In a lecture at Fresno State University in California, Dr. Taner Akcam, holder of the chair in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University, presented a summary of the stages of genocide as identified by Professor Michel-Rolph Trouillot in Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History.[1]

People in power silence or delete history in 4 stages.  The first stage is “fact creation.”  In this stage deniers creates their own sources of evidence or documentation.

The second stage is “fact assembly” where the denier creates their own archives.

The third stage is “fact retrieval” where denialists create narratives for their forged documentation.

Once narratives are created, the denialist reaches stage 4, the moment of “retrospective significance,” where their narratives and documents become well-known history.

For the case of denialism against the Armenian Genocide, Taner Akcam adds a fifth stage to Trouillot’s theory.  In this additional stage, denialists destroy documents and/or try to prove the falsity of critical documents.

Taner Akcam himself has been at the forefront of major new researches authenticating critical Turkish documents that contain explicit orders to kill Armenians, including documents with the signature of the dread Minister of the Interior at the time of the Armenian Genocide, Talat Pasha.

Excerpted from the newspaper of the Armenian Studies Program at Fresno State University: Pambukyan, Christine (May 2019). Dr. Taner Akcam Presents New Research on the Denial of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey.

[1] Trouillot, Michel-Rolph (1995). Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.