Long history of the doctors of doom

July 7, 2007
The Sydney Morning Herald

"Systematic participation of doctors in state terrorism began with the Armenian genocide in Turkey in 1915. Medical personnel were directly involved in the killings, often participating in torture. Behaeddin Shakir and Mehmet Nazim established extermination squads staffed by criminals."

There is nothing new about physicians taking part in acts of barbarism, writes Robert Kaplan.

DOCTORS have frequently been accomplices in politically motivated repression, brutality and genocide, conducting inhumane experiments on victims, participating in torture and directing programs to exterminate the enemy. For no reason other than they had the power to do it at the time, they have beaten, tortured and killed victims.

Political medical murderers reverse the process of patients seeking help from a doctor, instead misusing their skills on vulnerable groups in the name of nationalism or ideology.

Systematic participation of doctors in state terrorism began with the Armenian genocide in Turkey in 1915. Medical personnel were directly involved in the killings, often participating in torture. Behaeddin Shakir and Mehmet Nazim established extermination squads staffed by criminals.

Nazim, in one of the most misguided appointments in the history of medicine, was professor of legal (ethical) medicine at Istanbul Medical School.

Mehmed Resid was involved in the "deportation" of 120,000 Armenians. Resid's brutality included nailing red-hot horseshoes on the victim's chest, and crucifying them on makeshift crosses.

The Armenian genocide provided the template for the Nazi holocaust, leading to the most notorious example of medical complicity in state abuse: Nazi doctors who participated in euthanasia and genocide, of whom the most well known is Josef Mengele.

Japanese medical abuses were as bad as those of the German doctors. The Imperial Army's Unit 731 conducted unspeakably cruel experiments on the people of Manchuria, infecting villages with anthrax, plague and cholera, performing live vivisection - cutting out the heart or brain from living victims, or burning them alive with jolts of electricity.

Involvement of doctors in state repression and abuse has, if anything, escalated since 1945. Medical dictators running repressive regimes include: the former cruel ruler of Haiti Papa Doc Duvalier, the Malawi dictator Hastings Banda, Felix Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast, and Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

The psychiatrist Radovan Karadzic, who led the Bosnian genocide (1992-95) in which more than 200,000 people died, used training in group therapy to formulate terror tactics and had his troops shell the hospital where he worked.

There has been a rise in doctors leading terrorist groups, including George Habash, a paediatrician and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Osama bin Laden's personal physician, Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the world's most wanted terrorists.

Why do doctors kill patients, or use their skills to participate in horrendous experiments, torture or genocidal murder in the service of the state or a political cause?

The British psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond described the three facets of the medical role as sapiential, authoritarian and charismatic. All doctors have these three factors to a varying degree in their personality; when any factor is overarching, then problems occur.

Medicine attracts a certain kind of personality, one lured by the power of life over death. Many clinicidal doctors have extremely narcissistic personalities, a grandiose view of their capability and an inability to accept they could be criticised or need help from other doctors. Such doctors develop a God-complex, getting a thrill out of ending suffering and by determining when a person dies. Two such doctors would be Harold Shipman in Britain and Michael Swango in the US, who between them killed 313 patients.

This narcissism explains the most puzzling aspect of clinicide, doctors who cannot stop what they are doing. Such individuals, while not necessarily psychopathic, go to extraordinary lengths to get what they want.

Professor Robert Kaplan is a forensic psychiatrist in Wollongong and Sydney, and honorary clinical associate professor at the Graduate School of Medicine, Wollongong. His book Clinicide: the Story of Medical Murder is in press.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

We dare not murder memories of genocide

2007-04-20
JewishJournal.com
By Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis

Every genocide is singular. But a kinship of suffering unites us all. To play the shameless game of "one-downsmanship" is an invidious sport. My blood is not redder than yours, my suffering not more painful than yours. Hatred consumes us all indiscriminately.

Amnesia of the past foreshadows amnesia of the future. Forget yesterday's tragedy and the threat to tomorrow is denied. Forget the first genocide of the 20th century -- the murder of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 -- and the memory and atrocities of the first genocide of the 21st century in Darfur turn invisible, and the world response is muted.

The Polish Jewish jurist, Raphael Lempkin, who coined the term "genocide," defined it in large part by what happened to the Armenians in 1915. Armenia was the cautionary record of a mass murder of a people, which tragically and shamelessly the world has and continues to repress.

Amnesia is a sickness and feigned amnesia is a blasphemy. To choose to forget what happened to the martyrs is an insult to their memory and a danger to our children. As the philosopher Cicero sagely observed, "Not to know what happened to you before you were born is to remain forever a child."

Infantilizing ourselves and our progeny is dangerous, and silence is lethal. We dare not murder memory.

The Hebrew term for remember (zachor) appears 169 times in the Bible. Memory is a sacred mandate. Jewish World Watch, founded almost three years ago and comprised of over 50 synagogues of every denomination throughout Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Orange counties, was formed to use its energies to make people aware of and stop genocide. Its initial focus has been on the ongoing genocide of the persecuted people of Darfur.

