The Tribune, India
Sept 25 2005
Many facets of Iran
Iran’s politics doesn’t put off tourists who are drawn by the
landscape and architecture. A bottle
of mineral water may be more expensive than petrol, but it makes
driving around cheaper,
says Christoph Kohler
The Blue Mosque of Esfahan is mesmerising.
– Photo by the writer

Shrouded in a mesh of political unrest, Iran may not be everyone’s
idea of a prime holiday destination but it is a treasure-trove of
picturesque landscapes and magnificent architecture waiting to be
rediscovered.
Non-existent town planning has led to uncontrolled growth. Tehran is
no exotic crossroad soaked in oriental splendour and deserves to be
explored. The presence of the Komite, the Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corp, has visibly diminished. Make-up, nail polish and high
heels are visible, emphasising a growing feminism. Audiences flock to
Titanic, cut to a meagre one-hour trailer. These simple changes
became possible under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s predecessor Mohammad
Khatami.
The rigid Islamic laws, imposed during the Islamic Revolution,
forbidding alcohol, Western music and card games, are still strictly
enforced.
While the dress code for men has relaxed and women’s fashion shops
abound in urban Iran, the chador is, however, the only female fashion
tolerated in public.
Tehran still has evidence of its very vulnerable relationship with
North America, perceived as the `Great Satan.’ An enormous mural of
an American flag adorns a downtown skyscraper; skulls replacing the
stars, and bombs dropping from the bleeding stripes. Paintings
celebrating the storming of the American Embassy in 1979, and images
commemorating the accidental downing of a civilian aircraft by the US
Navy in 1989, embellish the grey walls of the former `US Den of
Espionage’. Nowadays, the obsolete embassy is used as a
computer-training centre for aspiring Komite cadets.
However, it is the people who smash one’s preconceptions. Iranians
don’t really hate America, they love hamburgers, which are available
at every corner, and flush them down with Parsi Cola while
scrutinising the latest basketball results in the newspaper. They
don’t take the ridiculous propaganda seriously any longer, having
been penetrated by it for years.
Travelling around the country is very convenient and economical.
Sixty litres of petrol are sold for less than two dollars. A bottle
of mineral water is more expensive. All public transport is therefore
easy on the pocket, very reliable, comparatively comfortable and
certainly no hit-and-miss affair.
Esfahan is mesmerising. Its charm has always fascinated travellers.
As the saying goes: `Esfahan is half the world,’ which expressed the
city’s grandeur in the 16th century. Intellectually brave, the town
has been a flourishing centre of learning for decades. Nowadays, the
city’s thinkers gather behind closed doors, the music volume kept to
a minimum, barely loud enough to hear the lyrics of Pink Floyd’s `The
Wall’, the all-time favourite hymn among Iranian youth. For fear that
the tipped-off Komite might arrive on the scene of such a `heinous’
social event, within seconds all `evidence’ can be eliminated.
The cosy teahouses under the bridges spanning the river are
marvellous retreats, to linger for hours, meeting the delightful
`Esfahanis.’ They are atmospheric refuges to sip boiling tea in and
savour sweet pastry. Young and old, the locals get together in
Esfahan’s teahouses to philosophise about life and dreams of a
scholarship abroad. They exchange entertaining anecdotes of the rough
times in the compulsory army, buying booze and magazines for inflated
prices from Turkish soldiers across the border.
Shiraz, another night journey further south, was one of the most
important cities in the medieval Islamic world. In its heyday, Shiraz
was famous for nightingales, poetry, roses and even wine, which
nowadays is only tolerated for communal services in the Armenian
Church. Shiraz’s true jewel, however, is a stone’s throw northeast in
the desert. The ancient palace complexes of Persopolis, once Persia’s
glamorous capital, display only a small fraction of their past
grandeur. Rampaging Persia at the time, Alexander the Great paid a
violent visit to his enemy’s glamorous capital on a cold January day
in 330 BC. With unrestrained ferocity, Persopolis was looted and
torched to the ground.
Across the barren desert in central Iran, Yazd has always been a
centre of religion, retaining its treasure of old tradition and
architecture. Recognised by Unesco as hosting the second oldest
architecture in the world, the old town is entirely built of mud
bricks. Yazd is an important hub for Zoroastrianism, Persia’s state
religion from around 500 BC. Modern scholars trace the birth hour of
the world’s first religion based on prophesy back to 12th century BC.
