Aghjayan: Embracing the Global Reparations Movement

The nature of the pursuit for justice for the genocide committed against the Armenian people has changed at an ever-increasing pace. As we look back over the years since the horrific crime was committed, there have been many successes and some failures, but the altered environment is unmistakable. As we approach the 100th anniversary in 5 years, we must be prepared for further acceleration and remain vigilant in defending our rights.

Unfortunately, a number of slogans, often repeated by our adversaries, have become accepted as truths even within the Armenian community. These misconceptions often sound reasonable on the surface but actually are nonsense and, worse, convey a dangerous cynicism.

For instance, particularly offensive is the notion that use of the term genocide is a barrier to dialogue between victim and perpetrator. In the halls of the United States capitol and repeated mechanically in the media, this justification has been used to scuttle legislative recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The offensiveness of this becomes even more apparent when one realizes that the current “dialogue” between Turkey and Armenia has been manufactured with the sole purpose of delaying the inevitable just resolution.

Logic demands recognition as a prerequisite to the process of healing. The demise of the misnamed Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC) and the recent protocols between the governments of Armenia and Turkey, as well as other such initiatives over the past decade, are proof of that. Sincere dialogue can only begin with proper acknowledgment of the crime.

Even our own rhetoric can be harmful. United States recognition of the genocide, which should more appropriately be termed reaffirmation, has been elevated to the point of being considered a cure for various ills. It is often stated that recognition will help prevent future genocide or end the denial of the genocide. Yet we know that recognition of the Jewish Holocaust, which is one of the most widely written about events in history, has not stopped the occurrence of genocide nor even stopped its denial by those with malicious agendas.

By misrepresenting the purpose of genocide recognition, we run the risk of disillusioning our supporters. Viewing recognition as the objective, as opposed to the first step in a process, also leads to inappropriate strategies for success.

The purpose of the original crime was to end any possibility of an Armenian nation being formed on our ancestral lands. It is undeniable that this objective has not changed in 95 years. The current illegal and immoral blockade of Armenia, the aggressive denial of the Armenian Genocide around the world and the devious disruption of community solidarity continue to victimize us to this day.

Restorative justice is clearly not possible given the extent of the crime. Any just resolution, however imperfect, must begin with ensuring the security and perpetuation of the Republic of Armenia. Reparations and restitution of land are necessary, but not sufficient to cure the scourge of genocide. One can point out that, again, the conviction of those responsible for the Holocaust and subsequent reparations paid to the victims have not stopped genocide. But that can be attributed to the Holocaust being an exception rather than the rule. What is needed is consistent treatment of all perpetrators of genocide. While progress has been made, there is still a long way to go.

Thus, the call for reparations for the Armenian Genocide is part of a global reparations movement and we can leverage greatly from what is at its core a human rights movement.

Yet this is not our sole objective. While the issue is surely much more complex than what I have described, nonetheless Turkey and Armenia, Turks and Armenians can not move forward without the necessary progression of recognition, reparations, and restitution.

The state sponsored denial of the Armenian Genocide by the government of Turkey has largely been responsible for increasing public awareness of the crime to the point of near universal acceptance. Again, there will always be those with the motivation to deny known genocides, but their existence is not evidence of any controversy over the facts of history.

Interestingly, the tactics employed by the Turkish government have led to Armenian Genocide recognition being used by various nations to extract political concessions from Turkey. The vicious cycle has led to the current environment where the threat of genocide recognition has been diluted by having already been achieved. Thus, we see a diminished ability to extract concessions from Turkey and greater independence of its foreign policy from United States interests.

Without doubt, the current environment is fluid and so complex as to make analysis difficult, if not impossible. Each player has interests and objectives that must be accounted for, but it is a mistake to simplistically view it as a conflict between moral concerns and cold hard politics. It is critically important to not allow our cause to be so limited.

The reality is that the solution for Turkey is easily achieved and insignificant when compared to its desired economic future. Make no mistake; much of Turkey’s foreign policy initiatives can be traced to a desire for regional economic supremacy. Turkey desires to expand its role as a regional energy hub, as well as supplier of goods to both Europe and the Middle East. These objectives can only be enhanced, if not achieved, along with greater democracy in Turkey, by a just resolution to the Armenian Genocide that goes beyond hollow and insincere acknowledgment.

This is not based simply on idealism, but the lessons of history have taught us what is achievable when willed by enough people.

