Armenian Memorial Day & Anzac Day

There is a certain amount of irony, that Anzac day follows Armenian Memorial Day, 24th April. A day that remembers the beginning of the Armenian genocide, or should I say night. It was on this day 24th April 1915, that the Turkish Ittihad Party, gave the order that Constantinople Armenian cultural leaders, their writers, artists,  clergymen, teachers and so on, were all to be arrested in the middle of the night. In hind sight, they should have realised that something was a foot. Thus the first 250 songbirds of Armenian culture were removed from positions of influence. Little did they realise, that they were the first of some one and half million of their countrymen earmarked for extermination.  The spiritual leader of all Sunni Muslims, Sheikh-ul-Lslam had already announced on steps of Fathi Mosque on 14th November,1914, that a jihad had been declared against all "infidels" and other "enemies of the faith". The Armenia, as the first country to adopt Christianity was an easy target. The fact that they had lived in the country, we now called Turkey, for over two and half thousand years counted for little. Not of course, all Turks subscribed to this policy,  I should mention many lost their lives due to their objection. The issue that sticks in the throat of modern day Armenians, is the fact, that Turkish governments over the last eighty five years have maintained total denial that such events ever took place.

Thus, we come to Anzac Day, and an ill fated landing in the Dardanelles, the very next day, 25th April, 1915. The day, when the first lorry load of Armenians were being removed from their homes. One of the tragic side effects of these events is that the genocide, the removal of an entire people, from their homeland would be repeated twenty four years later in Nationalist Germany. Whether the German advisers played any part at the time is hard to say. But it is not difficult to see a template for future events. This century has witness so many ethnic cleansing, Armenian, the Holocaust, Ukraine, Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans, and recently Dar fur, there seems no end. Turkey is one of the few countries who even today, refuses to admit any responsibility, as the recent out cry over the French Government's declaring that denial of the Armenian Genocide is a crime in France. I do not wish to suggest that ex-Turkish soldiers should not honor their dead war heroes, but whether they should do so in Anzac Day marches remains questionable.
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