Manly Daily (Australia)
September 12, 2006 Tuesday
Armenian welcome
FORMER Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam was a guest speaker at
the Hamazkaine Arshak and Sophie Galstaun School’s 20th birthday
celebrations on Sunday.
Mr Whitlam said he had learned a great deal about many Christian
nations when he represented immigrants in Sydney’s south western
suburbs for 25 years from 1952.
”Armenians are a durable and talented nation which has always been
surrounded by more populous neighbours,” Mr Whitlam said.
”Armenia has always striven to maintain its independence and
identity.”
Mr Whitlam said he first heard about Armenia when he was a boy.
In 1919 the new League of Nations was establishing mandates over
nations which had been ruled by the German and Ottoman Empires before
the end of World War I.
Armenia should have come under the mandate of the US but the US
senate refused consent and in 1921 it was uncorporated into what
would become the USSR.
The nation finally became independent in 1991.
Another special guest at the ceremonies at the Ingleside school was
His Holiness Karekin II, the supreme patriarch of all Armenians.