Armenian News... A Topalian... Armenian has welcomed the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the Senate of Paraguay.

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ARMENIA WELCOMES PARAGUAY'S RECOGNITION OF ARMENIAN 

GENOCIDE
30 Oct 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Armenian has welcomed the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by
the Senate of Paraguay.

"The continuity of the international recognition of the Armenian
Genocide proves that the crimes against humanity have no statute of
limitation, and the humanity continues to recognize and condemn the
Armenian Genocide even 100 years after it was committed," Armenian
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said in a statement.

"With this step the Senate of Paraguay made an important contribution
to the international efforts of preventing genocides and crimes
against humanity," the Foreign Minister stated.

[the last email forgot to mention that the Secretary of State for 

Culture, also chair of the British Armenian All Party Parliamentary 

Group, slated to read on the lessons at Westminster Abbey was 

conspicuous by his absence]

RFE/RL Report
Prince Charles Honors Armenian Genocide Victims
Emil Danielyan
29.10.2015

Six months after attending a ceremony in Turkey meant to deflect
international attention from the centenary of the Armenian genocide,
Britain's Prince Charles paid tribute to its victims at a special
church service held in London late on Wednesday.

The ecumenical service at Westminster Abbey was led by Bishop Richard
Charters of London and Catholicos Garegin II, the supreme head of the
Armenian Apostolic Church. Charles attended it along with President
Serzh Sarkisian.

"This evening we call to mind the killing of innocent Armenians a
hundred years ago," Rev. John Hall, another high-ranking Anglican
cleric, said at the solemn ceremony featuring hymns sung by an
Armenian church choir. "With sorrow we remember so much blood
spilt. With thanksgiving we celebrate the Holy Martyrs and ask for
their prayers."

The service was part of worldwide events marking the 100th anniversary
of the genocide, which began on April 24, 1915 with mass arrests of
Armenian political leaders and intellectuals in Constantinople. Up to
1.5 million Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire were murdered or
starved to death in the following years.

The most important events marking the genocide centennial in and
outside Armenia took place on April 24, 2015. The Turkish government,
which strongly denies that the 1915 massacres constituted genocide,
tried to deflect the resulting international spotlight by holding its
annual commemoration of a major World War One-era battle on the same
day.

Ankara had traditionally celebrated the Turkish victory in the
1915-1916 Battle of Gallipoli on April 25. The Armenian government
condemned it for moving up this year's Gallipoli ceremony by one day.

Charles was among a host of mostly Muslim foreign leaders who took
part in the ceremony at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's
invitation. His participation upset many in Armenia and its worldwide
Diaspora.

One of the likely reasons why Queen Elizabeth's heir apparent took
part in the Westminster Abbey service is his close rapport with Armen
Sarkissian, the Armenian ambassador to the United Kingdom who has
lived in London since the early 1990s. Sarkissian was instrumental in
Charles' 2013 visit to Armenia.

Statements by the press offices of President Sarkisian and Westminster
Abbey did not list any senior British government officials among those
who attended the service. Their apparent absence reflected the current
and previous British governments' refusal to recognize the Armenian
genocide.

"Recognizing the genocide would provide no practical benefit to the
UK," the British Foreign Office advised ministers in a 1999 memo that
was disclosed by "The Guardian" daily a decade later. The document
cited "the importance of our relations with Turkey."

In 2004, the then British ambassador to Armenia, Thorda Abbott-Watt,
publicly stated that there is not enough evidence to term the Armenian
massacres a genocide. The statement provoked a storm of protests in
Armenia and the Diaspora, leading the Foreign Ministry in Yerevan to
send a diplomatic note to London.

The UK Foreign Office adopted a more neutral stance on the sensitive
issue in 2010. While continuing to oppose British recognition of the
genocide, the office reportedly said that British officials should now
stop openly denying it.

