Anti-Armenian sentiment

Anti-Armenianism (Armenian: Հակահայկականություն Hakahaykakanut'yun), also known as Armenophobia (հայատյացություն hayatyatsu'tyun) is the anti-Armenian sentiment, the fear, dislike of, hatred or aversion to the Armenians, Republic of Armenia and the Armenian culture, which can range in expression from individual hatred to institutionalized persecution.

Modern anti-Armenianism often seems to lack a racial and cultural basis and appears to be based more on geopolitics and history, in addition to diplomatic and strategic interests, involving the modern states of Turkey and Azerbaijan, although these prejudices usually extend to the widespread Armenian Diaspora. These facts do not themselves always imply a direct hate towards Armenians as a nation or ethnic group, as they tend to reflect the various historical and political tensions between these countries. Modern Anti-Armenianism is usually associated with either extreme opposition to the actions or existence of the Armenian Republic, historical falsifications, belief in an Armenian conspiracy to fabricate history and manipulate public and political opinion for political gain.

By location

Ottoman Empire and Turkey

See also: Racism and discrimination in Turkey

Although it was possible for Armenians to achieve status and wealth in the Ottoman Empire, as a community they were never accorded more than "second-class citizen" status and were regarded as fundamentally alien to the Muslim character of Ottoman society. In 1895, revolts among the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire lead to Sultan Abdül Hamid's decision to massacre tens of thousands of Armenians in the Hamidian massacres. During World War I, the Ottoman government massacred between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians in the Armenian Genocide. The position of the current Turkish government, however, is that the Armenians who died were casualties of the expected hardships of war, the casualties cited are exaggerated, and that the 1915 events could not be considered a genocide. This position has been criticized by international genocide scholars, and by several governments, which have resolutions affirming the genocide.

The difficulties currently experienced by the Armenian minority in Turkey are a result of an anti-Armenian attitude by ultra-nationalist groups such as the Grey Wolves. According to Minority Rights Group, while the government recognizes Armenians as minorities but as used in Turkey, this term denotes second-class status. Such sentiments are also prevalent in Azerbaijan as well, where atrocities have been committed on both sides, reducing public willingness to compromise.

In 2004, Belge Films, the film's distributor in Turkey pulled the release of Atom Egoyan's Ararat film, about the Armenian Genocide, after receiving threats from the Ülkü Ocakları, an ultra nationalist organization.

The Ankara Chamber of Commerce included a documentary, accusing the Armenian people of slaughtering Turks, with their paid tourism advertisements in the June 6, 2005 edition of the magazine TIME Europe. Time Europe later apologized for allowing the inclusion of the DVDs and published a critical letter signed by five French organizations. The February 12, 2007 edition of Time Europe included an acknowledgment of the truth of the Armenian Genocide and a DVD of a documentary by French director Laurence Jourdan about the genocide.

Hrant Dink, the editor of the Agos weekly Armenian newspaper, was assassinated in Istanbul on January 19, 2007, by Ogün Samast. He was reportedly acting on the orders of Yasin Hayal, a militant Turkish ultra-nationalist. For his statements on Armenian identity and the Armenian Genocide, Dink had been prosecuted three times under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code for “insulting Turkishness.” He had also received numerous death threats from Turkish nationalists who viewed his "iconoclastic" journalism (particularly regarding the Armenian Genocide) as an act of treachery.

İbrahim Şahin and 36 other alleged members of Turkish ultra-nationalist Ergenekon group were arrested on January, 2009 in Ankara. The Turkish police said the round-up was triggered by orders Şahin gave to assassinate 12 Armenian community leaders in Sivas. According to the official investigation in Turkey, Ergenekon also had a role in the murder of Hrant Dink.

In 2002, a monument was erected in memory of Turkish-Armenian composer Onno Tunc in Yalova, Turkey. The monument to the composer of Armenian origin was subjected to numerous vandalism over the course of the years, then unidentified people had taken out the letters on the monument. In 2012 Yalova City Hall completely disassembled the monument.

Pvt. Sevag Şahin Balıkçı was shot dead on April 24, 2011, the day of the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide during his military service in Batman, Turkey. It was later discovered that killer Kivanc Agaoglu was an ultra-nationalist.

