Ninety years after the killings and deportations of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, Peter Balakian is trying to make sure people don't forget.
"Memory is a moral act. It always involves a moral dimension," award-winning author and Colgate University professor of English Peter Balakian told a packed Frist 302 on Monday.
He was referring to the Turkish government's denial that the mass killing constituted genocide. That controversy touched Princeton eight years ago during the contested appointment of Near Eastern Studies professor Heath Lowry.
Monday's event was organized to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the tragedy, which began on April 24, 1915 and lasted until 1916. The Turkish government says that the number of deaths cited — as high as 1.5 million — is inflated and occurred as a result of World War I.
Monday's event was planned to raise awareness of the massacre among students at a time when genocide is occurring in Darfur.
Balakian contextualized the killings in 20th century history, stressing their relevance to understanding and preventing genocides everywhere. Responding to his address were Gary Bass, assistant professor of politics and international affairs, and Kwame Anthony Appiah, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values.
About 200 people attended the event, which was organized by Darren Geist '05 of the Humanity Project and sponsored by Brother's Keeper, Princeton Darfur Action Committee and Whig-Clio.
"I think it is very telling what Adolph Hitler said," said Geist, referring to Hitler's pre-Holocaust question: "Who now remembers the Armenians?"
"If we do forget, if we don't respect this memory, it is going to happen again," Geist said.
He noted that few students are aware of the event. "Even if people did not attend the lecture, just seeing the posters, just looking at the website, that really was a big part of the campaign," Geist said.
Princeton's history
Geist, president and founder of the Humanity Project, was inspired to organize the event after learning of Princeton's history.
In 1996, controversy surrounded the appointment of Near Eastern Studies professor Heath Lowry to a new chair in the NES department funded by the Turkish government. Lowry has refused to call the suffering of the Armenians a genocide, referring to the event as "the so-called Armenian genocide" in a 1995 letter to the Turkish ambassador.
Critics also discounted Lowry as a scholar for having never held a full-time teaching position at an American university prior to his appointment at Princeton, as well as never having published any scholarly work through a major printer.
Princeton Alumni for Credibility, founded by Greg Arzoomanian '79, circulated a petition signed by more than 80 scholars and writers opposing Lowry's appointment. Signers included Balakian, author Kurt Vonnegut, playwright Arthur Miller and Princeton professors Cornel West GS '80 and Joyce Carol Oates.
"I think this is an unfortunate ethical situation for a University to have," Balakian said in an interview Monday. "Would a university want someone who worked with a neo-Nazi group to cover up the Holocaust on their faculty? I'll leave it there."
Balakian noted that Princetonians have been active in speaking out against the killings.
"In the time period of the 1890s and the Armenian genocide, there were a lot of Princetonians, such as Woodrow Wilson and Henry Cleveland Dodge who were involved in [opposing] this event," Balakian said. "Then, after WWII there were people here who have been arch deniers of the genocide. It has meaning, unique meaning [to speak here]."
Disputed past
Balakian, the author of "The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response" (2003), directs Colgate's new Center for the Study of Ethics and World Societies.
In addition to asserting that "No history of World War I can be told without the Armenian story," Balakian cited the Armenian killings as the first occasion the phrase "crimes against humanity and civilization" was used.
He refuted claims made by Lowry and other scholars that the event was not genocide, but rather a culmination of violence and disease in the region. "It is important to understand that the extermination of the Armenians was a meticulously planned and organized event," he said.
Balakian distributed a packet that referenced literature denying the legitimacy of the tem "genocide" in the Armenian case. He did not, however, make direct reference to Lowry in his speech, nor did any member of the panel.
Appiah cited the Turkish desire for linguistic and cultural homogeneity as an impetus for the killings, describing it as an outgrowth of European nationalism, "Almost all modern states have something at the beginning that they want to forget," Appiah said.
The question-and-answer session following the talk illustrated the contentiousness of the topic. One Turkish man, citing the rape of his grandfather's family by Armenians, refuted Balakian's claim that the Armenians were an unarmed people when the killings occurred and asked why Armenians have not yet gone to the United Nations about recognizing the killings as a genocide.
Strong applause followed as Balakian substantiated his use of the term "genocide" and said that Armenians have, in fact, taken the issue up with the United Nations.
Arzoomanian asked the panelists whether they believed Princeton was doing a good job of promoting human rights.
"The job of Princeton is not to promote human rights," Bass responded. "The job of Princeton is to promote scholarship."
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— Alumni challenge administrators on Turkish-endowed professorship (May 12, 1999) — Professor discusses past genocide, offends Armenian-American group (Jan. 6, 1999)Read More
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