Chelmsford, Mass.—If world history students knew little or nothing about the Armenian Genocide, they cannot stop talking about it now.
On this 96th commemoration, a series of genocide education programs gave students and faculty greater insight into the subject of human rights.
“It’s one thing to become educated through textbooks but an entirely different perspective to hear it from educators and survivors,” said Jennifer Doak, who teaches Holocaust classes and directs a project titled “Be the Change.”
“Our students benefited immensely from this experience and will hopefully create a better environment for themselves as a result of it,” she added. “The Armenian Genocide is a lesson that arouses the human condition.”
Members of the Armenian Genocide Education Committee of Merrimack Valley, chaired by Dro Kanayan, spent a full day addressing nearly 100 students in three separate classes. The students were attentive and stunned by the messages brought forth. The questions they asked were pertinent and brisk.
Their classrooms were prepared with posters on genocide education and textbooks used accordingly with “Facing History and Ourselves,” an educational outlet based in Brookline, Mass. for the past three decades.
Three weeks later, a panel discussion ensued, featuring survivors from the Jewish Holocaust, Bosnia, and Cambodia, joined by Armenian Weekly Editor Khatchig Mouradian, who aptly represented the Armenian Genocide.
Mouradian, a doctoral student in Holocaust and genocide studies at Clark University in Worcester spoke of his early days growing up in Lebanon among genocide survivors. The experience motivated him to make a difference with his heritage.
“I’m standing here bearing witness to the survivors who bore witness to genocide that took place nearly 100 years ago,” he told a packed auditorium.
Mouradian said it’s all about making the right choices and lashed out against bullying in our schools. “Because of the horrors of genocide, we should be very sensitive toward any form of human rights violation,” he added. “Scholars consider denial to be the last phase of genocide. The significance of justice and apology is a basic need” toward harmony and world peace, he said.
Mouradian challenged each of the students to “make a difference” and safeguard the legacy of these survivors.
Jasmina Cesic, a survivor of the Bosnian conflict, lost her husband and an arm in an explosion. The Serbian militia killed her family and many of her friends.
“Now, 15 years later, an apology has come from the Serbian Army,” she said. “Hopefully, it will encourage future generations. If we don’t help people in need, how can we justify what’s wrong or right in life? Let us all dwell in harmony.”
Ries Vanderpol, a Dutch native who grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Amsterdam, spent more than two years evading the Nazi soldiers inside homes of his friends.
“If anything good ever came out of a Holocaust, it’s given me the opportunity to properly educate the younger generation to prevent history from repeating itself,” he said. “One of the things that kept us alive was hope, perseverance—and a sense of humor. It helped you deal with trauma.”
Sayon Soeun was born in a rural Cambodian village just before that pogrom. He was kidnapped by the Khmer Rouge at age five, neglected, and physically abused by his oppressors. Soeun was forced to become a child soldier and turn against his very own family—or be shot on the spot.
“Two million Cambodians died during the genocide,” he noted. “I was told my siblings were my enemy. We must continue to always retaliate in the face of adversity but at the same time, learn to respect one another, despite our differences. By doing that, we heal our own hearts.”
Students volunteered a host of questions to the panelists, culminating the two-hour session. A book on the Armenian Genocide was donated to the school by Albert S. Movsesian of the MV Genocide Education Committee.
Similar programs are slated for Haverhill High School and Austin Prep in Reading, Mass. later this spring. Overall, a half dozen schools throughout the North Shore of Boston will be presented genocide talks, gaining wide exposure in local newspapers and building a solid foundation in school curricula.
Tom Vartabedian
Latest posts by Tom Vartabedian (see all)
- Vartabedian: My Final Column - November 13, 2016
- A Hat to Match Any Occasion - October 19, 2016
- More Smiles Keep the Frowns Away - October 12, 2016
Congratulations to the Armenian Genocide Education Committee of Merrimack Valley in educating Chelmsford High School Students on the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923. We give thanks to Tom Vartabedian, Dro Kanayan, & others on the committee for taking their time on this important issue. Stephen T. Dulgarian
They should also be required to read “The Armenian American in WWII.” [Tashjian Publishing] From that book, they will recognize the contributions and sacrifices made with extreme valor in WWI, WWII and the Korean conflict by Americans of Armenian heritage who were Dashnaks, AYF and ARF and following the foot steps of Antranig Ozanian.
Then they accuse Turkish education system and books with brain washing?
I take it that there was no “rebuttal” after the presentation. Were all ID’s checked for anyone with a Turkish or Turkic sounding name before they could enter the auditorium? We certainly wouldn’t want to take any chances on the TRUTH being told to these young minds now, would we!! Perhaps we can change/rectify all of that at the next scheduled meetings!! It should make for quite an interesting presentation of both sides of the story…the dashnak ARF version on one side, and the TRUTH on the other side!!
