WORCESTER – The Worcester Armenian community is grateful that President Biden Saturday became the first U.S. president to officially recognize the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire more than a century ago as a genocide.
“Our president made history by recognizing this great human tragedy in its true definition as genocide,” said Rev. Aved Terzian of the Armenian Church of Our Saviour on Salisbury Street.
“I think it is absolutely important for us Armenians that President Biden used the word 'genocide' in his statement and with that he acknowledged that what happened in 1915 were not massacres or sad events, as the Turkish government is trying to represent in its official commentary on the Armenian genocide,” said the Rev. Torkom Chorbajian, pastor of Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church on Grove Street.
In a statement released Saturday, Biden said, “Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring,” risking a potential fracture between the U.S. and Turkey but reflecting Biden’s commitment to human rights.
April 24 marked the 106th anniversary of the beginning of the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, resulting in 1.5 million people being deported and killed.
“We honor the victims of the Meds Yeghern (Armenian term for genocide) so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history. And we remember so that we remain ever-vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms,” Biden said.
Another reason for Biden to go in this direction, Chorbajian said, is that Turkey is becoming an authoritarian state “with no respect to human rights,” though being an important member with NATO and a strategic partner to the United States.
“On numerous occasions it is acting against the interests of the United States in the region,” Chorbajian said.
Despite the declaration made by Biden, concerns and struggles still continue.
Chorbajian is extremely grateful that Biden honored his promise to the Armenian community and acknowledged the Armenian genocide.
However, on the other hand, he is uncomfortable with the fact that many people may think that this is the sole purpose of years of lobbying and talking about the Armenian genocide and the historic Western Armenian lands that Turkey usurped following the genocide.
“I have mixed feelings,” Chorbajian said. “I think the struggle must continue until the government of Turkey acknowledges the genocide and just reparations follow it, through which only a full reconciliation can happen between Armenia and Turkey."
Terzian said reconciliation means many things, but more importantly people should focus on the definition, “to fix broken relationships,” where the formal political stance has generally been avoided out of concern about damaging relations with Turkey.
“Denial of the genocide makes reconciliation impossible,” Terzian said. “How can reconciliation take place in a relationship based on a lie?”
Terzian firmly believes and prays that the declaration serves as an appropriate time for the governments and society to use the platform established by Biden as an opportunity for reconciliation.
The number of Armenians killed has been a major contention. Estimates range from 300,000 to 2 million deaths between 1914 and 1923, with not all of the victims in the Ottoman Empire. But most estimates – including one of 800,000 between 1915 and 1918, made by Ottoman authorities themselves – fall between 600,000 and 1.5 million.
Whether due to killings or forced deportation, the number of Armenians living in Turkey fell from 2 million in 1914 to under 400,000 by 1922.
The Worcester Armenian community said it is also grateful to local leaders, including U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, on the occasion of the 106th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, who were at the forefront of the Armenian cause all along the way.
They will never stop seeking justice in recognizing the Armenian genocide.
“The Armenian community in Worcester is content with the fact that there is a politician who did not betray his promise when he was a candidate, and did not use this sensitive topic only to get Armenian sympathy and votes,” Chorbajian said.