A Century On and Still No Change

So earlier today an American congretional committee finally agreed to push for the Obama administration to recognise the 1915 Armenian Genocide, committed by the Ottoman Empire, in which 1.5 MILLION Armenians were murdered and there was a definitive concerted effort to exterminate the Armenians. Now, this has been pushed for for at least 20 years, so it is refreshing to finally see some progress. However, what is quite disheartening is that there are still people within the government who claim that it would be counter-productive to recognise the genocide, arguing that it is not in their interests and it is not the way to peace, clearly ignorant to the facts: Primarily that, to paraphrase the Iranian satirist Shappi Khorsandi, within Turkey there is freedom of speech, however no freedom after you have spoken. Turkey has a policy of arresting, trying and imprisoning any who speak out against the government.

Clearly regardless of the time period it is money that overrides all. America trades with Turkey, people have holidays in Turkey, so on and so forth. It is only counter-productive to those who stand more to gain by keeping the genocide unrecognised (Thatcher, Major, Blair, Bush Senior and Bush Junior I'm looking at all of you).

Furthermore, despite having supposedly been a republic for 87 years, Turkey insists on denying the Armenian genocide, going to such lengths as on certain editions of promotional DVDs for Turkey, there would be full chapters denying the genocide (See the System of a Down produced documentary "Screamers" for further details). Therefore they are intentionally displaying themselves as effectively congratulating the former Empire for committing the mass murder of 1.5 million innocent civilians.

And as a little footnote of history, a quote from Hitler regarding the Master Plan: "And anyway, who remembers the Armenian Genocide of 1915?"

Just to finish: it truly shows the inability in human nature to progress if the government which has supposedly been a republic for the past 87 years can not recognise its failings from almost 100 years ago. And to link to the ideas of Hegel and the belief that we are constantly progressing and developing, this, as well as many other, similar circumstances prove that although there may be steady "progress" in western countries, socially, ideologically, even chemically, there is stagnation, even de-evolution, within Eastern countries. Not even outside of Europe. Hegel's belief that we will constantly progress towards paradise is a much vaunted and far too optimistic view of the world. Soon enough we will be wallowing in the pits of despair and de-evolution if we do not start to open our eyes to what is becoming of this world.

Edit for 5/3/2010: Hilary Clinton is pushing to block the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. I am shocked that anyone would be so invested in preventing the revelation of the truth. It is truth, regardless of your beliefs. There are survivors of the genocide and they can attest to the atrocities committed. Truly nothing has changed