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Remembering the Armenian genocide
By RAFFI K. HOVANNISIAN
04/11/2015 22:09
The government of Turkey, which now occupies those lands, denies that
a genocide ever took place there.
An Armenian protester holds a banner reading '1915 never again' as she
takes part in a demonstration near the European Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg in January. (photo credit:REUTERS)
YEREVAN, Armenia - On April 24, 2015, a century closes circle upon the
1915 genocide and great national dispossession perpetrated by the
Young Turk Party against the Armenian people.
This primer in premeditated nation-killing resulted not only in the
deportation and murder of 1.5 million civilians on their native soil
but also in the destruction of an entire civilization - nearly four
millennia of continual presence in an ancestral cradle long mapped as
Western Armenia.
The government of Turkey, which now occupies those lands, denies that
a genocide ever took place there.
What shall I say on that April day, 100 years later, to my survivor
grandfathers Kaspar and Hovakim, who had watched their parents and
siblings killed by the sword or else taken away for conversion? Or to
their wives, my grandmothers Siroon and Khengeni, the latter of whom
was saved by a righteous Turkish neighbor?
See the latest opinion pieces on our Opinion & Blogs Facebookpage
We know that, in 1915, the survivors of Western Armenia were dispersed
to the four corners of the earth and live to this day, some well and
others poorly, in their adopted countries. My own family moved to the
United States; I grew up in Los Angeles. We know too that a small
Armenian republic, commonly known as Eastern Armenia, has recently
come forth from under the rubble of the Soviet Union.
I repatriated to that Armenia, Eastern or Soviet Armenia, in 1989,
during the final hours of the USSR. In 1991, I served as the new
republic's first foreign minister. I raised Armenia's flag before the
headquarters of the United Nations. This was not the Western homeland
of my grandparents, but it was the reborn Armenia I was proud to call
home.
Soon, however, our newfound freedom began to disintegrate.
Greed and corruption plagued the halls of government. I resigned.
Years later I founded an opposition party, Heritage, and entered
parliament. In 2013, I ran for president. Official results gave me 37
percent of the vote, although the hundreds of thousands who staged
protests that spring were convinced this was not so. The incumbent
administration stands.
Pending the accomplishment of a Republic of Armenia that is ruled by
law, it is the progeny of Western Armenia who must come forward to
press their collective rights, that flow from genocide and national
dispossession.
This necessarily presumes a novel, contemporary mechanism of recourse
with the denialist government of Turkey, and the braver segments of
Turkish civil society.
A comprehensive agenda they must forge together, and in consultation
with official Yerevan, but the bottom line must encompass the creation
of an Armenian national hearth in historic Western Armenia.
This strategy should entail: 1) a guaranteed right of return for
survivors of the genocide and their generations, whether or not their
property deeds are currently intact; 2) designation for them of a
special Hearth status that does not require a change of existing
citizenship; 3) the rebuilding of Armenian schools and colleges,
churches and monasteries, all with jurisdiction duly vested in the
Armenian Hearth; 4) the construction of memorials and introduction of
public curricula to educate the Turkish public about their true past;
5) celebration of the Armenian identity throughout the land, from
Mount Ararat to Musa Dagh; and 6) negotiations between the republics
of Turkey and Armenia triggering the first-ever sovereign reciprocal
demarcation of the official frontier, including but not limited to
provisions for an Armenian easement to the Black Sea.
As for me, having lived in Eastern Armenia for 25 years, the western
heartlands of my grandparents have not stopped being mine. They are
not, and shall never become, wastelands. They have been breached,
perforce and by malicious policy, over the past century. But they and
I continue to belong to each other. Nobody has more title than I do,
the grandson of Kaspar and Hovakim, and the resilient multitudes whose
forebears are as sacred as mine.
I plan shortly to return to find my Home, and trust that the Turkish
authorities currently in power - pending their own facing of history
and their own recognition of and redemption for the Armenian Genocide
- will take every measure that my homecoming will be received with
full honor, dignity, and an enduring respect for my rights as a child
of the new-old Homeland.
The author, whose grandparents hail from Garin-Erzerum, Mezre-Elazig,
Bazmashen-Bizmishen and Ordu, was born in the United States, worked as
an international lawyer in Los Angeles, and moved to Yerevan, becoming
the nation's first foreign minister. He is the executive producer of
1915 (1915themovie.com), which will be released in theaters on April
17.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Remembering-the-Armenian-genocide-396789
By RAFFI K. HOVANNISIAN
04/11/2015 22:09
The government of Turkey, which now occupies those lands, denies that
a genocide ever took place there.
