Horrible Article Re. Canada's Genocide Recognition

[Proud EXPAT]

Guys, if you have a minute please write to this idiot and "put him in his place" (as we say in Armenian.)

 

 

Canada should mind its own business

 

By JEFFREY SIMPSON

jsimpson@globeandmail.ca

 

The Globe and Mail

Friday, April 23, 2004 - Page A19

 

 

Bring back the friendly dictatorship! Or at least bring it back if the

absence results in the kind of irresponsible, unnecessary and

provocative resolution the House of Commons passed on Wednesday, which

complicates Canada's relations with an ally and a hugely important

country: Turkey.

 

That the opposition parties, without having responsibility for Canadian

foreign policy, would act irresponsibly is hardly a surprise. That

government backbenchers would defy their own Prime Minister and Foreign

Minister and muck about in foreign policy for domestic political reasons

should make everyone wonder about the wisdom of free votes in the

Commons.

 

By a 153 to 68 margin, the Commons adopted a motion from an obscure Bloc

Québécois MP to "acknowledge the Armenian genocide of 1915, and condemn

this as a crime against humanity."

 

What happened 89 years ago, before the creation of modern Turkey, still

rankles Armenians. Hundreds of thousands of them were killed, tortured

or deported. Books have been written about it, and movies, too,

including Ararat by Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan.

 

That authors and filmmakers should pick over the events of 1915 is fair

game. That Parliament should have nothing better to do with its time

than pass resolutions about events long ago -- resolutions that will

reasonably be interpreted in Turkey as reflecting the opinion of

Canadians, and wrongly interpreted as the official position of the

government -- is outrageous meddling, bound to irritate gratuitously one

side, Turkey.

 

What conceivable business is it of Canada's Parliament, except for

unwelcome meddling, to muck about in historical matters that do not

concern this country directly? How would we like it if the Turkish

parliament started passing resolutions about, say, the hanging of Louis

Riel; or the French parliament voted on the deportation of the Acadians;

or the New Zealand Parliament voted on the treatment of Canada's

Indians?

 

Canada would respond the way the Turkish government did: It called in

the Canadian ambassador in Ankara to lodge a formal protest, and issued

a statement saying correctly that "the responsibility of the negative

consequences to be brought by this motion belongs to the Canadian

politicians."

 

No one denies that Ottomans did ghastly things to Armenians 89 years ago

in the context of the First World War. Almost every non-partisan account

underscores those facts. That people can study the historical record and

draw their own conclusions is as it should be.

 

That doesn't mean the Canadian Parliament has to set itself up as a

moral arbiter on behalf of the Canadian people -- because, why stop

there? Why not condemn the Japanese Rape of Nanking, the killings of

Chinese by European powers during the Boxer rebellion, the invasion of

Turkey by Greece after the First World War, and so on.

 

Some Canadian politicians were influenced by Armenian or Greek

descendants in their districts. That political pandering to ethnic

sensitivities can be understood, if not justified, but it hardly

explains why so many other MPs couldn't understand how to conduct

foreign policy, including members of the Conservative Party who hope to

become the government in the next election.

 

Turkey is an incredibly important country: the only democratic, secular

Muslim state in a troubled part of the world. It is an ally of Canada in

NATO. It has become a democracy, having recently changed its government.

It is trying to solve the Cyprus deadlock, successfully urging Turkish

Cypriots to back the United Nations plan for reunification, which the

Greek Cypriots are apparently going to block. It is trying to meet

European Union conditions for starting entry negotiations.

 

Canada's foreign policy, therefore, requires positive, constructive

relations with Turkey. Prime Minister Paul Martin and Foreign Affairs

Minister Bill Graham reminded the Liberal caucus of that yesterday. The

bulk of Liberal MPs told them to get lost, because under the new Martin

rules for remedying the "democratic deficit," this was a "two-line

whip," whereby ministers have to support the government but backbenchers

do not.

 

A handful of assemblies (Italy, Sweden, Russia, Argentina, the European

Parliament) has passed motions similar to the one adopted by the

Commons. All other assemblies, including those of the United States,

Britain, Australia, Japan, and Germany, refused.

 

Only two governments have made acknowledgment of this "genocide" a

matter of policy: France and Switzerland. Fortunately, the Martin

government, humbled by its own members, said official Canadian policy

won't change. Thank goodness.

 

jsimpson@globeandmail.ca

[Vigil]

Turkey is an incredibly important country: the only democratic, secular

Muslim state in a troubled part of the world. It is an ally of Canada in

NATO. It has become a democracy, having recently changed its government.

It is trying to solve the Cyprus deadlock, successfully urging Turkish

Cypriots to back the United Nations plan for reunification, which the

Greek Cypriots are apparently going to block. It is trying to meet

European Union conditions for starting entry negotiations.

 

Um can you say oxymoron?

 

Yes, Turkey the terribly important muslim secular state, whoam only would help the coalition if they forked over a 50 billion loan package. Yes, the very same Turkey that was against the war, but yet entered Iraq unannounced and unautorized in a idiotic effort to annex oil reserves. This is the same Turkey that INVADED Cyprus and was originally the aggressor, but I honestly think Turkey is coming around because we all know that it does not have other motives behind pushing for the unification, which could not be the obviously well known fact that Cyprus holds the key for it to join the EU.

 

I wonder why the article does not state that the EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT REAFFIRMS 1987 RESOLUTION ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE?

Edited May 31, 2004 by Vigil

[America-Hye]

Oh, I wonder how much he was paid to tout the Turkish government line like a ventriloquist? Writing him will do no good. Sending a letter to the editor of the Globe and Mail, especially if you live in the city of it's distribution will do some good. Turkey a democratic country? That is a big laugh. It is TOTALLY controlled by the military, a real world version of the land in the novel "1984."