Attorney at Law, Harvey A. Silverglate of Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, has issued the following statement on Jun 11, 2009 after Judge Mark Wolf of the federal district court in Boston dismissed, on technical grounds, the complaint filed by a number of Massachusetts high school teachers and students, along with the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, seeking to reverse the censorship of the state-issued curricular guide that currently contains a one-sided selection, produced by political pressure, of historical materials on the question of whether the violent events during the World War One era in the fading Ottoman Empire constituted a genocide:
“ The Supreme Court and the various courts of appeals have in a number of opinions asserted that it is a violation of the First Amendment for public officials to remove books from a library simply because pressure groups have agitated for removal of politically incorrect or ideologically controversial points of view. Judge Mark Wolf of the federal district court in Boston has ruled against our clients – public school teachers and students – on the mistaken assumption that theMassachusetts Curricular Guide is more like a classroom textbook than like a school library. That is clearly wrong. The Massachusetts Department of Education provided the materials contained in the Curricular Guide in order to give teachers a wide variety of supplemental instructional materials from which they could choose – or decline to choose – resources to use in their classrooms. This is precisely the role that a school library performs. The judge missed this point because he failed to see that, in the 21st century, school libraries are on-line, not necessarily on book shelves. The electronic nature of these supplemental instructional materials does not change the fact that they are more like library books than like classroom curricula. The Curricular Guide is in effect a school library in cyberspace.
We believe that the Court of Appeals will reverse Judge Wolf’s order because that order is stuck in an earlier century. The on-line nature of the materials do not condemn them to less constitutional protection than the books in a library have traditionally been accorded. We will seek the support of a variety of civil liberties and educational organizations in seeking to reverse this overly narrow view of how the First Amendment applies to speech in the current century. This case is not about whether the historical events involved are correctly or incorrectly characterized as a “genocide.” That is a subject for scholars and educators, not politicians and pressure groups, to decide. This case is about censorship, pure and simple, at the hands of special-interest pressure groups that do not want both sides of the debate to be aired. The school teachers and students who are plaintiffs in this case will be making a decision over the next few days as to how to proceed. An appeal is likely. “
Despite this written statement, when Harvey A. Silverglate was still misquoted, or quoted out of context, he had this to say about it:
“… I’m afraid that the Boston Globe reporter reported part of what I said, but not enough of what I said to put it into proper context. It is, in fact, undeniable that many Armenians died at the hands of the Turks, and that many Turks died at the hands of the Armenians. It was a war situation (World War One). The Armenian population within the Empire took the side of the Empire’s war enemy. The question debated is whether there was or was not a genocide. The most authoritative and fair account I know of is Guenter Lewy’s book, The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide (University of Utah Press, 2005)… I’ve given it to some reporters, but I doubt any have read it. The Globe statement is unbalanced; I pointed out that the killing went in both directions; it was wartime. It may have been the reporter. It may have been his editor. I don’t write the stories. I did send a written statement … and my written statement contains no such slanted statements, as you can see.”
In another communication, Harvey A. Silverglate made it clear that this case was about censorship. He wrote, if scholarly opposing views are included initially in the curriculum on their academic merits and later on removed upon Armenian pressure, that is censorship. Here are his exact words: “… if (contra-genocide) materials are initially included on their educational merits, removal under pressure is not lawful…”
Can any reasonable, dispassionate, and fair person disagree with attorney Harvey A. Silverglate?
And here is my take on all this:
Firstly, I thank Harvey A. Silverglate, the plaintiff in the censorship case described above, for his principled stand against the aggressive, irrational, and fanatic Armenian lobby, on the manner in which the controversial Turkish-Armenian conflict should be taught in Massachusetts high schools. Silverglate wants all relevant views, facts, and figures included, without attempting to censor—just to appease some nagging Armenian pressure groups—those responsible, opposing views and scholarly counter arguments.
Secondly, one should be aware that this case is not about whether or not a genocide took place, but how a controversial subject, such as the Turkish-Armenian conflict, should be taught to our sons and daughters in high schools.
In view of the facts that Armenian terrorism claimed four innocent Turkish lives in America alone, including one in Boston—Orhan Gunduz, a Turkish-American businessman, assassinated by Armenian terrorists on 5 April 1982—not to mention hundreds of bombings, bomb threats, assaults and batteries, acts of intimidation and harassment, death threats and others directed at those who challenge the Armenian version of history nationwide, indeed worldwide, I must applaud Silverglate for his spirited fight and truly grand vision.
Finally, realizing the irony that the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (i.e. Protestant Missionaries, since 1810,) Armenian Revolutionary Federation World Headquarters (ARF,) and the Boston Globe newspaper (1876,) all with deep-routed and slef-documented anti-Muslim, and anti-Turkish prejudices are located in Boston, Silverglate’s mission becomes all the more significant, courageous, and even revolutionary.
What’s a more brilliant tribute to Boston, the city of that revolutionary tea party of 1773, than a (Turkish) coffee party of 2009, as in the lawsuit challenging the bias, bigotry, and taboos in American education, media, and politics.
This was round one. Everyone is already on notice that hate-inspired groups (Armenian or others) can no longer dictate that their one-way propaganda material be taught as settled history to our impressionable, young sons and daughters. We, Americans of Turkish descent, simply shall not allow it. We shall fight it in courts, in academia, in media, in politics, and wherever there is anti-Turkish bias and bigotry. Just like anti-Semitism is quickly identified, condemned, litigated, and punished, all within the confines of the law, so shall be anti-Turkism. Next time you say genocide, you’d better be prepared to prove it with a court order, just like Nuremberg’s, otherwise you might be served one.
Even if the Turkish government comes to some sort of agreement with Armenia, and even opens borders with Armenia one day, we shall resist any such agreement if our history, culture, and/or heritage are disfigured, distorted, or even so much as disrespected in the slightest manner, under that nagging, deceptive, and hateful Armenian pressure.
Any history that does not address the six T’s of the Turkish-Armenian conflict [i.e. tumult (rebellions), terrorism, treason, territorial demands, the Turkish victims of Armenian war crimes (caused by the first four T’s) and, finally, TERESET (temporary resettlement order of May 30, 1915) triggered as a response to the first five T’s but not genocide] shall be challenged down to its last comma and period.
Period!
Ergun Kirlikovali
www.ethocide.com