!ßÈÀ face="Verdana" size="2">A conference held at Gazi University represented the first response to the Armenian conference that had taken place at Bilgi University. This conference was different from the earlier one in that it was open to the public and those who held an opposite view were permitted to speak up as well. In other words, those who maintained that an “Armenian genocide” had happened were also permitted to take the floor.

Gündüz AKTAN
  A conference held at Gazi University (Nov. 24-26) represented the first response to the Armenian conference that had taken place at Bilgi University. This conference was different from the earlier one in that it was open to the public and those who held an opposite view were permitted to speak up as well. In other words, those who maintained that an “Armenian genocide” had happened were also permitted to take the floor.

  During the conference one could not help but get the feeling, “It's good that the ‘Armenian genocide' issue has been put forth. Otherwise, we would never have unearthed certain facts concerning our own history.”

  The Armenian problem surfaced in 1973 when the Turkish consul general in Los Angeles and his deputy were assassinated in a hotel room. Later, ASALA [Armenian terrorist group] terrorists assassinated nearly 40 more Turkish diplomats. First-generation researchers such as Esat Uras, Selahi Sonyel, Sinasi Orel, Bilal Simsir and Turkkaya Ataov wrote their books in the second half of the 1970s. In 1983, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ambassador Kamuran Gurun published his renowned “Armenian File.” In other countries, too, those who oppose the genocide claims, such as Stanford Shaw, Heath Lowry and, more recently, Justin McCarthy, have made serious contributions to this effect in the face of terrorist threats.

  A generation has passed. Now, greater numbers of newly emerging Turkish historians and social scientists are tackling this issue. They base their work on Turkish and foreign archival material. They have a great advantage in that by now Ottoman documents have been arranged for the archives and they know the Ottoman script.

  These scholars do argue that the Armenian problem did not involve a genocide. For that reason it has been claimed that they do not act in a scientific manner. Their approach of giving weight to documents has been criticized as “document fetishism” and their choice of documents as “one-sided assessment.”

  Armenians have prevented the correct writing of history through terrorist threats. They commissioned their “paid” versions of history. They have falsified documents. They have fabricated tales. First, the field of study must be cleared of these unscientific, primitive lies and fabrications. In this effort, one would inevitably be branded as an “official” or ”nationalistic” historian. Furthermore, how can the way the entire West, the Latin and Orthodox world -- with the exception of Britain -- pressuring Turkey to recognize the Armenian “genocide” be considered a scientific attitude? Should they instead not be supporting our proposal for a joint study with the Armenians?

  At first glance one gets the impression that the “Armenian front” continues to gain ground, to wit: the European Parliament decisions, a succession of U.S. presidents' April 24 messages that “describe the act” of genocide without using the term itself, attempts on the part of France to make this issue one of the preconditions for starting Turkey's accession talks with the EU, and the refusal to invite Turkish researchers who “deny the genocide” to international meetings.

  In fact, they have expanded the front into Turkey as well. Using all kinds of methods, they have persuaded a group of “identity-less” intellectuals to support the genocide claim. Halil Berktay, who had fulfilled important “ideological” missions in the late 1960s, has undertaken the duty of organizing that group. Although not even a single book reflecting the Turkish view has been published in Armenia, many books that maintain the “genocide” occurred are freely sold in Turkey. Meanwhile, in European countries that preach human rights to the rest of the world, arguments that “negate the genocide” hit a wall erected by the restrictions imposed on the freedom of expression.

  Despite all this, new generation historians are unveiling the facts one by one. It was quite obvious that those scholars who took part in the conference to maintain that Armenians were subjected to a genocide faltered in the face of arguments put forth by historians such as Yusuf Halacoglu and Hikmet Ozdemir. Meanwhile, the Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies (ASAM) has awarded its “Prize for Studies on Crimes Against Humanity” to renowned Holocaust scholar Guenter Lewy, who has, for a decade, not been able to find a U.S. publisher for his book, suffering from covert censorship.

  Commendably, those who defended the Turkish view at the conference were obviously well versed in genocide law. They based their historical and sociological studies in a legal framework. Those who held the opposite view ignored the law just as they ignored historical documents. Taner Akcam, who acts as their leader, has obviously felt the need to look into the legal aspect of the problem at hand, having realized how poorly informed they are in that regard. However, as he dwelt on the “intent to destroy,” he conveniently omitted the need to identify a “motive” leading to any such intent. Yet, the “intent to destroy” a certain group emerges only from racist motivations, which altogether didn't exist in the Ottoman experience.