Heading east, Bam is a lush-green oasis in the middle of the harsh
wilderness. In the heart of this isolated town is an incredible
ancient city, moulded in the desert’s red clay. Surrounded by a maze
of eucalyptus, the outer walls measure more than 3 km. Three levels
of fortifications were used to protect the citadel until it couldn’t
withstand a devastating Afghani raid in 1722. Currently the
government is carrying out renovations, securing this breathtaking
marvel for future generations. East of the oasis stretches the mighty
Baluchistan, bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. This land is home to
proud tribal people, who frequently take the law into their own
hands.
The territory is also a drug trafficking belt; tons of drugs are
smuggled across the Afghani border, en route to profitable markets in
Europe and the Middle East. The provincial capital Zahedan appears
dusty and featureless.
At any given moment, skirmishes between the police and local feuds
may flare up. Nevertheless, travelling in Baluchistan is very
rewarding; The Baluchi’s remarkable hospitality is born of their
isolation, where an eye for an eye is the only way of retaining ones
honour. Iran has many faces and facets, presenting a rich
kaleidoscope of culture and tradition.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Guardian /Observer, UK
Sept 25 2005
The World in Brief
Conference sparks protest
Hundreds of Turkish nationalists protested yesterday against a
controversial academic conference on the First World War massacre of
Armenians in Ottoman Turkey. The conference had been due to open on
Friday at two universities in Istanbul but a last-minute court order
blocked it, embarrassing the Turkish government just days before the
start of its EU membership talks. The organisers avoided the ban by
moving the conference to a third university in the city.

The Scotsman, UK
Sept 25 2005
Turkey split by ban on Armenian massacre conference
JON HEMMING
IN ISTANBUL
HUNDREDS of Turkish nationalists chanting slogans and waving flags
protested yesterday against a controversial academic conference on
the First World War massacre of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.
The conference had been due to open on Friday at two universities in
Istanbul but a last-minute court order blocked it, causing acute
embarrassment to the Turkish government just days before the start of
its EU membership talks.
Organisers circumvented the court ban by moving the conference to a
third university in the city.
“This conference is an insult to our republic and to the memory of
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,” Erkal Onsel, head of the Istanbul branch of
the left wing but nationalist Workers’ Party, told protesters
gathered outside the private Bilgi University.
Atatürk is revered for founding the modern Turkish republic out of
the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.
The demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Treason will not go
unpunished” and “This is Turkey, love it or leave it”.
The issue of the Armenian massacres is highly sensitive in Turkey.
Armenia and its supporters around the world say some 1.5 million
Armenians died in a systematic genocide committed by Ottoman Turkish
forces between 1915 and 1923.
Ankara accepts that many Armenians were killed on Turkish soil during
and after the First World War, but says they were victims of a
partisan conflict that claimed even more Turkish Muslim lives as the
Ottoman Empire was collapsing. It denies any genocide.
But in a bid to defuse the issue, the government has opened up
Turkey’s archives to scholars, saying it has nothing to hide, and has
urged Armenia and other nations to do likewise.
The academic conference was originally scheduled for May but was
cancelled after justice minister Cemil Cicek accused those backing
the genocide claims of “stabbing Turkey in the back”.
This time, with a nervous eye on Brussels as the clock ticks towards
the start of its long-delayed EU entry talks on October 3, the
government has strongly backed the conference.
The court banning order, announced on Thursday evening just before
the conference was due to start, drew swift condemnation from prime
minister Tayyip Erdogan as well as from the European Commission,
which spoke of a “provocation” by anti-EU elements.
“If we have confidence in our own beliefs, we should not fear freedom
of thought,” Erdogan told a separate gathering of academics in
Istanbul yesterday.
“I want to live in a Turkey where all freedoms are guaranteed,” the
prime minister said.
Lawyers behind the original court ban condemned Bilgi University’s
decision on Saturday to host the event regardless.
“We will file a legal complaint against all of those people behind
this conference,” lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz said.
The court blocked the conference pending information on the
qualifications of the speakers and also wanted to know who was
participating and who was paying for it.

