“Genocide Studies and Prevention” new volume issued

PanARMENIAN.Net - Now in its sixth year of publication, “Genocide Studies and Prevention” Volume 6.2 features in its latest issue a diverse mix of original articles that cover a wide range of topics related directly to the field of genocide studies.

According to The Armenian Weekly, this issue features articles by the Zoryan Institute’s chairman, Roger W. Smith, its associated scholar, Bedross Der Matossian, and a graduate of the Genocide and Human Rights University Program (GHRUP), Regine King from Rwanda.

Regine King, a Ph.D. candidate at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, and a graduate of GHRUP, writes about “Healing Psychosocial Trauma in the Midst of Truth Commissions: The Case of Gacaca in Post-Genocide Rwanda.” Writing as a Rwandan community-based mental health researcher and practitioner concerned with the mental wellbeing of individuals and communities that survive mass violence and genocide, she critiques the exclusive use of community-based truth commissions, regardless of their emphatic endorsement by post-conflict governments and multilateral organizations since the end of the Cold War.

In “From Bloodless Revolution to Bloody Counterrevolution: The Adana Massacres of 1909,” Dr. Bedros Der Matossian writes that the historiography of the Adana Massacres of 1909 are represented by two diverging views: While some Turkish scholars deny the involvement of local government officials in the massacres and put all of the blame on the Armenians who revolted as part of a conspiracy to establish a kingdom in Cilicia, some Armenian scholars, whose work is overshadowed by the Armenian Genocide, accuse the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) of acting behind-the-scenes to destroy the Armenian economic development in the area.

The fourth contribution to the volume, “Did ‘Newsnight’ Miss the Story? A Survey of How the BBC’s ‘Flagship Political Current Affairs Program’ Reported Genocide and War in Rwanda Between April and July 1994,” examines the role of the news media in exposing or ignoring an ongoing genocide.

The final selection in this issue is authored by Roger W. Smith, professor emeritus of government at the College of William and Mary and chairman of the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (IIGHRS), a division of the Zoryan Institute. In his article, “George Steiner and the War Against the Jews: A Study in Misrepresentation,” Smith critiques the work of Steiner, finding it to be misleading in its interpretations, explanations, and implications. He contests Steiner’s claims that the Jews brought their near-destruction upon themselves, that they had invented the practice of genocide, and had created such moral demands upon ordinary human beings that the tension became unbearable and resulted in a revolt against the tyranny of conscience and perfection. In his own writing, Smith works to correct these assertions and directs the reader to the shortcomings in Steiner’s work as it relates to the Holocaust.

“Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal” was co-founded by the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) and the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies.