A Hero Has Fallen

Ellen J. Kennedy, Ph.D., Executive Director

World Without Genocide at Mitchell Hamline School of Law

My husband and I went to Burma, now known as Myanmar, in 2003.  A military government had been in power for decades and had shut down the major university after student pro-democracy protests.  There were almost no open internet cafes and it was impossible to communicate with our children who were in Minnesota.  People were afraid to speak to us unless they were certain they wouldn’t be overheard by a government informer.  And Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s pro-democracy leader, had been under house arrest for years because of her opposition to the government.  She was undoubtedly one of the world’s best-known political prisoners.  We saw her home, the military presence, the guns, and the roadblocks.

Photograph: Bo Bo Lynn/EPA

She was a hero to me, and, indeed, to most of the world. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and awards from many other organizations, including the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, for her determination to bring freedom to her people.

But in 2018 the Museum revoked its award and people called for the Nobel Peace Prize to be revoked as well. What had happened to my hero?

Her late father had negotiated the country’s independence from Britain and was assassinated in 1947 for his advocacy of freedom. Forty years later, Aung San Suu Kyi became the country’s standard-bearer as she formed a political party and her pro-democracy efforts gained ground.

During this time, she married Michael Arias, a British citizen, and they had two sons.

In 1990 there was real hope for change when the military government allowed elections. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the NLD, National League for Democracy, won a landslide victory. But the military would not let the elected candidates take their positions. Had they been seated, Suu Kyi probably would have become the prime minister.

Myanmar came under international pressure to let the rightfully-elected people join the parliament.  Aung San Suu Kyi, still under arrest, became an iconic symbol of martyrdom for democracy.  Many countries imposed economic sanctions against the country because of her arrest and for the ruling junta’s ongoing human rights violations.

In 1999, Suu Kyi’s husband, who had remained in London with their two boys, was gravely ill with cancer. The Myanmar government wouldn’t give him a visa to come to Myanmar, despite appeals from world leaders including the Pope and President Clinton.  Instead, the government urged Suu Kyi to leave Myanmar to visit him. She knew that the government wouldn’t allow her back if she left.

She announced that she would not leave her country and her people.

Her husband was dying. She wore a dress in his favorite color, put a rose in her hair, and made a videotape to share final words with him.  Tragically, the tape arrived in London two days after his death.

I often have wondered what I would have done in her position.  We like to believe that we would do what is morally right in the face of hardship or the danger to ourselves.  We would have been like Miep Geis and brought food to Anne Frank and her family, sequestered in that attic for 25 months, knowing that discovery would mean our certain death.  We would have been like Carl Wilkens, the only American to remain in Rwanda during the genocide, who saved hundreds of lives despite great peril to himself.

Would we be so courageous? Would we stand up?  Fred Amram, a Holocaust survivor who lives in Minneapolis, reminds us that Hitler took power in 1933 and Auschwitz didn’t begin operating until 1941. There was a long descent into the hell of the Holocaust from 1933 to 1941, a time when that descent could have been stopped – IF people had stood up.  But they were afraid, or complicit, or uncaring.

Like Miep Gies and Carl Wilkens, Aung San Suu Kyi stood up.  She remained in Myanmar even while her husband was dying, refusing to abandon her fight for freedom.

But where is Aung San Suu Kyi’s moral commitment today?

Genocide is being perpetrated by the Myanmar government against a small Muslim minority known as the Rohingya in Rakhine state in the country’s western region. The UN has called the Rohingya “the most persecuted people on earth.”  They are stripped of their citizenship, as were Anne Frank and the Jews living under German occupation; they are denied access to education, employment, adequate food, sanitation, and medicine; and army troops have tortured, raped, and murdered innocent men, women, and children.

The Myanmar government is deliberately forcing the Rohingya out of Rakhine state. Rakhine is rich in natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas, with proven gas reserves of at least 10 trillion cubic feet. China, Myanmar’s major trading partner, has built pipelines through Rakhine state to take oil and gas from that region into China.  This is part of China’s global Belt and Road Initiative, which will develop China’s economic and political control around the world.  With the Rohingya out of the way, the resources can be extracted without interference.

August 25 marks the second anniversary of the Myanmar army’s brutal campaign against the Rohingya. More than 750,000 people fled into neighboring Bangladesh, a country that has announced plans to send them back to Myanmar despite that country’s refusal to take them. And the Rohingya won’t go back until they can be guaranteed citizenship and fundamental safety and security.

In 1935. the German government took citizenship away from the Jews.  We know how that story ended – Jews had nowhere to go and no country would take them in.

The Rohingya are stateless, denied citizenship in their home country of Myanmar. They have nowhere to go and no country will take them in – just like the Jews.  What will happen to them?

Since taking the office of State Counsellor in 2015, a position akin to Prime Minister, Aung San Suu Kyi has failed to respond to the persecution of the Rohingya people. She refuses to acknowledge that Myanmar’s military has committed massacres.

She once said, “It is not power that corrupts, but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” She has sacrificed her fear of losing power in the current government to the moral imperative of standing up against this genocide.

The International Criminal Court in Cartoons

By Caitlin Schweiger, Benjamin B. Ferencz Fellow in Human Rights and Law and

Ellen J. Kennedy, Ph.D., Executive Director

The purpose of a political cartoon is not only to amuse. A good political cartoon makes you think about current events and persuades you to take a particular point of view.  Political cartoons aren’t in the comics section of the news; they’re on the op-ed pages.

We invite you to enjoy these cartoons about the ICC and to appreciate the techniques that the artists employ to convey complicated issues through caricature, analogy, irony, exaggeration, and symbolism.

We provide a quick summary in words of the issue that the cartoonist addresses vividly in pictures.

Cartoon: Victor Ndula

The ICC is criticized for examining situations only in Africa, here arbitrarily choosing to indict  Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and Jean-Pierre Bemba from Congo.

Cartoon: Bruce Petty

The US is not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty governing the ICC, based on the US assumption of leadership in human rights and law and the view that, as the biggest player on the world stage, the US doesn’t have to be subjected to any external body.

Cartoon: Godfrey Mwampembwa

Despite blood on his hands, President Bashar Al-Assad of Syria has had impunity for the crimes against humanity and war crimes that his regime has perpetrated for many years because Syria is not a party to the Rome Statute and the ICC and he cannot be indicted.

Cartoon: Victor Ndula

It takes great courage for witnesses to come forward to testify when threats of intimidation are great, even including assassination.

Cartoon: Alphonce Omondi

The African Union threatened a collective withdrawal of all AU-member countries, which failed to materialize.

Cartoon: Patrick Chappatte

John Bolton, U.S. National Security Advisor, has spoken out vehemently against the ICC for a potential investigation into U.S. complicity in war crimes in Afghanistan; that investigation has been dismissed.

Cartoon: Khalil Bendib

The ICC issued indictments against Omar al-Bashir, then-President of Sudan, in 2008 and 2009 for crimes against humanity and genocide. He has been removed from office and the new government refuses to turn him over to the ICC, instead promising to try him in Sudan.

Cartoon: Mohamed Jumanne

The UN has been unable to take action against ISIS and is hoping that the ICC may do so.

Cartoon: Brandon Reynolds

Heads of state are not given immunity from ICC prosecution.  Here, Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda bemoans the fact that leaders from Sudan and Kenya are simultaneously indicted for mass crimes while having top governmental and AU roles.

The Silent Puppeteer

by Sarah Erickson, J.D
Benjamin B. Ferencz Fellow in Human Rights and Law

In December 2018, I attended the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court (ASP for my fourth consecutive year. Each year, no matter what the initial agenda, a rallying point seems to develop, either intentionally, like when a new measure is up for adoption, or organically, like when a member state threatens to withdraw from the Court. The vast majority of states parties have always stood behind the Court when some states threaten to withdraw.  In 2016 Burundi, The Gambia, and South Africa all threatened withdrawal because they claimed that the Court was targeting African countries. In 2017, the Court’s member states joined forces to activate jurisdiction over the Crime of Aggression. This year, the rallying point came again and again in messages to a country with no representatives at the meeting and that is not a state party: The United States.

