1915 Genocide - Frequently Asked Questions: Denial

Denial of genocide is a known phenomenon which characterizes the very last phase of a genocidal process. Israel Charny writes that the denial constitutes "an attack on the collective identity and national-cultural continuity of the victim group" and "makes their recovery even more difficult." Charny also point out that denial is not just a way to exonerate the perpetrators of a committed genocide or to avoid compensating the victims (the perpetrator's perspective), but also to avoid any responsibility and obligation to intervene (the outside world perspective).^[24] The historian Richard G. Hovannisian calls it memory murder and describes this as follows: "Following the physical destruction of a people and their material culture, memory is all that is left and is targeted as the last victim. Complete annihilation of a people requires the banishment of recollection and suffocation of remembrance. Falsification, deception and half-truths reduce what was to what might have been or perhaps what was not at all."^[25] But in order to accomplish this the perpetrator must get good help from the outside world, an effort that some politicians contribute by writing their own version of history and refuse to recognize the genocide for what it really was.

47 How is genocide denial characterized? What are the characteristic features?

Political scientist Adam Jones shows a general view of how the genocide denial is structured and summarizes the arguments in the following main points (parallels with the 1915 genocide have been added in brackets to illustrate):
1. There was hardly anyone who died, which aims to depict the reports of abuses and massacres as propaganda (Turkey claims it was barely a few thousand who died and not close to two million Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and Greeks, as research shows).
2. It was self-defense, which aims to make the target group to the culprit, accusing them for being insurgents, terrorists or traitors (Turkey claims that the Armenians collaborated with the enemy and killed the Muslims, which made military action justified).
3. The killing was not intentional, which utilizes the lack of sufficient documentation to show that the killing was actually a by-product, usually due to organizational deficiency (Guenter Lewy is one of the scholars claiming that the whole thing was an unfortunate result of ongoing war and the Turkish government's inability to implement the well-meant deportations, which he, alike Turkey, now call for "relocations").
4. There was no central planning or implementation is the argument used by states and governments that want to renounce all responsibility and instead blame the committed abuses on local authoritarian leaders (Lewy uses this arguments, asserting that the massacres were rather sporadic events performed by the high-handed local administrators, without the government's consent or order).
5. There were not even so many individuals to begin with, is a way to reduce the scale of the genocide by manipulating statistics and demographic data (Justin MacCarthy claims that Ottoman statistics prove that Armenians were a "insignificant minority" in the region and that there were not even 1.5 million Armenians that could have been killed).
6. It was not genocide, which exploits the ambiguity of the UN Convention and the arguments above in order to establish that the abuses in question cannot be classified as genocide (Turkey refers to this by asserting that it would be an "affront" to the victims of the Holocaust to equate them with the events in Armenia).
7. We would never do something like this is a highly humane approach and a result of the collective pathological narcissism that blocks and excludes any knowledge about one's committed horrors (Turkey categorically refuses to be compared with the Nazis, accused of having committed the most horrible crime of our time: genocide).
8. We are the real victims, is a good example of "a good offense is a good defense" and seeks to shift the perspective from the target group by stating that the perpetrator is the actual victim (Turkey claims that the real victims were the Muslim population which Armenians massacred indiscriminately).^[26]

To further clarify how a genocide denial functions we need to understand the reasoning behind the denial. The logic of denial can be summarized by five characteristic features:
1.Innocence and self-righteousness: the defendant would only ascertain the truth and cannot imagine that a person could be so vicious as in the described crimes.
2.Research in the service of confusion: "We do not know enough to deliver a fair judgment." This is a manipulative abuse of the research principle that the facts must be proven before they are accepted, which only serves to confuse the already known facts and confuse right-minded individuals.
3.Practicality, pragmatism and realpolitik: to delve into the past is impractical and will not result in any constructive activity in our days. You have to leave the past behind, live in the present and look to the future.
4.Distorted references and temporal confusion: by making unsubstantiated links to events that are out of context trying to justify the denial. Contemporary Armenian terrorist actions will be encouraged, if Turkey recognizes the past Armenian Genocide.
5.Dishonesty, definitionalism and reversal: these are excuses to shy away from the essential issue, i.e. whether genocide has taken place or not. The definitionalism is an unnerving form of resistance by trying to create a discussion for whether the events in question can be put under any of the definitions of genocide or not. It is like getting the murdered family to listen to the defense lawyers' arguments requiring proof for finding out whether the murdered individual is really dead or not. Finally, the last point is the most ultimate form of denial, because the perpetrator reverses the roles so that the victims appear as murderers, while the killers are portrayed as hapless victim.^[27]
All these points are recognized by the Turkish denial (and also of other countries' politicians in their refusal to recognize the genocide for what it was) and the requirements for "new, independent" research on the Armenian Genocide.

