Peace and Conflict Studies - Spring 2014

Peace and Conflict Studies Volume 21, Number 1 70 have significance not solely for Armenian communities, but also all of humanity. This is particularly true because Turkish genocide denial sets a precedent and model, following in step with the genocide itself, which set the precedent for the Holocaust of World War II. This article reviews the history of the Turkish government’s denial of the Armenian genocide, including the methods and goals of the denial, and the impacts of the genocide and the denial on Armenians worldwide. Just as it argues that there has been a collaborative repression of historical truth, involving academics and foreign state governments, among others, it also argues that collaborative struggle between Armenian and Turkish activists, non- governmental organizations, and communities offers the best opportunity to achieve Armenian genocide recognition in Turkey based on recent events and the opportunity to continue building on their momentum. The Armenian Genocide and Its Aftermaths At the end of the nineteenth century, the greatly diminished Ottoman Empire was in the final stages of its decline. The Armenians, a Christian minority in the Muslim empire, were living on the traditional homelands they had occupied for over 2000 years. In the 1800s, the Ottoman Empire repeatedly went to war with Russia, a Christian empire, and lost much of its territory, including Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina (Balakian, 2003, p. 145), and the Balkans, largely Christian populations (p. 161). In response, the Ottoman government began to frame Christians as its enemies (p. 145). Thus, those Christians within the Ottoman Empire came under suspicion, in particular the Armenians (p. 198), as a large part of the Armenian community lay within Russia’s borders. Armenians in what’s now eastern Turkey suffered increasing attacks from Turkish mobs incited by official powers, the worst of these occurring from 1894 – 1896 (p. 5), and again in 1909 (Balakian, 1997, p. 232; Gibbons, 1917). At the start of World War I, the Ottoman Empire aligned itself with Germany, and using the war as a guise, the Ottoman’s new government, the Young Turk Committee for Union and Progress, enacted a policy of genocide against the empire’s Armenian population, as well as Assyrian (Travis, 2006), Greek and other non-Muslim communities. The genocide officially started on April 24, 1915, when Armenian intellectuals, community and religious leaders in Istanbul were rounded up for interrogation, torture and execution (Balakian, 1997, p. 235). Persecution of Armenians with intent of extermination continued across Anatolia, what it today eastern Turkey, and then in the independent Republic of Armenia as Turkish forces continually invaded (Balakian, 1997, p. 242; 2003, p. 328). Aida Alayarian (2008) sets