ICC President, and excellent orator Chile Eboe-Osuji used every platform and podium he was given over the course of eight days to eloquently remind everyone that recent actions and statements of the US administration towards the Court are not only misguided but demonstrate a harsh deviation from the status of moral global leader. Across his many addresses to the Assembly, and during sessions with civil society members, President Eboe-Osuji quoted the inscription at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, former US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, and former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, among other influential American figures, in not so subtle nods to the US government’s recent threats against the ICC. Additionally, Assembly President O-Gon Kwon urged members to encourage universality of the Rome Statute by impressing upon non-member states that the Court does not threaten their national sovereignty.

In fact, every member of the Court leadership, as well as almost all States Parties and civil society organization representatives who presented remarks addressed US attacks on the Court, denounced them, and reaffirmed their full faith in and support of the Court’s work. Not every speaker was brave enough to take on the US by name, but the messages came through loud and clear like the representative from the United Kingdom, which is currently under preliminary examination by the ICC Chief Prosecutor for actions of its military in Iraq, who said, “The Court has many critics, including in States which are not Parties to the Statute. Some of their criticism is strident and, in our judgment, misplaced, and we do not share it.” While the statement was not as outwardly strong in its condemnation of the US attacks on the Court, it was an unusually bold and distancing statement from an official representative of one of the United States’ closest allies.

Cartoon: Bruce Petty

As an American at the Assembly, I was frequently asked for my opinion about my government’s relationship, or lack thereof, with the Court and how things are going in the country in general. It was clear that the feud between the Court and the US government is happening within a fish bowl. Everyone is looking in on it and waiting with bated breath to find out what will happen next. It is a perfect but unfortunate example of how global politics and diplomacy really work, because as a non-state party with zero representation or interaction with the Court, what United States officials say about the Court should theoretically have no influence on the Court. But the United States clearly does have an impact.

This ASP was in some ways more subdued that the three previous meetings, with no large-scale agenda items or fiery internal conflicts. However, for me personally, it was the most impactful session I’ve attended. I learned first- hand how the actions of my country’s government have a ripple effect on the rest of the world, and in that knowledge, I now feel an enormous sense of responsibility. When young people are taken on field trips, the teachers say, “Be on your best behavior because you are representing the whole school (or town etc.).” I don’t think I ever really internalized what that meant until now. I now have a much greater understanding of why it is so important to leave a good impression on the rest of the world. They are listening. They are watching. What we, as Americans, say and do matters to them not just at the government official and celebrity level of interactions, but in the everyday interactions between average Americans and average people everywhere.

The Cost of Justice

by Sarah Erickson, J.D

The budget of a court sounds like a very boring and not very important issue.  This is absolutely untrue for the International Criminal Court.  A court budget affects every single aspect of the Court’s operations from office supplies to prosecuting the world’s most heinous criminals.

ICC President Chile Eboe-Osuji stated in his opening remarks of this year’s Assembly of States Parties (ASP) that, “The world’s annual military spending is $1.7 trillion. This is roughly ten thousand times larger than the budget of the ICC…If you put together all the annual program costs of the ICC from the Court’s] inception 16 years ago until today, their total sum is still less than the program cost of $2.1 billion for a single B-2 ‘Stealth Bomber’.” The world spends thousands of times more money preparing for and engaging in warfare, often by illegal means, than in trying to seek justice for the victims of atrocities and to prevent further violence.

To date, the UN Security Council owes the Court approximately $69 million by the UNSC.

