Mike Levin: “I join voices with my colleagues today to recognize the 86th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Between 1894 and…”

“I join voices with my colleagues today to recognize the 86th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Between 1894 and 1923, approximately two million Armenians were massacred, persecuted, and exiled by the Turk government of the Ottoman Empire. Despite all the facts, eyewitness accounts, recognition by countries throughout the world, and the findings of their own post-war courts, the government of Turkey still refuses to acknowledge the genocide ever occurred. We cannot allow such blatant disregard and denial to go on. Earlier this year, France's National Assembly passed legislation labeling the Armenian Genocide as genocide. We in the United States should do no less. I well remember a speech made by Elie Wiesel at the White House in which he described the perils of indifference to suffering: "In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger or hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony . . . because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response . . . Indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor--never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.”