Saturday 25 April 2009

Armenian Meds Yeghern

Well, we wondered what Obama would say on Armenian Genocide Day (the 24th). Well now we know that he didn't say 'genocide'; diplomacy prevailed and he restricted himself to Meds Yeghern, Armenian for 'great calamity' - better than nothing, but not what he promised last year! Next question: what about 15th May? Will he say it in Arabic - that the Palestinians suffered the Nakba? That too was a great calamity, and it is still going on. And what about the indigenous Americans and Australians and other victims of past racially driven calamities? Will we never admit what our ancestors did?

I wonder what people will remember about the Durban II conference on racism. Most of the media portrayed it as an anti-Israeli rant, a 'hate-fest', personified by Ahmadinejad, but from the blogs of eye-witnesses it accomplished a great deal of good work to restore UN ideals. Actually, the final declaration does not mention Israel or Palestine at all. The motives of those who railed against it seem to be purely negative - to discredit the UN and all it stands for.

Suspiciously, the same people who complained about Darfur II were furious also about Obama revealing details of the Bush Administration's torture methods. They said both that it hadn't been torture at all, and that now Al-Qaida would know that in future they will not be tortured - an interesting example of not having your cake and not eating it!

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