According to Turkish law, anyone who acknowledges the Armenian Genocide will be subject to a jail sentence and a fine. According to the new French law, voted recently by both legislative chambers and soon to be ratified by President Sarkozy anyone who denies the Armenian Genocide or the Holocaust will be subject to a jail sentence and a fine.

I guess, not just because I am an Armenian, I am a criminal in Turkey but not in France!

The 1915 Armenian Genocide that killed approximately 1,500,000 people has been recognized by an overwhelming majority of world historians. The independent International Association of Genocide Scholars in a letter to Turkey’s current Prime Minister Erdogan wrote:

“On April 24, 1915, under cover of World War I, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens - an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches. The rest of the Armenian population fled into permanent exile. Thus an ancient civilization was expunged from its homeland of 2,500 years.”

Yet the Turkish Government continues to deny the Armenian Genocide and punishes those that acknowledge that it did happen.  The government even arrested and jailed its 2006-Nobel Prize Literature winner Orhan Pamuk for making a reference to it in a newspaper.

Denial is a very basic human reaction. Sofia K. Ogden, author of Psychology of Denial explains that denial is essentially a defense mechanism that helps us deal with anxiety and unpleasant realities. This attitude leads us to give ourselves excuses for our behavior and/or blame others for our mistakes. Aaron Ben Ze’ev, author of The Subtlety of Emotions believes that denial is a mean of coping with shame. “In denial, we usually de not deny the occurrence of the shaming situation - something that is very difficult to do (apparently the Turkish Government has no problem there!) - but rather that our own activity in that situation violated any norm and hence there is no reason to feel shame.

However denial is not sustainable because truth (or reality) will ultimately prevail, sooner or later.

In the Jewish and Christian tradition, recognizing our faults (sins) is the first step towards forgiveness and redemption.

Acknowledging and taking responsibility for our mistakes is liberating and allows us to learn from them and move on.

President Obama said in a speech to the Turkish parliament:

“History is often tragic but, unresolved, can be a heavy weight. Each country must work through its past. And reckoning with the past can help us seize a better future.”

Last week, the president of the Swiss National Bank resigned because his wife, without his prior knowledge or consent purchased $500,000.- just prior to the SNB taking measures to limit the fall of the U.S. dollar. (See my most recent blog post)

Such a situation poses an interesting ethical dilemma.

One the one hand we should value loyalty particularly to those we love but on the other hand we have to be careful, in our loyalty, not to compromise on our own values.

How responsible should we be for the ethical lapses of those close to us such as spouse, other family members and close friends? How loyal should we be to them?

Aaron Ben-Ze’ev in his book The Subtlety of Emotions puts it quite succinctly when he asks: “Does our loyalty to someone imply immoral behavior to someone else?”

This is a difficult question.

We know that loyalty is a strong value and a character trait highly appreciated in society. Yet blind loyalty is dangerous and can lead to moral blindness.  For instance, the blind loyalty of millions of Germans to the Nazi regime has lead them to condone the killing of 6 million Jews.

How can we determine what should be the limits of our loyalty?

Let me list a few questions whose answer might help us determine the line that we do not want to cross.

1.       Will I be directly or indirectly partaking in an activity I strongly disapprove of?

2.       Is the activity I am objecting to illegal? In that case could I be considered by the authorities as a direct or indirect accomplice?

3.       Have I used the maximum of my influence of dissuasion on my loved one for him or her to desist from the questionable activity? We do have to remember though that there is a limit to that influence since everyone one is responsible for his or her own actions.

As Thomas Cochrane, the 19^th Century British Marquis and Naval Officer once said:

“Loyalty to the family must be merged into loyalty to the community, loyalty to the community into loyalty to the nation, and loyalty to the nation into loyalty to mankind. The citizen of the future must be a citizen of the world.”

Philipp Hildebrand, the President of the Swiss National Bank (the equivalent of the U.S. Federal Reserve) came under attack last week when it was revealed by the press that his wife, Pakistani-born Kashya, an economist and owner of an art gallery in Zurich had purchased approximately $500,000 dollars and had made a potential profit of $75,000.- This transaction came just a few days prior to a decision made by the Swiss National Bank to intervene in the currency market to prevent the rise of the Swiss Francs (or the fall of the U.S. dollars) in order to protect Swiss exports which includes Swiss Tourism.

PricewaterhouseCoopers who was hired by the Federal Council to oversee the Swiss National Bank confirmed that there was nothing illegal in the transaction.

