Марашлян Левон
| Марашлян Левон | |
| Marashlian Levon | |
| |
| На английском: | Marashlian Levon |
| Дата рождения: | 18.12.1948 |
| Место рождения: | Бейрут |
| Краткая информация: Историк | |
Биография
Марашлян Левон (р. 1948), историк (США). Профессор истории Глендейл-колледжа (г.Глендейл, штат Калифорния). Образование по- лучил в Иллинойском и Калифорнийском университетах. Специа- лист по истории статистики армянского населения Османской импе- рии. В монографии “Статистика армянского населения Османской империи” (1990, на английском языке) проанализированы официаль- ные турецкие статистические данные относительно численности и национального состава населения Османской империи. //-222
Автор показывает, что официальная турецкая статистика, а вслед за ней и турецкая историография, стремятся приуменьшить численность армянского населения в Анатолии на всем протяжении истории, отрицают существование национального гнета в Осман- ской империи, а национально-освободительное движение армянско- го народа объясняют происками России и европейского империа- лизма. М. Опровергает измышления турецкой историографии от- носительно событий в Турции в конце XIX - начале XX в., делает вывод, что к 1914 в Османской империи проживало не менее 2 млн. армян, и что во всех шести вилайетах Западной Армении турок было меньше, чем армян и курдов, а во многих районах этого региона армяне составляли абсолютное большинство населения. Принимал участие в ряде международных конференций, выступая с докладами по различным аспектам Армянского вопроса.
EDUCATION
Ph.D., History, 1992, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Dissertation: The Armenian Question from Sèvres to Lausanne: Economics and Morality in American and British Policies, 1920-1923.
M.A., Near Eastern History, 1978, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
B.A., History (U.S./European), 1974, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle (UICC).
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
1980-2001, Glendale Community College (GCC).
Current Position: Professor of History.
Courses taught at GCC:
History 110: United States History
Political Science 105: American Political Ideals
History 121: Armenian History and Culture
Ethnic Studies 164: The Armenian Diaspora
Political Science 111: The Modern Middle East
History 106: History and Politics of Russia
(As of Fall 2004, 255 classes taught at GCC, total enrollment 12,610 students)
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2000-2004, California State University, Northridge (CSUN). ARMN 380: Contemporary Issues in Armenia and the Diaspora.
2000, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). History 114: The Armenian Diaspora from the Middle East to America, 1919-2000.
2003, Los Angeles Valley Community College, History 46: History of Modern Armenia.
1994-2004, California State University, Northridge (CSUN). Guest lecturer for history sections of ARMN 310, Armenian Culture.
1994, American University of Armenia (AUA) and Yerevan State University (YSU). Fulbright Scholar, (AUA: Political Science 553, "Democracy in America"), (YSU: "Democracy and Media in America, 1960-1994").
1978-1979, Le Conte Junior High School, Hollywood, California. ESL Teaching Assistant.
PUBLICATIONS
Books: Ermeni Sorunu ve Türk-Amerikan Iliskileri, 1919-1923 [The Armenian Question and Turkish-American Relations, 1919-1923]. Istanbul: Belge Uluslararasi Yayincilik, 2000.
Politics and Demography: Armenians, Turks, and Kurds in the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge, MA: Zoryan Institute, 1991.
Scholarly Articles, Book Chapter, and Book Reviews:
"Finishing the Genocide: Cleansing Turkey of Armenian Survivors, 1920-1923," in Richard G. Hovannisian, ed., Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998.
"Economic and Moral Influences on U.S. Policies Toward Turkey and the Armenians, 1919-1923," 11. Türk Tarih Kongresi: Kongreye Sunulan Bildiriler, vol. 5 (Ankara 1990). Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, Ankara, 1994. pp. 1873-1944.
"Dndesakan Shahere Hayastani Tem," Baikar 2 (April-May 1994) 26-36.
"Economic Interests Against Armenia from 1919 to 1921 and into the 1990s," Armenian Review, 46 (Spring-Winter 1993), 93-117.
