WILL THEY FORGIVE US?

Asbarez
l-they-forgive-us/
Oct 9th, 2009

By Heghinar Melkom Melkomian

It just makes me wonder…

I wonder, will my grandfather and his sister, who lost their parents
and were orphaned at the age of 10 and 5 respectively, forgive me.

Will my grandfather and his sister, who were the only ones in their
family to survive the Armenian Genocide, forgive you.

Will my grandfather and his sister, who were separated during the
Genocide and were reunited by fate only 20 years after the genocide,
forgive us…

Nowadays, I am losing a lot of sleep over an issue, which I do not
know if I have any influence on or not.

I have been thinking about my grandfather, his sister, his other
sisters and brothers, his parents, who were probably cousins with or
knew your ancestors, who, in their turn, were probably cousins with
or knew the ancestors of those Armenians who today live in Paris,
Lebanon, America; to cut my list short, I can simply say, in almost
every country in this world.

Almost everyday I pass next to the beautiful buildings of the
Government and Foreign Affairs Ministry, both on Republic Square,
situated across from another, and I look at the worried faces of
people signing the petition, protesting against the protocols or
trying to understand what in the world are these people doing night
and day in front of these buildings for the past ten or so days.

The hostile Turkish-Armenian relations stretch way back in history;
earlier than me, before my parents or even their parents were born.

I am not a politician, neither a historian or journalist to allow
myself to discuss the current political situation in Armenia,
its further development or the reason why the Turks began hating
our ancestors, but I know one thing and I know it very well, we and
the Turks are not brother and sister and even if I were a hippie and
believed in peace and making love not war, I could not accept Genocide-
denying Turks as my good- willed neighbors or friends and Genocide-
denying Turkey as our savior; a country that will help my beloved
country to develop and grow!

I don’t know how to explain this all, but for me the possible opening
of the Turkish-Armenian border, or should I say the opening of the
Turkish-Armenian border is like a nightmare or a black and very
bad absurdity.

I just read Robert Fisk’s article in the Independece.co.uk and I feel
ashamed. All my life I have been told that I have to be proud because
I am an Armenian, but right now one thing I definitely do not feel
is pride.

My name is Heghinar, I am the granddaughter of a man who barely escaped
the claws of death not destined to him from above, but forced on to
him; I am an Armenian, I live in Armenia, I am a citizen of Armenia,
I represent my people, I represent my country, I know the truth of the
Armenian Genocide and I believe in the independence and territorial
integrity of Nagorno-Karabakh, I believe the lands of my ancestors,
western Armenia, currently located in today’s Turkey belong to us
and not them, but who am I once the President of my country opens
the doors of my house to the enemy and the Foreign Affairs Minister
of my country signs a paper, which places the Turks on a pedestal,
turns history upside-down, denies the Armenian Genocide and jeopardizes
Nagorno-Karabakh’s territorial integrity, scrubs off the little proof
years have left us and flushes the blood, the sea of blood of the 1.5
million innocent massacred Armenians in 1915 and dozens of Armenian
men and adolescent boys and women and girls (we always forget to
mention them) who knowingly signed away their life on their way to
the most bizarre war I can imagine (Armenia demanding its lands back
and Azerbaijan not returning something that does not even belong to
it to begin with) down the toilet.

Let me go over this one more time; I am Heghinar, I am a citizen of
Armenia, I live in Armenia and if the President and Foreign Affairs
Minister of my country sign a paper, which opens the doors of my
home to enemy number one (Turkey) and announces that Karabakh does
not belong to me but to enemy number two (Azerbaijan), a paper which
maybe not verbally do so, but in its essence states that we Armenians
are liars, all this has been a lie and my ancestors were liars and
that enemy number one and two suffered because of the Armenians and
not the other way round and all the blood shed is wasted and gets
flushed down the toilet; who or what does all this make me?

I represent my country, I am my country and I bear the face of
my country. I tell you what the signing of this paper will make
me. All this will make me a liar, my grandfather a liar, my mother
who passed on the story to me a liar, my nation who believes in this
story a liar. Next time I tell someone I am Armenian, I don’t have
to explain the location of this little country, because everybody
has already pointed out its index finger to the liar. If I am my
country, that means if my country agrees to the protocols, then
I agree too. If I am my country, that means if my country does not
recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, then I do not too. If
I am my country, that means if my country wants to forget about the
Armenians Genocide, then I do too. If I am my country, that means
if my country is a treasure hunter and chases 40 pieces of silver,
long locked behind the Armenian-Turkish borders, then so do I…

I cannot talk anymore, because two pages, 20 pages, even 200 pages
will not be enough to explain how and what I feel. This, this chaos is
what goes though my head every time I pass near the Republic Square,
watch the news or hear people talk about this issue. You know when
someone you love does something wrong and you try to justify that
somehow, even though deep down inside you know it is wrong? That is
how I have always treated my country: like my own child. This is not
about politics and just to enlighten you, I am not a member of any
party and I am not pro or against this or the past governments. I am
a person who is for Armenia, I am a person who loves her motherland,
I am a person who believes in her fatherland and finally I am a person
who lives in her homeland because she wants and loves to and not has
to. Every time my country makes a wrong move, I try to justify and
understand my child, but today I am in a total state of shock. My child
has stabbed me in the back; I feel ashamed, I feel sad, I feel lost.

I don’t know what can be done, because I have already signed against
the protocol, tried to explain the reason why I am against the
opening of the border especially at this specific cost and I intend to
participate in any meeting, rally, protest against the signing of the
protocols, I do not know what else I can do, how else can I contribute
to the salvation of my country, how else can I ask the forgiveness of
my ancestors and your ancestors who were brutally massacred thought
the years of the Armenian Genocide, your father, brothers and uncles
who went to die and thus prove the international community that they
wholeheartedly believed that Karabakh belonged to us.

Now tell me this; do you believe in ghosts? I know I don’t, but what
if, what if they do exist and do not tell me if is good, because I
am trying to prove a point here. You have come with me this far, stay
with me for another second. If you do not believe in ghosts rationally,
please use your imagination and think that they do exist. The moment I
began believing in ghosts fictionally, I started to lose sleep because
I realized that I am afraid of the dark and that is the time when they
say ghosts come out. I do not want to live in a country full of ghosts;
the ghosts of the 1.5 million Genocide victims and survivals, those
who died during the Karabakh war and all those who were defending
these causes. I am afraid of ghosts, I am very afraid of ghosts,
because if they do exist, they are definitely going to come and haunt
every single one of us down, because we have disturbed their sleep!

I am my country and a country haunted by ghosts is no longer a country,
but a curse…