Canada's So-called Armenians

[phantom22]

We are so few here way outside the Armenian mainstream and yet we get support for Armenian Causes.

 

What are you Canadian Armenians doing? Sitting on your vorigs?

 

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...PStory/National

 

COUNCIL OF TURKISH CANADIANS

 

Genocide book pulled from high school reading list

 

UNNATI GANDHI

 

May 16, 2008

 

A book about genocide has been pulled from the recommended reading list of a new Toronto public school course because of objections from the Turkish-Canadian community, the author says.

 

Barbara Coloroso's Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide was originally part of a resource list for the Grade 11 history course, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, set to launch across the Toronto District School Board this fall.

 

The book examines the Holocaust, which exterminated six million Jews in the Second World War; the Rwandan slaughter of nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994, and the massacres of more than a million Armenians in 1895, 1909 and 1915.

 

But a committee struck to review the course decided in late April to remove the book because "a concern was raised regarding [its] appropriateness. ... The Committee determined this was far from a scrupulous text and should not be on a History course although it might be included in a course on the social psychology of genocide because of her posited thesis that genocide is merely the extreme extension of bullying," according to board documents.

 

Director of education Gerry Connelly did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.

 

Ms. Coloroso, a best-selling author of parenting books, said she wasn't surprised her work was removed, given that "ever since the book came out, the Turks have mounted a worldwide campaign objecting to it, which is not surprising because of the denial of the genocide."

 

She said what upset her was not so much that her book had been pulled, but that it was replaced by works by Bernard Lewis and Guenter Lewy, whom she refers to as deniers of the Armenian genocide.

 

"I knew when I wrote Extraordinary Evil that I would anger some genocide deniers," she wrote to Ms. Connelly. "I am disappointed that a small group of people can bully an entire committee. ..."

 

The Council of Turkish Canadians is opposed to the course for classifying the Armenian killings as genocide and inciting anti-Turkish sentiment. It has gathered nearly 11,000 signatures on an online petition calling for changes to the course. Turkey has denied the killings were genocide, saying they were First World War casualties.

 

Kevser Taymaz, president of the council's board, said yesterday the book's removal was "one positive move" by the school board, but added the Armenian massacres should not even be considered as part of course that is entitled "Genocide."

 

"The course is one-sided. If they want to introduce the events of 1915, it should be giving the historical truth from both sides and let the students decide."

 

Aris Babikian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of Canada, said Armenian-Canadians feel the course as it stands is headed "in the right direction."

 

"But we have some concerns about ... the inclusion of Bernard Lewis and Guenter Lewy as reputable scholars. It will be unjust to the hundreds of scholars who have researched the Armenian genocide."

 

[Yervant1]

We are so few here way outside the Armenian mainstream and yet we get support for Armenian Causes.

 

What are you Canadian Armenians doing? Sitting on your vorigs?

I think phantom is talking out of his vorig again. So called Armenians? Get a life and do your homework about their achievements. The last time I checked Canada was among the countries that have accepted the AG thanks to whose efforts? Yours?

Edited May 17, 2008 by Yervant1

[MosJan]

I think phantom is talking out of his vorig again. So called Armenians? Get a life and do your homework about their achievements. The last time I checked Canada was among the countries that have accepted the AG thanks to whose efforts? Yours?

 

Yervand jan teteven vertsur aggas - it's all about his vorig - qor guqa gor

 

most likely he has been celebrating for the passed 3 days and forget his medicine, since the CA court has gave him OK to marry his turkish or jewish boyfriends

[phantom22]

That court decision is for gays, not me. Why would I want to marry a guy?

 

Yervand jan teteven vertsur aggas - it's all about his vorig - qor guqa gor

 

most likely he has been celebrating for the passed 3 days and forget his medicine, since the CA court has gave him OK to marry his turkish or jewish boyfriends

 

[DominO123]

The Turkish community of Canada is concentrated in Ontario along the Azeri, while the Armenians are concentrated in Quebec (Montreal). They could have darred doing this here and see what happens.

[MosJan]

That court decision is for gays, not me. Why would I want to marry a guy?