Ironically, official British documents dating back to World War One
have been a major source of reference in the decades-long Armenian
campaign for international recognition of the genocide. The Armenian
Genocide Museum in Yerevan has a special plaque dedicated to Lord
James Bryce, the main author of the British government's 1916 Blue
Book that detailed the mass killings and deportations of Ottoman
Armenians.


[the following articles resonate with an assessment in The Economist

on Angela Merkel which includes try following sentences:

"..policy  has now crystallised into three elements`; pragmatism at 

home, power polite within Europe, and realpolitik with Turkey"

and

" The sight of Mrs Merkel currying favour withbthe autocratic Mr Erdogan 

 two weeks before a crucial parliamentary election in Turkey was not 

 particularly edifying."]

GERMANY BAILS OUT TURKEY Mirror Spectator
Editorial 10-31 October 2015
By Edmond Y. Azadian 
Germany is once again in its traditional role of rescuing Turkey.

Merkel's blanket bailout to Erdogan can demonstrate how ugly politics
can get.

Should Germany go ahead with its reversal of policy Europe has to
embrace Turkey at its own peril.

While politics are being played on a grander scale, two Armenian issues
have already become the casualties of those policies. The first one
is the Bundestag resolution on the Armenian Genocide. It is true that
the German president, Joachim Gauck and Bundestag President Norbert
Lammert have given speeches during the course of the centennial year,
and they have defined the massacres as genocide without mincing words,
however, those speeches do not amount to an official resolution.

The German paper Der Spiegel, on October 17, commented on the issue
that the German government is going out of its way to win over Turkey.

The report says that the approval of the Armenian resolution that was
so hotly debated this April in the Parliament will be postponed. It
claims that the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian
Social Union (SCU) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) have "quietly"
agreed to delay the pending final reading of the bill for as long
as possible. Ironically, the only group supporting the resolution
is the Green party, whose leader, Cem Ozdemir, an ethnic Turk, has
criticized the other parties by stating: "The coalition is stalling
but the clock is running out for the commemorative year, which is
quickly coming to an end."

Why is Merkel so anxious to embrace Turkey, Der Spiegel asks? "The
German government needs Turkey in tackling the refugee crisis. Turkey
is important right now -- the most important transit country for
refugees from the Middle East who hope to reach Europe and especially
Germany."

Whereas the refugee problem is a temporary issue, Merkel's political
expediency will result in sealing Europe's destiny permanently with
a Turkish banner.

The other casualty was of course the outrageous ruling of the
European Court of Human Rights on the case pitting Dogu Perincek
versus Switzerland, which saw that the racist Turkish politician was
let off the hook for his denial of the Armenian Genocide.

Much has been written about the issue, trying to salvage some positive
elements in the ruling. The matter of the fact is that the verdict
was clearly a political decision more than a legal judgment. To
justify that decision, politically motivated legal experts can split
hairs to demonstrate that the denial of the Jewish Holocaust can be
criminalized in Europe but not the denial of the Armenian Genocide.

We can remember the case of a UN resolution in 1975 defining Zionism
as a form of racism. Israel and its lobbyists fought for years and
through US muscle, the resolution was overturned in 1991. That is
how politics can shape the legality of these kinds of cases.

As we can see, Turkey is marching triumphantly through its disastrous
behavior with German crutches. We can only wish to God to help
Armenians and the Kurds. 

armradio.am
BUNDESTAG WON'T DISCUSS THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE 

RESOLUTION THIS YEAR: ZHIRAYR ZOCHARIAN
30 Oct 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan
The German Bundestag will not discuss the Armenian Genocide resolution
this year, Professor Zhirayr Ð~Zocharian of the Berlin Open University
told reporters in Yerevan.

"The Armenian community was pleasantly surprised by the unprecedented
number of publications and discussions in Germany about the Armenian
Genocide this spring. We were nearly confident that the Bandstand
would soon adopt a resolution recognizing and condemning the Armenian
Genocide," he said.