It continues its work in Darfur and Chad by building and supporting medical clinics; creating water wells; sending solar cookers for women intimidated, branded, tortured and raped by the Janjaweed in the fields where they have to forage for scraps of firewood to cook; providing educational materials to children desperate for any sense of normalcy, and a social worker dedicated to providing grief counseling to a population where every single family has lost at least one of its members.

No two dyings are the same. No two holocausts are the same. Darfur is not Rwanda; the killing fields of Cambodia are not the crematoria of the Nazi death camps.

Every genocide is singular. But a kinship of suffering unites us all. To play the shameless game of "one-downsmanship" is an invidious sport. My blood is not redder than yours, my suffering not more painful than yours. Hatred consumes us all indiscriminately.

We have enough tears to shed for others. Our tear ducts are not dried up. Our hearts are not so small that they cannot beat for and with another.

We join together to remember and to bind each other's wounds. In memory, we together raise our collective conscience and act out our resolve. "Never again" will we allow the threat of genocide to terrorize any nation, religion or ethnic community. Together we demonstrate our solidarity and mutual support.

On Friday, April 27, at Valley Beth Shalom, 15739 Ventura Blvd., Encino, Jewish World Watch will honor Archbishop Hovnan Derderian, primate of the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North America, a joint service of memory, including Armenian and Jewish choirs, liturgy, song and reflection. Prior to the 8:15 p.m. service, an Armenian Sabbath dinner will be served at 6 p.m. (by reservation only). For more information visit www.jewishjournal.com.

Harold M Schulweis is a rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino and founder of Jewish World Watch.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

The eight stages of Genocide

Published on April 19, 2007
Chomedy News
EDITORIAL
By Gregory H. Stanton

April should be a month of reflection for humanity on the atrocities committed throughout our history. We should all reflect on the Armenian Genocide, commemorated April 24, and on the Holocaust Yom Hashoa, commemorated April 15.

When Hitler was asked about what will the rest of the world do about his ‘final solution’ (his attempt to exterminate the Jews) he replied that it will be forgotten, like the Armenian Genocide.

History has shown that all genocides have something in common. All start with classification and end by denial, stage seven which is extermination...

As long as nothing is done to cut a genocide off as early as possible, at the first stage, humanity will have more genocides to commemorate...

It is imperative to know the signs of these stages that lead to the extermination of our fellow human beings.

1. CLASSIFICATION:
All cultures have categories to distinguish people into "us and them" by ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality: German and Jew, Hutu and Tutsi. Bipolar societies that lack mixed categories, such as Rwanda and Burundi, are the most likely to have genocide. The main preventive measure at this early stage is to develop universalistic institutions that transcend ethnic or racial divisions, that actively promote tolerance and understanding, and that promote classifications that transcend the divisions. The Catholic church could have played this role in Rwanda, had it not been riven by the same ethnic cleavages as Rwandan society. Promotion of a common language in countries like Tanzania or Cote d'Ivoire has also promoted transcendent national identity. This search for common ground is vital to early prevention of genocide.

2. SYMBOLIZATION:
We give names or other symbols to the classifications. We name people "Jews" or "Gypsies", or distinguish them by colors or dress; and apply them to members of groups. Classification and symbolization are universally human and do not necessarily result in genocide unless they lead to the next stage, dehumanization. When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups: the yellow star for Jews under Nazi rule, the blue scarf for people from the Eastern Zone in Khmer Rouge Cambodia.

To combat symbolization, hate symbols can be legally forbidden (swastikas) as can hate speech. Group marking like gang clothing or tribal scarring can be outlawed, as well. The problem is that legal limitations will fail if unsupported by popular cultural enforcement. Though Hutu and Tutsi were forbidden words in Burundi until the 1980's, code-words replaced them. If widely supported, however, denial of symbolization can be powerful, as it was in Bulgaria, when many non-Jews chose to wear the yellow star, depriving it of its significance as a Nazi symbol for Jews. According to legend in Denmark, the Nazis did not introduce the yellow star because they knew even the King would wear it.

3. DEHUMANIZATION:
One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder.

At this stage, hate propaganda in print and on hate radios is used to vilify the victim group. In combating this dehumanization, incitement to genocide should not be confused with protected speech. Genocidal societies lack constitutional protection for countervailing speech, and should be treated differently than in democracies. Hate radio stations should be shut down, and hate propaganda banned. Hate crimes and atrocities should be promptly punished.

4. ORGANIZATION:
Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, though sometimes informally (Hindu mobs led by local RSS militants) or by terrorist groups. Special army units or militias are often trained and armed. Plans are made for genocidal killings.
To combat this stage, membership in these militias should be outlawed. Their leaders should be denied visas for foreign travel. The U.N. should impose arms embargoes on governments and citizens of countries involved in genocidal massacres, and create commissions to investigate violations, as was done in post-genocide Rwanda.

5. POLARIZATION:
Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda. Laws may forbid intermarriage or social interaction. Extremist terrorism targets moderates, intimidating and silencing the center. Prevention may mean security protection for moderate leaders or assistance to human rights groups. Assets of extremists may be seized, and visas for international travel denied to them. Coups d'¢etat by extremists should be opposed by international sanctions.

