Opinion: Education is key to ending cycle of genocide

Starting this fall, several high schools around
Quebec will receive a universal teaching guide on
genocide as part of a pilot project.
LALAI MANJIKIAN, SPECIAL TO THE MONTREAL
GAZETTE
Updated: April 24, 2019
April 24 marks the 104th anniversary of
the start of the Armenian genocide. While
the event took place more than a century
ago, for the descendants of survivors, it
remains close. The Turkish state’s
vehement denial of the genocide has left
little space for justice, closure and
healing.
In 1915, the Young Turks rounded up and arrested
Armenian intellectuals and leaders in Constantinople
(currently Istanbul) and deported them to central
Anatolia, where they were executed. Turkish
authorities saw the Armenians as a threat to the
Ottoman Empire’s security and took away able-
bodied men from their families to be imprisoned or
killed, and subsequently drove women and children
into death marches throughout the Syrian Desert. In
addition, irreplaceable, centuries-old churches and
architectural marvels were destroyed. This
orchestrated annihilation campaign resulted in the
death of 1.5 million individuals.
More than a century later, the last of the Armenian
genocide survivors, once breathing testaments, are
now only kept alive through archival footage and
their children’s memories.
In the aftermath of such profoundly traumatic
events, educating current and future generations —
using historical facts and survivor testimonials — is
not only a pedagogically sound approach, but it is,
first and foremost, an ethical obligation.
In the digital age where information is as easily
accessible as it is distorted, the lack of knowledge
and awareness about the Armenian genocide
remains astonishing. It is a disturbing reality that
many Canadian students are still unaware that the
Armenian genocide was the first of the modern
ideologically motivated genocides. Hitler also
referred to it, proclaiming: “Who, after all, speaks
today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”