Provo Daily Herald, UTAH
Sept 25 2005
Conference on mass killings opens in Turkey
ISTANBUL, Turkey — A controversial conference on the mass killings
of ethnic Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman Empire opened
here amid heavy security Saturday in defiance of a court ban.
The forum was hailed by participants and Western observers as a
groundbreaking event where Turkish academics for the first time
publicly could challenge their country’s official version of the
events leading to the Armenian tragedy.
Hundreds of protesters waving Turkish flags pelted the arriving
panelists with eggs and rotten tomatoes, expressing the fury felt by
many Turks over efforts to open their country’s painful past to
debate. “The aim (of the conference) . . . is to declare Turkey
guilty of genocide,” said Erkan Onsel, head of the local branch of
the small, left-wing Turkey’s Workers’ Party.
The conference was canceled twice before, most recently on Thursday,
when an Istanbul court ruled in favor of a group of lawyers who
opposed the gathering on procedural grounds.

Boston Globe, MA
Sept 25 2005
Turks debate whether genocide was committed
Protesters blast forum on deaths of Armenians
By Benjamin Harvey, Associated Press | September 25, 2005
ISTANBUL — Turkish scholars at a twice-canceled conference on the
massacre of Armenians in the early 20th century cautiously discussed
the politically charged topic yesterday, avoiding inflammatory
language as protesters denounced the gathering as traitorous.
The academic conference is the first time an institution in the
modern Turkish republic has hosted a public event in which speakers
will be permitted to openly discuss whether their ancestors committed
the first genocide of the 20th century.
Hundreds of protesters waved Turkish flags and some pelted the
arriving panelists with eggs and accused organizers of treachery.
But in a sign of the deep sensitivity of the subject, the panelists,
all Turkish speakers, avoided emotional language.
”Everyone waits for you to pronounce the genocide word — if you do,
one side applauds and the other won’t listen,” said Halil Berktay,
program coordinator of the history department at Sabanci University.
Armenians have been pushing for decades to have the killings of as
many as 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire recognized by the
international community as genocide.
Turkey said the death toll is inflated and Armenians were killed in
civil unrest as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
Modern Turkey, the successor state of the empire, is a candidate for
European Union membership and the country’s commitment to democracy
is being watched.
In May, the justice minister accused organizers of ”stabbing the
people in the back.” An Istanbul court shut the conference down
Thursday, but the ruling was skirted by organizers who decided to
change the conference venue.
”The aim [of the conference] is to declare Turkey guilty of
genocide,” said Erkan Onsel, head of the local branch of Turkey’s
Workers’ Party, who was among the protesters outside the conference.
Stating that Turks may have committed genocide against Armenians
opposes the state line and could lead to prosecution in a country
where many see the Ottoman Empire as a symbol of Turkish greatness.

Jerusalem Post
Sept 25 2005
Turkish parley begins on Armenian massacre
ISTANBUL, Turkey

Scholars held the first-ever public discussions in Turkey on Saturday
about the early 20th-century massacre of Armenians, choosing words
carefully in examining their history at a gathering that nationalists
denounced as traitorous.
The European Union called the academic conference a test of freedom
of expression in Turkey, which is hoping to begin talks for
membership in the bloc next month.
The academic conference had been canceled twice, once in May after
the justice minister said organizers were “stabbing the people in the
back,” and again on Thursday when an Istanbul court ordered the
conference closed and demanded to know the academic qualifications of
the speakers.
“This is a fight of ‘can we discuss this thing, or can we not discuss
this thing?”‘ Murat Belge, a member of the organizing committee, said
at the conference opening. “This is something that’s directly related
to the question of what kind of country Turkey is going to be.”
The Armenian issue stirs deep passions among Turks, who are being
pushed by many in the international community to say that their
fathers and grandfathers carried out the first genocide of the 20th
century.
“There are so many documents in hand with respect to the destruction
of Armenians,” said Taner Akcay, a Turkish-born professor at the
University of Minnesota, and author of books on the subject
including, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of
Turkish Responsibility.
Dozens of officers in riot gear kept hundreds of shouting protesters
at bay. Some protesters pelted arriving panelists with eggs and
rotten tomatoes.
