{"id":18089,"date":"2010-03-28T04:08:19","date_gmt":"2010-03-28T02:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=18089"},"modified":"2017-11-28T17:50:14","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T14:50:14","slug":"starving-armenians-wont-be-forgotten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/03\/28\/starving-armenians-wont-be-forgotten\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Starving Armenians&#8217; won&#8217;t be forgotten"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Published: Saturday, March 27, 2010<\/p>\n<h1><\/h1>\n<p><!-- \/story_meta--> <!-- \/page_topper--> <!-- Left Sidebar --><\/p>\n<div id=\"page_leftbar\"><script src=\"http:\/\/www.news-herald.com\/js\/jquery-1.2.6.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script> <script src=\"http:\/\/www.news-herald.com\/js\/facebox.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script> <script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\njQuery(document).ready(function($) {$('a[rel*=facebox]').facebox()})\n\/\/ ]]><\/script> <!-- [include_ifnot:obituaries:incs\/story\/rating.inc] --><\/p>\n<div>\n<div id=\"left1_slot\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\nyld_mgr.place_ad_here(\"left1_slot\");\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><!-- SpaceID=2022775861 loc=AP34 noad --> <!--flv has invalid value--><!--XCH--><!--respV:1.0.0,gMdV:1.0.0,serverIp:76.13.220.40,adMdV:1.0.0,crtvId:760803551--><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div id=\"left2_slot\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\nyld_mgr.place_ad_here(\"left2_slot\");\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><!-- SpaceID=2022775861 loc=AP34 noad --> <!--flv has invalid value--><!--XCH--><!--respV:1.0.0,gMdV:1.0.0,serverIp:76.13.220.40,adMdV:1.0.0,crtvId:760821051--><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- \/page_leftbar--> <!-- Page Body: The main vertical content area, for stories it's the body of the story. For sections, its the headline list --><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>By Dan K. Thomasson<br \/>\nScripps Howard<\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 There was a time in this country when mothers  regularly ordered their children to clean their plates by reminding them  of the &#8220;poor starving Armenians.&#8221; So thoroughly inculcated in my  recollection was this admonition that when I first met a person of  Armenian descent, I blurted that he couldn&#8217;t be Armenian because he  wasn&#8217;t starving.<\/p>\n<p>The origin of this was of course the elimination  of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians, or half of that nation&#8217;s  population, by the Turks in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire  between 1915 and 1919 by massacre, death marches and starvation. It was a  tragedy only exceeded in modern history by the Holocaust and the murder  of 2 million Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge and it resulted in the  coining of the word &#8220;genocide&#8221; to describe such a horrific event.<\/p>\n<p>The  Republic of Turkey has refused to take any responsibility for this  policy of destruction or to acknowledge that it was genocidal in nature  despite the fact that history and at least 20 other nations have  recognized it as such. And most Americans have little understanding of  the phrase once used to remind their grandmothers and grandfathers that  food and the privilege of eating it is a precious thing that many do not  have.<\/p>\n<p>Many Armenians who survived the devastation made it to  America and became among this nation&#8217;s most prosperous and productive  citizens. The noted author William Saroyan and the San Francisco,  financier, philanthropist and restaurateur George Mardikian, whose  biography, &#8220;The Song of America,&#8221; became a paean to his adopted country  and a bible of inspiration to tens and thousands of immigrants, are  among them.<\/p>\n<p>So the resistance of the Turkish government to  official recognition of what the rest of the world knows is about to get  a jolt from the American descendents of those who expired nearly 100  years ago. It will be in the form of a major new museum smack dab in the  middle of Washington in one of the most traveled corridors in the  nation&#8217;s capitol, 14th Street just above Pennsylvania Avenue where  millions of American tourists will be tastefully but firmly educated  about man&#8217;s inhumanity to man. About a half mile further down the street  is the Holocaust Museum where millions have learned those lessons  through the suffering of the world&#8217;s Jews at the hands of Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n<p>The  Armenian Genocide Museum of America will be established in an imposing  limestone building that once housed the National Bank of Washington  operated by the United Mine Workers of America. The building was erected  in 1922, which coincidentally fits the time frame of the events it will  memorialize. It has been vacant for a number of years. A modern &#8220;tower&#8221;  addition will be added without disturbing the architectural integrity  of the old building. Money and oversight of the project are under the  guidance of a committee of distinguished Armenian Americans and directed  by Dr. Rouben Adalian of the Armenian National Institute. A date for  the restoration and opening is still a ways off.<\/p>\n<p>Those who may  think this will be just another memorial and museum in a city where  there are already too many are missing the point. Coupled in proximity  with the Holocaust Memorial and in a location so close to the White  House and Capitol Hill, it will be one of the more significant  punctuations to the ideal of human rights for which this country always  has stood if not always adhered to in its own dealings with minorities.