2007-2016 © Desmond Fernandes. All Rights Reserved.

The Armenian, Assyrian, Greek, Kurdish and Greek Cypriot Genocides, and the Politics of Denialism

By Desmond Fernandes

Apec Press, Stockholm - ISBN: 9789186139018

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“Desmond Fernandes examines important and often ignored questions of genocide where clear evidence exists but is still denied. The difficulty in acknowledging genocide, not only in Turkey, but internationally, is also surveyed and the conclusion leaves one in no doubt that the international community continues to assist and support the Turkish government's campaign of denial. In contrast to the international order, Desmond uses the 'G-word' as a person who has read the history, and does not choose to avoid it like a politician, afraid of controversies” - Gurgin Bakircioglu, Editor of Beyan.net and Vice-Chair of the Kurdish Student and Academic Association (KSAF).

“Turkey is a lynch pin in the politics of the Middle East, Europe and the United States. The country’s history of hyperactivity in terms of nationalism and secularism is clearly revealed in this scholarly study. The research documents genocidal actions towards religious, cultural and linguistic groups since the end of the Ottoman Empire. Woven through Des Fernandes’ narrative is the contradiction inherent in the democratic governance of the present state and the level of extreme violence that can still be inflicted on ordinary Turkish people. Not only experts in Turkish affairs, but also activists will find in this volume invaluable information to enrich their understanding of Turkey’s role in the so-called ‘global war on terror’” - Julia Kathleen Davidson, Scotland Against Criminalising Communities.

“This book shows, with the help of massive evidence and without any possible doubt, that the Turkish state (and its forerunner, the Ottoman Empire) has been committing genocide against the groups mentioned in the title of the book, at least since 1894, and continues to commit genocide even today, in 2008, within the meaning of each of the five types of genocidal act, today most brutally against the Kurds. Turkey is even today guilty of crimes against humanity … This is a reference book that cannot be surpassed easily (if at all). The book is filled with minute detail in its documentation and presentation and has an incredible number of up-to-date references. The comparative aspect, documenting and comparing several genocides, historically and today, is novel ...

“An important part of the book gives an invaluable resource to concerned politicians, lawyers, conflict resolution analysts, peace campaigners, parliamentarians and academics, regardless of their ethnic background. This is a compact presentation of key positional statements and perspectives on the genocide by the leading Kurdish parties, and several key Turkish ones. These quotes, some quite difficult to get hold of, have hardly ever been mentioned or used in mainstream US-UK genocide debates [in English]. For these representative Kurdish groups genocide is a key issue that they have explicitly been raising for years ...

“Issues around the continuing broken promises in relation to all human rights, be these civil and political or economic, social and cultural (e.g. the right to self-determination, a fair trial or the freedom of speech and association) and an analysis of the fact that other (mostly big western) countries have not only allowed the crimes against humanity but have also very often been and are today complicit in the genocides fill much of the book, again, with massive documentation ...

“The painstakingly detailed, objective and accurate description in itself forms ‘only’ a background for other path-breaking aspects of this book. One reason for writing a book like this has been voiced by Halil Berktay, co-ordinator of the History Department at Sabanci University, Turkey. He is quoted by Desmond Fernandes as writing: ‘The question of what happened in 1915-1916 is not a mystery, it’s not like we know just 5 percent, so the question is not finding more evidence. The question is liberating scholarship from the nationalist taboos’ (emphasis added). ‘There may be differing interpretations of genocide - how and why the Armenian Genocide happened, To deny its factual and moral reality as genocide is not to engage in scholarship but in propaganda and efforts to absolve the perpetrator, blame the victims, and erase the ethical meaning of this history’...

“Turkey’s denial of documented facts, the Turkish government’s threats towards and imprisonment of people who have raised the issue of the genocides, and the trouble Turkey is going into in order to prevent the issues around genocide from getting to high-level courts is as well known as it is difficult for outsiders to understand. This denial has to be analysed from a multidisciplinary point of view, and this is what Desmond Fernandes has also set out to do …

“This book represents the cutting edge. Not only because of its amazing research and documentation, the sharp analyses, the absolute intellectual honesty. It is a necessary book. It is horrifying to read, and makes one feel ashamed and guilty of belonging to the same human race as those who have been and ARE today committing the atrocities described in the book. But this is also cutting edge in Del Valle’s terms because it is a risky undertaking to publish this book. Desmond Fernandes has already paid a heavy price for working with issues of genocide. Perpetrators are more often shooting the messenger than listening to the message. The least you as a reader can do is to start screaming, and to finally demand international action to stop these crimes against humanity” – Dr. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, University of Roskilde, Department of Languages and Culture, Denmark, & To Akademi University, Department of Education, Vasa, Finland [author of Linguistic Genocide in Education - or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ & London, UK] – Excerpted from the Foreword to the book.