A conference on the Armenian Genocide held at UCLA on Sunday
marked the first time Turkish scholars outside Turkey have
challenged their native government’s position on the
genocide, organizers said.
The Armenian Genocide comprises a series of killings by the
Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1918, during which as many as 1.5
million Armenians died, but the Turkish government has historically
denied that a genocide occurred. The U.S. government also has not
officially recognized the genocide.
About 650 to 700 people attended the event, said history
Professor Richard Hovannisian, an organizer of the event and the
Armenian Educational Foundation chairman in Modern Armenian
History.
“This is a historic, momentous event,” Hovannisian
said. “It was overwhelming. This was a highly appreciative
audience, obviously.”
Hovannisian said he was contacted prior to the event by the UCLA
Turkish Students Association, who offered to bring a speaker
representing the Turkish government’s point of view to the
conference. Hovannisian declined.
“We know what the government of Turkey and its supporters
have to say,” he said.
Elif Shafak, professor of Near Eastern studies at the University
of Arizona and one of the Turkish speakers at the conference,
attributed the interest in the event to the strong historical
memory Armenians have of the genocide, since accounts have been
passed down through their families.
Turkish families, however, are much more detached from the
memory of the genocide, Shafak said, and so do not have as strong
of a knowledge as many Armenians do.
A bigger problem in studying the genocide is posed by the
Ottoman documents from that period, said Taner Akcam, a history
professor at the University of Minnesota and another Turkish
speaker.
These documents have been tampered with and therefore do not
contain accurate information, so anyone trying to study the
genocide would have difficulty doing so and would receive skewed
information, Akcam said.
Third-year psychology student Nora Kayserian attended the event
and said she found it enlightening.
“They were saying a lot of things I hadn’t heard
before. You don’t usually hear from the Turkish (perspective
on the genocide),” she said.
Lerna Kayserian, a member of the Armenian National Committee, an
Armenian-American grassroots political organization, agreed.
“It was historic, considering that there are not many
Turkish scholars talking about this,” she said. “This
was a very different conference. … Hopefully this will start a
trend.”
Still, not everyone praised the event. Though no protestors
showed up to the conference itself, Shafak said she received
threats and criticism beforehand from people and groups supporting
the Turkish government’s position. Via e-mail, she was
insulted and accused of treason, she said.
Additionally, a Turkish nationalist Web site criticized the
three scholars for going against the Turkish government’s
position and acknowledging the genocide, according to an article in
the AZG Armenian Daily.
Fatma Gocek, professor of sociology at the University of
Michigan and another Turkish speaker at the event, said she hopes
conferences like this one will help create recognition for the
conflict.
“As a human being, it is unbearable for me that there are
people who have been wronged and who can’t mourn that because
of denial,” she said. “(Turkish admittance of the
genocide) will happen. I want it by 2015. Everyone should be able
to live in the society equally with equal chances. That is what we
are aiming for.”