As an Armenian, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Armenian Genocide the last few weeks as the Centennial has approached. In my silly, perfectionist head, I was going to distill these thoughts into a thoughtful long-form piece. But, in consideration of several weeks of sleep deprivation and having exhausted my writing muscle on my qualifying exam, I figure the only way I could successfully express these thoughts is simply scattering them willy-nilly. So, without further ado (that really wasn’t much ado, anyway), let’s dust off this blog and get to sowing thought-seeds, in no particular order!
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Many Armenians across the world gathered over the last few days to commemorate the Genocide, mourn its victims, and protest its denial by the Turkish government. I had always figured that I would be among them, as this would be a singular date: this 4/24/15, we would stand together in remembrance of the last 4/24/15. As it turns out, it was an important date for another reason: my son turned two months old today. Having a two-month-old effectively reduces one’s ability to attend hours-long commemoration-type functions to nil, so I did not attend any such events. While at first this rather disappointed me, after some reflection, I realized that bringing another (half-)Armenian into this world, speaking to him in Armenian, and raising him with a keen awareness of his past would be perhaps the best revenge against the Young Turks and their three genocidal pashas. Watching him interact with his two Armenian great-grandmothers, whose parents suffered the Genocide, I know that Zekiel Ara is a new link in the ancestral chain that was almost broken, a new branch in the millenia-old tree that was almost consumed in fire. His existence is more of an affront to the perpetrators of the Great Crime (and its modern deniers) than my physical presence among thousands of my brothers and sisters would be.
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Speaking of grandparents, my two grandfathers, Bernard Asadoor and John Krikor, have been pillars of virtue, paragons of Armenian-hood, the giants on whose shoulders I am standing. It always struck me as tragic that they themselves never had grandfathers; these virtuous Armenian men were slaughtered, as were the vast majority of Armenian men of their generation. Bernard and John were the greatest grandfathers I could ask for; that they could be so without having had grandfathers to have inspired them is a testament to what excellent men they were.
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Family indeed seems to be on the mind of most of us who had ancestors who survived the Genocide. We exist because of the strength of these ancestors, and we stick together so that we may continue to survive. Family is of course of prime importance in almost every culture; but, as Armenians, we turn it into an obsession. Many times when I’ve met an Armenian person, we’ve tried to figure out if we were related somehow; more often than not, some sort of connection in the old country has been found. Being Armenian really is like being in one enormous, massively interconnected family, even for those of us who share no relation, not even being khenamis (in-laws, or more generally, related through marriage somehow). No matter how much we bicker and fight and nitpick, we are a united front with respect to the outside world. I cannot imagine two Armenians, even the bitterest of enemies (say a Hnchak and a Dashnak), who would every ally with an Odar (non-Armenian) against the other. That’s unimaginable! Nothing like suffering through hell on Earth to bring us together.
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Perhaps the scariest, most thrilling thought about the Genocide I’ve heard was from my Dad, many years ago: “we weren’t supposed to be here. we’re not supposed to exist.” The Armenian people were intended to be so utterly destroyed, so completely broken, that they could never be so much a gnat in the hair of the grand Turanic (Turkish) empire that the Young Turks envisioned. While perhaps we as individuals may not have been supposed to be erased, as Armenians we should have all disappeared. It’s exhilarating to think that my existence as an Armenian is an act of defiance; it is terrifying to think that were Cemal, Enver, and Talaat alive today, they would do anything in their power to remove me and my family from our existence.
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We Armenians often say that the Armenian Genocide was the first of the 20th century. However, this is untrue: the first genocide of the 20th century was committed by the uncreatively named colony German South-West Africa against the Herero people (in modern-day Namibia). Search for “Herero Genocide” if you don’t want to sleep tonight.
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More generally, we as Armenians, collective victims of genocide, tend to ignore the continuous genocide that Western colonial powers and independent Westernized countries in the Americas committed against indigenous people throughout the 19th century and much of the 20th. As a Western(-ish), modern, Christian people who have been intended for utter destruction, we err when we fail to acknowledge other peoples intended for utter destruction by Western, modern, Christian empires.
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Race relations in the States are coming to a head again after the murders of dozens of black men by white authority figures. Some of us talk about legacies of racial oppression, about institutionalized bigotry, while others of us talk about decades of racial progress, about individual freedom and betterment. One issue that perennially emerges in discussion of American race relations is the issue of collective culpability of white people, of needing to atone for the sins of their ancestors, of the justice of reparations for black people today. The idea that a white person in the 21st century has any responsibility for actions his or her ancestors may or may not have taken more than two generations back seems to bewilder white people, even those who are utterly devoid of racial bigotry. What these well-intentioned individuals miss is the deep, deep psychological effects of sustained collective trauma, of generations of systematic oppression. These wounds are passed down from generation to generation, even unto those who never experience the blow first-hand, or even second-hand. I will never, ever understand what it’s like to be a black person in the United States. What I can understand is the rage and hatred of a descendant of collective trauma and oppression toward descendants of those who had committed it. As an Armenian, I grew up hating Turkish people with a passion; I cannot imagine how much more I would have hated Turkish people if I had lived as a second-class citizen in denialist Turkey, always afraid for my safety. I can deeply, almost instinctually understand any and all antipathy black people have toward white people who are individually free of any blame. In fact, I am a little surprised that black people don’t have more hatred toward white people; they are clearly better at forgiveness than we Armenians.
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This brings me to the point I would like to end on: the Genocide is an open wound in the psyches of all Armenians. Without explicit acknowledgement by the current Turkish government, this wound will never heal. One particular sickness of this wound is a blind hatred toward Turks and Turkey. Growing up I hated, absolutely hated Turks, or rather “Turks;” I had never met a Turkish person. After maturing in the moral and spiritual planes, I am now ashamed of this hatred. Every Turkish person I’ve met has been nice at the least, often much better than nice. This symptom of our open wound, dismissal of people we’ve never personally met, is one of the more tragic ones to me, even as it shows a dimming of our ability to love.
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