The Armenian Weekly April 2013 Magazine
This year will mark the 98th anniversary of the genocide of the Armenian nation by the Ottoman-Turkish government. During the waning days of the Great War (World War I), this barbaric plan, which actually began in the fall of 1914, erupted on April 24, 1915 into a brutal and savage drive to empty, by whatever means necessary, the population of the provinces of historic western Armenia. Before it reached its tragic end, some 1.5 million innocent Armenian men, women, and children had been slaughtered, and their wealth confiscated. The victorious allies led by the United Kingdom and France, rather than provide justice to the Armenian people, saw fit to create what is present-day Turkey from the defeated remnants of the Ottoman-Turkish Empire. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) allowed this new Turkey, stained by the blood of its Armenian victims and profiting from their wealth, to enter the community of nations free of guilt or censure. Forgotten were the survivors of the genocide—traumatized, dispirited, and dispossessed of all resources—who faced uncertain futures wherever chance had taken them.
Genocide survivors on Times Square this April. (Photo by Harry Koundakjian)
No single word or combination of words can convey the suffering, the anguish, or the loneliness that engulfed these survivors. Their loss was complete. They were wracked with such overwhelming grief that its essence has been passed from the womb to each of us, regardless of the generation. April 24th is a sacred day that spiritually unites all Armenians, wherever they may be. It is a day to reflect on the lives and the deaths of our martyrs. But of greater importance is the realization, most especially on this day, that within each of us flows the blood of our martyrs, which forever links us to them.
As another April 24th approaches, I am embarrassed by our need to have President Obama use the word “genocide” in what is a pro forma message to the Armenian people. The suffering that our people have endured has been so great, and justice so long denied, that we eagerly embrace political leaders—politicians may be a more appropriate term—who acknowledge the genocide. We have yet to learn that when banal politics comes up against the pragmatism of real politik, these same individuals in whom we have placed our trust become more circumspect in their support of genocide. Suddenly genocide is replaced with any number of euphemisms. It is this behavior that insults our grief and our right to justice. President Obama and key members of his administration have and continue to engage in this shameless behavior. Most recently (February 2013) Senator John Kerry—a long-time simpatico—evidently underwent an epiphany during his confirmation hearings for secretary of state, when his long-held acceptance of the Armenian Genocide was transformed to a “massacre” of the Armenian people. Our leaders seem unable or unwilling to make the distinction between the soft, pleasing political rhetoric and the harsher rhetoric of real politik.
As a youth I would attend the April 24th observances. Year after year sympathetic and knowledgeable odars would speak of the genocide and the suffering it had wrought on my people. This was followed by well-known Dashnak ungers saying the same thing in Armenian, adding that our quest for justice would never cease. When the observance was over, some in the audience were emotionally overcome by personal remembrances, and some by the eloquence of the speakers. However, the overwhelming emotion was one of sadness and, as the years piled one on the other, frustration, because justice was so elusive. April 24th offered very little to those present to be able to view the future with any degree of excitement or commitment. We seemed to be continually dwelling in the past.
We do have an obligation to remember and to grieve the martyrdom of our people. No one would ever deny that. Some two million of our people were uprooted from lands that had been settled by Armenians for millennia. When the carnage had finally ended, 1.5 million of these innocent men, women, and children had been murdered by order of a government, solely for political and economic gain. But there were other victims of the genocide, as well. These were the untold numbers of our young women and children who were taken and be brought up in households that denied them their heritage. And finally, there was the incalculable loss of those future generations of Armenians, which the genocide forever took from our nation with the death of our martyrs.
The past is important. It allows us to understand the present. However, remembrance alone keeps us forever anchored to what was. There must be more than grieving and the hope that justice will be ours. Our nation may have been brought to its knees, but it did not die. There were survivors. And it was these survivors who, wherever chance may have taken them, began the Herculean task of laying the foundations upon which our present diaspora rests. These were the men and women, and yes, the orphaned children who grew into adulthood, destitute, physically exhausted, and emotionally scarred, but so strong in spirit and so tenacious in holding on to life that they refused to allow adversity to become their master. Their determination, individually and collectively, to rebuild their lives as Armenians provides a lesson that should forever be an inspiration to each of us as we face less difficult tasks in seeking to improve our communities; to provide aid to mer mayreni yergir (our motherland); or to help our brothers and sisters in Artsakh, Javakhk, and in war-ravaged Syria. This has to be the subtext of any message offered on this and every April 24th. It is a story worth telling and retelling that should inspire all of us, especially our youth. It should be the salve that assuages the emotional scars that we carry as a people.
Our survivors and the generations to whom they gave life have built a network of vibrant communities in the diaspora that no one, absolutely no one (least of all the perpetrators of the genocide) could have ever envisioned. Today these communities, large and small, clustered and isolated, are spread throughout some 40 countries on every continent. These vigorous, energetic nodes of Armenians support churches, day and Saturday schools, and community and social centers. They maintain active political, cultural, and social organizations that connect their members and incoming generations to their heritage. And they are providing aid through increasing numbers of humanitarian and philanthropic organizations wherever there is a need, in their own communities or beyond. They represent a growing source of political influence, a reservoir of financial and economic resources, and a wellspring from which our culture flows to a greater world audience.
Since 1991, when Armenia declared its independence, a symbiotic relationship has evolved between this expansive network of diasporan communities and our motherland. No longer can Armenia be viewed as the small land-locked country on a map. No longer is it confined to the rugged highlands of its birth. Its land boundaries may not have changed, but its influence as a nation is permanently anchored in communities spread throughout the diaspora. Distance and time are no longer barriers to this evolving concept of an Armenian nation that is unified by a common heritage and a singularity of purpose. Through the wonders of technology we are linked through the ocean of air that allows us to travel across political boundaries in a matter of hours, or to communicate almost instantaneously with our brothers and sisters wherever they may be.
This is but one man’s thoughts on this very special day. April 24th represents the past; it represents the unbelievable legacy given to us by our survivors of the genocide; and it represents the promise of a future whose potential is limited only by the dedication and passion we are willing to offer. This should be the message we contemplate on the Day of Remembrance.