Zhirayr Ð~Zocharian has his own explanation for the active discussions
in Germany. "The first reason was the powerful statement by the Pope,
whose opinion is extremely important for the Catholic World. The
second reason was the conflict between the Greens and Lefts with the
government. Besides, there was a desire to punish Erdogan."

Zhirayr Ð~Zocharian considers that Germany is unlikely to strike a blow
to Turkey, at least in the near future. "However, the civil society
in Germany is matured, and the country may recognize the Armenian
Genocide under public pressure." He believes that if Turkey once
recognizes the Armenian Genocide, it will also happen under public
pressure, as it was the case with the Holocaust.

Zhirayr Ð~Zocharian says it's unserious to think that Germany accepted
its guilt because it was too civilized. "Germany did it under the
pressure of the international community, otherwise it would demonstrate
the same civilized and moral approach towards the Armenian Genocide."

armradio.am
TURKEY'S PATRIOTIC PARTY REACTS TO GEORGE CLOONEY'S 

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE REMARKS
29 Oct 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan
Turkey's Patriotic Party ('Vatan Partisi' in Turkish) has reacted to
Hollywood star George Clooney's statements two days ago during his
interview in the South California Public Radio where he referred to
1915 as "Armenian Genocide," Daily Sabah reports.

Clooney said the events of 1915 constituted "genocide" and there was no
argument about it. He said: "There was a genocide in Armenia in 1915."

Reacting to Clooney's remarks, the Patriotic Party's international
relations head member Onur Sinan Guzaltan said on Thursday,
"The truth cannot be hidden," and advised the Hollywood star to
look at the European Court of Human Rights' (ECHR) verdict in which
Switzerland's appeal to overrule the conviction of the party's chairman
(Dogu Perincek) over the denial of the Armenian Genocide was rejected.

Grattan claimed that the Clooney family was "one of the toys used to
manipulate the 1915 events."

Armenia intervened in the Perincek v. Switzerland case as a third
party and was represented by human rights lawyers Amal Clooney and
Geoffrey Robertson. "The Grand Chamber ruling was a victory for
Armenia," Amal Clooney said, as she commented on the judgement.
aremianweekly.com


The Armenian Weekly
Hitler, Ataturk, and German-Turkish Relations
By Edward Kanterian

October 30, 2015 

The following interview with Stefan Ihrig, author of Justifying Genocide : Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler (due out in December 2015), was conducted by Edward Kanterian, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Kent. Ihrig is the Polonsky Fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.

***


Cover of Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler

Edward Kanterian— Mr. Ihrig, we know that Mussolini was a major role model for Hitler. But it is much less known that Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, was another major source of inspiration for Hitler. You have recently published a book exploring this. Why was Hitler interested in Atatürk?

Stefan Ihrig— It all goes back to the early 1920’s. Germany was still in shock about losing the war and afraid of a punitive peace treaty imposed by the Entente. In a mood of nationalist depression, events began to unfold in Anatolia that stirred the passion and dreams of German nationalists. Under Mustafa Kemal [Atatürk] the Turks were resisting their own “Turkish Versailles”—the Treaty of Sèvres. They took on all of the Entente as well as the Greek Army and even defied their own government in Constantinople. What was happening in Anatolia was like a nationalist dream-come-true for many in Germany. German nationalists, and the Nazis especially, thought that Germany should copy what the Kemalists were doing. Hitler was very much inspired by Atatürk and the idea of the “Ankara government” in his attempt to set up an alternative government in Munich in his Beerhall Putsch of 1923. Retrospectively, in 1933, he called Atatürk and the Kemalists his “shining star” in the darkness of the 1920’s. The Nazis and Hitler, in a political sense, had grown up with Turkey and Atatürk. It was a fascination that would not go away and transformed into something of a cult in the Third Reich.



E.K. — So the main attraction was the fact that Atatürk had resisted the Entente?

S.I. — Yes, resisting the Entente and revising a Paris peace treaty fascinated the Nazis. But this was not all. There was also the fact that Turkey had “rid itself” of most of its minorities, first of the Armenians during World War I, and second of most of the Greeks in the Treaty of Lausanne population exchange. And finally, for the Nazis, what was happening in Turkey in the 1920’s and 1930’s was a successful restructuring and reconstruction of the country along nationalist/racial lines. For them it was an example of what a purely national state could achieve under a strong leader.



E.K. — The Turkey which had “rid itself” of the Armenians was of course the Turkey of the Young Turks, whose regime ended in 1918 and in which Atatürk played only a minor role. So the Nazis’ fascination also extended to the Young Turks? Presumably they were attracted by both the Young Turks’ and Atatürk’s Turkocentric conception of the Turkish state, which excluded the multiethnic society that had existed hitherto in the Ottoman Empire? Is there any direct link between the demographic and exclusionary policies of Atatürk and that of the Nazis?

S.I. — The Young Turks were not very important for the Nazis. But “ethnic cleansing” and the Armenian Genocide before the War of Independence was, for the Nazis, a major precondition for the success of Ataturk in that war. And the expulsion of the Greeks was a second precondition, in the Nazi view, for the further success of rebuilding Turkey along national lines. Both were for the Nazis something of a “package deal.” What was important for them was that the ethnic minorities—which they and other German nationalists perceived to be like “the Jews”—were gone. In the Nazis’ view of the New Turkey, all this would not have been possible had Turkey not “rid itself” of the minorities. In this fashion, the Nazis and other German nationalists were able to portray Atatürk’s New Turkey as something of a test case of large-scale ethnic-racial reconstruction—a test case that for them signalled the power of such a new national state purged of minorities; a test case that not only re-affirmed their own beliefs in the power of ethnically cleansed states but showed various ways of how to achieve this.


Stefan Ihrig (Photo: www.stefanihrig.com)

E.K. — To what extent was the Kemalist state ideology an inspiration to the Nazis? Presumably they ignored the fact that Atatürk aimed to build a republic in which the parliament, representing the people, was the main source of power?

S.I. — The Nazi vision of Atatürk’s New Turkey was a highly selective one. Almost everything that conflicted with Nazi ideals and goals was either downplayed or ignored. The emancipation of women was one such topic; it was mentioned in passing but not deemed more noteworthy. Atatürk’s rather peaceful foreign policy was purposefully misunderstood. When it comes to the state of government under Atatürk, the Nazis saw a powerful leader governing through a one-party system, which for them was the only viable alternative to what they perceived as decadent Western democracy.



E.K. — What was the Nazis’ attitude towards the “Armenian Question” in Turkey?

S.I. — In the Nazi discussion of the Turkish War of Independence the Armenians did not play a major role. Again, the Nazis had their own vision of Atatürk’s rule and times. What was paramount for them was post-1923 Turkey, which they portrayed as something of a mono-ethnic paradise. They simply refused to see any remaining minorities, such as the Kurds, for example, and the conflicts that still existed within the Turkish state. What made the Armenians, on the other hand, so important for the Nazi discourse on Atatürk’s New Turkey was the specific German tradition of seeing them as “the Jews of the Orient.”



E.K. — Can you give some examples how Armenians were seen as “the Jews of the Orient” in the German discourse? Was this something that happened only after the First World War or even before?

S.I. — This German tradition has its beginnings in the late 19 th century. Around the same time as modern racial anti-Semitism gained ground, a perception of the Armenians as racially similar or equivalent to the Jews of Central Europe as portrayed in anti-Semitic discourse was put forward. The Armenians were typically described as exploitative merchants praying upon the kind and hard-working Turkish population. This perception mainly focused upon the perceived parasitic, treacherous, and non-productive behavior of the Armenians. That Armenians carried out all kinds of crafts and labor—that many were, for example, farmers—was simply ignored in these discourses. In the growing racial and racialist literature from the late-19 th century up until the 1930’s, the Armenians were portrayed as a parent or sister race of the Jews. Often they were even described as “worse than the Jews.” This of course provides for a special German background to the perception of the events of 1915/16 that is particularly chilling in light of the further trajectory of German history.



