ANZAC & ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DAY
MWC – Media With Conscience
April 24 2013
Wednesday, 24 April 2013 09:52
By Gideon Polya
Lest we forget
On ANZAC Day, Australia’s most sacred day, the nation solemnly pauses
to remember those 100,000 Australian heroes who have died in wars. The
phrase inextricably linked to ANZAC Day is “Lest we forget”. However
the Mainstream media, politicians and academics of Australia have
overwhelmingly ignored – “forgotten”- the horrendous number of
civilians who died in wars in which Australia has been involved and
the moral courage of a small number of pacifists who refused to be
party to the evil of war. An extraordinary omission from ANZAC Day
remembrance is the Armenian Genocide in which 1.5 million Armenians
were killed by Turkish nationalists in WW1 and which was precipitated
by the 1915 invasion of Turkey at Gallipoli by Allied forces, including
the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs), a failed invasion
by the ANZAC forces from which ANZAC Day takes its name.
April 24 is Armenian Genocide Day of Remembrance sacred to Armenians.
It remembers the mass murder in Turkey of 1.5 million Armenians in WW1
that commenced the night before the Allied invasion of the Dardanelles
in 1915 involving British, French, Newfoundland, Indian, French West
African, Australian and New Zealand forces and which occurred after
months of Allied shelling of the Dardanelles. April 25 is ANZAC Day
sacred to Australians and New Zealanders that commemorates the invasion
of Turkey by Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) forces at
Gallipoli in a failed attempt inspired by Winston Churchill to open
the Dardanelles to Allied warships, The Allied forces evacuated at the
end of 1915 after a campaign in which about 220,000- 250,000 Allied
forces died (including 8,000 Australians) and about 220,000-250,000
Ottoman Turkish defenders died.
The near-coincidence of these sacred memorial days, Armenian Genocide
Day and ANZAC Day, is no coincidence. The Ottoman Turkish Empire had
been forced into the First World War (WW1) on the side of Germany by
the British who were eager to dismember the Ottoman Empire and seize
the oil-rich Middle East. Turkey was being attacked by the British
and French in the West and by the Russians in the East. After months
of Allied shelling of the Dardanelles, by 24 April 2015 the Allied
invasion was imminent and Turkish xenophobia exploded into the Armenian
Genocide that commenced with the killing of the Armenian community
leaders and went on to kill 1.5 million Armenians [1].
Remarkably, while ANZAC Day is the most sacred Memorial Day in
Australia, the intimately connected near-coincidence of Armenian
Genocide Day has been resolutely ignored in the 97 years since ANZAC
Day was first proclaimed in 1916. Thus, for example, the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC, the Australian equivalent of the
UUK BBC, and “Aunty” to its numerous loyal fans) is a taxpayer-funded
radio and TV network that has a major role in Australian life, culture
and identity. Yet searches of “the entire ABC site” using the ABC’s
Search function for the terms “Armenian Genocide Day of Remembrance”
and “Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day” yield zero (0) results and a
search for “Armenian Genocide Day” turns up just ONE (1) result and
that simply due to a comment made by Dr Gideon Polya in response to
an ABC radio program entitled “The Armenian Genocide” [2]. in which
Turkish scholar Professor Taner Akcam (sociologist and historian,
Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marion Mugar Chair in Armenian
Genocide Studies in the Department of History at Clark University,
Massachusetts) was interviewed about his book “The Young Turks’
Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
in the Ottoman Empire” (Princeton University Press) [3].
Just as Australian complicity in the Armenian Genocide has been
whitewashed from history, so have been Australia’s “secret genocide
history” and its complicity in other genocidal atrocities after the
WW1 Armenian Genocide as summarized below:
1. Palestinian Genocide (1917-) After the British had seized Iraq
(1914) and achieved their goal of dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire,
Britain and France had divided the Arab world between themselves
by the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, and Britain had by the Balfour
Declaration (1917) offered the Zionists Palestine a Homeland as ploy
to keep Russia in the War (1917), Australian soldiers formally kicked
off the looming Palestinian Genocide with the 1918 Surafend Massacre
in which they massacred a Palestinian village. Ultimately 2.0 million
Palestinian were to die after 1936 through violence (1 .0 million)
or violently-imposed deprivation (1.9 million), with violent Zionist
colonization resulting now in 7 million refugees, ethnic cleansing
of 90% of Palestine and 87% of Indigenous Palestinians denied any
say in government of all of mandated Palestine . Australia has been
Apartheid Israel’s strongest supporters after the US and Canada, and
has made major contributions to the Palestinian Genocide via diplomacy,
as a taxpayer-funded recruiting ground for Israeli terrorists, and
by making donations to the Jewish National Fund tax deductible [4, 5].
2. Bengali Holocaust (1942-1945). By withholding wheat from its
huge wartime wheat stores, Australia was complicit in the 1942-1945
Bengali Holocaust in which the British deliberately starved 6-7 million
Indians to death for strategic reasons. This atrocity was associated
with the large-scale military and civilian sexual abuse of starving
women and girls on a scale only matched by the comfort women abuses
of the Japanese Imperial Army [6, 7].
