Letter to Editor of the TLS from Canada in Response to the Review of The Burning Tigris by TLS
by Aris Babikian, President, Armenian National Federation of Canada
Click here to go back to other Responses to the Review
Dear Sir/Madam,
I began reading TLS more than a decade ago. Since than, I have recommended it to colleagues in political, academic and cultural circles. You can imagine my surprise and disappointment in seeing Andrew Mango's revisionist views on the Armenian Genocide, published in your esteemed journal.
The fact that Mango parrots the hoary Turkish propaganda, which no credible historian would give credence to, is no surprise. He is a well-known hired gun of the Turkish Government. Mango is also very close to the nationalist and extreme right factions of Turkish intelligentsia. One of his close collaborators is Dr. Azmi Suslu, founder and director of a Turkish think-tank whose primary mission is to present pre-1915 Armenian citizens of Turkey as criminals who had committed genocide against Turks! One of Suslu's notorious oeuvres is the creation of the "Genocide of the Turks Museum" in Van. He is also an ideologue of the Gray Wolves paramilitary movement.
During the past twenty years, Mango has been a frequent speaker in forums organized by Turkish organizations in Europe and in the US, to promote the Turkish official version of the Armenian Genocide.
The historical reality of the Armenian Genocide is well documented. It is not what the "Armenians say" but what international historians and genocide experts have said repeatedly.
More than 120 Holocaust scholars, among them Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, Yehuda Bauer, Israel Charny, Irving L. Horowitz, and Steven Katz, issued a statement on March 7, 2000, contradicting Mango's lazy assertions and stated the "Armenian Genocide is incontestable historical fact and accordingly urge the governments of the Western democracies to likewise recognize as such."
In its 1997 convention, the International Genocide Scholars Association, the pre-eminent authority on genocides, passed a unanimous resolution reaffirming "the mass murder of Armenians in Turkey in 1915" as a "case of genocide which conforms to the statutes of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide."
In recent years many righteous Turks—particularly scholars and journalists—have spoken against their government's continued denial of the Armenian Genocide. In an interview with France's L'Express (Nov. 11, 2000), Halil Berktay, prof. of history at the University of Sabanci in Istanbul, said, "For decades we have been putting Turkish opinion to sleep with the same lullabies. Meanwhile, there are a ton of documents proving the sad reality."
More significantly, over 12,000 members of the German-Turkish Association Opposed to Genocide, signed a petition (Dec. 2000), asking the Turkish Government to repent for the crime of Genocide."
I find it careless journalism that despite overwhelming international assertions of the reality of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 you provided Mango an opportunity to repeat the Turkish Government's boiler-plate party line.
Genocide denial out of ignorance or a false sense of "balanced journalism" or "political correctness" is irresponsible. Do we provide Holocaust deniers with such courtesies or platforms?
The denial of the Armenian Genocide is an encouragement for its repetition, as it eventually did happen in Ukraine, Germany, Cambodia and Rwanda. Yesterday Armenians, who tomorrow?
The credibility of TLS is in question. TLS owes an apology to its readers and to Armenians. It should also distance itself from Mango and his libellous views.
I hope you find the space to publish this letter. Your readers—who might have been swayed by Mango's fictions—deserve the truth.
Sincerely,
Aris Babikian, President
Armenian National Federation of Canada