Clark University's Simon Payaslian Releases Book On The Armenian Genocide

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PRESS RELEASE
Clark University
Office of Public Affairs
950 Main Street
Worcester, MA 01610-1477
Phone: 508-793-7441
Fax: 508-793-7565

https://www.clarku.edu

WORCESTER, Mass. - Professor Simon Payaslian, Robert Aram and Marianne
Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide
Studies and Modern Armenian History at Clark University, has published a
new book, "United States Policy toward the Armenian Question and the
Armenian Genocide" (Palgrave Macmillan).

The book covers the political economy of U.S. foreign policy toward the
Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Question, U.S. Relations with the Young
Turk government, the Wilson administration and the Ittihadist regime,
among other things.

Payaslian said his principal objective in writing the book was to
present a more accurate assessment of U.S. policy toward the Armenian
Genocide than has been available in the literature so far.

"With few exceptions, published works on this subject place too much
emphasis on the humanitarian aspects of U.S. responses and pay
insufficient attention to economic and geopolitical considerations," he
said.

According to Professor Payaslian, the issues related to the formulation
and implementation of U.S. policy toward the genocide are multi-layered.

"I hope my book will contribute toward a better understanding of the
domestic and international dimensions of U.S. responses to this human
catastrophe," he said.

Payaslian's book places U.S. responses to the Armenian Question and the
Armenian Genocide within the broader context of the political economy of
U.S. foreign policy, and offers a new perspective and challenges
conventionally held views on the subject since World War I.

The author surveys the evolution of U.S. policy toward the Ottoman
Empire since the early nineteenth century and examines the extent to
which the missionary community, commercial interests, and international
economic and geopolitical competitions shaped U.S. policy during the
administrations of William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard
Taft, and Woodrow Wilson.

In his book, Professor Payaslian argues that the Wilson administration
was not seriously interested in the Armenian cause and merely utilized
the Armenian Question to pursue its domestic and international political
and economic objectives.

Professor Dennis R. Papazian, director of the Armenian Research Center
at The University of Michigan-Dearborn, praised the author for
"exploding old myths and establishing new truths" and credited him for
providing a "clear view of what was really going on in government and in
missionary and business circles."

Professor Payaslian joined Clark's highly acclaimed Ph.D. program in
Holocaust and Genocide Studies in the fall of 2002. He received his
first Ph.D. in political science from Wayne State University (1992) and
his second Ph.D. in Armenian history from UCLA (2003). He is the author
of "The Armenian Genocide, 1915-1923: A Handbook for Students and
Teachers"; "U.S. Foreign Economic and Military Aid"; and (co-authored
with Frederic S. Pearson) "International Political Economy."

For more information about Professor Payaslian, visit his Web page at

http://www.clarku.edu/departments/history/faculty/payaslian.cfm

<http://www.clarku.edu/departments/history/faculty/payaslian.cfm>

Clark University is a private, co-educational liberal-arts research
university with 2,000 undergraduate and 800 graduate students. Since its
founding in 1887 as the first all-graduate school in the United States,
Clark has challenged convention with innovative programs such as the
International Studies Stream, the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust
and Genocide Studies and the five-year BA/MA programs with the fifth
year tuition free for eligible students.



-www.clarku.edu-
Angela Bazydlo
Associate Director, Media Relations
(508) 793-7635; [email protected]

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Armenian Genocide ‘beyond question,' Clark professor says

Tuesday, April 11, 2006
PBS documentary rekindles debate

Armenian Genocide ‘beyond question,' Clark professor says

By Pamela H. Sacks
Telegram & Gazette Staff
[email protected]







Lecture by Professor Simon Payaslian
Subject: "United States Policy Toward the Armenian Question and the Armenian Genocide"
When: 7:30 p.m., April 20
Where: Clark University, Higgins University Center, 2nd floor, Tilton Hall, 950 Main St., Worcester


Documentary "The Armenian Genocide"
When: 10 p.m., April 18
Where: WGBH Channel 2





The very idea of debating whether the mass killings of Armenians in the early 20th century can be called genocide is preposterous, says Simon Payaslian, an Armenian scholar at Clark University.

