PRESS RELEASE

Toronto District School Board, Ermeni Soykirimi'nin 11. sinif ders programina alinmasi icin yapilan bir teklifi gorusuyor. Bu nedenle asagidaki mektubu ve gerekli formu Toronto okul yonetimine gonderdik. Bu Ermeni lobisinin girisimini engellemek icin bizim de sesimizi duyurmamiz acisindan onemli bir adimdi.

 

January 28, 2008

Dear Sir,

We, as the Turkish-Canadian Society in Vancouver kindly protest the decision of the Toronto School Board that proposes to teach a course called GENOCIDE: Historical and Contemporary Implications (CHG38M) which includes the so-called Armenian Genocide. We believe that the allegations in the course are not depended on proven facts but only represent the one-sided and prejudiced thoughts of a lobby group.

The history education must depend on proven historical facts not just allegations which are fuelled with hatred against a nation. One must keep in mind that the Turks and the Armenians have peacefully lived together for at least a thousand years and the two cultures have so deeply intermingled that it is almost impossible to differentiate them in many cases. The unfortunate events of 1915 which include reciprocal massacres are the result of the upheaval of an ethnic group in the Ottoman Empire through the instigations of the allied nations in the WWI in order to dissolve and defeat their enemy. The Ottoman Empire then encompassed a large number of ethnical groups and they had lived in harmony for over 600 years. There are still quite many Armenians who live in Turkey . The so-called genocide allegations of the Ottoman Armenians had been investigated after the WWI by the highest legal authorities in Great Britain for more than two years and the case had been dismissed for lack of reliable evidence. Turkey has opened the old Ottoman archives for the study of all scholars around the world. The old Soviet archives shed significant light on the treacherous activities of the Armenian rebels supported by Russia and instigated by the agents from the United States and other allied nations against the Ottoman Empire . It is now the Armenian lobby groups that don't want to negotiate on historical archival documents but blindly demand that the Turks must accept that they committed a crime that they had not.

We believe this course (CHG38M) will expose the Canadian youth to biased information under the guise of Human Rights and the scope of racism experienced by our children will increase. Numerous respected scholars with expertise in Ottoman history refute such claims as one-sided narrative completely ignorant of Turkish suffering. Therefore with respect to TDSB's Grade 11 history course "Genocide: Historical and Contemporary Implications", we demand that any references to the Armenian claim of genocide be removed.

Very Respectfully

The Turkish-Canadian Society in Vancouver