Back to an ugly future...

 

 

"It was the worst of times, brought on by the worst in people..."

This is an anniversary year. Most times, anniversaries are a time for celebration and remembrance. This one is certainly not a celebration - but I hope it is a remembrance. This year marks the 100 year anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. A very, very ugly blot on human history.

There are many who will see this posting and decide not to read it. I can't really blame them. This is indeed an ugly story. But a story which must be told. Compared to the Holocaust against the Jews in World War II, the Armenian Genocide gets very little press. In fact, many of the genocides in the world during the past century get very little press. This one however, I fear may be getting ready to repeat. A different location, but similar players to the genocide 100 years ago.

A hundred years ago in the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey), in and around the city of Constantinople, a couple hundred Christian intellectuals were rounded up and executed. That event opened the floodgates. As the world was mired in World War I, hundreds of thousands more Christians were executed in that area of the world, some in the most heinous fashion. By the time the genocide had stopped, it is estimated that 1.5M people had died. However, the exact number will never be known. 

Well thank goodness that event is in the dustbin of history so we don't have to witness that type of carnage anymore. Or is it? During the past couple years, thousands of innocent Christians have been killed, wounded or displaced from Syria, Egypt, Iran, Libya, and Africa. And the players are similar to the ones 100 years ago. Christians being hundred down like dogs and murdered by Muslims. And similar to the Arminian Genocide, many times killed in the most brutal fashion.

Many years ago, George Santayana offered his famous quote - "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it." What is happening today, to innocent Christians, bears this quote out in all its truth. We are repeating the past. And just like 100 years ago, the world is doing nothing.

So I will not say "happy anniversary" as this year marks anything but. As cries for justice
continue to rise from the souls of the million plus Christians killed a hundred years ago, they are now joined by new voices. Voices of the thousands killed in the past few years for committing the same crime as the Armenians did - simply being a Christian.