Tuesday, May 31, 2005

JTW Comment - The Armenian Issue Revisited: An Armenian and Muslim Tragedy? Yes! Genocide? No!

"The Armenian Issue Revisited: An Armenian and Muslim Tragedy? Yes! Genocide? No!
By Bruce Fein
I. Both Armenians and Muslims in Eastern Anatolia under the Ottoman Empire experienced harrowing casualties and gripping privations during World War I.
Hundreds of thousands perished. Most were innocent. All deserve pity and respect. Their known and unknown graves testify to President John F. Kennedy's lament that "Life is unfair." An Armenian tombstone is worth a Muslim tombstone, and vice versa. No race, religious, or ethnic group stands above or below another in the cathedral of humanity. To paraphrase Shakespeare in "The Merchant of Venice," Hath not everyone eyes? hath not everyone hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer...If you prick anyone, does he not bleed? if you tickle him, does he not laugh? if you poison him, does he not die?"

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