05:13.760]It's a sequel to the first volume of denial of genocide
- [00:05:17.940]in the 21st century.
- [00:05:19.820]And this is the second, which is going
- [00:05:21.960]to bring leading scholars.
- [00:05:23.500]In the field of Holocaust studies, of the Rwandan
- [00:05:26.860]genocide, of Bosnian genocide, of the Guatemalan genocide,
- [00:05:32.200]and many other genocides, Armenian genocide, of course,
- [00:05:34.880]in order to understand what's new in the digital age.
- [00:05:39.640]And since all of us are dealing with the digital age,
- [00:05:42.580]I think it's pertinent that we understand what
- [00:05:45.740]is happening in the digital age.
- [00:05:48.340]So today's talk is going to concentrate
- [00:05:50.740]on one specific aspect of denial of the--
- [00:05:53.240]of genocide.
- [00:05:54.180]And that's the argument of genocide,
- [00:05:56.000]which is my expertise, and which is the most denied genocide
- [00:06:00.800]that exists in the 20th century and 21st century.
- [00:06:05.300]So what is the digital age?
- [00:06:08.040]The digital age, also called the information age,
- [00:06:11.560]refers to a new phase in the modern period characterized
- [00:06:15.440]by the rapid drift from the traditional industry
- [00:06:18.360]to an economy centered on information technology.
- [00:06:21.860]The technological advances
- [00:06:22.980]made during this period have had significant impact
- [00:06:26.540]on the way information is processed
- [00:06:28.520]and transmitted around the globe.
- [00:06:30.580]One dimension of the digital age has been...
- [00:06:35.580]Sorry.
- [00:06:37.660]It was breaking.
- [00:06:52.720]Something is wrong here.
- [00:06:54.820]It's not going to stay the same.
- [00:06:56.480]It's not going to stay the same.
- [00:07:03.180]I'm not especially good at this.
- [00:07:08.180]Oh, there we go.
- [00:07:10.780]Very good.
- [00:07:26.060]All right.
- [00:07:26.480]So,
- [00:07:30.980]one dimension of the digital age
- [00:07:35.320]has been the explosive growth of the internet,
- [00:07:37.660]which has dramatically accelerated
- [00:07:40.520]the transformation of information,
- [00:07:44.300]good services,
- [00:07:45.180]running those.
- [00:07:45.880]However, this information,
- [00:07:48.300]this innovation,
- [00:07:49.840]the internet has become also a double-edged sword.
- [00:07:53.440]On the one hand,
- [00:07:55.520]there is a lot of positive aspects
- [00:07:57.980]on the internet.
- [00:07:59.360]On the other hand,
- [00:08:00.320]there's also a lot of negative aspects
- [00:08:02.640]on the internet.
- [00:08:03.340]This information,
- [00:08:04.700]taking use of one of these specific aspects
- [00:08:07.680]that's interesting to us in the digital age
- [00:08:09.400]when discussing the
- [00:08:10.260]denial of genocide,
- [00:08:10.920]is the denial of genocide
- [00:08:13.080]on the internet.
- [00:08:14.240]States,
- [00:08:20.600]as well as non-state actors,
- [00:08:23.620]have found this magical tool,
- [00:08:26.000]quote-unquote magical tool,
- [00:08:27.560]to be the helpful medium
- [00:08:29.500]in their campaign to deny genocide.
- [00:08:31.480]While the denial of genocide
- [00:08:33.420]has always existed in the past,
- [00:08:35.340]it's spread during the digital age
- [00:08:37.100]and has reached new heights.
- [00:08:38.660]But the question that
- [00:08:40.000]we're interested in asking
- [00:08:41.280]is that what change takes place
- [00:08:44.840]during the denial of genocide
- [00:08:46.660]in the digital age?
- [00:08:47.800]So Gregory Stanton,
- [00:08:52.240]scholar of Darwinian genocide,
- [00:08:53.940]presented 10 stages for genocide,
- [00:08:57.600]starting with classification,
- [00:08:59.500]symbolization, discrimination,
- [00:09:02.020]dehumanization, organization,
- [00:09:03.820]polarization, perpetration,
- [00:09:06.580]persecution, extermination,
- [00:09:08.880]and ending with denial.
- [00:09:09.740]He calls that the last phase of genocide is denial.
- [00:09:13.800]As long as denial continues,
- [00:09:16.920]genocide continues.
- [00:09:18.520]But I argue denial is not the first, last phase.
- [00:09:21.680]Denial is the first phase.
- [00:09:23.700]I'm going to tell you why.
- [00:09:25.200]I define denial of genocide in the following way.
- [00:09:30.820]Denial is not only the reluctance to acknowledge
- [00:09:33.240]the historical injustices of the past,
- [00:09:35.600]but it further aims at killing the dead
- [00:09:39.480]and their memory over and over,
- [00:09:44.120]inflicting pain on the survivors and their descendants
- [00:09:47.160]and demonstrating that future acts of violence
- [00:09:49.700]are possible in a climate of deception and impunity.
- [00:09:53.260]By denying genocide, states and non-states actors
- [00:09:56.900]become complicit in the process of genocide,
- [00:09:59.700]transmitting the violence from physical to the psychological realm.
- [00:10:03.440]Denialists become ideological as well as biological descendants
- [00:10:07.360]of the perpetrators.
- [00:10:09.220]They continue to process of genocide through print
- [00:10:12.460]and audiovisual material, media,
- [00:10:14.740]the desecration of genocide monuments
- [00:10:17.160]and the exertion of pressure on different governments
- [00:10:20.340]in order to prevent the use of the forbidden word, genocide.
- [00:10:23.700]And this is not only endemic to the Iranian genocide,
- [00:10:26.460]this also takes place in other marriage-aided genocides
- [00:10:29.860]of the 20th century.
