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ARMENIAN PLIGHT RESONATES IN AUSTRALIA
by Vicken Babkenian
ABC Online
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s3008191.htm
Sept 10 2010
Australia
When the prominent Melbourne academic and activist Jessie Webb returned
from Geneva as Australia's representative to the General Assembly of
the League of Nations (predecessor to the United Nations) in 1923, she
made a strong appeal to the nation's women. She urged them to support
the League's efforts to reclaim the thousands of Armenian women and
children in Turkey who had been abducted into Muslim households during
the Armenian genocide in 1915 and forcibly converted to Islam.
Webb was among a large number of prominent Australians who had
mobilised to help survivors through the Armenian Relief Fund, arguably
Australia's first international humanitarian aid effort. Established
in Victoria in 1915, and supported by the major churches, the fund
soon formed branches in every state in the country. Major appeals
were launched, calling on Australians to donate money and goods. The
collected goods were sent directly to the destitute Armenian refugees
aboard the Commonwealth government line of steamers which the then
prime minister, Billy Hughes, had promised would be free of charge.
The relief movement culminated in the establishment of an
Australian-run orphanage in Beirut, Lebanon, for 1700 Armenian
orphans. By 1927, tens of thousands of Armenians were still held in
captivity awaiting reclamation.
Eight decades later, visiting for this year's Melbourne Writers
Festival, is author and Turkish human rights lawyer, Fethiye Cetin.
Presenting her book, My Grandmother, a memoir of Cetin's discovery of
her Muslim grandmother's true Armenian Christian identity, Fethiye's
grandmother was among those who were not reclaimed.
When Fethiye was growing up, she knew her grandmother as a universally
respected Muslim housewife. It would be decades before her grandmother
told her the truth: that she was by birth an Armenian Christian. She
went on to tell the dramatic story of being saved from a death march
by a Turkish gendarme captain who then adopted her and expressed her
desire to connect with her remaining true family in America.
Like Fethiye, most Australian Armenians, including myself, are
descendants of those who survived the death marches of 1915. They have
brought with them many stories of survival and of lost relatives. It
was by all accounts, the darkest episode in Armenia's history of over
3 millennia.
Viewed by some historians as equal in intent and trauma as the Jewish
Holocaust, denial surrounds this period - officially in Turkey, as well
as among many Turkish and Armenian families. And despite Australia's
part in the relief efforts, this history is mostly unknown to the
wider population. Fethiye Cetin's memoir and visit serve to bring
this history and its personal stories to our attention.
Fethiye's grandmother's story will resonate with Australians as
a reminder of our nation's own Stolen Generation. But it is also a
reminder of the proud moment when we joined in a global effort to save
the survivors of one of the most horrific events in modern history. In
Australia, this landmark response was an early manifestation of the
humanitarian ethos that formed part of the nation's engagement with
international movements throughout the past century.
Vicken Babkenian is an independent researcher for the Australian
Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Fethiye Cetin is in Australia as part of the Melbourne Writer's
Festival. For more details see www.spinifexpress.com.au
From: A. Papazian
by Vicken Babkenian
ABC Online
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s3008191.htm
Sept 10 2010
Australia
When the prominent Melbourne academic and activist Jessie Webb returned
from Geneva as Australia's representative to the General Assembly of
the League of Nations (predecessor to the United Nations) in 1923, she
made a strong appeal to the nation's women. She urged them to support
the League's efforts to reclaim the thousands of Armenian women and
children in Turkey who had been abducted into Muslim households during
the Armenian genocide in 1915 and forcibly converted to Islam.
Webb was among a large number of prominent Australians who had
mobilised to help survivors through the Armenian Relief Fund, arguably
Australia's first international humanitarian aid effort. Established
in Victoria in 1915, and supported by the major churches, the fund
soon formed branches in every state in the country. Major appeals
were launched, calling on Australians to donate money and goods. The
collected goods were sent directly to the destitute Armenian refugees
aboard the Commonwealth government line of steamers which the then
prime minister, Billy Hughes, had promised would be free of charge.
The relief movement culminated in the establishment of an
Australian-run orphanage in Beirut, Lebanon, for 1700 Armenian
orphans. By 1927, tens of thousands of Armenians were still held in
captivity awaiting reclamation.
Eight decades later, visiting for this year's Melbourne Writers
Festival, is author and Turkish human rights lawyer, Fethiye Cetin.
Presenting her book, My Grandmother, a memoir of Cetin's discovery of
her Muslim grandmother's true Armenian Christian identity, Fethiye's
grandmother was among those who were not reclaimed.
When Fethiye was growing up, she knew her grandmother as a universally
respected Muslim housewife. It would be decades before her grandmother
told her the truth: that she was by birth an Armenian Christian. She
went on to tell the dramatic story of being saved from a death march
by a Turkish gendarme captain who then adopted her and expressed her
desire to connect with her remaining true family in America.
Like Fethiye, most Australian Armenians, including myself, are
descendants of those who survived the death marches of 1915. They have
brought with them many stories of survival and of lost relatives. It
was by all accounts, the darkest episode in Armenia's history of over
3 millennia.
Viewed by some historians as equal in intent and trauma as the Jewish
Holocaust, denial surrounds this period - officially in Turkey, as well
as among many Turkish and Armenian families. And despite Australia's
part in the relief efforts, this history is mostly unknown to the
wider population. Fethiye Cetin's memoir and visit serve to bring
this history and its personal stories to our attention.
Fethiye's grandmother's story will resonate with Australians as
a reminder of our nation's own Stolen Generation. But it is also a
reminder of the proud moment when we joined in a global effort to save
the survivors of one of the most horrific events in modern history. In
Australia, this landmark response was an early manifestation of the
humanitarian ethos that formed part of the nation's engagement with
international movements throughout the past century.
Vicken Babkenian is an independent researcher for the Australian
Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Fethiye Cetin is in Australia as part of the Melbourne Writer's
Festival. For more details see www.spinifexpress.com.au
From: A. Papazian