Boston Globe reports that a federal appeals court yesterday ruled that statewide public school guidelines on teaching human rights history can exclude materials disputing that the mass slaying of Armenians in the First World War era constituted genocide. Below, please read the article first and then my reaction to it.
***
SCHOOLS CAN EXCLUDE MATERIALS DISPUTING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Court ruled on 1999 case
By Peter Schworm , Boston Globe Staff / August 12, 2010
In a closely watched case, a federal appeals court yesterday ruled that statewide public school guidelines on teaching human rights history can exclude materials disputing that the mass slaying of Armenians in the First World War era constituted genocide.
The decision, written by retired Supreme Court justice David Souter, who occasionally hears cases with the First Circuit Court of Appeals, found that state education officials did not violate public school students’ free speech rights in 1999, when they excluded all “contra-genocide’’ sources calling the Armenian genocide into question.
Van Z. Krikorian, a professor at Pace University Law School who filed a brief defending the state’s move, said he was thrilled by the ruling, equating those who dispute the genocide designation to Holocaust deniers.
“It would have put human rights education in reverse,’’ he said. “It’s a major defeat for genocide denial.’’
Upholding a lower-court decision, the court ruled that although state guidelines were advisory, and “not meant to declare other positions out of bounds in study and discussion,’’ they were part of the official curriculum and therefore under the discretion of state authorities.
Requiring that officials include references to dissenting viewpoints, Souter wrote, “might actually have the effect of foreclosing future opportunities for open enquiry in the classroom.’’
Harvey Silverglate, a Boston civil rights lawyer representing the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, had argued that removing the references amounted to government censorship and prevented students from hearing both sides.
“It always is a sad day when a court constricts First Amendment rights rather than expand them,’’ he said. “I think they made a mistake.’’ Silverglate said his clients will consider whether to appeal.
The Turkish-American group disputes that the Muslim Turkish Ottoman Empire committed genocide against its Christian Armenian minority population. Over 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of Turkish forces, but Turkish activists maintain it was not the result of a policy.
In 1998, the Legislature ordered the state Board of Education to prepare an advisory curriculum guide for teaching about genocide and human rights, and a draft of the guide initially included a section on the “Armenian Genocide.’’ Under pressure from Turkish advocacy groups, the commissioner of education, David P. Driscoll, revised the draft to include references to opposing views, said the ruling.
When officials filed the guide with legislators in March 1999, the state’s Armenian community protested the inclusion of “contra-genocide’’ viewpoints, and the education commissioner removed the references.
Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com.
***
ARMENIAN PROPAGANDA WINS, FOR NOW
Jewish Holocaust is supported by due process and a court verdict by a competent tribunal (Nuremberg, 1945.) What due process and court verdict support Armenian claims of genocide? The answer might surprise you: none! That’s right, Armenian claims are based on a racist and dishonest version of history, not law or the truth. They are racist because they ignore the Turkish victims at the hands of Armenian revolutionaries (120,000 in the year 1914 alone, according to the dictionary of World War One, by Stephen Pope and Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, 2003, page 34.) And they are dishonest because they simply dismiss the six T’s of the Turkish-Armenian conflict. Too bad, our children in Boston will never know that the Armenians took up arms against their own government. Too bad the “poor, starving Armenians myth” will be ingrained in their brains like zombies, never seeing the photos of the Armenian ultra-nationalists armed to the teeth (www.ethocide.com ) They’ll never hear about the Armenians revolts, terrorism, treason, territorial demands and more. Just because a “sundown town” ruling by a misinformed judge said so. The decision must be appealed in the spirit of independence in 1776, anti-slavery in 1862, and civil rights of 1960s.
BIAS & BIGOTRY IN THE TERM “ARMENIAN GENOCIDE”
If one cherishes values like fairness, objectivity, truth, and honesty, then one should really use the term “Turkish-Armenian conflict”. Asking one “Do you accept or deny Armenian Genocide” shows anti-Turkish bias. The question should be re-phrased “What is your stand on the Turkish-Armenian conflict?”
Turks believe it was an inter communal warfare mostly fought by Turkish and Armenian irregulars, a civil war which is engineered, provoked, and waged by the Armenian revolutionaries, with active support from Russia, England, France, and others, all eyeing the vast territories of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, against a backdrop of a raging world war.
Armenians, on the other hand, totally ignoring Armenian agitation, raids, rebellions, treason, territorial demands, and Turkish victims killed by Armenians, unfairly claim that it was a one way genocide.