 

 

 

wow : yet again a new personality

[hetanos]

I think phantom is talking out of his vorig again. So called Armenians? Get a life and do your homework about their achievements. The last time I checked Canada was among the countries that have accepted the AG thanks to whose efforts? Yours?

Ervant. Not to take away great many accomplishments of Armenian-Canadians, it was an easier task for Armenians to lobby European oriented Canadian Government due their progressive and plural values than our bible-quoting, rifle-carrying, Europe-hating electorate and its militaristic government.

 

[Stormig]

Kevser Taymaz, president of the council's board, said yesterday the book's removal was "one positive move" by the school board, but added the Armenian massacres should not even be considered as part of course that is entitled "Genocide."

 

"The course is one-sided. If they want to introduce the events of 1915, it should be giving the historical truth from both sides and let the students decide."

So which is it? Is it the politicians, historians, lame-arse Turkish academicians, or - oh, get this latest one - students that decide?

 

Aris Babikian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of Canada, said Armenian-Canadians feel the course as it stands is headed "in the right direction."

 

"But we have some concerns about ... the inclusion of Bernard Lewis and Guenter Lewy as reputable scholars. It will be unjust to the hundreds of scholars who have researched the Armenian genocide."

Enh???

Edited May 19, 2008 by Stormig

[Yervant1]

Genocide Denial Robs us of our Humanity

 

http://www.yenihayatnews.com/news/?p=112

 

Mayýs 15, 2008

 

"Yeni Hayat"

Canadian Turkish Newspaper

Haber: Politika

 

The recent debate on Toronto District School Board's (TDSB) decision

to develop a Grade 11 `Genocide: Historical and Contemporary

Implications' curriculum, which has been approved by the Minister of

Education in Ontario, unleashed a sophisticated and deceptive campaign

to discredit the curriculum and the TDSB. Any rational, responsible

person would applaud the teaching of our students the catastrophic

effects of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

That Turkish Government agents and lobbyists are campaigning to deter

TDSB from introducing this extremely valuable course is dismaying, but

not surprising. The well-funded and aggressive efforts by Turkey to

deny the Armenian Genocide have been so prevalent in Turkey and around

the world that they have become infamously known as -an industry of

denial.- The motives and methods of these history-distorting efforts

are well documented and studied by Holocaust and Genocide scholars,

historians, educators and psycho logists.

 

The Turkish denial machine employes falsehoods, innuendo,

unsubstantiated accusations and revisionist historical discourse to

promote its version of history.

 

What happened during the TDSB Program and Services Committee's meeting

in Toronto on January 16 is another demonstration of the extent the

Turkish nationalists will go to silence anyone who does nor share

their revisionist narrative of history. The Turkish representatives

tried to intimidate and to silence such prominent Canadians as

Prof. Frank Chalk, director of the Montréal Institute for Genocide

and Human Rights Studies; David Warner, former Speaker of the Ontario

Legislative Assembly; Leo Adler, prominent criminal lawyer and human

rights advocate; and Hon. Jim Karygiannis, MP, who attended the

meeting to show their strong support for the curriculum and the

inclusion of the Armenian Genocide in the Grade 11 history course.

 

To try to curtail freedom of expression of any Canadian and to taunt

them with abuses and profanities is shameful and a threat to

democracy. The scene was reminiscent of the trials of many righteous

Turkish individuals who in recent years have challenged the Turkish

Government for its denial of the Armenian Genocide and who have been

silenced under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code.

 

It looks like The Turkish nationalists are trying to import that

anti-democratic modus operandi to Canada.

 

Since it would take volumes to categorically reply to Turkish

lobbyists' falsehoods, I would like to address some of their

revisionist historical discourse. We will note their false suggestions

and then offer the factual corrections.

 

Introduction of the curriculum would incite hatred against Turkish

children.

