Cenk Uygur Still Will Not Recognize The Armenian Genocide

Cenk Uygur has gone from denying the Armenian Genocide to "I'm going to refrain from commenting".

by Lalo Dagach

Cenk Uygur has an ugly history of issuing apologies as under the radar as possible. On a video posted July 17th, 2015, Cenk and a Young Turks panel discussed the following comment by Charles Krauthammer, "…this is, in all probability, an example of Islam at work." The main topic of the eleven-minute video was to critique Charles’ generalization of Muslims and Islam. However, Charles did not say "Islam at work" but "radical Islam at work." When The Young Turks realized their mistake they issued a statement correcting the misquote. So what’s the problem? This three-minute video wasn’t posted on the The Young Turks principal channel, but on a secondary channel with significantly less subscribers that is reserved for full length episodes. There is also no link to the correction video in the original video, nor has the misquote been revised in the description. 

This week, yet again, we have a case of Cenk Uygur trying to issue an apology in a way that will, hopefully for him, go unnoticed. 

Less than a month after posting  my article about Cenk Uygur and his denial of the Armenian Genocide, and two days prior to the one hundred and first anniversary of the genocide, Cenk’s statement was posted on April 22, 2016 in written form on The Young Turks website. There is, as of now, still no video addressing the Armenian Genocide, and for a YouTube channel that posts dozens of videos daily, a blog post instead of a video is already very bizarre. I am not the only one to find the written form odd, as one commentator, Tim, who posted beneath Cenk’s statement pointed out:

"So we get 4 videos about a delayed flight but Cenk can only muster a one sentence written denial to comment when it comes to one of the most significant events in the history of his and his cohost’s ancestral history." 

Moreover, a link for the article cannot be found on the homepage in the ‘TYT Articles’ section. The last entry there says March 14th of 2016. It was also not posted on the The Young Turks Facebook or Twitter accounts, or Cenk Uygur’s personal Twitter or Facebook. There is only a single tweet posted by Ana Kasparian on a Saturday night at 10:54 pm.
In all likelihood this statement by Cenk was meant not to be seen by his audience or provide a genuine apology, but to do just enough to have his Wikipedia page edited. The Wiki page now seems to have been redacted, since it no longer makes any mention of his genocide denial, though it did previously.

Cenk’s extraordinarily short three-paragraph statement says:

"Today, I rescind the statements I made in my Daily Pennsylvanian article from 1991 entitled, “Historical Fact of Falsehood? When I wrote that piece, I was a 21 year-old kid, who had a lot of opinions that I have since changed. Back then I had many political positions that were not well researched. For example, back in those days I held a pro-war rally for the Persian Gulf War. Anyone who knows me now knows that I am a very different person today.

I also rescind the statements I made in a letter to the editor I wrote in 1999 on the same issue. Back then I had a very different perspective and there were many things that I did not give due weight. On this issue, I should have been far, far more respectful of so many people who had lost family members. Their pain is heart-wrenching and should be acknowledged by all.

My mistake at the time was confusing myself for a scholar of history, which I most certainly am not. I don’t want to make the same mistake again, so I am going to refrain from commenting on the topic of the Armenian Genocide, which I do not know nearly enough about.

Thank you for being patient with me on this issue, though I might not have always merited it."

I am rather sympathetic to Cenk in the first part. I, just as anyone else, held strange and incorrect beliefs when younger, and have since grown. I openly have admitted many times that I used to be a 9/11 Truther. However, now that I no longer hold that belief, I make a point of stating plainly my mistake, and explain why I no longer hold those ideas as true. Cenk on the other hand, decided to retain any mention of his denial of the Armenian Genocide and closet it away, which is in no way a mature attitude for a 46 year old man who presents himself as a communicator of ethics and morality on all subjects globally. Cenk has had 25 years to clarify his past statements on an issue that he is constantly asked about on social media, and has had 4 years since Armenians protested against him and the name of his show, at a Democratic Party convention in 2012.

Most disturbingly, nowhere in this post does Cenk explain precisely what statements he is rescinding. He never mentions anywhere that he wrote statements denying the Armenian Genocide, what those statements were, what he got wrong, why he has spent years ignoring the issue, or why he has never made a video on the topic. The language is vague to say the least. Especially since in the last paragraph he contradicts these rescindments by stating that he isn’t rescinding his statements as incorrect, but only as uninformed.

"My mistake at the time was confusing myself for a scholar of history, which I most certainly am not. I don’t want to make the same mistake again, so I am going to refrain from commenting on the topic of the Armenian Genocide, which I do not know nearly enough about."

By this Cenk seems to imply that there still could exist the possibility that the Armenian Genocide did not happen, and he is simply ignorant of the subject as whole. For someone who speaks on historical matters daily with aggressive fervor (like in his Christopher Columbus video), he claims that an entire lifetime has not been long enough to realize that a major historical event, that he is very aware of, even occurred. It is possible to grasp the severity and the well-documented reality of the Armenian Genocide, in which 1.5 million Armenians were displaced and massacred under the Ottoman Empire and Young Turk party, in a simple google search that would take up no more than an afternoon. What amount of respect would one offer a supposed "news reporter" who had the gall to say, 

"I don’t know if the Nazis committed a holocaust against the Jewish people, so I am going to refrain from commenting on the topic of the Jewish Holocaust, which I do not know nearly enough about." 

For someone making a living as a supposed investigative journalist, is this any more respectable a position to hold than flat out denial?

This "I’m not a scholar, but…" cop-out approach was immediately mocked online by dozens of people who could see through the lame cliché, commonly used by climate change deniers and various conspiracy theorists.

Lastly, even if tomorrow Cenk Uygur, the self-proclaimed "King of The Internet", was to admit openly that the Armenian Genocide is a historical truth, which he has not done in any real way, there would still be the issue of the show’s name. As pointed out in my previous article, people like Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of America, believes the name of the show to be offensive, as do many others. Not to mention Cenk’s multiple videos on how offensive names and symbols must be changed, makes him the worst of hypocrites and he will continue to be one as long as the show is called ‘The Young Turks’. 

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ora Media, LLC, its affiliates, or its employees.

Continue the Discussion

Latest from The Lowdown with Lalo

​Dear Anti-Trump Protestors, Don’t Shut Down Trump Rallies, Reach Out to Them

  • The Lowdown with Lalo
  • May 2 '16

Prostitution, The World’s Oldest Profession or Its Oldest Oppression?

  • The Lowdown with Lalo
  • Apr 26 '16

Mona Eltahawy Says Non-Muslims Need to "Shut Up and Listen"

  • The Lowdown with Lalo
  • Apr 25 '16

Cenk Uygur Still Will Not Recognize The Armenian Genocide

  • The Lowdown with Lalo
  • Apr 24 '16

Cenk Uygur, The Young Turks, and The Denial of The Armenian Genocide

  • The Lowdown with Lalo
  • Mar 30 '16

Buzzfeeding The #RegressiveLeft

  • The Lowdown with Lalo
  • Mar 16 '16