Children Of Armenia A Forgotten Genocide And The Centurylong Struggle For Justice

Posted In: Armenia

Norman Baynes says...

In the last ten years there were published a number of very good and comprehensive histories about the forgotten Armenian Holocaust.One can cite the works of Peter Balakian and Taner Akcam and their excellent surveys on the matter.

Bobelian's book is a bit different,because his purpose is not to prove that the Turks have perpetrated one of the most horrendous acts of brutality and thus having-I think- the dubious honour of being the first ones to commit such a crime,meaning a Holocaust in the twentieth century.This book tries to answer the question of the world's indifference to this Holocaust where more than 1.5 million Armenians were butchered by the Turks, using all the possible and affordable means.The Turks spared no one and tried to exterminate a whole people.But the were totally wrong when they thought they would also be capable of exterminating the memories of those who managed to survive.The struggle against forgetting is stronger than anything else- to paraphrase Milan Kundera.

Contrary to the wishful thinking of the Turkish authorities, not only had this Holocaust not perished from the consciousness of the human race,but the awareness about it is also steadily increasing and those who are responsible for this should be congratulated.One can witness to what extent the Turkish government is trembling and shaking these days when this issue has finally reached the podium of the American Congress.I have no doubt that a brave decision will be takensoon to finalize a resolution which will acknowledge the Turkish responsibility for the Armenian Holocaust.

This book starts with a story of a seventy-seven-year-old man, an Armenian who wants revenge because of what his family went through those horrible years.

Then the author gives a very good, precise and concise summary about the events which led the "dying man of Europe"-Turkey-to commit these gruesome crimes.In fact,the idea of the extermination policies against the Armenians started to brew in the twisted minds of the Turkish policy makers at the beginning of the twentieth century,culminating in 1915 when wholesale massacres of Armenians took place.It is well-known that the turks got assistance from the Germans and this was the first rehearsal for the Jewish Holocaust.The Armenian leaders, among them the last Prime Minister Simon Vratsian,have done a lot to seek for relief and justice for their people, but in vain.Unfortunately political interests prevailed over morality and President's Truman Realpolitik vis-a-vis the Soviet Union.The famous doctrine named after the American President has included massive financial help to Turkey which was regarded in Washington as a bulwark against the the Communist bloc.Turkey, we are informed,received by 1970 3 billion dollars in military assistance and another billion in economic aid.

As a result of the manslaughter, the Armenians "suffered from a dearth of leadership, because the Turkish crimes have wiped out the adult population,leaving a generation of refugees and orphans with no guidance".The Armenian Diaspora was powerless to promote the memories and their interests and it would take at least three decades for anew generation to continue and pursue the matter.No apologies were offered,no compensations were granted and the Turkish authorities promised to chase and threaten those who advocated the recognition of the Armenian Holocaust.

Mr. Boberian is absolutely right whn he gives the example of Jewish and Israeli leaders who tried to dodge this issue.After all, the Jewish people lost six million in a horrible Holocaust and therefore one could have expected them to lead to fight for the Armenian cause.But in vain.When a conference was planned in Tel-Aviv, the Turks threatened to sever their diplomatic relations with Israel.Even Mr. Shimon Peres,then the Foreign Minister,intervened and asked the participants to exclude the Genocide from the conference.Among those who surrenderedwas also Mr. Elie Wiesel.We also have a detailed description about Senator Dole's efforts to team up with other Armenian activists in order to raise the issue in theAmerican Senate.The author is also critical about his own brethren,blaming them for spending a "great dael of time and energy trying to preservr the pre-Genocide past rather than redefining themselves for the modern world".

Why should one want to read this book? First, this opus is extremely well-researched and documented.Second,this is a chronicle of endless efforts by a minority against forgetting.Third,this is a small, modest but very essential contribution in the fight against denial.Fourth, it will help augment the fight against the Turkish authoritieswhich are still refusing to come to terms with their ghoulish past.

Posted on May 15, 2011

Mickey Rias says...

There are a number of books that describe the events of the Armenian Genocide, but there are no books, other than this one, that describe the struggle for recognition of that genocide between 1915 and 2008. This book is the seminal text on this topic.



At the outset, and of particular relevance to the general reader, I think its important to say that this is not a dry tome recounting facts and dates. On the contrary, it is a fast-paced narrative that tells the story of the struggle for recognition of the Armenian Genocide through the lives of three men. The book opens with Gourgen Yanikian, a 77 year old terrorist plotting the assassination of Turkish diplomats as his final act of revenge for the horrors that haunt him. We then meet Vartkes Yeghiayan, a lawyer who brought a class action suit against New York Life, seeking to win a judgment for thousands of unclaimed policies. The third character is Van Krikorian who together with Senator Bob Dole campaigned tirelessly to gain public recognition of the Genocide from the US government.



