The Kurdish And
Armenians Genocides-From Censorship And Denial To Recognition?
By Desmond Fernandes
Apec Press, Stockholm, December 2007
ISBN: 91-89675-72-X
Turkey's repression of the Kurds has been widely documented - and is
acknowledged as a major obstacle to Turkey's accession to the European Union.
But what lies behind such repression? Fernandes confronts the issue head on,
forcing the reader to probe a question that many in Turkey and elsewhere would
rather avoid: does the systematic repression of the Kurds amount to genocide?
Open discussion of this issue is critical if a long-term resolution of the
Kurdish issue is to be achieved - Nicholas Hildyard, Policy Analyst.
The book is an exceptionally important read for anyone with a broad interest in
human rights and social justice. It has a scholarly account of the historical
background to the present awful situation of Turkish Armenians and Turkish
Kurds. In particular, the book provides a powerful comparative analysis of the
policies of the US, Israel and Turkey in terms of their rationale for labelling
human atrocities as genocide - Dr. Julia Kathleen Davidson, Research Fellow,
Faculty of Education, University of Glasgow and Membership Secretary of Scotland
Against Criminalising communities (SACC).
In this important book, Desmond Fernandes exposes the details of the sordid and
largely hidden role of Israel and the US Israel Lobby in preventing Congress
from recognizing the Turkish genocide of the Armenians - Jeff Blankfort, Former
Editor, Middle East Labor Bulletin.
Among its Cold War victories the United States certainly succeeded in its
ambition to make the world safe for nationalism. As identity politics is
reprocessed as a function of global capital, and rehabilitated as its natural
ally, Desmond Fernandes documents the fractured consequences of the ready-made
social fantasy - Variant: Cross Currents in Culture.
Desmond Fernandes writes for those who spoke the truth and were murdered, those
who spoke 200 days ago and are still imprisoned, and for those who live in
terror and in silence, or who meet in nameless buildings, so that the words
'GENOCIDE', ethnic cleansing, or the Turkish military word 'TEMIZLEME', may be
heard as a siren call for the muted victims of the Turkish state - Diamanda
Galás, Composer and Performer of Songs of Exile, Vena Cava, Schrei X, Plague
Mass and Defixiones, Will And Testament.
Fernandes' painstaking investigation sheds much needed light on the collusion
between the Turkish State and the Israel lobby in preventing recognition of one
of the darkest episodes of the past century, the genocide of Ottoman Turkey's
ethnic Armenians - Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, Spinwatch.
[This is] a judiciously assembled vast, syntactic mosaic 'illustrating' the
total state terror inflicted upon two ancient peoples ... Desmond Fernandes has
laboriously integrated a vast amount of historical events, scholarly data,
secret documents, live witnesses, relevant literature and even poetry ... [He]
has hit the target: mainly encapsulating the enormity of censorship, denial and
recognition of that ultimate crime of man's inhumanity to man - Genocide -
Khatchatur I. Pilikian [from the Epilogue].
Desmond Fernandes is a policy analyst and former Senior Lecturer in Human
Geography and Genocide Studies at De Montfort University, England. He has
published widely in a number of journals and is co-author of Genozid an den
Kurden in der Türkei? - Verfolgung, Krieg und Zerstörung der ethnischen
Identität (2001, Medico International, Frankfurt). Forthcoming titles by the
author include The Kurdish Genocide in Turkey and US, UK, German, Israeli and
NATO 'Inspired' Psychological Warfare Operations against the 'Kurdish Threat' in
Turkey and Northern Iraq, due to shortly be released by Apec Press, Stockholm.
The book can be ordered securely online via Paypal at http://www.techybits.net/desfernandes/
at the recommended retail price of £14.99 (postage and packing free within the
UK). It can also be ordered from most bookshops in the UK and via the UK
distributor AK Press and Distribution (http://www.akuk.com/; http://www.akuk.com/dosearch.php?itemid=5326
).
