SEN. TOLMAN: NO DENYING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
By Sen. Steven Tolman/ Guest Column
Belmont Citizen-Herald, MA
April 27 2006
For Armenian-Americans, April 24 is an important day: It was on that
date in 1915 that the Ottoman Turkish Empire began its slaughter
of Armenians. Over the next several years, more than a million
Armenians were murdered in a calculated campaign to rid Turkey of
all Armenians. In other words, the so-called Young Turk government
committed genocide against the Armenian people.
Among scholars and genocide experts, there is no doubt about this
issue. The International Association of Genocide Scholars (the
definitive group of scholars on the subject), the Institute on the
Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, and the Institute for the Study
of Genocide have repeatedly affirmed the historical facts of the
Armenian genocide, as has Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel and Pulitzer
Prize winner Samantha Power.
For those who are relatives of survivors, there can be no doubt about
this crime. Yet, sometime in the next several weeks, a federal judge
in Boston will hear arguments in a suit brought by the Association
of Turkish American Assemblies and others that seeks introduce
materials into Massachusetts classrooms denying that the Armenian
genocide occurred.
How, after all these years, can this still be open to debate?
Because the Turkish government and its American affiliate continue
to deny that the Young Turks committed this grave crime. And they
continue to seek forums to push their denialist point of view.
Now they’re bringing this campaign to Massachusetts, home to one of
the largest Armenian populations in the nation. They claim that the
Massachusetts Department of Education trampled on the First Amendment
when it decided not to teach “the other side” of the Armenian genocide,
i.e., that the slaughter was just the unfortunate byproduct of civil
war between the Turks and the Armenians.
This claim, refuted by reputable genocide scholars, is an affront to
thousands of Armenian-Americans living here in Massachusetts whose
families were victims of the Turkish government’s murderous campaign.
And it is particularly offensive for people like 99-year-old John
Kasparian of Worcester and 93-year-old Armine Dedikian of Watertown,
two survivors of the slaughter.
For anyone interested in ascertaining the truth about this genocide,
they need merely to hear stories like Mr. Kasparian’s, whose family
left its home the night before the Turkish attack that took 200 of
their fellow villagers and whose brother died of starvation while the
family fled. Or that of Mrs. Dedikian, whose father was killed just
before she was born and who was separated from her mother soon after.
(Mother and daughter were eventually re-united when 15-year-old Armine
arrived alone at Ellis Island to meet her mother, whom she had tracked
down in the U.S., using newspaper ads and family connections.)
Unfortunately, the U.S. government, afraid to offend Turkey, its
military ally, has not taken a stand on this issue. But all 12 members
of our state’s congressional delegation – Senators Kennedy and Kerry
and the 10 representatives in the House – have signed a resolution
calling on the President to recognize the atrocity.
Now we in Massachusetts find ourselves being pulled backwards into this
debilitating debate over whether a genocide, long confirmed by victims
and historians, ever existed. It is even more than ironic that this
court case was filed in a year when genocide has once again reared
its ugly head in Darfur, where thousands have died at the hands of
the Sudanese army, and in a year when the Iranian president has once
again put Holocaust denials on the front page. As unfathomable as the
crime of genocide is, it continues to occur in all its savagery. And
as offensive as the official denials are, they also continue, not
only when the crimes occur but for years afterward.
In 1939, when announcing his decision to begin killing Polish men,
women and children, Hitler infamously uttered: “Who, after all,
speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” He was counting
on the world to forget his atrocities, as he believed the world had
already forgotten the Turkish murders.
Fortunately, the world has not forgotten either the Nazi crimes or
the Turkish slaughter. But denialists continue to try to spread their
peculiar amnesia. We in Massachusetts, home to a significant Jewish
population and one of the largest Armenian-American populations in
the country, must never forget.
Submitted by state Sen. Steven Tolman, Rep. Rachel Kaprielian and
Rep. Peter Koutoujian.