On February 26, 2012, an Anti-Armenian demonstration took place in Istanbul which contained hate speech and threats towards Armenia and Armenians. Chants and slogans during the demonstration include: "You are all Armenian, you are all bastards", "bastards of Hrant can not scare us", and "Taksim Square today, Yerevan Tomorrow: We will descend upon you suddenly in the night."

Azerbaijan

Armenians had long been victims of persecution in Azerbaijan. Many were massacred in the 1920s and some suspect that foreign oil interests fomented anti-Armenian sentiment among Azeris against Armenians because Armenians played a major role in developing oil discovery and oil extraction. Before and during the Revolution anti-Armenianism was the basis of Azeri nationalism, and under the Soviet regime Armenians remain the scapegoats who are responsible for every failure. During the Soviet era, the Russians tried to create peaceful co-existence but the Azeris always resented the Armenians as being the intelligentsia of Azerbaijan. When the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh broke out, however, this changed radically. During the war, atrocities have been committed on both sides, reducing public willingness to compromise.

According to Fyodor Lukyanov, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs, “Armenophobia is the institutional part of the modern Azerbaijani statehood and the question of Karabakh is central to it”. British journalist Tom de Waal, who in 2005 published a documentary book “Black Garden” on the Karabakh conflict, writes: “The first-ever mass violence of the late Soviet era” was the pogrom of Armenians in Sumgait – unrest sparked on ethnic grounds in the town of Sumgait in Azerbaijan SSR in February 1988, accompanied by mass violence against the Armenian population of the town along with looting, arson, murders and destruction of property. On February 1988 at the session of Politburo of the Central Committee in Moscow it was officially acknowledged that mass pogroms and murders in Sumgait were carried out based on the nationality factor. It was then that academician Ziya Buniatov, whom Tom de Waal calls “Azerbaijan’s foremost Armenophobe” in his book, became famous by his article “Why Sumgait?” in which he blamed the Armenians themselves for organizing the pogrom.

Following the events in Sumgait new pogroms took place in Kirovabad (Gyanja) and later in Baku (1990). Andrei Polonski, who has researched the formation of the Azerabaijani national identity at the end of 1980s and beginning of 1990s, pointed out that “the Karabakh crisis and growing armenophobia contributed to the formation of the stable image of the enemy which has to a great extent influenced the nature of the new identity (primarily based on aggression and victory). From 1991 to 1994 the inter-ethnic conflict evolved into large-scale military actions for the control over Nagorno-Karabakh and some of the surrounding regions. In May 1994 a ceasefire was signed, which brought to the “freezing” of the conflict but not to its settlement. Today the Armenian forces control a considerable territory beyond the borders of the NKR, the question of refugees is still unresolved and the economic blockade continues.

As it is stated in the documents of International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, the unresolved conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh stimulated “armenophobia” in modern Azerbaijan. In this regard they mention regular acts of protest carried out by so-called Karabakh Liberation Organization which speaks against any restoration of ties between Armenia and Azerbaijan and is only for the military solution of the conflict. These acts have the full support of the Azerbaijani authorities.

There is wide media coverage of some statements made by Azerbaijani public figures and statesmen which demonstrate national intolerance, such as the statement “Deception and betrayal are in the Armenian blood” made by Allahşükür Paşazade, Chairman of the Caucasian Muslims Office in Azerbaijan.

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Uniformed men, identified as Azerbaijani soldiers, filmed in 2005 destroying the tombstones at the Armenian Cemetery in Jugha, Nakhichevan.

Vladimir Kazimirov (Russian diplomat, Russian Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative for Nagorno-Karabakh from 1992 to 1996, Head of the Russian Mediation Mission in Nagorno-Karabakh and Co-Chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group) has for a number of times announced about the existence of certain forces in Azerbaijan, up to the level of state authorities, which incite anti-Armenian sentiments. At the beginning of 2004, characterizing the decade following the conclusion of the ceasefire, Kazimirov writes:

Having found itself in the position of long-term discomfort, Baku has actually started pursuing a policy of a total ‘cold war’ against the Armenians. All types of economic “dampers” as well as any contacts with the Armenians (even those on the societal level) are rejected from the very start and those who maintain these contacts are prosecuted. In the enlightened Soviet state someone would be quite willing to instil such sentiments as fundamentalism, revanchism and Armenophobia, which as such only prevent the elimination of both causes and consequences of the conflict. Currently there is growing fanaticism and extremism even on the level of non-governmental organizations.

