LISTENERS REACT TO RFE/RL’S BROADCAST ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: Hrant Darbinian "How Disgusting!" "Well, of course, there was no Genocide. It’s the Armenians who killed themselves, they like it" – that’s how one of the listeners reacted to broadcast titled "Why so many historians in Turkey study the issue of Armenian Genocide". Russian Service of American Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) aired that item on April 22 and then placed the text on its Internet site. The feed came from RFE/RL correspondent in Istanbul. To its credit (or disgrace) Radio Liberty, got a lot of feedback. "Ahmadinejad denies Holocaust, madam from Istanbul denies Armenian Genocide. Congratulations to Radio Liberty – you are in a good company!", "It’s miserable for such a site as Radio Liberty. Especially on the eve of April 24. It ‘s not a worthy contribution but an editorial window dressing on the occasion of Genocide Memorial Day. Ashamed of Radio Liberty", "To hear them, so it is the Armenians who massacred the whole Turkish nation…", "Radio Liberty should apologize to its audience. Is it a high standard of journalism of Radio Liberty?", "Shame on you! Shame and disgrace!"… What outraged RFE/RL’s listeners and readers? The views and opinions of Turkish historians? Not only that, although the vast majority of respondents does not share them. "You presented the opinion of Turkish side. Try to ask the Armenians" The broadcast from Istanbul aired fifteen minutes -- infinitely long for the radio feed and mercilessly dragged out for a listener. This in itself is unprofessional, however question is, of course, not the format but its filling. For example, RFE/RL listener could learn that American professor Justin McCarthy "argues that the Genocide is but the historians’ invention" (meaning: not of Turkish historians); that the book "by famous British historian Norman Stone… ’World War One: A Short History’ completely refutes all theses of genocide". Quoting from that book, RFE/RL author explains why the Armenians had chosen April 24th as the day to commemorate their victims. It occurs that on that date "the chieftains of Armenian gangs who betrayed the Ottoman Empire were apprehended". Uninitiated listener could accept it just as one takes any information from authoritative neutral source. Any Armenian, however, shudders at hearing that, because it is on April 24, 1915 that the blossom of Armenian intelligentsia in Turkey was arrested, several hundred people – parliament deputies, writers, clergymen, doctors, journalists, actors, artists, publishers… Most of them were brutally killed or perished from malnutrition, thirst, physical privations. It is not our aim to repeat, then deny or seriously challenge all the nonsense and outright lies that found its way into RFE/RL report. Just as it is not our goal here to prove how groundless the claims of the quoted Turkish historians or some schoolteacher from Istanbul are. Nevertheless, there are such evident absurdities that is impossible to overlook. In RFE/RL broadcast aired in anticipation of the 95th anniversary of Armenian Genocide, "speaks one of the few witnesses of those terrible events, Kemal Aakay. He is about one hundred and seven years old". Here is what he shared with RFE/RL Istanbul correspondent – not as a historian, but as an eyewitness and participant of the events: "In the province of Van the Armenians rose in revolt. In our village there were about two hundred people, mostly women, men went to war. I was five years old. I do not remember everything, but recall that all were herded into one hut, a few days we spent without food, we were only given water, then all were shot; I was protected by my grandmother, she covered me with her body...". How is it that the old man, born about 1903, was in 1915, in his own words, just five, not 12 years old. And why such an obvious absurdity that undercuts the credibility of the entire heartbreaking testimony, was not noticed either by RFE/RL contributor in Istanbul, or by moderating editor in Prague? The result -- in listener’s reaction: "To give such a story on the eve of Remembrance Day for the victims of Armenian Genocide is mean, to say the least. I do not know what thought its author, but what is for me even more confusing is unprofessionalizm of Radio Liberty. Your article is biased and of anti-Armenian character". Another voice: "Let’s also say there were no massacres in Sumgait and Baku in 1988! One’s heart bleeds to hear and read such a nonsense, especially on a day like this, especially from Russians…" Meanwhile, the RFE/RL Istanbul correspondent answered -- more or less -- her headlined question: Why the study of Armenian genocide became the mass occupation of Turkish historians. Because, as she notes at the end of her item, "today the debates about history occupy a central place in Turkish politics. The Turkish public is extremely politicized and fractured, including views on the Armenian issue". Of course, she should of talked with those Turks who, in her words, "unreservedly recognize the Armenian Genocide". That, to the detriment of RFE/RL listeners, did not happen. At the same time, to be fair, the stringer reporting from Istanbul, hardly could or should be expected to present the Armenian position. Does it mean that RFE/RL listeners are up in arms without good cause? No, it does not. For the proper addressee of their frustration is the American Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as the source of information. In