Commentary
Oregon Daily Emerald
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
NEWS STAFF
(541)346-5511
IEN SUDICK
EDITOR IN CHIEF
STEVEN R. NEUMAN
MANAGING EDITOR
IARED PABEN
AYISUA YAHYA
NEWS EDITORS
MEGHANN CUNIFF
PARKER HOWELL
SENIOR NEWS REPORTERS
MORIAH BAUNCIT
AMANDA BOLSINGER
ADAM CHERRY
EMILY SMITH
EVA SYLWESTER
SHELDON TRAVER
NEWS REPORTERS
CLAYTON JONES
SPORTS EDITOR
JON ROETMAN
SENIOR SPORTS REPORTER
STEPHEN MILLER
BRIAN SMITH
SPORTS REPORTERS
RYAN NYBURG
PULSE EDITOR
AMY UCHTY
SENIOR PULSE REPORTER
JOSHUA UNTEREUR
PULSE REPORTER
CAT BALDWIN
PULSE CARTOONIST
AILEE SLATER
COMMENTARY EDITOR
GABE BRADLEY
ANNEMARIE KNEPPER
CHUCK SLOTHOWER
JENNIFER MCBRIDE
COLUMNISTS
ASHLEY GRIFFIN
SUPPLEMENT
FREELANCE EDITOR
DANIELLE HICKEY
PHOTO EDITOR
LAUREN WIMER
SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
NICOLE BARKER
TIM BOBOSKY
PHOTOGRAPHER
KATE HORTON
ZANF. RUT
PART-TIME PHOTOGRAPHERS
BRET FURTWANGLF.R
GRAPHIC ARTIST
DUSTIN REESE
SENIOR DESIGNER
ELLIOTT ASBURY
WENDY KIEFFER
AMANDA LEE
IONAH SCHROGIN
DESIGNERS
SHADRA BEES LEY
IEANNIE EVERS
COPY CHIEFS
KIMBERLY BLACKFIELD
JOSH NORRIS
SPORTS COPY EDITORS
GREG BIISLAND
AMBER LINDROS
NEWS COPY EDITORS
JENNY GERWICK
PULSE COPY EDITOR
ADRIENNE NELSON
ONLINE EDITOR
WEBMASTER
(541)346-5511
IUDY RIEDL
GENERAL MANAGER
KATHY CARBONE
BUSINESS MANAGER
IAUNA HE CIUSTI
RECEPTIONIST
IERED NAGEL
PATRICK SCHMERBER
HOLLY STEIN
IANA SWANSON
ROB WEGNER
CAROLYN ZIMMERMAN
DISTRIBUTION
ADVERTISING
(541)346-3712
MELISSA GUST
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
TYLER MACK
SALES MANAGER
MATT BETZ
HERON CALISCH-DOLEN
MEGAN HAMLIN
KATE! HIRONAKA
MALI AN KASER-LEE
KELLEE KAUFTHE1L
MIA LEIDELMEYER
SHANNON ROGERS
SALES REPRESENTATIVES
CLASSIFIED
(541)3464343
TR1NA SHANAMAN
CLASSIFIED MANAGER
KORALYNN BASHAM
ANDO
KATY GAGNON
KERI SPANGLER
KATIE STRINGER
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING
ASSOCIATES
PRODUCTION
(541)3464381
MICHELE ROSS
PRODUCTION MANAGER
TARA /TAM
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
JEN CRAM LET
KRIS'TENMCHARRY
CAMERON GAUT
SABRINA GOWETTE
IONAH SCHROGIN
DESIGNERS
The Oregon Daily Emerald is pu6
lished daily Monday through Fri
day dunngthe school year by the
Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing
Co. Inc., at the University of Ore
gon, Eugene, Ore The Emerald
operates independently of the
University with offices in Suite
300 of the Erb Memorial Union.
The Emerald is pnvate property
Unlawful removal or use of
papers is prosecutable by law.
■ In my opinion
Sunday, April 24 marked the
90th anniversary of a genocide I
didn’t even learn about until last No
vember. It’s one of those 1.5 million
people cock-ups that our history
teachers like to sweep under the rug
as just another problem resulting
from World War I. While it may not
measure up to Hitler’s cold extermina
tion of the Jews, the Ottoman
Empire’s systematic murder of Arme
nians from 1915 to 1923 merits more
mention in class and in public. Aware
ness of genocide is not enough in
itself to prevent future genocide, but it
certainly is a good first step. Hitler
himself, while masterminding his
death camps, looked on the Armenian
genocide with a sneer. “Who remem
bers the Armenians?” he is reported to
have asked.
The government of Tlirkey contin
ues to hold fast to a flimsy charade,
pretending there were no victims in
its history other than some resulting
from the occasional uprising. It
denies that Armenians were taken on
long death marches and then slaugh
tered for absolutely no reason. Indig
nant ignorance and falsifying the les
sons of our past only lead to repeated
mistakes. How many times do we
have to see that ignoring a problem
doesn’t make it go away? If the Amer
ican government denied the Japanese
internment during World War II, I
have a feeling the Bush administra
tion would be treating Arab-Ameri
cans far worse than it already does.
While our policies may not be all that
enlightened, they certainly could be
hellishly poorer.
Tlirkey to this day insists that no
more than a few people died, and oth
er countries step lightly to avoid
Tlirkey’s anger. The Bush administra
tion hasn’t exactly been reluctant to
offend allies in the past but here re
ferred to the massacre and mass exile
_
JENNIFER MCBRIDE
QUASHING DISSENT
of thousands of innocent Armenians
as merely a “tragedy” — heaven for
bid we alienate our strategic partners.
We're not the only ones Tlirkey is
trying to bully into silence. France,
with its large Armenian subcommu
nities, planned to publicly commem
orate the event, only to receive
threats from Tlirkey. When Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke
against it, Tlirkish groups called for
his movies to be permanently
banned from the country.
Well, I doubt anybody in Tlirkey is
reading my columns, so I’m perfectly
happy to blow what little political
capital I have in the region.
The massive deaths of the Arme
nians marked the first genocide of
the twentieth century. Not only were
Armenians subjected to death and
torture, but they were also taken
from their homes and forcibly exiled
to the deserts of Syria, where they
died en masse of starvation and de
hydration. In addition, the Ottoman
Empire expropriated all Armenian
wealth and raped thousands of
women. Armenian concentration
camps caused indirect slaughter by
epidemic and exhaustion.
April 24, 1915, is specifically com
memorated because on that night,
the government rounded up 200 Ar
menian leaders in Constantinople.
They were all imprisoned, and most
of them were executed as a penalty
for being politically prominent.
Before then, the Tlirks had already
disarmed all the Armenian battalions
and had begun expelling them from
their homes along the eastern war
front, but news blackouts kept these
acts secret until those blatantly evil
arrests. By killing the leaders, T\irks
removed Armenian rivals, effectively
crushing any official Armenian re
sistance in just one of many brutal
strokes. For that reason, April 24 is
the Armenians’ “Kistallnacht.”
Of course, part of what makes
genocide so horrifying is the absence
of logic or reason. Nationalist panics
send friends into furies, causing
them to turn on their own neigh
bors. For centuries, Armenians and
Tlirks lived side by side, but as oth
er Christian minorities separated
themselves from the Ottoman Em
pire, the Armenians were isolated.
These Armenian-speaking commu
nities were the roadblock to a pan
TXirkic Empire. When once a T\irk
would have gone to an Armenian for
a cup of sugar, Tlirkish soldiers now
came for pints of blood.
The first step was for the Turkish
government to demand that Armeni
ans turn in their hunting weapons for
the “war effort.” Some communities
had to buy extra to make their quotas.
Of course, the government then used
the amount of weapons as “proof"
that the Armenians were about to
rebel, drafting Armenians into virtual
slavery where they were worked or
shot to death.
Leaving victims unacknowledged
and uncompensated has, for Arme
nians, created a national black hole.
The least we can do as a nation is
agree that these people deserve
recognition. I hope that next year
President Bush will not let this sad
anniversary slip by without rectify
ing our 90-year silence.
jennifermcbride@dailyemercdd.com
■ Editorial
Pope's life
doesn't fit
his 'special
greeting'
TWo days ago, The Register-Guard featured a
front-page story titled “Pope stands back from po
litical edge” by The Associated Press. The article,
one of many such worldwide news articles, went
on to detail the reasons why Pope Benedict XVI
represents a reasonable, non-politically charged
choice to fill the shoes of Pope John Paul II. The
basis for this “lack of political edge” includes
Benedict’s warmth toward Rome’s Jewish com
munity and his announcement that “my
thoughts go out to all men and women,... to be
lievers and nonbelievers alike.”
Unfortunately, the gap between what the pope
says and what the pope does is wide. Although
he recently issued what has been termed a
“special greeting” to people of faiths other than
Catholicism, Benedict’s 2000 Vatican document
indicated that only Catholics could achieve salva
tion. And while he mentioned the Jewish faith,
Muslims were ignored during the pope’s “special
greeting.” His comments on Monday, which
barely felt like an acknowledgment of Muslims,
were sadly taken as a broad gesture of reaching
out to the faith.
In terms of social politics, it is interesting that
Benedict should be painted as standing back
from a political edge, when last year Benedict
spoke out against giving communion to pro-abor
tion politicians. Just last week, Benedict criticized
the Spanish government’s decision to endorse
gay marriage, as well as a bill that would allow
gay couples to adopt children. Benedict has taken
a hard-lined stance against women in the Vatican
and remains in favor of a ban on birth control.
The new pope has even denied the reality of on
going sexual-abuse issues, calling the scandal a
U.S. plot to degrade the Catholic faith.
More unnerving is Benedict’s involvement,
as a young man, in the Hitler Youth movement
during World War II. Although Benedict has
publicly repented that decision, noting that
membership was practically demanded by
young men at that time and place, this facet of
the pope’s past still produces discomfort for
many, and rightly so. Keeping up healthy, inter
faith relationships is an important job of any re
ligious leader; it certainly seems anachronistic
that Pope Benedict XVI should be working on
such relationships considering his former posi
tion as a member of a hate organization.
By saying Benedict is standing back from the
political edge, supporters of the new pope appar
ently mean he is not bringing any novel politics
to the Vatican. As long as at least some of the
political leaders in this country look to Benedict
as their personal leader, it is wise to assume that
Benedict’s views on religion, minorities and sci
ence will at some level be mirrored in the home
land politics.
Pope Benedict XVI is not standing back from
the political edge. Even at the ripe old age of 78,
he is jumping into the pool of politics at full force.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Jennifer Sudick
Editor in Chief
Ailee Slater
Commentary Editor
Steven R. Neuman
Managing Editor
Shadra Beesley
Copy Chief
Adrienne Nelson
Online Editor
OREGON DAILY EMERALD LETTERS POLICY
Letters to the editor and &rest commentaries are encouraged, and should be
sent to Ieter5@dailyemerald.com or submitted at the Oregon Daily Emer
ald office, EMU Suite 300 Electronic submissions are preferred. Letters are
limited to 250 words, and guest commentaries to 550 words. Authors are
limited to one submission per calendar month Submissions should
include phone number and address fix verification. The Emerald reserves
tire nght to edit for space, gammar and 3yte Guest submissions are pub
fished at the discretion of the Emerald.