Honest History list: Armenian genocide

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.

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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