COMMEMORATING ARMENIA’S LOST VOICES – DEUTSCHE WELLE

16:44 * 21.04.15

The planned extermination of Armenians started a century ago. To
remember all the voices lost, Armenian texts will be read worldwide on
Tuesday. Yet recognizing the massacres as genocide remains politically
contentious.

April 24 is commemorated by Armenians as Genocide Remembrance Day. A
hundred years ago on this day, hundreds of Armenian intellectuals,
musicians, poets, community leaders and members of the clergy were
arrested in Constantinople (now Istanbul).

The international literature festival berlin (ilb) and the Lepsiushaus
Potsdam launched a call for a worldwide reading of literary texts by
Armenian authors, as well as excerpts of Varujan Vosganian’s “The
Book of Whispers,” which describes the horrors of the deportations
and the extermination methods used by the Ottoman forces.

Political controversy

There is no international consensus on the recognition of the term
“genocide” in reference to the “Medz Yeghern,” the Armenian expression
meaning “great catastrophe.”

Less than two dozen countries formally recognize the mass murders as
genocide. Many others, such as German and US officials, still sidestep
the contentious term, fearing to damage relations with the Turkish
government. However, the German government seems to be set to follow
France and the European Parlament in using the ‘G-word’. Turkey refuses
to refer to the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman army
as “genocide.” In the run-up to the centenary, Pope Francis did use
the word at a Vatican mass and infuriated Ankara.

Support from Nobel Prize laureates

The initiators of the worldwide reading remind that these events were
well documented by several international sources. As stated in their
appeal, “As early as August 1915, ‘The New York Times’ reported on
a methodically planned program of ethnic cleansing and extermination
which was unprecedented in history up to that time. The German Reich’s
government, which was allied to the Ottoman Empire, reached the same
conclusions without undertaking anything against what was happening.”

More than 300 authors from all over the world are supporting this
initiative, among them the laureates for the Nobel Prize for Literature
Mario Vargas Llosa, Herta Muller, Elfriede Jelinek, Orhan Pamuk and
John M. Coetzee.

On Tuesday April 21, over a hundred literary events will be held in
more than 30 countries. No Turkish event has been announced.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress