PBS Stands by `Armenian Genocide'
For decades, the Turkish government has resisted the "genocide" label for the events of 1915-1918, insisting that the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians were part of a civil war. Turkey has lobbied vigorously to keep the US government from declaring the killings a genocide. The New York Times only officially added "Armenian genocide" to its stylebook in 2004. The Globe, before 2003, would only use the term "genocide" in direct quotations when referring to the Armenian genocide.
So it is significant that Goldberg's latest documentary, which airs tonight at 10 on Channel 2, is called "The Armenian Genocide" no equivocation, no hint of doubt. And, in a sense, it's surprising that PBS decided to air the film, title and all. "I shopped it at multiple cable networks," Goldberg said. "Nobody would touch this thing."
PBS, he said, "never wavered. They were strong. I really appreciated that."
Critics have accused PBS of squandering that good will by commissioning a companion piece: a half-hour panel discussion that includes Turkish scholars who deny that a genocide took place. Armenian-Americans and their allies say the forum gives voice to an untenable point of view; some have compared it to following a World War II film with a panel stocked with Holocaust deniers. Several major PBS stations, including Boston's WGBH, have chosen not to air it.
Lea Sloan, PBS's vice president of communications, said the panel doesn't question the genocide, but explores "how historians can come to such radically divergent conclusions about these events." She said PBS has produced discussions to accompany about a dozen recent documentaries, including a May 2005 film on the Rwandan genocide and a January 2004 film on Alzheimer's disease.
And she noted that the panel's title is "Armenian Genocide: Exploring the Issues." That's "an implicit positioning," Sloan said, an acknowledgement that genocide took place. That, in itself, is a sign of how much has changed since the 1980s, when Boston-based filmmaker Ted Bogosian proposed a documentary on the subject. At the time, Bogosian said, he had to leave his job as a staff producer at WGBH-based "Nova" and form his own company to make his film. He had to pitch the documentary as a first-person account, a search for his roots. And when the documentary was set to air, he said, PBS downplayed the publicity, expecting correctly that the Turkish backlash would be fierce.
Bogosian was propelled by his ethnic background and his journalistic hunger. He snuck into Turkey, filmed a genocide survivor in her village in eastern Turkey, and retrieved Turkish war crimes trial transcripts that corroborated her story. The resulting film, 1988's "An Armenian Journey," was "the most satisfying credit I've ever had," Bogosian said.
Like Bogosian, Goldberg sets out to settle history; his film features omniscient narration, context from scholars, and harrowing footage from the time, along with descriptions of Armenian death marches and suffering families.
Goldberg includes official denials from both Turkish leaders and Turks on the streets. He acknowledges that Armenians murdered some Turks at the time of World War I, and that Armenian terrorists slaughtered Turkish officials in the 1980s. But he also features vivid testimonials from Turks who recall their own relatives' stories of being encouraged to kill Armenians. And he shows footage of an interview with Rafael Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide" in the 1940s, partly in reference to the Armenian slaughter.
The result is so balanced that a panel discussion seemed unnecessary, said Lucy Sholley, a spokeswoman for WGBH. (KCET, in Los Angeles, is showing neither Goldberg's film nor the discussion; it is airing a French documentary on the Armenian genocide.)
Bogosian said he's cheered by the fact that so many stations have turned down the panel and that so many more scholars and journalists have been focusing on the Armenian massacre. Over time, he said, "the lens sharpens, the filter changes, and this stuff stands out in much more sharp relief."