Desmond Fernandes

THE KURDISH AND ARMENIAN GENOCIDES

FROM CENSORSHIP AND DENIAL
TO
RECOGNITION?

Turkey’s repression of the Kurds has been widely documented - and is acknowledged as a major obstacle to Turkey’s accession to the European Union. But what lies behind such repression? Fernandes confronts the issue head on, forcing the reader to probe a question that many in Turkey and elsewhere would rather avoid: does the systematic repression of the Kurds amount to genocide? Open discussion of this issue is critical if a long-term resolution of the Kurdish issue is to be achieved – Nicholas Hildyard, Policy Analyst.

The book is an exceptionally important read for anyone with a broad interest in human rights and social justice. It has a scholarly account of the historical background to the present awful situation of Turkish Armenians and Turkish Kurds. In particular, the book provides a powerful comparative analysis of the policies of the US, Israel and Turkey in terms of their rationale for labelling human atrocities as genocide – Dr. Julia Kathleen Davidson, Research Fellow, Faculty of Education, University of Glasgow and Membership Secretary of Scotland Against Criminalising communities (SACC).

In this important book, Desmond Fernandes exposes the details of the sordid and largely hidden role of Israel and the US Israel Lobby in preventing Congress from recognizing the Turkish genocide of the Armenians – Jeff Blankfort, Former Editor, Middle East Labor Bulletin.

Among its Cold War victories the United States certainly succeeded in its ambition to make the world safe for nationalism. As identity politics is reprocessed as a function of global capital, and rehabilitated as its natural ally, Desmond Fernandes documents the fractured consequences of the ready-made social fantasy - Variant: Cross Currents in Culture.

Desmond Fernandes writes for those who spoke the truth and were murdered, those who spoke 200 days ago and are still imprisoned, and for those who live in terror and in silence, or who meet in nameless buildings, so that the words ‘GENOCIDE’, ethnic cleansing, or the Turkish military word ‘TEMIZLEME’, may be heard as a siren call for the muted victims of the Turkish state - Diamanda Galás, Composer and Performer of Songs of Exile, Vena Cava, Schrei X, Plague Mass and Defixiones, Will And Testament.

The international visibility of eminent novelists like Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak ensures that their subtle criticism of Turkish legal practices and political culture reaches a wide international public. What is also needed for an understanding of Turkey is detailed historical analysis and scholarly insight into the perceptions and myths that contribute to the identity and beliefs of key actors on the Turkish scene and in the wider population. This is precisely what is provided by Fernandes, both in his own work analysing the denial of Armenian genocide and in his useful presentation of the significance, nationally and internationally, of the work of Ahmet Kahraman. His book and the cases cited by Fernandes show how the nationalist Kemalist cause is being ruthlessly promoted not only in Turkey but also by the Turkish state elsewhere ... Machinations, covert and overt, of a fundamentally unethical and reprehensible kind are being increasingly exposed, initially for a Turkish readership in the case of Kahraman’s book and now for an international public – Professor Robert Phillipson, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark [from the Foreword to the book].

Fernandes’ painstaking investigation sheds much needed light on the collusion between the Turkish State and the Israel lobby in preventing recognition of one of the darkest episodes of the past century, the genocide of Ottoman Turkey’s ethnic Armenians - Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, Spinwatch.

[This is] a judiciously assembled vast, syntactic mosaic ‘illustrating’ the total state terror inflicted upon two ancient peoples ... Desmond Fernandes has laboriously integrated a vast amount of historical events, scholarly data, secret documents, live witnesses, relevant literature and even poetry ... [He] has hit the target: mainly encapsulating the enormity of censorship, denial and recognition of that ultimate crime of man’s inhumanity to man - Genocide - Khatchatur I. Pilikian [from the Epilogue].

Desmond Fernandes is a policy analyst and former Senior Lecturer in Human Geography and Genocide Studies at De Montfort University, England. He has published widely in a number of journals and is co-author of Genozid an den Kurden in der Türkei? - Verfolgung, Krieg und Zerstörung der ethnischen Identität (2001, Medico International, Frankfurt). Forthcoming titles by the author include The Kurdish Genocide in Turkey and US, UK, German, Israeli and NATO ‘Inspired’ Psychological Warfare Operations against the ‘Kurdish Threat’ in Turkey and Northern Iraq, due to be published by Apec Press, Stockholm.

Note: The book can be ordered securely online via Paypal at the BRTA shop (http://brta.org.uk/sales/) in the “Categories - Des Fernandes' Books” section, at the recommended retail price of £14.99 [2nd Class Royal Mail postage is included free of charge to those customers who wish to receive their book orders at a UK based address].

By Desmond Fernandes

ISBN: 91-89675-72-X