Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In adjourning the House tonight, I want to take the opportunity to speak about and draw attention to the problems of cultural genocide. In my former capacity as Australia's Human Rights Commissioner I was honoured to speak on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide at Sydney Town Hall. At the commemoration we paid recognition, of course, to the lives that were lost, but it was also an important occasion to remind people that the toll was not just human; it was also cultural. There was a deliberate attempt by some to remove not just Armenians but also their memory by destroying evidence of Armenian heritage and culture, such as artworks and architecture. In short, there was not just a human genocide; there was also a cultural genocide.

The official Armenian genocide centennial website tells the stories of the cultural genocide to wipe the memory of Armenian people from the Ottoman Empire. It states:

… purposefully massacred Armenian clergymen, destroyed churches, monasteries and other properties of church, including thousands of medieval handwritten manuscripts.

Further:

An Arab witness to the Armenian Genocide, Fayez al-Ghussein, writes in his memoirs "… After the massacres of the Armenians, the government established committees that were engaged in selling the abandoned property. Armenian cultural values were sold at the cheapest prices. I once went to the church to see how the sales of these things were organized. The doors of the Armenian schools were closed. The Turks used science books in the bazaar for wrapping cheese, dates, sunflowers".

The Ottoman Empire's aim was to erase the lives and memories of the Armenian people. All members should be committed to ensuring such events never happen again. Of course, having a quarter Armenian heritage myself, this is a subject in which I take significant interest. And the best way that we can stop any efforts to repeat cultural genocide is also to stand up and call out similar attempts that occur in the world today.

That brings me to the wonderful electorate of Goldstein, which is blessed with a very large Jewish community, and I have to say I am deeply honoured to represent them and stand up in defence of their culture, their faith and their freedom. That is why I want to condemn the resolution from last October by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization titled 'Occupied Palestine' that sought to deny the historical links between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount. I agree with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said at the time:

To say that Israel has no connection to the Temple and the Western Wall is like saying that China is not connected to the Great Wall of China or that Egypt has no connection to the pyramids. I believe that historical truth is more powerful, and this truth will prevail.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is clearly right: the truth will prevail, as it always does. But we should not turn a blind eye to the intent of this resolution. This shameful resolution does not sit in isolation. It sits amongst a string of resolutions from UN bodies that frequently seek to condemn Israel and its human rights record in defence of its legitimate right to exist, while turning a blind eye to the horrific human rights records of many other countries—and often their records of abuses against their own people.

It is quite clear to me that, while some people and countries are intent on denying the Jewish people their homeland—and they are—sadly and tragically they are also determined, through resolutions such as those that went through UNESCO in October last year, to commit a form of cultural genocide as well. And I would hope that all members would do the honest, the decent and the honourable thing, and call out such behaviour as required, because we know the enduring connection the Jewish people have to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. We know of their enduring connection, obviously, to the land that is Israel. And we should be standing tall and proud in their defence.