I am amazed that the Swedish parliament has wasted time debating and voting on the alleged Armenian Genocide of 1915. I use the word ‘alleged’ here as I know very little about this time in history.
The Swedish Parliament has passed a law today recognising that there was genocide agains the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks.
FP Foreign Affairs Spokesman Fredrik Malm didnt vote but says he wants it recognised I like a lot of what Fredrik says but as a Folkpartiet member I am disappointed. See I dont agree with my Party all the time.
I think there are more relevant and urgent things to be done in the Swedish Riksdag.
Creating job for one! Why does this terrible event that happened nearly 100 years ago need to be brought up now? Why does Sweden need to recognise it or not?
This blog post is not on whether it should be recognised but on what relevance. This vote is more typical of a Student Union vote than a mature parliament at work.
Disappointed in Årsta
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I am sure there is a underlying cause for the vote on this particular subject as it serves no relevance in modern day direct politics.
Its a puzzler isnt it? All its going to do is affect relations with the Turks. Do you know which Party put the motion forward?
Seems very odd to me.
Is there a strong Armenian community in Sweden? More and more countries in the EU tend to debate of similar matters these days. A democratic trend? Not disputing it but agree with you on the relevance of it
Its probably just distraction behaviour. All humans do this – when we want to avoid tackling the real problems in our lives we busy ourselves with something unimportant.
Ironically, this type of move by Sweden and America will impoverish the Armenians even more since Turkey will be even more reluctant to conclude free trade agreements.
You are right Dave and no surprises to read this was pushed by the Social Democrats and the Swedish Communists. A deliberate act to wind up the Turks and waste precious Parliamentary time..and I thought they were campaigning on ‘Jobs First!’
I find your dismissal of this shameful part of world history quite offensive. Adolph Hitler used the example of the Turkish genocide as an example of how you can get away with the eradication of an entire people.
At least you all admit you are totally ignorant of why it is important.
The Turks have denied any responsibility for the atrocities despite a huge bag of evidence to the contrary. They claim they were all combatants in an uprising. Strange that 250,000 women and children marched through the desert, all raped (including the children) and then set on fire in a large cave. How were they combatants. I believe they killed 2 or 3 million in a single year.
You all overlook the responsibility of nations to recognise and settle these things. Imagine what it must be to be Armenian and have 95 years of denial thrown in your face. There must still be the odd survivor and certainly children of survivors left.
At least the Germans had the decency to not deny it and pay reparations. What do the Turks do, lie and shove it under the carpet and pretend they are nice people.
Perhaps you would like us to ignore Rwanda or Srebrenica too? If they were discussing Auschwitz would you be dismissing that?
Who cares about offending Turks with the truth, they haven’t got an ethic group they haven’t commited genocide against (Greeks , Armenians and Kurds). Dave, you are plain wrong, the Turks will swallow just about anything now to get into Europe, the prospect of Free Trade is far more alluring than pride.
Jonnie I thank you for your post, you are clearly very passionate about this subject.
As I pointed out in my post this wasnt about the rights and wrongs of this chapter in history. I really dont know enough about it. Yes I have read stuff in the papers but you know what the Press is like.
My concern is why does the Swedish Parliament have to decide whether there was an act of genocide or not?
They are politicians not historians. How do they know what really went on? The only people who can really make that kind of call is historians with hard evidence.
I also find it offensive that during very troubling economic times, remember Sweden sunk back into recession in Q4 last year that we are using parliamentary time on this rather than trying to get the economy back on its feet.
Why couldnt the red groans do this after the election?
Those who have been affected by that mass murder find relief in this. For years we heard the stories of the survivors. Not historians not politicians. Survivors who saw their children get sliced in two.
You might not know this but efforts to get more and more countries to recognize this genocide have been going on for years. It is not new to those who know and see beyond their nose.