In a panel discussion titled “Facing Denial, the Last Stage of Genocide,” four experts spoke about the injustice of denying the Armenian genocide.
The event, hosted by the Shant Student Association and the Armenian Graduate Students Association, was held in order to acknowledge all genocides, said Raffi Kassabian, executive officer of AGSA.
The Armenian genocide refers to the killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire beginning April 24, 1915.
The total number of Armenian deaths are estimated to be around 1 million to 1.5 million. Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, does not recognize these events as genocide.
But Joey Kurtzman, executive editor of Jewcy, an online magazine, said there is an overwhelming consensus regarding the Armenian genocide.
Richard Hovannisian, chair of modern Armenian history at UCLA, said genocide often involves denial, with the government covering up and justifying what they are doing. When the genocide ends, denial commonly follows, he said.
The panelists agreed that the importance of recognizing genocide is crucial in providing comfort to those who have felt the effects of it and to help prevent future genocides.
“Those won’t be able to look at the Armenian genocide like Hitler did as an example of being able to get away with it,” said Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America.
Hovannisian drew parallels between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust.
Both genocides were based on wartime propaganda and the victims of it were portrayed as threatening to the country. Also, both governments said they were simply relocating the victims and justified their actions by claiming their own people were killed as well.
One of the significant differences between the two, Myers pointed out, is that the Holocaust was recognized afterward and reparations were made to the Jews, whereas the Armenian genocide was not acknowledged.
Hamparian said he believes recognizing genocide is a moral obligation.
“Efforts to cover up the destruction of a nation are wrong,” he said.
David Myers, director of the Center for Jewish Studies said the recognition of the genocide is important so that it fosters communication between Armenians and Turks.
Hamparian said that the genocide is being denied is for political reasons. He drew a connection between lobbyists preventing laws against cigarette companies and governments being reluctant to recognize genocide.
Kurtzman said that, as a Jew, he is especially concerned that some Jewish leaders are denying the Armenian genocide for political reasons.
“This is especially disconcerting for those in the Jewish community,” he said. “What we claim to learn from our history is being desecrated in a pretty mortifying manner.”
Hovannisian said that Turkey can benefit from recognizing that a genocide did occur.
By denying the genocide, he said the Turks who helped the Armenians during that time are not being recognized, as those who helped Jews during the Holocaust were.
All the panelists agreed that progress is being made with recognizing the Armenian genocide. Some Turkish scholars are combating Turkish denial themselves, Hovannisian said.
There is currently a pending resolution that was officially approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives in October to recognize the Armenian genocide.