Leading up to the Assembly of States Parties, the ICC’s Committee on Budget and Finance proposed a Program Budget for 2019 that totaled €147.55 million. This would have been an increase of 2.6 per cent, over the 2018 approved budget (€143.85 million). By the end of the eight days of meetings, the budget that brought consensus among the States Parties was €144,555,000, or a .49% increase over the 2018 budget. A budget increase of such a small amount means that there is no room for new investigations, Court staff are not receiving wage increases in proportion with inflation and the cost of living, and the Court’s capacity for outreach to victims, an issue that was brought up again and again as subpar and desperately in need of improvement throughout this ASP, is severely diminished.

The states that advocated for zero growth in the budget are almost exclusively states that have ongoing preliminary examinations, formal investigations, or trials occurring within them or involving their citizens. Specifically, Venezuela (ongoing preliminary examination), Kenya (multiple nationals are defendants at-large), and the UK (ongoing preliminary examination in the context of the Iraq war) all used language indicating that the Court’s budget should not be increased, and that the Court should effectively “mind its own business” in terms of the domestic affairs of those countries.

Finally, the UN Security Council owes money to the Court.  According to the rules of the Court, the UN is supposed to pay the Court for expenses related to cases that the UN refers to the Court. To date, the UN Security Council owes the Court approximately $69 million by the UNSC.

The Court’s budget has been held hostage by countries that are afraid that the Court will use that money to investigate them. On one hand, it is disappointing that states aren’t willing to repair the injustices on their own soil. On the other hand, these states’ reluctance to pay their fair share, while also remaining a part of the Court and supporting it despite threats from the United States, shows both the deterrent effect of the Court and the faith that the States Parties have in in the Court to render justice.

Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

by Cat Rios-Keating

Benjamin B. Ferencz Fellow in Human Rights and Law

This past December I attended the Assembly of States Parties meeting of the International Criminal Court (ICC in The Hague, Netherlands. served as a delegate for World Without Genocide and the American Coalition for the International Criminal Court.

As a delegate to the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), I was asked to focus on  specific topics and to attend special meetings that were held on those topics.  One of the topics that I covered was the issue of sexual and gender- based violence (SGBV). I went to a session at which the film The Prosecutors was screened. The documentary focuses on three national justice processes: trials of perpetrators of SGBV in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Colombia, and Bosnia- Herzegovina.

The film shows the disparities in outcomes in each of the cases. In the DRC, of thirty-nine soldiers and officers who were tried on charges of rape (creating over 150 rape victims), only two people were convicted.

Marco Tulio, “El Oso” the leader in a military organization that devastated and controlled communities in Colombia through SGBV, was found guilty and was sentenced to thirteen years in prison.

Prosecutor Sandra Moreno, who fought for justice for victims of SGBV under “El Oso” in Colombia.

Lastly, in Bosnia -Herzegovina, prosecutor Sandra Moreno investigated war crimes of murder, assault, and rape committed on a border town with Croatia. Two perpetrators were sentenced to prison terms, one to seven years and the other to thirteen years. The victims finally received some justice twenty years after the war had ended.

The Prosecutors side event showed how international pressure can push nations to develop their own justice systems and allow victims better access to local justice.

I would highly encourage all to see this film. Go to: http://www.theprosecutorsmovie.com/ for – how to access the film.

Interested in getting involved in the global campaign to end SGBV?

Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice (Women’s Initiatives) invites the international community to participate in creating a shared definition of sexual violence. To complete the survey, click on the following link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdxfIr6sooZ7JoeuDFAB5mpGfoWyNlfxT0Zvabz5oFJ7QdJ5w/viewform.

Outstanding Upstander Award presented to Dr. Taner Akçam

May 14, 2018

Standing Up against Genocide Denial:  Remarks by Dr. Akçam

Friends, thank you for the invitation to return to Minnesota, where I spent several rewarding years as a visiting professor. During my time at the University of Minnesota, I worked with outstanding colleagues in the History Department and at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. It is wonderful to be back at the invitation of World Without Genocide. I am honored and humbled that I was selected as the recipient of this year’s Upstander Award for my contributions to documenting the 1915 Ottoman Genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and other Christian minorities. It is gratifying to find myself added to a list of distinguished honorees.

