Practical aspects to confront ongoing crimes spawned by hatred

Ваган Бабаханян

01.02.2021

in Russian – https://aga-tribunal.info/vahan-31-3-2021/

Note for the conference on March 29-31, 2021.

Vahan Babakhanyan, Sankt Petersburg, Russia bvagan@mail.ru

March 30, 2021

On the paradoxical attitude of the world to the country that is “champion” of hatred, violence and genocide

How complete would a World War II discussion of fascism be without mentioning Germany or the Holocaust? Or how complete would a discussion of the health of the world’s population in 2020 be without mentioning the coronavirus?

Therefore, I do not want to be silent when, on the themes of violence, rhetoric of hatred and genocide, among dozens of very interesting reports, unfortunately, it has never been said about one country:

– whose authorities for a long time are hatred and violence “champions”, hereandafter “champions” in hatred, which they practice since kindergarten,
– also “champions” in total lies at the state level, in distortion of history, fakes, falsifications, appropriation of someone else’s heritage,
– about the only country in the world in which people are arrested only because they belong to a nationality they don’t like,
– about the country that destroyed the graves and monuments of those who liberated prisoners in concentration camps in WWII. Moreover, during the Second World War, representatives of “unwanted” (for a newborn title nationality with constantly changing identity depending on the situation) nationalities were sent to the front at times more in order to solve title nation’s problems by this method of hidden genocide,
– which recently destroyed the monument to the victims of genocide,
– about a country whose authorities and elite heroized a murderer who in a European country being racially motivated cut off the head of a sleeping person, and before heroization paid a bribe so that in this European country a murderer sentenced for life would be released from prison and be back home for awards,
– about a country that, only in one month of March, during the conference, organized insults, vandalism and destruction of several Christian churches[1], cemeteries,
– about a country where a totalitarian, dictatorial regime does not allow freedom of speech, where, following the example of the Nazis in Germany, books by their own national writer were burned on the street for the truth spoken[2],
– about a country, in a documentary novel[3] about which in our time there was an episode: a girl of this title nationality, seeing how her congeners kill and rape representatives of another nationality, when asked “who are you? are you of our title nationality?” she, being horror-stricken of mass atrocities, replied “nooo”. Then they dragged her with wild screams, beating her, and burned her alive… Another documentary story is called “How Zhanna Babayan was eaten”[4],
– a country about which one of its dissidents living in the West said the other day: if Satan himself saw the torture of thousands of people only recently, he would cry[5],
– about a country that is, in fact, a “champion” in terms of the duration and multiplicity of recurrent crimes of genocide – for more than a century (crimes from 1918 till 1990 and after 1990). About 100 years ago, an outstanding Russian poet of Jewish origin Osip Mandelshtam and his wife, seeing in place the consequences of the atrocities of the authorities of this country, remained hungry – they could not take bread and food from hands of those who committed or supported bloody crimes…

About practicality

On March 29, the famous American political analyst Eric Hakobyan criticized both UNESCO and the EU, emphasizing the futility of conferences and any programs with loud names[6].

I would really not like such criticism to be associated with this conference as well, because almost all the reports were very important and interesting. The only question is that the “champion” in hatred, violence and genocide manages to ensure that the truth is not told about that country. That the first lady of this country, the “champion” in crimes against humanity, still remains a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador[7]. That is why I want to name this “champion” in hatred, violence and genocide.

About complexity

Dear Molly Andrews said many times that the topic of East and West Germany, the topic of fascism and neo-fascism is very complex.

Dear Shatha Almutawa, when asked on the question in the title of her interesting report about the Turkish series “Sword of Justice or Sword of Nationalism?” said that the question is difficult – the series has both the first and the second.

Several distinguished participants spoke in their reports about the Holocaust – the difficulty of promoting information and its perception.

The question of the country “champion” in hatred is also a difficult one, due to decades of silence, bribery, and sophisticated manipulation technologies through the media, TV shows, advertising, etc. The “champion” in hatred has achieved its goal – the world community is deceived, not informed, does not know the truth. But this is not a particular or local issue. This is sort of virus that (God forbid) will come to the West as well. Just like the coronavirus from China “suddenly” took over the entire globe. There is something in common between the coronavirus and the virus of the country “champion” in hatred – complexity, secrecy, cunning, deceit, spread, mutation, longevity. Note, we speak about politics and ideology of country, its authorities, elite, not about nation or people in general.

Crimes of the “champion” in hatred in recent months

On September 27 last year, a terrorist coalition of a number of countries (with a population of about 100 million) led by the “champion” in hatred attacked the small Republic of Artsakh (Karabakh) (with a population of about 150 thousand). More than one hundred thousand civilians (about 70% of the republic) were evacuated, the first phase of the war lasted 44 days, several thousand at the age of 19-25 were killed, dozens of major war crimes and crimes against humanity with severed heads were committed, dozens of videos of medieval abuse prisoners and civilians, destroyed churches, acts of vandalism and unthinkable atrocities …

Detailed reports on the rhetoric of hate and violence are presented by the human rights ombudsmen[8]. The reaction is zero.

Why are the recurrent crimes of the “champion” in hatred since 1918 continuing to this day?

