If not now, when?

Loving parents shelter their children from danger and violence. They even try to place their children in a supporting environment where they can flourish and develop their skills and talents. However, parents cannot accomplish this in a community which tolerates a high level of violence.

A 2004 study found that 90 percent of teenagers had witnessed at least one act of violence in the previous year and more than half had themselves been victims. This means that for most children violence has become a normal way of life.

Boston’s children have been forced to live with fear and anxiety. This has a stultifying effect on academic achievement and healthy psychological development. There is much at stake. Parents and other adults must do whatever it takes to end this culture of violence.

Genocide is genocide

History is replete with accounts of man’s unspeakable brutality and violence to others. Such incidents cast a pall over the children, grandchildren and generations of descendants of the victims. Humane society has an obligation to respect the sensitivities of those who still grieve in their hearts.

Starting in 1915, the Ottoman Empire began an organized slaughter of Armenians. At that time an estimated two million Armenians lived in Turkey. A few years later, estimates are that more than one million Armenians lost their lives by the hands of the Turks. Some estimates place the number of deaths at 1.5 million Armenians.

Scholars and historians have concluded that the massacre of the Armenians constitutes genocide. As one might expect, the Turkish government has continually rejected that conclusion, although many Turkish intellectuals disagree with their government’s opinion.

Most European nations recognize the Armenian genocide with the notable exception of the United Kingdom. Great Britain, along with the United States and Israel have chosen to avoid describing the massacre as genocide in order to preserve their geo-political interests with Turkey.

Many of the survivors and their progeny have emigrated to the United States where they are patriotic, highly productive citizens. Many in the Boston area, including the late Stephen Mugar, the founder of Star Markets, and Dr. Aram Chobanian, interim president emeritus of Boston University, have contributed enormously to the community. But now Armenian citizens are being forced to re-live the agonies that their elders suffered in Anatolia.

A senior from Lincoln-Sudbury High School, with the assistance of his high school history teacher, has filed suit to question the genocide issue once again. What degree of scholarship can they bring to a matter that has been so thoroughly investigated? Why would they be so insensitive to the feelings of so many of our solid citizens?

There are periodic challenges to other acts of genocide, such as the reality of the Jewish Holocaust. Since the number of deaths is well established, the only assertion could be that those Jews deserved to die. How painful that must be for survivors and their families. Can one formulate a political or religious reason sufficient to justify the methodical annihilation of any group of people?

There are no further questions to be answered about the Armenian genocide. This lawsuit represents the kind of insensitivity that easily leads to the persecution of others because of racial or religious differences.

Melvin B. Miller

Editor & Publisher
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