- [00:10:30.780]So, as long as there is denial of genocide,
- [00:10:35.300]denial of genocide's emboldens,
- [00:10:38.960]perpetrators to commit acts of genocide in the future.
- [00:10:42.020]That's extremely important to understand.
- [00:10:45.160]So, today's topic will be about denial of the Iranian genocide
- [00:10:48.440]in the digital age.
- [00:10:50.220]This is a map of the Armenian genocide.
- [00:10:52.280]To be brief, the Armenian genocide took place in 1915,
- [00:10:59.180]ended in 1923 or 1917, depending on the scholars.
- [00:11:03.360]This is a map of Eastern Turkey, and the red, the purple,
- [00:11:08.700]the circles represent the major places where the genocide took place,
- [00:11:13.500]and ending with the Syrian desert, which is also known as the Auschwitz
- [00:11:18.060]for the Armenian genocide.
- [00:11:19.540]So the roots of the denial of the Armenian genocide do not start
- [00:11:24.500]with the Republican period.
- [00:11:25.700]In 1923, Turkey emerged as a republic.
- [00:11:29.400]It starts actually in 1916, when the first denialist publication
- [00:11:35.360]came out denying...
- [00:11:38.440]that a genocide took place and arguing that it is an official
- [00:11:44.400]and legitimate response to an Armenian uprising.
- [00:11:48.020]Because during World War I, some Armenian units participated
- [00:11:53.320]with Russia, the Russian front, and that created a pretext for
- [00:11:57.820]the Ottomans, for the Committee of Human Progress, the leading
- [00:12:01.360]government, to get rid of the Armenian question that has been lingering
- [00:12:08.180]within the Ottoman Empire for decades since the Treaty of Berlin of 1878.
- [00:12:14.060]So this is an image from this book called "Armenian Revolutionary
- [00:12:22.520]Aspirational Movements Before and After the Proclamation of the Constitution."
- [00:12:26.800]The book is 300 pages, has 130 images, fabricated images in order to convince
- [00:12:35.420]the local population and the international.
- [00:12:37.920]Because it was published in French too, that our answer to the Armenians in terms
- [00:12:44.220]of deportations are actually in order to prevent future uprising.
- [00:12:49.000]The deportations that took place here, they argue is, was meant, was called
- [00:12:56.840]relocation and not deportation.
- [00:12:59.040]Think about euphemism when we discuss about history, relocation to safer areas.
- [00:13:04.300]Syrian desert is not the safer area.
- [00:13:07.660]And during this, and they argue, and there are some interesting arguments, claim that
- [00:13:15.660]genocide did not take place.
- [00:13:17.660]The deportation were basically to safer areas.
- [00:13:21.660]Armenians collaborated with the Russians and hence they deserved it.
- [00:13:26.660]They attribute the death of Armenians to various factors, from epidemics to ecological reasons
- [00:13:33.660]and attacks by the Kurds.
- [00:13:37.400]The Kurdish state, after the genocide, has been involved in denying the Armenian Genocide.
- [00:13:44.400]It has used diplomatic pressure, which continues until today.
- [00:13:49.400]A week ago, the State of Victoria wanted to pass a resolution acknowledging the Armenian Genocide,
- [00:14:03.400]the Assyrian Genocide and the Greek Genocide under pressure.
- [00:14:07.140]The State of Victoria is in Australia, one of the five states, and under Turkish pressure, it did not go through.
- [00:14:15.140]One of the interesting things that happened in the early Republican period was an incident that happened here in the United States.
- [00:14:21.140]It's called the MGM incident.
- [00:14:24.140]Franz Werfel, the famous Jewish writer, wrote this groundbreaking novel called The Forty Days of Musadak,
- [00:14:33.140]which is based on the story during the Armenian Genocide in 1960.
- [00:14:36.880]And eventually, they wanted the story to become a movie in the United States.
- [00:14:45.880]MGM agreed, but as a result of the pressure of the Turkish government, the whole project was dropped.
- [00:14:54.880]And in Michael Bobelian's work, an author, journalist, and important writer,
- [00:15:01.880]he says that the name of the book is Musadak.
- [00:15:06.620]The book is called "Darman's Mountain of Moses."
- [00:15:11.620]The incident is critical in understanding the evolution of Turkey's campaign
- [00:15:16.620]of denying the crimes committed by the young Turks who were in power.
- [00:15:21.620]The standoff with MGM believed that Turkey would pressure foreign governments to go along with this policy of denial.
- [00:15:30.620]So what are the motivations of denial? There are multiple motivations, I think.
- [00:15:36.360]One of the most important ones is this: the Armenian Genocide proves to be one of the most important links between the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey,
- [00:15:44.360]thereby demonstrating the continuum between the two.
- [00:15:48.360]As such, acknowledging the Armenian Genocide would mean exposing fallacy of the Turkish state's founding mythology.
- [00:15:55.360]All nation states are based on empires, and nation states are the byproduct of violence.
- [00:16:03.360]There is no nation state. Most nation states are resistant to violence.
- [00:16:06.100]But the Turkish modern historiography, the official historiography, has detached itself from the Ottoman Empire.
- [00:16:12.100]Arguing that we are a modernized new empire, modernized new Turkey that does not have anything to do with the past.
- [00:16:21.100]But the most important continuum between the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey is the Armenian Genocide.
- [00:16:29.100]Specifically, lands, the emergence of bourgeoisie, Muslim bourgeoisie, as a result of the Ottoman Empire.
- [00:16:35.840]The confiscation and appropriation of Armenian properties and many other factors.
- [00:16:42.840]Now, why do denialists deny, why do people deny genocides?
- [00:16:50.840]Israel Charlie is an important figure. Some of you might know him.
