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Commentary: Remember the Armenian Genocide

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  • Commentary: Remember the Armenian Genocide

    Commentary: Remember the Armenian Genocide
    By Carolann S. Najarian/ Guest commentary
    Thursday, April 20, 2006

    Lincoln Journal, MA
    April 20 2006

    April 24, 1915 is the day the leaders of the Ottoman Turkish Empire
    began what they hoped would be the complete eradication of their
    largest minority, the Armenians. In Istanbul, on that day, they began
    the round up of Armenians, starting with intellectuals, writers, poets,
    musicians, professors, teachers - many of whom were never again heard
    from. Before it was over, the entire Armenian population of Ottoman
    Turkey, was uprooted from their historic lands. Those who were not
    murdered in their homes were forcibly deported, village by village,
    on foot or transported by railroad, to the deserts of Syria.

    They suffered death by starvation or beastly slaying by those herding
    them onward. More than 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives in what
    was the first genocide of the 20th century.

    Turkey to this day continues to deny and works very hard to prevent
    the facts of the Armenian Genocide from being known.

    According to their version, Armenians and Turks died in equal numbers
    in a civil war. Supported by the Association of Turkish-American
    Assemblies, a teacher and student at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional
    High School have brought a lawsuit in the First District Court of
    Massachusetts against the state Board of Education claiming First
    Amendment rights under our Constitution for the Turkish version of
    what happened to the Armenians to also be taught in Massachusetts
    schools. For those of us living in Massachusetts who are the children
    of genocide survivors, the long arm of Turkish denial has indeed
    reached very close to home.

    Scholars have carefully documented the details of what happened to
    the Armenians using eye-witness accounts of foreign diplomats and
    missionaries and of survivors, and most importantly, by systematic
    research into the archives of the governments of Germany, the United
    States, France, Armenia, and of Turkey. Based on the accumulated
    evidence presented in countless books, journals, and at genocide
    conferences, the Armenian Genocide is accepted as historical fact
    by the following organizations: the International Association of
    Genocide Scholars (the definitive group of scholars on the subject);
    the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem; and the
    Institute for the Study of Genocide.

    Despite Armenians having lived in Eastern Turkey for more than 3,000
    years, on land considered Historic Armenia, before the Ottomans
    conquered them, traces of their having lived there are all but wiped
    out - another indication of Genocide. Even at the approach to the
    ruins of ArmeniaˇŻs ancient capital, Ani - the city of 1001 churches,
    there is no mention that this was an Armenian city.

    One has to ask, what happened to the Armenians who lived here for so
    many centuries? How could they have disappeared in so short a period
    of time leaving no trace of their existence? This is what genocide
    does - it is the very aim of genocide.

    Unable to answer these questions, the Turkish government prevents
    the flow of information to its own citizens. Speaking of the Armenian
    events as genocide is a crime in Turkey punishable by up to three years
    in prison. Turkey also threatens other governments for recognition of
    the Armenian Genocide - France with boycott of goods, and the United
    States with expulsion of its airbases.

    The judgment in this case, if for the plaintiffs, we embolden Turkish
    efforts to rewrite history. In addition, questions about First
    Amendment rights could be raised by deniers of the Jewish Holocaust,
    or the creationists, or even to those who deny "global warming." It
    sounds absurd, but these days we have come to learn that the absurd
    can easily become a new reality.

    The Armenian Genocide went unnoticed by the world community.

    Thus, in 1939, a confident Hitler had nothing to fear when planning
    the Jewish Holocaust. He asked "Who, after all, speaks today of the
    annihilation of the Armenians?"

    If we allow genocide, past or present, to be forgotten or called
    something else or to be debated long after the facts have been
    established we will have little hope of eradicating the threat of
    genocide against vulnerable peoples. University of Michigan Assistant
    Professor of Sociology Fatma M?µ~D, a Turkish citizen and genocide
    scholar, has filed a declaration signed by more than 50 genocide
    scholars.

    The genocide scholars write, "We think that the Armenian case, as well
    as similar cases that precede and succeed it prove the destructive
    force of prejudice and intolerance which should be taught as such
    and not minimized or distorted by denials so that they do not keep
    repeating themselves in history and are replaced instead by human
    tolerance and understanding." On April 24 we will again remember the
    Armenian Genocide of 1915 with the hope that some day our vigilance
    against denial will no longer be needed.

    --Boundary_(ID_iRoHwdXGgutM//GJ1APtZg)--
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