When: Friday 3 July 2015, 7.30 pm

Where: Belfast Unemployed Resource Centre, Donegall Street (next door from The John Hewitt)

The Armenian Insurrection and the Great War – A Cautionary Tale of Betrayal

The Great Calamity that engulfed the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 has been narrowed down to a single question: Was the Young Turk Government in Istanbul guilty of Genocide?

But the tragedy of the deaths of great numbers of Armenians, Turks and Kurds is inexplicable if confined solely to this. And it obscures important historical questions around the issues of instigation and betrayal that should be raised around these events. So a context is required to explain what really happened to produce such a disaster. That context is the Great War and the Armenian Insurrection.

The Armenian Insurrection is described by a leading figure in it, the Dashnak revolutionary. Dr. Pasdermadjian (Armen Garo), in writings long since forgotten. These put a very different complexion on the events of 1915. They describe a great moment of decision when the very existence of a people was gambled in the struggle for a Great Armenia, carved out of Ottoman territories in which the Armenians constituted a small minority.

The author will give a commentary on the origin and development of “the Armenian Question” and its culmination and final resolution in the catastrophic events in Anatolia brought about by the Great War. What will be revealed is the instrumental part played by the Liberal Anglosphere in foisting dangerous notions of historic destiny on the Armenians and then a fraudulent war that encouraged them to destruction.

When remembering the Armenians in this centenary of the Great Calamity what should be sought is not only the truth, but the whole truth. The author will argue that the Armenian Genocide lobby is a distraction from the historical truth aimed at absolving the Imperialists for causing the eradication of a historic community from its long-standing existence in eastern Anatolia.