[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 134 (Tuesday, September 11, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1866-E1867]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                SUPPORT FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 11, 2007

  Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of passage of H. 
Res. 106, the Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian 
Genocide Resolution.
  It is long past time for the United States to officially recognize 
the massacre of one and a half million Armenians early in the 20th 
century for what it undeniably was: genocide.
  Year, after year, after year, I've been proud to cosponsor the 
Armenian Genocide resolution. Last year, over 150 House members 
cosponsored this important legislation to properly recognize the 
Armenian Genocide. This year, the resolution has already received 226 
cosponsorships, a majority of the Members of the House. This impressive 
number reflects the broad bipartisan support for an official 
recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
  Countries all around the world have adopted similar resolutions to 
ensure that the atrocities committed against the Armenian people are 
properly recognized as acts of Genocide. Canada, France, Switzerland, 
Greece, and Poland all have passed resolutions affirming the 
recognition of the Genocide. Properly recognizing the Armenian Genocide 
here in America is essential to ensure that all past genocides are 
never forgotten and all future atrocities are never permitted.
  The writer Milan Kundera once wrote that ``The struggle of man 
against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.''
  There are those that would deny the Armenian Genocide, just as there 
are those that deny the reality of the Nazi Holocaust. In commemorating 
the Armenian Genocide as we will do with this Resolution, we 
collectively engage in that struggle of memory against forgetting. The 
dangers of forgetting are real--as Adolph Hitler plotted the Holocaust, 
he was emboldened by the failure of the international community to note 
the first genocide of the 20th century, writing in 1939 ``Who still 
talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?'' But this 
resolution is not just intended as a remembrance of a dark past, but as 
a way of animating future policies with a commitment to prevent such 
things from ever happening again, as well as a step towards building a 
better future for the Armenian people and for all people.
  I commend Representative Schiff for introducing this critical 
resolution, and again commit myself to work for its timely adoption.

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