HONOR ARMENIAN SURVIVAL
By Shamoneh Ayazjoo
Michael Nicolayeff / Daily Nexus
Daily Nexus, CA
Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
April 25 2006
Genocide Victims Should Be Recognized With Adoration
This article is dedicated to the memory of the 1,500,000 Armenians
who were martyred during the Turkish massacres, which culminated on
April 24, 1915.
“Fear not Them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul:
But rather fear Him which is able to destroy both body and soul in
hell,” Matthew X, 28.
The Armenian Genocide was a crime that exterminated an entire nation
from infants up through elders; a crime whose criminals starved and
burned children; brutally raped pure, angelic women; beheaded young
men and forced a Christian people to abandon their faith.
Such a horrible and barbaric crime was committed by the genocidal
government of Turkish emperors against the Armenian people during the
span of three terrible years – the bloodiest day of which occurred
on April 24, 1915 when more than half of the Armenian population was
massacred. But history has yet to report this crime, and this world,
which is so accustomed to atrocity, has yet to recognize what is known
to those that suffered as the first genocide of the 20th century. How
can it be that such a violent crime committed against the nation
of Armenia – a nation so vital to the history of mankind – has gone
unpunished and unrecognized? After all, Armenia was the first nation
to adopt Christianity in 301 A.D., and it is the country that bears the
historical Mount Ararat, which is where the biblical Noah’s Ark landed.
Perhaps it is due to the Turkish government’s blatant refusal to
acknowledge and take responsibility for the crime of massacring more
than one and a half million people, their intellectuals, clergymen,
scholars, musicians and other men of art, without mercy even for
those Armenian architects who had built and decorated the mosques
for their religious worship.
This year marks the 91st anniversary of the inhuman mass-murder which
was perpetrated against the Armenian people during the bitter and
disastrous days of World War I. Ninety-one years after the great
massacre, the Armenian people, both in Armenia and throughout the
world, reverently bow before the unknown graves of the valiant victims
and pray in remembrance of that dark and awful day when death and
destruction filled their eyes.
In fact, an entire nation was martyred but the Armenians did not die
forever. Against this deadly attempt, the Armenian people rose up
with all the might and instinct necessary for survival. And today,
the pages of history testify that the nation itself was the conqueror,
and that the enemy had devoured only the body of the Armenian, but he
had never been able to consume the Armenian soul which is invincible
and imperishable. This is the reason why, on the occasion of the 91st
anniversary, the Armenian people must take a new stand. April 24 is
no longer a day of tears and mourning. For the sake of the glorious
victims Armenians must proclaim April 24 as a day of victory and dispel
once and forever from the hearts and minds of the Armenian people the
sense of defeat and lamentation. The victims of the Armenian Genocide
died with the hope of living; therefore, April 24 is no longer a
day stained with a sense of defeat, but rather a day overcome with
exaltation for survival.
Shamoneh Ayazjoo is a junior English major.
From: Baghdasarian