this case – of misinformation. Because the radio broadcast on Turkish position, unless it was accompanied or preceded by the position Armenian, as well as the positions of those, by now quite numerous, states that have officially recognized the bloody ethnic nightmare in the Ottoman Empire of 1915 – 1923 as the Armenian Genocide, hangs in the air. In the truest sense of the word. Such a broadcast becomes (and became!) just a distorted one-sided presentation of the reasons and circumstances of Armenian national tragedy – in Turkish view only, while the victim of the crime was practically rendered silent by the media organization, by RFE/RL. The radio is not a book with the pages to be turned over back and forth. RFE/RL is not a volume of "Judgement in Nuremberg" where one can read first the speeches of accusation and then of the defense and vice versa. This is why that broadcast by American RFE/RL is a cry of unprofessionalizm, which caused a painful offense to the listeners. Not only to Armenian listeners, but in the first place – to them: "That article must be translated into Armenian and reprinted in the local press. After that conduct a survey – how many Armenians will still go to the RFE/RL website, how many will switch on the set during Radio Liberty broadcasting hours, how many young journalists would like to deal with it ". A fish rots from the head Where did it come from – such a blatant editorial unprofessionalizm? It came from indifference. And that, in its turn, stems from the general atmosphere at RFE/RL – the atmosphere of hypocrisy and cynicism. Hence, the unbalanced broadcast items of monstrous proportions and equally monstrous effect. For the editors could not care less. Practically all the staff of RFE/RL language desks and services know that they are just the rightless mercenaries hired to talk about human rights – on the air for the pay. All of them know that RFE/RL president has over them such a power that not a single authoritarian ruler in the Radios’ broadcasting area could ever boast – in his own person, he is a policemen, a prosecutor in his own court without defense, a judge whose verdict is final without appeal, and the executor of his own judgements. Everyone knows that those prerogatives of RFE/RL boss are not included in employment contracts but imposed on RFE/RL foreign employees by its internal policies; however that feudal employment status is called a "free choice of law". Everyone at RFE/RL knows that the court case of Armenian Anna Karapetian v. RFE/RL is pending in the Czech Supreme court; and the lawsuit of Croatian citizen Snjezana Pelivan is submitted to the European Court of Human Rights – everyone knows that, but is afraid to discuss it out of fear to be fired without any explanation, just the way Anna Karapetian and Snjezana Pelivan were fired. Everyone knows that international media cover these court cases regularly – but not the RFE/RL own webpages. Everyone knows that Czech parliament already twice, in connection with Karapetian’s and Pelivan’s lawsuits discussed the issue of national discrimination of RFE/RL foreign employees. Everyone knows that RFE/RL personnel policies are developed and approved by the Broadcasting Board of Governors in Washington, and that Hillary Clinton is the member of that Board, as well as of RFE/RL Board of Directors, so that for them there is no official place and no official to complain to. Everyone knows that, as a Senator, Hillary Clinton strongly supported the approval by the Congress of a resolution that would brand the extermination of Armenians in Ottoman Empire as Genocide. And everyone knows that, as the Secretary of State, she, equally strongly, opposes such a resolution: the Communists claim dialectics of history, the anti-Communists – dialectics of chair. It’s a big principal difference as everybody knows… Everybody knows, as an indignant listener wrote to RFE/RL, that "Radio Liberty has long ceased to be the Radio Liberty". Or, as in the last issue of The Journal of International Security Affairs, Washington, wrote Victor J. Yasman, a political analyst who worked over twenty years at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich and Prague, "Today, RFE/RL is just a shadow of its former self", and explained why: Empty words diverge with deeds, and the deeds are drifting from bad to worse. Meanwhile, if one is to judge by tone and content of the listeners’ reaction to RFE/RL "looking from Turkey" broadcast on Armenian genocide, hypocritical and inept bureaucracy in Prague and Washington keeps laboring on further destruction of RFE/RL reputation and integrity. In the words of Mario Corty, former RFE/RL Russian Service director, "Those among the old KGB and the new FSB officials, who see the U.S. as an enemy rather than a valuable and generous partner of Russia, could only be enormously happy with such leaders in charge of U.S. international broadcasting as the current U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors executive team. They have no reason to worry or need to do anything themselves to undermine U.S.-funded broadcasts; it is being done for them by these American government officials who are now trying hard to hide their mistakes from the White House, the U.S. Congress and the American public." For how long they’ll be successful? PS. On April 26, the text version of RFE/RL broadcast "Why so many historians in Turkey study the issue of Armenian genocide" and the listeners’ feedback letters were removed from Internet site of the Russian Service. |
