
Last week Middle East Studies Association (MESA) of North America issued an open letter to Turkish government dignitaries criticizing the alleged governmental pressure on Turkey-based scholars to prevent them from attending the 10th meeting of the controversial Workshop for Armenian-Turkish Scholarship (WATS) in Berlin. Few days later, WATS Organizing Committee and the Lepsiushaus Potsdam, the hosting institution of the workshop, issued a very similar press release, some parts that appear to be the copy of the former letter.
The authors of these texts accuse (ultra) nationalist circles in Turkey and the Turkish government of putting pressure on the scholars who conduct research on controversial issues such as the 1915 events. They condemn Turkish government and the Higher Education Council of Turkey for allegedly banning an academic from a university in Ankara from attending the WATS meeting. Both texts sustain that these kinds of practices conflict with scholarly research, freedom of thought and association and so on.
Certainly scholarly freedom of thought and association and a free environment for scholarly research even on controversial issues are essential issues in a democratic and free society. Likewise, these are the prerequisites of the advancement of science and scholarship.
Yet one aspect should also not be overlooked. Not always state authorities are the perpetrators of suppression of scholarship. In fact what is less spoken about, yet as worrisome as the state suppression of scholarship is peer pressure on academics. Intellectual bullying, name calling, stigmatization, isolation and so on by academic and intellectual circles are unseen but very powerful ways of intimidation against those who stay outside of mainstream convictions.
Unfortunately, these kinds of intimidations are what academics that question the genocide thesis and approach the 1915 events from within frameworks other than the genocide framework have to face every day. What is more bothersome is that the perpetrators of this kind of intimidation are almost always those who complain about the state oppression of scholarship.
WATS organizers, particularly Ronald G. Suny and Fatma Müge Göçek, in every possible instance bully scholars who reject the genocide thesis by name calling (i.e., denier, denialist, Turkophile) and even accusing them of being Turkish state’s agents (i.e., official historian). They reject applications of such scholars to attend WATS meetings with a clear intent to isolate them.
Given these disturbing realities, it would be more appropriate for the WATS organizer to review their questionable manners if they really care about contributing to the scholarship on 1915 events. Only then, can their appeals to authorities for academics gain resonance.
© 2009-2021 Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM) All Rights Reserved
No comments yet.
-
CALL FOR PAPERS: REVIEW OF ARMENIAN STUDIES (ISSUE #32)
AVİM 11.08.2015 -
TANER AKÇAM’S ARMENIAN PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN CONTINUES
AVİM 07.03.2019 -
WHAT DID THE FRENCH PRESIDENT IMPLY WITH THE “ARMENIAN FILE”
AVİM 22.02.2018 -
ARCHITECTS OF DENIAL: THE LATEST CINEMATOGRAPHIC EFFORTS OF THE ARMENIAN LOBBY
AVİM 12.10.2017 -
ARMENIAN POLITICAL THINKING AND A SOBER WAKE-UP CALL BY GERARD LIBARIDIAN
AVİM 01.02.2021
-
THE SPEECH OF ARMENIA’S PRESIDENT AT THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY OF COUNCIL OF EUROPE
Tutku DİLAVER 06.02.2018 -
AZERBAIJAN-ARMENIA RELATIONS AT THE 18’TH YEAR OF THE CEASEFIRE
Alev KILIÇ 30.10.2012 -
FORMER ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER V. OSKANIAN IS INCRIMINATED
Alev KILIÇ 04.10.2012 -
THE FAIRYTALES OF THE DASHNAK PARTY
Ömer Engin LÜTEM 26.06.2014 -
THAI COURT RULES PM MUST STEP DOWN, WITH NO END TO TURMOIL IN SIGHT
Hande Apakan 06.05.2014
-
PATRIOTISM PERVERTED -
MEN ARE LIKE THAT -
BAKÜ-TİFLİS-CEYHAN BORU HATTININ YAŞANAN TARİHİ -
INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARS ON THE EVENTS OF 1915 -
FAKE PHOTOS AND THE ARMENIAN PROPAGANDA -
ERMENİ PROPAGANDASI VE SAHTE RESİMLER -
Türk-Ermeni İlişkileri Üzerine Ömer Engin Lütem Konferansları 2021 -
A Letter From Japan - Strategically Mum: The Silence of the Armenians -
Japonya'dan Bir Mektup - Stratejik Suskunluk: Ermenilerin Sessizliği -
Türk-Ermeni Uyuşmazlığı Üzerine Ömer Engin Lütem Konferansları 2020 -
Anastas Mikoyan: Confessions of an Armenian Bolshevik -
Sovyet Sonrası Ukrayna’da Devlet, Toplum ve Siyaset - Değişen Dinamikler, Dönüşen Kimlikler -
Türk-Ermeni Uyuşmazlığı Üzerine Ömer Engin Lütem Konferansları 2019 -
Türk-Ermeni Uyuşmazlığı Üzerine Ömer Engin Lütem Konferansları 2018 -
Ermeni Sorunuyla İlgili İngiliz Belgeleri (1912-1923) - British Documents on Armenian Question (1912-1923) -
Turkish-Russian Academics: A Historical Study on the Caucasus -
Gürcistan'daki Müslüman Topluluklar: Azınlık Hakları, Kimlik, Siyaset -
Armenian Diaspora: Diaspora, State and the Imagination of the Republic of Armenia -
Ermeni Sorunu Temel Bilgi ve Belgeler (2. Baskı)
-
CONFERENCE TITLED “HUNGARY’S PERSPECTIVES ON THE TURKIC WORLD"