Canadian teachers learn about the Armenian Genocide

28 July, 2007

The Armenian Genocide was among the main topics covered by the Canadian 4th National Genocide Education Institute, a series of seminars organized by the Canadian Centre for Genocide and Human Rights Education on July 23-27, 2007.

The Genocide Education Institute is designed to encourage teachers to teach the lessons of genocide - the importance of tolerance, of upholding democracy and human rights, and of helping others in need - and to help prepare them to effectively and appropriately communicate these lessons in the classroom. Forty teachers from across Canada attended the Genocide Education Institute, which this year was hosted by the Armenian Community Centre of Toronto.

The Genocide Education Institute is a partnership of a number of organizations representing victim groups of genocide. The organizations involved in the 2007 Genocide Education Institute were the Armenian National Committee of Canada, B’nai Brith Canada, Humura (Canadian Association of Rwanda Tutsi Genocide Survivors), League of Ukrainian Canadians, Ukrainian Canadian Congress and Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre. Accordingly, the agenda of the Genocide Institute included the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the Holocaust, the Ukrainian Famine (Holodomor) and the Rwandan Genocide. A special evening session on Darfur was also held.

On the opening day Dr. Gerry Caplan and educator Dr. Barbara Coloroso talked about the overall theme of genocide, the history of the UN Charter on Genocide, the causes of genocide, its devastating effects on victims, its social, religious, and political implications, its denial, and the complicity of some governments, the perpetrators’ bully mentality, and finally, the confidence of genocide perpetrators that you would be granted impunity.

Rich Hitchens, founder and president of the Canadian Centre for Genocide and Human Rights Education, said in his opening remarks: “It is a straight walk from the Armenian Genocide to Darfur today. Each successive genocidal regime had learned from its predecessors that the world would do little to nothing to intervene, to prevent, to stop, or punish genocide. No one cared about the Armenians, as Hitler observed, and so, in turn, no one cared about those to follow, including Ukrainians, Jews, Cambodians, Bosnians, and Rwandans.”

The morning sessions of the Institute were focused on historical backgrounds, and the afternoon sessions – on classroom implementation. All sessions were a combination of multimedia presentations, discussions, and small-group activities. The various aspects of the Armenian Genocide were presented on July 24 by Prof. Alan Whitehorn of the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, and Dr. Isabel Kaprielian-Churchill.

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