Your trusted source

“The United States is 100% complicit in the denial of the Armenian Genocide” – says Humboldt State University Professor of Genocide Studies Maral Attallah in an interview with Nvard Chalikyan from Panorama.am, in which she shares her personal story of being threatened by Turkish nationalists in her pursuit against the Armenian Genocide denial.



Maral Attallah, who has been teaching a course Narrating Genocide for  years in the United States, says that, unlike Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide is not widely known. However, due to a number of events that took place during the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide this year (such as the message of Pope Francis), the level of awareness of the issue has risen.
She also says that those who learn about the Armenian Genocide, display increased interest in knowing more about what has happened. Professor Attallah’s elective course on genocides for instance is attended by such a great number of students that there is a waiting list.
“At the end of the course my students feel empowered. I even had students who told me that they were going to call the White House and advocate on behalf of the Armenian Genocide. These are students who before coming to the course never knew what the Armenian Genocide was about”, - says Maral Attallah.

Professor Attallah has written her Master’s thesis on the issue of the Armenian Genocide and particularly of its denial by Turkey. She is telling her personal story of how she was contacted by a Turkish nationalist group, which openly threatened her for writing about the Armenian Genocide and told her to stop working on that issue.

At that time one of her mentors – sociologist Dr. Samuel Oliner, who is a Holocaust survivor, urged her to go on with her work and not to give up.

“He told me “you have to do this! They want you to stop, they want to silence you”… When a survivor of Holocaust tells you to get it together, you get it together… And I did it, I finished. For me that experience shed light on why the denial is so important to attack. This is the reason – I was just someone in a rural area in Northern California, and I was receiving threats by Turkish nationalist groups because I wanted to bring attention to the Armenian Genocide. So we see multiple levels of Genocide denial – we see it on the official level as a national policy, we see it in personal relationships, but we also see it in the sense of trying to squash, to quell the freedom of expression”, - she says.

“[I] take that instance and juxtapose it with the United States staying silent… When they are staying silent, it’s as if in this personal attack against me they are turning their backs. I made that connection and I thought – even more so, I have to bring attention to this! And I was very critical in my paper about the need to recognize the Armenian Genocide, that the United States is 100% complicit in this denial; because when we choose to do nothing, that’s still an action!”

“The knowledge of my students about the Armenian genocide is something of the past, as if it is no longer relevant; but the denial is the continuation of Genocide. So if denial is still taking place and people are being not only prosecuted but persecuted for speaking the truth, that’s an extension of it, it’s the reality, it’s right now.”

In the context of why genocide recognition is important today, Maral also mentions the work of Dr. Roubina Peroomian who studies the psychological effects of the trauma and the denial on present generations and shows how the people living today are affected by it.

Maral Attallah visited Armenia as a participant in the 12th meeting of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that took place in Yerevan in July. Her grandfather is a Genocide survivor, and she was the first in her family to visit Armenia. For that reason, she says, this visit was something like a pilgrimage, as she came here not just for herself but for her family.

In the book at the Genocide Memorial she left the following note for her grandfather, “I came for you I stayed for us”.

Professor Attallah’s story is an encouraging example for all those who work on the Armenian issues and who pursue justice.
* Maral Attalah is a professor of Genocide Studies at Humboldt State University in the United States; she is the recipient of the 2013/2014 Humboldt State University Excellence in Teaching Award.

Interview by Nvard Chalikyan