No. Denial is also implemented by the third parties, the so-called "bystanders" (spectators), who would prefer to avoid having to acknowledge the problem and thus become involved in the problem. One example was USA's long time denial of the ongoing genocide in Rwanda, since the administration did not want to admit that there was a genocide. If recognized, it would mean that the USA would become (especially morally) obliged to intervene in the conflict to stop the violations of human rights. In a later stage, the world community again utilizes the genocide denial in order to avoid ending up in a conflict with the perpetrating country, which could damage the recognizing country's own interests, for example, diplomatic and economic relations with the accused country. One simply chooses to ignore the crime in order to protect its own interests. The Armenian Genocide and the denial of it because of Turkey's threat of diplomatic and economic boycotts (see also question 97) exemplifies this approach perfectly.

50 Has Turkey's genocide denial been always as it looks today or has it changed?

Turkey's genocide denial has undergone a series of changes during the last 100 years and evolved as the research has become more widespread and new evidence been presented. Shortly after WWI, Turkey simply denied that any massacres and deportations had taken place. Through political and economic inducements Turkey could then effectively smother the issue for over fifty years. But this changed when the international genocide research began in the early 1980s to also examine the Armenian case and the pile of evidence started to grow. Then Turkey could no longer deny the existence of the events, but the denial had to become more sophisticated. Now the Turkish State went over to a new phase where it established its own institutions with state-paid researchers within academia who claimed that one could refute the allegations of genocide (see question 51).

Turkish state denial campaign has evolved significantly since its emergence in the 1920s when it stuck to a simple denial of the alleged massacres and deportations would have occurred. But with increased research, mapping and discovery of new findings in the various national archives that have been emerged over the years so developed even the denial to a more sophisticated argument once it is no longer possible to simply deny existing facts. In 1982, the Institute of Turkish Studies (ITS) in Washington DC was founded with the help of a grant of three million USD from the Turkish Foreign Ministry through its embassy in the US capital.^[28] ITS has since then been associated with some of the most notorious deniers of the Armenian genocide: Stanford Shaw, his two students Heath W. Lowry and Justin McCarthy, and Edward J. Erickson. However, it must be mentioned that ITS has in the recent years stepped down this aspect of its activities, especially since 2015 when the Turkish government ended its funding of ITS. This happened in an apparent consequence of ITS scholars confronting the official genocide denial by Turkey and demanding their scholarly independence. Turkey also spends millions of USD on public relation firms and lobby groups to prevent the recognition of the genocide. Even if the hidden statistics are huge since these kind of transactions are mostly conducted in the utmost secrecy, it has still been possible to demonstrate this lobbying in the audit reports which have become public. In 2011 the US Justice Department exposed that Turkey had transferred approximately $3.3 million USD to four PR organizations in the US to be used in the blocking of the imminent threat of the US Congressional recognition of the Armenian genocide.^[29] The list goes on with similar revelations in public accounting audits, showing that the funding consists of millions. In addition, Turkey uses its usual threats about diplomatic and economic sanctions against any country considering such recognition, a policy that has succeeded well during the past century.

