Stanford Daily
April 15 2005

Armenian genocide must not be forgotten

By Ani Kardashian
Friday, April 15, 2005
last updated April 14, 2005 6:09 PM

Throughout the 1990s and today, crimes against humanity in Rwanda,
Kosovo and the Darfur region of Sudan have compelled Stanford students
to take an active role in addressing worldwide issues of human rights
crimes and genocide. Last Saturday, about 100 students joined in
STANDFast, a nation-wide fast commemorating the 11th anniversary of
the beginning of the Rwandan genocide, to raise money for the victims
of the crisis in Darfur. The burgeoning interest among the
undergraduate population in genocide affairs is a small step toward
galvanizing national action against these recent crimes against
humanity. Stanford students took an even bigger moral step forward
this week with the passage of an Undergraduate Senate bill
commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

And it’s about time.

I am always pleasantly surprised by the few people I meet on campus
who know of the first genocide of the 20th century, the Armenian
genocide of 1915, perpetrated by the Young Turks in an attempt to
systematically eradicate the Armenian population throughout the
Ottoman Empire. Yet my elation is always clouded by the disturbing
fact that the majority of the people on campus have not even heard of
the genocide, an event that accounts for more than 1.5 million deaths
and for the displacement of an entire ethnic population from their
homeland.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Young Turk regime emerged,
consisting of radical young military officers who were troubled by the
decline of Ottoman power, the numerous minority groups inhabiting the
empire and the stagnant environment of the empire. They espoused a
form of Turkish nationalism called Pan-Turkism, or Turanism, which
created a new and improved empire sans the problem of minorities. As
U.S. Ambassador Morgenthau observed, “The time had finally come to
make Turkey exclusively the country of the Turks.” The Armenians, as
the biggest minority within the empire, became the main obstacle to
Turanism and beginning in April 1915 the defenseless victims of
genocide. Under the guise of World War I, the Young Turk regime
displaced the Armenian population from their villages to the Syrian
Desert for the next eight years, using deportations as a new form of
massacre.

While making no attempt to conceal these atrocities, the Turkish
government denies that the Armenian genocide ever occurred. Turkish
denial of the genocide and attempts to erase their past atrocities
from the history books has prompted the members of the international
community, including the United States, to refuse acknowledging that
the genocide actually occurred. This denial has arguably contributed
to future genocides, including the Holocaust and more recent genocides
in Rwanda and Darfur. Only three decades after the Armenian genocide
for example, Hitler realized this international ignorance and used it
as fodder for executing the Jewish Holocaust, remarking “Who, after
all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

Nine decades later, as the memory of the Armenian genocide lives on,
it is imperative that we recognize this abhorrent crime against
humanity and fight inaction, which inevitably leads to future
genocide. Hopefully the passage of the genocide bill by the Senate
will promote greater awareness on campus and stress the need to act
against such inhumane offenses that occur today. In conjunction with
the passage of the genocide bill, the Armenian Students Association is
holding Fast For Armenia, a charity event commemorating the victims of
the genocide and constructing a brighter future for the Republic of
Armenia.

While the Armenian community is promoting awareness on campuses like
Stanford and throughout the world, the active denial from Turkey
hinders closure from the past. The wounds inflicted by the Turks,
still raw and tender, continue to fester, unable to heal from the
stigma of denial. And while we wait for the day to come when Turkey
will own up to its responsibilities as it proceeds to join the
European Union, we must recognize the importance of shedding light on
the memory of such minority groups as the Armenians, Jews, Sudanese in
Darfur, and Rwandans that flicker with hope for a brighter future
rather than fade away with the past.

Ani Kardashian is a freshman majoring in biology and a member of the
Armenian Students Association.