Mohammed Ali had a moment of ethnic honesty in 1976. Having just returned to the United States from Zaire, where he knocked out George Foreman in the now-canonized “Rumble in the Jungle,” Ali was asked for his impressions on Africa. After all, Ali’s forebears had lived in Africa until they were dragged out of their homes and homeland, and stuffed into slave ships headed for American plantations.
And yet the boxing champion of the world offered neither lament nor fury. His ancestral homeland hadn’t inspired him at all. “Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat,” Ali said.
On the 93rd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, should Armenians thank God?
I answer this question, and others, in an op-ed for the L.A. Times.
Never to be found in second place, Armenia is now vice-champion of chess. Brilliant.
The Armenian Genocide shouldn’t be cheapened by Congressional votes, but it must be recognized by the President and fully integrated with United States foreign policy. For more on the continuing relevance of the Genocide, see my oped in today’s Los Angeles Times.
My article on the Anti-Defamation League’s recent recognition of the Armenian Genocide appears in this month’s Armenian Observer in Los Angeles and Noah’s Ark in Yerevan. I’m pasting it below.
NEW YORK—There is something sad, even tragic in the Anti-Defamation League’s recent recognition of the Armenian Genocide. It has, I suppose, to do with the fact that the ADL’s August 21 statement had almost nothing to do with the Genocide. The statement was issued, in its own first words, “in light of the heated controversy” and “because of our concern for the unity of the Jewish population.”
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At the border of common sense and treason, my take on the Armenian Genocide Resolution appears in today’s The Washington Times. You can find it here.
