Raffi Hovannisian addresses Ottawa Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism

November 10, 2010 - 18:54 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Raffi K. Hovannisian, Armenia's first minister of foreign affairs and current chairman of the Heritage Party, was on Parliament Hill to address the Ottawa Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism.

Convened by the Government of Canada and the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism between November 7 and 9, the international conclave brought together political leaders, scholars, human rights advocates, diplomats and members of parliament from around the world.

Delivering his keynote address to a plenary session on "The Role of Governments and Parliaments in Combating Anti-Semitism," Mr. Hovannisian underscored the universal connections among all forms of racism, genocide and its denial--from the Holocaust and the scourge of anti-Semitism to the still-unrequited Armenian Genocide and xenophobia aimed at Armenians and many minority groups across the globe.

He said that the lessons to be drawn from the tragedies of history and applied to prevent their recurrence are that reconciliation with past and present perpetrators can be achieved solely on the basis of accepting and accounting for the terrible truth, and that taking courageous public stands in the political arena, at schools and on campuses, and throughout societies must not be selective or exclusive but rather must target equally all crimes against humanity and all instances of hate speech. Only in this way will the civilized world have a chance to reach the rule not only of law, but also of rights and ethics.

Raffi Hovannisian, who dedicated his speech to the memory of his grandparents who had survived the Genocide and Great Armenian Dispossession nearly a century ago, was provided a further opportunity to expand on the Armenian experience when a Turkish parliamentarian, accompanied by a Turkish Embassy official, attempted to respond to the keynote presentation by reading from an Embassy position paper that relativized and trivialized the Genocide.

In a dramatic exchange, Hovannisian concluded the session by saying that it boggles the human mind and borders on surrealism that an international meeting on anti-Semitism should be bearing direct witness to the specter of active denialism; that his grandmother owed her life to a righteous Turkish family whose story has not been told because of the official Turkish position; that Turkey must follow postwar Germany's example in facing history and taking responsibility for its crimes against humanity; and that hope springs eternal that we will live to see the day when distinguished Turkish delegates present themselves to condemn, not deny all forms of racism including genocide and its denial.