- [00:16:54.840]He's a psychiatrist. He passed away a couple of months ago, actually.
- [00:16:58.840]A major figure in the psychology of denial. He had also contributed a chapter to the
- [00:17:05.580]first volume on denial of genocide in the 20th century.
- [00:17:08.320]He argues that there are one, two, three, four, five, six, six categories of denial.
- [00:17:16.320]First of all is the malvolent bigotry.
- [00:17:20.320]Denials by perpetrators and denials by non-perpetrators in the tradition of fascism and bigotry.
- [00:17:26.320]Meaning fascist governments denying genocide.
- [00:17:30.320]Second, self-serving opportunism.
- [00:17:35.320]Those who have a master career by denying genocide.
- [00:17:38.060]Then, innocent denials.
- [00:17:40.060]Those who are going to say that no, I don't think my nation is that bad, I think these are fabrications, I know my nation, we're good people, etc.
- [00:17:48.060]No one is saying that we're bad people.
- [00:17:50.060]But ancestors were part of a scheme of genocide.
- [00:17:55.060]Then, definitionalism.
- [00:17:57.060]Definitionalism, alright?
- [00:17:59.060]Definitionalism.
- [00:18:01.060]The act that took place could not fall under the category of genocide.
- [00:18:05.060]Because back then, the United Nations, back then, the definition of genocide did not exist.
- [00:18:12.060]Because the UN Convention of Genocide in 1948 defined genocide in 1948.
- [00:18:18.060]So if you think about it, it's a very childish way of approaching things, right?
- [00:18:24.060]Then, nationalistic hubris.
- [00:18:27.060]Based on nationalism, based on national pride, our nation would never do such a thing.
- [00:18:33.800]And last but not least,
- [00:18:34.800]human shallowness.
- [00:18:35.800]The depletion of any sense of sensitivity to issues of mass crimes in the course of
- [00:18:45.800]history.
- [00:18:46.800]So these are the six categories created by Israel Chardon.
- [00:18:54.860]So main arguments of denialists are questioning the concept of genocide, debating evidence,
- [00:19:01.040]denying attacks on victims, practicing nationalistic hubris.
- [00:19:04.540]Hubris among other factors.
- [00:19:09.580]But then the question is, how does the digital age change the discourse of genocide denial
- [00:19:17.160]and discrimination?
- [00:19:18.920]Of course, this study is based on hundreds of, let's say, web pages denying genocide.
- [00:19:26.860]It's a very tedious task to sit and read every statement, it depletes you, you become angry,
- [00:19:34.280]but you have to control yourself because as academicians, we have to remove emotions from
- [00:19:40.240]our study and try to approach it in somehow an objective manner.
- [00:19:45.780]There's no objective manner, of course, we have to try to be objective.
- [00:19:49.900]I argue, oh, sorry, the first online manifestation of denying of the Armenian genocide took place
- [00:19:58.800]in 1989 in a forum, in a discussion forum before the internet had emerged.
- [00:20:04.020]These are discussion goals in 1989. So denialists, you have to think they're adaptable on the modes of change.
- [00:20:12.020]Once modes change, they also adapt themselves to the changing modes.
- [00:20:17.020]In their article, Karmazin, Panzer and Fingerhart noticed three key novelties of the Internet-based denial of the Holocaust,
- [00:20:27.020]because denial of Holocaust was the archetype of denial in the course of history.
- [00:20:33.020]But Germany has acknowledged that the Holocaust took place, gave reparation, etc.
- [00:20:39.020]But Turkey denies it actively.
- [00:20:44.020]In the case of the Holocaust, they say anyone can become a disseminator of denialist literature.
- [00:20:50.020]Anyone. You don't need degrees, you just need to have access to the Internet.
- [00:20:56.020]Second, the speed of dissemination of denialist literature surpasses unimaginably what has existed
- [00:21:02.020]in the pre-Internet era. You might send a letter, hard copy to university complaining,
- [00:21:08.020]now everything is just one click, send, post, everything, it's very fast.
- [00:21:12.020]The third one is the possibility of relocating these websites to different parts of the globe.
- [00:21:17.020]You know, relocating websites is very easy, it's only one scene of the game.
- [00:21:21.020]But, through my study, I'm adding nine additional novelties to the digital age.
- [00:21:27.020]First, the wide availability of classical denialist texts.
- [00:21:31.020]Classical texts, for example, the 1916 text is available to everyone.
- [00:21:36.020]You don't need to go to a library to copy it, it's available.
- [00:21:40.020]Second, use of graphical and artistic approaches, because it's proven that once you see graphs, colors, images,
- [00:21:49.020]it attracts your attention better, and you might start delving into understanding, you know, buying into the argument of denialism.
- [00:21:57.020]Third, incorporation of audiovisual materials.
- [00:22:00.020]Audiovisual materials are short clips, videos that might make it easier to understand what's being said.
- [00:22:10.020]Fourth, use of short sentences.
- [00:22:12.020]Never underestimate the power of short sentences, and this is proved also in the realm of linguistics, etc.
- [00:22:18.020]Short text sentences convey stronger messages than trying to write a whole paragraph explaining what happened.
- [00:22:29.020]Fifth, cross-referencing other denialist websites, because all denialist websites will have cross-referencing, and you can now log into different hundreds of other websites.
- [00:22:40.020]Sixth, anonymous entities running websites.
- [00:22:44.020]It's very difficult to find out who is the person behind it.
- [00:22:48.020]You cannot go and publish a book with the press by saying, "Please don't add my name, just publish it."
- [00:22:55.020]You can't do that, but on websites you can do that.
- [00:22:58.020]extension to social networks, Facebook, X, TikTok, Instagram.
- [00:23:05.020]promotion beyond internet.
- [00:23:09.020]There are certain websites that promote beyond internets in the case of the Armenian Genocide.
