Peter Gabriel Stresses Importance of Armenian Genocide Recognition

WATERTOWN, Mass. (A.W.)—In an interview that appeared in the March 2009 issue of Conde Nast Traveler, world-renowned musician and songwriter Peter Gabriel talks about the importance of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

Asked by interviewer Dorintha Elliott about the best places to travel for music, Gabriel said, “I had a house in Senegal and music was a big reason. And when I did music for ‘The Last temptation of Christ,’ I was introduced to one of the most soulful instruments, the Armenian duduk. I went to Armenia for the birthday of duduk player Djivan Kasparyan. We visited the Genocide Memorial, which is dedicated to the more than one million Armenians who died in 1915.”

He added, “The Turks deny the genocide, and Britain and the United States haven’t properly acknowledged it. I hope that happens. As with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, you need to air issues and accept what happened in the past before you are free to move on.”

Gabriel, 59, has won Grammy Awards in 1989, 1992, 1993, 1995, and 2008 for his work. He received the Nobel Peace Laureates’ Man of Peace Award in 2006 and was named Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience in 2008.

Also in 2008, Time magazine chose him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Dr. Khatchig Mouradian

Dr. Khatchig Mouradian

Khatchig Mouradian is the Armenian and Georgian Area Specialist at the Library of Congress and a lecturer in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. He also serves as Co-Principal Investigator of the project on Armenian Genocide Denial at the Global Institute for Advanced Studies, New York University. Mouradian is the author of The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915-1918, published in 2021. The book has received the Syrian Studies Association “Honourable Mention 2021.” In 2020, Mouradian was awarded a Humanities War & Peace Initiative Grant from Columbia University. He is the co-editor of a forthcoming book on late-Ottoman history, and the editor of the peer-reviewed journal The Armenian Review.

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