 

 

It is claimed that if such a curriculum is introduced it would -create

hatred against Turkish children.-

 

Despite Turkish lobbyists' allegations, there's absolutely no shred of

evidence from any authority-government or educational-that Turkish

school children have been bullied by their Armenian classmates in

Canada. Raising fears that mentioning the Genocide of Armenians would

result in the persecution of Turks is a red herring intended to plant

fear among educational institutions in Canada.

 

Most Armenians and Turks overwhelmingly distinguish between the

perpetrators of the genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and people

of Turkish descent today, wherever the latter may live. The January 19

commemoration of the first anniversary of the assassination

Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Ottawa by a group of

Armenians and Turks, who are members of the Turkish-Armenian Dialogue

Group of Ottawa, is the best illustration of this attitude. Mr. Dink

was assassinated in front of his Istanbul office by a member of a

nationalist Turkish political group.

 

It is also possible to teach that genocide is wrong without teaching

hatred of the perpetrators. One can explain their motivations and why

they were wrong. One can explain the destruction and the suffering

they caused. This is being done successfully in our current

educational system where the Holocaust is taught without blaming

contemporary Germany or Germans.

 

After a decade of teaching about the Armenian Genocide in schools in

12 American states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Georgia,

Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Virginia, and

California), there has not been a single registered or documented

incident of -bullying, hate, and racism- against Turkish children.

 

Many righteous Turks during the Armenian Genocide risked their lives

to save their Armenian neighbours, friends, and business associates.

Furthermore, we value the many Turkish intellectuals, historians,

journalists and over 12,000 German-Turks who, despite death threats,

persecution, and prosecution challenged the official narrative of the

Turkish government on the Armenian Genocide and asked the Turkish

government to come to terms with this sad chapter of its history.

 

Here is what the German Turks wrote:

 

-What we have learned at school (Turkish) is a forgery of history.-

They asked the Turkish Government to repent for the crime of Genocide

which -we feel morally obliged to end their (Armenians) disillusions

and agony-. Furthermore, the association asked for -international

condemnation of the crimes committed against the Armenians, Assyrians

and Pontian-Greeks.-

 

While official Turkey denies its responsibility for the Armenian

Genocide, Turkish intellectual Taner Akçam wrote in the Turkish

newspaper Yeni Binyil (October 1, 2000):

 

-The manner in which the Armenian question is being discussed is in

itself indicative as to what is the main problem of our country. We do

not possess the culture affording open debate about mass murders. We

are devoid of the moral foundations which enable us to damn such

crimes. One needs to have a sense of sorrow in order to be able to

speak of the great human tragedies; but we do not possess such a sense

of morality. Look at the things that have been written about this

topic. In them you don't find a single sentence, a single word that

recognizes the tragedy.-

 

When Turkish children learn about these righteous Turks, they can be

proud of the way these people acted. They will be absolved of any

responsibility. As renowned writer Ahmet Altan stated in May 2005: -I

have nothing in common with the terrible sin of the past Ittihadists

[the government of the day]... instead of justifying and arguing on

behalf of the murderers, why don't we praise and defend the rescuers'

compassion, honesty, and courage?-

 

Historians are disputing the Armenian Genocide.

 

After 92 years and numerous history books, government documents

(British, French, United States, and even then-Turkish allies Germany

and Austria), photographs by war correspondents, massive coverage by

Western journalists, missionaries and NGOs, and documentary films, we

maintain that it's redundant to try to prove what has been proven

countless times. After all, would anyone demand that a historians'

committee be formed to question whether the Holocaust took place?

 

The Turkish Government agents cite the same half-dozen historians and

writers to back their allegations. Practically everyone listed has

taught history at institutions where their chair has been funded by

the Turkish government. These historians have close relationships with

the government of Turkey; have privileged access to Turkish historic

archives and are provided with frequent all-expense paid trips to

Turkey. The publication of their books are often funded by the

government of Turkey.

 

Many genocide scholars have questioned the credibility of these

half-dozen historians.

