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Legislative Request:
The ANCA calls on Congress to pass the Armenian Genocide Education Act, a measure aimed at promoting greater public awareness and understanding of the history, lessons, consequences, and ongoing costs of the Armenian Genocide (1915-23).
What’s at Stake:
— The prevention of future genocides.
— Justice for the Armenian Genocide.
— The memory of millions of Armenian, Greek, Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac, Aramean, Maronite and other Christians.
Why it Matters:
— Teaching the lessons of past genocides is vital to preventing future atrocities.
— There is insufficient educational material about the Armenian Genocide in school textbooks and lesson plans.
— American must counter the Turkish government’s aggressive global campaign of Armenian Genocide denial, including active and ongoing efforts to roll back U.S. recognition of this crime.
What it Does:
— This legislation seeks to secure funding ($10 million over five years) for the Library of Congress to help educate Americans about the Armenian Genocide.
— This legislation specifically cites the Ottoman Turkey’s systematic and deliberate state-sponsored mass murder, national dispossession, cultural erasure, and exile of millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians, between 1915 and 1923.
Key Points:
— Genocide denial – if not challenged – will lead to renewed crimes against humanity.
— Americans must stand strong against Turkey’s ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide.
— Passage of this legislation will build upon Congressional and White House recognition of the Armenian Genocide and raise much-needed awareness of this crime against humanity.
— Much like the Never Again Act, which counters Holocaust denial, the Armenian Genocide Education Act counters hateful lies regarding the facts of a known case of genocide.
Background:
The Armenian Genocide Education Act builds upon the President’s (2021) recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the historic passage (2019) of H.Res.296 and S.Res.150 – resolutions that specifically established U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide and officially rejected any official U.S. association with the denial of this crime.
Its passage is urgently needed to counter discourse and propaganda that claims that Ottoman Turkey’s systematic and deliberate state-sponsored mass murder, national dispossession, cultural erasure, and exile of millions of Armenians and other Christians between 1915 and 1923 did not take place.
ANCA | anca.org | 2023