Within this accessible narrative, Bobelian unfolds, never-before-seen research into the reaction of the US government and individuals within the government to the cause of Armenian Genocide recognition. The compelling question Bobelian tries to answer is how the United States went from front-page outrage in the New York Times and other newspapers of record in 1915 to the failure to recognize the genocide as such almost 100 years later.Bobelian offers a balanced explanation, clearly explaining the geo-political role that Turkey has played in US foreign policy, especially since the Second World War, but also describing, in nail-biting detail, the frantic lobbying of US politicians by the Turkish government and the susceptibility of American politicians to, and complicity in, this seduction.



This book obviously has an urgent and deep significance for Armenians today. But it is also shot through with universal themes and insights that are compelling to non-Armenians. Firstly, the issue of genocide recognition, whether it be the Jewish Holocaust or the current genocide in Darfur, is obviously of the utmost urgency to all human beings. Echoing the well-known poem by Pastor Martin Niem

Posted on May 15, 2011

Alfredia Sunde says...

I tend to be a fairly big fan of Lonely Planet's style of travel guidebooks - I've used them for travels many times, simply because I like the way they're structured and enjoy all the background information that accompanies their guidebooks. Unfortunately, there are a few duds that slip through the cracks, and this one is unquestionably one of the big ones. Granted, this is a guidebook to one of the most rapidly changing areas of the world when it comes to tourism and travel, but this book doesn't even seem like it was ever in synch with the reality in the South Caucasus. The Azerbaijan section is basically satisfactory, but hardly overwhelming. Sadly, that's the best can be said, as the other two sections are very much lacking. While the Georgia one is sloppy and not at all geared towards what a traveler really needs or wants, the Armenian section is downright awful, with a glaring lack of practical information and even basic facts.

Maps go from fuzzy and confusing to completely unreliable, and restaurant listings often lack any sort of notion of prices (or are repeatedly geared for people hardly on a shoestring budget). Sometimes author recommendations are even non-existent - like the 'most recommended restaurant' in Batumi, which seems to have been bulldozed. The author for the Georgian section speaks of a gradually developing agro-tourism and homestay industry in the country, but somehow doesn't bother researching it almost at all (although you get plenty of listings for defunct Soviet hotels!). Illogically, sections on towns and other areas never include the names in Armenian and Georgian (apart from a few in an inadequate glossary in the back of the book), leaving you clueless as to what they'd be unless you spent a long time actually learning the national alphabets thoroughly. And, why throw the individual countries' history sections together into one general, regional history, especially given the unique backgrounds of each people? So much more depth could have been added to the book, but one gets the impression that the authors were racing towards a publishing deadline (especially the one for Armenia!). There's supposedly an update in the works, and it is much needed. For now though, check out instead the Trailblazer guide to Azerbaijan (*much* better coverage, even in the small section on Georgia) and the Rediscovering Armenia book, which is available either in country or on the internet - both of these actually do justice to the region.

Posted on May 16, 2011

Danyelle Vuillemot says...

A MUST READ FOR ALL WHO WANT TO PREVENT SYSTEMATIC KILLINGS OF SELECT GROUP OF PEOPLE.AND THE FORCED FADING OF FACTS AFTERWARDS BY POWERFUL NATIONS WHO IGNORE THE TRAGEDY.

Posted on May 17, 2011

Bong Tacneau says...

The guide is well packaged, and is easy to use. One won't have difficulty locating information on, say, visas, or local foods. But the book reads as if it was written by several different people who didn't review each other's notes. There's contradictory information, and much of the data for Armenia is wrong. They have the wrong telephone area code for Yerevan, Armenia, for example. They suggest trying restaurants that are in fact closed. I guess it's not bad for a first try, but I was disappointed.

Posted on May 18, 2011

Ena Kuhs says...