6. PREPARATION:
Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity. Death lists are drawn up. Members of victim groups are forced to wear identifying symbols. They are often segregated into ghettoes, forced into concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved.

At this stage, a Genocide Alert must be called. If the political will of the U.S., NATO, and the U.N. Security Council can be mobilized, armed international intervention should be prepared, or heavy assistance to the victim group in preparing for its self-defense. Otherwise, at least humanitarian assistance should be organized by the U.N. and private relief groups for the inevitable tide of refugees.

7. EXTERMINATION:
Extermination begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing legally called "genocide." It is "extermination" to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human. When it is sponsored by the state, the armed forces often work with militias to do the killing. Sometimes the genocide results in revenge killings by groups against each other, creating the downward whirlpool-like cycle of bilateral genocide (as in Burundi).

At this stage, only rapid and overwhelming armed intervention can stop genocide. Real safe areas or refugee escape corridors should be established with heavily armed international protection. The U.N. needs a Standing High Readiness Brigade or a permanent rapid reaction force, to intervene quickly when the U.N. Security Council calls it. For larger interventions, a multilateral force authorized by the U.N., led by NATO or a regional military power, should intervene. If the U.N. will not intervene directly, militarily powerful nations should provide the airlift, equipment, and financial means necessary for regional states to intervene with U.N. authorization. It is time to recognize that the law of humanitarian intervention transcends the interests of nation-states.

8. DENIAL:
Denial is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims. They block investigations of the crimes, and continue to govern until driven from power by force, when they flee into exile. There they remain with impunity, like Pol Pot or Idi Amin, unless they are captured and a tribunal is established to try them.

The best response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts. There the evidence can be heard, and the perpetrators punished. Tribunals like the Yugoslav, Rwanda, or Sierra Leone Tribunals, an international tribunal to try the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and ultimately the International Criminal Court must be created. They may not deter the worst genocidal killers. But with the political will to arrest and prosecute them, some mass murderers may be brought to justice.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Jared Goldberg: The ghost of genocides past

3/29/07
The Michigan Daily

If we truly want to honor the victims in Darfur and understand how to help them, we should recognize and remember one of the first genocides of the 20th century, that of the Armenian people.

Activism against the genocide in Darfur has become omnipresent. Students Taking Action Now in Darfur has just joined with the new group Will Work for Food to help raise awareness and aid those suffering in the conflict. Students have the power to change the world. We have done it before, and the creation of groups like Will Work for Food and STAND will show future generations that not everyone was silent.

The genocide in Darfur however, is definitely not the first modern genocide. Genocides were common throughout history, even before the Holocaust. If we truly want to honor the victims in Darfur and understand how to help them, we should recognize and remember one of the first genocides of the 20th century, that of the Armenian people.

April 24 will mark the 92nd anniversary of the arrest and eventual murder of Armenian leaders in Turkey. Though for centuries Armenians lacked an independent government and were not equal citizens in the Ottoman Empire, (which controlled much of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, including historic Armenia), the rise of Armenian political institutions and groups in the 19th century gave hope that Armenians would eventually have their own state.

Several years before World War I, a groups of reformers within the waning Ottoman Empire, known as the Young Turks, gained considerable power. While some wanted to liberalize the empire and grant more rights to minorities, a faction known as the Committee of Union and Progress rose in the ranks. By 1913, three leaders known as the Three Pashas, assumed control of the country. Much of their ideology was overtly racist and expansionist.

What had begun as a policy of arrest and detainment evolved into a campaign of deportation, starvation and mass murder. By the end of World War I in 1918, much of historic Armenia, including the famous Mount Ararat, had been completely "cleansed" of Armenians. Over a million people were dead. To put this in perspective, it is estimated that the total number of Armenians within the Ottoman Empire was no more than 3 million.

Unlike the Holocaust, or even the events in Darfur, the Armenian Genocide is still not recognized by some countries. While Turkey's denial comes as no surprise, other countries like America and Great Britain do not use the word genocide to describe the events. Undeniably, though the many parallels between Hitler's extermination policies and those of the Turkish government between 1915-1917 are clear; each can only be described as genocidal.

So why the persistent denial? Why is there no pressure on the modern government of Turkey to recognize past horrors? Why are Western governments apprehensive about turning up such pressure? And, perhaps the bigger issue, why do we acknowledge the Holocaust, Rwanda, the Balkans and now Darfur as acts of mass murder to be universally condemned while at the same time forget the genocide that some have argued made it all possible?

I have my own theory about this complacency: the nation-state. Modern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East are states built on the foundations of the nation, whatever your definition of nation is. World War I created the concept that nations deserve their own states. Our world, since the downfall of empires and colonialism, has seen the birth of numerous such states. For the modern state of Turkey, much of whose current territory encompasses historic Armenia, the genocide marks its birth as a nation-state, arising from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. To recognize it, in the views of some, is an admission of original sin.

Other countries in Europe and elsewhere during and after World War I also committed atrocities in their quest for independence. Recognition of the Armenian genocide would indict the entire nation-state system, a system that has created new identities for people across the world - identities which have liberated many from oppression in centuries past.