On April 24 and 25, a conference took place in Ankara where some participants discussed reparations for the Armenian Genocide. A Turkish participant spoke clearly and bravely about the need for reparations. It will be the final insult to the memory of the victims if we, their descendants, in the comfort of our lives, simply beg for acknowledgment while the number of those in Turkey risk much more to demand justice be served.

We must expect more, we must do our part for the global reparations movement. That is our obligation for those that died, those that survived, and those that continue to strive for justice.

George Aghjayan

George Aghjayan

George Aghjayan is the Director of the ARF Archives and a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Central Committee of the Eastern United States. Aghjayan graduated with honors from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Actuarial Mathematics. He achieved Fellowship in the Society of Actuaries in 1996. After a career in both insurance and structured finance, Aghjayan retired in 2014 to concentrate on Armenian related research and projects. His primary area of focus is the demographics and geography of western Armenia as well as a keen interest in the hidden Armenians living there today. Other topics he has written and lectured on include Armenian genealogy and genocide denial. He is a frequent contributor to the Armenian Weekly and Houshamadyan.org, and the creator and curator westernarmenia.weebly.com, a website dedicated to the preservation of Armenian culture in Western Armenia.

50 Comments

  1. Mr. Aghjayan,
    I congratulate you for this well written, out of the box analysis of how the recognition of the Armenian Genocide is being defined within the Armenian Communities and the international community. 
    If we as Armenians concentrate only on getting recognition of the Genocide, and do not move down the natural path towards reparations and restitution, we will only offer the world and our adversaries more time to ponder about the “word” itself, its political implications etc. 
    Let’s take the United States for example.  The Armenian massacres were a known fact in the US when they were taking  place.  President Woodrow Wilson awarded the Ottoman ruled Armenian Vilayets back to the Armenians in the Treaty of Sevres.  President Teddy Roosevelt has made open statements acknowledging the massacres.  Raphael Lemkin. the inventor of the word Genocide. has given an exclusive interview with an American TV station where he articulated on record that he had based the word on what had happened to the Armenians.  President Ronald Reagan has openly and without any reservation used the word “Armenian Genocide” in his annual April 24th messages.  The first president George Bush has also publically referred to the calamity as the “Armenian Genocide”.  It is only after the first President George Bush that the word “Genocide” has been censored within the American government to comply with the sensitivities of their Turkish ally.  Recently, during his interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Erdogan misspoke that “no American president had ever uttered the word Genocide”.  We failed to counter that erroneous statement in the media.
    What is our aim in the United States: to work hard so that the American Presidents can once again use the word?  How many times, or how many presidents need to utter the word?  Are we getting obsessed by the recognition of the “word”, and not investing enough time/energy for what we should have already started working on, which is reparations for the lives of our ancestors, a complete inventory of their lost properties/lands, a list of our desecrated churches and archeological monuments etc.
    Most of the world recognizes that 1.5 million people were brutally massacred.  We should let the legal system give life to the word Genocide, as we take Turkey to an international court and make all the details of the killings known to the world.  Unless we do that, we are creating spin that others are spinning the other way.
    We need to first treat the Genocide as “a criminal case that needs to be taken to court”, and through the international court system which should cover the humanitarian issue, we need to move on to our national demands of land restitution.   

  2. yes, it is important the we demand “ensuring the security and perpetuation of the Republic of Armenia,” as George so eloquently states,  but it is equally important that we demand reparations in historical western Armenia. We have a right to the return of all lands owned by our fathers in historical western Armenia. We have the right to a return of all stolen property. I cannot today go to my father’s village and simply look around without being told it is not a tourist area and I am to move on. This is my land that my people were driven off, murdered on, and pillaged and raped on, in its illegal aquisition, yet I am told to move on. Why are Kurds today living on our land, eating the apricots off the trees our father’s planted, when they butchered our people? Why are Kurds still planting their barley in our fields and drinking from the wells our fathers dug when our people died of hunger and thirst in the desert? Why are they using the stones from our graveyards and monasteries to build their houses with? of course, George is correct in stating “Restorative justice is clearly not possible given the extent of the crime.” Nothing can restore the lives of our murdered 1.5 million. Nothing can compensate for the suffering and altered lives of  survivors and their descendants. Nothing can compensate for almost 100 years of denial by the perpetrator.  We need to demand that  our lands in historical western Armenia are returned to us. We need to demand the restoration and return of our destroyed monasteries, the return of, or payment for, our treasured Illuminated Manuscrips. We have waited almost 100 years to be permitted a Christian service in our own monastery in Van. Modern Turkey is built on the plunder of its Christian minority. We need to demand the return of that plunder.  Sadly, George is also correct when he says “the tactics employed by the Turkish government have led to Armenian Genocide recognition being used by various nations to extract political concessions from Turkey.” We must be a united people in our determination that all possible restitution be made. We must all demand justice.

