Photo: NYPL
Image Caption:
1916: Armenian refugees rescued from Turks by French cruiser arrive in New York, March 9th. 14 year old Peter Gragosian, and three leaders of the refugees arriving in this country.
Why would it take 90 years for the US to recognize, officially, the Armenian genocide, perpetuated by the Turks? More gravely, how could a nation like Turkey not understand or accept its role in the annihilation of another people, a minority group within its boundaries?
The US has long accepted the responsibility of various times in our national history when we mistreated groups of people (blacks, Native-Americans, Asians). The former fascist states of Austria and Germany, and most of Europe, including the Catholic Church, will discuss and openly debate their own role in the Holocaust and the deliberate murder of six million Jews.
But the Turks seem to hold up their “national honor” as a greater principle than that of the truth. Whether they intended to kill off every last Armenian, or merely killed millions as a result of a civil war, does not excuse or exonerate them from admitting their murderous ways. A forced death march (of Armenians) may not be the gas chambers, but the result is still the same.
The intersection where the West meets the East is fraught with danger. We seem to again be proceeding down that realpolitik road where we temporarily align ourselves with a Muslim dominated nation in a stupid alliance of convenience. If we fail to pass the Armenian genocide resolution, so that we can gain the temporary support of the Turks, we will fail the larger responsibility of moral leadership.
Here in Van Nuys 