The nation-state is an imperfect creation, but remembering the Armenian genocide doesn't invalidate it. The Turkish people, like the Armenian people, are free to determine their own destiny in this world. But to deny the deaths of a million people does a grave injustice.

If we want our efforts to stop genocide in Darfur to be successful or even have any significant meaning, we should always remember the Armenian genocide.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Rwanda's genocide: First the deed, then the denial

The Globe and Mail (Canada)
March 13, 2007 Tuesday
by GERALD CAPLAN


The genocidal pattern never varies, though the deniers' motives are
mixed. They run a gamut from the obvious - to escape punishment - to
the geopolitical, to the incomprehensible. But deniers there always
are. The Turkish nation, led by its government and military,
overwhelmingly denies the consensus of objective scholarship - that
the Turkish government in 1915 set out to annihilate the country's
Armenian population and murdered more than a million of them.
Neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, some anti-Zionists and a motley crew of the
demented to this day deny the reality of Hitler's extermination of
six million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Europe's Roma people,
very possibly the best-documented event in modern history. Many
Serbians deny the responsibility of other Serbians for what two
international tribunals have ruled was the genocide of Bosnian Muslim
males in Srebrenica.

Then there is Rwanda. It is a statement of fact that every scholar
who has studied the 1994 conflict in Rwanda has concluded that a
small, sophisticated group of power-hungry Hutu extremists conspired
to exterminate the country's entire Tutsi population, and very nearly
succeeded. The number of books and detailed studies increases at a
welcome pace, and while there is disagreement about many aspects of
Rwanda's 100 days (as there is too with all its forerunners), the
central truth is not in doubt. Denying the genocide of the Tutsi in
Rwanda is morally equivalent to denying the Holocaust.

Rwanda's deniers, exhibiting the usual mixture of self-serving and
perverse motives, fall generally into two categories. First are Hutu
Power sympathizers and outsiders with close ties to the long-serving
Rwandan regime whose extremist core planned the genocide. Second are
newcomers to Rwanda whose first introduction was as attorneys (or
their associates) for those accused of genocide being tried by the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). All accused
everywhere should have the right to a rigorous defence. But some
among this group made the giant leap from arguing that their clients
were innocent of the crime of genocide to arguing that no genocide
had been carried out at all.

Bizarrely enough, a number of these deniers are left-wing Canadian
lawyers and investigators, whose motives are as dim as their case is
hollow. But Canada's most prominent non-Hutu denier for many years
has been Robin Philpot, born in Ontario but long a resident of
Montreal. Although Mr. Philpot lived in west Africa more than 30
years ago, his only apparent link to Rwanda is his brother John, who
was a defence lawyer at the ICTR for a man convicted of genocide.

Robin Philpot believes there was no genocide in 1994. In many
articles over the years - some published in English in the American
left-wing journal Counterpunch, others in French in Quebec newspapers
- and in a book translated into English as Rwanda 94: Colonialism
Dies Hard - Mr. Philpot has insisted that what happened in Rwanda was
part of a diabolical American plot to end French influence in the
Great Lakes area of Africa. Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front and
General Roméo Dallaire, according to Mr. Philpot, were among the
United States' chosen instruments in this cynical geopolitical game.
Maybe this explains why certain self-styled leftists embrace Mr.
Philpot's fantasies.

Mr. Philpot says many people were killed in 1994 by both sides making
those who carried out the genocide and their enemies morally
equivalent. There was no one-sided conspiracy by armed Hutu forces
and militias against a million defenceless Tutsi, he says. Since the
evidence completely contradicts these assertions, Mr. Philpot churns
out a strange, incoherent series of assertions, rumours and
speculation tied together solely by his unwavering determination to
deny the truth.

Robin Philpot is now a candidate for the Parti Québécois in the
provincial election. His Rwandan stance has become a campaign issue.
Unlike him, both his leader André Boisclair and Premier Jean Charest
accept history's verdict on the genocide. That left Mr. Philpot with
limited options. He chose consistency. Having denied the genocide for
so many years, he has now denied his denial. He insists that "at no
time did I ever deny the existence of a genocide in Rwanda." Mr.
Boisclair has said he is "very happy with the explanations" Mr.
Philpot gave him and won't demand his resignation as a PQ candidate.
Mr. Boisclair is too happy too easily.

Genocide experts understand denial as a second cruel ordeal for
survivors and families of victims - first the event, then the pain
and insult of denial. All of us need to demonstrate our sensitivity
to this searing issue. At the very least, surely Mr. Philpot has lost
his right to be embraced by a self-respecting political party.

Gerald Caplan is author of Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide.

"I am Turkish, I am honest, I am hard-working!"

Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Hurriyet
By Mehmet Y. Yilmaz

Turkish History Foundation Professor Yusuf Halacoglu has turned to be one of those excited about making politics out of the slogan that was heard at the funeral proceedings for slain journalist Hrant Dink: "We are all Armenians! We are all Hrant Dink!"

In fact, Halacoglu has gone a step further than some of the commentaries that we have heard up until today, asserting that "We need to research who exactly it was taking part in the funeral for Dink."