Yet while I accept this honor with gratitude, I wish to share it with those who truly deserve it. And so I dedicate my Upstander award to the brave men and women who were taken into police custody, harassed, and beaten when they gathered in İstanbul to commemorate the Armenian Genocide earlier this year. Their persistence in fighting for recognition of the Armenian genocide is admirable. The harsh treatment they faced as a result of their courageous actions demonstrates why we MUST remember past atrocities. Acknowledging historic crimes is a fundamental part of the continuing struggle for justice, democracy, and human rights.

Today, as we gather to honor the imperative of standing up to genocide, crackdowns on speech, the press, and academic freedom plague Turkey. These undemocratic restrictions on speech and historical inquiry are directly connected to denial and make genocide all the more likely to reocurr. Why? Because regimes that engage in denial lack the moral authority to fight racisim and intolerance and to prevent mass atrocities.

Our shared purpose is to prevent further genocides and mass atrocities in the world. Yet we have neglected a serious aspect of genocide prevention, namely the fight against denial. Even a passing glance in the existing prevention literature reveals the lack of attention to combating denial and its significance in reducing further mass crimes. Denial and prevention are strongly linked and the fight against denialism needs to become a more significant part of efforts to address genocide. We don’t see the causality between the fight against denialism and prevention because of a mind-set, a logic that I call temporal compartmentalization. We pay lip service to the idea of genocide recognition but it is a bit like attending church services. We may genuinely repent our sins on Sunday but go back to sinning on Monday. That is plain wrong and must change.

You may wonder how denial continues to flourish in the 21^st century when the internet makes information so readily available. Before the emergence of so-called “fake news,” we imagined that it was easy to distinguish truth from falsehood. Yet, despite assaults on truth, most of us still trust that history rests upon established facts, over which there is a consensus. Facts are based upon certainties that are not open to opinion or interpretation and “denial” is simply a refusal to accept these recognized facts. Opposing denial is therefore a matter of standing up to the truth and calling out lies.

Sadly, this is not true. Rather, a nebulous territory exists between facts and truth AND denialism germinates from this territory. Denialism marshals its own “facts” and lays claim to its own “truth telling.” Denialism offers a different approach to history and for this purpose it creates its own facts. And at the end of the day, the thing that we call “truth” is made to appear as nothing more than our own version of history. What denialism aims to do is to create an atmosphere in which two contradicting versions of history allegedly exist. Over the past decades, those who abide by the dictum, “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts,” have followed the public and historical debates over the Armenian Genocide with disbelief. Consecutive Turkish governments have succeeded in creating their own version of history with their own documentary evidence, selectively pulled from Turkish archives. They raised their viewpoint to the level of reasonable historical possibility.

Turkish denialism has effectively “held history hostage” by offering the possibility of an alternative set of facts. In the end, honest academic research might have successfully established the unbiased truth; however, in the public of politics, POWER has determined its own truth. The biggest difference between Holocaust denial and Armenian Genocide denial is this very factor. Holocaust denial remains on the fringe, for the most part, while Armenian Genocide denial has been exploited for political purposes. Turkey’s denialist policies have received tremendous support, especially from the U.S., England and Israel. And these countries have helped to ensure that denialism continues, which weakens their ability to stand up to present-day atrocities. Moreover, they are morally compromised as a result of their distinct national histories. The U.S. engages in denial about Native American Genocide and the legacy of mass violence from the history of slavery. The U.K. has not fully come to terms with the ill effects of colonialism. And Israel will have to face its own history regarding the treatement of Palestinians.  Strong nations maintain their power structures through the refusal to acknowledge complicated histories. Yet this is precisely what weakens their standing when it comes to genocide prevention. Only a full reckoning with the past would strengthen their efforts to prevent future mass atrocities and genocide. As long as they uphold the politics of denial, they acquiese to violence rather than contribute to prevention.