"No one should go on a panel to debate whether the genocide was a genocide," Mr. Payaslian said. "It is beyond question."

Many Public Broadcasting System affiliates across the country will air a documentary next week on the massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by Turks of the Ottoman Empire during the World War I era. The documentary, "The Armenian Genocide," was to be followed by a discussion conducted by a panel of four scholars, two of whom deny the massacre constituted genocide.

Armenian-Americans have raised heated protests to the debate, and several stations have decided not to broadcast that portion of the program. WGBH, the PBS affiliate in Boston, viewed the film and made the decision to forgo the panel discussion.

"I can honestly say it was not a political decision," said Lucy Sholley, director of media relations at WGBH. "We reviewed the program, and we believe it is a balanced documentary. We have chosen not to air the panel discussion because we believe the documentary stands on its own."

Ms. Sholley noted that WGBH is a producer of documentaries and would typically expect that a documentary would not require a panel discussion to fully illuminate an issue.

Armenian-Americans have long sought official recognition by the United States government that genocide - a systematic effort to wipe out an entire ethnic group - occurred, beginning in 1915. It is a widely accepted view. The Turkish government, for its part, has long claimed that the deaths were the result of internal ethnic friction, disease and famine during World War I and have lobbied hard against official recognition by America that genocide occurred.

Earlier this year, a leading Armenian lobbying group, the Armenian National Committee of America, launched a campaign against PBS in an effort to pressure affiliates not to broadcast the debate. The group states on its Web site, www.anca.org, that 10,000 people have signed a petition, and it lists 16 PBS affiliates that have announced they will not air the discussion. PBS has stated that its 348 affiliates would decide independently whether to carry the film or the panel discussion and that it would not keep track of the decisions.

"As far as I'm concerned, the genocide is not a debatable issue, and, in my view, by just getting on TV, they question it," Mr. Payaslian said. "The rationale for the panelists is, `We need to get on TV and convince the American public there was a genocide.' If they just watch the documentary, the public would be able to learn about the genocide, and then they could easily go to a library or bookstore and read about it."

Mr. Payaslian, who is an Armenian-American, has dedicated his professional life to scholarly study of various aspects of the Armenian Genocide. He will discuss his latest book, "United States Policy Toward the Armenian Question and the Armenian Genocide," in a lecture next week sponsored by Clark's Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

The book examines the historical evolution of U.S. policy toward the Ottoman Empire. In Mr. Payaslian's view, it is only possible to understand issues surrounding the Armenian Genocide in the context of U.S.-Turkish relations stretching back to the 19th century. In contrast, many scholars have pointed to Turkey's membership in NATO during the Cold War and the country's strategic importance in the Middle East as the reasons for the U.S. reluctance to call the massacre a genocide.

"My argument is that that is misleading because the Ottoman Empire and the U.S. government had close relations since the 19th century," Mr. Payaslian said. When considered in that context, he said, it is not surprising that when Armenians were suffering desperately during the worst period of the mass slayings, arguably from 1915 to 1917, the only American assistance largely came from private relief organizations. Even the commonly held notion that those organizations sent as much as $116 million in aid is untrue.

"The sum of $116 million was for the entire Near East operation," Mr. Payaslian said. "About $20 million went to Armenian relief. There was some aid to orphanages, but otherwise it is unclear where it went."

Mr. Payaslian stressed that it is essential to learn the correct lessons from history through identification of key players and institutions - the bureaucracy, the State Department, the military and economic interests in general.

"The analysis has to be very clear and realistic, rather than being romanticized," he said. "Ninety percent of scholarship has been a romanticized, triumphant view of U.S. policy. It makes us feel better, but it doesn't help us understand what happened."