Here is what he says: "There are around 50 thousand Armenians in Turkey. Women, men, children, all together around 50 thousand. Of this number, there were probably 20 thousand at the funeral. So then who else was there? Let's say that there were about 10 thousand sincerely there in terms of protest of Dink's murder. Who were the others, we need to look into this."

I wanted to draw your attention to these strange calculations by Professor Halacoglu, which do not fit any sense of reason or thought I can understand. If this is the way we approach the Armenian matter in Turkey, then we are in real trouble.

Halacoglu asks, among his other comments, "Why didn't anyone shout the slogan 'We are all Turks!'?"

But what I wonder is whether or not Halacoglu ever spent any time in the garden of his primary school here in Turkey. If he had, he must of heard the slogans, shouted in unison by everyone, (including the children of ethnic minorities) which we all know so well: "Turkum, dogruyum, caliskanim." (Meaning, "I am Turkish, I am honest, I am hard-working.")

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

HISTORIANS WORKING ON HARPUT 1915 CASE STUDY: AN UPDATE

PRESS RELEASE

Gomidas Institute
42 Blythe Rd.
London W14 0HA
England

Tel: xx 44 20 7603 7242
Web: www.gomidas.org
Email: info@gomidas.org

26 February 2007

Contact Person: Roland Mnatsakanyan

HISTORIANS WORKING ON HARPUT 1915 CASE STUDY: AN UPDATE

Last week the Gomidas Institute offered to begin a case study of the events of 1915 and the fate of Armenians in the Harput region of the Ottoman Empire (see http://www.gomidas.org/press/20Feb07PressRelease.htm). Dr. Halaçoğlu, the head of the Turkish Historical Society, was kind in responding immediately and accepting the proposal.

In a private email, I thanked Dr. Halaçoğlu for accepting my offer and took the opportunity to explain that I will be discussing some aspects of our projected work with other parties so that I can fund raise and contact scholars to cooperate with the proposed project. I could not discuss any project with Dr. Halaçoğlu until I had an agreement in principle from him. I now have such an agreement which is noteworthy for its spirit of cooperation and academic engagement.

The core of our work and our commitment so far, based on the proposal I made to Dr. Halaçoğlu, is the following:

1/ The Gomidas Institute will present Dr. Halaçoğlu relevant records which explain why we think the events of 1915 in the Harput region should be called "abuse," "massacre" and "genocide," and not simply a deportation program (tehcir).

2/ Dr. Halaçoğlu will present Ottoman records which detail how deportations were implemented in Harput and its surrounding villages. He will show deportation records, family by family and village by village, accounting for the deportation and resettlement of each village from the Harput area.

3/ We will then critically examine the materials presented in each set of records and see if either one can make a convincing case. Perhaps both set of records may have merits, or both may be flawed. We will examine the nature of agreement and disagreement between the two sets of records. We will then make these records, as well as our deliberations, open to the scrutiny of others.

The proposed work will have three key stages:

1/ We will collect documentary materials for our respective positions.

2/ We will examine the data presented by our colleagues on the other side.

3/ We will then discuss the two sets of information side by side.

The Gomidas Institute is already planning for (a) the collection of published, archival and audio sources in English, Armenian and German languages related to the events of 1915; (b) the organization of such data so that they can be readily utilized by all; (c) the use of these sources to present an argument about the events of 1915 in Harput. The Institute will list much of this data on its website so that interested parties may contribute or scrutinize our work.

The above discussion reflects my understanding of the proposal I made to Dr. Halaçoğlu on 20 February 2007 . However, the final course of action, including all details, are subject to discussion with Dr. Halaçoğlu. I hope to see Dr. Halaçoğlu in person to discuss these matters soon.

How do we stop genocide when we begin to lose interest after the first victim?

15-Feb-2007
Contact: Jim Barlow
jebarlow@uoregon.edu
541-346-3481
University of Oregon

Oregon researcher urges review of 1948 Genocide Convention to define the time to act.

Paul Slovic says moral intuition doesn't work when it comes to grasping rising numbers of death in genocide. He says the world needs a rigidly defined threshold on when intervention...

Follow your intuition and act? When it comes to genocide, forget it. It doesn't work, says a University of Oregon psychologist. The large numbers of reported deaths represent dry statistics that fail to spark emotion and feeling and thus fail to motivate actions. Even going from one to two victims, feeling and meaning begin to fade, he said.

In a session Friday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science devoted to "Numbers and Nerves," Paul Slovic, a UO professor and president of Decision Research, a non-profit research institute in Eugene, Ore., urged a review and overhaul of the 1948 Genocide Convention, mandated by much of the world after the Holocaust in World War II. "It has obviously failed, because it has never been invoked to intervene in genocide," Slovic said.

Slovic is studying the issue from a psychological perspective, trying to determine how people can utilize both the moral intuition that genocide is wrong and moral reasoning to reach not only an outcry but also demand intervention. "We have to understand what it is in our makeup – psychologically, socially, politically and institutionally – that has allowed genocide to go unabated for a century," he said. "If we don't answer that question and use the answer to change things, we will see another century of horrible atrocities around the world."

