CLARK PROFESSOR’S LATEST BOOK PROVIDES MORE EVIDENCE OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Worcester Telegram
Sept 5 2012
MA
By Bronislaus B. Kush TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
[email protected]
WORCESTER – Taner Akcam – through his painstaking research – has
spent his academic life gathering historical evidence in the hope of
conclusively proving that the World War I era deaths of 1.5 million
Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks fit the definition of a
“genocide.”
The detailed information that the Clark University professor has
collected over the decades has convinced the leaders of at least 20
nations, but the material, along with mounting global pressure, hasn’t
prodded the rulers of Turkey to take responsibility for the killings.
Now, Mr. Akcam, who holds an endowed chair at Clark’s Strassler
Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, has written another book
that provides additional evidence that Turkish leaders at the time
pursued a policy of “Turkification” and “demographic engineering”
to cleanse their nation of Armenian Christians.
Mr. Akcam, however, isn’t betting that the new book, “The Young Turks’
Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in
the Ottoman Empire,” is going to change the position of the Turkish
regime, even though it culls information from 600 Ottoman documents
that have been, until recently, restrictively archived in Istanbul.
“A logical human being can view the genocide for what it was,” said
Mr. Akcam. “The leaders of Turkey can’t. They aren’t able to move on.”
Turkey, the successor nation to the Ottoman Empire,” has strongly
rejected the characterization of the Armenian deaths as a genocide.
The government has admitted that hundreds of thousands died but it
strenuously denies there was a program in place to obliterate the
Armenian population.
The decimation of the Armenian population in Turkey began in April
of 1915 when the empire’s rulers began rounding up Armenian leaders,
writers, intellectuals, and professionals. Thousands of other Armenians
were subsequently abducted, tortured, deported, or executed.
The government even tore away young children from their Armenian
parents, in the hopes of assimilating them into Turkish society.
“The Turks basically established a republic by massacring or expelling
its Christian population,” said Mr. Akcam. “The rulers were believers
in social Darwinism and they thought they could socially engineer a
new nation.”
He said the Turks have to take responsibility for their actions,
like other nations have.
For example, Mr. Akcam has said the Germans have acknowledged the
Jewish Holocaust and the United States doesn’t try to bury away the
slavery era.
Yet, Mr. Akcam acknowledged it would be difficult for Turkey to
recognize what had happened to its Armenian population.
Firstly, he said, Turks have been “indoctrinated” over the years by
Turkish authorities.
Also, if the government were to admit that the decimation of the
Armenians was a genocide, it would be admitting that present-day
Turkey’s founding fathers were murderers.
Mr. Akcam said economics also play a role. An admission of a genocide
by Turkish officials would lead to a slew of lawsuits filed across
the world for the lands and other possessions taken from the Armenians.
He said the Turkish position might begin to change, if the United
States were to join the 20 or other so nations who recognize the
killings and expulsions as a genocide.
Mr. Akcam said American officials, like British and Israeli leaders,
view Turkey in strategic terms and choose not to push the issue.
He added that the Armenian diaspora in America isn’t strong enough
to lobby the cause.
However, Mr. Akcam is hopeful that there will be a change in the
Turkish government’s thinking.
For example, an influential Turkish columnist with strong ties to
the ruling class has written and managed to get published a book that
views the Armenian plight as a genocide, he said.
“There’s hope, maybe, that Turkish society is opening up some,”
Mr. Akcam said.
http://www.telegram.com/article/20120905/NEWS/120909830/1312