UPDATE 29 July 2015: Ashley Kalagian Blunt writes about coming to terms with the genocide in Canada and Australia.
UPDATE 18 June 2015: Nikki Marczak writes on how what is happening today in the Middle East repeats many historical events of a century ago. She says:
Australia’s position on the Global Coalition to Combat Daesh should not be wasted, and discussions being held with our regional partners must keep in mind the pressing concern of protection of minority groups in Iraq. Australia can help to ensure the contemporary pages in the long Assyrian story tell of a free and flourishing community, rather than one that is quickly disappearing.
Marczak has a related article here and another one here. Meanwhile, a new book of photographs and text from Judith Crispin and others commemorates the genocide of a century ago, an event which was followed just as closely by Australians then as events in the Middle East are now.
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This month is not just about Anzac. Here’s some resources on the Armenian genocide, commemorated on 24 April. It is the centenary this year. Not many Australians know that. They should. It is a challenge to an Australia that has welcomed Turks, Armenians, Assyrians, Syrians, Hellenes, Yazidis, and many others from the former Ottoman lands to confront and deal with this history.
- Panayiotis Diamadis on genocides of Ottoman Christian minorities, 1914-23, including evidence from the neutral American Morgenthau and other links.
- Cable 1934 from American representative Skinner in Ankara to Washington.
- Robert Fisk claims Turkey is using the Gallipoli centenary to conceal the Armenian genocide.
- Erik Jan Zurcher writes on Turkish attitudes at the time.
- Vicken Babkenian looks at what happened; includes links to a view from New Zealand, a 2014 piece by Kaplan, recent remarks by Pope Francis and the Turkish response.
- Another New Zealand article.
- Janna Thompson notes that what happened to the Armenians led to the coining of the term ‘genocide’.
- Docker and Curthoys look at examples of genocide (downloadable book).
- Edith Glanville, writing in 1929, shows Australia has a long history with the Yazidis.
- Australian Turkish Advocacy Alliance releases a letter from Minister Bishop saying the Australian government recognises the devastating effects of events at the end of the Ottoman Empire but does not regard them as genocide.
- Paul Monk puts the pressure on Turkey.
- Armenian National Committee of Australia website.
- Stefan Ihrig in Huffington Post on genocide denial.
- Evan Jones, Vicken Babkenian, Geoffrey Robertson in Independent Australia. (Part 2 to come.)
- How the Vatican tried to stop the genocide: NewsMax.
- New York Times editorial on Turkey’s wilful amnesia.
- Guardian briefing with links to related content.
- Voice of America on recent actions of Turkish government.
- The Economist looks at the evidence and at the Turkish official version of what happened, including the claim that Armenians were siding with Russia against the Ottoman Empire.
- A ‘fact-check’ site which needs very close analysis: ‘complex history’.
- Another site providing a wide range of resources for educators.
- Wikipedia.
- Op ed from Los Angeles Times.
- Al Jazeera.
- Turkish prime minister responds.
- Armenian film directors claim Crowe’s Water Diviner is genocide-denying.
- Chris Ray in SMH on continuing persecution.
- Robert Fisk says denying the genocide is close to a criminal lie.
- Judith Crispin on the impacts of the genocide a century later on the cultural heritage of the region (with a link to a piece by David Boyajian).
- John Tulloh on Turkish forgetfulness about the genocide.
- More from Robert Kaplan.
- Tim Mayfield in The Drum.
- Tuncay Yilmazer, an ordinary Turkish citizen, says the term ‘genocide’ is applied selectively.
- Hans-Lukas Kieser on the history of the genocide.
- Tess Lawrence in Independent Australia on the politics of remembrance, especially in relation to Armenian-descended Joe Hockey.
- James Reidel in the New York Review of Books on Franz Werfel’s book on the genocide, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.
- Ian Black, reprinted on No Glory in War site from The Guardian.
- Jeremy Salt puts an opposing view in 2014.
Finally, here is an extract from the e-book reprint of Ken Inglis’ articles on the visit of Anzac veterans and others to Gallipoli in 1965.
There is another and a simpler reason why the encounter [Gallipoli] is remembered in Turkey as in Australia. Hundreds of thousands of people are still alive who mourn soldiers killed there. Some Turks, when asked last week about the commemoration, mentioned this fact as sufficient. There may be other reasons that elude the casual visitor. Is it possible, for example, that the Turks find it more pleasant to dwell on the defence of their homeland against invasion than to recall the simultaneous act by which, as a deliberate policy, the Turkish government killed nearly a million of its Armenian citizens?
Last Sunday, Armenians outside Turkey were commemorating this pioneer essay in modern genocide at the very time when the Turks were playing hosts to the Anzacs at Ari Burnu. (p. 49)
17 April 2015 and updated
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