"It's like suddenly making a huge noise about the State of Massachusetts not apologizing for the Salem witch trials."

If they were putting people in jail in Massachusetts for mentioning the Salem witch trials, and journalists writing about them were liable to get murdered, that would give the whole thing contemporary relevance.

Or, as has been mentioned, if one of the nations which ran the slave trade was today denying that it ever existed, and coming down hard on anyone who had the effrontery to say different.

Litle Hawk wrote, up the thread a bit, "We recognize those mistakes now." Indeed, roll on the day when that will be true. But we haven't got there yet.

And unfortunately that is especially so in the case of the Turkish Government and the Armenian genocide - but let no one believe for a minute that Turkey is alone in denying crimes, both historic and present, or of course in having been guilty of such crimes, including genocide.

Of course the present and continuing crimes, where the people responsible are still in power, are the ones that should be top of the agenda. (Last night I was watching Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" on TV.)