Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) were joined by close to 50 US House of Representatives members in introducing the Armenian Genocide Education Act, a bipartisan measure that would fund Library of Congress educational programs about the history, lessons, consequences, and ongoing costs of the Armenian Genocide, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
“As the saying goes, if we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it,” said Congresswoman Maloney. “That is why I am proud to introduce the Armenian Genocide Education Act to teach the horrors and lessons of the Armenian Genocide accurately and effectively. Both chambers of Congress voted with overwhelming bipartisan majorities to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, and last year President Biden made it clear that it is the official position of the United States that these systematic killings were genocide. It is imperative that we now ensure Americans have access to the resources they need to learn and teach about this atrocity.”
Rep. Bilirakis concurred, noting, “our darkest moments as a human race have come during times when those who knew better stood silently, making excuses for passivity and allowing injustice and persecution to reign. We must acknowledge the atrocities of the past so that we might hopefully prevent them in the future. One of the best ways to achieve this goal is through education and awareness, which is why I am proud to co-introduce the Armenian Genocide Education Act with Carolyn Maloney.”
This landmark legislation, introduced on the eve of the international commemoration of the Armenian Genocide on April 24th, seeks to provide $10 million in funding over five years for the Library of Congress to educate Americans about Ottoman Turkey’s systematic and deliberate state-sponsored mass murder, national dispossession, cultural erasure, and exile of millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians, between 1915 and 1923.