In the 20th century, genocides have occurred in Armenia, the Ukraine, Nazi Germany, Bangladesh, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe, Currently, killings continue in Darfur. "America has done little or nothing to stop genocide," Slovic said, adding that the lack of response has come from both Republican and Democratic administrations. Research shows that people cannot trust moral intuitions to drive action. "Instead, we have to create institutions and laws that will force us to do what we know through moral argument is the right thing to do."

How to reach that critical mass for decision-making, however, will be a challenge. It is thought that every life is equally important and thus the value of saving lives rises linearly as the numbers of people at risk increase.

However, models based on psychology are unmasking a haze on the issue. One model suggests that people react very strongly around the zero point. "We go all out to save a single identified victim, be it a person or an animal, but as the numbers increase, we level off," he said. "We don't feel any different to say 88 people dying than we do to 87. This is a disturbing model, because it means that lives are not equal, and that as problems become bigger we become insensitive to the prospect of additional deaths."

In Slovic's latest research, evidence is mounting for an even more disturbing 'collapse model' that he described in his talk. "This model appears to be more accurate than the psychophysical model in describing our response to genocide," he said. "We have these large numbers of deaths occurring, and we are doing nothing."

His new research follows up an Israeli study published in 2005 in which subjects were presented three photos. One depicted eight children who needed $300,000 in medical intervention to save their lives. Another photo depicted just one child who could be helped with $300,000. Participants were most willing to donate for one child's medical care. The level of giving declined dramatically for donating to help the entire group.

Slovic and colleagues Daniel Vastfjäll and Ellen Peters used the same approach but narrowed the focus. Participants in Sweden were shown a photo of a starving African girl, her individual story and the conditions of the nation in which she lives. Another photo contained the same information but for a starving boy. A third photo showed both children. The feelings of sympathy for each individual child were almost equal, but dropped when they were considered together. Donations followed the same pattern, being lower for two needy children than for either individually.

"The studies just described suggest a disturbing psychological tendency," Slovic said. "Our capacity to feel is limited." Even at two, he added, people start to lose it.

If we see the beginning of the collapse of feeling at just two individuals, "it is no wonder that at 200,000 deaths the feeling is gone." This insensitivity to large numbers is understandable from an evolutionary perspective. Early humans fought to protect themselves and their families. "There was no adaptive or survival value in protecting hundreds of thousands of people on the other side of the planet," he said. "Today, we have modern communications that can tell us about crises occurring on the other side of the world, but we are still reacting the same way as we would have long ago."

###
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, based in Menlo Park, Calif., is a major supporter of Slovic's current research.

Source: Paul Slovic, UO psychology department, and president of Decision Research, 541-485-2400, pslovic@oregon.uoregon.edu

Links: http://www.uoregon.edu/~uocomm/experts/faculty-data/Slovic+_Paul.html and http://www.decisionresearch.org/


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Dunwoody Symposium focuses on Genocide

January 4, 2007
The Weekly

DUNWOODY, GA (January 4, 2007) - Incidents of genocide from more than 90 years of 20th century history will be explored during “Never Again,” Georgia Perimeter College’s annual Dunwoody Symposium to be held from Tuesday, Jan. 23 to Thursday, Jan. 25 on the Dunwoody campus. All symposium events are open to the public and will be held in room 1100 of the C building.

A collection of more than 20 speakers, moderators and panelists, including Emory University’s Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, author of “Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust,” and the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Mark Bixler, author of “The Lost Boys of Sudan,” will examine the episodes, significance and the psychology of genocide during the three-day symposium.

“We’ll talk about Armenia in World War I, look at genocide in World War II and other events in the 20th century,” said Dr. Thomas Graham, GPC history professor and an organizer of the symposium. “We’ll look at everything from 1915 up to three or four years ago.”

Along with speakers, presentations and panels discussions, Graham said “Never Again” will also show a collection of films including one that inspired this year’s symposium.

“The theme for this year’s symposium is something I came up with last summer in the middle of the night while I was watching “Judgment at Nuremburg,” Graham said. “The film came out 40 years ago. The Nuremburg Trials took place 60 years ago. Our focus is to reflect on the 60th anniversary of the trials in Nuremberg and Tokyo and how the promise of ‘never again’ was not fulfilled. I thought this would be a good idea for this year’s symposium. We just have to get students out of their apathy. We can’t let this happen again.”

Speakers, panelists, and films were selected to help participants “question broad themes of historical and philosophical significance,” said Dr. Randy Finley, who serves as a symposium organizer.

“For example,” Finley adds, “why do genocides occur in the modern and postmodern world? What are the economic, political, and social causes of genocide? Are they inevitable? Are there signs that might indicate an oncoming genocide? Are there international organizations that can successfully combat genocide?”

Finley said selected panelists include representatives of history, science, business, law, music, cinematography, art, psychology and political science.

“All will bring their academic fields’ interests in the subject for student thought and reflection,” he said.

The Dunwoody Symposium which began in 1980 is an annual event that has featured such prominent speakers as former President Jimmy Carter, Ted Turner, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., entrepreneur Truett Cathy, novelist Peter Taylor, and poet James Dickey.