Starting in 1998, Armenia began accusing Azerbaijan of embarking on a campaign of destroying a cemetery of finely carved Armenian khachkars in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. On May 30, 2006, Azerbaijan barred the European Parliament from inspecting and examining the ancient burial site. Charles Tannock, British Conservative Party foreign affairs spokesman in the European parliament, stated: "This is very similar to the Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban. They have concreted the area over and turned it into a military camp. If they have nothing to hide then we should be allowed to inspect the terrain." Hannes Swoboda, an Austrian Socialist MEP and member of the committee barred from examining the site, said he hopes a visit can be arranged in the autumn. He stated that "if they do not allow us to go, we have a clear hint that something bad has happened. If something is hidden we want to ask why. It can only be because some of the allegations are true." He also warned: "One of the major elements of any country that wants to come close to Europe is that the cultural heritage of neighbors is respected." The seething anti-Armenian sentiment present in much of Azerbaijan, and which likely enabled the khachkar destruction, can perhaps best be sensed in the response that the leader of Azerbaijani national chess team, Teimour Radjabov, gave to a question on how he felt about playing against the Armenian team: "[the] enemy is the enemy. We all hate them."

On February 28, 2012 during his speech at the conference on the results of the third year into the State Program on the socioeconomic development of districts for 2009-2013, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said "...our main enemies are Armenians of the world and the hypocritical and corrupt politicians under their control..."

In 2004, Azerbaijani lieutenant Ramil Safarov murdered Armenian lieutenant Gurgen Markaryan in his sleep at a Partnership for Peace NATO program. In 2006, Safarov was sentenced to life imprisonment in Hungary with a minimum incarceration period of 30 years. After his request under the Strasbourg convention, he was extradited on August 31, 2012 to Azerbaijan where he was greeted as a hero, pardoned by Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev despite contrary assurances made to Hungary, promoted to the rank of major and given an apartment and over eight years of back pay. The Republic of Armenia cut all her ties with Hungary after this incident. The international community severely criticised the glorification of the murderer and the promotion of anti-Armenianism on the state level in Azerbaijan.

Russia

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Armenian youths protest anti-Armenian violence in Russia.

See also: Racism in Russia

A 19th-century Russian explorer, Vasili Lvovich Velichko, who was active during the period when the Russian tzarism carried out a purposeful anti-Armenian policy, wrote "Armenians are the extreme instance of brachycephaly; their actual racial instinct make them naturally hostile to the State".

The Second Chechen War and the associated Chechen terrorism in Russia served as major factors in the growth of intolerance, xenophobia and racist violence in Russia, directed in a great part against the people from the Caucasus. These include Chechens, Azerbaijanis, Georgians and Armenians. Six Armenians were killed as a result of racially motivated attacks on non-Slavic immigrants in 2006. So far, the reaction of the Russian government to these murders has been subdued, often failing to term the incidents hate crimes and declining to strongly condemn them.

According to a 2012 VTSIOM opinion research, 6% of people in Moscow and 3% in Saint Petersburg were "experiencing feelings of irritation, hostility" toward Armenians. For comparison, 31% had similar feeling toward Caucasians, 23% toward Tajiks, 17% toward Azerbaijanis and 9% toward Georgians in Moscow.

Georgia

In 2007, the Georgian media began running several stories on the March 5 parliamentary elections in Abkhazia, claiming that ethnic Armenians in the area, who make up roughly 20% of the local population, would be controlling the elections. The Georgian newspaper Sakartvelos Respublika predicted that much of the parliament would be Armenian and that there was even a chance of an Armenian president being elected. The paper also reported that the Abkazanian republic might already be receiving financial assistance from Armenians living in the United States. Some Armenian groups believe such reports are attempting to create conflict between Armenians and ethnic Abkhazians to destabilize the region. The Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, which is believed by many Georgians to have been backed by Russia with Armenian assistance, has caused many problems for Georgia, as the Abkhazian separatist resulted in thousands of ethnic Georgians killed and displaced, and Armenians living in Abkhazian region did side with local Abkhazians. Reports such as these suggest growing animosity towards Armenians in the country.