 

Colin Imber, in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, called

Justin McCarthy's work: -Junk food, junk bonds and now junk history

... This is a cruel description, but one which is perfectly

appropriate for a book which is carelessly written, is often

misinformed, and shamelessly follows a Turkish nationalist agenda.-

 

Ton Zwaan, in de Volkskrant (Dutch newspaper) wrote: -Among bona fide

historians McCarthy is known as one of the professional deniers,

subsidized by the Turkish government.- Zwaan continued: -In a

groundless, hazy and disorderly argumentation replete with half-truths

and complete untruths, McCarthy attempts to persuade his readers that

an Armenian genocide never transpired in the Ottoman Empire in 1915

and 1916.-

 

Many Turkish historians, among them Taner Akcam and Muge Gocek, also

questioned McCarthy's research and trustworthiness.

 

Guenter Lewy is a well know revisionist. His work-from the killing of

Roma Gypsies in the Second World War to the Vietnam War-is well

documented. This is what the Journal of Genocide Research wrote:

-Lewy's . . . book which seeks not only to exclude the Nazis' Romani

victims from the Holocaust-which is not anything new-but goes a step

further to say that they were not even the targets of attempted

genocide. . . `The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies' is a dangerous

book.-

 

 

After reading Lewy's biased article on the Armenian Genocide,

Prof. Gregory H. Stanton, said: -I am appalled. It is such a blatant

denial article . . . As you know, the evidence for the Armenian

genocide does not just rest upon the three sources Guenter Lewy

attempts to discredit. (He doesn't even do a good job of discrediting

those sources.) It also rests on literally thousands of eye-witness

testimonies, eyewitness reports by diplomats and missionaries, and a

mountain of other data. Lewy's article is directly contrary to the

official opinion of the International Association of Genocide

Scholars, passed by unanimous resolution, declaring that the Armenian

massacres were genocide, and that attempts to deny that fact have no

basis in sound scholarship.-

 

 

Norman M. Naimark from Stanford University recently reviewed Guenter

Lewy's latest book for the jounral Holocaust and Genocide

Studies. Naimark concluded that -... if Lewy wishes to maintain his

claims to historical objectivity by using accepted judicial

definitions of genocide, then the difficulty of finding direct

evidence for the Young Turks' premeditated planning of mass murder

should not prevent him from concluding that genocide took place. At

its core, then Lewy's argument is illogical.-

 

 

The International Association of Genocide Scholars, in a letter to the

Turkish Prime Minister labelled such historians as -scholars who

advise your government and who are affiliated in other ways with your

state-controlled institutions are not impartial. Such so-called

-scholars- work to serve the agenda of historical and moral

obfuscation when they advise you and the Turkish Parliament on how to

deny the Armenian Genocide.-

 

 

One of the historians Turks often cite to buttress their denialist

arguments is Bernard Lewis. Mr. Lewis has been convicted in French

court for denying the Armenian Genocide. His flip-flopping on the

Armenian Genocide is well documented. In an earlier version of his

book, -The Emergence of Modern Turkey,- Lewis wrote: -A struggle

between two nations for the possession of single homeland, that ended

with the terrible holocaust of 1915, where a million and half

Armenians perished.-

 

I have no intention to enter into a -my historian is more credible

than your historian- contest here, although the number of

international historians who acknowledge the truth of the Genocide of

Armenians exceeds the names cited by Turkish lobbyists by a hundred

fold. To mention just one group of 126 Holocaust scholars, among them

Elie Wiesel, Yehuda Bauer, Israel Charny, Steven Katz, Steven Jacobs,

and Irving L. Horowitz, who on March 9, 2000, issued a statement

declaring that -The World War I Armenian Genocide is an incontestable

historical fact and accordingly urge the governments of the Western

democracies to likewise recognize it as such.-

 

The Turkish archives are open. Armenians refuse dialogue

 

One of the most disingenuous Turkish arguments is that Turkish

archives are open and that Armenian archives are closed on the

genocide issue. They use this argument to mislead and to divert

attention from the real issue, the crime of Genocide. Furthermore,

they try to imply that Armenians have something to hide and do not

want to open their archives for inspection or to enter into a dialogue

with Turks.

 

What is the truth?

