Genocide Denial Research Articles

R. Erdogan’s Myth of “Common History” and the Armenian Genocide

The state policy in modern Turkey is to continue falsifications concerning the Armenian Genocide and the essence of the Armenian question. The newly created historic myths deny the existence of Armenia and the indigenousness of the Armenian people; their goal is to justify the Turkification and Islamization policy, as well as the disappearance of the Armenian people from their historical territories and to legitimize the politics of the extermination of the Armenians. Engaged American historians, writing about the position of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, significantly contributed to this state of affairs; it allowed President Erdogan to replace the rigid policy of denial of the genocide by using tolerant formulas of common pain and common history, stating that there were an equal number of Armenian and Muslim victims. The use of the old myths about the deportation and the activities of Armenian robbers is preserved. At the same time, the process of the further modernization of Turkey under President Erdogan is acquiring new aspects and facets of Armenian Genocide denial.

Moral Equivalence

Since the very beginning of the Rwandan Genocide of the Tutsis in 1994, members of Hutu Power, the Akazu, and other interested allies of the former government of Rwanda have been conducting a campaign of genocide denial, one in which they blame the Tutsi dominated Rwandan Patriotic Army for carrying out murder of civilians during the civil war in 1994. In this article Linda Melvern examines the role that Hutu Power played in creating the myth of a counter-genocide and the unwitting legitimacy that was given to it by several UN agencies and their associated employees and consultants. Melvern notes that despite overwhelming evidence that demonstrates that there was no ‘counter genocide’, the lies and misinformation planted in the early post-genocide days persist, with some authors making new unsubstantiated claims about a slaughter of those Hutu who did not flee the country in July 1994.

Elementary Forms of Collective Denial: The 1994 Rwanda Genocide

This article discusses three different forms of genocide denial that have—broadly speaking—followed one another in post-genocide Rwanda since 1994. Genocide denial is considered a stage of genocide, and each of these three forms of genocide denial is outlined, drawing on the seminal study on denial of Stanley Cohen. The article suggests that collective denial such as genocide denial should be distinguished analytically from more everyday forms of denial of atrocities and suffering. Three types of genocide denial—literal, interpretative, and implicatory—are identified and related to particular phases in post-genocide Rwandan history. It is shown that denial of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda has been intertwined with post-genocide debates around fundamental causes and triggers of genocide. The article concludes with some reflections on instruments used by the Rwandan government to combat genocide denial, reflecting on the polarization of public and scholarly opinion on Rwanda’s recent past.

Politics of Shame in Turkey: Public Shaming and Mourning

The politics of shame makes part of the politics of affects. It is becoming a prominent form of politics in the age of social media. Social media, insofar as it presents a plurality of perspectives, can be a milieu for public deliberation. Acknowledging that politics of shame can be of different types, this essay considers two different experiences of politics of shame in social media. It compares public shaming as an activist strategy of moral reform in contemporary feminist politics with politics of shame under authoritarianism by concentrating on two cases from Turkey. At first the structure of shame will be articulated by recourse to the phenomenological and psychological theories of shame. In public shaming for feminist moral reform, the publically shamed agent, who is a feminist, is accused by a group for performing an injurious speech act or a deed with mediate pernicious, harmful consequences. It is my contention that a theory of gender or sexual difference can be false, but is not morally equivalent to an attack on somebody’s existence, racism, and acts of genocide denial. Practices of public shaming in feminism are not self-defense; they are repressive and unfair attacks that destroy public deliberation. It is also problematic to attack feminists, on the grounds of arguments that are based on analogies, which do not apply to non-Western geo-political contexts. All politics of shame is not wrong. For example, the practices of politics of shame that concern non-elaborate mourning have moral and political value insofar as they can play a role in challenging an authoritarian political rule. In this case, the public shame results from attesting to injustice done to the other(s) in the public sphere, a public sphere, which is already closed, and highly manipulated by the authoritarian state.

