STUDENT GROUPS REMEMBER GENOCIDE
Silva Sevlian
Daily Trojan Online, CA
Univ. of Southern California
April 25 2008
Students remember Armenian genocide victims with music and speeches.
Naritsa Kazanjian cannot trace back her family linage more than two
generations, a fate common among Armenians because of the Armenian
genocide, which left 1.5 million people dead.
"My grandfather doesn’t know who his parents are," said Kazanjian,
a junior majoring in accounting.
"Kazanjian is not even my last name – it is the name he took from
his adopted family."
Members of the Armenian Students’ Association and the Armenian Graduate
Students’ Association hosted a one-hour ceremony Thursday honoring
the genocide victims, and demonstrated the vitality of the Armenian
culture both on campus and post-genocide.
"Remembering the Past, Celebrating the Future" featured students,
scholars and musicians and was the culmination of a week-long effort
to raise awareness about the culture’s past.
Father Vazken Movsesian, executive director of the St. Peter Armenian
Church, spoke about his visit to Rwanda and said the political climate
felt familiar.
"I had one foot in the first genocide of the 20th century and one
foot in the last," Movsesian said. "I saw what my grandparents told
me about, and that same evil continues in Darfur."
Movsesian said that the genocides that have taken place in Armenia and
in other countries such as Darfur are in the hands of the government.
"Let it be clear in your heads that it was not a couple of Turkish men
that got up and killed Armenians – it was a government," Movessian
said.
Although the event attracted many members of the USC community, others
came from outside the university to be part of the commemoration and
share their family’s story of genocide.
"When he was sixteen, my grandfather saw a Turkish solider smash the
face of a 2-month-old baby with his rifle because she was Armenian,"
Maraslian said.
Students from the USC Turkish Student Association were at the event
claiming the Armenian deaths arose from fighting during World War I
and not a deliberate campaign to wipe out the Armenian population.
Kanakara Navasartian, a graduate student studying strategic public
relations and president of the Armenian Graduate Students’ Association
said, "The students were inappropriate and their reactive tactic was
disrespectful on a day where California’s governor and the state has
recognized [April 24] as a day of remembrance."
Turkish students held up signs facing the stage in front of Tommy
Trojan and argued with members of the Armenian group who encouraged
both the Turkish students and the current Turkish government to
recognize the Armenian Genocide as a part of its history.
Caroline Cha, a junior majoring in international relations, said her
only knowledge about the Armenian genocide comes from literature she
has read in her international relations courses.
"The more I read about the flagrant human rights abuses and the
systematic killing of people, the more I sympathize for the Armenians
who have come here to honor their heritage," Cha said.
Magdiel Ledesma, a student visiting from Mira Costa Community College,
said the event is his first exposure to information about the Armenian
Genocide.
"The tone of the instruments gets inside of your heart and makes you
feel the sadness of genocide," Ledesma said.
Non-profit organizations such as the "Never Again" campaign, lead by
Armenian fraternity Alpha Epsilon Omega, are raising funds to create
educational projects to disseminate to students at junior and senior
high school schools.
The event on USC’s campus is one of many that occurred in the Los
Angeles County Thursday to commemorate the lives that were lost and
to protest the denial of the genocide.
Members of the Armenian community marched the streets of Little
Armenia, protested in front of the Turkish Embassy and children in
Glendale participated in a 30-hour fast.