Tweet
GENOCIDE DENIERS HECKLE U.S. WRITER ON ARMENIA
by James Barron - The New York Times Media Group
The International Herald Tribune, France
May 4, 2007 Friday
Maureen Seaberg contributed reporting.
*
As a first-time author, Margaret Ajemian Ahnert hoped that her
appearance at a Barnes & Noble store here would draw attention to
her new book, "The Knock at the Door," which deals with the Armenian
genocide.
Her reading and question-and-answer session Tuesday drew attention,
to be sure, but not the kind she expected.
A man in the audience was arrested after he and several other people
disrupted the reading by shouting and passing out leaflets denying
that the genocide occurred. Ahnert's 209-page book tells, among other
things, how her mother survived the genocide as a teenager during
World War I and eventually came to the United States.
Ahnert said Wednesday that she did not mean "The Knock at the Door"
to be a political narrative.
"Here I was trying to tell the story of my mother, not making a
political statement," she said. "It's a mother-daughter story, it's
how it affected my life. It's not just about the Armenian genocide,
it's about my mother growing up, my life, and events in her life
that affected me. It's a mother-daughter memoir. I'm not making any
historical statements."
Many historians say that the Ottoman Empire was responsible for the
death of more than one million people around 1915 in a campaign
intended to eliminate the Armenian population throughout what is
now Turkey.
Ahnert said the disruption came as she answered a question from the
crowd. Some of those who attended her talk were friends, including
a former governor, Hugh Carey, and the Manhattan district attorney,
Robert Morgenthau, whose grandfather, Henry Morgenthau, was ambassador
to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916.
"Someone in the middle of the back of the room stood up and said,
'That's not so,' " Ahnert said. "Five or six men started to pass
out fliers of denial. I thought, oh, my goodness sakes, it's like
Holocaust deniers. I was completely taken aback."
Mary Occhino, who was in the audience, said some of the people were
shouting, "This is a lie, this is a lie, this never happened."
"I got up and said, 'Enough,' " said Occhino, the host of a call-in
program on Sirius satellite radio. "Her mother lived through the
genocide - that's all she said. They said, 'That's a lie, that's
a lie, that never happened.' But this story is not about genocide;
it's about a mother's love for her daughter."
The man who was arrested, identified by the police as Erdem Sahin,
41, of Staten Island, was charged with resisting arrest, a misdemeanor
punishable by up to a year in jail, and faced lesser charges including
disorderly conduct.
At a hearing Wednesday in Manhattan Criminal Court, Judge Rita Mella
adjourned the charges in contemplation of dismissal. That means that
the case will be dropped in six months if Sahin is not arrested again.
Sahin said afterward that he and the other protesters were angry that
France had "made it illegal to say there was no genocide." The French
National Assembly approved the legislation last fall.
"We realize that if we don't do something, we will soon have no
rights," he said. "We are fighting for freedom of speech."
When asked about his views on the Armenian genocide, he said,
"Honestly, I'm not a historian, but historians say there is no
genocide."
The subject is largely taboo in Turkey, and in recent years, Turkish
writers who have referred to genocide have faced reprisal. A legal
claim against the novelist Elif Shafak was dropped last fall,
but she cut short a six-city U.S. tour promoting her sixth novel,
"The Bastard of Istanbul," which includes Armenian characters.
Orhan Pamuk, who won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, was also sued
by a nationalist group for referring to genocide in a Swiss interview,
and in January, Hrant Dink, a newspaper editor who had challenged the
official Turkish version of the genocide, was fatally shot as he left
his office in Istanbul.
A spokeswoman for the Barnes & Noble chain said that it was unusual
for a reading to be disrupted. Passing out pamphlets violated the
company's no-solicitation policy, she said, adding: "They were asked
to stop passing out leaflets. They refused. They were jeering the
author. They were asked to sit down and they refused." That was when
the police were called, she said.