52 Were the Armenians not in collusion with the enemy, thus justifying the government actions?

One of the cornerstones of a genocide is the very justification of the measures which otherwise may bring loathing and resistance among the perpetrator's own group/population. The Nazis did this by blaming the Jews for being enemy of the state, in collusion with the Communists and to be "human disease". The parallels with the Armenian genocide are striking: Armenians were accused then (as now in the denial campaign) to be in collusion with the enemy and the Armenians had dared to demand autonomy which was a threat to the Turkish nation and Anatolia, the core of the Turkish "homeland". The fact is that the leaders of the Union and Progress ("Young Turks", see question 7) first tried to secure the cooperation of the Armenians and asked them to start an armed uprising in Eastern Armenia (Russian Armenia, see question 3) and Transcaucasia. In return, the Armenians were promised autonomy for Eastern Armenia and the neighboring regions of Western Armenia after the war. Dashnak Party's leadership (at the time the largest Armenian political party) rejected the proposal during their congress in August 1914, held in Erzurum, and replied that in case of a war between Turkey and Russia, Armenians were obliged to fight for their respective countries. Just as Winston Churchill recalls, the situation was so that "the Armenians preferred war, involving killing brothers on two fronts, to the Turkish suggestion of treason against the Russians."^[30] But even if there were some battalions which fought on the Russian side, their existence at the Caucasian front could hardly in any way justify the Turkish government's genocidal treatment of the Armenians. It is sufficient to recall that at the same time there was a Czechoslovak battalion in the Russian army at the Austrian front. But the Austro-Hungarian government never came up with the idea to eradicate the Czechoslovak people in their empire. Likewise, the Russian government was quite aware of a Polish battalion, led by later Marshal Pilsoleski, where a number of Poles from Russia fought in the Austro-Hungarian army against Russia, but even here it did not result in Russia starting a genocide towards all Poles in Poland. But why go so far? From the very beginning of World War I, the Ottoman Empire put together a Georgian battalion for their war against the Russians, but the Turks do not seem to want to acknowledge this group nor the Russians have carried out a genocide in Georgia because of this well-known fact.

No. This argument is frequently used by the Turkish state, but has been rejected by several researchers, including Robert Melson and Vahakn N. Dadrian who argue that the claim falls for several reasons:

1) There were definitely abuses against the Muslim population, but this was mainly after 1918 and perpetrated by a limited group of military bands. In addition, these assaults were primarily acts of revenge and took place long after the massacres between 1915 to 1916. It would simply be illogical to justify the massacres during 1915 on events which would take place three years later.
2) It would be very wrong to equate a few thousands of armed bands and the civilian Armenian population with the Turkish state and its well-equipped army. Research shows that the genocide was planned and directed by the central government and its agents throughout Turkish society.
3) Although there were Muslim victims of starvation and diseases, their death, unlike e.g. Armenians, was not a direct result of government implemented massacres, deportations and deprivation of vital resources such as food and water. It is this crucial difference that makes the latter genocide under the UN convention, while the former becomes losses due circumstances.
4) A civil war means that the central government in a country stopped functioning, creating a power vacuum in the country with warring parties as a result. As previously stated (see question 7) were the Young Turks in full control of everything that happened in the empire, why it cannot be described as a civil war.

It should be noted that the stated arguments do not mean that the loss of Muslim lives is less regrettable than the loss of Christian life, but while the former was a reaction, based in revenge and limited to a small number of individuals, as well as result of circumstances of war (and ironically partly because of the Armenian deportations), the atrocities against the Armenians were a state-planned program, intended to wipe out an entire nation, i.e. a genocide.

54 Did the Armenian separatists not threaten the Turkish Empire's territorial integrity?

This argument is part of the denial strategy that was set out in the preceding answer. However, it is documented that the Armenians never (at least not long after it was discovered the fate that awaited them) demanded independence, but only reforms within the framework of the Turkish Empire to secure their lives and property. Neither at the conference in San Stefano or later in Berlin (both 1878) did the Armenians demand anything other than reforms which would guarantee their life and property. The accusation was a pretext used by the government to justify the horrors that were applied against the minorities in question. It was only after the large massacres of 1894-96 and later in 1909 that Armenians, as well as great powers after the genocide of 1915-1916, came to the conclusion that the Armenians could not be guaranteed any security under Turkish rule and were therefore (alike the Greeks, Serbs , Yugoslavs, Romanians and Arabs) entitled to their own country. This would be done through the reunification of Eastern Armenia (Russian side and today's Armenia) and Western Armenia (present-day eastern Turkey), which had been divided between the two empires (see Map 1).

