An Armenian Destiny: The Armenian General Benevolent Union 1906-2006 (1/5)

Part 1 of 5 of the film by Manuel Toulajian with original music by Arthur Aharonian.

Cairo, 1906: a group of ten Egyptian Armenians found the Armenian General Benevolent Union, and international, secular humanitarian organization which, they hope, can help resurrect the Ottoman Armenian world after the devastation wrought by the 1894-1896 Hamidian massacres. In 1915-1916, however, nearly one and a half million Armenians are murdered by the Young Turk regime, and the challenge that the AGBU was created to meet gives way to another: the gargantuan task of rebuilding the nation from the debris of Ottoman Armenian society … “An Armenian Destiny” traces, from its beginnings to the present, the history of this attempt to reconstruct Armenian national life after those who survived the genocide were brought back from the deserts of Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia.