(no subject)
A huge disappointment, especially after their numerous conferences on the Armenian Genocide, as well as a large number of publications on this issue..
Denmark Refuses To Recognize Armenian Genocide
AFP
Denmark does not officially recognize that Ottoman massacres of Armenians during World War I constitute genocide, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said Thursday.
"In the government's opinion, this is a historical question that should be left up to the historians," Moeller wrote in a written parliamentary answer, indicating that Denmark would not follow the lead of some 20 other countries, including France, that have labeled the killings genocide.
Moeller's note came in response to a question from parliamentary member Morten Messerchmidt, of the far-right Danish People's Party, on whether "Denmark had officially recognized this genocide."
"It is unfortunate that the Danish government refuses to join other countries in recognizing this genocide," Messerschmidt told AFP. "It is as if they fear Turkey's reactions."
Copenhagen's decision "to not recognize this genocide shows that the government indirectly supports Turkey's cowardly refusal to take responsibility for its history the way the Germans did after World War II," he said.
http://www.armenialiberty.org/armeniareport/report/en/2008/01/F61FCB23-8888-4D69-88B0-656959C236B5.ASP
And an immediate response to this, from Danish Genocide scholars:
Armenian Genocide Denial in the state of Denmark (Holger Terp)
Holger Terp forwards
Genocide Denial in the state of Denmark
-The Danish Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the denial and relativization of the Armenian genocide. Open letter by Torben J rgensen and Matthias Bj rnlund, historians, specialists in the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide, respectively.
there are major problems by taking such an approach towards Turkish-Armenian reconciliation as well: 1. Any assumption that there is a “neutral ground” between an “Armenian” and a “Turkish” side of the “question” of the Armenian genocide is plain wrong. When it comes to the historical reality of the Armenian genocide, there is no “Armenian” or “Turkish” side of the “question,” any more than there is a “Jewish” or a “German” side of the historical reality of the Holocaust: There is a scientific side, and an unscientific side acknowledgment or denial.
In the case of the denial of the Armenian genocide, it is even founded on a massive effort of falsification, distortion, cleansing of archives, and direct threats initiated or supported by the Turkish state, making any “dialogue” with Turkish deniers highly problematic. No scholar or scholarly institution can remain “neutral” between the positions of acknowledgment and denial, and it is not (or should not be) the aim of a scholar or scholarly institution to facilitate “dialogue” between scholars that recognize a known genocide, and scholars that, contrary to facts and professional ethics, deny it. We are obviously not against dialogue between serious scholars, no matter their national background, but that is not the issue. The issue is one of acknowledgment of known and well-established facts, against the denial of these.
2. Even if one still believes that such attempts at “dialogue” are appropriate or necessary, we believe that the director of the Department, Uffe stergaard, is not the person to facilitate it, since there can be serious doubts as to his intentions. All through the nineties, Mr. stergaard was, for all intents and purposes, a denier of the Armenian genocide, a position which he may or may not have changed over the years. To illustrate this, we have translated the main part of a paragraph from an article on the history of the Ottoman Empire he published in 1996:
“The truly large massacres took place in connection with the Young Turk revolution in 1908-09. The modernizing officers tried to save their state by Ottomanizing the population in the leftover parts of the Empire. Macedonia was bloodily oppressed, and the Armenians were subjected to several pogroms, culminating in the genocide in 1915, the event which confirmed in earnest Europe s prejudices regarding the Ottoman Empire (cf Franz Werfel s moving novel, The 40 Days on Musa Dagh,1933). Only in its weakness the Ottoman Empire unfolded the bloodthirstiness and the misrule we have got used to connecting with the Turk. And even then the oppression can be exaggerated. This is the case regarding the persecution of the Armenian minority. The expulsion of the Armenians in 1915 is often expounded as a genocide along the lines of the later extermination of the Jews. But this is being disputed by many modern historians such as Stanford and Ezel Kural Shaw. In the preface to the 2. edition of their account of the history of the Ottoman Empire, they answer the critics of the first edition of the work in the following way:
No one denies, or seeks to deny, that the Armenian people suffered terribly during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. We do make this clear, but in the context of Ottoman history. What may be overlooked is that the experience of the Armenians, however terrible it undoubtedly was, was not unique to them. It was part of a general tragedy that engulfed all the people of the Empire Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Jews, and all others, all of whom have traumatic memories of the period. This was the terrible result of the final breakup of a multinational society as the result of a whole series of brutal and destructive foreign invasions, terroristic attacks, national revolts, massacres and counter massacres, and famine and disease, in which all the Empire s people, Muslim and mon-Muslim [sic] alike, had their victims and criminals. (Shaw and Shaw 1978, x).”
This quote ends the article s treatment of the “question” of the Armenian genocide. What Mr. stergaard is attempting to do here is “clever” and “sophisticated” denial, but denial nonetheless: he starts by calling the Armenian genocide a genocide (“folkemord”), and then he systematically backs away from the using of that term: He goes from describing the “events” as “genocide” in some sense of the word, to describing it as “persecution,” and ending by describing it as “expulsion,” all in one and the same paragraph. Also, by literally and uncritically giving known and notorious deniers of the Armenian genocide, Shaw & Shaw, the last word regarding the “Armenian question,” Mr. stergaard clearly accepts these author s historical interpretation of the “events.” And by doing so, Mr. stergaard makes his own initial use of a Danish term “folkemord,” a term equivalent to the term “genocide,” meaningless. According to this use of the term, the Armenian genocide was an unintentional and unsystematic genocide, a genocide where all Ottoman groups were equally victimized, and all were equally atrocious.
This might seem less of a problem if Mr. stergaard, for 6 years the director of a Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, had publicly and unequivocally acknowledged, and distanced himself from, his denialist views. Since this is not the case, and since Mr. stergaard in fact still regularly insists that he, regarding the “Armenian question,” takes up a “neutral” position between an “Armenian” and a “Turkish” point of view, we find ample grounds to seriously question his current position on the Armenian genocide. We have tried to raise such matters of denial and acknowledgment, both internally at the Department, in Danish newspaper articles, and in academic publications, all to no avail. This open letter is therefore our last attempt at facilitating an open discussion of these vital matters, hopefully before any final decisions are made.
Sincerely,
Torben J rgensen and Matthias Bj rnlund
Comments are welcome, and can be mailed to: matthiasb@webspeed.dk
RH: I assume the Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies is affiliated with the University of Copenhagen.
Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/ Please inform us of any change of e-mail address.
http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/index.php?p=2313
There are also references to the following
Denmark Refuses To Recognize Armenian Genocide
AFP
Denmark does not officially recognize that Ottoman massacres of Armenians during World War I constitute genocide, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said Thursday.
"In the government's opinion, this is a historical question that should be left up to the historians," Moeller wrote in a written parliamentary answer, indicating that Denmark would not follow the lead of some 20 other countries, including France, that have labeled the killings genocide.
Moeller's note came in response to a question from parliamentary member Morten Messerchmidt, of the far-right Danish People's Party, on whether "Denmark had officially recognized this genocide."
"It is unfortunate that the Danish government refuses to join other countries in recognizing this genocide," Messerschmidt told AFP. "It is as if they fear Turkey's reactions."
Copenhagen's decision "to not recognize this genocide shows that the government indirectly supports Turkey's cowardly refusal to take responsibility for its history the way the Germans did after World War II," he said.
http://www.armenialiberty.org/armeniareport/report/en/2008/01/F61FCB23-8888-4D69-88B0-656959C236B5.ASP
And an immediate response to this, from Danish Genocide scholars:
Armenian Genocide Denial in the state of Denmark (Holger Terp)
Holger Terp forwards
Genocide Denial in the state of Denmark
-The Danish Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the denial and relativization of the Armenian genocide. Open letter by Torben J rgensen and Matthias Bj rnlund, historians, specialists in the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide, respectively.
there are major problems by taking such an approach towards Turkish-Armenian reconciliation as well: 1. Any assumption that there is a “neutral ground” between an “Armenian” and a “Turkish” side of the “question” of the Armenian genocide is plain wrong. When it comes to the historical reality of the Armenian genocide, there is no “Armenian” or “Turkish” side of the “question,” any more than there is a “Jewish” or a “German” side of the historical reality of the Holocaust: There is a scientific side, and an unscientific side acknowledgment or denial.
In the case of the denial of the Armenian genocide, it is even founded on a massive effort of falsification, distortion, cleansing of archives, and direct threats initiated or supported by the Turkish state, making any “dialogue” with Turkish deniers highly problematic. No scholar or scholarly institution can remain “neutral” between the positions of acknowledgment and denial, and it is not (or should not be) the aim of a scholar or scholarly institution to facilitate “dialogue” between scholars that recognize a known genocide, and scholars that, contrary to facts and professional ethics, deny it. We are obviously not against dialogue between serious scholars, no matter their national background, but that is not the issue. The issue is one of acknowledgment of known and well-established facts, against the denial of these.
2. Even if one still believes that such attempts at “dialogue” are appropriate or necessary, we believe that the director of the Department, Uffe stergaard, is not the person to facilitate it, since there can be serious doubts as to his intentions. All through the nineties, Mr. stergaard was, for all intents and purposes, a denier of the Armenian genocide, a position which he may or may not have changed over the years. To illustrate this, we have translated the main part of a paragraph from an article on the history of the Ottoman Empire he published in 1996:
“The truly large massacres took place in connection with the Young Turk revolution in 1908-09. The modernizing officers tried to save their state by Ottomanizing the population in the leftover parts of the Empire. Macedonia was bloodily oppressed, and the Armenians were subjected to several pogroms, culminating in the genocide in 1915, the event which confirmed in earnest Europe s prejudices regarding the Ottoman Empire (cf Franz Werfel s moving novel, The 40 Days on Musa Dagh,1933). Only in its weakness the Ottoman Empire unfolded the bloodthirstiness and the misrule we have got used to connecting with the Turk. And even then the oppression can be exaggerated. This is the case regarding the persecution of the Armenian minority. The expulsion of the Armenians in 1915 is often expounded as a genocide along the lines of the later extermination of the Jews. But this is being disputed by many modern historians such as Stanford and Ezel Kural Shaw. In the preface to the 2. edition of their account of the history of the Ottoman Empire, they answer the critics of the first edition of the work in the following way:
No one denies, or seeks to deny, that the Armenian people suffered terribly during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. We do make this clear, but in the context of Ottoman history. What may be overlooked is that the experience of the Armenians, however terrible it undoubtedly was, was not unique to them. It was part of a general tragedy that engulfed all the people of the Empire Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Jews, and all others, all of whom have traumatic memories of the period. This was the terrible result of the final breakup of a multinational society as the result of a whole series of brutal and destructive foreign invasions, terroristic attacks, national revolts, massacres and counter massacres, and famine and disease, in which all the Empire s people, Muslim and mon-Muslim [sic] alike, had their victims and criminals. (Shaw and Shaw 1978, x).”
This quote ends the article s treatment of the “question” of the Armenian genocide. What Mr. stergaard is attempting to do here is “clever” and “sophisticated” denial, but denial nonetheless: he starts by calling the Armenian genocide a genocide (“folkemord”), and then he systematically backs away from the using of that term: He goes from describing the “events” as “genocide” in some sense of the word, to describing it as “persecution,” and ending by describing it as “expulsion,” all in one and the same paragraph. Also, by literally and uncritically giving known and notorious deniers of the Armenian genocide, Shaw & Shaw, the last word regarding the “Armenian question,” Mr. stergaard clearly accepts these author s historical interpretation of the “events.” And by doing so, Mr. stergaard makes his own initial use of a Danish term “folkemord,” a term equivalent to the term “genocide,” meaningless. According to this use of the term, the Armenian genocide was an unintentional and unsystematic genocide, a genocide where all Ottoman groups were equally victimized, and all were equally atrocious.
This might seem less of a problem if Mr. stergaard, for 6 years the director of a Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, had publicly and unequivocally acknowledged, and distanced himself from, his denialist views. Since this is not the case, and since Mr. stergaard in fact still regularly insists that he, regarding the “Armenian question,” takes up a “neutral” position between an “Armenian” and a “Turkish” point of view, we find ample grounds to seriously question his current position on the Armenian genocide. We have tried to raise such matters of denial and acknowledgment, both internally at the Department, in Danish newspaper articles, and in academic publications, all to no avail. This open letter is therefore our last attempt at facilitating an open discussion of these vital matters, hopefully before any final decisions are made.
Sincerely,
Torben J rgensen and Matthias Bj rnlund
Comments are welcome, and can be mailed to: matthiasb@webspeed.dk
RH: I assume the Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies is affiliated with the University of Copenhagen.
Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/ Please inform us of any change of e-mail address.
http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/index.php?p=2313
There are also references to the following