Affiliated with the University of Nicosia | |||||
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A REASON FOR THE OUTRAGE By Arda Jebejian
Lecturer of Applied Linguistics, University of Nicosia
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Recently, the President of Armenia, Serge Sarkissian, visited
The peace deal would open the border
On this occasion,
William Schabas, President of the International Association of
Genocide Scholars, addressed an open letter to President Sarkissian
and Prime Minister Erdogan saying: “As the leading scholarly
organization engaged in the study of genocide, we welcome continued
investigation that will enhance our understanding of the 1915
massacres. However, we are extremely wary of any call for allegedly
impartial research into what are clearly established historical
facts. Acknowledgement
of the Armenian Genocide must be the starting point of any
"impartial historical commission," not one of its possible
conclusions. The world would not accept an inquiry into the truth of
the Nazi Holocaust, or the extermination of the Tutsi in
The protocols were signed on the set date but after three and a half
hours’ delay. The Parliaments of both countries still must ratify the agreement.
The majority of the Armenians in the homeland and the diaspora
oppose the protocols and feel they are
being forced into accepting terms that threaten Armenia’s and
Armenians’ interests, rights, safety, and future.
Hence, Serge Sarkissian embarked on an international tour
early in October, visiting major Armenian communities in
The reason for the President’s extensive tour around the world to
meet Armenians is partly because only 2.5 million Armenians live in
For researchers the events of 1915 bear some comparison with the
tit-for-tat expulsion between Nigerians and Ghanaians, and the
“ethnic cleansing” of “inconvenient” groups in the micro-states that
emerged following the disintegration of
As Richard Falk has put it, the Turkish campaign of denying the
Armenian Genocide is “sinister,” singular in the annals of history,
and “a major, proactive, deliberate government effort to use every
possible instrument of persuasion at its disposal to keep the truth
about the Armenian Genocide from general acknowledgement, especially
by the elites in the United States and Western Europe”.
Elie Wiesel has called denying genocide, and in particular
the Armenian Genocide, a “double killing,” because it murders the
memory of the event.
The Armenians remember the Genocide every year on April 24.
On that day in 1915 the Turkish government rounded up all the
Armenian intellectuals in
Hence, a reason for the outrage. | |||||
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