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Toronto: History Course Proposal Upsets Canadian Turks

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  • Toronto: History Course Proposal Upsets Canadian Turks

    HISTORY COURSE PROPOSAL UPSETS CANADIAN TURKS
    Louise Brown

    The Toronto Star
    http://www.thestar.com/News/article/291545
    Ja n 7 2008
    Ontario, Canada

    1,200 people sign petition against class that labels 1915 mass killing
    of Armenians as a genocide

    An unusual new course about genocide to be offered in Toronto high
    schools this fall has sparked anger among Turkish-Canadians for
    including the Turkish killing of Armenians in 1915.

    The Grade 11 history course, believed the only one of its kind at
    a high school in Ontario and possibly Canada, is designed to teach
    teenagers what happens when a government sets out to destroy people of
    a particular nationality, race or religion, through three examples:
    the Holocaust which exterminated 6 million Jews in World War II, the
    Rwandan slaughter of nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in
    1994, and the Turkish killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians
    between 1915 and 1923.

    "These are very significant, horrible parts of history, and without
    sounding hackneyed, we hope we can learn something from them so we
    can make a better world for our children's children," said Trustee
    Gerri Gershon, of the Toronto District School Board, who proposed the
    course after a moving tour in 2005 of the Nazi death camps in Poland.

    "This isn't a course to teach hatred or blame the perpetrators - no,
    no, no," said Gershon. "Our goal is the exact opposite: To explore
    how this happens so we can become better people and make sure it
    never happens again."

    But the Council of Turkish Canadians has gathered more than 1,200
    signatures on an online petition opposed to the course for calling the
    Armenian killings a "genocide" and inciting anti-Turkish sentiment. The
    Turkish government has long denied the slaughter was a genocide,
    but rather part of the wartime casualties of World War I, with both
    sides guilty of some provocation.

    "To pick Armenia as a genocide when it is so controversial - especially
    when there are atrocities by other countries that could have been
    chosen - is just wrong, and will inadvertently lead to the bullying of
    Turkish-Canadian children," argues Ottawa engineer Lale Eskicioglu,
    executive director of the council and author of the petition, which
    she will present to school board staff at a meeting this month.

    "Children of Turkish descent already face bullying, racism and hatred
    in the school yards. We rely on our schools to provide a shelter free
    from hate-inciting propaganda and not contribute to the divisions
    between ethnic minorities," she says.

    School board Superintendent Nadine Segal says teachers already are
    being trained to handle these issues "with sensitivity to the cultural
    mosaic in our schools," and insists the course is not designed to
    "point fingers, but to examine the early warning signs of genocide
    and the role of the perpetrator and bystander.

    "Our own Canadian government has recognized the Armenian genocide as
    uncontestable reality, the original genocide of the 20th century, and
    the course has been approved by the Ontario Ministry of Education,"
    says Segal.

    "But students will also be doing independent studies of their own
    choosing that will allow them to examine other examples of genocide.

    The goal is to help students gain a deeper understanding of human
    rights and their responsibilities as global citizens."

    Kudos for the new course have been rolling in from historians and
    human rights advocates, Segal adds, including former United Nations
    special envoy Stephen Lewis, author Joy Kogawa and genocide historian
    Frank Chalk, co-director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and
    Human Rights Studies at Concordia University.

    The course is being designed with the help of experts from UNICEF,
    York University, the Canadian Centre for Genocide and Human Rights
    Education, the University of Toronto and the Holocaust Centre of
    Toronto. Schools from as far away as Montreal have asked for the
    curriculum, says Segal.

    Both Segal and Gershon cite the International Association of Genocide
    Scholars' unanimous declaration of the Armenian killings as "genocide"
    in 1997.

    However, Eskicioglu calls the course "propaganda by the Armenian
    diaspora" and notes that although Prime Minister Stephen Harper has
    recognized the Armenian tragedy as genocide, his government also
    supports Turkey's call for an "impartial" joint historical review of
    events - a move Armenians refuse to take part in.

    "We are asking either for the removal of the genocide course from
    the curriculum," says the petition, "or removing any discussion of
    the Ottoman-Armenian tragedy from its contents."

    Gershon says she would oppose any such change.
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