The 48 year-old-Swiss banker has had an excellent national and international reputation in the past. He has been a strong advocate for strong bank regulation. He also played an important role in setting new global banking standards to limit risks.

The transaction was revealed by the Swiss conservative (some call it right-wing) weekly Weltwoche who is closely linked to Mr. Blocher a very conservative (anti-immigrant politician) and member of the parliament. He is the founder and former leader of the largest political party in Switzerland. He personally attacked Mr. Hildebrand asking for his resignation. The magazine had been informed of the transaction by an employee of the Bank Sarasin where Mr. Hildebrand has an account. The employee of the bank was fired and faces legal consequences for breaching Swiss Banks secrecy laws.

Facing the criticism Mr. Hildebrand gave a press conference and explained that he was unaware of the transaction until the next day and that he immediately instructed the bank not to make any more trades without his approval.  He apologized for the incident and said that his only regret was that he did not ask the bank to reverse the transaction. Furthermore Mr. Hildebrand donated the profit he (or his wife) made on the transaction to a not for profit organization in Switzerland. He also offered to make public, either to the government or to the public all his prior financial transactions.

The reactions to the press conference were overwhelmingly positive.  The Swiss press judged him to be sincere, honest, transparent and of good faith.

The Federal Council, the Executive branch of the Swiss Government who appoints the president of the Swiss National Bank accepted Mr. Hildebrand explanations.

However, although Mr. Hildebrand did everything right, a good example of how one should react when accused of inappropriate action or lack of judgment. He announced his resignation this morning! In a second press conference he said “I came to the conclusion that it’s not possible for me to deliver definite proof that my wife requested the currency transaction without my knowledge.”

The Swiss stock market was down this morning in reaction to his resignation. This is a sad story and a great loss for Switzerland.

As a friend told me once: “The truth is not always believable.”

This story brings up a difficult ethical issue: How responsible are we for the wrongdoing of those close to us?

That will be the topic of my next blog.

Twenty six year old Florida A&M University student   Robert Champion Jr died last month from a suspected hazing episode. His death has been ruled a homicide. According to the examiner’s summary autopsy report he was “previously healthy (when he) dies within an hour of a hazing incident during which he suffered multiple blunt trauma blows to his body.

Hazing is described as a ritual (rites of passage) to join a particular group, such as a fraternity a team or even a gang. It usually involves harassment, abuse and humiliation. Hazing is a form of consensual bullying, a sado-masochistic cruel exercise. Hazing is widely practiced in the US although it is illegal in 44 of our 50 states. According to Hank Nuwer, a leader in the fight against hazing and author of the book Wrongs of Passage, there have been 87 deaths due to hazing in the U.S., between 1979 and 2011.

Dr. Susan Lipkins, a psychologist and expert on campus violence and author of Preventing Hazing- How Parents, Teachers and Coaches Can Stop the Violence, Harassment, and Humiliation, says that “hazing is about group dynamics and proving one’s worthiness to become a member of the specific group.”

She describes what is called the blueprint of hazing when the newcomer, or victim, is hazed. Once accepted by the group, the victim becomes a bystander, and watches as others get hazed. Eventually, the bystander achieves senior status and power, and becomes a perpetrator.” This is a cycle that often happens in case of abuse, when the abused later in life becomes the abuser.

Hazing poses some major ethical concern both for the victim and the perpetrator.

Why would anyone subject himself or herself to such physical pain and psychological humiliation? Is it the profound need to be accepted by others that leads some to subject themselves to such abuse?

Alfred Adler, the renowned psychologist and a contemporary of Sigmund Freud believed that we all have a fundamental need to belong. He wrote “social feeling is the crucial and deciding factor in normal development.”

However we should make sure that any action we take to fulfill the need to belong (or any other fundamental need) is not a threat to our self-preservation both physical and emotional.

As for the perpetrator, hazing is an abuse of power that violates some fundamental ethical values such as respect, empathy and fairness.

As Hank Nuwer once wrote:

“Hazing is an extraordinary activity that, when it occurs often enough, becomes perversely ordinary as those who engage in it grow desensitized to its inhumanity.”

The Financial Times in its December 3, 2011 Week-End edition published a very insightful article entitled “What makes a rogue trader” by John Gapper. The writer analyses the behavior of a number of rogue traders in the recent and not so recent past. The losses were astronomical. Toshihide Iguchi from Daiwa Bank lost $1.1 billion, Kweku Adoboli from UBS, lost $2.3 billion and Jerome Kerviel of Society General lost $7.6 billion.  

