CONFRONT THE FACTS OF A LONG-AGO MASSACRE

Edmonton Journal (Alberta)
May 14, 2006 Sunday
Final Edition

Whether or not Prime Minister Stephen Harper was diplomatically wise
to acknowledge the 1915 mass killing of Armenians as a genocide may
be debatable. The fact that the annihilation of as many as 600,000
Armenians took place, and that it was the result of deliberate
decisions of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, is not.

Harper cannot be faulted for wishing to put an end to the international
pretence that the word “genocide” does not apply, and that the Turkish
government of the time was not morally responsible.

What this 90-year-old horror has to do with modern Turks, and modern
Turkey, is not clear — in the same way that it is not clear why modern
residents of Balkan states take personally what their ancestors are
accused of doing from time to time.

But if we are to learn from history, we must make sure we remember
it — all of it — accurately, whether we like what it says about
our forebears or not.

The facts of the Armenian tragedy are rooted in war. Reacting to
evidence that Russia was recruiting Armenian subjects of the Ottoman
Empire to fight against it, an estimated 1.7 million Armenians were
sent into internal exile, and historians say at least a third died
of starvation in the desert or were killed by Turkish troops.

Yes, the Canadian government should do its best to get along with the
countries of the world, and to respect their various sensitivities,
just as we expect them to treat us in return. But that shouldn’t mean
having to accept as truth something that isn’t.