"But while we're on the subject of Holocausts, let's turn to the unmentionable
one, the Armenian Holocaust – yes, also a capital "H" –
which our Foreign Office still claims to believe doesn't qualify as a
genocide. A million and a half Armenian Christians were murdered or sent on
death marches in 1915 by the Muslim Ottoman Turks, but the British
Government doesn't want to upset the present-day Turks.
Denis MacShane, to his great credit, has long demanded an independent
international commission to inquire into the massacres. Documents unearthed
by Geoffrey Robertson QC under the Freedom of Information Act, however, show
not only the hypocrisy and cynicism of the Foreign Office – cutting
Armenians out of Holocaust Memorial Day and denying that there is "unequivocal
evidence" of genocide (which of course there is), but admitting that "HMG
is open to criticism in terms of the ethical question (sic)" in denying
the Armenian Holocaust but should do so "given the importance of our
relations (political, strategic and commercial) with Turkey...".
For the correspondence between "researcher analysts", "draftpersons"
and ministers also betrays what I believe is a growing and hateful practice:
sloppy grammar and spelling in emails. For some reason, we would never
accept such a practice in a typewritten note. But here's a classic example
of a letter to a minister which includes not only political dishonesty but
also an inability even to reread and correct a printed communication.
The note, dated 21 January last year, refers to the Foreign Office's habit of
dredging up three of Turkey's favourite historians – who, needless, to say,
deny the Armenian Holocaust – and of the public's demand for a full list of
historians consulted by the FO's "researchers". I leave it to
readers to groan at the inadequacy of the text, let alone the mistakes of FO "draftsperson"
Sofka Brown:
"We've had a response (which has taken its time getting round to u)s
which very specifically requests a detailed list of all the evidence looked
at wich leads us to believe that the evidence is not sufficiently
unequivocal. We do not propose to provide a list is reply..."
The
misplaced closing of brackets, the mis-spelling of "which" (as "wich")
and "in" (as "is") would be regarded as poor English at
an average school. But what are we to make of it when it's contained in a
Foreign Office note to a minister?
I guess HMG's civil servant was just patrolling fertile zones of convergence
at genre borders between Armenia and Turkey. I apologise for "any"
offence caused to Sofka Brown."
Posts