Ahnert said she had appeared on college campuses and at a literary
festival in Florida without any problems. "This is something I hope
I don't have to look forward to," she said.
by James Barron - The New York Times Media Group
The International Herald Tribune, France
May 4, 2007 Friday
Maureen Seaberg contributed reporting.
*
As a first-time author, Margaret Ajemian Ahnert hoped that her
appearance at a Barnes & Noble store here would draw attention to
her new book, "The Knock at the Door," which deals with the Armenian
genocide.
Her reading and question-and-answer session Tuesday drew attention,
to be sure, but not the kind she expected.
A man in the audience was arrested after he and several other people
disrupted the reading by shouting and passing out leaflets denying
that the genocide occurred. Ahnert's 209-page book tells, among other
things, how her mother survived the genocide as a teenager during
World War I and eventually came to the United States.
Ahnert said Wednesday that she did not mean "The Knock at the Door"
to be a political narrative.
"Here I was trying to tell the story of my mother, not making a
political statement," she said. "It's a mother-daughter story, it's
how it affected my life. It's not just about the Armenian genocide,
it's about my mother growing up, my life, and events in her life
that affected me. It's a mother-daughter memoir. I'm not making any
historical statements."
Many historians say that the Ottoman Empire was responsible for the
death of more than one million people around 1915 in a campaign
intended to eliminate the Armenian population throughout what is
now Turkey.
Ahnert said the disruption came as she answered a question from the
crowd. Some of those who attended her talk were friends, including
a former governor, Hugh Carey, and the Manhattan district attorney,
Robert Morgenthau, whose grandfather, Henry Morgenthau, was ambassador
to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916.
"Someone in the middle of the back of the room stood up and said,
'That's not so,' " Ahnert said. "Five or six men started to pass
out fliers of denial. I thought, oh, my goodness sakes, it's like
Holocaust deniers. I was completely taken aback."
Mary Occhino, who was in the audience, said some of the people were
shouting, "This is a lie, this is a lie, this never happened."
"I got up and said, 'Enough,' " said Occhino, the host of a call-in
program on Sirius satellite radio. "Her mother lived through the
genocide - that's all she said. They said, 'That's a lie, that's
a lie, that never happened.' But this story is not about genocide;
it's about a mother's love for her daughter."
The man who was arrested, identified by the police as Erdem Sahin,
41, of Staten Island, was charged with resisting arrest, a misdemeanor
punishable by up to a year in jail, and faced lesser charges including
disorderly conduct.
At a hearing Wednesday in Manhattan Criminal Court, Judge Rita Mella
adjourned the charges in contemplation of dismissal. That means that
the case will be dropped in six months if Sahin is not arrested again.
Sahin said afterward that he and the other protesters were angry that
France had "made it illegal to say there was no genocide." The French
National Assembly approved the legislation last fall.
"We realize that if we don't do something, we will soon have no
rights," he said. "We are fighting for freedom of speech."
When asked about his views on the Armenian genocide, he said,
"Honestly, I'm not a historian, but historians say there is no
genocide."
The subject is largely taboo in Turkey, and in recent years, Turkish
writers who have referred to genocide have faced reprisal. A legal
claim against the novelist Elif Shafak was dropped last fall,
but she cut short a six-city U.S. tour promoting her sixth novel,
"The Bastard of Istanbul," which includes Armenian characters.
Orhan Pamuk, who won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, was also sued
by a nationalist group for referring to genocide in a Swiss interview,
and in January, Hrant Dink, a newspaper editor who had challenged the
official Turkish version of the genocide, was fatally shot as he left
his office in Istanbul.
A spokeswoman for the Barnes & Noble chain said that it was unusual
for a reading to be disrupted. Passing out pamphlets violated the
company's no-solicitation policy, she said, adding: "They were asked
to stop passing out leaflets. They refused. They were jeering the
author. They were asked to sit down and they refused." That was when
the police were called, she said.
Ahnert said she had appeared on college campuses and at a literary
festival in Florida without any problems. "This is something I hope
I don't have to look forward to," she said.