TURKS PROTEST GENOCIDE COURSE
By Brian Gray, Sun Media
Toronto Sun, Canada
Jan 16 2007
School board committee hears from both sides
Passions are expected to be on display today as a committee of the
Toronto District School Board hears both sides of the controversial
genocide issue.
The board has already received the go -ahead from the province
to implement an optional Grade 11 history course in some schools
concentrating on three examples of state-sponsored murder based on
race, religion or nationality, said trustee Gerri Gershon, who brought
the idea to the board.
"I’m not sure there are going to be any final decisions made,"
Gershon said.
Genocides on the curriculum are the slaughter of six million Jews
by the Nazis in World War II and the death of one million Hutus and
Tutsis in Rwanda in the 1990s.
The most controversial genocide — that of an estimated 1.5 million
Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923 —
has tempers flaring.
The Council of Turkish Canadians has almost 5,000 signatures on an
online petition demanding the removal of the Armenian genocide from
the course outline.
"Numerous respected scholars with expertise in Ottoman history
refute such claims as one-sided narrative completely ignorant of
Turkish suffering," the petition reads. "Therefore with respect to
TDSB’s Grade 11 history course Genocide: Historical and Contemporary
Implications, we demand that any references to the Armenian claim of
genocide be removed."
Board spokesman David Tomczak said a large turnout is expected at the
meeting at TDSB’s 5050 Yonge St. offices, where the Program and School
Services Committee is slated to hear from six groups representing
both sides of the issue.
Gershon said the intent is not to point fingers at people.
"We want to look at the roles of bystanders and heroes and heroines
and villains and expose the dark side of human behaviour," Gershon
said, adding the idea behind education is to ensure these things
don’t happen again.
008/01/16/4775762-sun.html