Genocide Notes from the Armenian Blogosphere
Tsitsernakaberd (Genocide Memorial), Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online 2006
By Nessuna
On April 24 Armenians all over the world honor the memory of the one half and a million victims of atrocities that qualify as “the first genocide of the XXth century.” The Armenian genocide was planned and carried out during between the years 1915 and 1923 by the Turkish government against the entire Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire.
The present-day Republic of Turkey adamantly denies that genocide was committed against the Armenians. Fortunately, there are now historians in Turkey who speak out about the Armenian Genocide. I will refrain from going into the timeline of the events because there is large amount of information online.
The history books are open. You need only to open your mind.
In the Armenian blogsphere, Christian Garbis over at Notes from Hairenik has an entry on the Armenian genocide as well as a little background on the families of his mother and father who managed to survive it, while Tamar has posted links to all the blogs that mention it at Armyouth.
It should be crystal clear to everybody that affirming the truth about the Armenian Genocide is an issue of international significance. As Dennis R. Papazian states at Useful Answers to Frequent Questions on the Armenian Genocide, which is an absolute must read:
Many scholars and intellectuals have argued that if the Allies had punished the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide after the war, namely the leaders of the Young Turk party of the then Ottoman Government of Turkey, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis would not have carried out the Jewish Holocaust during World War II.
[…]
By leaving the Armenian injustice of World War I uncorrected, the stage was set for the Holocaust of World War II. The abandonment of the Armenians was not lost on Hitler. Hitler said before sending his troops into Poland, “Go, go kill without mercy. Who today remembers the extermination of the Armenians?”
It is simple really. Unless you recognize and condemn genocide, history will repeat itself. That is why I found the fact that Global Voices did not link to Christian Garbis’s entry on the Armenian genocide or mentions on other sites a little weird. I hate to sound paranoid, and I would love for them to prove me wrong and link to the posts including this one, but I cannot think of a reason as to why anybody would miss out such an event unless…
Nessuna, if you ever have a question about my editorial decisions at GVO, you are more than welcome to email me with them. All of the editors’ contact information is here. You are also more than welcome to email me suggested links.
I can’t give you a definite answer in this case because their really isn’t a clear one. Looking at the date in question, I see it was a Monday, meaning I had to deal with a backlog of weekend posts from all the blogs in Central Asia & the Caucasus. There’s a bit more competition for attention on Mondays. Plus, I try to balance out my attention, which is a bit hard to do. Armenia consistently gives good posts and therefore consistently gets linked more often than anywhere else in my region. In fact, two of my bigger challenges seem to usually be trying to offset the attention I give to Armenian blogs (this one in particular) and the stable of blogs at neweurasia. On top of this, I’ve had quite a bit on my plate the past week, so I’ve had to make my editorial decisions a bit more quickly than usual. Looking again briefly at some of the posts, they’re just not exactly the kinds of things I link to. I’m seeing a lot of posts that lift from press releases, reportage, etc. Christian’s post is wonderful and interesting, but doesn’t exactly fit with the kinds of things I link to–meaning it’s less likely to get linked because of the competition for links on Mondays.
There’s no intent behind the decision–ill or otherwise. If you feel that I am failing to cover something important in my daily links, shoot me emails drawing my attention to posts you think need attention. If you feel that GVO as a whole is failing to draw enough attention to things like this in the left column, we always welcome new volunteers.
Comment by Nathan Hamm — April 27, 2006 @ 11:39 am
Nathan, thanks a lot for your response, and I do appreciate your suggestions. The thing is never before GVO failed to draw attention to things, that is why it never occured to me that it might miss Christian’s entry, and that is why it came as a bit of a shock to me. Then again, I could not help being suspicious because certain governments do keep silent on the issue of the Armenian genocide, and Turkey goes as far as trying to shut the voices down. I do want to believe there was no intent behind the decision, otherwise it would corrupt the very idea of making people’s voices heard everywhere.
Comment by Nessuna — April 27, 2006 @ 5:21 pm
Like I said, if there was any reason, it was just that the post didn’t fit perfectly with the kind of stuff I normally link to, especially up against the other stuff out there on Monday. Specifically, it was fairly personal. The decision was 100% mine and no institution or individual said anything about it to me. I know we miss plenty from my region because there are few volunteers. We especially need people more familiar with local languages than I am to get a better picture of what’s going on in the region’s blogs.
Honestly, I thought you perhaps were thinking that it was something personal considering that a fair number of Armenian bloggers seem to think on occasion that I’ve got it out for them.
Comment by Nathan Hamm — April 27, 2006 @ 11:03 pm
Nathan, I’m glad to hear that and thanks for linking.
Comment by Nessuna — April 28, 2006 @ 9:11 am
Nessuna chavatas sran. Khabepahi mekn e.
Comment by artyom — April 28, 2006 @ 6:25 pm