Inside, the audience of more than 300 people was restrained, as only
those invited by the organizing committee and pre-approved members of
the media were allowed past security.
The issue has been a taboo for many years in Turkey, with those who
speak out against the killings risking prosecution by a Turkish
court. But an increasing number of Turkish academics have called for
a review of the killings in a country where many see the Ottoman
Empire as a symbol of Turkish greatness.
The panelists, all Turkish speakers, carefully avoided any emotional
language during the first day of the two-day conference.
“Everyone waits for you to pronounce the genocide word – if you do
one side applauds and the other won’t listen,” Halil Berktay, program
coordinator of the history department at Sabanci University, said at
the conference Saturday.
Several governments around the world have recognized the killings of
as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire as
genocide.
Turkey vehemently denies the charge, admitting that many Armenians
were killed, but saying the death toll is inflated and that Armenians
were killed along with Turks in civil unrest and intercommunal
fighting as the Ottoman Empire collapsed between 1915 and 1923.
After the conference was shut down Thursday, Turkey drew condemnation
from the European Commission.
Organizers skirted the court order by changing the venue of the
conference.
The court-ordered cancellation Thursday was an embarrassment for the
country’s leaders, who are set to begin EU negotiations on Oct. 3.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul lamented that “there’s no one better at
hurting themselves than us,” and sent a letter wishing the organizers
a successful conference. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also
condemned the court’s decision, saying it did not befit a democratic
country.
The participants were all Turkish speakers and included members of
Turkey’s Armenian minority like Hrant Dink, the editor in chief of
Agos, a weekly Armenian newspaper in Istanbul. There are some 70,000
Armenians living in Istanbul.

Israel Insider
Sept 25 2005
Academicians Questioning the Legitimacy of Israel
By Michael Anbar September 25, 2005
Many voices in academia and in the media have lately questioned the
legitimacy of the State of Israel. This has been going on on both
British and American campuses in spite of the fact that the one and
only Jewish state has been established under the auspices of the UN
in 1947. The UN resolution affirmed the League of Nation’s 1920
resolution to grant Great Britain a Mandate to help establish a
Jewish state in the historical homeland of Jewish people. Yet,
although it has been recognized diplomatically by most member states
of the UN, including several Muslim states, Israel’s legitimacy is
still being questioned. In other words, diplomatic recognition seems
to be insufficient for academicians who wish to delegitimize the very
existence of the State of Israel.
The state of Israel comprises an overwhelming majority of Jews. The
Jewish people constitute a nation with a unique language, religion
and extensive literature, as well as a history of 3000 years — the
longest written history of any nation existing today. Like most
states, Israel has minorities of people who belong to other nations.
The largest among these are Muslim Arabs who belong to the Arab
nation, which comprises 22 independent states, ranging from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf. Most of these Arab states were
established as independent states within the last 100 years, not
substantially earlier than the State of Israel. However, Israel is
the only homeland of the Jewish people, who have lived in that land
for more than 3000 years. A major feature of the State of Israel is,
therefore, its long history as the homeland of the Jews. No other
existing nation can claim such a long historical attachment to scores
of towns and villages, shrines and ancient battlegrounds, mountains
and rivers, within such a small geographic boundary; the national
territory of the Jews people is one of smallest of its kind on Earth.
Based on its historical credentials Israel should be recognized as a
state more readily than practically any other state on this planet.
It should be recognized not just de facto because it exists, having
all the attributes of statehood, but it must be recognized as the
unique historical homeland of the Jewish people. Yet, this
recognition has been problematic throughout the last 57 years of its
politically independent existence. There are still scores of Islamic
states that do not recognize the very existence of the State of
Israel, not to speak of its extensive historical Jewish past.
Moreover, many states that maintain diplomatic relationship with
Israel hesitate to recognize it as the Jewish historical homeland.
Even the United States, which recognizes Israel de Jure, based on
international commitments to create a national home for the Jewish
people, does not officially attribute this recognition to the rights
of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland.
Coming back to academia, it is noteworthy to realize that never
before has the academic community questioned the legitimacy of any
other existing state. These academicians, some of them Jewish,
including even some Israelis, seem to echo Muslims who vehemently
challenge the right of Israel to exist.