- [00:23:14.020]Billboards, banners, skywriting even.
- [00:23:19.020]use of free sharing platforms, YouTube for example.
- [00:23:27.020]There are around three categories of denialist websites.
- [00:23:30.020]First, official government run.
- [00:23:33.020]Second, non-official organization association.
- [00:23:37.020]And third, anonymous. I'm going to start with the official government one.
- [00:23:41.020]Which is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the English version.
- [00:23:48.020]So there's tons of material there in denying the Armenian Genocide.
- [00:23:53.020]Section code, controversy between Turkey
- [00:23:56.020]and Armenia about events of 1950.
- [00:24:00.020]Keywords here, controversy. Whenever you say that the genocide is controversial,
- [00:24:05.020]you're questioning it. Second, events.
- [00:24:09.020]Events usually deny the genocidal categorization of the event itself.
- [00:24:15.020]Once you say the events of 1950, you deny what events.
- [00:24:20.020]The key points that we see on this official website
- [00:24:25.020]is relativizing suffering, relativization of suffering.
- [00:24:29.020]They died, we died, everyone died, it was everyone's dying.
- [00:24:33.020]Defense, relocation of Armenians from the provinces
- [00:24:37.020]to the Syrian desert as a safety measure
- [00:24:41.020]argues against the use of the term genocide,
- [00:24:44.020]because one of the key points of genocide,
- [00:24:49.020]which is intent, is very hard to prove.
- [00:24:54.020]And that's the whole problematic aspect
- [00:24:57.020]of the UN Convention of Genocide,
- [00:24:59.020]that it wants to see intent,
- [00:25:01.020]but perpetrators do not keep records of killing.
- [00:25:07.020]If you're going to kill someone,
- [00:25:09.020]you say, I'm going to kill someone,
- [00:25:11.020]I'm going to write it down, so I don't remember.
- [00:25:13.020]Killers do not, perpetrators do not keep records.
- [00:25:16.020]Hence, intent is very difficult to prove
- [00:25:19.020]in terms of documents.
- [00:25:21.020]But I argue in my scholarship
- [00:25:23.020]that intent could be proved
- [00:25:26.020]through understanding the process itself,
- [00:25:29.020]through understanding the organization,
- [00:25:32.020]the mechanism of the process,
- [00:25:34.020]in order to prove that this was,
- [00:25:36.020]and there was intent for the genocide.
- [00:25:39.020]This is the website.
- [00:25:40.020]You can go and see major events,
- [00:25:42.020]and there are also different types of material
- [00:25:45.020]put on the website,
- [00:25:48.020]and one of this material is a 10-page brochure,
- [00:25:51.020]Look 1915,
- [00:25:52.020]and pomegranate is a very important symbol
- [00:25:56.020]in the Armenian culture,
- [00:25:58.020]and then you have a quote from my book,
- [00:26:01.020]misquoting me, not misquoting me,
- [00:26:03.020]but putting it out of the context,
- [00:26:05.020]saying that look,
- [00:26:06.020]even Bedros Dermatosian is saying
- [00:26:08.020]that Armenians were revolting.
- [00:26:10.020]Well, taking out of context, of course.
- [00:26:13.020]And of course, you can find two reviews of my books
- [00:26:16.020]on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
- [00:26:19.020]scathing reviews of my books and my literature,
- [00:26:21.020]and what country puts scholars in review of books
- [00:26:26.020]on their money in the CO4 affairs.
- [00:26:29.020]The non-governmental websites are a lot.
- [00:26:32.020]There are a lot, but the two of them
- [00:26:34.020]are Turkish Coalition of America
- [00:26:36.020]and Assembly of Turkish American Associations.
- [00:26:39.020]They are nonprofit organizations.
- [00:26:41.020]They do a good job, I think,
- [00:26:43.020]within the Turkish community, activities, et cetera,
- [00:26:46.020]but both of them are actively denying the genocide.
- [00:26:50.020]The Turkish Coalition of America,
- [00:26:52.020]it's under issues and information,
- [00:26:54.020]the Armenian issue, of course,
- [00:26:57.020]provides extensive bibliography,
- [00:27:00.020]denying primary documents selectively selected,
- [00:27:05.020]you know, as part of proving something else.
- [00:27:09.020]And Turkish Coalition of America
- [00:27:11.020]has been also involved in funding
- [00:27:13.020]denialist scholarship and literature,
- [00:27:16.020]mainly published by the Utah University Press.
- [00:27:19.020]Then we have the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations.
- [00:27:22.020]Again, this is the largest assembly in the United States.
- [00:27:26.020]It has 50 chapters, 50 states.
- [00:27:28.020]But you can see that on the banner here,
- [00:27:33.020]the fourth, sorry, the fourth thing that you notice
- [00:27:36.020]is Resource Center, right?
- [00:27:39.020]The first thing that you see in Resource Center
- [00:27:42.020]is the Armenian, and, you know,
- [00:27:44.020]it's the Armenian Genocide, so-called Armenian Genocide,
- [00:27:46.020]because they use the so-called, all right?
- [00:27:48.020]First article, an Armenian and Muslim tragedy, yes.
- [00:27:52.020]Genocide, no, okay?
- [00:27:54.020]And it goes on detailing and detailing,
- [00:27:56.020]and it shows you how much denying is important.
- [00:28:02.020]I've seen a letter sent to the president of Yale,
- [00:28:05.020]for example, which I cite,
- [00:28:07.020]but without, in my article,
- [00:28:09.020]without giving a name, article based on this,
- [00:28:12.020]saying that if you say denying,
- [00:28:15.020]if you say, in fact,
- [00:28:17.020]if an X person is denying the genocide,
- [00:28:20.020]that's equal to the N-word, right?
