YEREVAN PREPARES FOR THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CENTENNIAL
Global Voices
April 20 2015
Posted 20 April 2015
This Friday, April 24, is an important date to Armenians worldwide. It
will mark 100 years from the day when Ottoman authorities began
rounding up around 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders
in Constantinople, paving the way for the Armenian Genocide in which
an estimated 1 to 1.5 million Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empires
were systematically exterminated between 1915 and 1918.
All around Yerevan, the purple colors of the aptly-named Forget-Me-Not
Flower can be seen everywhere. From schoolchildren carrying it in the
form of a pin on their chests to coffee-drinking university students
displaying it in the form of a sticker on their laptop. Everywhere,
streets, homes, hospitals, supermarkets, restaurants, shops and hotels
are all displaying the flower with a simple message: “I Remember
and Demand.”
Remembering the Genocide and demanding recognition from the Republic
of Turkey, the legal successor to the the Ottoman Empire, have
been part of virtually every Armenian’s life and identity for the
past century. Generation after generation, the survivors of the
Armenian Genocide and their descendants have been campaigning for
the international community to recognize the fact. To date, only 21
countries have fully recognized the Armenia Genocide including France,
Italy, Lebanon and Russia.
The Forget-Me-Not flower can be seen planted all around Yerevan. As
The Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America explained, the
Forget-Me-Not “expresses the theme of eternal remembrance, and is also
meant to symbolically evoke the past, present, and future experiences”.