Armenians gather to remember Open wounds.
After 90 years there is still no closure

ROBERTO ROCHA
The Gazette

April 24, 2005

Kartine Divanian was 4 when Ottoman soldiers burst into her home, chained up
the men and took them away to be shot. The soldiers then came back to burn
her house and everything else in the Turkish village of Marzevan.
Her mother, fearing for her life, sent her to Greece with 16,000 other
Armenian orphans. They never saw each other again.
Divanian’s wounds haven’t healed over the past 90 years, wounds she passed
on to her children and grandchildren now living in Canada.
And none of the 60,000 Armenians in the country will feel healed until they
get the closure they seek: for the Turkish government to recognize what many
historians and governments agree was a genocide in which 1.5 million
Armenians were killed or disappeared.
Last night, Montreal Armenians filled St. Joseph’s Oratory to capacity to
observe the 90th anniversary of the alleged genocide.
But they were also observing 90 years of denial by the Turkish government.
“It’s time for closure. We still have to fight the fight,” said Taro
Alepian, president of the Congress of Canadian Armenians.
Last night’s event was a deeply devotional, multi-denominational service
exalting martyrdom and denouncing indifference.
“Our ancestors fell knowing that 90 years later we would be meeting in
churches,” said Azad Chichmanian, an Armenian community leader who began the
service.
“They knew that kind of life could not be taken away, no matter how
organized the killing or how much the Turkish government denies it.”
A choir ushered in the handful of survivors from that era, most of whom rely
on wheelchairs and are at a loss for words when
describing what they witnessed.
“Your wounds are my wounds,” said Bishop Ibrahim Ibrahim of the Malkite
Greek Catholic Church of Montreal to the survivors. “The blood of your
martyrs is immortal.”
Officials from Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist faiths followed with
their own sympathies and condemnations.
Last year, Canada became the 17th government to recognize the genocide, and
other countries followed.
Alepian said that’s a good start.
“We want Canada to join Europe to pressure the Turkish government to
recognize the genocide,” he said.
“They need to face the truth like Germany did, and it’s a better country for
it,” he added. “Just like today’s Germans aren’t Nazis, today’s Turks aren’t
the killers. Why can’t they see this?”
For Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay, last night’s service transcended
politics.
“I’m here to pray for our future, to recognize that tragic things happen,”
Tremblay said. “If every leader in our society took the time to do the same,
they would adhere to our true job, which is to respect the values of the
people who vote for us.”

rrocha@thegazette.canwest.com
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2005