All genocide matters, be it Russian genocide/pogroms of her own minorities or peaceful dissidents; or American Indians, Australian Aborigines or the Nazi holocaust, or the highland clearances or the Irish dispossession by the black and tans.

Which included machine gunning down inside a single hour and from the safety of armored vehicles; hundreds of unarmed Irish civilians at a crowded sports stadium.

And very different from shooting from ambush by armed resistance/underground, at armed servicemen!

While the latter two may well have been vastly smaller incidents, on a percentage scale and compered with total population numbers; at least as significant as some of the aforementioned!

Even so, who now living can be held to account for the misdeeds of previous now dead and buried leaders; or those long dead who fired the weapons!

Certainly not the ethnic communities from which they sprang; or indeed, who may have been inadvertently involved or had things done in their unwilling names?

i.e., who now living in Tasmania can be held to account for the virtual elimination of an entire ethnic race?

While what unspeakable things happened a hundred years ago in turkey controlled Armenia, may well have been horrific, it just did not result in the virtual elimination of a whole ethnic community?

Even so, they were different times, with different attitudes and expectations!

And crimes against humanity occurred around the globe by various cultures seeking to posses the wealth and land belonging to countless others; in places like the Americas, Africa and India! Or indeed China, where gunboat diplomacy won many concessions and territory!

Armenia may well matter but so does every other life prematurely snuffed out for any reason, be it control, land acquisition or religious conviction created crusades!

And what price reparation and compensation?

And even were we to settle on a number, say 1.5 trillion?

Would that bring back any of the murdered or butchered?

And who would be eligible as the intended recipients; and how could anyone unequivocally prove beyond any reasonable doubt, a DNA testable blood relationship to a particular victim?
Rhrosty.

I generally agree with the author's opinions, but with some reservations.

"the deaths of six millions Jews will now be considered little more than an unfortunate accident,

The Armenian genocide is only one of many forgotten holocausts, the Nazis also murdered about one million Roma and caused the deaths of least 20 million Russians and other Slavs. Jews weren't either the only victims of the Nazis, or the even the most numerous. The German colonial administration in what's now Namibia nearly exterminated the Herero and Nama people in the 20th century's first genocide.

"Turkey has proven that such a model of coercive denial would almost certainly work: they have, after all, successfully and consistently managed to intimidate the vast majority of the globe into silence over the Armenian genocide."

I'm sure that's not the only explanation, most Euro-centric Westerners have been only aware of the Nazis and their atrocities in Europe. Hollywood won't let the public forget about the Nazi genocide but has been far less interested in portraying other attempts at mass extermination. Also the Armenian genocide had faded into history by the 1930s, Hitler is supposed to have said---

"Who, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obersalzberg_Speech

To understand why Turkey won't apologise, you have to understand the Turkish character. Turks are fiercely nationalist and to apologise would hurt the pride and honour they have for their country. Westerners find this hard to understand because 50 years of "progressive" politics has taught us to be ashamed of every supposed bad deed done in the past. Turks are taught to be prideful of their wars and victories. Westerners are taught the opposite.

One can only wonder when, not if, we will have to do something similar to cure our growing ethnic problem? I wonder what we will do to fix our self induced problem, & just how far we will go? I will be very surprised if, when we are pushed just too far, if we will be any kinder, [or weaker] than others have been.

I guess it will be after enough of our bleeding hearts, & their loved ones, have been hurt by our growing problem.

I don't care at all for a historical genocide; how about a focus on the CURRENT genocide against Christians by Islamists and their enablers in the West? They are not white so Lefties can support them.

Whether it's called genocide or not, the Turks massacred hundreds of thousands of Armenians because of their DNA. It's a crap country and should be openly recognised as such. The kowtowing to Moslem Turkey is not due to intimidation, it's due to voluntary dhimmitude, the same malady that fuels appeasement of the Moslem Fifth Column in Australia.

I think Hasbeen needs a response. We do not have an ethnic problem, any more than the Krauts did with the Jews. To try to "solve" an invented ethnic problem by attacking people because of their ethnicity, especially if the bullying gets physical, is no better than what got Nazi ringleaders rightly strung up after the war.

We do have a Fifth Column problem based not on race but on religion. Anyone seeking to enter Australia should sign, and live, a pledge of respect for the universal rights of free speech, free association, apostasy, blasphemy against any murderous paedophile that has claimed divinity, and freedom to "marry out". Alternatively return to the paradise from which you came. Handcuffed to a copper if necessary.