YEREVAN, 31 MARCH, ARMENPRESS: In July for several days, Yerevan will become a gathering place of the world famous Genocide experts. More than 300 representatives of the scientific world from different continents will come to participate in the conference of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Armenpress presents an exclusive interview with the President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars Daniel Feierstein.

- All the IAGS Conferences used to be enriching due the wide spectrum of disciplines and cultures among the IAGS members. However, this Conference will be particularly significative due to the importance of the centennial of the Genocide committed by the Ittihadist Turkey against the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks. The origins of the IAGS in 1994 were directly concerned with the recognition of the genocide against those groups, in a moment in which the theories of the uniqueness of the Nazi genocide were still strong. So, many scholars of the IAGS have that recognition in our hearts as one of the origins of the comparative genocide studies and most of the first IAGS´s resolutions were directly concerned with the clear recognition that the annihilation of Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks had a genocidal dimension. That´s why the possibility to meet for the first time in Yerevan, commemorating the annihilation of the Armenians and contributing with the memorialization and the fight for justice and against the oblivion makes this Conference very special in its consequences.

- The IAGS issues Call for Proposals for its next Conferences, usually a couple of years before. As usual, we have received many good proposals but no one had doubts when we have received the proposal by the Armenian Genocide Museum to host the 2015 Conference in Yerevan. The significance of being in Yerevan in the moment of the Centennial of the genocide was too strong for the Committee which took the decission. On the other hand, the proposal prepared by the Museum was quite good and it will guarantee an outstanding and enriching Conference, probably one of the most important in the whole history of the IAGS.

- In my opinion, the most important element is to spread the information among the civil population all over the world and to allow the different societies to deal with the consequences of the genocide, either in Turkey, in the diasporas and elsewhere. I am convinced that, during the last decades, most of these objectives were successful beyond the role of the different govts in Turkey. The genocide committed by the Ittihadist State was denied for more than 70 years but during the last decades it became clear in almost the whole world what happened and even if the current government in Turkey continues denying the facts or pushing different States against that recognition, most of the people know (inside and outside Turkey) what happened to the Ottoman society between 1915 and 1917 and the following years. I am not particularly confident in the political recognitions by international bodies like Parliaments but it is more important the deep and more fruitful work with the civil societies, the works in schools, universities, in the streets of any country and the different ways in working through the consequences of the different genocidal experiences, the eternal fight for justice, truth and memory.

- During the last century many populations (like the Yazidis nowadays) have been victims of the games of geopolitics, sometimes direct or indirect victims of the different types of intervention of the "super-powers" in societies in which they ignore almost everything. The ISIS was not a genuine product of the Islamic world but, as other organizations like Al Qaeda or others, a creation of intelligence services of the “super-powers" trying to overthrow or destabilize secular Islamic governments (it was the case in Irak or Aghanistan in the past and it is the case, for example, in Bangladesh nowadays with groups like Jamaat al Islami). So, instead of asking for more and more “military interventions” against “enemies” which change day-by-day (the heroes used to be devils months after and no one remember what the media said a year ago) my conviction is that the international community should be more respectful and supportive of the own processes in each region. The most destabilized regions in the Islamic world nowadays are the places which suffered foreign military interventions by the UN or the “super-powers" (Irak, Afghanistan, Libya) or places in which the foreign intervention supported militarily different groups trying to influence in a possible civil war (like in Sirya). So, it is quite clear the these “interventions” have not produced any kind of improvement for the civilian population. On the contrary, the number of civilians killed multiplied by 3, 5 or 6 after the military interventions. In all of these countries the situation worsened from a repressive regime to a total anarchy and chaos, in which genocidal groups like ISIS or others could grow and expand and different military gangs took control of different regions. So, it is clear that reality is far more complex than the superficial and banal pictures presented by the international media and that, so, we need a deeper and more careful analysis before any decission to drop bombs or send military equipment. To recover the humanitarian character of international interventions instead of military actions, the involvement with regional and national institutions and the cooperation South-South have shown better results than “dropping bombs” or creating “no-fly zones”. The “super-powers” have been the mega-killers during the XXth Century, so particularly the southerners like me (I am Argentine) have no hopes at all they will be the ones to protect the world from genocide. Maybe we should start the work among us (the ones who suffered the violence) trying to develop smaller but more effective ways to work together, asking the “super-powers (or mega-killers)" to stop sending weapons to our regions instead of asking them to send more.

Photo by www.lmneuquen.com.ar