GENOCIDE ALLEGATIONS IGNORE “THE SIX T’S OF THE TURKISH-ARMENIAN CONFLICT”
While some in unsuspecting public may be forgiven for taking the blatant and ceaseless Armenian propaganda at face value and believing Armenian falsifications merely because they are repeated so often, it is difficult and painful for the children of Turkish survivors of hate crimes committed by Armenian nationalists and other Christians. Those seemingly endless “War years” of 1912-1922 brought wide-spread death and destruction on to all Ottoman citizens. No Turkish family was left touched, mine included. Those nameless, faceless Turkish victims are killed for a second time today with politically motivated and baseless charges of Armenian genocide. Those six T’s which are censored by an ill-informed judge are:
1) TUMULT (as in numerous Armenian armed uprisings between 1894 and 1920)
2) TERRORISM (by well-armed Armenian nationalists and militias victimizing Ottoman-Muslims between 1882-1920)
3) TREASON (Armenians joining the invading enemy armies as early as 1914 and lasting until 1921)
4) TERRITORIAL DEMANDS (where Armenians were a minority, not a majority, attempting to establish Greater Armenia, the would-be first apartheid of the 20th Century with a Christian minority ruling over a Muslim majority )
5) TURKISH SUFFERING AND LOSSES (i.e. those caused by the Armenian nationalists: 524,000 Muslims, mostly Turks, met their tragic end at the hands of Armenian revolutionaries during WWI, per Turkish Historical Society. This figure is not to be confused with about 2.5 million Muslim dead who lost their lives due to non-Armenian causes during WWI. Grand total: more than 3 million, according to Prof. Justin McCarthy.)
6) TERESET (temporary resettlement) triggered by the first five T’s above and amply documented as such; not to be equated to the Armenian misrepresentations as genocide.)
VERDICT WITHOUT DUE PROCESS AMOUNTS TO LYNCHING
Those who take the Armenian “allegations” of genocide at face value seem to also ignore the following:
1- Genocide is a legal, technical term precisely defined by the U.N. 1948 convention (Like all proper laws, it is not retroactive to 1915.)
2- Genocide verdict can only be given by a “competent court” after “due process” where both sides are properly represented and evidence mutually cross examined.
3- For a genocide verdict, the accusers must prove “intent” at a competent court and after due process. This could never be done by the Armenians whose evidence mostly fall into five major categories: hearsay, mis-representations, exaggerations, forgeries, and “other”.
4- Such a “competent court” was never convened in the case of Turkish-Armenian conflict and a genocide verdict does not exist (save a Kangaroo court in occupied Istanbul in 1920 where partisanship, vendettas, and revenge motives left no room for due process.)
5- Genocide claim is political, not historical or factual. It reflects bias against Turks. Therefore, the term genocide must be used with the qualifier “alleged”, for scholarly objectivity and truth.
HISTORY IS A MATTER OF SCHOLARSHIP, NOT CONSENSUS
History is not a matter of “conviction, consensus, political resolutions, political correctness, or propaganda.” History is a matter of research, peer review, thoughtful debate, and honest scholarship. Even historians, by definition, cannot decide on a genocide verdict, which is reserved for a “competent court” with its legal expertise and due process.
POLITICAL LYNCHING OF THE TURKS BY ARMENIANS TODAY
What we witness today amounts to lynching of the Turks by Armenians to satisfy the age old Armenian hate, bias, and bigotry. Values like fairness, presumption of innocence until proven guilty, objectivity, balance, honesty, and freedom of speech are stumped under the fanatic Armenian feet. Unprovoked , unjustified, and unfair defamation of Turkey, one of America’s closest allies in the troubled Middle East, in order to appease some nagging Armenian activists runs counter to American interests.
Those who claim genocide verdict today, based on the much discredited Armenian evidence, are actually engaging in “conviction and execution without due process”. Last time I looked in the dictionary, that was the definition of “lynching”.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH? WHAT FREEDOM?
This unfortunate and racist decision promoting Armenian propaganda over honest scholarship and civil dialogue, turns Boston into a SUNDOWN TOWN. Remember those towns, thousands of them coast to coast that sprang up during the NADIR PERIOD OF RACE RELATIONS in America, i.e. roughly 1890-1940, where signs told so-called COLORED PEOPLE TO LEAVE TOWN BY SUNDOWN or else live with the consequences, which meant death by lynching?
Freedom of speech is dealt such a terrible blow by this SUNDOWN TOWN DECISION by an ill-informed judge today: 11 August 2010. What a sad day for America, , indeed….