There are two additional misperceptions regarding genocide denial and, especially, Turkish denialism, which creates major obstacle in fighting denialism and so to prevent further mass attrocities. Firstly, denial is often regarded as a mistaken but tolerable ideological attitude toward mass atrocities. The second misunderstanding is related to the first and assumes that confronting denial is about establishing a “moral” attitude towards a single crime that remains forgotten in the pages of history. Any connection with the present is effectively walled off. These misperceptions are a logical consequence of what I call temporal compartmentalization: namely, the tendency to place the past and present into different boxes and to ignore their interconnectedness. It is impossible to sever the ties between denial and contemporary political problems. Denial is not only about an ideological attitude towards the past nor is the demand for recognition of historical crimes confined to a moral conviction regarding past events [that can be atoned for in Sunday church services].

Denialism is a structure that cannot simply be relegated to past atrocities. The denialist structure produced and continues to foster policies in the present day. In this regard, it would be appropriate and reasonable to compare Turkish denialism with the racist apartheid regime of South Africa. The system, mindset, and institutions of apartheid were constructed upon racial differences; denial of the Armenian genocide has similar roots. It was manufactured upon the discrimination and exclusion of ethnic-religious minorities and considers the democratic demands of these groups a national security threat that has to be eliminated.

In the past, the so called “Armenian question” was the result of Armenian requests for equality and social reform, which arguably would have led to a better and stronger Ottoman society. It is no different for Kurds today. Like the Armenians of the late Ottoman period, the Kurds demand social and political reforms. Granting these basic rights could be the foundation for a democratic Turkey. In the past, Armenian demands and the Armenians themselves were considered security threats, which caused them to become targets for massacres and Genocide. Today, Kurds are facing the same fate. Denying the truth about the Armenian genocide and suppressing basic democratic rights of Kurds and other ethnic-religious minorities constitute the foundation of the Turkish concept of security. Once again, democratic demands for truth and justice and the request for basic democratic rights, such as equality under the law, social reform and freedom of speech are considered threats to national security.

The picture is very clear: by denying what happened in 1915, Turkey reproduces the institutions, social relations, and mindset that created the events of 1915 in the first place. Denial is not simply a defense of an old regime (Ottoman Empire). Denial also fuels the politics of continuing aggression, both inside against the ethnic-religious minorities and democratic opposition and outside against the neigbors of Turkey today.

There is a strong interconnectedness between denial of past atrocities, policies that trample on basic democratic and human rights, and violence against civilians in the region. The highest constitutional institution in Turkey, the National Security Council, is the symbol of this interconnectedness. In 2001, this supreme constitutional authority established a “Coordinating Committee for the Fight Against Baseless Claims of Genocide.” All of the important ministries, including the Armed Forces, are represented on this committee, which is chaired by the Vice Prime Minister. The sole mission of this institution is to fight those who demand recognition of mass-atrocities, including the Armenian genocide, committed by successive Ottoman-Turkish governments. It is not a coincidence that it is the same institution that considers the democratic demands of Kurds and other minorities and regional developments in Syria to be a national security threat.

My view of this correlation is simple: as long as Turkey continues to regard facing history with honesty and acknowledgment of wrongdoings as national security threats and refuses to come to terms with the past for national security reasons, further security problems will ensue. As we see, denialism is not a mistaken but tolerable ideological attitude toward mass atrocities. And so, the recognition of the Armenian genocide is not a thing of the past that can be forgotten when confronted with the seemingly more pressing issues of today. On the contrary, it is the key to solving contemporary security problems.

This brings me to my next point: there is a widely accepted opinion, which contends that while resisting denial and demanding the recognition of a historic crime might be a meaningful and amiable moral attitude, however, we must be realistic and prioritize the more crucial and compelling security and national interests of contemporary states. Accordingly, in situations where the recognition of an historic crime is in conflict with the national interests and security of today, it is meaningless and nonsensical to maintain the demand for recognition because the event in question has long passed. To insist on it, represents a fundamental moralist attitude.