 

In regard to the Armenian Genocide, there are four main Turkish

sources of archives:

 

1-The Prime Ministerial Archives

 

2-The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) [the governing party in

1915] Archives

 

3-The Special Organization [the organization which carried out the

Genocide] Archives

 

4-The Interior Ministry Archives.

 

According to the Istanbul Military Tribunal (1919 - 1921), which was

established to try Turkish Government leaders who had ordered the

implementation of the Armenian Genocide, most of the documents related

to the latter three organizations have been either -stolen or

destroyed.- During the trial, the Turkish persecutor in his

indictment, stated: -Investigation of what had occurred reveals that

important documents pertaining to this office [special Organizations]

...have been purloined.-

 

In the same indictment, he also stated that -all of the documents and

ledgers of the Central Committee [CUP] have been purloined.-

Furthermore, many witnesses during the trials testified that the

documents of CUP had been removed by Central Committee member

Dr. Nazim.

 

In regard to the Interior Ministry Archives, Aziz Bey (former director

of General Security), revealed that Talt *****, the interior minister,

prior to fleeing the country, took suitcases of documents, information

and reports, and burned them.

 

The only archives which are open are the Prime Ministerial

Archives. These archives are limited to a small group of selected

historians who a priori have demonstrated their support of Turkish

government's genocide denialist narrative. Furthermore, researchers

are allowed only 25 documents per day, which severely limits the

ability to work there.

 

Recently, Mehmet Sait Uluisik, a German citizen of Turkish origin, was

banned from entering Turkey to carry research in the Prime Minister's

Ottoman archives on the role of Circassians in the Armenian

Genocide. The Circassians were armed and funded by the government of

Turkey.

 

Thus to claim Turkish archives are open to scholars is inaccurate. The

critical archives pertaining to the Armenian Genocide are not in the

archives, while the available ones are of limited access.

 

The accusation that Armenians refuse to dialogue with Turks is another

myth.

 

Numerous attempts have been made by the Armenian Government and the

Armenian Diaspora to dialogue with Turks. These attempts have failed

because of the Turkish Government's intransigent and unreasonable

conditions. The Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC) is a

prime example. Turkish and Armenian members of TARC agreed to submit

the arbitration of the Armenian Genocide issue to a third party-the

International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). When ICTJ's

report concluded that what happened to the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey

was a classic case of genocide and fulfilled four out of five

conditions set by the UN Genocide Convention, the Turkish government

pulled the plug on TARC by asking its Turkish members to withdraw from

the commission.

 

In response to the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's letter to

the President of Armenia, to establish a -joint group of

historians... to study ... the events of 1915,- Robert Kocharian, the

President of Armenia, on April 25, 2005, replied by saying: -Your

[Erdogan[ suggestion to address the past cannot be effective if it

deflects from addressing the present and future, in order to engage in

a useful dialogue, we need to create the appropriate and conducive

political environment..in that context, an intergovernmental

commission can meet to discuss any and all outstanding issues between

our two nations.-

 

 

The Turkish Government did not respond to the Armenian Government's

positive approach to solve this issue. On April 11, 2006, the Foreign

Minister of Armenia Vartan Oskanian, reminded the Turkish Government

and the international community that -we remain amazed that a letter

sent by president Kocharian to Prime Minister Erdogan... remains

simply ignored because the Turkish authorities did not like the

response contained therein, and do not wish to broaden the scope of

dialogue beyond histology.-

 

 

More recently, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Armenian

Parliament organized a conference in the Armenian Parliament on

Turkish Armenian relations. Among the invitees were Turkish professor

Yusuf Halacoglu (president of Turkish Historical Society), Sedat

Laciner (director of International Strategic Research Institute),

former Turkish Ambassador Omer Engin Lutem (head of the Armenian

Studies Institute of the Eurasian Strategic Research Center), Turkey's

Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, and Dr. Can Paker (Turkey's special

representative for relations with the European Union). None of the

Turkish invitees attended this important and unique conference. The

Turkish side missed a golden opportunity to meet Armenian politicians,

historians and scholars to discuss relations between the two

neighboring nations.

