ATAA Action Alert on CNN and PBC Documentaries

Dear Friends and Members of the Turkish-American Community,

We would like to kindly urge you take action against the recent surge of pro-Armenian documentaries that flooded the American media in the last two weeks.  We particularly would like to alert you to the three erroneous productions that were posted on the PBS website and aired on CNN and WLIW21 (a local PBS channel in the NY area), on November 25, December 4 and December 9 respectively.  The ATAA, TCA and TurkishNY already brought all three of these events to your attention through a collaborative effort. 

The first of these documentaries – Turkey: A Family Erased – is produced by George Kachadorian, a documentary and film maker, and was posted on the Frontline page of the PBS network 2 weeks ago.  The second one is a 2-hour special called "Scream Bloody Murder," produced by Christiane Amanpour of CNN, which discussed genocides of the 20th century with substantial reference to the events of 1915.  Amanpour placed the Armenian problem in the same category with those that are actually defined by the very term ‘genocide’ based on the 1948 UN Convention.  On December 9, PBS has taken a final step to aggrandize their pro-Armenian campaign at the expense of the Turkish community’s abhorrence and re-aired Andrew Goldberg’s “The Armenian Genocide,” which many PBS stations had already showed in April 2006, causing a similar distress among our community. 

We encourage all of our members and friends to make their views heard by the CNN and PBS networks through sending their comments to the below noted addresses. You will also find template letters that could hopefully be of some use during your correspondence.

1) Sample Letter for PBS:

Please send the following to frontlineworld@flworld.org or, www.pbs.org

Subject: Regarding the recent surge of pro-Armenian documentaries at the PBS network

Dear PBS producers,

I am writing this message to share with you my views on your recent choice of documentaries broadcasted through your website and local channels.  The Turkish-American community is highly disturbed by the two documentaries that found an overdo coverage at your network.  The first one was Geroge Kachadorian’s “Turkey: A Family Erased,” which was posted on the Frontline page of your website.  A second problematic production was Andrew Goldberg’s “The Armenian Genocide,” which many PBS stations had already aired in April 2006, causing a similar tension in our community. 

You are probably aware that, historians and legal scholars who are experts on the late Ottoman Empire, who have actually conducted the archival research and who are skilled in the languages necessary, do not share the views of neither Goldberg nor Kachadorian.  In a similar vein with Goldberg, Kachadorian’s short documentary amounts to nothing more than a highly politicized and futile effort to re-construct the past.   Both Goldberg and Kachadorian add nothing to the study of the underlying controversy; rather they reiterate the Diaspora theses, which are not only unremarkable and highly predictable but are almost exclusively ahistorical and anachronistic.  More importantly, however, the broadcasting of documentaries produced in such a politicized fashion disturbs to the utmost degree not merely the Turkish-American community but also the incipient efforts to reconcile Turkish and Armenian views.

The following are among those respected experts who reject the label of genocide to describe the events of the period in question:  Bernard Lewis, Stanford Shaw, David Fromkin, Justin McCarthy, Guenther Lewy, Norman Stone, Kamuran Gurun, Michael Gunter, Gilles Veinstein, and William Batkay.  Yet, as it becomes crystal clear in Mr. Kachadorian’s work, many Armenian Americans work assiduously to make sure that their perception of history replaces the above mentioned experts’ in the annals of the Ottoman past.  Granted, Kachadorian and Godlberg have the right to express their views – albeit deviating radically from the truth – and the right to justify their views based on a highly mythologized version of the past.  It is up to the Frontline producers then, to provide the American audience with a plurality of viewpoints and to give them a chance to reach own conclusions more objectively. 

By denying the viewers an opportunity to observe the antitheses of what Kachadorian and Goldberg call documentaries, PBS clearly violated its standards of balance and objectivity and eliminated the open dialogue that is a crucial part of serving our democracy.  The PBS mission states that programs are aired that demonstrate multiple perspectives on such issues; PBS is also supposed to consider underserved audiences (i.e., Turkish-Americans), in making its broadcasting decisions.  What galls us most, however, is that PBS, partially with taxpayer funds, has been turned into an accomplice in the “Armenian genocide” industry.  Until PBS broadcasts a program that places the genocide issue in its proper historical perspective, it is failing in its mission as a publicly funded media organization.