“We’re excited about beginning the spring 2007 semester with the symposium,” Finley said. “Questions discussed here in January should reverberate through many disciplines throughout the academic year.”

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Rwanda: The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda

AllAffrica.com
Posted to the web January 3, 2007

Cornell University Press (Ithaca)

PRESS RELEASE
January 3, 2007

The Rwandan genocide has become a touchstone for debates about the causes of mass violence and the responsibilities of the international community. Yet a number of key questions about this tragedy remain unanswered: How did the violence spread from community to community and so rapidly engulf the nation? Why did individuals make decisions that led them to take up machetes against their neighbors? And what was the logic that drove the campaign of extermination?

According to Scott Straus, a social scientist and former journalist in East Africa for several years (who received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for his reporting for the Houston Chronicle), many of the widely held beliefs about the causes and course of genocide in Rwanda are incomplete. They focus largely on the actions of the ruling elite or the inaction of the international community. Considerably less is known about how and why elite decisions became widespread exterminatory violence.

Challenging the prevailing wisdom, Straus provides substantial new evidence about local patterns of violence, using original research—including the most comprehensive surveys yet undertaken among convicted perpetrators—to assess competing theories about the causes and dynamics of the genocide. Current interpretations stress three main causes for the genocide: ethnic identity, ideology, and mass-media indoctrination (in particular the influence of hate radio). Straus's research does not deny the importance of ethnicity, but he finds that it operated more as a background condition. Instead, Straus emphasizes fear and intra-ethnic intimidation as the primary drivers of the violence. A defensive civil war and the assassination of a president created a feeling of acute insecurity. Rwanda's unusually effective state was also central, as was the country's geography and population density, which limited the number of exit options for both victims and perpetrators.

In conclusion, Straus steps back from the particulars of the Rwandan genocide to offer a new, dynamic model for understanding other instances of genocide in recent history—the Holocaust, Armenia, Cambodia, the Balkans—and assessing the future likelihood of such events.

Reviews

"Straus . . . examines the 1994 Rwandan genocide through a social science lens . . . [and] his approach yields interesting new insights. . . . Particularly compelling is his comparison of killers in Rwanda with those of the Holocaust."—Foreign Affairs, November/December 2006

"Scott Straus has written a path-breaking book that will command the attention of scholars of the Rwandan genocide and of collective violence. The combination of an engagement with and application of theories of collective violence, a deep knowledge of Rwanda, sophisticated methodology, and extraordinary field research has produced an account that brings us closer than ever to understanding what produced this tragic event. Not only does The Order of Genocide rank as one of the best books ever written on the Rwandan genocide, it is a major contribution to comparative politics and theories of violence."—Michael Barnett, Harold Stassen Chair at the Hubert H. Humphrey School and Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota

"Scott Straus's examination of the Rwanda genocide takes us to a new level of understanding of mass killing as a social and political phenomenon. The author's attention to social-science theory, his extensive use of hundreds of interviews with perpetrators, and his careful analysis of the historical and geographical determinants of the Rwandan events make this book an unusually important contribution to the burgeoning field of genocide studies."—Norman M. Naimark, author of Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in 20th Century Europe.

"The onset of the Rwandan genocide, its dynamics, and the individual motivations of its perpetrators can be best explained, Scott Straus finds, by the combined effects of an ongoing civil war, high levels of state power (and the attendant social pressure), and the existence of a system of ethnic classification—rather than mass feelings of ethnic antipathy, nationalist beliefs, or radio propaganda. With its cogent theorization, multi-method approach, rich micro-level data, and careful attention to causal mechanisms, The Order of Genocide is a decisive step forward in the social scientific study of a phenomenon that has been notoriously resistant to systematic approaches."—Stathis N. Kalyvas, Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science, Director, Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence, Yale University.

"The Order of Genocide is a real addition to what we know about the Rwandan genocide. Scott Straus describes the local organization of genocide—for example, information on the size of groups of attackers and the roles played by 'elite' and 'thugs.' He also profiles the perpetrators themselves in examining what moved them to act. The quotes from the perpetrators enrich the statistical data enormously and make the book come alive."—Alison Des Forges

About the Author

Scott Straus is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda
By Scott Straus
$27.95t cloth
2006, 288 pages
ISBN: 978-0-8014-4448-7
The book can be purchased at http://tnt.spidergraphics.com/cup8/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4587

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Here's how killings continue

Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Roanoke.com

By Dick Baynton

Baynton lives in Cloverdale.

Referring to the situation in Darfur, Susan D. Blanding concludes her op-ed piece ("How do we allow Darfur to continue," Dec. 22) with the question, "For the love of God, how does one turn a blind eye to the reality of deliberately perpetrated human suffering?"

There are no simple answers, but perhaps we can turn up some useful information by reviewing history.

Armenia, with a land area slightly larger than Massachusetts and a population a little less than Connecticut, was the first nation in the world to adopt Christianity as its state religion in 301 A.D. When Armenians pushed for more rights under the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Abdul-Hamid II massacred from 80,000 to 300,000 people between 1894 and 1896 under his strict Muslim social system.