- [00:28:22.020]So imagine how extreme people are ready to go.
- [00:28:26.020]And last but not least is the anonymous websites.
- [00:28:30.020]Anonymity, according to Johnny Angel Butera,
- [00:28:34.420]protection of the identity of the author from the social ostracism and legal ramification of
- [00:28:40.280]their denial beliefs, but also may allow the author to create a new identity that allows them
- [00:28:45.600]to speak freely on the subject of denial without support and positive feedback from other community
- [00:28:51.220]members. Anonymity is a tool, a powerful tool, a magical tool that people would use in order to
- [00:29:00.140]convey their message. And the most important website is fact check Arduino.
- [00:29:10.580]All of you know that fact check, fact check, fact check are good things, all right? Fact check are
- [00:29:26.360]good things because there's a lot of misinformation, disinformation,
- [00:29:30.060]on the website. And all major newspapers have specific team fact checking things, et cetera.
- [00:29:38.520]But this is taking the fact check and using it in order to deny the Armenian Genocide.
- [00:29:44.980]It was launched, the website was launched on the centennial of the Armenian Genocide.
- [00:29:49.340]It's available in seven languages, high quality infographics, images, and video clips,
- [00:29:56.100]and has strong social media presence.
- [00:29:59.840]This is the website, you see fact-check Armenia, take action now, photos, videos.
- [00:30:07.780]It has all the nine additional factors that I mentioned,
- [00:30:13.880]but I think the most powerful are the audiovisual material.
- [00:30:18.200]For example, there's a section here that important questions and answers, all right?
- [00:30:23.960]There's five of them.
- [00:30:26.020]First of all, the event of 1915 constitutes a clear-cut genocide.
- [00:30:29.820]Against Armenian people.
- [00:30:31.000]False, all right?
- [00:30:33.160]So there's the, imagine the image that you're looking here, all right?
- [00:30:37.280]The iconographic.
- [00:30:38.500]It has this type of false.
- [00:30:41.040]You start thinking it is false.
- [00:30:43.780]Second, the events of 1915 were a systematic attempt to eliminate the entire race.
- [00:30:48.760]False, again.
- [00:30:50.280]But today, major historians have done extensive work
- [00:30:56.240]in proving that Armenian genocide was a genocide.
- [00:30:58.740]That's all.
- [00:30:59.540]What are the strategies of the fact-check on Armenia?
- [00:31:05.600]Video clips are divided into three sections.
- [00:31:08.000]Use of fact-checking format to spread denial
- [00:31:11.800]and the re-constructualization of historical facts.
- [00:31:16.080]So these are, for example, the videos.
- [00:31:18.680]They're divided into short clips and this tragedy animation.
- [00:31:23.780]And third, there are interviews with scholars.
- [00:31:29.260]Concept of tragedy is very problematic, right?
- [00:31:33.180]You cannot call a Holocaust or genocide or genocides as a tragedy.
- [00:31:37.780]You can't call the fires in LA as a tragedy.
- [00:31:41.440]People died. It's a tragedy.
- [00:31:42.720]Because there is no, we don't want to say maybe there's a human agency there.
- [00:31:47.180]But because tragedy takes out of the equation agency, right?
- [00:31:54.560]It was tragedy.
- [00:31:55.300]They died, we died, everyone died, you know.
- [00:31:57.440]So here I'm going to show...
- [00:31:58.980]If I can't play this, one of the clips from 1800 to 2015, a short clip, if I can't play
- [00:32:12.920]it, I can't play it.
- [00:32:13.980]Can I return it?
- [00:32:17.380]At the turn of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire became a target.
- [00:32:28.700]Russia, great Britain, and France sought to break it into pieces at the end of its 600-year
- [00:32:36.300]existence.
- [00:32:37.000]These external powers enlisted Armenian organizations, and there I pretended in great tragedy.
- [00:32:43.700]The Ottoman Empire, founded in 1299, was a multinational and powerful empire, consisting
- [00:32:51.160]of multiple ethnicities.
- [00:32:52.780]Ethnic Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire were highly trusted.
- [00:32:58.420]They held great responsibility in the Ottoman administration.
- [00:33:02.020]In 1828, Russia, England, and France began to actively attempt to acquire Ottoman territory.
- [00:33:10.640]The Treaty of Berlin was signed in 1877 after the war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia.
- [00:33:17.700]The treaty granted Russia and Europe the right to interfere with the internal affairs of
- [00:33:22.980]the Ottoman Empire.
- [00:33:23.700]Propagandizing the agreements, Russia deluded them with the
- [00:33:28.140]promise of an Armenian Treaty, a concept which had never existed before.
- [00:33:32.620]Encouraged by the Russians, Armenians founded the Dashnak and Wunsha Nationalist Organizations.
- [00:33:38.960]These groups bonded Armenians with the Empire to incite an Armenian rebellion.
- [00:33:44.000]The first uprising occurred in Amsterdam, in Anatolia.
- [00:33:48.560]It was followed by other massacres, rebellions, even an attempt to assassinate the Ottoman
- [00:33:55.780]Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
- [00:33:57.860]During World War I, Armenians enlisted in the Ottoman army, defected to Russia, and
- [00:34:04.660]fought against the Turks.
- [00:34:05.940]Their betrayal led to the Russian seizure of the city of Van and many other territories
- [00:34:11.900]in 1914.
- [00:34:13.060]The Empire needed to respond.
- [00:34:15.700]To stop the Armenian rebellions and prevent the further loss of more people, the Empire
- [00:34:22.060]arrested the leaders of the Dakhnak and Hunshef.
- [00:34:24.580]Armenian citizens in the war zone
- [00:34:27.580]were transported to non-combat areas.
- [00:34:29.920]As a result of disbanding the Dakhnak and Hunshef terrorist organizations
- [00:34:34.680]and careful precautions, further rebellions were prevented.
