Orillia Packet & Times (Ontario)
October 27, 2007 Saturday

It’s a decades old question: Who now remembers the Armenians?

by McGarvey, Pete
OPINION; Pg. A6

The question is attributed to Adolph Hitler in the mid 1930s. His
henchmen were plotting the extermination of Europe’s Jews and someone
wondered aloud how world opinion would react to it. A mere 20 years
earlier, one and half million Armenians were murdered by Ottoman
Turkish soldiers in the 20th century’s first genocide, and already
the slaughter was fading from the public’s mind.

"Who now remembers the Armenians?"

Not the Bush White House, it seems. When Congress proposed a
resolution two weeks ago, recognizing the 1915 killing of the
Armenians as genocide, Washington’s top brass harrumphed, and struck
back. "Ancient history!" they proclaimed, The death count was wildly
exaggerated! There are two sides to the story and the Turkish side
deserves equal time! More important, passage of the resolution would
do irreparable harm to the US-Turkish alliance. If unduly angered,
Turkey may cut off vital American supply routes to Iraq!"

In other words, historic truth and the pursuit of justice be damned.
Commentators railed against "those stupid congressmen" and George W.
Bush himself joined the critical chorus.

The facts of the genocide are meticulously recorded. Midway through
the First World War, Ottoman Turkish leaders ordered its minority
Armenian Christians into exile on charges they were waging a civil
war against the government in Ankara. It was a lie.

Regular readers know my sentiments on this subject. I have spent 30
years studying, reporting and editorializing on this unprecedented
catastrophe, waiting for a plausible Turkish explanation of why it
happened. I’m still waiting.

The April 1915 "exile" order was code for "get rid of the Armenians
by whatever means." It was the latest and the most extreme of
organized attacks on this harried minority, the first nation in the
world to convert to Christianity. (The year was 301 AD.)

The soldiers obliged. Towns and villages were put to the torch,
Armenians by the thousand rounded up, many males murdered on sight,
while women and children were forced, at bayonet point, to trek
toward the Syrian wilderness with little food or water. The horrors
multiplied daily – random shootings, hangings, rape, death by fire,
even mass drownings. Soldiers competed in devising new and fiendish
means of disposing of their prisoners.

If the Ottoman government thought that all this would be below the
world’s radar screen, in the middle of a world war, it miscalculated
badly. Within weeks, first-hand accounts of the butchery made the
front pages of leading American and British newspapers. Henry
Morgenthau, the American ambassador to Turkey, was among the first to
report what was happening. His fury was shared by historian Arnold
Toynbee and Britain’s Winston Churchill. Soon, thousands of ordinary
citizens were roused to demand a stop to the slaughter and to hold
Ottoman Turkey accountable. Relief efforts were launched to help
survivors who managed to cross into Syria. "Save the starving
Armenians" became a rallying call, heard across the western world.

I have a shelf full of books dealing with the killings, written by
impartial witnesses, respected scholars and survivors. In April 1980,
Eileen and I were in Yerevan, the ancient Armenian capital, to
observe the 65th anniversary of the genocide. We joined a solemn
procession of Armenians, both native born and from the North American
and European diaspora, to a monument on a hillside outside the city,
to lay flowers beside an eternal flame. On the eastern horizon, Mount
Ararat was in clear view.

In the week we spent in Soviet Armenia, our appreciation of this
unique nation increased tenfold. We visited Etchmiatsin, site of the
Cathedral of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, the first building in the
world to be topped by a cross. The museum nearby, joined to the
palace of the church’s pontiff, known as the Cathilicos, was a
treasure house of relics and documents, recording the rise and fall
of a proud and culturally accomplished race over three millennia.
Here, too, were hundreds of bones of 1915 martyrs.

There’s an ironic touch to events in Washington two weeks ago. In the
same week the Armenian genocide proposal was roundly condemned,
Congress awarded a gold medal to the Dalai Lama, who was lauded by
U.S. President George W. Bush for his life-long crusade to win
autonomy for Tibet.

There were the usual declarations of America being the beacon of hope
and the agent for justice for oppressed people everywhere.

Unless, of course, you belonged to a nation shattered by the first
documented genocide of the 20th century, when such a declaration
would be politically inconvenient.

Contact columnist Pete McGarvey at petemcg@rogers.com