Wednesday, 22 September 2004 21:20
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Memory, truth and the Armenian genocide
Written by Raffi Sarkissian – Contributor
On April 21, 2004, just three days before the official commemoration
date of the Armenian Genocide, the Canadian Parliament decided with a
vote of 153 to 68 to condemn the Armenian Genocide. Bill M-380 explains
that “this house recognizes the Armenian Genocide and condemns it as an
act against humanity.”
Eighty-nine years ago the Canadian press, like newspapers around the
world, published horrifying accounts from Anatolia of state-sponsored
genocide.
A 1915 headline from the St. Catharines Standard read: “Killed more
Armenians in 3 days than did Abdul Hamid in 30 years, Enver Pasha
proudly boasts that he has outdone the ‘Red Sultan’ – several once
prosperous villages now devoid of any sign of life.” A report from the
Ottawa Evening Journal that same year reads: “Turks drag 10,000 Armenian
Christians to Tigris, shoot all, and throw bodies into river.”
>From 1915 to 1917, the Turkish regime in the Ottoman Empire carried out
a systematic, premeditated and centrally-planned genocide against the
Armenian people, having set out to exterminate the Armenians from their
three-thousand year old ancestral homeland. Armenians were seen as an
obstacle to the creation of a homogenous Turkish Empire.
Relying on archival evidence from France, Britain, Russia and the United
States, world-renowned historians and scholars concluded that a
centrally planned genocide was indeed carried out by Turkey.
In March 2000, for example, 125 Holocaust scholars recognized the
genocide. In the same year, 150 distinguished scholars and writers
honoured the 50th Anniversary of the UN Genocide Convention by
commemorating the Armenian genocide and condemning the Turkish
government’s denial of this crime against humanity.
But eighty-nine years after the Armenian Genocide, the Turkish Republic
not only denies the genocide, but also gives financial support to
professors, politicians, and other influential people to deny the
genocide and to prevent any country from recognizing it formally.
In 2003, the Turkish government even hired former US Congressmen to
lobby on its behalf. Former Reps. Bob Livingston (R-LA) and Gerald
Solomon (R-NY), who were each paid $700,000, as well as former Rep.
Stephen Solarz (D-NY), who was paid $400,000, have aggressively lobbied
Republican and Democratic Congressmen to prevent US recognition of the
Armenian Genocide. For details, see teachgenocide.com.
Similar efforts were made in the Canadian Parliament, with Turkey
attempting to persuade Members of Parliament to vote against the bill.
Representatives of Turkey threatened that relations between Turkey and
Canada would be harmed. Specific emphasis was put on a possible threat
to Bombardier’s $1-billion deal to build public transit in Turkey.
This form of political and economic blackmail was also threatened
against France in 1998 and Switzerland in 2003. In both instances, the
threats proved to be bluffs.
However, such pressure tactics are still being applied, and now largely
focus on the United States. The US is quite attached to the air bases
and military outposts it is allowed to maintain on Turkish soil, and
these threats therefore carry some weight.
Some people have questioned why Canadians should care about something
that occurred 89 years ago, so far away. But it cannot be stressed
enough that we need to raise awareness about past acts of genocide if we
are to stop these atrocities from occurring in the future.
The Canadian Parliament’s decision, which followed the recognition of
the Armenian Genocide by the Canadian Senate (2002) and the provinces of
Ontario (1980) and Quebec (2004), is thus another step towards justice
and truth.
More steps along these lines should certainly be encouraged.