From 1915 to 1917, through state-sponsored mass killings or genocide, another 650,000 to 1,500,000 Armenians were slaughtered. Turkish authorities insist that the deaths were the result of civil war, disease and famine.

The League of Nations, created in 1919 to prevent wars and to help settle disputes between nations, was unable to prevent the demise of about 6 million Jews and 3 million to 5 million other Europeans between 1932 and 1945. The League of Nations was dissolved in 1946.

In March of 1988, Saddam Hussein attacked the Kurdish town of Halabja with mustard gas and nerve agents, killing at least 5,000 people. Following the Gulf War, uprisings by various groups in Iraq led to the killing of an estimated 30,000 citizens of several ethnic groups.

Saddam gave $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. In the meantime, the United Nations discussed, debated and produced resolutions and sanctions, all ignored by Saddam.

Darfur, in Sudan on the western border with Chad, is where trouble started in 2003. Finally, in late August of 2006, the U.N. Security Council approved Resolution 1706, calling for troops to be sent to the Darfur region. The genocide continues where an estimated 400,000 or more people have been slaughtered.

Why did the French police round up and turn over to the Gestapo more than 12,000 Jews, including about 4,000 children, in July of 1942? Why do you suppose the Vichy government of France turned over the names of 76,000 Jews to the Nazis starting in 1942? Why did Vidkun Quisling of Norway immediately start collaborating with the Hitler regime and provide 6,000 troops to fight on the eastern front during World War II? Why did the League of Nations allow the mass execution of millions of people?

Why has the United Nations missed opportunity after opportunity to get tough with tyrannical leaders and rogue nations? Perhaps because members relish living in New York, evading parking tickets and the euphoria of debate about international issues.

The Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46 tried and found guilty many of Hitler's regime. Recently, Saddam was given a death sentence. But these events of punishment occur after millions have died. A majority of U.S. citizens are opposed to the Iraq war, probably because Saddam's torture and mass killings had no noticeable effect on our daily lives.

Perhaps the answer to why nations don't step up and take action when they know atrocities are occurring in another country is the same reason why some citizens don't come forward when they witness a crime: They don't want to get involved. Another possible answer may be: "Let somebody else do it."

The real answer is that some nations may value self-preservation at a higher level than they treasure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for themselves and others.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

ADL's Zakim Regrets Offense to Armenian Community

By JUDITH KLEIN
Jewish Journal Staff

"I regret if any Armenian - or anyone in the community - was offended or made uncomfortable," New England Anti-Defamation League Executive Director Leonard Zakim said this week in an interview with The Jewish Journal, referring to a November 8 ad in the New York Times. The ad, paid for by ADL, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress, congratulated Turkey on its 75th anniversary as a
republic, and thanked the Turkish government for its long-held support of Jews and the State of Israel.

The ad drew criticism from many Armenians and Jews because it praised Turkey for its "democratic and secular ideals" (see Jewish Journal editorial and article in November 13 issue and letter to the editor and op-ed piece in this issue). Critics such as Harvard Professor James Russell, himself a Jew who teaches Armenian studies, were appalled by the ad's content since Turkey has never acknowledged the systematic genocide of Armenians living within its borders in the early part of the century. Unlike modern Germany, modern Turkey has made no reparations and still refuses to admit the historically documented events.

The ad notwithstanding, Zakim vowed the continued support for the inclusion of the Armenian Genocide in studies covered by ADL-sponsored Holocaust education. As he explained, Holocaust education in this country offers many students the only exposure they will ever have to the facts of the Armenian Genocide. He also
emphasized the commitment of all three organizations to bringing human rights issues to the table in dealings with the nation of Turkey. "The ADL and the other Jewish organizations believe that through the continually improving relationship between Israel and Turkey, the opportunity for dialogue about important issues like human rights and the need for Turkey to further democratize will be more effectively raised.".

Zakim referred to Abraham Foxman, national ADL director, saying that since Foxman is a Holocaust survivor himself, he "is extremely sensitive to the issues of what happens when people stand by, when they don't acknowledge their past, and they don't deal with the issues that remain today." However, Foxman's own remarks to The Jewish Journal were that Turkey "has a magnificent history of tolerance" and the conflict is
"between the Armenians and the Turks. They will hopefully someday resolve it." These statements were viewed as inflammatory and myopic by some in the Jewish and Armenian communities.

Both critics and supporters of the ad acknowledge the crucial support Turkey has given to Israel, the only democratic country in the Middle East, and understand
the strategic role Turkey has played in Israel's security. However, many agree with Harut Sassounian who, in the most recent edition of The Armenian Mirror-Spectator, published in Watertown, lambasts the three organizations for placing the ad, writing "these Jewish groups are distorting the facts about Turkey; supporting one of the worst violators of human rights in the world; encouraging the Turkish denials of the Armenian Genocide, thereby undermining their own credibility in countering the revisionists of the Holocaust; offending thousands of sensible Jews around the world who must be disgusted by the immoral public stand of these three Jewish groups; and unnecessarily antagonizing the Armenian-American community and Armenians everywhere against Jews."