The Daily Herald-Tribune (Grande Prairie, Alberta)
May 16, 2008 Friday
FINAL EDITION
Coloroso book pulled
TORONTO
A book about genocide has been pulled from the recommended reading
list of a new Toronto public school course because of objections from
the Turkish-Canadian community, the author says.
Barbara Coloroso’s ”Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide”
was originally part of a resource list for a Grade 11 history course
set to launch across the Toronto District School Board this fall.
The book examines the Holocaust, which exterminated six million Jews
in the Second World War; the Rwandan slaughter of nearly one million
Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994, and the massacres of more than a
million Armenians in 1895, 1909 and 1915. But a committee struck to
review the course decided in late April to remove the book because ”a
concern was raised regarding (its) appropriateness.”
Coloroso, who will be appearing in Grande Prairie May 27 at the
Crystal Centre, said she wasn’t surprised her work was removed. given
that ”ever since the book came out, the Turks have mounted a
worldwide campaign objecting to it."