George A. Bournoutian. A History of the Armenian People, Volume I: Pre-History to 1500 A.D. in The Armenian Reporter International, September 1993. (book review)
"Economic and Political Influences on U.S. Policies Toward Turkey and the Armenians, 1919-23," Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 14 (March 1990) 52-54.
"Menshevism, Nationalism, and Revolution in Transcaucasia, 1905-1918." Asbarez Special Supplement 79 (28 May 1988) 21-29.
"Population Statistics on Ottoman Armenians in the Context of Turkish Historiography," Armenian Review 40 (Winter 1987) 1-59.
Richard G. Hovannisian, The Republic of Armenia, Vol. II: 1919-1920, in the Armenian Review 36 (Winter, 1983), 81-86.) (book review).
"The Status of Armenian Oral History," in the Society for Armenian Studies Bulletin 5 (Spring, 1980), 3-7.
"An Armenian in the Court of Egypt," Ararat, 21 (August, 1980) 15-19.
"The London and San Remo Conferences and the Armenian Settlement; the Belated Decisions, February-April, 1920," two parts, Armenian Review, 30 (Autumn, 1977), 227-255 and 30 (Winter, 1977-78) 398-414.
Briton Cooper Busch, Mudros to Lausanne: Britain's Frontier in West Asia, 1918-1923, in the SAS Bulletin, 3 (Spring, 1978), 5-7. (book review).
78 articles, op-eds, and letters to the editor on historical, social, and political topics in:
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Daily News, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Houston Chronicle, Washington Times, Washington Jewish Week, Jewish Daily, Education Week, UCLA Bruin, The Athenian, El Vaquero, Armenian Reporter, Armenian Observer, Asbarez, Nor Gyank Weekly, Armenian Weekly, Hairenik, Horizon, Lraper, Hai Gyank, California Courier, Armenian International Magazine (AIM), Azg, Haratch, Droshak, Baikar, Molorak, Erkir, Golos Armenii, Daily Star (Beirut), Courier International (Paris).
ACADEMIC PRESENTATIONS, PARTICIPATION ON PANELS AT CONFERENCES
United States and Canada:
Discussant on Panel: Education and Family in Post-Soviet Armenia, at the 2003 American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) Convention, Toronto Canada.
The Treaty of Sèvres, Turkey, and the Armenian Question, for the Institute for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, December 7, 2000.
Finishing the Genocide: Eliminating Armenian Remnants from Turkey, 1920-1923, at the 1995 Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Convention in Washington, D.C.
Economic and Moral Influences on U.S. Policies Toward Turkey and the Armenians, at the 11th Turkish Congress of History, Ankara, September 1990.
Economic and Political Influences on U.S. Policies Toward Turkey and the Armenians, 1919-1923, at the 1989 MESA Convention in Toronto.
Population Statistics on Ottoman Armenians, at the 1985 MESA Convention in New Orleans.
Turkish Historiography and the Armenian Question, at the 1983 American Historical Association Convention in San Francisco.
NATO, Moscow, and the Peoples of Anatolia, at the 1983 MESA Convention in Chicago.
The Ideological and Economic Dimensions of the Armenian Question, at the 1982 American Political Science Association Convention in Denver.
The Memoirs of Ottoman Foreign Minister Gabriel Efendi Noradungian, at the University of Chicago, in 1979.
Boghos Bey Yusufian in the Vice-regency of Muhammad Ali Pasha, at the 1978 MESA Convention at University of Michigan.
Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh:
Media Diplomacy: Karabakh and Armenia on Television in America, 1992-1994 , seminar for officials and staff of the government of Nagorno-Karabakh, July 1994.
Yerevan, Armenia:
Media Diplomacy: Karabagh and Armenia on Television in America, 1992-1994. Lecture for the American University of Armenia (AUA) Extension Program, June 1994.
Media Diplomacy: Armenia and Related Issues on U.S. Television, Extension Course at AUA, August 1993.
Media Diplomacy: Armenians, Turks, Kurds, and the Persian Gulf War on U.S. Television, Extension Course at the AUA, July 1992.
