The seeds of
fate were sown and ripened in the World War I, when Ottoman Turkey artfully
used the excuse of war to resolve the pestering ‘Armenian question.’ As
Armenian intellectuals residing in Turkey had co-existed with Turks and had
risen in the ranks, they were lobbying for equal rights and recognition of
freedom of religion and self-autonomy. This movement was internally coined as
the ‘Armenian Question’ by the Ottoman government officials. It was a real
thorn in their imperialistic goals of expansion, and conversion of all
ethnicities to Islam. Armenians historically refused to convert to Islam and
sought autonomy to be able to survive and maintain their language, culture, identity,
religion.
As World War I was waging in the background,
the Ottoman officials masterminded a skillful and ‘brilliant’ resolution of the
‘Armenian Question.’ The plan was to forcefully remove and displace all
Armenians residing in the empire, using any and all methods. This was
understood by the executioners as including killing, starvation, deportation. The
‘Gyavur’ as the Armenians were pejoratively called, were to be quickly eliminated
from the face of the Earth. To execute the plan, first, all intellectuals with
connections and power, were rounded up, imprisoned and then disappeared on mass
scale. Then, forced displacement began. All Armenians were rounded up and forced to
deport. Since this process was too slow, mass killings of Armenians on
unprecedented scale began. The world had not yet seen a similar systematic and
targeted killing of a whole nation before. The rate of killings was so fast
that by the time Armenians could seek help from other nations, the large
majority of Armenians in Turkey, were ruthlessly killed. The numbers could
never be accurate, but on the basis of the number of Armenians residing in
Turkey, and those who survived, the estimated total was at least 1.5 million
Armenian massacres.
Both my grandfathers as kids were
survivors. One escaped with his older brother, leaving behind his entire
family, that was massacred. The other escaped through the desert and mountains
to current Northern Armenia, carrying his younger sister on his back. The
survivors spread around the globe, as living eyewitnesses to a GENOCIDE, as a
testament to one of the worst crimes against humanity.
Genocide is defined as killing of
a ‘genom’, or race. All the historic chronicles indisputably proved that the Ottoman
Turks were targeting Armenians to be wiped out from the face of the Earth, as
the Nazis were targeting Jews or Interahamwe were targeting Tutsis. While this was the first mass genocide of the
20th century, it was not the last. However, while the other
genocides and crimes against humanity were accordingly punished and
perpetrators brought to justice in various International Tribunals, the
Armenian genocide went unpunished. Turkey was never brought to justice by the
world to answer for its cruel acts against humanity. Furthermore, its shameful
denial has received a silent imprimatur or ‘approval’ of world powers, most
notably the United States, whose geopolitical interests in the Middle East have
demanded alliance with Turkey. Silence and impunity have grown deep roots in
the national psyche of Armenians. If a crime of such magnitude goes unpunished
by the world community, the entire concept of justice on Earth is in grave
danger. If the humanity were truly determined not to repeat such crimes, it
would have brought justice to the victims and survivors. Indeed, it was this
inaction of the world that allowed for the repetition of similar crimes against
humanity in the 20th and 21st centuries, including the Jewish
Holocaust, Rwandan genocide, and most recently, Darfur.
This week we
are commemorating the 99th year of the Armenian Genocide. As we
renew our pledge to seek official recognition of the Armenian Genocide in the
face of age-old denial by Turkey, we mourn
over the innocent victims, whose tragic deaths have left an indelible scar and
will scornfully sear the conscience of mankind as long as it exists on Earth.
Justice is not
an abstract concept, but a truth-searching engine, a pre-condition to human
survival. But while the world still remains silent in the face of denial, it is
a word with no meaning.
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