The discussions within the West, and especially in the United States, regarding the 1915 genocide and relations with Turkey are generally conducted within this framework of realpolitik. According to this perspective, the “national security concerns” of the West (the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, etc.) in the Middle East are placed on one side, while the recognition of a 100-year-old genocide is placed on the other. And for this reason, instead of pressuring Turkey into changing its denialist policies towards 1915, for decades these countries have opted to support Turkey. Today, it is hard to find any member of the American Congress who contests the fact of the Armenian genocide. But this very same Congress still – to this day – denies recognition of the Armenian genocide solely because they pit “national interest” against “morality” as two mutually exclusive positions. This is plain wrong.

As recent developments clearly demonstrate, there is a strong relationship between security, democracy, and facing history in the Middle East. Even a passing glance at the region makes it clear that historical injustices and the persistent denial of these injustices by one or another state or ethnic-religious group is a major stumbling block, not only for the democratization of the region, but also for the establishment of stable relations between different ethnic and religious groups. You cannot solve any problem in the Middle East today without addressing historic wrongs because history is not something in the past; in the Middle East, the past IS the present.

Put another way, one of the main problems in the region is the insecurity felt by different groups and states towards each other as a result of past history. When persistent denial of these pain-filled acts is fundamental to your security policy, feelings of insecurity towards the other become inevitable. This is what we call the security dilemma: What one does to enhance one’s own security causes a reaction that, in the end, can make one even less secure. For this reason, any security concept, any policies of realpolitik that obfuscates past atrocities and ignores addressing these historic wrongs, is doomed to fail.

We must cease this senseless distinction and compartmentalization between the recognition of 1915 and contemporary realpolitik. Until today, the West has failed to recognize 1915 for reasons either of “security” or “national interest,” even in cases where it adopted some affectatious parliamentary decisions, continued to carry out policies that gave support and political cover to Turkey. If democracy, peace, and security are the objectives – the end-goals – of the policy of the West towards Middle East, this approach to foreign policy must change.

For it is this attitude and behavior of the West that emboldens Turkey to continue its denial of 1915 and encourages it to persist with its policies that threaten democracy, peace, and security in the region today.

Let us not forget – denial of the past is not exclusive to Turkey and its history. It is the collective and fundamental problem of United States with regard to its regional peace and security. If we do not place the struggle to face our past and fight against denialism at the center of our politics, we not only fail today, but we also risk losing our future. There is no difference between fighting Turkish Denialism and fighting the South African Apartheid regime. Apartheid didn’t collapse from internal pressure alone. The support of the international community was essential. I appeal to you from this podium today to end this detrimental compartmentalization between past and present and to grasp the severity and magnitude of Denialism’s impact.

A thorough and honest acknowledgment of a heinous crime perpetrated in the past cannot be accomplished in a Sunday church service. If we seek to respect the dignity of victims of past crimes; to establish justice; to create democracy, peace, and stability in the world; if we want to stand up against mass atrocities and prevent future genocides, we must fight denialism not only as an attitude towards a past crime but also as a crime against human dignity today…

Thank you for listening.

Shocking poll numbers about Americans were released last week on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

66% of millennials don’t know what Auschwitz was.
22% of millennials haven’t heard of the Holocaust.
11% of adults haven’t heard of the Holocaust.

Collective Trauma

The Southern Poverty Law Center reported more than a thousand hate incidents in the first few weeks after the election. Immigrant and refugee youth are taunted at school and told they’ll be sent ‘back.’  Blacks, Muslims, Jews, people who identify as LGBTQ, and women are threatened and harassed.

There is a collective sense of trauma over this shift in our moral order. Even people who are typically stoical and unemotional are consumed with anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion, sleep problems, sadness, and fear.

But it is necessary to go forward with energy and conviction in this challenging time. At the individual level, there are self-care recommendations for exercise, meditation, healthy eating, connecting with friends, and disconnecting from the news for a while.

Because the sense of trauma is collective, the response ultimately must be collective as well – to organize, advocate, and get engaged. Begin with your local city. See important initiatives that passed in Minneapolis recently to stand up against a national registry and to protect school youth from checks into their immigration status. The first steps start in our own neighborhoods.