<\/p>\n<p>As  our mothers knew, it is often necessary to remind us that there are  those less fortunate than we are and that survival is tenuous, requiring  perseverance reached only by digging deep into the spirit and  recognizing the lessons of sacrifice and refusing to forget the  tragedies of the past. That is pretty heavy stuff, but my mother and  millions of others, even in those harshest days of the Great Depression,  distilled it into two words, &#8220;starving Armenians,&#8221; that instantly  reminded us of our good fortune and warned us not to waste it.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps  if the rest of the world had paid attention to the implications of  Armenia, later genocides would not have occurred. It&#8217;s time the Turks  owned up.<\/p>\n<p><em>E-mail Dan K. Thomasson, former editor of the  Scripps Howard News Service, at thomassondan@aol.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--\/story_body--> <!-- Begin Simpleblog Comments--><\/p>\n<div>\n<h3>Comments<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p>The following are comments from the readers. In  no way do they represent the view of news-herald.com.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"blogcomments\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div><a name=\"8cb796cad2dc2d2213eab1d5ce32c1c0\"><\/a>Manxman wrote on Mar 27, 2010 8:46 AM:<\/p>\n<div>&#8221; This genocide had a distinctly religious  side to it &#8211; Muslims were murdering Christians in this atrocity in the  name of jihad.<\/p>\n<p>From a World Magazine article by Marvin Olasky &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Hitler  was even more impressed with how the Turks got away with genocide. When  Hitler on Aug. 22, 1939, explained that his plans to invade Poland  included the formation of death squads that would exterminate men,  women, and children, he asked, &#8220;Who, after all, speaks today of the  annihilation of the Armenians?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In recent years some have. Books  such as Peter Balakian&#8217;s The Burning Tigris (HarperCollins, 2003) tell  of the Armenian tragedy in a way that also helps us to understand  radical Islam. That&#8217;s because the key incitement to massacre came on  Nov. 14, 1914, when Mustafa Hayri Bey, the Ottoman Empire&#8217;s leading  Sunni authority, urged his followers to commence a jihad: One pamphlet  declared, &#8220;He who kills even one unbeliever . . . shall be rewarded by  Allah.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The jihad proclamation received wide dissemination. When  a priest asked a Muslim army officer how he could participate in  killing several thousand Armenian women, Captain Shukri&#8217;s answer was  simple: It was jihad time, and after the murders he could &#8220;spread out my  prayer rug and pray, giving glory to Allah and the Prophet who made me  worthy of personally participating in the holy jihad in these days of my  old age.&#8221; &#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.news-herald.com\/shared-content\/newsys\/simpleblog\/abuse.php?id=8cb796cad2dc2d2213eab1d5ce32c1c0&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.news-herald.com%2Farticles%2F2010%2F03%2F27%2Fopinion%2Fnh2283406.txt\">Report Abuse<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a name=\"d3364167c7af7e49c696110f8b487c5f\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Berge Jololian wrote on Mar 27, 2010 8:53 AM:<\/p>\n<div>&#8221; Can you imagine if back in the days of  West Germany during the height of the cold war, the United States  refrained form condemning the Holocaust for fear of upsetting or  offending a strategic NATO ally?<\/p>\n<p>Imagine if European Jewry were  told that they need to sit down with the Neo-Nazi Germans and discuss  what really happened during 1938-45.  Adding that more Germans died  during World War II than European Jewry.<\/p>\n<p>Or suppose that the US  State Department suggests that the State of Israel should discuss the  events surrounding 1938-45 with the likes of David Irving (notorious  Holocaust denier) and sort things out.<\/p>\n<p>The International  Association of Genocide Scholars and seven former presidents of the IAGS  have unanimously concluded the verdict of genocide. The IAGS has  repeatedly called on the Turkish state to acknowledge its crime of  Genocide.<\/p>\n<p>Jurist Raphael Lemkin, a lawyer of Polish-Jewish  descent, and Holocaust survivor coined the word genocide specifically to  describe the destruction of Armenians and the barbarity that befell  upon them at the hands of the Turkish State.  Prior to coining the word  genocide, prime minister Winston Churchill and world leaders referred to  the destruction of Armenians as holocaust.<\/p>\n<p>Genocide is not an  issue that concerns only Armenians, Jews, and others; Genocide is a  human rights issue that concerns everyone. Denial is not just the simple  negation of an act; it is much more the consequent continuation of the  very act itself. Genocide should not only physically destroy a  community; it should likewise dictate the prerogative of interpretation  in regard to history, culture, territory and memory, as the victims  Armenians never existed.<\/p>\n<p>The Turkish have not only murdered  humans, destroyed an ancient culture and civilization, and rewritten  history, but the Turkish continue to legitimize the act as well as the  racist ideology that led to the act.<\/p>\n<p>Denial is the final step in  the completion of mass extermination, and the first step towards the  next genocide. &#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Published: Saturday, March 27, 2010 By Dan K. Thomasson Scripps Howard WASHINGTON \u2014 There was a time in this country when mothers regularly ordered their children to clean their plates by reminding them of the &#8220;poor starving Armenians.&#8221; So thoroughly inculcated in my recollection was this admonition that when I first met a person of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":775211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenian-question"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}