Population Statistics and the Denial of Genocide, at the First International Conference on the Armenian Genocide, Yerevan, Soviet Armenia, April 1990.
The Armenian Diaspora, lecture series at the Armenian Academy of Sciences and Yerevan State University, May 1990.
Beirut, Lebanon:
Reasons for Turkey's Denial of the Armenian Genocide, 1919-2001, workshops delivered at Jemaran College for the 7th Hamaskayin Cultural Forum, July 24-27, 2001.
Media Diplomacy: Karabagh and Armenia on Television in America, 1988-1994, lecture for the AGBU Hovagimian School, Beirut, November 1994.
208 LECTURES ON HISTORICAL, POLITICAL, AND EDUCATIONAL TOPICS AT UNIVERSITIES, COLLEGES, SCHOOLS AND FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, CHURCHES, ORGANIZATIONS (multiple times at many sites and for many organizations):
- UCLA, U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Irvine, U.C. Santa Barbara, USC, University of Chicago, Columbia U., Tufts U., Bentley College, Cal. State U. Fullerton, Cal. State U. Northridge, Cal. State U. Fresno, Ramapo College, N.J., Brookdale College, San Francisco State U., Laverne U., Glendale H.S., Hollywood H.S., Grant H.S., Marshall H.S., Fairfax H.S., San Marino H.S., Mesrobian H.S. Alex Philibos H.S., Ferraihian H.S., Dikranian H.S., Alex Manoogian H.S., U.C. Morett H.S. Washington DC, University H.S., Irvine, Crescenta Valley H.S., Hoover H.S., Toll Middle School, Cal Poly Pomona, Occidental College, U.C. Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, etc.
- U.S. Naval Base at San Diego, Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations, Glendale Chamber of Commerce, Glendale Unified School District, Rotary Club, Junior Achievement, Unitarian Fellowship Church, Throop Unitarian Church, CORO Foundation, Freedom Force, Facing History and Ourselves, Armenian Assembly of America, Armenian Evangelical Social Service Center, Armenian Relief Society, Zoryan Institute for Contemporary Armenian Research and Documentation, Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Armenian National Committee, St. Peter Church, St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church, St. Garabed Armenian Church, Shant Student Association, Armenian Democratic Liberal Party, Armenian General Benevolent Union, Organization of Istanbul Armenians, Homenetmen, Armenian Youth Federation, Armenian Alumni Association, Knights of Vartan, Daughters of Vartan, Hamazkain Cultural Association, Nor Serount Cultural Association, United Armenian Cultural Association of Chicago, Tekeyan Cultural Association, Armenian Educational Foundation, National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, Santa Barbara Armenian Community, Colorado Armenians Association, Orange County Armenian Professional Society, Armenian Youth Association of California, Armenian Young Adult Society of Dallas/Fort Worth, Downy Museum of Art, San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools/Inland Empire Consortium for International Studies, Hamazgayin Forum in Beirut, Hamazgayin Forum in Yerevan, Glendale City Hall, Glendale Human Relations Coalition, Asia Society of Southern California, UC Berkeley Armenian Alumni Association, City of Glendale Week of Remembrance of Man's Inhumanity to Man, Historical Society of La Crescenta, etc.
GOVERNMENTAL, ACADEMIC, CIVIC ACTIVITY
Member, City of Glendale Committee to Commemorate ManË's Inhumanity to Man, 2002, 2003, 2004.
U.S. House of Representatives, testimony on the Armenian Genocide before the Committee on International Relations, 15 May 1996. Entered into the Congressional Record, 5 May 1998.
U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service Training Seminar for Political Asylum Officers, 13 August 1997 and 13 October 1998.
Member, California Teacher Training Team of Facing History and Ourselves. Participated in several workshops on the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide.
Member, California Department of Education Curriculum Advisory Committee for the development of human rights instructional material mandated by AB 1273.
Testified before the California State Board of Education in Sacramento, 10 June 1987 (re: AB1273), and before the California Assembly Education Committee in Sacramento, 27 April 1987 (re: AB1375, educational films on the WW II Japanese internment and the Armenian Genocide).
