London Conference:Turkish–Armenian Relations: 30Jan 2009

Refreshments available from 6 pm in the Senior Dining Room
(Located in the Old Building, 5th Floor, opposite the East Building)

New Theatre, E171 East Building
London School of Economics
Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE

GUEST SPEAKERS . .

Prof. Jeremy Salt

The ‘Armenian Question’ 1878-1918: a Counter-Narrative

‘Somewhere between three and four million Ottoman civilians are thought to have died during the First World War. The causes of death of both Muslims and Christians – massacre, malnutrition, exposure and disease – were the same for all but while the suffering of Christians, and especially the Armenians, has been firmly embedded in the western historical, political and cultural mainstream, the fate of the Muslims, nearly a century later, remains invisible and unexamined. The need is long overdue for deconstruction and recontextualisation of the ‘Armenian question’. This talk will look at some of the issues involved’.

“The Ottoman archives remain largely unconsulted. When so much is missing from the fundamental source material, no historical narrative can be called complete and no conclusions can be called balanced.” Jeremy Salt

Sükrü Server Aya
Globalization of Ethical and Humane Values

The theme of the speaker is the huge distortion of information distributed by press and TV media, causing misjudgements for many incidents of the past and present. The speaker gives a few examples from the past and present and stresses the importance of a ‘global understanding and agreement of the same humane and ethical values’ for a happier peaceful future!

“This study may be interpreted as a token for humane values, common to all, such as decency, not lying – cheating – swindling – stealing – slandering etc. and promotes the need for trust, compassion, respect for other humans, disregarding their ethnicity, nationality or faiths, beyond their control or personal preferences!” Sukru S. Aya

Chaired By
Prof. Belma Baskett

The Way Forward
This conference has been organised in the memory of 34 Turkish diplomats and other innocent victims who were murdered by various Armenian terrorist groups, while serving abroad between 1973 and 1994 and whose only crime was being born ‘Turkish’.
Most of the perpetrators have never been brought to justice, of the few that were,
only some were imprisoned and given very light sentences.

Non – Members Welcome

Attendance is free but by registration only. Please register by 28th January at [email protected]
or telephone 07788 908 803

*6.00 pm Refreshments (Senior Dining Room, Old Building, 5th Floor, opposite the East Building)
6.45 pm Conference (New Theatre – E171 East Building)

Organised by THE FEDERATION OF TURKISH ASSOCIATIONS UK
www.turkishfederationuk.com

LSE CONFERENCE GUEST SPEAKERS
Prof Jeremy Salt: Jeremy Salt runs courses on the modern Middle East and media and propaganda in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University, Ankara. He has taught at the University of Melbourne, where he took his PhD in Middle Eastern studies, and Boğazici (Bosphorus) University in Istanbul. His publications include Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians 1878-1896 (Frank Cass, London, 1993), a study of the involvement of foreign governments and missionary organizations in the development of the ‘Armenian question’ in the late 19th century. He also writes on the politics of the modern Middle East, with an emphasis on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab LandsHe (University of California Press, July 2008) studies the involvement of the ‘West’ in the Middle East over the past two centuries. Journals in which his articles have appeared include The Muslim World, Current History, Middle Eastern Studies, Journal of Palestine Studies, Third World Quarterly and the International Journal of Turkish Studies.

Sükrü Server Aya: Born in 1930, he has been living in Istanbul since 1939. He is a graduate of the reputed Robert College founded in 1863 by Protestant Missionaries, now Bogazici University. After two years in engineering school, he had to quit and work abroad to support his family, he returned after two years of work with a Dutch and Swiss Company, and graduated in 1953 with a BA in Literature instead of Mechanical Engineering. By profession, he was an importer-distributor of engine rebuilding machinery and shop equipment and has been a globetrotter on business and pleasure visiting nearly all industrial countries. He had and has many friends of Armenian ethnicity and after 1985, being a fair history reader, started to read on the Turkish – Armenian history, in which his graduating school was instrumental in the past. In 2004, after a biased article was published in National Geographic Magazine, he started to put together various excerpts from mainly anti-Turkish English readings. His book “The Genocide of Truth” was presented in Istanbul in April 2008 as a publication of Istanbul Commerce University and has been distributed for free, mostly overseas. A shortened Turkish version of the same book was just presented in Istanbul in mid January 2009 under the title “Genocide Traders and Truth”.

Chair: Prof. Belma Ötüş Baskett : Born in Istanbul and educated at Robert College, Istanbul; Faculty of Languages, Ankara University; University of California, Berkeley, has degrees in B.S., Honors Diploma, MA, PhD. Lecturer for 23 years at Middle East Technical University, Ankara; Michigan University(12 years), Visiting Prof. at University of Pittsburgh, Kansai Gakuin University and Kobe College, Japan; Bilkent University, Ankara; University of Surrey at Roehampton for 2 years. She has written and translated many books as well as monographs; Editor of Ufuk magazine and Turkish Area Studies Review, has more than 60 articles published in Turkey, USA, UK, Austria and Spain. President of International Society for Contemporary Literature and Theatre.