Georgia has also actively pursued a policy of desecration of Armenian spiritual-cultural values, churches and historical monuments on the territory of Georgia. On November 16, 2008, Georgian monk Tariel Sikinchelashvili instructed workers to raze to the ground the graves of patrons of art Mikhail and Lidia Tamamshev. The Armenian Church of Norashen in Tbilisi, built in the middle of the 15th century, has been desecrated and misappropriated by the Georgian government despite the fact that both Armenia's and Georgia's Prime-Ministers have reached an agreement on not to maltreat the church. Due to no law on religion, the status of Surb Norashen, Surb Nshan, Shamhoretsor Surb Astvatsatsin (Karmir Avetaran), Yerevanots Surb Minas and Mugni Surb Gevorg in Tbilisi and Surb Nshan in Akhaltsikhe is unknown since being confiscated during the Soviet era. Since independence in 1991, Georgian clergy have occupied the Armenian churches. Armenians in Georgia and Armenia have demonstrated against the destruction. On November 28, 2008, Armenian demonstrators in front of the Georgian embassy in Armenia demanded that the Georgian government immediately cease encroachments on the Armenian churches and punish those guilty, calling the Georgian party's actions White Genocide.

In August, 2011, Georgia's culture minister Nika Rurua sacked director Robert Sturua as head of the Tbilisi national theatre for "xenophobic" comments he made earlier this year, officials reported. "We are not going to finance xenophobia. Georgia is a multicultural country," Rurua said. Provoking public outrage, Sturua said in an interview with local news agency that "Saakashvili doesn't know what Georgian people need because he is Armenian." "I do not want Georgia to be governed by a representative of a different ethnicity," he added.

United States

While prejudice against ethnic Armenians in the United States is not widespread today, three notable cases do exist. In April 2007, the Los Angeles Times' Managing Editor Douglas Frantz blocked a story on the Armenian Genocide written by Mark Arax, allegedly citing the fact Arax was of Armenian descent and therefore had a biased opinion on the subject. However, other sources say that Frantz blocked Arax from completing the story not because of his descent, but rather because of his publicly political involvement in the topic and company policy that prohibited journalists from writing pieces on topics they were activists for in order to maintain the integrity of the paper that is closely linked with neutrality and unbiased journalism. Arax, who has published similar articles before, has lodged a discrimination complaint and threatened a federal lawsuit. Frantz, who did not cite any specific factual errors in the article, is accused of having a bias obtained while being stationed in Istanbul, Turkey. Harut Sassounian, an Armenian community leader, accused Frantz of having expressed support for denial of the Armenian Genocide and has stated he personally believed that Armenians rebelled against the Ottoman Empire, an argument commonly used to justify the killings. Although Sassounian was unable to provide any proof of his allegations, Frantz resigned from the paper not long afterward, possibly due to the mounting requests for his dismissal from the Armenian community. Frantz however has also been stated to have been upholding company policy that prohibited journalists from doing articles on topics in which they have publicly expressed a bias or been involved in political activity concerning the issue, like the case for the article at hand, because journalists are meant to maintain an air of unbiased professionalism. Another incident that received less coverage was a series of hate mail campaigns directed at Paul Krekorian, a city council candidate for Californian Democratic Primary, making racist remarks and accusations that the Armenian community was engaging in voter fraud.

The third act of alleged ethnic bias towards Armenians was on a KFI radio show with Bill Handel, who in an attempt at humour said that Glendale (a suburb of Los Angeles with a large Armenian community) should be sold to provide more money for the US economy due to the medical budget issue. When a listener replied to him via mail and said his actions were racist, a co-host replied "What the Turks started, Bill Handel will finish". The show was shortly afterwards made to apologize and has had subsequent Armenians whom they have interviewed.