Ethnicity, Politics, and the Rhetoric of Genocide at Eldoret

AbstractIn this essay, I offer a reception study of the varied responses to and interpretations of a burning church in the town of Eldoret following the 2007 Kenya presidential election. Specifically, I study responses from the U.S. and British media, U.S. officials, and Kenyan politicians. My analysis illuminates how different uses of the term “genocide” mobilize particular sensibilities about the relation between ethnicity and politics and demonstrates how the label of genocide constrains interpretations of violence. In the media and discourse of U.S. politicians, the identification or denial of genocide was made by setting ethnicity and politics as opposing explanatory factors of the violence. Discourses in Kenya, however, demonstrate that understanding the violence required understanding the intersection and permeability of these same categories. This analysis has important implications for understanding how conflicts are and are not named genocide. It demonstrates the importance of attending to the nuanced rhetoric of genocide and calls our attention to the contingent relationships among ethnicity, politics, and genocide.

Leyes que rigen la libertad de expresión del historiador: una visión comparativa en el mundo contemporáneo

This article provides a comparative approach to laws that interfere directly with the free expression of historians, that is, with respect to what they say and write. This body of international law is gathered together into four groups: memory laws, blasphemy laws, hate speech laws, and laws against genocide denial. To examine each group, the article provides a definition and identifies how standards overlap. Finally, the most relevant debates are summarized with respect to their consequences for practicing history.

Law of Denial

Law’s claim of mastery over past political violence is frequently undermined by reversals of that relationship of mastery, so that the violence of the law, and especially its symbolic violence, becomes easily incorporated into longues durees of political violence, rather than mastering them, settling them, or providing closure. Doing justice to the past, therefore, requires a political and theoretical attunement to the ways in which law, in purportedly attempting to address past political violence, inscribes itself into contemporary contexts of violence. While this may be limited to an analysis of how law is an effect of and affects the political, theoretically this attunement can be further refined by means of a critique of dynamics that are internal to law itself and that have to do with how law understands its own historicity, as well as its relationship to history and historiography. This article aims to pursue such a critique, taking as its immediate focus the ECHR case of Perincek v Switzerland, with occasional forays into debates around the criminalisation of Armenian genocide denialism in France. The Perincek case concerned Switzerland’s criminalisation of the denial of the Armenian genocide, and concluded in 2015 after producing two judgments, first by the Second Chamber, and then by the Grand Chamber of the ECHR. However, although they both found for the applicant, the two benches had very different lines of reasoning, and notably different conceptions regarding the relationship between law and history. I proceed by tracing the shifting status of ‘history’ and ‘historians’ in these two judgments, and paying attention to the deferrals, disclaimers and ellipses that structure law’s relation to history. This close reading offers the opportunity for a critical reappraisal of the relationship between law, denial and violence: I propose that the symbolic violence of the law operative in memory laws is a product of that which remains unresolved in law’s understanding of historicity (including its own), its self-understanding vis-a-vis the task of historiography, and its inability to respond to historical violence without inscribing itself into a history of violence, a process regarding which it remains in denial.

Genocide Denial: A Form of Evil or a Type of Epistemic Injustice?

In this paper, I bring together the philosophical scholarship on evil and the literature on “epistemic injustice” in order to assess effective vocabulary to understand the phenomenon of genocide denial. I use the term “denial” to denote the discursive political tactic that makes the evil of genocide invisible. Adi Ophir’s discussion of “two orders of evil” allows us to consider genocide denial as a form of evil. For what Ophir identifies as a second-order evil, another stream of scholarship suggests the term “epistemic injustice.” This latter literature can also be deployed effectively in treating the question of genocide denial, insofar as it provides an interdisciplinary approach rather than a strictly philosophical one. Epistemic injustice scholars focus on different types of unfair treatment in the realm of knowledge-production, and they agree that exclusion, silencing, invisibility and distorted representation are major forms of epistemic injustice. I argue that both scholarships are crucial to draw out conceptual frameworks for understanding the specific case of genocide denial. Furthermore, I think that interdisciplinary approaches informed by the social sciences are essential to map out the real life implications of the injustices that are implemented through denial.