The ongoing recidivism of the “champion” in hatred is a natural result of the following factors:

– the racist and genocidal policy of the “champion” with the ideological poisoning of the consciousness of its own citizens from kindergartens to academic institutions,
– bribery of various foreign officials, media, politicians, etc. on the part of the “champion” (shocking cases are known in Italy, Germany, etc.),
– lack of an integrated approach to confronting criminal practices of such structures as the UN, UNESCO. The attitudes of these structures need to be independently investigated.
– inadequacy of only moral condemnation of crimes (more than 60 bodies – cities, provinces, states, parliaments – of 15 countries have condemned the crimes of the “champion”[9]),
– inadequacy of dozens of reports of the ombudsmen and MFA of Armenia and Artsakh on the atrocities committed by the “champion” in hatred[10],
– lack of general legal support and application in international practice (by the way, just one person was first convicted by ICC for desecration of a cultural object in Mali several years ago, in 2012[11]),
– misunderstanding by the world community of the global danger from the “small hotbed” in Artsakh and from the “permissible” crimes of the terrorist bloc that attacked Artsakh in 2020 with its hybrid ideology of radical Islam, Pan-Turkism, ISIS and others.

Why don’t powerful countries stop the “champion” in hatred?

One influential country is itself a “champion” in the past, and it has spawned a new “champion” and wants to create an entire empire – while in the East and Africa, then in Europe.

Another influential country is itself a victim of genocide in the past, wants to use the “champion” against Iran. The third considers the “champion” in hatred to be a zone of own interests. The fourth neighboring country, although Christian, but for 2-3 months passed through military planes and vehicles with hundreds of tons of weapons of death, which killed thousands of neighbor young Christian people. Britain (with a known preferences of MI6 head) vetoed an end to the war. Italy and Germany were silent, but after the disclosure of the facts of bribery of officials, much becomes clear. France and the United States are hard to understand – at different times they showed events worthy of the Guinness Book: their parliaments vote unanimously on some issue, but their presidents nullify the opinions of the elected representatives of the people. Is it possible with the described to influence by means of art and morality?

The root of all these things is the priority of the conjuncture. In politics, the conjuncture is permissible and important. But when it comes to categories of such caliber as genocide, there is no place for conjuncture. This is ungodly and sooner or later will return like a boomerang to those for whom momentary goals are more important than crimes against humanity. The responsibility for silence, for aiding, as forms of complicity, has not been canceled. The rhetoric of hate is not only in the spoken words. The rhetoric of hatred is also the fact of silence and suppression at certain moments of the truth.

What ways can serve as prevention and help to confront new crimes of the “champion” and other actors of hatred and violence?

I propose to cooperate on the following practical topics, on which a group of independent experts from different countries is working:

– research on genocidogenicity (culture of genocide, genocidal culture), and not only on the facts of genocide. Development of ideas of one of the founders of cultural studies[12]. The diagnosis of the disease, its genesis is important, and not only the fact of the crime, to which the disease naturally leads to[13].
– research of the rhetoric of hatred not only in the reflection in literature and art, but in the complex of the general cultural approach. Hate rhetoric as an element of cultural genocide (culturcide). The phenomenon of culturcide is ignored[14]. Raphael Lemkin offered to include it in the 1948 Genocide Convention, but was refused – refused by Great Britain, the USA and France. The United States promised to ratify the Convention first, but ratified it only in 1988 – 30 years after the death of the disappointed Lemkin[15].
– development of a draft Convention on cultural genocide,
– correction of inaccuracies in the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of an Armed Conflict, development of a draft new Convention taking into account the ideas of the Roerich Pact[16],
– an independent critical audit of the practical activities of the United Nations and UNESCO on R2P.

Dear Molly Andrews wrote in Zoom’s chat on March 30th that some of her students were unaware of the Berlin Wall. But the Berlin Wall is not only about what was inside Germany. This is also a metaphor. I see another “Berlin Wall” between scholars from many countries participating in the conference and independent experts in Armenia and Russia. I propose to jointly remove this wall and conduct a “trial” Zoom between at least 2-3 conference participants and 2-3 participants from our side. Those who support this “Berlin Wall” are interested in the world not knowing the name of the “champion” of hatred, violence, culture and genocide (crimes till 1990 and after 1990) – Azerbaijan.

[1] https://aga-tribunal.info/en/25-3-2021-en/ https://aga-tribunal.info/en/agms-statement-22-3-2021-eng/ https://aga-tribunal.info/en/vandalism-27-3-2021-en/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akram_Aylisli https://aga-tribunal.info/aylisli/

[3] http://nashasreda.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Otdalyayuschijsya_bereg.pdf page 123

[4] https://aga-tribunal.info/liter_1/

[5] https://aga-tribunal.info/mamedov-25-3-2021/

[6] https://youtu.be/lFq87QAS-LM

[7] https://aga-tribunal.info/en/petition-nov-2020-en/

[8] https://www.ombuds.am/en_us/site/SpecialReports https://www.artsakhombuds.am/en/ad_hoc_reports

[9] https://miaban.ru/info/artsakh/artsakh-chrono/

[10] https://aga-tribunal.info/appeals-2/ https://aga-tribunal.info/en/mfa-18-3-2021-en/ https://aga-tribunal.info/en/mfa-26-2-2021-en/ https://aga-tribunal.info/en/mfa-9-1-2021-en/ https://aga-tribunal.info/en/mfa-16-3-2021-en/ https://aga-tribunal.info/en/mfa-22-2-2021-en/

[11] https://aga-tribunal.info/icc-2016/

[12] https://aga-tribunal.info/en/markaryan_en/