On April 24, 2010, the day the Armenians mark the genocide of 1915, a group of Turkish-American protesters gathered in front of the Turkish Embassy in Washington and protested the commemoration of the genocide, or what they call "Armenian Lies", in a celebratory way. One sign at the protest read "Armenian Girls Like Turkish Guys"

Other countries

• Estonia: In a telephone interview on May 24, 1995, broadcaster with Radio Free Europe, Estonia service in Prague, stated that in February and March 1995, there have been several bomb attacks on Armenian-owned kiosks in the capital city Tallinn. The editor added that the identity of the perpetrator(s) of these acts remains unknown.
• Germany: During the Second Wold War, Turkish-born Armenian poet Missak Manouchian was one of the leaders of the French Resistance. Manouchian was discredit by Nazi Germany, particularly in the Affiche Rouge.
• Pakistan: Pakistan refuses to recognize Republic of Armenia because of their occupation of Nagorno Karabakh.
• Poland: According to the poll conducted by CBOS in Poland 2010 showed that 23% of Poles declare negative attitude towards Armenians. Among the nations that were asked, Armenians were one of the least liked ones.
• Romania: In one instance, President of Romania Traian Băsescu called the doctor who operated on him "the first competent Armenian I have met", referencing the Romanian finance minister Varujan Vosganian, who is of Armenian descent and whom Băsescu considered incompetent. This remark was considered racist by Vosganian.
• Tajikistan: When the Nagorno Karabakh war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan, some Armenians settled in Tajikistan. In the 1990s Pan-Turkish extremists from Turkey had entered many Central Asia republics and had started spreading anti-Christian and Anti-Armenian propaganda. According to rumour that was widespread, the Armenians were allegedly being resettled in new housing in Dushanbe experiencing acute housing shortage at that time. Similar false accusations had been made against Armenians which sparked the Sumgait Massacre. Despite the fact that Armenian refugees resettled not in public housing but with their relatives. This led to an Anti-Armenian pogrom by Dushanbe riots which targeted both government and Armenians. More than 20 people were killed, more than 500 were injured during the events.
• Turkmenistan: Soon after the events in Tajikistan, Anti-Armenian towards started to widespread in other Central Asian countries such as in Turkmenistan.
• Ukraine: Ethnic conflict in the Ukrainian city of Marhanets (Dnipropetrovsk Oblast) there was murder of a Ukrainian which was blamed on an Armenian individual and this provoked a fight between the Ukrainians and Armenians in the cafe "Scorpion". This event turned into riots and pogroms against Armenians, accompanied by the burning of houses and cars, which led to the exodus of Armenians from the city. This event occurred around a period where relations between Azerbaijan and Ukraine were very close.

By individuals

For several months in 1994, someone posted messages under the alias Serdar Argic claiming that the Armenian Genocide did not happen or that Armenians massacred Turks, on Usenet newsgroup threads mentioning the word Turkey.

Samuel Weems published the book Armenia: The Secrets of a "Christian" Terrorist State in May 2002. Weems has made such claims as the "number one export of Armenia is terrorism" and that there was no Armenian Genocide. Samuel Weems was disbarred as an attorney and charged with arson and insurance fraud. disbarred [2] His wife was also Turkish.

American historian Justin McCarthy is known for his controversial view that no genocide was intended by the Ottoman Empire but that both Armenians and Turks died as the result of civil war. Some attribute his denial of the Armenian Genocide to anti-Armenianism, but there is no independent evidence that he holds anti-Armenian views.

On more than one occasion, modern Azerbaijani historian Farida Mammadova has made anti-Armenian statements. During one interview, she stated "it is known, that on the whole planet it is exactly the Armenian people who are distinguished by their absence of spiritual and other human values", in reference to supposed destruction of an Azeri holy sanctuary, Aga-Dede south of Yerevan by Armenians in late 2005.

Barbaros Agri, a Turk uses the social networking site Facebook to advocate anti-Armenianism by being the creator of "The Biggest Lie Ever Told: The Armenian Genocide". The cause has 93,000 plus members. Agri's final comment was, "After years of research I have come to the conclusion that there was an Armenian genocide. I can not with a clear conscience continue this cause."

See also

• Armenian Genocide
• List of Armenian massacres
• White Genocide
• Anti-Turkism

Further reading

• Hilmar Kaiser: Imperialism, Racism, and Development Theories. The Construction of a Dominant Paradigm on Ottoman Armenians, Gomidas Institute, Ann Arbor (MI) 1997