Patriotism Perverted

The patience of the Armenian community living in the United States has reached its limits. These survivors of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923, had taken refuge in the land of “milk and honey.” They had escaped the horrors that befell on them in their ancient homeland where they had been the victims of an Ottoman government-sponsored program of wholesale murder that the world powers had failed to prevent. Many had lost family members, friends and/or neighbors and had witnessed murder of the most brutal nature. In 1934, when K.S. Papazian wrote Patriotism Perverted, this valuable, yet lesser known history of the Armenian Genocide, there was an urgency that people be told the truth of a darker past. The Armenian community who didn’t read Armenian, had to be informed of the hidden or forgotten facts about the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) that worked against the best interests of greater community. Hardship that the ARF had brought on to the Armenian people in the past was repeating itself.