- [00:34:38.420]In all the Armenian uprisings, which endured through World War I until 1918,
- [00:34:44.680]millions of Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Turkish, Kurdish, and Armenian Ottoman citizens were killed.
- [00:34:52.420]Russia and Europe were finished with the Armenians,
- [00:34:57.300]who had failed to serve their interests.
- [00:34:59.260]In the war's aftermath, Europe and Russia signed the Treaty of Lausanne.
- [00:35:05.320]With the newly formed Republic of Turkey,
- [00:35:07.960]the Armenians were given no promise of a nation,
- [00:35:11.020]but a dream in the treaty.
- [00:35:12.900]The first Prime Minister of Armenia, Obamas Kachasnuli,
- [00:35:17.700]admitted at the ARF party convention in Bucharest
- [00:35:21.000]that Russians had deceived Armenians.
- [00:35:23.580]Armenians had everything.
- [00:35:27.020]They had achieved independence in 1991
- [00:35:29.120]with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
- [00:35:31.800]Watch our videos for facts about Armenian history and issues.
- [00:35:36.240]Watch our videos for facts about Armenian history and issues.
- [00:36:05.960]Watch our videos for facts about Armenian history and issues.
- [00:36:35.680]Watch our videos for facts about Armenian history and issues.
- [00:37:05.400]This one is Boston Globe.
- [00:37:07.100]Globe, change for progress, stop the allegations.
- [00:37:09.860]And this is even skywriting, Turkey equals truth, Russia is Armenia's friend, etc., etc.
- [00:37:16.620]So, what are the common themes that we see in the digital age regarding Armenian genocide?
- [00:37:24.440]Armenian revolts as justifications for the measures that have been taken by the Turkish government,
- [00:37:30.360]relocating them, not deporting, relocating to safer zones.
- [00:37:35.120]Sensitive suffering argument that we both suffered, as you saw, everyone suffered, everyone died.
- [00:37:40.360]Absence of legal term genocide at the time, because genocide didn't exist at the time, then it wasn't a genocide.
- [00:37:46.500]Call for impartial court decision.
- [00:37:49.920]Turkey's argument now is that let's go to an unbiased court and try to prove that it was a genocide.
- [00:37:56.940]Demand to cease using the term genocide, framing as joint pain and loss, and,
- [00:38:04.840]interesting aspect is both sides isn't, both sides isn't, which is there are two stories for both sides.
- [00:38:12.220]Imagine, imagine you say there's the Jewish version of the Holocaust and there's the German version of the Holocaust, you can't do that.
- [00:38:17.160]How can we combat denialism in the digital age?
- [00:38:23.600]First of all, I think expose, we need to expose our counter arguments in academic manner, not through character assassination, not saying that the ex-scorer
- [00:38:34.560]is a bad person, etc. Not to call them evil. They're not evil. They have agendas.
- [00:38:39.840]Second, raise awareness about genocide and denialist tactics. Emphasize the dangers of denial for future crimes.
- [00:38:51.520]It's very important because denial engulfs perpetrators to perpetrate more acts of
- [00:38:57.840]violence in the future. Systematically represent denialist motives. Make primary and secondary
- [00:39:04.480]sources widely available online and utilize digital tools to combat denialism. One specific story I'm
- [00:39:12.240]going to tell before I conclude is that when I organized the Centennial Conference of the Armenian
- [00:39:18.800]Genocide here, a major conference in the Midwest, 17 scholars came, took place in April 2015.
- [00:39:25.760]The Turkish consul from Chicago immediately flew in and met with Perlman, the chancellor of Perlman, in order
- [00:39:34.400]to understand what's happening. I don't know what's happened, but I'm trying to put a pressure
- [00:39:38.640]to stop it. I'm proud of UNL. It didn't bow. It continued, backed me with the conference.
- [00:39:46.320]After that, two members from the community, or two members from the embassy, a consulate came
- [00:39:53.200]and met with Will Thomas, the chair back then, and they then handed him two books,
- [00:39:57.840]handed him two books of denialist literature and asked him to put it in the faculty
- [00:40:04.320]display case besides my book. I'm not kidding. Need to emphasize that denial of genocide
- [00:40:12.880]encourages repetition. Combating genocide denial requires a multi-faceted approach using the same
- [00:40:19.520]digital tools employed by denialists to educate and enlighten society about dangers of denying
- [00:40:25.680]historical atrocities. All of you saw this. Mark Zuckerberg on January 2025 said he's going
- [00:40:34.240]to remove fact checking from Facebook. Going to remove fact checking from Facebook. And he said
- [00:40:46.560]we're going to get rid of fact checking and replace them with community nodes similar to X
- [00:40:50.720]starting in the US after Trump first got elected. The legacy media wrote non-stop
- [00:40:55.200]about how this information was a threat to democracy and tried in good faith to address
- [00:40:59.840]those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. Because that's the motto we're
- [00:41:04.160]not the arbiters of truth. So this means Facebook can deny everything on Facebook,
- [00:41:09.280]but as a result of the Anti-Defamation League, ADL, they put pregnant in 2020 and now the Holocaust,
- [00:41:16.240]you cannot deny only the Holocaust on Facebook, not other genocides, right?
- [00:41:20.160]So this raises an important question about the future of digital age,
- [00:41:25.200]not only in promoting denial of genocide by racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and
- [00:41:34.080]many other types of bad isms. All right, thank you very much.
- [00:41:39.120]Thank you so much. We will take questions now if you have questions.
- [00:41:52.880]And we're going to use the mic because we are recording.
