Taner Akçam

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Altuğ Taner Akçam (born October 23, 1953) is a Turkish historian, sociologist and author. He is one of the first Turkish academics to acknowledge and openly discuss the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman government in 1915.

Contents

Biography

Akçam was born in Ardahan, Turkey to Dursun and Perihan Akçam.[1] He studied at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, and was a student of Faculty of Administrative Sciences, Department of Economics. He received his Bachelor of Administrative Sciences in 1976. Akçam stayed at the university as a Master's student and assistant in the same department for some time.

He received a nine-year prison sentence in Turkey for his involvement in producing a student journal that focused on Turkey’s treatment of the Kurdish minority.[2][3] This resulted in Amnesty International adopting him in 1976 as a prisoner of conscience.[3] After one year he escaped and was granted political asylum in Germany.[3][4] In August 1988 Akçam began work as a research scientist at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research.[5][6] He received his PhD from Hanover University with a dissertation titled, Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide: On the Background of the Military Tribunals in Istanbul between 1919 and 1922.[7]

Currently he belongs to the scientific staff of the Hamburg Foundation to promote science and culture, working at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. Beginning in 2002 Akçam has been a Visiting Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, United States, before joining Clark University.[7]

Work

He has published various books and articles in English, German and Turkish on the subject of Turkish-Armenian relations:

Books

Articles

Legal disputes

Akçam's political bent was evident during his university years. In March 1976, a year after graduating from Middle East Technical University, he was arrested for contributing to Devrimci Gençlik ("Revolutionary Youth"),[8] the journal of a prominent leftist organization aligned with Abdullah Ocalan, called Devrimci Yol ("Revolutionary Path").[9] He received a nine year sentence,[2] which he served for a year before escaping from Ankara Central Prison in March 1977.[8] He received asylum from Germany in 1978, where he obtained citizenship and resided until obtaining his doctorate degree in 1995.[2]

More recently, Akçam has faced harassment and persecution which he attributes to the Turkish authorities and Turkish American groups, as a result of his discussion of and willingness to recognize a genocide against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire.[10] On February 16, 2007 Akçam was detained at the Canadian border for nearly four hours. He was due to give a lecture at the invitation of the McGill University Faculty of Law and Concordia University. In explaining his detention, Taner Akçam says that Canadian authorities referred to an inaccurate, vandalized version of his biography on Wikipedia from around December 24, 2006, which called him a terrorist.[11] On Sunday, February 18, 2007 he was also detained at the US border and has been so far unable to find out the reason for his being detained there.[12] While on a lecture tour in 2007 he faced further harassment by various persons turning up and disrupting his various speaking engagements.[13]

In January 2007, the government officially launched an investigation against Akçam regarding an October 6, 2006, newspaper column in the Turkish-Armenian journal Agos.[citation needed] In it Akçam criticized the prosecution of Agos managing editor Hrant Dink for using the term "genocide", regarding the Armenian Genocide. The use of the term was construed by the prosecutor's office as the criminal offense of "insulting Turkishness" under Article 301 of Turkey's penal code.[14] Highlighting the term "genocide", Akçam declared himself an accessory to the charges against Hrant Dink, and urged readers to join in Dink's support. Later in January of 2007 an Istanbul court decided not to pursue the charges against Akçam.[15]

Awards

  • 2007. General Nonfiction category, Minnesota Book Award for A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility.[16]

References

  1. ^ Şişli State Head Prosecutor, Suspect’s Statement Form. Investigation № 2006/49047.
  2. ^ a b c Peter Schilling (December/January 2008). Is It Still Genocide if Your Allies Did It?. Law & Politics. Retrieved on 2008-05-16.
  3. ^ a b c Stefan Christoff (2007-02-22). "No shame in slaughter". Montreal Mirror 22 (34). 
  4. ^ Jonathan Q. Macmillan. "Author Argues That Armenian Genocide Happened", The Harvard Crimson, 2007-03-15. Retrieved on 2008-05-15. 
  5. ^ Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung (German)
  6. ^ Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung (German)
  7. ^ a b Faculty: Taner Akcam , Ph.D.. Clark University: Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Retrieved on 2008-05-16.
  8. ^ a b Taner Akçam: Biography. İletişim Yayınları. Retrieved on 2008-05-20. (Turkish)
  9. ^ Ali Kemal Özcan (2006). Turkey's Kurds: A Theoretical Analysis of the PKK and Abdullah Öcalan. Routledge. ISBN 0415366879. Retrieved on 2008-05-20. 
  10. ^ Taner Akcam (2007-03-17). A shameful campaign. ZNet. Retrieved on 2008-05-16.
  11. ^ Paul Jay (2007-06-22). A question of authority. CBC News. Retrieved on 2008-05-16.
  12. ^ Robert Fisk. "Caught in the deadly web of the Internet", The Independent, 2007-04-21. Retrieved on 2008-05-16. 
  13. ^ Juan Cole (2007-04-14). Detained in Two Worlds: The Taner Akçam Story. Informed Comment. Retrieved on 2008-05-16.
  14. ^ Aisha Labi (2008-05-16). Turkish Scholar Sues to Overturn Law on 'Denigrating Turkishness'. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved on 2008-05-16.
  15. ^ "Turkish historian cleared of charges for declaring 'genocide'", The New Anatolian, 2007-04-02. Archived from the original on 2008-05-15. 
  16. ^ Minnesota Book Awards. Retrieved on 2008-05-16.