E.K. — This brings us to your new book, which you have just completed, Justifying Genocide , which will be published by Harvard University Press later this year. How did you come to write this book?

S.I. — When carrying out my research on the Nazis and Turkey, I came across a large debate about the Armenian Genocide. This debate took place in the early 1920’s and is totally forgotten today. Yet, it was one of the largest genocide debates of the 20 th century. It truly was a “genocide” debate, even before Raphael Lemkin coined the term, because it was all about intent and extent of the “annihilation of a nation.” I tried to reconstruct this debate and to find out why it lasted so long. You have to envisage a four-and-a-half years long debate including the first post-war discussions about what had happened, the heated reception of the publication of Foreign Office documents on the Armenian Genocide in 1919 already, a strong back and forth between those condemning what happened as a “murder of a nation” and others denying this. Furthermore there were assassinations, first of Talat Pasha in 1921 and then of another two prominent Young Turks in 1922, all of which took place in Berlin and were much discussed in the press of the time.

I wanted to see where all the discursive building blocks employed in these discussions came from, and thus I explored the German relationship with the Ottoman Armenians since the late 1870’s. As it turns out, since Bismarck’s time already the Armenians were assigned a very cynical role in German foreign policy: They were regularly sold out in order for Germany to gain political advantages and a more favorable position in the Ottoman Empire. This continuous selling out of another Christian people led to German discourses justifying mass murder already in the 1890’s, culminating in the propaganda during World War I as well as with shocking justificationalist essays during the debate of the early 1920’s.



E.K. — Hitler’s rhetorical question “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” made in August 1939, apropos the war of annihilation which he was about to start in the east, is well known. This suggests that Hitler was at least inspired by the Armenian Genocide. In your new book, you aim to demonstrate that the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide were indeed much more connected than previously thought. How exactly?

S.I. — The ongoing debate about recognition and denial has held the Armenian Genocide in a hostage situation for almost a century and has also led to it being often only a marginal footnote of broader European and world history in our accounts and analyses of the time. Yet, it was immensely important at the time, also and perhaps especially so in Germany. Not only was Germany closely connected to it as a state and an ally of the Ottomans, but so were many of its people as diplomats, officers, and soldiers. The fact that the Ottoman Empire had garnered so much attention in the German public and political sphere already before 1915 also connected Germany to the Armenian Genocide more closely. And finally, the great German genocide debate of the early 1920’s brings the whole matter within a mere decade of Hitler’s ascension to power. The Armenian Genocide was both chronologically and geographically speaking much closer to Germany and the Third Reich than is usually alleged; my book illustrates this in many facets.



‘As it turns out, since Bismarck’s time already the Armenians were assigned a very cynical role in German foreign policy: They were regularly sold out in order for Germany to gain political advantages and a more favorable position in the Ottoman Empire. This continuous selling out of another Christian people led to German discourses justifying mass murder already in the 1890’s, culminating in the propaganda during World War I as well as with shocking justificationalist essays during the debate of the early 1920’s.’

E.K. — There are not many German historians who have researched the Armenian Genocide. What might be the reasons for this?

S.I. — The topic continues to be one riddled with difficulties and potential dangers. If you are a historian working on Turkish and Ottoman history, you did not want to offend the very people you needed in order to get access to your sources. Another reason was that many of the German sources from the military archives were lost during World War II. Then there was the suspicion that broader discussions of the Armenian Genocide and its relation to Germany could be used to relativize the Shoah. And finally, the official Turkish denialist campaign has conveyed the lasting impression or rather has sown the confusion suggesting that the topic is just too difficult and unapproachable. However, in recent years many have worked on the German side, providing new studies on particular aspects and also providing new narratives. I am sure we will reach a critical mass in the field soon which will lead to a broader re-evaluation of the Armenian Genocide within German, European, and world history.