PSYCHOLOGICAL TERROR

The engine of Armenian psychological terror has been started up again. The Armenian nationalists specialize in hanging labels, shaming people and applying excessive pressure.

This time the target of their brazen attacks was the leading Turcologist Mikhail Meyer. This respected scholar has been subjected to attacks by the Armenian media and public organizations for deigning to tell the truth about "the genocide of the Armenians" on the Russian state TV channel "Kultura" in the "Turkish March" programme as part of Sergey Medvedev's popular history magazine "The Power of Facts".

He categorically stated: "Antanta wanted to play the genocide story. They played it so strongly that the Muslims were guilty and the Armenian Christians were innocent. Although, in fact there was slaughter on both sides. There were a million and a half Armenians in all. Because a certain number survived, you can't say there were a million and a half (note: i.e. victims of genocide). Many died of hunger and disease." (Video).

Immediately after this lampoons appeared in the "Voice of Armenia" newspaper accusing Professor Meyer of cynicism, playing the Armenian card and even of putting pressure on the country's political course. This is pure Armenian ostracism: persecuting one person for disobedience so that others don't try to do the same. One recalls the case of the bomb which was thrown at the house of Professor Stanford Shaw simply because he tried to set up a department for the study of Turkish history at the UCLA University in Los Angeles.

Incidentally, one also recalls the obstructions to which the following American historians of Armenian origin have been subjected: Ronald Grigor Suny, George Burnutyan, Robert Hewson, Richard Ovannisyan, Nina Garsoyan, her students Levon Avdoyan, Robert Bedrosyan, Robert Thomson, James Russell, Peter Cowie, and others.

The defenders of the falsifications of Armenia's pseudo-scientific circles accuse their American counterparts of a lack of patriotism and hang the labels of "enemies of the people", "revisionists" and "pseudo-Armenians" on them. Professor Suny once publicly stated this at the Ay Data commission in New York: "Armenian scholars have become bogged down in nationalist thinking. If you present an alternative point of view you are criticized in a very crude and spiteful way. How can people with this level of argument try to think differently and develop science when the slightest deviation is subjected to attack?" (Armenian Reporter 3 February 2001).

And an incident with the acclaimed American historian Bernard Lewis shows how smoothly the mechanisms to defend Armenian falsifications all over the world slip into action. In March 1985 69 American historians sent a petition to the US Congress urging it not to adopt a resolution on the "genocide of the Armenians" until the Ottoman Empire archives were opened up. Among the signatories was Bernard Lewis, whose name was given to this statement. Paradoxical as it may seem, a tough reaction was given to the events in the USA by a civil court in France which condemned the eminent academic for his denial of the "genocide of the Armenians", fined him one franc and also forced him pay for the publication of the sentence against him in Le Monde. One must give Mr Lewis his due: even at such a time of crisis he publicly stated there was no serious proof of the "genocide of the Armenians".

These are the kind of methods used by the Armenian nationalists against western scholars for their courage and objectivity. So the Russian Professor Meyer is in need of serious protection to ensure his psychological and physical safety.

What is it that has so alarmed the Armenians? First of all, it is that an objective opinion about the "genocide" was expressed live on a Russian state television channel. Second, the fact that it was said not by a run-of-the-mill expert but by the President of the Institute of Asian and African countries, an eminent expert on Ottoman history and a professor of Moscow State University! That's really serious!

The aforementioned short extract from Mikhail Meyer's speech provides us with a distinct platform for reflection. First of all, a leading Russian Turcologist clearly articulated in public the groundlessness of the accusations of the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians. Let us focus our attention on the fact that this was stated by an historian who has an in-depth knowledge of this subject. Second, this view was expressed live on state television. It is significant that it was broadcast live in a country where, in 1995, the "genocide of the Armenians" was accepted at parliamentary level.

What should this mean? Is the balance of forces between the objective academics - the bearers of historical truth - and the populist politicians changing? Or is this an adjustment of the political vector as we get closer to 2015? One way or the other, behind the fa?ade of this programme we can clearly make out a conflict between the bearers of academic truth, the proponents of historical objectivity and the political intriguers like those who 18 years ago voted in the Russian State Duma for the so-called "genocide".

Hence it appears that in the State Duma in 1995 it was by no means people who were well grounded in the problem and not historians who voted for the adoption of the resolution on "genocide", but the political intriguers who did so not for the triumph of historical justness, but to make political dividends.

I say again - this is serious! It is a poignant moment in the sense that for virtually the first time a leading representative of RUSSIAN academia has spoken out in such an anti-genocide vein. Does this mean that Russia has decided to expose the blind spots in Russian history linked with Armenian terrorism and the destructive separatist activities of the Armenians at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century?

Russian writers and journalists have spoken about the denial of the genocide, but the academics have been silent. Except for Sergey Arutyunov, Doctor of History and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who said to Voice of America in April 2011 that: "Officially speaking, this was not an order to exterminate. Officially the order was to send the whole Armenian contingent to Mesopotamia, far from the theatre of war."

"Voice of Armenia", on behalf of Armenian public organizations, is threatening to sue Professor Meyer and the "Kultura" channel. If it does, the Armenians will have to sue several dozen western academics, public figures, members of the clergy and writers, living and dead, who have systematically spoken about the groundlessness of the arguments about the "genocide of the Armenians". They are Georges de Maleville. Michael Guenther, Justine McCarthy, Philip Marsden, Norman Stone, Yitzchak Kerem, Eberhard Jackel, Edward Ericson, Youssef Courbage, Albert Jean Amateau, Jill Weinstein, Cuthbert Francis Dixon Johnson, Thierry Zarcone, Robert F. Zeidner, Andrew Mango, Michael Radu, Michael Reynolds, Jeremy Salt, Scott Taylor, Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, Brian Glyn Williams, Bruce Fein, David George Hogarth, Edward J. Erickson, Malcolm Edward Yapp, and others.

We would also advise those who love to spread the idea of "genocide" to sue (posthumously) their political patriarch Boghos Nubar Pasha. As head of the Armenian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 he made the following statement: "…At the beginning of the war the Turkish government offered autonomy to the Armenians, asking in return to make the Caucasus rise up against Russia. The Armenians turned down this offer and without hesitation took the side of the powers of Antanta, from which they expected liberation. The Armenians fought on the side of the allies from the very outset of the war until the signing of the armistice on all fronts."

And Professor Meyer said virtually the same on the "Kultura" channel. So, as they go to court, let the Armenians substantiate the reason for their selective approach. Apparently, in the case of Meyer it is cynicism, but from the lips of Boghos Nubar - subtle policy?

The sober-minded public have something to say to the organizers of the campaign to harass the respected Russian academic. Therefore we urge those who support the truth and the opponents of the Armenian falsifications to take part in the forum on the "Kultura" channel (Forum).