The Gender and Sexuality of Armenia

The Gender and Sexuality of Armenia

Speech and Harm: Genocide Denial, Hate Speech and Freedom of Expression

This article expounds upon the issue of genocide denial, especially its particular relations to freedom of expression and hate speech. It proceeds from the twin view that the gravity of the act of denial is such that anti-denial legislations are not irreconcilable with democratic standards and the principle of freedom of expression, and that what is required in the wake of recent high-profile rulings favouring freedom of expression is not an abandonment of attempts to develop a workable framework for criminalising denial, but rather renewed investment in thinking through operable approaches that are more finely-attuned to the characteristics of denial and its consequences. The aim of the contribution is thus to offer a re-examination of the relations between genocide denial, freedom of expression and hate speech, and, on this basis, to venture new possibilities for confronting denial via reference to the current framework(s) of hate speech.

The Armenian genocide and Armenian identity in modern Turkish novels

ABSTRACTDespite the official policy of genocide denial, the Armenian Genocide has been more widely discussed within Turkish society in the twenty-first century, particularly by the intelligentsia, than ever before. However, the more critical approach to the denial of genocide among many in the Turkish intelligentsia is not generally reflected in Turkish literary narratives. Literature is regarded by politicized and nationalist Turkish authors and historians as a discursive space in which to strengthen Turkish official discourse, the voice of denial. The official voice of the state can be clearly discerned in novels published in the period around 2015, due to the historical significance of the hundredth anniversary of the Genocide. However, there are some exceptions – narratives in which the writers seek to engage in cultural resistance, aiming to voice their own political criticism as a mode of social critique. Adopting a sociological approach and a theoretical framework based on historical criticism, this article explores the way Turkish novelistic discourse has responded to the discussion of the Armenian Genocide and Armenian Identity, and examines the representation of otherness (i.e. non-Muslims) in ten contemporary Turkish novels, most of which were published after 2000, when the Armenian issue became more controversial due to certain internal and external factors. .

Denial, Memory Bans and Social Media

We live in an age of ready availability of information… including hate speech, genocide denial and narratives of white supremacy. Encountering this information online can generate a feeling of uneasiness, even if one finds the offending material after a lengthy search. One possible response to this feeling of uneasiness is to ban the speech in question, and indeed many states have enacted restrictions on genocide denial and other denials of historical events (memory laws). In this paper, I examine memory laws in a social media age. The first section addresses the legal legitimacy of memory laws. These laws go beyond the traditional concern about incitement to hatred or violence that justifies hate speech bans. Next, I examine the effectiveness of memory bans. In a global internet age, states have opted for country-specific laws or global anti-denial campaigns. It is unclear, however, if either approach will succeed in removing all denialist content from the internet. At best, one can drive denial to the margins of society; one cannot remove it entirely. Finally, I turn to practical solutions. On the one hand, one can honor the memory threatened by denial, and try to restrict denial to corners of the web (as opposed to one’s virtual living room). In the end, however, the virtual world will likely continue to contain much we do not like, including denial. This requires a special type of tolerance, one based in resignation and rooted not in choice but in inevitability.

A Public Pedagogy of White Victimhood: (Im)Moral Facts, Settler Identity, and Genocide Denial in Dakota Homeland

This article examines dominant discourses driving southern Minnesota’s white public pedagogy of the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862, focusing specifically on hardline separations between fact and opinion that divert citizens from acknowledging the moral significance of their state’s genocidal founding. Supported by objectivist discourses enshrined in today’s Common Core Standards, the regional need to distinguish fact from opinion reveals highly situated white-supremacist roots when historicized, originating in primary-source materials that perplexingly frame white “victimhood” and Dakota “savagery” as objective moral knowledge. Critically analyzing recent acts of fact-checking performed by members of a regional settler discourse community, this article shows such “objective” knowledge at work, persistently thriving on age-old notions of white-settler identity and white community belonging. Ultimately, this article exposes the ongoing persuasive power of the primary sources’ dominant discourse, the anti-Indian sublime, and its role in erasing moral facts about regional crimes against humanity.

