ARMENIA’S ANGUISH
Thousands converge on Queen’s Park to mark first genocide of 20th century,
Several thousand Armenian-Canadians gathered at Queen’s Park on Sunday for a sombre commemoration of the darkest chapter in that nation’s history, the 100th anniversary of 1915 genocide by Turkey.
Armen Yeganian, Armenian ambassador to Canada, noted that April 24 — when Turkish authorities arrested 300 Armenian intellectuals who were later murdered or exiled — is historically considered the beginning of Medz Yeghern, during which an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed.
“Medz Yeghern the first genocide of the 20th century, a fact acknowledged by the world. The genocide did not leave any Armenian unaffected. Believe me, you will not find an Armenian who did not lose a member of the family in the genocide,” Yeganian said.
“It set the practice of racial extermination as a tool of policy in the modern world,” he added, noting other 20th-century genocides followed, including the Holocaust and waves of atrocity in Rwanda, Darfur, Cambodia and elsewhere.
For Armenians around the world, the cataclysmic event has been made even more distressing by the refusal of the government of Turkey to acknowledge that a genocide took place, Yeganian said.
“The state denial of the Turkish republic is unacceptable and should not be tolerated by the international community,” he added.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne also criticized the Turkish government’s intransigence on the issue. “The Armenian genocide was a dark moment in human history and the passage of a century has not diminished the horror of those events. Nor has it diminished the importance of recognizing the atrocity in Armenia as genocide,” Wynne said.
Wynne noted that the term genocide was coined by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1943 “to describe the organized mass killing of members of a specific nation or ethnic group and he was moved to do so by reading about the massacres in Armenia.”
Armenian-Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan said the Turkish government continues to engage in “virulent state denial” for the Armenian genocide in large part because Western governments have only recently began to demand accountability.
“We (Armenians) are taught to forgive. But in order to properly forgive, we need to feel a genuine remorse. We need a clear and unequivocal apology (from Turkey),” Egoyan said.
But Egoyan noted that the Armenia community, particularly in places such as Canada, has managed to prevail despite the events of 1915.
“A hundred years ago, our culture was nearly decimated. A hundred years later, we are strong, we are united, we are determined, determined that justice will prevail, determined that we will use our experience as Armenians to seek justice for those around us,” Egoyan added.
The event was also attended by members of the Jewish, Greek and Assyrian communities, whose ancestors also suffered under Turkish rule.
A small group of Turkish-Canadians, many waving Turkish flags, held a protest a short distance from the Queen’s Park event and as the thousands streamed down University Avenue to the Metropolitan United Church on Queen St. E., Toronto Police set up a cordon of officers to keep the two sides apart.
Dr. Mehmet Bor, president of the Federation of Canadian Turkish Associations, said he and others in his community held the protest to have their “side of the story” heard as well.
Bor said the collapse of the Ottoman Empire — the predecessor to the Turkish republic — during the First World War, caused widespread misery and death to many communities, including Armenians.
“It wasn’t a genocide. It was a civil war,” Bor said.
Bor also criticized politicians who spoke at the larger event for seeking “political gain.”
“Politicians shouldn’t get involved in historical issues and harm Canada’s interest with their NATO ally, Turkey,” Bor said.
But Hratch Aynedjian, 50, said it’s time for the people of Turkey to acknowledge their forebears nearly wiped out the Armenian people.
“The wound has not healed. It’s been 100 years and if the Turkish people were smart, they would understand that the wound will not heal unless they do what they have to do, which is to recognize (the genocide). If they did that, that would be a big first step,” he said.