Denial of crimes witnessed
April 22, 2006
By SALIM MANSUR
Toronto Sun, Canada

In the spring of 1915 with Europe at war, the Turkish rulers of the Ottoman
Empire ordered the deportation and killing of the Armenian population within
their territory.

Between April 1915 and the end of the war in November 1918, the organized
destruction of a people identified by ethnicity and religion was conducted
by a government that ruled an empire in the name of Islam.

The nationalist Turks who succeeded the defeated power-holders in Istanbul
continued the massacres of Armenians in eastern Anatolia and into the
Caucasus. Some 1.5 million Armenians perished during this period between
1915 and 1923.

This destruction of the Armenian people was the first genocide of the 20th
century, a prelude to what would come later under Hitler’s Third Reich as
the “final solution” for the Jews.

It took nearly 90 years for the Canadian parliament — by a vote of 153
(yeas) to 68 (nays) on April 21, 2004 — to pass a resolution acknowledging
the Armenian genocide and condemning it as a crime against humanity.
Neither the passage of time required for such an acknowledgment nor the
number of parliamentarians voting on record against it came as a surprise,
since the mass murderers of our age well understand that the human capacity
to deny evil is far greater than our inclination to oppose it.
A mere 24 countries around the world have acknowledged the facts of the
Armenian genocide, and with the exception of Lebanon — possessing a sizable
Christian population — there is a wall of silence on this subject from the
Muslim-majority member states of the United Nations.

On April 24 every year, Armenians remember their dead. It was on this night
in 1915 the Turkish government ordered arrests of Armenian community leaders
in Istanbul, marking the start of the genocide.

Turkey continues to dispute what occurred. It is a sensitive issue, and
Turks willing to critically examine the events relating to the Armenian
genocide face persecution from authorities for “insulting Turkishness.”

Orhan Pamuk, the widely translated and respected Turkish writer, was charged
last year with the crime of insulting Turks when he told a Swiss newspaper
that “30,000 Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in these lands, and
nobody but me dares talk about it.” The case was dropped in January this
year under heavy pressure from the European Union.

That the world is a cynical place is not news, however, nor is the fact that
human nature is flawed.
Even as I write this column, the systematic depredation of the wretchedly
poor in Darfur remains unabated — while the United Nations and its
grandees, led by Kofi Annan, quibble over the meaning of “genocide.”

Historians and philosophers struggle to find lessons from the tales of human
wickedness, and teach future generations to do better.

It is in vain, for the collective ears of humanity remain stuffed with wax.
Prophets have admonished, as Amos of the Old Testament did: “They drink wine
in bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils; but they are not
grieved over the ruin of Joseph.”

The lesson of history is that, to paraphrase Santayana, there is no lesson.

Each generation gets tested by the evil of its time and, in learning nothing
from the past, fashions its denial of crimes witnessed.

The present generation, not to be outdone in ingenuity, incessantly speaks
of being history’s victim and denies bearing any responsibility or
accountability for the ruin of Joseph.