The sixty year-old Islamic challenge of the legitimacy of the Jewish
State is based purely on religious grounds. According to Islam,
territory that was conquered by Muslim becomes “Arab land” for
perpetuity. Since the land of Israel was once conquered by Arabs in
the 7th Century, it has become “Arab land” in Muslims’ view.
Consequently, Muslims are religiously obligated to object to the
establishment of a non-Muslim political entity in this once Islamic
province.
Since such a religion-based claim would not be credible in the modern
world, shrewd Arab leaders disguised it as an objection to Western
imperialism, claiming that the Israelis are Westerner “crusaders”
trying to grab and “colonize” “Arab land.” This is a ludicrous claim
because Jews continued to live in Israel, their homeland, for
millennia, being the only surviving natives of the land, very much
like Native American Indians or Celts in Ulster. Moreover, half of
Israeli Jews are not Westerners but “Easterners” –refugees from Arab
countries where they lived for many centuries. In brief, Muslim
worldwide animosity to the “infidel” State of Israel that was
supposedly established on “Arab land,” allegedly “stolen” from the
Muslims, is based purely on Islamic religious convictions, as is
evident in Islamic sermons held every Friday in mosques worldwide.
The animosity exhibited by Western intellectuals toward the Jewish
state is, therefore, surprising indeed. Never before had contemporary
secular academicians defended a religious premise or a religion-based
political claim. These contemporary academicians, most of whom are
agnostics or atheists, seem to defend a religious dogma as if they
were medieval Christian clerics. The same “liberal” academicians
frown upon fundamentalist Christians who view Israel as God given to
the Jews. It seems as if in the view of these professors Islamic
fundamentalist dogma triumphs Christian evangelical belief.
It is hard to explain this behavior. Although many academicians and
academic institutions are being funded by oil-rich Islamic countries,
it is hard to believe that a large segment of the academic community
was bribed by Muslims to become their champions. Therefore, their
hatred of the Jewish state may be due to inherent hatred of Judaism
and Jews.
This animosity is unlikely a perpetuation of Nazi anti-Semitism or of
medieval Christian misojudaism (hatred of Jews). It might be due to
their pronounced secularism and antagonism to the Church. Because
Zionism is an intrinsic aspect of Judaism, these professors consider
it to be a manifestation of messianic clericalism, which they detest.
Paradoxically their hatred of dogmatic Christian clericalism resulted
in their support of Islamic religious dogma.
They fail to realize that Zionism, the urge of exiled Jews to return
to their homeland and live there as a sovereign nation — a feature
of Judaism for the last twenty five hundred years — is basically a
political rather than a theological premise. Zionism, unlike
messianism, does not invoke divine intervention but human
accomplishment. Zionism is therefore similar to Polish or Greek
nationalism when their countries were occupied, or to current
Kurdish, Armenian or Tibetan nationalism. It is therefore ironic that
secular academicians uphold an Islamic religious premise in their
attack on the Zionism, which is essentially a political ideology.
>From an academic standpoint, a critical approach to the legitimacy of
a state is, by itself not a bad idea. This may prevent the creation
of political entities, defined as states, which are not rooted in
distinct historical, cultural or ethnic realities. States that have
no distinct common historical, cultural or ethnic roots are
artificial political creations with intrinsic instability (e.g.,
former Yugoslavia, Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia or current Iraq
and Nigeria). On the other hand, states that are part of a large
conglomerate of small states with closely related history and culture
(language, religion) will inevitably merge into larger more stable
political units (e.g., Germany, France, Italy).
When it comes to the Jewish State of Israel, there is no dispute that
it has distinct historical and cultural roots, and yet its legitimacy
is being disputed by academician who should know history and
political science. The proposed Palestinian state, on the other hand,
so strongly advocated by the same anti-Israeli academicians,
presumably offering self-determination to Muslim Arabs who live in
Israel’s territory, is historically and culturally indistinct from
Syria, Jordan, Arabia and the Arab parts of Iraq, as well as Egypt.
All these states have been part of a single Arab empire. And they
will most likely end up as such eventually under an aggressive Muslim
Arab ruler (see Germany or Italy).
