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Mr. President: Share The Armenian Orphan Carpet With The American Pe

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  • Mr. President: Share The Armenian Orphan Carpet With The American Pe

    MR. PRESIDENT: SHARE THE ARMENIAN ORPHAN CARPET WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

    Huffington Post
    Oct 31 2013

    by Keith David Watenpaugh.Professor of Modern Islam, Human Rights &
    Peace, University of California Davis

    Black and white photographs from the 1920s reveal the beauty of
    a carpet made by Armenian orphans at a refugee camp workshop in
    Lebanon and presented to President Calvin Coolidge as a gift. But
    unless President Barack Obama changes his mind, as a petition on
    Whitehouse.gov asks him to, the American people won't see the carpet
    or learn the history of the children who made it.

    The orphans who tied the millions of knots that transformed wool
    thread into Edenic images of animals and plants were survivors of a
    World War One-era genocide that had taken the lives of their families.

    The room-sized carpet was a gesture of gratitude to the people of
    the United States for their humanitarian assistance to thousands of
    children and adults who had suffered terribly during the war.

    Much of that help had come from Near East Relief, an organization
    chartered by the US Congress, that at one time was feeding and caring
    for 100,000s of orphans in the Middle East, Greece and Armenia. Help
    from Americans had kept these orphans alive and had provided them
    with education, health care and vocational training.

    The carpet itself is in storage at the White House and was reported to
    have been slated to be shown at the Smithsonian sometime in December.

    However it seems to have been caught up in the contemporary
    politics of the Middle East. The government of Turkey -- contrary
    to a broad consensus of historians -- denies that the mass killings
    and deportations that had made the child carpet makers orphans was
    a genocide. Every year Ankara uses intense diplomatic pressure to
    prevent the US recognition of that genocide. The fear of offending
    Turkey may be why the White House pulled the rug out, as it were,
    from under the proposed exhibit at the museum.

    More than just evidence of genocide, the carpet is a symbol of the
    immense generosity that the American people once demonstrated to
    the children of the Middle East. It is a superb work of art and a
    poignant reminder of a time when the relationship between America
    and the Middle East was much different from today and built around
    education, humanitarian relief and cooperation. Today, as millions
    more children are suffering because of the war in Syria, we have
    the right to remember that history and an obligation rekindle our
    tradition of compassion.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-david-watenpaugh/mr-president-share-the-ar_b_4181573.html

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