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At Drexel University, Armenians and Turks Clash over Genocide

'What were Armenians doing before the so-called Genocide? Were they sitting at home singing songs?' One of the Genocide deniers who dominated the question-and-answer period. Photo by Tina Tcholakian PHILADELPHIA, PA - About 150 people, many of them Turks, showed up on November 29 at Drexel University for a lecture on the Armenian Genocide. Ara Sarafian and Vincent Lima, the featured speakers, discussed "History and Power: Politics of the Armenian Genocide."

The occasion for the lecture was the publication, by the Gomidas Institute, of a new edition of the British government's 1916 blue book on the Armenian Genocide. In the book, Viscount James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee brought together scores of eyewitness reports to demonstrate that the Armenian massacres and deportations of 1915-16 must have been centrally planned.

The new, "uncensored" edition of "The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915- 1916" includes hundreds of personal and place names that were excluded from the 1916 edition to protect sources still in Ottoman Turkey.

'We must move beyond the false debate about whether 1915 was a genocide. Here's an example of prominent Armenian and Turkish scholars discussing why the Genocide happened.' Ara Sarafian, editor of the Blue Book, holding a special issue of Armenian Forum on the Genocide. Photo by Tina Tcholakian Ara Sarafian, who prepared the uncensored edition for publication, noted that the book has come under repeated attack by Turkish nationalist historians as a forgery. In response, he discussed what he called the book's "intellectual pedigree." The papers of Arnold Toynbee, Sarafian said, show that Toynbee was careful to include only reports that could be independently authenticated. Sarafian said that he has traced most of the key eyewitness accounts in the book to their signed originals.

Expanding on the theme of denial, Vincent Lima expressed concern about allowing Turkey to set the agenda for Armenian scholarship. Lima, who is director of the Gomidas Institute, discussed research and publication on the Armenian Genocide and Armenian affairs generally.



After the lecture, Masis Koumrigian argues with a Genocide denier, as Armen Sevag (l.), Varteni Koumrigian, Araz Koumrigian, and Sevag Shirozian look on. Photo by Tina Tcholakian

An Orchestrated Performance

The question-and-answer period was dominated by an orchestrated performance by a dozen of the Turkish students. The opening salvo was the question, "What were Armenians doing before the so-called Genocide? Were they sitting at home singing songs?" The message, as Sarafian put it in response, was "The Genocide didn't happen, and if it did, you deserved it."

The Turkish performance continued with questions about various quotations read from prepared packages. One woman who claimed to be Turkish, Armenian, Greek, and Serbian (or some such combination), read an excerpt from an Armenian political tract calling for armed struggle against Turkish oppressors.

A young psychology major explained how all reports by non-Muslim, non-Turkish eyewitnesses are unreliable because "everyone has a bias."

Another young woman, wagging her finger, counseled Armenians to "be careful, very careful" about what they teach the younger generation.

Mark Momjian, a prominent attorney in Philadelphia, was in the audience. He commented: "Twenty years ago, if a brave Turkish-American came to a lecture on the Armenian Genocide, and had the nerve to ask a question or challenge an assertion, it was usually done so unprofessionally that the more the Turkish position was advanced, the more ridiculous it would come across to the remaining audience. Today, however, we have to accept the fact that Turkish-Americans have been armed with more sophisticated denial weaponry, and the Armenian community's response to this development should be, in my opinion, proactive, not reactive."

The lecture was organized by Drexel's Hellenic Students' Association and sponsored by the Armenian National Committee and the Armenian Youth Federation. It drew students from the University of Pennsylvania, Temple, Villanova, USP, and Drexel, as well as members of the Philadelphia Armenian community. Dozens of students and community members stayed long after the lecture to continue the discussion.

The uncensored edition of "The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916" (edited and with an introduction by Ara Sarafian) is available from bookstores and directly from the Gomidas Institute (1-800-865-6405). The institute's Web site is at <www.gomidas.org>.