GENOCIDE, HOLOCAUST OR METS YEGHERN?
Lena Badeyan
"Radiolur"
24.04.2010 13:14
A year ago Armenians criticized US President Barack Obama for using
the word "Mets Yeghern" instead of "Genocide" in his annual April
24th address.
If we try to draw parallels between the words "Mets Yeghern" and
"Holocaust," it will become obvious that the world conceives the
pretext of the Holocaust, while what Mets Yeghern means is clear only
to Armenians.
Political scientist Sergey Shakartants is assured that the world does
not perceive the words "Genocide," "Mets Yeghern" and "Holocaust"
as the same. Therefore, Obama’s use of the word "genocide" a year
ago could not be viewed as recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
"Jewish communities have been working for decades to knock into the
head of "the last Bushman" that the Holocaust refers to the tragedy
of Jews. Therefore, even the Australian aborigines understand what
it is about. Perhaps there are similar words in let’s say Albanian
or the language of some tribe. However, any tragic event in Africa,
Balkans or elsewhere is referred to as genocide. Why are the events
in Rwanda described as genocide, while the crimes against Armenians
are called "Mets Yeghern?"
Specialists explain that the events in Rwanda or the Balkans constitute
genocide since they happened after 1943, i.e. after Polish lawyer of
Jewish descent Rafael Lemkin brought the word "genocide" into use,
meaning the Genocide of Armenians. Since the atrocities that befell
Armenian and Jews happened much earlier than the word "genocide"
was brought into use, every nation gave its own characteristics to
the events.
It’s interesting that although the word "Holocaust," which means
"burning" and "sacrifice," was presented to the world as the tragedy
of the Jews, Jews themselves prefer to us the word "Shoah," which
they consider to be more correct and exact. The Jewish word "Shoah"
can be considered the equivalent of the Armenian "Mets Yeghrn,"
which means great calamity.
Despite all this, Director of the Analytical Center on Globalization
and Regional Cooperation considers that Obama’s use of the word
"Mets Yeghern" could be viewed as recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
"We can say that if Obama uses the word "Mets Yeghern" once again this
year, refraining from uttering the word "Genocide," it will mean an
affirmation that what happened at the turn of the 20th century was
genocide. I have no doubt that in a while the term "Mets Yeghern"
will come to describe genocide and will become an equivalent of the
"Holocaust." It’s not ruled out that Obama might utter the word
"Genocide." The probability is rather high taking into consideration
the recent policy of Turkey, especially the harsh statements of the
Turkish Prime Minister," Stepan Grigoryan said.
It doesn’t matter which word is used to characterize the events of
1915, says Richard Giragosian, Director of the Armenian Center for
National and International Studies. He does not attach much importance
to what Obama will say this time. The most important for him is that
Turkey acknowledges the Armenian Genocide.
Whatever, Armenians of the world will be waiting for the use of the
word "genocide" instead of "Mets Yeghern."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
