Los Angeles Daily News, CA
Jan 24 2007
Kindred groups urging fight against genocide
BY BRAD A. GREENBERG, Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 01/23/2007 10:48:21 PM PST
Before Adolph Hitler began to wipe out Europe’s Jews, gays and
Gypsies, he argued that Nazi Germany’s brutality would escape global
condemnation.
"Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?"
Hitler asked his commanding generals in 1939, The New York Times
reported at the end of World War II.
The first genocide of the 20th century – the killing of 1 million to
1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 – is viewed by
scholars as a precursor to the Holocaust that erased 6 million Jews.
In Los Angeles, which has among the world’s largest Armenian and
Jewish populations, members of the two communities gathered in Encino
late Monday to share their kinship of suffering and motivate their
youths to fight the forces that lead to genocide.
"The question is: Can we teach our young persons something true so
there will be no genocide in their generation?" said Rabbi Ed
Feinstein of Valley Beth Shalom. "Can we acknowledge that there is
something evil in human nature?"
His audience was the 700 who filled his synagogue to watch
"Screamers," a documentary that will open nationwide Friday about
System of a Down and the band’s campaign to have the Armenian
Genocide recognized by the U.S. and British governments.
Director Carla Garapedian, a North Hollywood High School graduate,
and System bassist Shavo Odadjian spoke after the screening.
"A screamer is somebody whose defenses and whose alibis somehow melt
away, and they actually process what a genocide is without defense,
without guile," Samantha Power, a professor at Harvard’s John F.
Kennedy School of Government and author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning
book "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," says in
an opening scene.
"And when you do that, when you actually allow it all in, there is no
other alternative but to go up to people and to scream and say, `You
know, the sky is falling! The sky is falling! People are being
systematically butchered! We can stop it!"’
Ethnic victims of genocide, humanitarian activists and scholars say
the continued refusal by some countries to use the "g" word when
referring to the Armenian massacre is a reason why genocides occurred
with increasing frequency at the end of the 20th century and the
early part of this century – in Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur.
Genocide recognition
Turkey has branded the killing of Armenians by the collapsing Ottoman
Empire a consequence of war between ethnic groups; monuments in
Turkey memorialize Turks killed by Armenians. But the European Union
has stated that Turkey must acknowledge that the act was genocide
before it can join.
There have been U.S. efforts to recognize the genocide – resolutions
passed the House in 1974 and 1985 – but each has failed because the
government fears offending a military ally.
"Jews have held onto this phrase, `never again.’ I remind people that
`never again’ first appeared in the book of Genesis when God says to
Noah that he will never again flood the Earth," Stephen Feinstein,
director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the
University of Minnesota, said in an interview.
"When God speaks, we can believe it. When men speak, it’s a little
harder. `Never again’ is just a clich . Intervention always depends
on national interest. That is as simple as it is."
Band makes you ask
In "Screamers," the four members of System of a Down, who are
Armenian and grew up in Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley, talk
about their missing family trees and protest outside the Illinois
office of former House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert, who has opposed
genocide resolutions.
Wherever the band appears, their fans speak of what happened to the
Armenians – something barely taught in American public schools.
"This band didn’t start to change the world. This band didn’t start
to change your mind," singer Serj Tankian says in a performance at
the Greek Theatre. "This band started to make you ask questions."
Adam Braun, who is Jewish and a freshman at Harvard-Westlake School,
said the band’s music taught him about a genocide he’d never heard
of. "The next step is having the courage to stand against these
things."
Interwoven with concert performances are expert interviews, including
one with Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, who was assassinated
in Istanbul last week and whose funeral took place Tuesday; Turkish
protest footage; and photos and footage of genocides from Armenia to
Sudan.
"Why do genocides continue to occur in the 21st century?" says Salih
Booker, executive director of Global Rights. "Because those that
committed it in the 20th century got away with it."