(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)May 8, 2015

MAHWAH, N.J. – On May 7, in commemoration of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies hosted a conversation between Ragip Zarakolu and Nanore Barsoumian on “The Denial Industry in Turkey.”

This discussion explored the deception, distortion and intimidation that have characterized the Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide. It examined how, inside and outside of official government channels, efforts have been made to discredit the truth about the systematic and organized campaign by the Ottoman Empire and Turkish nationalists in the years 1915-1923 to eliminate the Armenian population.

In particular, Zarakolu pointed to the existence in Turkey of a “deep state” that sees as one of its main goals the need to maintain at all costs the edifice of denial and to ward off any challenge to the Turkish Republic’s non-inclusive conception of Turkishness. Otherwise, so the thinking goes, Turkey would succumb to a form of multiculturalism that would undermine the supremacy of the Turkish ethnic group. In other words, it would open the floodgates to challenges from other ethnic groups comprising modern-day Turkey, most notably the Kurds.

On the other hand, according to Zarakolu, among Turkish intellectuals there is an increasing tendency to resist intimidation, to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide and to seek reconciliation with Armenians inside and outside Turkey. At the same time, both discussants emphasized, with the current regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan making every effort to contain this process, the road towards acceptance of the truth will necessarily be long and twisted.

Ragip Zarakolu, director and owner of Belge Publishing House, has been the subject of harassment from the Turkish authorities for his writings on issues of social injustices and has been imprisoned several times for refusing to abandon his campaign for freedom of thought. Currently, he is appealing a conviction of “insulting the state” by publishing a Turkish translation of British author George Jerjian’s book, The Truth Will Set Us Free: Armenians and Turks Reconciled.

Nanore Barsoumian is the editor of the Armenian Weekly. Her writings focus on human rights, politics, poverty, environmental and gender issues. She has reported from Armenia, Nagorno- Karabagh, Javakhk and Turkey.

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