Mr. Gapper writes: “Rogue trading it is now clear is not an aberration but integral to the banking system. Like the cycles of financial speculation and crashes that have occurred throughout history, rogue traders are always with us.”

One could point out that had those unauthorized trades made a profit for the banks that employed them, the rogue bankers would have been forgiven their breach of authority and most likely promoted if not named “banker of the year.”

It is interesting to note that none of the traders profited personally from their fraud.  Also of interest is that they all started to gamble to cover initial losses.

Psychologists Daniel Kahneman, of Princeton University, Nobel laureate and author of the current bestseller Thinking Fast and Slow and Amos Tversky of the University of Tel Aviv developed in 1979 the Prospect Theory. According to this theory, we all have an irrational tendency to be more willing to gamble with losses than with profits. Apparently, we do not heed to the proverb that says: “when in the hole, stop digging!”   

Yet we all have to take risks. That is part of life. There are very few decisions we make that do not involve risks because of life’s many uncertainties. Getting up in the morning is taking risks, we might fall, be run over by a bus or be the victim of unforeseeable negative event. 

However there are some risks we should not take. How can we determine the risks that are acceptable, and those that are not? Can ethics help? I think it can.

Let me list three questions I suggest we ask ourselves before making that determination.

Is the risk I am about to take:

1. Involve breaking the law or my company’s code of ethics?
2. Affect others negatively?
3. Involve the violation of some of my basic values such as truthfulness, honesty, fairness, respect and honor?

If we answered “yes” to anyone of those questions I would highly recommend we abstain.

As Nick Dandolos, a famous gambler who won and lost over $500 million in his lifetime, once wrote:

“The only difference between a winner and a loser is character.”

On November 22, 2011, nine students were arrested in Long Island, New York for allegedly paying from $500 to $3,600 for others to take their SAT test and four students were arrested for taking the test for them.  According to the ongoing investigation of this scandal, there is evidence that at least 40 students accepted payments or paid others to take the standardized tests.

Some have been very critical of Educational Testing Services (ETS) which administers the SAT for it lack of enforcement of its own rules. Jack Marshall of Ethics Alarms reveals in a recent blog post that: “if someone is caught cheating after the SAT services investigates, he or she is given a refund and allowed to take the test again- an no college is ever notified.”

Should we really be surprised by such cheating?  The example that the corporate world with its recent and not so recent scandals has given to our more junior members of society is less than pristine.

Karen Rubin in her December 1, 2011 article entitled “Road to SAT Cheating scandal leads to Wall Street” published by the Island Now believes that it is the consequence of a “culture that supports cheating as another calculated risk-reward business decision.” However, she writes: “it is wrong and goes to the heart of how the very fabric of the ideals this country was founded upon have been corrupted…”

We are particularly sensitive to academic dishonesty because we know that if unexposed it will lead to more cheating and lying in the future of the student’s private and professional life. If crime pays, why not engage in it?

Jeffrey Kenton of the International Society of Philosophers writes: “Cheating is not a philosophy, it is a strategy. People who cheat to succeed are also the same people who ran Enron, WorldCom and any number of other businesses with abysmal ethics records. The “luck” ran out and now most of they are scrambling to cover their hind sides before someone else exposes them. That is the life of the cheat.”

We all believe that cheating is wrong but why exactly? What moral values are violated in cheating?

Let me say that I do not like the word “cheating” because it somehow minimizes the severity of the action. From an ethical point of view the word “cheating” is an euphemism. For example, “cheating” on your taxes sounds less severe that committing fraud or “cheating” on your spouse does not sound as serious as committing adultery.

Cheating obviously violates the values of honesty, truthfulness and fairness and therefore compromises trust. Society cannot function without some degree of trust.

As Warren G. Bennis, the American scholar and organizational consultant once said:

“Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organization to work.”

Thanksgiving is the quintessential American Holiday. There are more Americans on the roads and in the air during the holiday then at any other time during the year. It is essentially a family holiday.

Thanksgiving was first celebrated by the Pilgrims in 1621, in gratitude to God for the harvest and for having survived their first winter.

Thanksgiving has Biblical-Jewish roots. Robert J. Hutchinson author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible says that: “Thanksgiving is yet another legacy of the Biblical heritage that shaped American law and culture over the centuries. There is at least some evidence that the deeply pious Pilgrims, who believed the Old Testament law was binding on Gentiles as well as Jews, may have been partially inspired by the Jewish harvest festival of Succoth.”The Festival of Succoth which is celebrated around the same time is very much a time of gratitude to God for his many blessings.