This did not happen in the last 70 years because of the competition
among local Arab dictators, each of whom has been vying for the
hegemony of the “Arab nation.” It may, however, happen in the
foreseeable future considering the political weakness of the rulers
of Jordan, Syria or Arabia.
So what is the political justification for creating another Arab
mini-state under another local Arab warlord despot (e.g., Abu Mazen)
who has even less grip of his “constituency” than the rulers of
Jordan or Syria? The only rationale for the creation of a
“legitimate” Arab mini-state of “Palestine” is to make it a tool to
eliminate the “illegitimate” state of Israel, which the Arabs have
vowed to eradicate. The PLO, the ruling party in the “Palestinian
Authority,” has been established by the Arab League in 1964 (before
the 1967 Six Days War!) with the declared purpose of eliminating the
Jewish state.
Arab propaganda has used the “oppression” of Arabs under Jewish rule
as another excuse for the elimination of that despised “occupation”
or “Arab land.” Academicians who bought this propaganda should have
been more sophisticated. In fact, according to UN statistics, the
standard of living of Arabs under Israeli rule, even in the “disputed
territories,” is significantly higher than that in most Arab
countries. It is amazing that academicians, who are expected to be
critical of information presented to them, were blinded when it came
to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This brings us back to the inherent
antipathy of academia to the Jewish state, which defies a rational
explanation.
In summary, politicians may take positions contrary to common sense
for purely shortsighted, opportunistic reasons. This is how most of
the existing Arab states in the Middle East have been created by the
European victors of WWI from parts of the Ottoman Empire in order to
prevent a large Arab political entity from being formed (“divide and
conquer”). The same politicians have prevented the formation of a
politically independent Kurdistan, a legitimate country with distinct
historical and cultural roots. However, academicians are expected to
have a broader historical perspective. Yet too many academicians seem
to support the elimination of the State of Israel by questioning its
legitimacy, advocating the creation of an artificial Arab state
designed to replace it. All this looks like flagrant politization of
academia; something that has been frowned upon by the same professors
since the days of Joseph Stalin.
Let us end with another paradox. Academicians are supposed to be the
standard bearers of truth. Truth is based in objective facts. In
historical studies archeological findings provide such facts. The
“Palestinian” Arabs are presently doing their best to destroy
archeological evidence for the pre-Islamic presence of Jews in the
Land of Israel, especially on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Yet, we
do not hear about British academicians protesting that atrocity
perpetrated by the “Palestinian Authority,” they seem to support. Nor
did these British professors boycott Arab academic institutions for
this vandalism that aims destroy historical artifacts of the culture
that imbeds foundations of Western Civilization. But the same
academicians have been trying to boycott Israeli universities whose
faculty opposes yielding to Arab religion-motivated political
demands; demands that are part of the assault on the very
civilization these professors are part of.
One cannot but wonder whether professorship is always associated with
rational thinking.

Turks debate Armenian killings
Aljazeera.Net
AP
Sunday 25 September 2005, 3:11 Makka Time, 0:11 GMT
Academics have held the first-ever public discussions in Turkey about the
early 20th century mass killings of Armenians, prompting criticism from
Turkish nationalists who called it an attempt to accuse Turkey of genocide.
The European Union called the academic conference on Saturday a test of
freedom of expression in Turkey, which is hoping to begin talks for
membership in the bloc next month.
The academic conference had been cancelled twice, once in May after the
justice minister said organisers were “stabbing the people in the back,” and
again on Thursday when an Istanbul court ordered the conference closed and
demanded to know the academic qualifications of the speakers.
Heavy police presence
Police presence at the rescheduled conference was heavy, with 11 police
buses and an armoured vehicle outside the venue, and dozens of officers in
riot gear keeping hundreds of shouting protesters at bay. Some protesters
pelted arriving panellists with eggs and rotten tomatoes.
Inside, the audience of more than 300 people was quiet and respectful, as
only those invited by the organising committee and pre-approved members of
the media were allowed past security.
The Armenian issue stirs deep passions among Turks, who are being pushed by
many in the international community to say that their fathers and
grandfathers carried out the first genocide of the 20th century.
The issue has been a taboo for many years in Turkey, with those who speak
out against the killings risking prosecution by a Turkish court. But an
increasing number of Turkish academics have called for a review of the
killings.