- [00:41:56.880]Hi, so you mentioned a key aspect of digital
- [00:42:04.000]denialism being like, especially in the context of the Armenian genocide, that the UN didn't
- [00:42:10.560]really have the term genocide until after the Holocaust. In your experience as a researcher
- [00:42:16.880]and historian, is there a tendency to use the Holocaust as the baseline model for what
- [00:42:22.080]a genocide should look like? And does that show up in like the denialism we see online?
- [00:42:27.120]The person who coined the concept of genocide was Fadi Namkheib.
- [00:42:33.920]A Jewish-Polish jurist, actually, who based his arguments on the Armenian genocide and what
- [00:42:42.960]happened to his family during the holocaust. But Holocaust is the holocaust. It's a specific term
- [00:42:50.240]used only to explain the genocide that took place against the Jews in World War II.
- [00:42:59.280]And to that extent, genocide is the
- [00:43:03.840]technical term used to define in the academic and in the legal term. It's a legal term, of course.
- [00:43:12.400]And UN Convention is important because it is important, but it's compromised.
- [00:43:18.720]I don't know if you know that after World War II, when they came together to draft the UN
- [00:43:24.000]Convention on Genocide, it became the result of compromise. Certain groups did not
- [00:43:29.760]enter to that listing, such as political groups, because both United States and
- [00:43:33.760]the Soviet Union had their own issues to cover, their own crimes that have
- [00:43:40.560]been committed in the past, and they wanted to bring and situate such a specific list that they
- [00:43:47.520]would be uncalculable. But to that extent, each genocide has their own native language description.
- [00:43:56.560]For example, the Ukrainian family is Holodomor, right?
- [00:44:03.680]All right. Thank you so much for this fascinating lecture. It seems that there is a lot of new energy
- [00:44:15.040]in the denialism. I was just thinking, do you feel that, for example, the recent conflict,
- [00:44:20.560]Armenia is using language which is just unbelievable. There was a politician who
- [00:44:27.920]killed an Armenian politician in Hungary, and he was not even persecuted.
- [00:44:33.600]And every dead Armenian is good Armenian. So my question is, seeing these very recent
- [00:44:41.040]problems, do you feel that the digital age and these sort of ways how to promote
- [00:44:49.280]genocide is suddenly being recycled at these newer conflicts or the connection?
- [00:44:57.680]Yeah, I mean, a few years ago there was an ethnic cleansing of Armenians
- [00:45:03.520]from the Nagorno-Karabakh region. No one talks about it, actually. 120,000 people were ethnic
- [00:45:08.800]immigrants from their homeland. No one talks about it. Again, that's the problem, you know,
- [00:45:12.960]and Turkey had an important role in that process, in that cleansing, because, again,
- [00:45:18.400]denial leads to more acts of violence against vulnerable groups. And it's a challenge. I mean,
- [00:45:25.600]the Republic of Turkey has a lot of resources in denying driving genocide. There
- [00:45:33.440]is a lot of resources. The Republic of Armenia doesn't have those resources.
- [00:45:36.240]And it's only, imagine, it's only in 2019 that the United States officially
- [00:45:44.960]has all the policies, and then the president and the minister are in charge of that.
- [00:45:54.160]So, you pointed to
- [00:46:03.360]one of the factors in denial is increasing in digital age as then removing the digital guardrails,
- [00:46:10.160]that is the fact checking on X or Meta. And also we see with China's state media then denying
- [00:46:19.920]genocide that way by using their own media. So, I'm wondering how you weigh the benefits of having
- [00:46:25.760]those guardrails in place and having certain topics not be allowed over having free speech and
- [00:46:33.280]narrative impact on the United States? That's a very good question because I mean the
- [00:46:37.440]advantage that the United States have in the United States is the First Amendment,
- [00:46:42.560]right? And does the First Amendment cover hate speech? I argue that it does cover hate speech,
- [00:46:51.440]I think. We can't say anything and then we say I'm not expressing my point of view. There was a
- [00:46:56.400]court case I think in the 1970s, I mentioned that in the article, but freedom of speech is not what
- [00:47:03.200]sold at the force. For example, I'm from Columbia University, I did my PhD at Columbia University,
- [00:47:10.480]a few years ago, April 24, the commemoration day of the Armenian Genocide, commemoration day,
- [00:47:15.840]the clergy students association wrote a denialist on the commemoration day to talk about the
- [00:47:22.160]so-called Armenian Genocide, right? So freedom of speech is a double-edged sword, I think. It's
- [00:47:26.640]very important, everyone has the right to say everything, but that's why I'm also promoting
- [00:47:33.120]this scholarship, the idea that denying of genocide should be equivalent to hate speech.
- [00:47:39.840]We should categorize it in that manner. Denial of genocide should be hate speech.
- [00:47:46.080]We have a question online. You quoted Israel Charney, an Israeli psychiatrist,
- [00:47:56.560]who denies the genocide in Gaza. Do you condemn his denial? I don't know about Charney.
- [00:48:03.040]I don't know when he said that he denies the genocide. I'm only quoting his contribution to
- [00:48:11.120]the literature. I have to see. I haven't read what he said.
- [00:48:19.040]Hello. I know some scholars, like Deborah Lipshot, have argued that
- [00:48:26.400]against scholars directly confronting denialism of the Holocaust or something like that, I think
- [00:48:32.960]it can help add to the both-sides-ism of making it seem like the other side has an
- [00:48:38.080]equal academic standing to actual scholars of genocide and stuff.
- [00:48:45.680]Her argument of this was in the early 90s before really the internet became what it is now. Do you
- [00:48:53.920]think that still is a fear that we have to worry about? Or as states like the nation of Turkey have
- [00:49:02.880]like officially sponsored denialist rhetoric and narratives, that it is important that in stuff
- [00:49:10.800]like that we more directly confront those? Very good point, very good point, because now denialism
- [00:49:16.320]has taken the core of the legitimate scholarship. We can use specific words,
- [00:49:24.560]specific approaches that in its essence you're denying, but it looks like legitimate scholarship.
