PROVIDENCE — President Biden's deliberate use of a single word on Saturday, April 24, Armenian Remembrance Day, gave Armenians around the world something they have dearly wanted for a century.
By using the word, genocide — which Turkey has demanded its allies never utter in connection with 1 million to 1.5 million Armenians killed from 1915 to 1923 — Biden stepped across a line in the sand. No U.S. president except Ronald Reagan has taken that step.
Martha Jamgochian, vice chairman of the Armenian Historical Association of Rhode Island, said she was outside when Biden recognized as genocide the atrocities perpetrated on the Armenians a century ago.
"I was probably gardening," Jamgochian said. "I had heard, it was in the newspapers for a couple of days that he was going to do this, and he did." Her group issued a statement, but she expressed a personal view on Thursday.
"I don’t know why these politicians have been genuflecting for all these decades," she said.
"We've been clamoring for recognition for a long time."
Every year on April 24, each municipality in Rhode Island flies the Armenian flag, provided by the Armenian National Committee Rhode Island. Among other commemorative events, there's a service at Saints Sahag & Mesrob Armenian Church in Providence, and a ceremony at the Armenian Monument in the North Burial Ground.
Hrag Arakelian, 33, a member of the Armenian National Committee Rhode Island, said he was at the church about to march to a rally at the State House on Saturday when they got word that Biden had said the word.
"My feelings represent the same feelings, across all Armenians across Rhode Island and America, " Arakelian said.
"We're thinking. 'Finally!'”
“Every presidential candidate promises to call it what it was,” Arakelian said, but they back down after pressure from the government of Turkey. Each new president gets a warning call from Turkey, Arakelian said. Turkey warns that it could close a U.S. air base or leave U.S. tourists unprotected.
Biden didn’t back down.
Turkey's foreign secretary summoned the U.S. ambassador, David Satterfield, to tell him that Biden's statement had no legal basis and that Ankara "rejected it, found it unacceptable and condemned [it] in the strongest terms."
As the Voice of America reports: "Turkey denies a genocide or any deliberate plan to wipe out the Armenians. It says many of the victims were casualties of the war or murdered by Russians. Turkey also says the number of Armenians killed was far fewer than the usually accepted figure of 1.5 million."
Moments after Biden's statement, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted: "Words cannot change or rewrite history. We will not take lessons from anyone on our history."
Aram Garabedian, 85, a retailer, real estate owner and legislator known for bringing the Warwick Mall back from floods in 2010, filled six coach-style buses to take Armenians and their supporters to New York City in 2015 for the 100th Remembrance Day. Years of his life were devoted to making sure the world knew about the Armenian genocide.
For Garabedian, the goal has been to equip everybody with the ability to recognize intolerance and turn it around before hatred gives rise to death squads.
Hitler cited the success of wiping out Armenians to justify invading Poland, clearing away the Jews and using the land for Germans. He is famously thought to have said:
"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
On Saturday, it was Biden who spoke of the Armenians. He asked Americans to "renew our shared resolve to prevent future atrocities from occurring anywhere in the world. And let us pursue healing and reconciliation for all the people of the world."
Laeticia Sora, 25, and her mother are refugees from Africa. They fled civil war in Ivory Coast, only to witness it again in Sierra Leone.
She went, at age 16, on one of Garabedian's buses to New York City because she wanted to be with people who, like herself, had lived through atrocities. Sora's sister had died urging their mother to run from her killers.
"I saw a lot of dedicated people who went through a lot of atrocities in their past," she said of the rally. "They were like warriors. They just want it acknowledged."
"President Biden saying so openly and recognizing it as a genocide, it eases your heart," she said. It's as if he said, "Your story has been heard. Your story is real."
She wants to pursue a master's degree in global peace.
"If bullies, people with hate in their hearts, are not called out," Arakelian said, the silence seems to condone the behavior, and "aggression is going to elevate. It all starts small."
"When the president of the country speaks up about the Armenian genocide," he said, "he speaks to other heads of state."
Nearly every Armenian in the United States has a story, Arakelian said. "Many of us, we didn’t arrive with our families," because only one person survived.
Arakelian's great-grandfather connected with a sort of underground railroad, in which refugees were led from one safe location to the next. He made it safely to Aleppo, Syria. Now 33, Arakelian was 5 when his parents came to the United States.
For Garabedian, 85, it was his grandmother, who as a child hid in a cave until the massacre was over. She lived five years at an orphanage in Marseilles, France, and eventually reunited with some of her family, Garabedian said.
His daughter, Lisa Regan, asked if the work is over "now that Biden acknowledged the genocide."
No, Garabedian said. "The biggest thing is the educational factor has to spread across the world. You can't let what took place happen again."
Michael Manoog Kaprielian, 71, an Armenian who is a Vietnam veteran and has worked in reconciling former combatants, delights in stories of Armenians "seeing what they can do" to help someone in need.
He recalls meeting the mother of Viola Davis, the Oscar-, Emmy-. and Tony-winning actress who grew up in extreme poverty in Central Falls, and learning that an Armenian had brought the family a meal of stuffed peppers.
"They never forgot that," he said. "People who have been in tough situations or oppressed, they have a choice. They can become another oppressor, or they turn around and help the oppressed."
dnaylor@providencejournal.com
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On Twitter: @donita22