ArmenPress
Jan 27 2005

REFERENCE TO ARMENIAN GENOCIDE TO BE INCLUDED IN TURKISH TEXTBOOKS,
REMOVED FROM GERMAN TEXTBOOKS

ANKARA, JANUARY 27, ARMENPRESS: Turkey’s Education Ministry
recently announced that elementary-level history textbooks will, for
the first time, include reference to the genocide committed against
the Ottoman-Armenians. The textbooks, however, will include both,
what Turkey refers to, the “Armenian version” of the genocide, and an
“official” government sanctioned version of the events.
The chairman of the Education Ministry’s committee on textbooks,
Moustafa Safran, explained that the inclusion of the genocide arose
from the fact that Armenians have insisted that the events that
occurred between 1915-1923 qualify as “genocide.” In order to address
the issue, Safran said, the committee decided to include both the
Armenian and Turkish perspectives–a move allowing students the
information necessary to form an educated opinion–according to the
committee.
Safran noted his committee realizes that it is impossible nowadays
to shield Turkish school children from “Armenian claims,” and that it
is their intention to bolster the government’s position on the issue
by including archival Ottoman documents, which reportedly prove that
the genocide never occurred.
Safran’s committee has also decided to exclude incendiary remarks
such as “we crushed the Greeks,” and be particular in its definitions
of “heroes” and “traitors.” Textbooks will note that numerous Kurdish
tribes assisted Mustafa Kemal’s efforts in establishing a “modern”
Turkey.
Meantime German DPA news agency reported that pressure from Turkey
has resulted in the removal of a reference to the Armenian genocide
from a German school curriculum.
The eastern German state of Brandenburg has eliminated half a
sentence on the Armenians included in ninth and tenth grade history
classes after a Turkish diplomat complained to state Prime Minister
Matthias Platzeck, the newspaper Die Welt reported.
In a chapter entitled “War, Technology and Civilian Populations”
the school book text said “for example, the genocide of the Armenians
population of Anatolia.” That passage has now been removed from
school textbooks, the newspaper said.
Platzeck met regularly with Turkish diplomats and was “steeled”
against their influence, the newspaper quoted him as saying. The
prime minister added that genocide was too important an issue to be
dealt with in just half a sentence. “Brandenburg’s curriculum was the
only one in Germany which up until now included a reference to the
murder of the Armenians,” said Die Welt.
The head of the Central Committee of Armenians in Germany,
Schavarsh Ovassapian told Die Welt the move was “a scandal.” “It is
depressing, if what’s in schoolbooks in Brandenburg can be dictated
from Ankara,” he said.