The Armenians in Modern Turkey: Post-Genocide Society, Politics, and History

The Armenians in Modern Turkey: Post-Genocide Society, Politics, and History

A Journey to Armenia: Visual Reminders of Genocide and Oppression

A Journey to Armenia: Visual Reminders of Genocide and Oppression

How Useful is the Concept of Post-Truth in Analysing Genocide Denial?: Analysis of Online Comments on the Jedwabne Massacre

How Useful is the Concept of Post-Truth in Analysing Genocide Denial?: Analysis of Online Comments on the Jedwabne Massacre

The danger of a single story: Iconic stories in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide

In the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, the government of Rwanda—much like other transitional regimes around the world—has prioritized reconciliation initiatives that educate civilians with a highly politicized understanding of the conflict and encourage them to speak about the conflict and its aftermath in a manner that reinforces the legitimacy of the current government. However, individual survivors, bystanders, ex-combatants, and/or perpetrators of the genocide find various subtle ways to reinforce, resist, or complicate the current official history. This article analyzes a series of “iconic stories” that are repeated by Rwandans in different settings due to their historical and personal resonance for what they can tell us about the ethnic and political tensions that often continue to divide Rwandans and the overall challenges associated with everyday life since the genocide. Yet, engaging with these iconic stories places the researcher in a difficult position where the democratizing potential of oral history is potentially undermined. This article argues that even while qualitative researchers have an obligation to listen deeply to their informants, their moral and professional obligations to avoid reproducing narratives that promote potentially reprehensible agendas—for example, genocide denial or the legitimation of authoritarianism—make contextualizing their participants’ narratives in relation to the personal, historical, and political climate in which they are being produced essential.

Genocide Denial: Perpetuating Victimization and the Cycle of Violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)

Genocide Denial: Perpetuating Victimization and the Cycle of Violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)

Teaching the Armenian Genocide in Turkey: Curriculum, Methods, and Sources

Since 2001, I Have Been Teaching Courses in Cultural Studies, European and Turkish Literature, Modern Drama, and Gender and sexuality studies at Sabancı University in Istanbul. During my fifteen years of teaching undergraduate and graduate students, the Armenian genocide was a particularly challenging theme to bring into the classroom. Even at Sabancı University, one of the rare liberal universities in Turkey to offer courses that challenge Turkish national myths, most students, including those who graduated from “liberal” high schools, had received a nationalist education and came to college either not knowing anything about the Armenian genocide or denying it altogether. Denial of the Armenian genocide is still pervasive in Turkey; 1915 is identified in history textbooks as the year of the Battle of Gallipoli, the most important Ottoman victory against the British and French naval forces during World War I. For most of the twentieth century and up until 2005, when the seminal Ottoman Armenians Conference opened a public discussion of the topic, silence regarding the deportation and genocide of the Ottoman Armenians prevailed. If denialist myths in Turkey acknowledge the deaths of the Ottoman Armenians, they justify such deaths as “retaliation” for the deaths of Turkish Muslims during the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 or equate the massacres of Armenians with Turkish casualties of war from the same period. For instance, Talat Paşa, the mastermind behind the deportations and massacres of roughly one million Armenians in 1915-16, argues in his memoirs that an equal number of Turks were killed by Armenians during World War I and in its aftermath (51-56).

Memory Laws: An Escalation in Minority Exclusion or a Testimony to the Limits of State Power?

The article addresses the tension between nation-state memory and the law through “memory laws.” In contrast to laws that ban genocide denial or a positive perception of a violent past, I focus on laws that ban a negative perception of a violent past. As I will show, these laws were utilized for a non-democratic purpose in the last decade or more: They were proposed in order to limit public debate on the national past by banning oppositional or minority views, in contrast to the principles of free speech and deliberative democracy. Their legislation in such cases also stands in opposition to truth-telling efforts in the international arena. I compare two cases of memory legislation, in contemporary Russia and Israel, and evaluate their different impacts on democratic public debates in practice. A third case of “failed legislation” in France compliments the analysis by demonstrating not only the capacity but also the limitation of state power to silence or control public debate using the law. Although national laws often reflect majority culture and memory, I propose that memory laws in Russia, Israel, and France present an escalating degree of minority exclusion—from omission to active banning.