WHY THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE REALLY MATTERS

The News Hub
April 16 2015

The Armenians are still being denied their rightful recognition of
the atrocities they suffered, and it’s outrageous

Sponsored by Rhea Christopher in International

At midnight on the 23rd of April, Armenians around the world will be
remembering a life-altering moment in their history. But this isn’t
just any year to commemorate the Armenian Genocide, it will be the
centenary of an event that took the lives of over a million people,
the loss of over half a country and pushed a community out of their
homes, forcing them to start again in a new country.

But why is there such a push for awareness of this Genocide? The
world knows of the Holocaust, the Rwandan Genocide, and still today
mass killings of communities are ever present; Syria, Palestine and
Kenya most recently. The answer is simple, we know who ordered these
killings. The Nazis, Civil War. But who ordered the mass murder of the
Armenians? This is what is driving the Armenian communities around
the world to march every year to receive recognition for the deaths
of their ancestors.

This is all they ask for: Recognition. A mere sign of respect to the
lost lives, from the Turkish Government. It was Jevdet Bey, a Governor
of the Ottoman Empire, who on 1915 ordered the siege of the Armenian
town of Van, forcing people out of their homes and the taking of lives.

It was this night that the Armenian Massacres began. Imagine going to
bed one night in fear because of rumours of sieges, because you have
either heard of or witnessed random killings of your fellow country
men, being comforted by your mother, or grandparent, that everything
will be ok, and then suddenly, you are forced out of your beds and
thrown onto the streets, random killings, blood glistening in the
moonlight, and as soon as dawn breaks, you find yourself being shoved
into the Syrian desert to find a new home, knowing that the scorching
heat of the desert and the dry sand in your throat could be the last
thing you ever experience.

Armenians have often been accused of inappropriately using the word
‘Genocide’ on the basis that there isn’t sufficient evidence to support
the claims. Let me ask you this, why is it then that Raphael Lemkin,
the creator of the term ‘Genocide’ stated this, “I became interested
in genocide because it happened so many times. It happened to the
Armenians, then after the Armenians, Hitler took action.”

The man who coined the term himself is said to have been influenced by
the killings of Armenians to put a name to the actions that can now
be found in your own dictionary to define the word ‘Genocide’. And
as we have mentioned Hitler, it was he himself who said “who now
remembers the Armenians”. So, if Hitler wanted to do to the Jewish
community, what we now call a Genocide because of what he saw the
Ottoman Turks doing to the Armenians, then how can we deny these
massacres as Genocide?

One excuse is that these events happened before the word ‘Genocide’
ever existed, but this is a completely narrow-minded argument. All
facts, eye-witness accounts, photographs, articles written around
the time by British and French reporters point to Genocide.

So why is the debate still going on? Most recently, Labour MP Stephen
Pound, representing the Armenian community of London, took the debate
to the House of Commons, and I watched the whole of Parliament TV that
day, patiently waiting. It seemed Parliament was more interested in
discussing issues surrounding broadband and Internet access than a
historical event that shaped a society. Just this month also, Kim
Kardashian, and her family, visited Armenia for the first time to
pay respects to their country and support this battle for Recognition.

Turkey to this day still denies the actions of their ancestors. If
Germany were able to apologise for their previous Government’s actions,
then why can’t Turkey? The Armenian communities around this planet will
not rest till they receive it, not only from notable countries such
as Sunny Ol’ England, but from Turkey herself. With other communities
who also experienced mass murders by the Ottomans, Kurds who still
battle with Turks, and Greeks whose battle began in 1453 during the
fall of Constantinople and 1922 just after the 1915 massacres, it is
fair to say that they are not alone and they have built such strong
communities around the world, that their history will never die.