Interestingly, Mr. Payaslian said, the word "genocide" does not seem to have the power many people assume it would. He pointed out that former Secretary of State Colin Powell described what is going on in the Darfur region of Sudan as genocide, and his statement did nothing to stop the carnage.

"Up to that point, the usual argument was that if the U.S. recognizes genocide, it would trigger the U.N. into action," Mr. Payaslian said. "We were wrong. Apparently the major powers are not interested in doing something about genocide. There is no excuse as to why the United Nations would not be involved in trying to prevent those types of crises from escalating into a major genocide. It is one of the major purposes of the organization. It's in its preamble. But, nonetheless, it doesn't happen."

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Scholar details Armenian genocide horror

Monday, April 24, 2006


By Mark Melady TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
[email protected]




There were official protests but nothing was done to help.

Simon Payaslian,
CHAIR OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE STUDIES AT CLARK UNIVERSITY






WORCESTER— The first genocide of the 20th century wiped out half of the world’s Armenians and drew a response from the West that would become the sorry standard for the horrors to come in the death camps of Europe, the killing fields of Cambodia and throughout Rwanda.

“The major powers responded to the human catastrophe of the Armenians by trying to ignore it as much as possible,” Simon Payaslian, chair of Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University, said on the eve of today’s 91st anniversary of the Armenian genocide. “There were official protests but nothing was done to help.”

On April 24, 1915, several hundred Armenian intellectuals, political leaders and businessmen were rounded up in Constantinople (Istanbul), arrested and eventually killed. The date marks the beginning of a genocide that eventually killed 1.5 million Armenians, but Mr. Payaslian traces the roots of the genocide to Muslim massacres of Christian Armenians in the 1890s that took as many as 200,000 lives.


“At Friday prayers in the mosque, Muslims were encouraged to attack Armenians,” Mr. Payaslian said. “After prayers let out, a bugle would sound from the minarets for the attack to begin, and then a bugle would sound for the attack to end.”

Soon after the onset of World War I in the fall of 1914, Armenians by the thousands were ordered out of their homes and force-marched to the Russian border to help provide for the Turkish military. “They were told once the war is over you will come back,” Mr. Payaslian said, “but once forced out of your house, there is no returning.”

For the next two years, hundreds of thousands of Armenians would be uprooted from their homes and sent into the Syrian desert. It was a centrally planned and tightly orchestrated ethnic cleansing, Mr. Payaslian said.

“First, all the Armenian community leaders would be arrested,” he said. “In the name of military conscription, men from age 16 to 40-45 would be taken away. Then came an announcement that in 15 days all Armenians would be removed. They could sell whatever they could sell and take whatever they could carry. With only women, children and the elderly left, it was very easy for officials to begin the forced deportations.”

Along the way, the refugees were robbed, beaten and murdered. Some went insane. Many died of starvation or exhaustion. About 200,000 survived the march, Mr. Payaslian said, and set up refugee camps near cities such as Beirut, Damascus and Aleppo in Northern Syria, where Mr. Payaslian’s grandparents landed.

In 1915, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau Sr., said, “The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.” American consuls in Turkey repeatedly used terms such as “extinction” and “destruction of the race” in their cables back home, Mr. Payaslian said, to no avail.

The U.S. government still does not officially recognize the genocide and Mr. Payaslian doubts it ever will, out of deference to Turkey’s strategic importance to American interests in the Middle East.

Turkey has steadfastly denied genocide ever took place, blaming Armenian deaths on the Russians and the war, despite pressure from European countries that will determine Turkey’s admission to the European Union.

Mr. Payaslian believes Europe and America could have stopped the Armenian genocide with military force. “Ultimately, it was not in the geo-political interests of the U.S. or Europe to do so.” By the end of World War I, the importance of oil was well established. Mr. Payaslian said a rear admiral assigned to the region reported back to Washington that America should not jeopardize its access to Middle East oil sources for abstract humanitarian principles.

“Especially in the case of the Armenians,” Mr. Payaslian said. “Most of them were already dead.”