55 Was it not just an unfortunate and unintended consequence of the relocation of the Armenians as a necessary war measure?

One of the main arguments that denial side uses is the claim that it was not at all about forced deportations, but relocations. The Armenians had simply been sent to safer places in the Empire's internal parts and were to return to their houses and homes when the danger was over. However, this claim falls for various reasons: first of all, almost simultaneously with the deportations, a decree was issued allowing the Muslim Turks and Kurds to confiscate and take over the estates, houses and properties belonging to the deportees. This suggests that the authorities had no plans at all for the return of the deportees to their homes. This fact alone implies the intention to get rid of the deportees. Secondly, it was precisely the lack of any preparation for these deportations which demonstrates that the government had annihilation in mind: to forcibly displace over a million people during the ongoing war would, even under the best of circumstances and intentions, mean certain death when women, children and elderly people were sent out in day-long marches out to the desert areas without any edible or water. This fact has been pointed out by the Turkish historian Taner Akcam: "The fact that neither at the start of deportations, nor en route, and nor at the locations, which were declared to be their initial halting places, were there any single arrangement, required for the organization of a people's migration, is sufficient proof of the existence of this plan of annihilation. "^[31]

Armenians have been living in Iran for more than 400 years, while the survivors of the genocide came to form large communities in countries like Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Jordan. Armenians have never experienced a similar situation in some of these Muslim countries and have always had a good relationship with their Muslim compatriots. This was the case even in the Ottoman Empire and even if Armenians and other Christian minorities lived as second class citizens, they could nevertheless live relatively peacefully with the Turks and Kurds for several hundred years until the late 1800s. For the Young Turks, religion was only a pretext and tool in enticement of the Ottoman population against the Christian minorities in general and the Armenians in particular. Genocide motives should be mainly sought among racist and ultra-nationalist tendencies.

Another way to deny the genocide is to grossly belittle the number of victims and make everything seem like a minor event. The fact is that the UN Genocide Convention is deliberately formulated so that the victim quantity has no significance. It is primarily the intention behind the extermination of a group that is decisive, even if no single person is killed. But in this case it is documented that, regardless of the population's original size, virtually the entire Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire, with certain exceptions for the city of Constantinople (Istanbul), disappeared during the course of the war. In 1923, there was no Armenian population in Western Armenia (Turkish Armenia) to talk about anymore. As regard to the allegations of the Armenian killing Muslims (Turks and Kurds), see paragraph 8 of question 47. No serious scholar denies that Armenians killed Muslims, but as it has pointed out previously (see question 53), this was mostly about defense actions and limited retaliation. While these reprisals were carried out by a limited number of armed Armenian bands, the atrocities against the Armenian population was conceived and orchestrated by the Turkish government and army.

This statement is not true. In fact, shortly after World War I, several civilians as well as war trials were initiated in Turkey where hundreds of individuals stood accused for responsibility for the massacres and illegal confiscations. These trials were mainly held between 1919 and 1920, during which several of the defendants were found guilty of war crimes and other violations. Several were sentenced to death and some were even executed, while others were sent to long prison terms. But as soon as the new nationalist movement had gained control over Turkey, all ongoing proceedings were halted, those convicted were released and compensated for the time they had been detained and most of them were actually included in the New Republic's administration. The issue came to the fore at international level by the Sèvres Treaty. The inclusion of Articles 114 (Turkey's recognition of the unlawful confiscation of abandoned property), 226 (Ally's right to prosecute individuals accused of war crimes) and 230 (Turkey's obligation to surrender individuals suspected of having committed war crimes) clearly indicates that not only there were existing legal frameworks to address these issues but also the fact that, just as in the case of the Holocaust, it is necessary to establish international trials to punish the guilty.^[32] The fact that the Allies abandoned the Sèvres Agreement and the requirement for these trials for the sake of political reasons and to secure their interests in the newly formed Turkish Republic is irrelevant in this context.