Gratitude is a noble value in anyone’s character. We appreciate it in others and we somehow aspire to it for ourselves. Cicero, the Roman philosopher said that gratitude is “the mother of all virtues.”

John Tierney in his November 22^nd. NYT article entitled A Serving of Gratitude May Save the Day writes: “Cultivating an attitude of gratitude has been linked to better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety  and depression higher long-term satisfaction with life and a kinder behavior towards other, including romantic partners.”

Yet gratitude is not as highly valued in our society as it should be, particularly in our culture of entitlement. We much too often demand what we believe we “rightly deserve.” As Aldous Huxley once wrote: “Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.”

But do we really deserve anything and on what criteria? Are we any “better” or more “deserving” than those less fortunate. Should we not rather consider everything we have, such as health, family, friend, and money as gifts?

Gratitude also should lead to generosity. There is a link between the emotion of gratitude and the act of giving. Professor Christian Miller of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. says that: “Being grateful tends to activate an altruistic state of mind.” Professor Sally Planalp, of the University of Utah and author of Communicating Emotion writes that gratitude serves as an “emotional commitment to reciprocate.”

As we enter the period of Holidays, let us remember what Edwin Arlington Robinson, the American poet and Pulitzer Prize winner once said:

“(There are) two kinds of gratitude:

The sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger kind we feel for what we give.”

The Penn State Sex Scandal is, for me, one of the most shocking events this year, not that we did not have plenty of other scandal this year, and we still have a month and a half to go! It is most shocking because it involved children.  This scandal is at its infancy. There are five investigations in process and we will soon learn the extent of this devastating story.

According to the 23-page Grand Jury report, Jerry Sandusky, assistant coach at Penn State, has been raping, assaulting and molesting minors male children, some as young as 10 years old, for a period of 15 years.

Mr. Sandusky has been arrested and is free on bail! Graham Spanier , the President of Penn State, and Paterno the Coach have both been fired. Mike  McQueary the assistant coach has been suspended “indefinitely.”  They all were aware of Mr. Sandusky’s  behavior and did nothing or not enough to stop him.

The alleged rape of a child and the molestation of 7 other children are not in the realm of ethics but of criminality.

From an ethical perspective what is most concerning is the failure to report what had been witnessed or known by a great number of people and for a very long time to the proper authorities. Apparently that complicity of silence and cover-up enabled the sexual predator to continue his criminal activities, undisturbed.

That failure to report is a total moral failure.

Some professionals such as the clergy, teachers, health care providers are required by law to report to the authorities, suspicion of abuse but most “ordinary” citizens in the U.S. are not obligated to do so.

We all have a natural reluctance to get involved in other people’s lives. Self-preservation and fear are probably to most influential motivators. Fear of losing our security, physical and financial. We may also fear a disruption of our comfortable lives.

Turning a blind eye is human but it is wrong.

Joe Nocera in his New York Time Op-Ed entitled “the Institutional Pass” makes an analogy between the cover-up at Penn State and the cover-up in the Catholic Church on the abuse of minors by Catholic priests for a great number of years. He thinks that Joe Paterno, who is known to be a “devout Catholic” should have learned from that disgraceful history.

I can think of another analogy: the Holocaust. There were millions of bystanders that knew what was happening to their neighbors yet very few spoke out of did anything about it. The Holocaust could not have happened without them.

The key word in such situation is responsibility. Once we know, we lose our innocence or any claim to ignorance. Once we know we are responsible. We are responsible to protect against potential harm our fellow man and woman and particularly children.

As the Torah says:

“Do not stand idly on your brother’s blood” (Leviticus 19:16)

Occupy Wall Street protest in New York and elsewhere is on its 8^th week. I am not sure whether we can call it a movement because the goals or even direction of its many participants seemed unclear. What is clear to me is that it is the expression of a general discontent with both the governments (Local, State and Federal), and with corporate America in general.

Some believe it is a very positive development. Jim Lukasewski, a friend and a crisis communication expert says in his blog post entitled: Occupy America: It’s Radical But It’s Necessary, Here’s the Plan that, “the incompetence, ignorance, and political paralysis of government, combined with the implacable gall of America’s Greed Team-real estate, banking, Wall Street, insurance, and the commercial credit industry-has created a fragile but powerful epiphanal moment when real change in America’s economic structure and destiny is possible. And there are people in the streets ready to take some action with some direction.”

