On this, a day laden with great urgency and historical meaning, I would like to thank you for allowing me to appear with you and to share your grief and sorrow. Today does not merely mark the centennial of the annihilation of some 1.5 million Armenians; it also marks a century of denial of this crime. The Turkish government continues to deny not merely any responsibility for the horrors inflicted upon Armenian people, but even the fact that it happened at all. As a Turk, it is from this fact that my sorrow and great shame derive. My sole consolation […]

‘Overcoming Genocide Denial’ delivered at Fordham Law School on December 4, 2012 (text) »

SEVEN YEARS SINCE HIS DEATH A full seven years have passed since Hrant was murdered; those who plotted his murder, the real guilty ones, are still free, and the trial continues… The first round of trials has concluded; the second has begun, and, in paraphrasing Marx’s famous adage about history repeating itself, the first time as a tragedy, the second, as a farce… Most of us are utterly shocked and confused: how is it that the real killers can still be in hiding? How can a single trial last so long? But the answer is, in fact, quite simple, and […]

If I were to explain the Turkish state’s denial of the Armenian Genocide in one word, I would suggest the term continuity, both in the sense of lasting perceptions of the problem and also in the persistent makeup of the Turkish ruling elite. Since its inception, Turkey has been administered not by its elect government representatives, but by a military and civilian bureaucracy, which was not elected, but rather self-appointed. This came about because Turkey was established after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after WWI through the efforts of the armed forces and bureaucracy. Therefore, the military and the […]

Thank you for that very kind introduction. It is a pleasure to share with you my new book, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility. I also wish to thank my publisher, Metropolitan Books; my editor, Riva Hocherman; and the Zoryan Institute, for its efforts in translating and editing the book. A Shameful Act recounts a series of attempts to try and punish those who were responsible for the deportation and mass killing of Ottoman Armenian citizens during World War I. During the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the Allied Powers tried to create an international […]

Thank you for that very kind introduction. It is a pleasure to share with you my new book, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility. Using this occasion I also want to thank everybody who made the publication of this book possible, especially Metropolitan Books and my editor Riva Hocherman who winnowed the entire text as if it were a field of wheat and gave it new shape, and the Zoryan Institute for their contribution in the translating and editing of the book. The book recounts the history of different attempts to put on trial […]

Thank you very much inviting me here. It is a pleasure for me to be with you and share my book Shameful Act! Let me begin with the words of Celal, Governor of Konya, a city in central Anatolia. “I was like a man standing by a river without any means of rescue. But instead of water, the river flowed with blood and thousands of innocent children, blameless old men, helpless women and strong young people all on their way to destruction. Those I could seize with my hands I saved; the others, I assume, floated downstream, never to return. […]

Die türkische Leugnung des Völkermordes an den Armeniern im europäischen Kontext in Huberta von Voss, ed. Porträt einer Hoffnung Die Armenier. Lebensbilder aus aller Welt (Portraits of Hope: The Armenians. Pictures of Lives from all over the world). Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 2004. Von Taner Akçam Das Europaparlament hat in verschiedenen Resolutionen den Genozid an den Armeniern anerkannt. Die erste und wichtigste war die “Zur politischen Lösung der armenischen Frage” vom 18. Juni 1987. Darin wurde die Anerkennung der historischen Ereignisse zu einer der Voraussetzungen für die Aufnahme der Türkei in die Europäische Union erhoben. Gleichzeitig wurde damit deutlich, dass […]

In September of 2005, Turkish intellectuals who questioned the Turkish state’s denial policy on the deportation and killings of Armenians during World War I gathered for a conference in Istanbul. Outside, in the streets, demonstrators also gathered in protest against the conference. One of the placards read: “Not Genocide, but Defense of the Fatherland.” Two parallel convictions are at work here, one referring to the past, the other to the present. Both the events of 1915 and the denial policy nine decades later are framed in terms of Turkish national security and self-defense. In 2009, in a raid against the […]