Here’s a documentary from Oregon Public Broadcasting about the first genocide of the twentieth century. Committed by the Ottoman Empire – the Caliphate – upon its Christian Armenian minority, this is what encouraged Hitler that he’d get away with the Shoah saying: ‘Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’ To this day, the Turkish republic refuses to acknowledge that anything untoward occurred in those desperate days & habitually vilifies, persecutes & prosecutes any author or academic who tries to lift a lid on what happened. It is often said that a society that forgets its history is doomed to repeat it, but can we not go further by saying that a state that suppresses its history is planning to repeat it? Nowadays, Turkey is trying to gain entry into the EU. Should we let them in? Anyone? I just don’t seem to be able to make up my mind.