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Genocide Finally Gets Scholarly Inquest

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  • Genocide Finally Gets Scholarly Inquest

    GENOCIDE FINALLY GETS SCHOLARLY INQUEST
    by Dorian Jones, Istanbul

    The Times Higher Education Supplement
    September 30, 2005

    Despite death threats, two postponements and the presence of hundreds
    of protesters, an academic conference on the mass killings of Armenians
    living in Turkey in 1915 went ahead under heavy police protection at
    Istanbul's Bilgi University.

    Participants hailed it as a success and pledged to hold more.

    Organiser Halil Berktay of Sabanci University said: "It is enormously
    important. This has been the most enduring taboo of Turkish nationalist
    mythology. Five years ago, hardly anyone was speaking out about this."

    Although he has received many death threats for raising the issue, he
    promised: "We will go on to organise a series of books, translations,
    pamphlets and future conferences, and we will call for official
    spokesmen to join an open debate not just in Turkey but in front of
    world historians abroad."

    The Armenian Government accuses Turkey's Ottoman rulers of killing
    1.5 million Armenians. But the Turkish state argues that a civil
    war was to blame for the deaths. Until now, the official historical
    interpretation has not been challenged in Turkish academic circles.

    The conference angered many in Turkey's academic community: 320
    professors signed a petition condemning the meeting. One organiser
    said that the careers of young academics linked to the event could
    be blighted.

    An injunction to stop the event was circumvented by changing the
    venue. The decision to proceed was apparently made after the deputy
    prime minster intervened.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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