59 Is there any document that proves the Turkish government's intention to exterminate the Armenians?

It is true that there is not an explicit document in which such a plan for annihilation or an order for it is recorded. The fact is that even in Holocaust's case such a document or an order has never been found. But the absence of such a document does not mean that one should ignore all the other evidence and circumstances where everything points to a overall plan with precisely that particular intention. It is well known that, aware of the possible consequences, the Turkish leaders acted with the greatest possible caution and orders were often given orally and by couriers (see question 36). In addition, there are plenty of other documents and orders in which their overall meaning and significance can only be interpreted in one way and it is a conscious action to get rid of the Armenian population of the empire. In addition to the issue of documentation, the coordinated actions such as the arrest of the leaders, the massacres of the able-bodied men, the deportation of the remaining Armenians in conditions that were equal to death sentence and the confiscation of their property, all constitute an indirect but overwhelmingly proof that the whole issue was nothing more than a deliberate plan of extermination of the Armenian population.

60 If there is such a wide evidence base and consensus within the academic world, why does Turkey continue to deny the genocide?

This is a versatile subject. The very main reason is the impact of the recognition and the claims that would be directed against Turkey (see paragraph80). Another aspect is simply a question of recognizing one's own faults and furthermore admitting that they have been wrong all these years. Last, but not least, the question of a psychological barrier: How can one be able to admit that their own nation and one's own grandparents (and perhaps another generation back) are guilty of something deplorable as genocide, considered the ultimate crime in our days. As the murdered Armenian journalist and editor Hrant Dink put it: "The Turks are good people and know that genocide is a terrible crime. It is precisely because of this that they do not want to admit that they may have committed such a heinous act." In addition, in an Eastern society (see also paragraph98) such as the Turkish, to accuse one's own nation and, perhaps worse, one's own grandfather to be perpetrator of looting, rape and murder is almost unthinkable. If a country's laws and sentiments imply that insulting of the founding father of the country, Mustafa Kemal "Atatürk" alone entails a prison sentence, then one can imagine what it means to be accused of genocide. A concrete example is the statement by the Turkish historian Yusuf Halacoglu, professor and former chairman of the Turkish History Association, in regard to the accusations of genocide, where he during an interview said: "This is a question of whether one should assume responsibility for a shameful inhuman act. I will not accuse my grandfather of being a criminal for a crime he did not commit."^[33] However, the question is rather whether Halacoglu could possibly even consider accusing his grandfather even if he would become convinced that the genocide was a real event.^[34]

61 How can Turkey have succeeded with its denial and escaped the responsibilities despite all evidence?

The reason that Turkey has managed to get away with a committed genocide cannot be explained explicitly with the Turkish state's denial, but the responsibility falls equally on the international community. They talk often about the responsibility for recognizing falls mainly on Turkey, which is also true. By pointing finger at Turkey, the international community, with the major powers in the lead, attempt to free themselves from responsibility in this matter. It was the victorious powers who in the 1920s abandoned the Armenian question and the requirements for administrating justice in favor of securing their political and economic interests in the new Turkish Republic. Later on it was mainly the lack of outside pressure which has allowed the Turkish state's denial to continue and resisting recognition. Nowadays, several researchers agree that the recent changes in the Turkish society, where the increasing transparency has started to question the government's denial is partly thanks to external political pressure, e.g. in connection with Turkey's negotiations for EU membership. Thus the outside world has an equal responsibility in this issue and one cannot only blame Turkey for the failure of a wider recognition of the genocide.