Stating that Turks may have committed genocide offends a large percentage of
the Turkish people, who see the Ottoman Empire as a symbol of Turkish
greatness, and the war that coincided with its collapse as a heroic struggle
for national independence.
Sensitive subject
In a sign of the deep sensitivity of the subject, the panellists, all
Turkish speakers, carefully avoided any emotional language during the first
day of the two-day conference.
“Everyone waits for you to pronounce the genocide word – if you do one side
applauds and the other won’t listen,” said Halil Berktay, programme
coordinator of the history department at Sabanci University, speaking at the
conference on Saturday.
Several governments around the world have recognised the killings of as many
as 1.5 million Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire as genocide.
Turkey vehemently denies the charge, admitting that many Armenians were
killed, but saying the death toll is inflated and that Armenians were killed
along with Turks in civil unrest and intercommunal fighting as the Ottoman
Empire collapsed between 1915 and 1923.
Court order
After the conference was shut down on Thursday, Turkey drew condemnation
from the European Commission, which said it deplored the decision and would
make note of it in a progress report on Turkey to be released 9 November.
Organisers skirted the court order by changing the venue of the conference.
“This is a fight of ‘can we discuss this thing, or can we not discuss this
thing?'” Murat Belge, a member of the organising committee, said at the
conference opening.
“This is something that’s directly related to the question of what kind of
country Turkey is going to be.”
The court-ordered cancellation on Thursday was an embarrassment for the
country’s leaders, who are set to begin EU negotiations on 3 October.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul lamented that “there’s no one better at
hurting themselves than us,” and sent a letter wishing the organisers a
successful conference.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also condemned the court’s decision,
saying it did not befit a democratic country.

Chicago Sun-Times, IL
Sept 25 2005
Scholars in Turkey cautiously discuss Armenian massacre
September 25, 2005
BY BENJAMIN HARVEY
ISTANBUL, Turkey — Scholars held the first public discussions in
Turkey on Saturday about the early 20th century massacre of
Armenians, choosing words carefully, avoiding emotional language and
picking apart history year by year at a gathering that nationalists
denounced as traitorous.
The European Union called the academic conference a test of freedom
of expression in Turkey, which hopes to start talks for membership in
the bloc next month.
The academic conference had been canceled twice, once in May after
the justice minister said organizers were “stabbing the people in the
back,” and again Thursday when an Istanbul court ordered the
conference closed and demanded to know the academic qualifications of
the speakers.
“This is a fight of ‘can we discuss this thing, or can we not discuss
this thing?'” Murat Belge, a member of the organizing committee, said
at the conference opening. “This is something that’s directly related
to the question of what kind of country Turkey is going to be.”
Genocide?
The Armenian issue stirs deep passions among Turks, who are being
pushed by many in the international community to say that their
fathers and grandfathers carried out the first genocide of the 20th
century.
Dozens of officers in riot gear kept hundreds of shouting protesters
at bay. Some protesters pelted arriving panelists with eggs and
rotten tomatoes.
Inside, the audience of more than 300 was restrained, as only those
invited by the organizing committee and preapproved members of the
media were allowed past security.
The issue has been a taboo for many years, with those who speak out
against the killings risking prosecution by a Turkish court. But an
increasing number of Turkish academics have called for a review of
the killings in a country where many see the Ottoman Empire as a
symbol of Turkish greatness.
Several governments around the world have said the killings of as
many as 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923, the late Ottoman
Empire, were genocide.

Billings Gazette
Sept 25 2005
Turkish scholars look at Armenian question
ISTANBUL, Turkey – Scholars held the first-ever public discussions in
Turkey on Saturday about the early 20th-century massacre of
Armenians, choosing words carefully, avoiding emotional language and
picking apart history year by year at a gathering that nationalists
denounced as traitorous.
The academic conference had been canceled twice, once in May after
the justice minister said organizers were “stabbing the people in the
back,” and again on Thursday when an Istanbul court ordered the
conference closed and demanded to know the academic qualifications of
the speakers.
The Armenian issue stirs deep passions among Turks, who are being
pushed by many in the international community to say that their
fathers and grandfathers carried out the genocide.