Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
By ِEditor in Chief: Sam Nan
As Armenians around the world commemorate the 100th anniversary of the genocide against Armenian People, in which over 1 million were killed, and as similar acts of violence continue to occur across the region, and the wider world, it is urgent that the causes behind such violence be studied, in order to prevent more of the same.
in this month people all over the world are commemorating it not as merely to reflect on the past, but it is vital to also look at the present, and contemplate why such acts of horrific violence and oppression continue across the Middle East, whether it is state-sponsored, as in Syria, or whether it is carried out by terrorist groups. It is also important to think about the future, and to tackle the difficult questions which must be answered, of how and why people and institutions are driven to such violence, and how certain systems, or failures within systems, allow them to get away with it.
The stress on semantics – whether what happened to the Armenians was a genocide or mass killings – is important to some, but in a way this debate has detracted from the larger picture of what we can learn from the past to avoid future situations which are similar.
The Armenian community in Lebanon is so widely respected and valued, by all. But in the week leading up to the anniversary has witnessed the ugly and unfortunate phenomenon of Lebanese politicians jumping on the political bandwagon, with little more interest than some votes at the end of day. To allow the massacre of over a million people to stir up sectarian tension in Lebanon and elsewhere today is to completely fail to learn a lesson from history.