Hrant Dink was an Armenian journalist and editor of the Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos. Dink was prosecuted in 2006 under Section 301 and was found guilty of having insulted Turkishness by pointing out the reality of the genocide. His trial attracted international attention but also made him a target of nationalist circles in Turkey. Despite knowing the risks and the fact that the Turkish government did not do anything to protect him, he refused to leave Turkey but continued with his work. Dink was shot dead in broad daylight just outside the Agos office in Istanbul. The perpetrator, then 17 years old, shot Dink with three shots in the back of the head before fleeing the scene. His murder was condemned internationally and resulted in major protests in Turkey when upwards 200,000 demonstrators marched during his funeral with the slogans "We are all Hrant Dink, we are all Armenians!" His murder forced a loosening of the use of Section 301 and is considered to have contributed to Turkish society's more open view of the genocide. In 2010 Turkey was convicted by the European Court of Human Rights for having indicted Dink for his criticism of Turkey's denial of the Armenian genocide.

63 Shouldn't Erdogan condolence on April 23, 2014 be viewed as an attempt for reconciliation?

On April 23, 2014, one day before the annual commemoration day of the genocide, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a statement in which he allegedly offered his "condolences for the fate of the Armenians during the First World War." The statement was widely reported around the world with, among other headings such as "Turkey regrets Armenian genocide". The Western leaders welcomed the gesture and said it was a gesture of reconciliation by Turkey. This optimism, however, was far from justified since Erodgan had neither recognized the genocide nor claimed that Armenians had been subjected to any special treatment. His statement of "condolence" and "regret of Armenians fate" had been lifted out of context entirety in which he pointed out that the Armenian fate was not unique at all, but the same had happened to all the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire, regardless of "race, or religion." Furthermore, he pointed out that the events were not genocide and that one should examine the question in a joint commission to see what had happened. In other words, his statement was nothing but the state denial that is used to counteract a further international recognition. Turkey tends actually to make similar well-timed statements, either in connection with the genocide commemoration day, April 24, or if there are motions for recognition, especially when on the agenda of the parliaments of major powers such as the USA or France. However, as soon as the imminent danger of recognition is averted, the "reconciliatory" rhetoric soon returns to the usual denial policy. The time will tell whether Turkey is ready to accept the truth about the genocide without using pretexts or excuses to belittle or even deny the genocide.

24) Charny, Israel W., Encyclopedia of Genocide, Vol. 1, Oxford, 2000, p. 159.
25) Hovannisian, Richard G., denial of the Armenian Genocide in Comparison with Holocaust Denial, in Hovannisian, Richard G. (ed.), Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide, Detroit, 1999, p. 202.
26) Jones, Adam, Genocide, A Comprehensive Introduction, New York, 2006, pp. 352-354.
27) Alvarez, Alex, Governments, Citizens, and Genocide A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approach, Indiana, 2001, pp. 114-129; Charny, Israel W., Encyclopedia of Genocide, Vol. 1, Oxford, 2000, p. 160.
28) Marc Nichanian, The Truth of the Facts: About the New Revisionism, Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.), Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide(Wayne State University Press, 1999), p. 274.
29) See Turkey spent $ 3.3 million on anti-Genocide campaign in US, News.am14 March 2011; news.am/eng/news/51246.html. panarmenian.net/eng/world/news/22427 and Turkey pays over $ 3 million a year to Jewish organizations in US for Armenian Genocide denial, Panarmenian.net, 22 October 2008; panarmenian.net/eng/world/news/27316
30) Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. V, London 1929, p. 404.
31) Vahakn N. Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus, Berghahn, 2004, p. 243.
32) Richard G. Hovannisian, Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918 (Berkeley: Univ. of California P., 1967), p. 52. See also William A. Schabas, Prosecuting Genocide, in Dan Stone (ed.), The Histography of Genocide (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 253; Paul G. Lauren, From Impunity to Accountability: Forces of transformation and the changing international human rights context, in Ramesh Thakur and Peter Malcontent (ed.), From Sovereign Impunity to International Accountability: The search for justice in a world of states(Tokyo, United Nations University Press, 2004), pp. 22-25.
33) The Journal of Turkish Weekly, Halacoglu: Armenian Issue a 'matter of honor' for Turkey, Ankara, April 14, 2005.
34) Here, the reference of Halacoglu to his grandfather is of course interpreted as a metaphor for the generation in question and not the specific individual in question.