Others have a more pessimistic view of the protest but do recognize the legitimacy of their complaints. Chris MacDonald of the University of Toronto’s Clarkson Center for Business Ethics in his article Wall Street Needs to be Fixed, Not Occupied, says: “Issues of corporate ethics are too important to leave to the Occupy Wall Street gang. The principles the group is fighting for are noble ones, but the tools they employ leave much to be desired. It’s up to the rest of us to use better tools.” He believes that although the values of the protesters are right the suggestions they have to implement those values are deeply misguided. He suggests we: “Think. Learn about the issues. Learn about corporate governance. Advocate reform. Organize. Get out the vote.” He concludes his article by saying: “If Occupying Wall Street is to have any real impact it won’t be by motivating a few hundred more people to camp out in the street.”

Protest is a legitimate right in democracies and it also has, in the past played a very important role in establishing democracies and in bringing very positive change to society. Revolutions often started with a massive public protest. With historical hindsight we can determine that some of the outcomes were very positive such as India’s liberation and independence that was initiated by Gandhi’s protest. Others were less than positive, such as the Russian Revolution that brought communism to Russia and much of Eastern Europe or the Iranian revolution that brought a repressing and threatening regime to power. The positive or negative effects of the Arab Spring are yet to be determined.

There are numerous ways to voice a protest but often that is not enough. Protest alone will not bring change.  Ase Grimsby, a Norwegian artist says that we should try to be creative and entrepreneurial in our protest.   She gives the example of KIVA, a micro-lending financial institution. Since its founding in 2005, KIVA has made $255 million worth of loans, (some as small as $25.00) to 659, 0000 individual entrepreneurs, 80% of whom are women. These loans allow them to start or expand a small business. Interestingly, the repayment rate is 98.90%!

There are many such creative examples of positive ways to combat social ills.

We all have a moral obligation to protest against injustice, poverty the repression of human rights and corruption.

As Henry Thoreau once said:

“Evil must be resisted and no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.”

Ruth Madoff, the wife of Bernie Madoff who is serving a 150-year jail sentence for a $65 billion Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of victims, told “60-Minutes” last Thursday that both she and Bernie attempted to commit suicide by taking pills on Christmas Eve.  Mrs. Madoff said:

“We took pills and woke up the next day. It was very impulsive and I am glad we woke up.”

Their son, Mark did succeed in ending his life when he hanged himself in his New York apartment last year on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest. He was married and had a two-year boy.

The issue of suicide is a very difficult and for many a painful one. We all know directly or indirectly someone who took his or her life.

Some psychologist believe that we all, at one point in our lives, contemplate it. I am not sure they are correct, but we can safely assume that many do.

Over one million people die by suicide every year according to the World Health Organization. It is the 6^thlargest cause of death in the U.S. According to the National Safety Council, is the leading cause of death among teenagers and adults under the age of 35.

Suicide has negative emotional and moral connotations. In Judaism and in Christianity, it is considered an offence to God because of the notion of the sanctity of life.

The circumstances that precipitate suicide vary. According to a 2008 survey of 16 States, approximately 30 % of suicides are due to intimate partner problem, 22% to physical health problems, 12 % to job problems and 12% to financial problems.

Studies have revealed that the impulse toward suicide is often short-lived, ambivalent and often influenced by mental illness.

In many cases, the person who decides to take away his or her life strongly believes that there are no other alternatives to resolving the situation he or she is in.  Yet, we know that very often there are alternatives that the person just does not see at the time.

Some libertarians argue that we have a right to suicide because it is an expression of our freedom, as a friend once told me “it is the liberty that deprives of all liberties.” The conventional debate between the “sanctity of life” against the “right to die” does not take in consideration the other important value of not causing harm to others. We may have the right to terminate our lives but with that right comes responsibility. The responsibility is not only to ourselves but also to others, particularly our family and loved ones who will profoundly suffer because this action.

Should we engage in the prevention of suicide? I would strongly argue that we should. Saving a life and preventing emotional and psychological harm to those who are left behind is a moral obligation.

Help is always available. Most people are willing to help. There are many websites of suicidal prevention such as the Suicide Prevention Lifeline -1-800- Talk (8255)

As the English novelist and essayist E.M. Foster, once said:

“The crime of suicide lies rather in its disregard for the feelings of those whom we leave behind.”