This year the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day and the Holocaust Remembrance Day coincide on the same day, April 24. The Armenian Genocide began in 1915 when the Ottoman Turks, who were of the Muslim faith, eradicated roughly 75 percent of the roughly 1.5 million Armenian Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant men, women and children. The Nazi Holocaust began during World War II and ended with the death of more than 6 million Jews as well and millions of other people including Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox and even many Russian Communists whom the Nazis despised.
Stella Morabita, whose grandfather escaped the Armenian genocide, wrote an article in the Federalist reflecting on why genocide happens and how human beings ignore the plight of the afflicted. She states that genocide begins with ‘Groupthink,’ which is basically a well-coordinated propaganda campaign by a government or group of people that vilify another group of people. In the case of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Turks used this propaganda as a behavior modification tool to incite hate and inhibit the use of free speech in order to control the masses. The Nazi regime used the exact same tactic by having the German people exchange their freedom of conscience in order to ensure their security.
Both governments used ‘Groupthink’ to inspire a certain twisted form of patriotism among its citizens and at the same time demonized another group of people that were to be chastised and eliminated for the greater good. If we ignore the history as to why genocide becomes possible in a ‘civilized’ society, then we will most likely repeat its errors and deny that these two holocausts ever happened.
