Hye Sharzhoom Armenian Action
Staff Report
The Third International Conference on Genocide was held on Friday, November 4, on the campus of Sacramento State University. A panel on the Armenian Genocide was organized and chaired by Dr. Sergio La Porta, Berberian Professor of Armenian Studies at Fresno State, and included five papers on various aspects of the Armenian Genocide by scholars including Fresno State’s Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian.
Dr. La Porta introduced the panel and spoke on “The Armenian Genocide and the Politics of Memory.” His paper provided a brief historical background of the Genocide as a context for the papers delivered at the panel and emphasized the common elements between the Armenian Genocide and other genocides that have been perpetrated in the twentieth century.
He further discussed how political expediency had encouraged a policy of forgetting the Genocide in the United States. He noted that the policy of forgetfulness caused Americans to lose a significant and praiseworthy part of their own history as it also extended to the great efforts of the United States in trying to help the Armenian afterwards. He concluded his presentation by cautioning that Genocide recognition should be based on its moral and historical bases, rather than on political considerations.
Ms. Elizabeth Landin, a graduate student in the history program at Sacramento State, presented a paper on “Armenian Genocide Denial and the Role of the Turkish Secular Nationalism.” Landin traced how the Republic of Turkey, founded in 1923, had developed its policy of Genocide denial in the decades after its foundation. In particular, she drew attention to the connection between denial of the Genocide and the Republic’s program of secular nationalization, demonstrating that the denial served a vital role in the evolution of Turkish secularism. She thereby underscored the continuity between the events of the Genocide, which occurred during the rule of the Ottoman Empire by the Committee of Union and Progress, and the foundation and ideology of the new Turkish Republic. Her paper brought up further questions regarding Genocide recognition in the Turkish Republic now that the ruling political party is Islamist rather than overtly nationalist.
Ara Oshagan, an independent photographer, spoke on “Oral History, Testimony, and the Visual Arts.” Oshagan tackled the question of whether artists and art can provide an innovative and restorative way of narrating the Genocide. As a program of annihilation, genocide stands in absolute contrast to the artist’s desire to create and challenges the artist to find a way to overcome that chasm. He proposed that the inclusion of oral histories and survivor testimonies within artistic creations allowed the artist to become a witness to the witness and to tell a new narrative about genocide that can restore dignity to the victims.
Oshagan presented four specific visual representations by different artists on different themes that incorporated oral accounts of traumatic experiences into their work in order to restore the balance between creation and destruction. He included examples from his own work, a project entitled iwitness, which incorporates survivor testimonies within portraits of survivors.
Dr. Bedross Der Matossian (University of Nebraska) spoke on “Economic Policies of Genocide: The Ramifications of the Armenian Genocide.” He gave an overview of the concept of “Armenian capital,” that is the economic activity of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Dr. Der Matossian discussed the significance of Armenians for the Ottoman economy and how they were highly integrated into the Ottoman economic system. He then showed how the Ottoman Empire systematically confiscated and appropriated Armenian wealth and property through a series of laws designed specifically for this purpose. Dr. Der Matossian noted that the need to legally legitimize such appropriations of capital is a common feature among regimes that commit genocide. This broad topic has only recently become of interest to researchers, who are now examining and writing about the issue.
Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian, of the Armenian Studies Program at Fresno State, concluded the panel. He spoke on “Living with Genocide: Armenian Culture in the Post-Genocide Period.” His presentation focused on the repercussion of the Genocide as represented in Armenian-American literature. Examples from the works of Armenian-American writers were analyzed to demonstrate how the Genocide had been integrated into the works of such authors as Peter Najarian, Peter Balakian, Nancy Kricorian, Micheline Marcom, and David Kherdian.
The panel was well-attended and well-received. The organizers of the conference indicated that they hope that at the next conference a plenary session will be dedicated to the Armenian Genocide.