Member, Scholars Program Committee at Glendale Community College, 1990-1993.
Faculty Adviser, GCC Armenian Student Association, 1980-1994, 1998-1999, 2002-Present.
Board of Directors, Armenian Film Foundation, 1979-1992.
Educational Committee, Armenian National Committee Western Region, 1991-92
Executive Committee, Armenian Alumni Association, 1981.
Public Relations Committee Chairman, Armenian Congress of America, 1979-1981
MEDIA INTERVIEWS
Newspapers/Magazines
New York Times (multiple)
Los Angeles Times (multiple)
Daily News, Los Angeles (multiple)
Cumhurriyet, Istanbul
Hurriyet, Istanbul
Tempo Magazine, Istanbul
Marmara, Istanbul
Haireniki Tsain , Yerevan
Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, Yerevan
Ergir, Yerevan
AZG, Yerevan
Golos Armenii, Yerevan
Monetik, Yerevan
Star News, Burbank
Glendale News Press (multiple)
Zartonk, Beirut (multiple)
Khosnak, Beirut
Iravunk, Yerevan
Aztag, Beirut
Television
CNN
NBC
KTTV
KCET (multiple)
ART (Armenian Radio & TV, Yerevan) (multiple)
TRT (Turkish Radio & Television, Ankara)
KSCI "Armenian Teletime" TV program, KSCI
KSCI "Erebuni" TV Program (multiple)
KSCI "Nairi" TV program, KSCI (multiple)
Public Access, "Tele-Armenia" TV (multiple)
"In Focus" Glendale College TV
"Speaking of Glendale," Glendale City
TV KPCA "Armenia Today"
"Horizon," "Menk," "Parev," ANN, "Hamaynk" (multiple)
Larry Zarian's Forum, Glendale Cable
Radio
Voice of America (multiple)
Radio Free Europe
KABC
KPFK (multiple)
KFWB
KFOX
KIEV (multiple)
Armenian Radio & Television, Yerevan (multiple)
"Sounds of the Diaspora" (multiple)"
"Nairi Radio Program on 79.6 FM," Beirut
Radio Liberty, Host Dr. Stan Montieth
Talk Radio Network, "The Bob Dornan Show"
CREDITS in BOOKS and FILM
Acknowledgement for contribution to preparation of 2nd ed., in Thomas Dye & L. Harmon Zeigler, American Politics in the Media Age. Monterey: Cole Press, 1985.
Historical Consultant, The Armenian Genocide 1915-1923: A Handbook for Students and Teachers. Glendale: ANC, 1988.
Special Consultant, "Terrorism: A World in shadows," documentary film aired on the Discovery Channel, 1990.
AWARDS
J. William Fulbright Lecturing Grant, Armenia, May-July 1994.
Glendale Community College Meritorious Service Award, 1992.
Armenian Alumni Association Educational Service Award, 1991.
MEMBERSHIP in PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
American Historical Association (AHA).
Middle East Studies Association (MESA).
Society for Armenian Studies (SAS) Treasurer and Member of Executive Council, 1985-87.
American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
Faculty Association of Community Colleges (FACC).
Faculty Guild, Glendale Community College (GCC).
Faculty Senate, Glendale Community College (GCC).
MILITARY
U.S. Army, 1967-69; Vietnam, 1968-1969. Light Weapons Infantryman (82nd Airborne Division/1st Battalion, 505th Infantry Brigade). Decorations: Bronze Star Medal, Combat Infantryman Badge, Vietnam Service Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal, National Defense Service Medal, 2 Overseas Bars, Army Commendation Medal. Rank: Specialist E-4 (Corporal). U.S. Army Reserve, 5th Army Headquarters, 1969-73.
PERSONAL
Born in Beirut, 18 December 1948; raised in Chicago since 1956; U.S. citizen, 1964.