- [00:49:32.800]I wanted to ask just regarding what you said about intent and the difficulty of
- [00:49:42.880]proving intent, and this is not at all to deny the role which the internet has been
- [00:49:51.680]making, which I don't know how old it is today, but do you think the
- [00:50:02.720]mass of data that is constantly being put through the internet has a possibility to make it easier
- [00:50:12.560]to prove intent or harder to prove intent? Again, intent has been proven, but here's the problem.
- [00:50:22.080]When the court case took place in Timberland and Bishopshark, I felt that the holocaust now has been put
- [00:50:32.640]in the court room to prove once more by bringing Christopher Browning and two others,
- [00:50:45.600]does anyone remember there, two other scholars, Browning, two other scholars in order to prove that
- [00:50:55.040]it was a holocaust. So there's the other argument that how much energy are you wasting on two
- [00:51:02.560]trying to battle denialism and trying to, I mean, you can spend all your life,
- [00:51:09.280]waste all your, quote unquote, waste all your life trying to demonstrate that this was a genocide and
- [00:51:16.720]combat denialism. So it's a tedious task because some of these people,
- [00:51:23.760]their career is to deny the truth. That's why careerism is one of those things.
- [00:51:32.480]I was wondering if you would speak to that idea of the burden of, as an academic, of addressing denialism and
- [00:51:40.960]you know, how do you keep going and, you know, earlier you said it's difficult to stay
- [00:51:48.160]calm and it's just, how do you approach it personally?
- [00:51:54.320]I mean, denial let alone dealing with the topic of violence on daily basis and researching gaining rights, I mean,
- [00:52:02.400]all due respect, I'm not doing theater in the 16th century, which is an excellent topic,
- [00:52:07.520]being in France in the 16th century, you know, or, you know, there are specific topics that do not cause
- [00:52:14.320]kind of the traumatic effect and you have, you get used to it in the course of history,
- [00:52:21.040]in the course of your lifetime, you have to desensitize yourself,
- [00:52:25.040]desensitize yourself, desensitize yourself, and because I've had the day
- [00:52:32.320]where you don't want emotions to be part of your story, you would like to have
- [00:52:36.080]the distance of self-formed emotions, right, and somehow try to be objective because no
- [00:52:44.880]one is objective. Those histories are not objective, there is no such thing.
- [00:52:48.560]Thank you for your time, and do you think it's
- [00:52:58.080]appropriate to say that empires needed to evolve to create with
- [00:53:02.240]a more democracy even when a country is built that democracy might have been built on
- [00:53:09.360]certain fallacies from a previous empire? I mean there are empires that fell by the
- [00:53:15.200]result of the regime that emerged, the Republic of Turkey, Italy, and we can count the interwar
- [00:53:24.400]period fascist governments here and there, Germany, etc. So I don't think there's a correlation between
- [00:53:32.160]collapse of empires and emergence of democratic states because what emerged is a homogenous
- [00:53:38.720]nation-state based on ethnic cleansing, mass accrues, and genocide.
- [00:53:44.640]Hello, thank you for taking time to teach us about this today. I was wondering, it appears
- [00:53:56.880]that this rhetoric seems to come a lot from Turkish associations which makes sense considering
- [00:54:02.080]its ethnicity. So do you see spillover effects here in the U.S. in academia or other areas of
- [00:54:09.680]life in the U.S.? Like basically I'm asking to what extent has this propaganda worked?
- [00:54:15.120]It does work. If you are a university, if you are a university that doesn't have some faculty,
- [00:54:22.080]you know, who knows about the topic, they wouldn't mind the deniers. And you say that,
- [00:54:26.800]okay, that's, you know, some deniers are a huge amount of scholarships.
- [00:54:32.000]That's the cover of a reputable story, you can deny whatever you want. So it is effective,
- [00:54:41.120]it is effective. One thing that we have to remember, that unlike the Holocaust or the genocide,
- [00:54:47.360]has not, it has not been entrenched in the collective memory of that movement, despite the
- [00:54:52.960]fact that there are more than 20,000 pages of international archives proving that this was made
- [00:55:01.920]a crime that happened based on diplomatic correspondences, based on missionary correspondences,
- [00:55:08.800]and to that extent, Iranian genocide is part and parcel of American history.
- [00:55:13.760]But due to Turkey's membership in NATO, for about nine decades, Turkey made sure that the United
- [00:55:22.800]States would not or would not or should not pass the resolution acknowledging Iranian genocide.
- [00:55:28.880]Thank you all very much. All right, we'll do one last one.
- [00:55:36.560]You mentioned the first step is denial or that's what you posited as your argument.
- [00:55:44.560]So going forward, when you witness further genocides, how can you be cognizant of that
- [00:55:52.720]seeing place and combat it? Like, for example, what could potentially happen
- [00:55:58.720]to like migrant communities or try to create some discussion?
- [00:56:01.760]Yeah, I mean, we are scholars. I mean, our weapon is our work, our articles, our
- [00:56:17.280]op-eds, you know. And raising awareness is the minimum thing we can do for the Madison
- [00:56:24.240]Confederates. Raising awareness and teaching future generations. We're not politicians,
- [00:56:28.560]we don't have power, like political power or stake in politics or anything else. So
- [00:56:39.280]I'm a pessimist person, so I don't see things are going to... I'm a realist actually, I'm not
- [00:56:47.680]a state communist, I'm a realist, so I don't think things are getting positive.
- [00:56:52.880]Well, maybe we'll end on a positive note. Yes.
- [00:56:58.400]Thank you so much for your lecture this evening. I hope to see people back
- [00:57:02.400]later in February for Gerald Steinlein's question. Thank you.
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