Thank you for your consideration.

Your name

2) Sample Letter for CNN:

Please send the following to

Mark Nelson: CNN Vice President and Senior Executive Producer for Editorial. Email: mark.nelson@turner.com

Kathy Slobogin: CNN Special Projects Managing Editor, kathy.slobogin@turner.com

Rick Davis: CNN Executive Vice President of News Standards and Practices; Email: rick.davis@turner.com

Dear Sir/Madam

Recently I have seen on CNN a two-hour report titled "Scream Bloody Murder," broadcasted on December 4, 2008, which included a short segment that referred to the tragic events of 1915 in Ottoman Anatolia as a case of genocide.
 
According to the November 29 edition of the Armenian Reporter, Ms. Amanpour stated that this historic and legal controversy should not be termed anything but "genocide".  Ms. Amanpour is quoted as stating, "Turkey still denies it officially is a problem.  ...  The Armenian Genocide infers to the words of Raphael Lemkin and that was incredibly important for us to highlight that."
 
One should refrain from confidently declaring the Armenian case genocide not only because the matter has never been considered by a proper neutral tribunal, but also because of the ample evidence that the case, even among historians, is not settled.  Indeed, many scholars who are expert in Ottoman history and have conducted research among the primary documents in their original languages find the genocide label inappropriate.  These scholars, taking pains not to minimize the suffering of the innocent masses, Christian and Muslim alike, during the war, have espoused the contra-genocide viewpoint: Bernard Lewis of Princeton University, the late Stanford Shaw of U.C.L.A., Justin McCarthy of the University of Louisville, Norman Itzkowitz of Princeton University, Brian G. Williams of the University of Massachusetts, David Fromkin of Boston University, Avigdor Levy of Brandeis University, Michael M. Gunter of Tennessee Tech, Pierre Oberling of Hunter College, the late Roderic Davison of George Washington University, Michael Radu of Foreign Policy Research Institute,  and military historian Edward J. Erickson.  Outside of the United States yet more scholars have found the genocide term unsuitable, among them Gilles Veinstein of the College de France, Stefano Trinchese of the University of Chieti, Jeremy Salt of Melbourne University Augusto Sinagra of the University of Romae-Sapienza, Norman Stone of Bilkent University, and the historian Andrew Mango of the University of London.
 
As noted by Princeton's Bernard Lewis: [T]hat the massacre of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was the same as what happened to Jews in Nazi Germany is a downright falsehood.  What happened to the Armenians was the result of a massive Armenian armed rebellion against the Turks, which began even before war broke out, and continued on a larger scale.
 
But to make this a parallel with the Holocaust in Germany, you would have to assume the Jews of Germany had been engaged in an armed rebellion against the German state, collaborating with the allies against Germany. That in the deportation order, the cities of Hamburg and Berlin were exempted, persons in the employment of the state were exempted, and the deportation only applied to the Jews of Germany proper, so that when they got to Poland they were welcomed and sheltered by the Polish Jews. This seems to me a rather absurd parallel". [1]
 
Furthermore, Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide, obtained his perspective on the Armenian issue by following the trial of Soghomon Tehlirian, chief assassin of the Nemesis Armenian Terror organization who felt justified in committing vigilante murders of Ottoman officials on the pretext of the failed Armenian revolt and the subsequent Ottoman military response.  Furthermore, Lemkin believed that political groups, such as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation that organized and implemented the revolt, should be included under the protection of the United Nations Genocide Convention; however the conferees who drafted the convention as it has been adopted today roundly rejected that inclusion as that would cause the overlapping with other crimes and generalize all wars as genocide.
 
The Turkish American community had expected fair treatment on this sensitive issue and hoped that CNN would offer a background statement that could have been helpful for establishing a just and equitable discussion of the events of 1915, rather than a one-sided, dismissive declaration that these events were genocide and nothing else. I truly hope that CNN will take into consideration in the future the genuine controversy that defines the Armenian case, the importance of refraining from judging the events at a time when Turkey and Armenia are taking bold new steps toward reconciliation. 
 
Sincerely,
 

Your name

[1] April 14, 2002, at the National Press Club on C-Span 2