Levon Marashlian Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1992 M.A., University of California, Los Angeles, 1978 B.A., University of Illinois, Chicago, 1974
Professor of History at Glendale Community College in California, teaching Armenian history and Diaspora current affairs, as well as Middle Eastern, Russian, and US history and politics; also taught courses at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), California State University Northridge (CSUN), and Los Angeles Valley Community College; lectured extensively in Armenia at the Academy of Sciences, Yerevan State University, and the American University of Armenia, as well as in Beirut, Lebanon and Montreal, Canada; Fulbright Scholar in Armenia in 1994, teaching courses on democracy in America.
In 1996, testified before the US House of Representatives International Relations Committee, during a hearing on the Armenian Genocide; testimony was published in the Congressional Record, 5 May 1998.
In 1987, served on the California Department of Education Curriculum Advisory Committee for the development of instructional material on genocide and human rights and testified before government committees in favor of legislation mandating the teaching of the Armenian Genocide in secondary schools.
Invited to Ankara in 1990 to participate in the government-sponsored 11th Congress of Turkish History; paper, "Economic and Moral Influences on US Policies Toward Turkey and the Armenians, 1919-1923," covered the Armenian Genocide and its aftermath and was published in Ankara by the Turkish Historical Society Press in 1994; also published in Turkish as a book: Ermeni Sorunu ve Turk-Amerikan Iliskileri, 1919-1923 (Istanbul: Belge Uluslararasi Yayincilik, 2000.)
Other publications include: Politics and Demography: Armenians, Turks and Kurds in the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge, 1991), "Finishing the Genocide: Cleansing Turkey of Armenian Survivors, 1920-1923," in Richard Hovannisian, ed., Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide (Detroit, 1998), as well as numerous articles and letters to the editor in scholarly journals and the general press, including: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Daily News, Education Week, Washington Jewish Week, Jewish Daily, Houston Chronicle, Glendale News Press, Washington Times, Daily Star (Beirut) and Courier (Paris); interviewed frequently on radio and television and in the press in the US and Armenia, as well as in Cumhuriyet, Tempo, and Hurriyet in Turkey.
BA from University of Illinois in Chicago (UICC), MA and PH.D. from UCLA. Born in Beirut in 1948, raised in Chicago since 1956, and served in Vietnam as US Army infantryman, 1968-69. [edit] Marashlian's testimony to the House of Representatives about the Armenian Genocide
House Committee on International Relations
May 15, 1996
Testimony on the Armenian Genocide
By Levon Marashlian, Ph.D.
Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak before you on an issue which is intimately tied to American history and directly related to the welfare of Turkey and to the success of United States policy in a region of the world which is critically important economically and strategically.
In 1919, a political body called The National Congress of Turkey confirmed the overwhelming American evidence that the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire were victims of a mass destruction during World War I. The National Congress of Turkey declared that the "guilt" of the Turkish officials who "conceived and deliberately carried out this infernal policy of extermination and robbery is patent," those officials "rank among the greatest criminals of humanity."
The official Turkish gazette Takvimi Vekayi published the verdict of the post-war Ottoman trials of those officials. The Turkish court ruled that the intention of the Ottoman leaders was "the organization and execution" of the "crime of massacre."
German Ambassador Johann Bernstorff, whose country was allied to Turkey, wrote about "Armenia where the Turks have been systematically trying to exterminate the Christian population." Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word genocide in 1944, specifically cited the "genocide of the Armenians."
Those who today deny the Armenian Genocide are resorting to academically unsound revisionism, in order to prevent the moral act of remembering this crime against humanity. In the process, the deniers are doing a disservice to the majority of today's Turkish people. By keeping the wounds open with their stonewalling tactics, by making it necessary to have hearings like this, they force the Turkish people to continue wearing like an albatross the negative image earned by a circle of officials who ruled eight decades ago.
A consideration of House Concurrent Resolution 47, which remembers "the genocide perpetrated by the governments of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923," would provide a good opportunity to draw a distinction between the guilty and the innocent Turks, to remember also the Turks of decency who opposed their government's policy of inhumanity.
