Thursday, December 15, 2011

Strange Relations

In the Department of Politics makes Strange Bedfellows, here is a recent article in the Seattle Times on the close relationship between Turkey and Native Americans and the negative response from the Armenian American community.  And, not only is this relationship quite long standing, but Democratic and Republican legislators have joined together on each side of the issue, depending on whether they have large numbers of constituents who are Native American or Armenian American.

When we visited Aleppo in June 2010, we visited an Armenian Church.  The young man showing us around lectured us for over 20 minutes on how the US government has not yet recognised the Armenian Genocide committed by the Turks.  The fact that Congress supported such resolutions did not make any difference:  a formal condemnation was required.

Armenian Church, Aleppo, Syria 2010

An excellent novel exploring the complexities of Armenians, Turks, and the two in America is The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak.