By Neal Larkins
DAILY BRUIN CONTRIBUTOR
nlarkins@media.ucla.edu
The UCLA International Conference Series in Armenian Studies commemorated the 90th Anniversary of the Ottoman Turkish genocide of Armenians in a three-day conference held this weekend.
Richard Hovannisian, UCLA professor emeritus of Armenian history and organizer of the conference, titled “After Nine Decades – The Enduring Legacy of the Armenian Genocide,” opened up the event by asking the mostly Armenian audience how many years the genocide should be commemorated.
“For the Armenian Genocide to find its proper place, it must be integrated into the collective human experience,” he said.
Armenian scholars from across the country and world converged at UCLA, from Berry College in Georgia to Columbia University, and from France to Argentina.
The first day of the event on Friday was held in Pasadena, and featured speakers from Damascus University in Syria and Erevan, the Armenian capital. The speakers at the Friday event spoke in Armenian. The Saturday and Sunday events were held at UCLA in English.
At the Saturday event at Moore Hall, Henry Theriault from Worcester State College challenged the common notion that for genocide to occur, the victim must be dehumanized in the mind of the perpetrator. He argued that unlike the Nazi killing of Jews during World War II, the Turkish slaughter of Armenians during World War I was “unnecessarily brutal” to the point of inefficiency.
“The levels of violence was from the enjoyment of the leaders. Killing an ant is not that pleasurable,” Theriault said. The more human the victim, the greater the enjoyment of the killer, he said, adding, “The Armenians were recognized as human.”
The violence that Armenians believe killed 1.5 million of their people began on April 24, 1915, and continued until 1923.
In 1908, the Ottoman sultan was overthrown by the Young Turks, the regime that would commit the genocide.
“At some point a critical mass of Young Turks became ultra-nationalistic. At some point the ultra-nationalists became genocidal,” Theriault said.
Speaking about U.S. foreign policy during the genocide, Suzanne Moranian of the Armenian International Women’s Association said American policy toward Armenians was “paradoxical.”
The “self-interest that impelled the United States to help the Armenians is the same as the self-interest that caused them to abandon Armenians,” Moranian said.
While then-President Wilson pursued a policy of neutrality with Turkey during WWI, American missionary groups conducted a substantial relief operation in present-day Syria that was supported financially by both Congress and private citizens. But “America’s post-WWI retreat from internationalism” and Wilson’s attention to his planned League of Nations decreased American support for the Armenian cause, Moranian said.
She said that the policy for dealing with Armenians in WWI formed the blueprint of U.S. foreign policy for the future.
The United States has not officially acknowledged that a “genocide” took place. In his February visit to UCLA, U.S. ambassador to Armenia John Evans said that the term genocide, created in 1943, should not be applied to the events of 1915.
Turkey continues to deny a genocide took place. Recently, however, Prime Minister Recep Erdogan took a small but symbolic step to address the issue by announcing that Turkey’s official archives would be opened to historians.
Examining the philosophical and literary response to genocide, Michael Papazian of Berry College in Georgia said that many Young Turks were educated in Germany, and that the Jewish “Holocaust was perpetrated by (Germany’s) most philosophically advanced group.”
“Jewish philosophy can be a guide for Armenian philosophers to come to terms with the genocide,” he said. He also warned Armenians to “be mindful not to make death and destruction the central theme in Armenian history, rather than the Christian ideas of life and rejuvenation.”
Philippe Videlier of the National Center for Scientific Research in Lyons, France was inundated with many questions after his lecture on “The Armenian Genocide and French Society.”
Questions from the largely middle-aged and elderly audience were about the absence of foreign intervention during the genocide and recognition of the genocide in countries around the world today.
Videlier said France did not intervene with the genocide because they were occupied fighting a war with Germany, even though at the time the government and intellectuals were aware of the atrocities. Later, France was pressured by Turkish government lobbyists into banning the release of a film about the genocide, he said.
While these statements brought scoffs from the audience, the crowd offered a roaring applause after he noted that “four years ago the French government recognized the 1915 genocide.”
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