An Armenian protester holds a banner reading '1915 never again' as she
takes part in a demonstration near the European Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg in January. (photo credit:REUTERS)
YEREVAN, Armenia - On April 24, 2015, a century closes circle upon the
1915 genocide and great national dispossession perpetrated by the
Young Turk Party against the Armenian people.
This primer in premeditated nation-killing resulted not only in the
deportation and murder of 1.5 million civilians on their native soil
but also in the destruction of an entire civilization - nearly four
millennia of continual presence in an ancestral cradle long mapped as
Western Armenia.
The government of Turkey, which now occupies those lands, denies that
a genocide ever took place there.
What shall I say on that April day, 100 years later, to my survivor
grandfathers Kaspar and Hovakim, who had watched their parents and
siblings killed by the sword or else taken away for conversion? Or to
their wives, my grandmothers Siroon and Khengeni, the latter of whom
was saved by a righteous Turkish neighbor?
See the latest opinion pieces on our Opinion & Blogs Facebookpage
We know that, in 1915, the survivors of Western Armenia were dispersed
to the four corners of the earth and live to this day, some well and
others poorly, in their adopted countries. My own family moved to the
United States; I grew up in Los Angeles. We know too that a small
Armenian republic, commonly known as Eastern Armenia, has recently
come forth from under the rubble of the Soviet Union.
I repatriated to that Armenia, Eastern or Soviet Armenia, in 1989,
during the final hours of the USSR. In 1991, I served as the new
republic's first foreign minister. I raised Armenia's flag before the
headquarters of the United Nations. This was not the Western homeland
of my grandparents, but it was the reborn Armenia I was proud to call
home.
Soon, however, our newfound freedom began to disintegrate.
Greed and corruption plagued the halls of government. I resigned.
Years later I founded an opposition party, Heritage, and entered
parliament. In 2013, I ran for president. Official results gave me 37
percent of the vote, although the hundreds of thousands who staged
protests that spring were convinced this was not so. The incumbent
administration stands.
Pending the accomplishment of a Republic of Armenia that is ruled by
law, it is the progeny of Western Armenia who must come forward to
press their collective rights, that flow from genocide and national
dispossession.
This necessarily presumes a novel, contemporary mechanism of recourse
with the denialist government of Turkey, and the braver segments of
Turkish civil society.
A comprehensive agenda they must forge together, and in consultation
with official Yerevan, but the bottom line must encompass the creation
of an Armenian national hearth in historic Western Armenia.
This strategy should entail: 1) a guaranteed right of return for
survivors of the genocide and their generations, whether or not their
property deeds are currently intact; 2) designation for them of a
special Hearth status that does not require a change of existing
citizenship; 3) the rebuilding of Armenian schools and colleges,
churches and monasteries, all with jurisdiction duly vested in the
Armenian Hearth; 4) the construction of memorials and introduction of
public curricula to educate the Turkish public about their true past;
5) celebration of the Armenian identity throughout the land, from
Mount Ararat to Musa Dagh; and 6) negotiations between the republics
of Turkey and Armenia triggering the first-ever sovereign reciprocal
demarcation of the official frontier, including but not limited to
provisions for an Armenian easement to the Black Sea.
As for me, having lived in Eastern Armenia for 25 years, the western
heartlands of my grandparents have not stopped being mine. They are
not, and shall never become, wastelands. They have been breached,
perforce and by malicious policy, over the past century. But they and
I continue to belong to each other. Nobody has more title than I do,
the grandson of Kaspar and Hovakim, and the resilient multitudes whose
forebears are as sacred as mine.
I plan shortly to return to find my Home, and trust that the Turkish
authorities currently in power - pending their own facing of history
and their own recognition of and redemption for the Armenian Genocide
- will take every measure that my homecoming will be received with
full honor, dignity, and an enduring respect for my rights as a child
of the new-old Homeland.
The author, whose grandparents hail from Garin-Erzerum, Mezre-Elazig,
Bazmashen-Bizmishen and Ordu, was born in the United States, worked as
an international lawyer in Los Angeles, and moved to Yerevan, becoming
the nation's first foreign minister. He is the executive producer of
1915 (1915themovie.com), which will be released in theaters on April
17.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Remembering-the-Armenian-genocide-396789