 

The Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, Tigran Torosian, voiced his

concern that Turkey's decision not to participate in the discussions

would not contribute to dialogue between the two nations.

 

The above examples clearly show that Turkish government's manipulative

offer of dialogue with Armenians is akin to the neo-Nazis' suggestion

of an independent, objective historical commission to determine

whether the Holocaust took place or the Flat Earth Society's offer to

hold an academic dialogue with National Geographic about the true

shape of the earth.

 

If the Turkish Government does not allow its citizens, historians and

intellectuals to freely discuss the issue of the Armenian Genocide in

Turkey, and prosecutes them under article 301 of the Turkish Penal

Code, how can one take its offer of dialogue with Armenians and the

creation of -historians commission- seriously?

 

The Canadian Armenian community does not bear any animosity towards

the Canadian Turkish community. On the contrary, we sympathize with

the members of the Turkish-Canadian community and Turks in general,

particularly when they have been mislead for too long and denied their

own history, by the Turkish Government.

 

We are hopeful the Turkish Government halts its campaign of

falsification of history and focuses on the Genocide issue without

hysteria, racism, nationalistic fanaticism and that the Turkish people

will acknowledge the misdeeds of their predecessors and extend a hand

of friendship to the Armenian people.

 

 

Ardash Amroyan

 

 

 

[Yervant1]

Canada NewsWire (press release), Canada

May 27 2008

 

 

PEN Canada to Toronto District School Board: uphold freedom of expression

 

 

TORONTO, May 27 /CNW/ - In a strongly worded letter to John Campbell,

chair of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), PEN Canada urges

reversal of the Board's recent decision to remove Extraordinary Evil:

A Brief History of Genocide, by Barbara Coloroso, from the resource

list of a new Grade 11 course on genocide and crimes against humanity

to be taught next year.

 

"PEN Canada would like immediate clarification regarding the basis on

which the Board has moved ahead to remove Extraordinary Evil from the

resource list for this course," said Nelofer Pazira, President of PEN

Canada. "Under the circumstances, PEN has to question why the TDSB is

engaging in what can only be described as censorship."

 

The TDSB has determined that the proposed Grade 11 course, to be

called Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, will contain a module on

the killing of over one million Armenians in Turkey in 1915, and that

that massacre will be defined as genocide. However, the Director of

Education recently upheld a recommendation of a review committee that

the book by Barbara Coloroso be removed from the resource list for the

course. That decision is now being reviewed by the Program and School

Services Committee of the Board.

 

"In Canada, everyone has the right, within the bounds of the Criminal

Code as it pertains to hate speech and similar actions, to a fair

expression of views," said Ms Pazira. "Removing this book constitutes

the suppression of an important perspective, for the students in this

course, on the Armenian genocide."

 

PEN Canada notes that the Canadian government recognizes the Armenian

massacre as genocide. In April 2004 Parliament passed, with an

overwhelming majority, the following motion: "this House acknowledges

the Armenian genocide of 1915 and condemns this act as a crime against

humanity." This motion was re-affirmed by Prime Minister Stephen

Harper in 2006.

 

PEN Canada believes it is the duty of public institutions in a

democracy, such as school boards, to defend vigorously the right to

freedom of expression. Anything short of this is an extremely

dangerous precedent for any public institution, and especially for one

of the largest school boards in the country.

 

"We urge the Board to reinstate the book as resource material for the

course," said Ms Pazira in her letter to Mr. Campbell. "It is

essential that you and your fellow trustees respect freedom of

expression and not allow this book to be censored as the result of

pressure from partisan organizations."

 

PEN Canada is an independent non-profit organization committed to

defending freedom of opinion, as guaranteed by Article 19 of the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). We campaign on behalf of

writers around the world who are persecuted for the expression of

their opinions. In Canada we speak out regularly to defend the right

of freedom of expression as enshrined in Section 2( of the Charter

of Rights and Freedoms.

 

For full text of letter: www.pencanada.ca

 

For further information: Isobel Harry, PEN Canada, (416) 703-8448 ext.

22, iharry@pencanada.ca

 

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive...8/27/c5026.html