Here's an opportunity for responses to all that you read and see in this course. I look forward to being part of an ongoing conversation; one of the biggest benefits of being s teacher is the chance also to be a student, learning from my classes.
In reading another of Balakian's books last night, The Burning Tigris, I was struck by this comment:
"The U.S. response to the Armenian crisis, which began in the 1890's and continued into the 1920's, was the first international human rights movement in American history and helped to define the nation's emerging global identity. It seems that no other human rights issue has ever preoccupied the United States for such a duration."
Amazing, then, isn't it, how poorly known and ill remembered this portion of our history is.
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I find it to be incredibly interesting that the US seems to have immediately responded to Armenia and not immediately to Germany during the European Holocaust, while the European Holocaust is much more firmly ingrained into the American cultural memory. As Ms. Wilsey has said, the Armenian Genocide is extremely ill-remembered, despite how preoccupied the US was at the time. This phenomena seems to have occurred because of Turkey's active denial of the Armenian Genocide. Germany talks very openly about the Holocaust, despite its potentially detrimental affect to their economic interests, yet the Turkish people want to forget. The world seems unwilling to stand up to Turkey in this regard because the global community and Turkey do not want to risk losing economic and political ties. The contrast between Turkey's and Germany's actions tell us that it is the responsibility of the countries which have performed genocide to openly talk about the atrocities so that they will not be forgotten or denied.
ReplyDeleteI noticed this post and was also curious as to why the Holocaust was so well known in America in contrast with the Armenian Genocide, so I decided to research the numbers of Armenians in America versus the number of Jewish (I'm not sure if this is German-Jewish) to see if this aided my understanding. According to the US Census Bureau, there are a almost 6.5 million Jewish citizens in America. However, according to Armenian Diaspora, the Armenian-American population consists of only 1.5 million citizens, less than a quarter of the Jewish Population. Another important thing i noticed is that the Jewish population in America is barely second to that in Israel. The third highest population of Jewish Citizens is in France, consisting of 500,000 people, much lower than that of America. Whereas the number of Armenian Citizens around the world is much more spread out, as large populations of Armenians exist in several other countries, including Russia. Maybe it is the fact that there are many more Jewish citizens in America versus the Armenian (although 1.5 million is hardly a small number)? Or the fact that America is one of the top two largest populations of Jewish citizens in the world, whereas USA exists as only one of the many locations that the Armenians spread to?
ReplyDeleteSources:
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2008/tables/08s0076.xls
http://www.armeniadiaspora.com/population.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/jewpop.html
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ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how this chapter in history is all but omitted from most courses. We recently concluded a unit in History class about the early 20th century, and the Armenian genocide was not mentioned once. I think there are a plethora of reasons why most Americans do not know about this genocide. Horrific massacres and wars have transpired since 1915; both World Wars, the Vietnam War, the Korean war, and, most recently, the War on Terror have all occupied the majority of the world news during their respective time periods. Also, Turkey is a developing country, and many western powers are allied with it. Thus, for the sake of diplomacy, allies might conveniently "forget" about the Armenian genocide. However, do these excuses really make it okay for most of America to never learn about this despicable acts?
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