Murat,
I’m surprised, and a little jealous, that you actually had the editorial board post your message. Was it complete, or was it censored? My posts are generally censored to the point where it either has little to no meaning, or it gets deleted all together.
Hello, Murat, I do not know what is said about the Armenians in Turkish textbooks. Do you have the names of some of the history books used in Turkish schools? I would like to read what they write.
Anyhow, books published by Turkish University and spread by the Turkish Embassies at least write about it in a different way today that 20 years ago. This may be a start of a real debate. If we disagree with someone, the first step should be that this person is able to relate truthfully the accusations leveled against him. Next comes how he answers and whether he is influenced by our arguments.
As an example, the book “Armenian Question. From the first world war to the treaty of Lausanne” (Haluk Selvi, Sakarya University 2007) contains many more citations from central Armenian sources than any other book distributed by the Turkish Embassies. This is a step forward. On the other hand some very central authors are missing. The bibliography does not mention Taner Akcam and does not refer to his work, since 1999 being offered to the Turkish public. However, Dadrian’s general book on genocide, which has been published in Turkish in 2004, is mentioned. Books like Richard Hovannisian’s “Armenia on the road to independence” and his edited volume on “The Armenian genocide in perspective” are mentioned.
While the book claims to cover the latest contributions this is evidently not so. To take one example, the dissertation of Janet Klein “Power in the periphery”, published in 2002, is not mentioned. It deals with the agrarian question, that is lands taken from poor Armenians and Kurds by the Hamidian chiefs. Selvi mentions that one of the first acts of the CUP in 1908 was to ask for these lands to be returned. However, as Klein demonstreates in a quite convincing way, the Kurdish aghas found many ways to circumvent this, and after 1910 the CUP more or less gave up the return of the lands. As this affected Armenians more than ever, the ARF, as the leading Armenian party, stopped believing in the good intentions of the CUP. Klein holds that the CUP decided that if they wanted to safeguard the Empire, they could not afford to alienate the Kurdish aghas. Actually Kaligian, who published a quite important book in 2009 on the same years, and the companionship between CUP and ARF, is quite vague when it comes to the claim that the ARF fully supported the Constitution and the unity of the Empire. In the book “Armenian rebelllion at Van” McCarthy and his associates, based on european consular reports, hold that ARF never stopped smuggling arms to the Van area. I also find it difficult to believe that the ARF, as a revolutionary party, and given the experience of the massacres of 1894-6 and the massacres in 1909, would not hold on to the option of armed rebellion if the situation arose, even if they also held on the option of further reform and collaboration with the CUP within the Empire. However, Haluk Selvi does not go into the details of this, trying to show how both parties reacted to each others, both parties with a certain amount of right on their side. Instead we again get a number of arguments from Selvi that indicate that the Armenians all along, from 1908 and onwards, had decided to sabotage the Constitutional Empire. This of course is not a credible account, but it fits well with some Armenian claims that CUP never saw the Armenian organizations as partners but only as a temporary tactical ally to be used and then discarded, even exterminated, when the situation was there.
Selvi does not step outside this streange game which hardliners both within the Armenian and the Turkish camp are playing, mainly to bolster one’s own audience, and not to see these times as times of uncertainty, with political players who – as all human beings – had a mixture of good and bad motives – instead one resorts to a kind of fundamentalism in which there is no room for debate and hence any solution of the question, because the answer to all the main questions are already decided on by the parties before any exchange of words are being made.
In this sense I still believe that Turkish school books brainwash Turkish children, but of course I am willing to look at arguments to the contrary. For instance, how do Turkish textbooks look at the CUP? Are they seen as good for the Empire?
Robert & Murat, any Turkish high schooler could very well attend, it would be enlightening for many. We Armenians are much more honest than you can imagine to be.
Robert writes:
I take it that there was no “rebuttal” after the presentation. Were all ID’s checked for anyone with a Turkish or Turkic sounding name before they could enter the auditorium? We certainly wouldn’t want to take any chances on the TRUTH being told to these young minds now, would we!! Perhaps we can change/rectify all of that at the next scheduled meetings!! It should make for quite an interesting presentation of both sides of the story…the dashnak ARF version on one side, and the TRUTH on the other side!!
GO FOR IT SO PEOPLE WILL SEE HOW DECEITFUL TURKS CAN BE.
WHY DO YOU MONITOR THESE SITES?
Robert, this is silly, you don’t have to ask your question from Murat in this forum. Just turn around and ask him. He is probably sitting across from your desk anyway. It is obvious who you are working for. I hope you are making a lot of money since one’s integrity should not be sold for “little money”. Then again you would know better the price of your integrity.