Until now, it has been far easier for an American reader to learn about the facts of the Armenian Genocide, which took place nearly a hundred years ago, than to trace the story of the Genocide's survivors: how they have variously attempted to seek revenge, justice, or at least acknowledgement of what happened to their families and forebears.Children of Armenia: a Forgotten Genocide and the Century-long Struggle for Justice, by Michael Bobelian, a Columbia-trained journalist and lawyer, fills in many of the gaps, and does so in a vivid and highly readable way.Episodes that Bobelian sheds particularly helpful light upon include the short-lived First Republic of Armenia (1919-20), the assassination of Archbishop Tourian in a New York Church on Christmas Eve 1933, the effects of the Cold War and the Truman Doctrine in changing the equities and the attitudes of the U.S. Government toward Armenia and the Armenians, the reawakening in the 1960s of Armenian consciousness and assertiveness concerning the Genocide, the period of terrorist assassinations of Turkish officials in the 1970s and 1980s, and the prodigious efforts of Armenians to win recognition of the fact of the Genocide in Washington, against the intense pressure of Turkish official denial and behind-the-scenes lobbying.This book in many ways picks up where Peter Balakian's 2003 The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response left off.It continues the story right up to our own time and the recent "football diplomacy" between Yerevan and Ankara.While I had a quibble with a turn of phrase here and there, Mr. Bobelian's overwhelming contribution is to have made a very complicated tale comprehensible to an outsider, and to have provided illuminating portraits of so many of the key actors (for example, Gourgen Yanikian, Senator Bob Dole, Van Krikorian, Vartkes Yeghiayan) in these interlocking dramas, all of which have roots in the Genocide, but each of which is in some way unique.I heartily recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand why it is that Armenians care so passionately about the Genocide.

Posted on May 18, 2011

Leigh Stroth says...

In the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, various ethnic groups came under deadly assault by Turkish authorities and people, and perhaps the group which suffered the most was the Armenia people. In the years after this first of all genocides, the Turkish authorities launched a campaign of denial about the events of the genocide, seeking to minimize or even completely whitewash the events. This is the story of the genocide, and the century-long struggle that the Armenians have had to wage to receive any sort of recognition of what happened.



Overall, I found this to be an interesting book. Instead of being a history of the genocide itself, the book gives no more than an introduction to it, instead focusing on placing it within the context of what was going on in Turkey at the time. Then the book goes on to tell the story of the Armenians and the Turks, as they moved through history - one seeking full recognition of the genocide, and the other seeking to deny it.



I found the book to be interesting, and quite informative on a subject that I must admit that I knew basically nothing about. The book was well-researched and written in an interesting manner. If you want to understand the modern Armenian people and their recent history, then you should read this book.

Posted on May 18, 2011

Russ Sohrabi says...

I had been anticipating the new LP guide for Armenia for quite awhile. I must admit

that when I finally got it I was disappointed. It is better than the last one, but that's not saying much. The information is OK, but not extensive. There are barely any photos, so you don't really get a good feel for any of the places. The maps are so small that you need a magnifying glass to read them. And, the 6 pages dedicated

to Karabagh just doesn't cut it!

Posted on May 19, 2011

Keneth Derry says...

I selected this book over the Elliott (AZ with Georgia) because of the superior map quality in the LP book -- a huge mistake in retrospect.The information on sights, culture, history -- all of which are so fascinating and rich for this region -- is so vapid and thin that it is hardly worth lugging around.I'd suggest anyone coming to Az (or elsewhere in the region) buy the Elliott book and augment it with photocopies of the LP maps.

Posted on May 19, 2011

Hilaria Bennings says...

Mr. Bobelian delivers a thoroughly researched and documented account

of the Armenian people's struggle for justice to avenge the genocide

of their ancestors by Turkey, almost a century ago. Though well

documented by the global press and foreign governments at the time,

the Turkish government, with the aid of the U.S. and European

governments, has acted to deny and all but extinguish the world's

memory of this tragedy. Bobelian illuminates the complex power

struggle between morality, justice, and historical fact on the one

hand, and national security, politics, and corporate interest on the

other. First with the establishment of U.S. corporate interests, and

then with the establishment of national security interests, the U.S.

has created a relationship with Turkey that is so tenuous, that

Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack

Obama have all refused to publicly acknowledge the genocide once they

were elected; not because they deny the near extermination of an

entire people, but because they fear angering the Turkish government.

By incorporating three different storylines of actual individuals

involved in this struggle, Bobelian creates a dramatic narrative that

is one part historical and one part legal thriller. As I read

Children of Armenia, I could not help but think about more recent

genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Sudan and whether our national

interests will lead us to aid the denial of these atrocities in the

decades to come.Bobelian's deep and thorough research will resonate

with academia-focused readers, while his narrative style will resonate

with casual readers of history, making Children of Armenia a must-read

for anyone interested in the interplay between human rights, global

politics, and global economics.

Posted on May 19, 2011