During his lifetime, Taniel Tufenkjian resided in several countries. As a young adult, he moved from his native Syria to Lebanon, then to France and finally to the United States about 20 years ago.
But no matter where he lived, one thing remained the same: on April 24, Tufenkjian gathered with his family to commemorate the mass killing of 1.5 million Armenians, including his grandfather, in Turkey about a century ago.
So far, only a handful of countries — and the U.S. is not one of them — have recognized the Armenian Genocide.
As the world is about to mark the 106th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide, Tufenkjian — just like many other Armenian-Americans — hope President Joe Biden’s term will bring change.
“He’s an honest man and I believe he calls everything by its proper name,” Tufenkjian, 77, said. “The genocide should be called the genocide.”
Several major media outlets, including The New York Times and The Associated Press, reported on Wednesday, April 21, that Biden is planning to acknowledge the genocide on or before the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, which falls on Saturday this year.
But the president could still change his mind, according to the AP.
Lawmakers and Armenian-American activists are firecely lobbying Biden. One possibility is that the president would include the acknowledgement of genocide in the annual remembrance day proclamation typically issued by presidents. Biden’s predecessors have avoided using “genocide” in the proclamation commemorating the dark moment in history.
President Joe Biden .(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
A bipartisan group of more than 100 House members on Wednesday signed a letter to Biden calling on him to become the first U.S. president to formally recognize the World War I-era atrocities as genocide. Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California spearheaded the letter.
“The shameful silence of the United States Government on the historic fact of the Armenian Genocide has gone on for too long, and it must end,” the lawmakers wrote. “We urge you to follow through on your commitments, and speak the truth.”
Turkey’s foreign minister has warned the Biden administration that recognition would “harm” U.S.-Turkey ties.
From 1894 and 1924, Turkey prosecuted, displaced, and assassinated millions of Armenians along with other Christians, including Greeks and Assyrians. As a result, many of their descendants were dispersed across the world. Some landed in Los Angeles, which became home to one of the largest populations of Armenians living outside their native country.
Turkey doesn’t deny that Armenians were killed in clashes with the Ottoman army during World War I but it disputes the death toll and the characterization of the mass killing.
For decades, U.S. predecessors have avoided calling the killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces genocide amid intense lobby by the Turkish government.
“In the past, the arm twisting from Turkey was, ’Well we’re such a good friend that you should remain solid with us on this,’” said Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, whose members have started a campaign to encourage Biden to recognize the genocide. “But they’re proving to be not such a good friend.”
President Barack Obama said during his presidential campaign that he would define the 1915 mass slaughter but stopped short of declaring it genocide, drawing criticism from the Armenian-American diaspora.
Hamparian said he’s hopeful that Biden, unlike Obama, will take the historic public step. He noted that the sting of Obama’s failure to follow through still lingers for many.
In 2019, The U.S. Senate passed a non-binding resolution formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide, raising objections from the Trump administration which feared damaging Turkish-American ties.
Just like Obama, Biden made a pledge during his presidential campaign.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, recently wrote an open letter to Biden, reminding him of his campaign promise.
“Mr. President, we must not resort to euphemisms or half-truths. The murder of 1.5 million Armenians was an atrocity – that is surely true – but it was more than that. The act of seeking to destroy people and culture is a different kind of evil, and it was not until Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide” that we had a word to describe it,” he added.
Tom Hogen-Esch, a political science professor at Cal State Northridge, said Biden has already witnessed his predecessor making a promise but failing to follow through.
“I don’t think politically it would be very smart to do that again,” he said. “That strikes me as something that would really alienate Armenian-Americans.”
Turkey, meanwhile, has already singled the recognition would harm relations between the NATO allies.And since the U.S.-Turkey relationship is already strained, he added, recognizing genocide wouldn’t make a big difference.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said earlier this week that any attempt by the Biden administration to acknowledge the 1915 massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman forces would worsen the ties with the U.S, according to Reuters.
Vahram Shemmassian, head of CSUN’s Armenian Studies Program, said he “wouldn’t be surprised if Biden doesn’t keep his word although many Armenians are very helpful.”
He was “guardedly optimistic,” he added, “but it wouldn’t surprise me if he doesn’t keep his word and I won’t be shocked or disappointed because it’s been going for decades now.”
The reason it’s important for the U.S. to recognize the genocide, he said, is because with its support “the loop around Turkey’s neck would get tighter.”
France, Germany, and the Vatican are among the countries that recognized the Armenian genocide.
Pasadena-based comedian Mary Basmadjian said she’s hopeful that Biden would acknowledge the killings of millions of Armenians but she was more preoccupied with what happened last fall between her native country and Azerbaijan over the ethnic-Armenian majority enclave Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Two of my cousins lost several childhood friends to the war,” she said. “That’s very unfortunate.”
She used her social media that lists more than 51,000 followers to share with her non-Armenian friends about what’s currently happening in her country.
“I came to the conclusion that we don’t need validation from the Western world because we know that it happened,” she said.
Taniel Tufenkjian and his wife Adriana stand in front of a painting of an Armenian church .(Photo by Andy Holzman, Contributing Photographer)
Tufenkjian keeps a faded image of his grandfather in his Simi Valley home taken just 18 months before he was assassinated in front of his family by soldiers in Konya, a city in south-central Turkey.
Tufenkjian said his family has a “typical destiny of an Armenian family” who were forced from their ancestor’s land.
“We have five members in my house and none of us is born in the same place,” he said. “We’re the nation of nomads because we suffered from the genocide. We’re descendants of the genocide generation.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report