Why Murat? Why the historical truth, accepted by almost 30 governments of the world, many provincial governments, 44 state legislatures of the United States of America, scores of international organizations, professional associations, advocacy and human rights
organizations, dozens of Nobel Prize winners, including your own Pamuk, scores
of historians, genocide scholars, and international lawyers is considered a “brainwashing”
by you? Maybe you should pose for a second and think as to why all these
respectable bodies, experts, and prominent individuals recognize the fact that
Turks have committed an act of genocide against the Armenians? Maybe you could
answer a question as to why the founder of your own state called the forced
deportations and mass murders of Armenians “a shameful act”? Maybe you could
think of any answer as to why perpetrators of race annihilation of Armenians
were tried and many found huilty at the Turkish Courts Martial of 1919-1920? If
your intellectual abilities or the degree of distorted history taught at your
schools prevent you from doing this, maybe you could think where almost 2
million of Western (Ottoman) Armenians, living on their lands for millennia,
have disappeared? Come on, if we are “brainwashed,” prove us wrong by answering
a simple question: where are the Ottoman Armenians nowadays?
Murat, Robert & Co. of Turkish anti-propagandists and mind-tilters: there is a AW article “Critic of Kars Monument Removal Plan Stabbed in Turkey” found at http://armenianweekly.com/2011/04/18/critic-of-kars-monument-removal-plan-stabbed-in-turkey/#comments. Why none of you made a comment on an outrageous (among many more) event that just happenned in your country?
Mardehros,
You ask why I monitor this site. You forget that as a paid agent of Turkey, I get paid for it! Silly boy, you should know by now that if I’m not monitoring your sites, then any one of millions of paid agents just like myself will!
You also use the term “honesty” on your parts. Are you SURE you want to go with that word, or would you rather rephrase it (Believe me, that is one word which none of you should ever use)!!
Let me ask again, were there any Azeris of Karabag represented in this so-called educational gathering? Any representaives of any of the numerous nations and groups brutalized, ethncially cleansed and genocided by Russia, some for centuries? I thought so…
“[Honesty] is one word which none of you should ever use”, mumbles a Turkish paid agent Robert. All my maternal relatives were burnt alive by Turkish gendarmes at a village near Van, a fact eye witnessed by the returning Russian troops. If I state this fact honestly, who are you, a silly ignorant oghlu, to tell me not to ever use it? You know why you’re doing this, don’t you? It must be so psychologically depressing to realize that your CUP and Kemalist ancestors were criminals: mass murderers, rapists, torturers, mutilators, and thieves… You know this, and
the world knows this, yet, like a cowardly puppy, you avoid to honestly call things by their names. Turkey will be made to accept the crimes of your predecessors. Have no doubt about it…
–Let me ask again, were there any Azeris of Karabag represented in this so-called
educational gathering? Any representatives of any of the numerous nations and
groups brutalized, ethnically cleansed and genocided by Russia, some for
centuries? —
Let me explain again that Azeris were the first to unleash atrocities against the
Armenians (first in Sumgait, then in Baku, then in Kirovabad, then in Maraga).
However, interethnic clashes, wars, and self-determination struggles, as in
Artsakh (Karabakh) and the deliberate and systematic, government-sponsored destruction
of a national, ethnic, religious, and racial group of co-citizens within the
same country, as in the Eastern Armenian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, are
two DIVERGENTLY different things. Are you able to get it or I should explain
again?
As for other “numerous nations and groups”, this is a cheap Turkish attempt to
divert the attention from the Turkish crime of genocide against the Armenians
towards wars, expansionist campaigns, occupation, and other forms of oppression
that the humanity came to know from history. Answer for yourselves, Turks!
Admit your own wrongdoings with regard to the indigenous Christian nations inhabiting
Asia Minor for several millennia. Wars and expansionist campaigns waged by some
nations against the other nations cannot justify the premeditated genocide committed
by the Turkish Ottoman government against its own citizens of Armenian descent.
Murat, let me ask again, where are 2 million Armenians who lived on the Armenian Plateau in 1915?
What’s your point? Azeri Turks were victims of Russian massacres? Let them seek justice if it is due. But what does this have to do with Turkey’s denial of it’s own guilt in the extermination of the Armenians?
Can we just get to the bottom line here? Genocide is an intolerable act that no one should be asked to brush aside or just ‘get over’. And denial of the act is an insidious ‘next-phase’ continuation of the crime that should offend all who stand for justice.
What do you stand for? Do you defend Turkey’s honor? The fastest way for Turkey to be free of the smear of the ‘Armenian genocide problem’ is to admit the truth and condemn the acts of the CUP for the immoral crime that it was. Then move on. Move on to mutual respect for neighbor nations, for all religious groups, for ethnic diversity, and for freedom of speech and self-determination. Move on from Turkish ultra-nationalism, from the burden of denial and from the delusional pan-turkic dream.
These people posing as Americans are terrorists. They are Ergenekon stooges who get paid 2 cents a word all over the internet to post. They are not Americans. Why support their income in engaging in their scripted so-called debates?