3. Chinese Holocaust (1937-1945). Some 35 million Chinese were killed
under Japanese occupation. Japanese militarism was aided by the
supply of pig iron to Japan by pro-Fascist Australian leader Robert
“Pig Iron Bob” Menzies [1]…
4. Korean Holocaust (1950-1953). Australia was involved militarily
with the US in the Korean War in which it is estimated by Professor
Michel Chossudovsky that 30% of the North Korean population was killed
by US bombing. Indeed war criminal General Lemay Curtis of the US Air
Force commented: “Over a period of three years or so we killed off –
what – twenty percent of the population” [8].
5. Indo-China War (1955-1975). Australia was involved in the Vietnam
War part of the US Indo-China War that devastated Laos, Cambodia and
Vietnam (deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation totaling
1.3 million, 6.0 million and 15.3 million, respectively).
6. Cambodian Genocide (1976-1979). Through its involvement in the
Indo-China War Australia was complicit in the subsequent Cambodian
Genocide (1.6 million murdered).
7. East Timor Genocide (1975-2000). Australia was complicit in the East
Timor Genocide through its backing of the Indonesian Suharto regime
and its secret backing of the Indonesian invasion and occupation that
killed 0.2 million people., or 1 in 3 of the population
8. Bougaineville atrocity (1990-1997). Australia gave military aid
to Papua New Guinea (notably Iroquois helicopter military transport
assistance) in its attempt to suppress the people of Bougaineville
Island, of whom some 10,000 perished in the conflict out of a
population of about 150,000, mainly from imposed deprivation.
9. Iraqi Genocide (1990-2011). Australia participated with the US, the
UK and the US Coalition in the Gulf War, Sanctions and thence invasion
and occupation of Iraq that were associated with 4.6 million Iraqi
deaths from violence or from imposed deprivation. And 5-6 million
refugees [9].
10. Afghan Genocide (2001- ). Australia participated with the US,
the UK and NATO in the occupation of Afghanistan that has been
associated so far with 5.6 million Afghan deaths from violence or
from war-imposed deprivation. And 3-4 million refugees [10].
11. Asian Holocaust (1950- ). Australia has been involved in all
post-1950 US Asian wars, atrocities in which 38 million Asians have
died from violence or from war-imposed deprivation.
12. Muslim Genocide (1990- ). Australian has been involved in the
Zionist-backed US War on Muslims in which 12 million Muslims have
died from violence or from war-imposed deprivation [11].
13. Australian Aboriginal Genocide (1788- ). Australia has been
involved in a continuing Aboriginal Genocide in which some 2 million
Indigenous Australians have died from violence, dispossession or
disease since European invasion in 1788. Presently 9,000 Indigenous
Australian die avoidably each year out of an Indigenous population
of 500,000, of whom many live in appalling conditions in one of the
world’s richest countries [12].
14. Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust. Australia as one of
the world’s most prosperous countries makes a disproportionate
contribution to the Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust in which
each year 18 million people die avoidably from deprivation and
deprivation-exacerbated disease [1].
15. Climate Genocide. As one of the world’s leaders in annual
per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, Australia makes a
disproportionate contribution to a worsening Climate Genocide that is
predicted to kill 10 billion people this century if man-made climate
change is not addressed [13]. Australia has now made itself a base for
US Marines, US nuclear terrorism infrastructure and for nuclear-armed
US warships to maintain Business As Usual climate change inaction,
GHG pollution profligacy and threats to China, one major nation that
represents, according to Professor Jorgen Randers, perhaps the last
hope for Humanity in tackling man-made climate change [14].
What can decent people do? Decent people must (a) inform everyone they
can (lying Mainstream media certainly won’t) and (b) urge and apply
Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all those involved in
gross human rights abuses, genocide commission, holocaust commission,
genocide denial, and holocaust denial.
Lest we forget, indeed.
[1]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”,
now available for free perusal on the web.
[2]. “The Armenian Genocide”, ABC Radio National, Late Night Live.
[3]. Taner Akcam, “The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The
Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire”.
[4]. “Palestinian Genocide”.
[5]. William Cook (editor), “The Plight Of The Palestinians. A Long
History Of Destruction”.
[6]. Gideon Polya, “Bengal Famine. How Australia & UK killed 6-7
million Indians in WW2”, MWC News, 27 September 2011.
[7]. Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”,
now available for free perusal on the web.
[8]. Michel Chossudovsky, “Know the facts: North Korea lost close
to 30% of its population as a result of US bombings in the 1950s”,
Global Research, 27 November 2010.
[9]. “Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”.
[10]. “Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide”.
[11]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”.
[12]. “Aboriginal Genocide”.
[13]. “Climate Genocide”.
[14]. “Are we doomed?”
http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/26451-anzac-armenian-genocide.html