At a time today when so many people in our own society too often shirk their individual responsibility to make personal choices based on principles and values, it is a good lesson for us to recall the years when American witnesses and Turkish civilians made the personal choice to resist a wrong and save human lives, when a few Turkish officials even chose to object, even though doing so could have endangered their own lives.
One was an Ottoman Senator, Ahmed Riza. In December 1915 he courageously condemned the policy to destroy and deport Turkey's two million Armenian citizens and expropriate their assets, which authorities were carrying out under the cover of a legislative fig leaf euphemistically called the Abandoned Properties Law.
"It is unlawful to designate" Armenian properties as abandoned, declared Senator Riza, because they did not leave their properties voluntarily. They were "forcibly" removed from their homes and exiled. "Now the government is selling" their possessions. "Nobody can sell my property if I am unwilling to sell it. This is atrocious. Grab my arm, eject me from my village, then sell my goods and properties? Such a thing can never be permissible. Neither the conscience of the Ottomans nor the law can allow it."
Mr. Chairman, during a debate on the Senate floor in February 1990, your colleague Senator Robert Dole championed another resolution commemorating the Armenian Genocide (SJR 212), and declared, "it's finally time for us to do what is right. Right. We pride ourselves in America as doing what's right, not what's expedient."
In this case, doing what is right does not exact a big price. The frequently heard argument that a commemorative resolution will harm American-Turkish relations is not credible. It ignores the fact that the relationship is much more in Turkey's favor than America's. Not doing what is right, on the other hand, is tantamount to rejecting mountains of documents in our National Archives, testimonies that refute the denial arguments generated in Ankara and, most disturbingly, promoted in prestigious academic circles here in America.
This denial recently spurred over 100 prominent scholars and intellectuals, including Raul Hilberg, John Updike, Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, and Arthur Miller, to sign a petition denouncing the "intellectually and morally corrupt . . . manipulation of American institutions" and the "fraudulent scholarship supported by the Turkish government and carried out in American universities."
A typical example of the powerful evidence in the US Archives is a July 10, 1915 cable to the State Department from Ambassador Henry Morgenthau: "Persecution of Armenians assuming unprecedented proportions. Reports from widely scattered districts indicate systematic attempts to uproot peaceful Armenian populations and through arbitrary arrests" and "terrible tortures," to implement "wholesale expulsions and deportations from one end of the Empire to the other," frequently accompanied by "rape, pillage, and murder, turning into massacre . . ."
And the persecutions continued even after World War I ended in 1918. "It was like an endless chain," reported Edith Woods, an American nurse, in 1922. "The children would often be dead before I had taken their names. Forty to fifty of the older women died each day. . . . Their mouths were masses of sores, and their teeth were dropping out. And their feet, those poor, bleeding feet. . . . Deportation is sure death--and a far more horrible death than massacre. Unless one sees these things it is difficult to believe that such monstrous cruelty and barbarity exist in the world."
Ms. Woods' testimony ripped to shreds the web of denial being woven by Turkish officials in the early 1920s. She also exposed the new atmosphere of insensitivity at the American Embassy in Istanbul, which contradicted the overwhelming sentiment of American public opinion and the spirit of Congressional resolutions in favor of Armenians that were passed during those days. This American woman made the personal choice to speak up against the response at her own Embassy, a policy imposed by acting ambassador Admiral Mark Bristol, who, driven obsessively by commercial interests, was colluding in a cover-up crafted by Turkish authorities.
Allen Dulles, the State Department's Near East Division chief (and later CIA Director), found it hard to keep things under wraps as Bristol requested. "Confidentially the State Department is in a bind," Dulles cautioned in April 1922.
Our task would be simple if the reports of the atrocities could be declared untrue or even exaggerated but the evidence, alas, is irrefutable and the Secretary of State wants to avoid giving the impression that while the United States is willing to intervene actively to protect its commercial interests, it is not willing to move on behalf of the Christian minorities.
And the evidence mounted. In May 1922, four American relief workers, Major Forrest D. Yowell of Washington DC, Dr. Mark Ward of New York, Dr. Ruth Parmalee of Boston, and Isabel Harely of Rhode Island, were all expelled from their posts in Turkey because they too chose to do what is right, they protested the ongoing persecutions. Major Yowell said Armenians in his district were "in a state of virtual slavery," with "no rights in the courts."
Dr. Ward quoted Turkish officials. One Turk declared: "We have been too easy in the past. We shall do a thorough job this time." Another remarked: "Why do you Americans waste your time and money on these filthy Greeks and Armenians? We always thought that Americans knew how to get their money's worth. Any Greeks and Armenians who don't die here are sure to die when we send them on to Bitlis, as we always choose the worst weather in order to get rid of them quicker."
Not all Turks were so cruel. A British diplomat reported that another American in Turkey, Herbert Gibbons, knew of prominent Turks who protested the "unparalleled inhumanity;" but they were "beaten and sent away" for intervening. The Mayor of the Black Sea city of Trabzon had no sympathy with the government's policy and did what little he could. The Governor also opposed the "massacres and persecutions," but was powerless to stop it. His predecessor tried and was removed.
Gibbons thought the government's policy was "a calumny upon the good Turks, of whom there are many." Massacres never broke out spontaneously, since "Christians and Moslems ordinarily get along very well." The massacres were ordered, as part of a plan "to make Turkey truly Turkish."
Yet there are "humane and kind hearted Turks," Gibbons stressed, and there are "Mohammedans who fear God and who are shocked by the impious horrors of the extermination policy."
Revisionists today say in effect that Americans like Forrest Yowell, Mark Ward, Ruth Parmalee, Isabel Harely, Edith Woods, Herbert Gibbons, and Ambassador Henry Morgenthau were either liars or misguided.
Remembering the atrocities committed against the Armenians would show respect for those Americans who spoke up, and respect as well for Turks like Senator Riza who also chose to oppose the injustice. A recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the US Congress would be a step toward helping erase this important ally's image problem, which Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet described in 1951 as "this black stain on the forehead of the people."
Encouraging Turkey to face the facts of its history would help lift the cloud of controversy which has haunted it for decades. It would help eliminate the deep roots of Armenian-Turkish enmity, paving the way to normalized relations, and it would give Armenia the sense of security many Armenians feel is necessary if they are to respond to Russia's regional policies with more independence and balance. The prospects for American commerce and regional stability would be strengthened by a recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
Acknowledging the Armenian Genocide also would show that Congress cannot condone the brazen contradiction of its own Archives and the dangerous corruption of America's academic institutions. It would send a strong signal to all deniers of genocide, especially to deniers of the Holocaust. Mr. Chairman, taking a stand against the denial of the Armenian Genocide would be entirely consistent with the successful resolution "Deploring Holocaust Deniers" which you so wisely introduced last December, in which you too did what is right, by calling denial efforts "malicious." Such language is applicable to the denial of the Armenian Genocide as well.
Mr. Chairman, when weighing the merits of the arguments on both sides of this issue, it would be useful to keep in mind a letter sent to Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes in 1924 by Admiral Bristol, a man who was called "very pro-Turk" by Joseph Clark Grew, Washington's first Ambassador to Ankara. Even the pro-Turk Admiral acknowledged "the cruelties practiced upon the Armenians by Turks acting under official orders, and in pursuance of a deliberate official policy." For that policy, wrote Bristol, "there can be no adequate excuse."
Сочинения
- L.Marashlian. Politics and demography: Armenians, Turks and Kurds in the Ottoman empire. Cambridge, MA Zoryan institute, 1991, 152 p. //-223
- Politics and Demography: Armenians, Turks and Kurds in the Ottoman Empire, N.Y., 1990
Достижения
Изображения
Библиография
- http://www.glendale.edu/marashlian/
- http://www.glendale.edu/marashlian/Webs/1vitalm.htm
- http://www.glendale.edu/marashlian/
- Categories: Armenian Individuals | Armenian Genocide
http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Levon_Marashlian
E-Mail: levonm@glendale.edu