  3. Thank you Katia & Perouz.

    My grandparents lived in Kayseri yet I can still hear my grandfather’s yearning, with tears, about Adana, Mesrin and all of Giligia. He used to singe me the Giligia song…even as a child it deeply touched me

    It is imperative that all of the stolen Westren Armenian property be returned to the rightful owners. Not as individuals (in my case) but to the Noble Armenian Nation in general. Now that is JUSTICE!

  4. I agree with George. Bravo for Katia’s and Perouz’s true and excellent remarks. They should be repeated over and over again and be ingrained in our thinking pattern and strive accordingly, until justice prevails. We should not ask for mercy or for some crumbs from the murderers and thieves and destroyers and liars (the Turks), We demand Justice. Period. That’s my prayer.

  5. Dear George.
    Your first paragraph excellent well put; you ready to draw your 44 caliber magnum.
    But you’re second; Unfortunaly? Referring to those adversaries; you have already dropped your caliber to a slug.
    They are getting throw some of our Armenian community?
    Don’t you think its about time for all our Armenian Organizations for this once making an exception and unite for the Memories of our ancestors? maybe together????????
    In 95 years we have not achieved much lets not kid ourselves.remeber Israel was created in less then 5 years,by a newly born United Nations and the Holocaust was recognised.not in 95 years.
    As you say we approach the 100th anniversary in 5 more years? We must be prepared for further acceleration and remain vigilant in defending our rights?
    So will wait for another 5 years? so what.
    If just by a miracle Turkish government will accept and recognize the Armenian Genocide. Are we prepared for it?
    Richard Ohanian has asked. Are we innovative enough? Well are we?

  6. Thank you, Mr. Aghjayan, for raising the issue of reparations. For a very long time, the ARF/ANC has said “Let’s get the congressional genocide resolution passed first. Then we’ll cross the reparations bridge when we come to it.” This strategy, if we can call it that, is not productive. Also for a very long time, the issue of reparations has been limited to being brought up — if at all — at academic conferences and panel discussions (in the diaspora, present-day Armenia, and now, at one conference in Turkey).
    Armenians out there who are questioning the game plans and wisdom of our organizations are not doing so because they are  ‘anti-reparations.’  What they are questioning is HOW our organizations have gone about achieving our national goals. How much closer are we to reparations when the balance of the work being done by the political parties amounts up to talking about it in an academic setting?
    For those traditional political parties with a reparations platform, they have had 95 years to make headway. If our “leadership” is not going to marshall forces by gathering up a team of legal experts to take our cause to the international courts, push for dual citizenship so that every concerned Diasporan can receive military training in Armenia and be ready to “defend his/her homeland,” (if you get my meaning), and institute a worldwide program educating Armenians young and old on the essentiality of reparations, then these organizations need to get out of the way so that the Armenian people can get on with it!

  7. Mr. Aghjayan,
    The proper Armenian demands are land, reparation and restitution.
    1.  Lands of the first republic (1918-20) which Turkey annexed by way-of-genocide.  Mustafa Kemal Ataturk triggered an attack on the republic of Armenia and continues to occupy 60% of that republic’s territories.  That includes lands such as Ani, Kars, Ardahan, Artvin, Ararat, Erzurum.
    2.  Restitution – is to undo the results of the genocide by restoring Armenian cultural heritage – monuments, names, cities, towns, property, education, commemoration, development, and re-introducing the Armenian  culture where it existed.
    3.  Reparation – Armenians owned land, property, farms, businesses, schools, colleges, churches, and personal wealth – and not to forget the 2 million lives that were brutally taken away from us.  Turkey deposited 40 tons of gold after the killing phase of the genocide in a European bank; dubbed as the Armenian gold; those were the liquidated assets and personal wealth of the murdered Armenian nation.
    Mr. Aghjayan, you stated “recognition of the Jewish Holocaust, which is one of the most widely written about events in history, has not stopped the occurrence of genocide”; genocide scholars explain that denying even one genocide means denying all the genocides.  As long as there is one genocide denied; there will be a new genocide.  The would be perpetrators would feel safe in the assumption that they too, like Turkey, can get away with it.

  8. I don’t know what has taken so long for the most prestigious Armenian political party to decide to seek reparations. 
    But what about the land issue?  Also, I don’t know whether the ARF favors returning some or all of the land outside Artsakh to Azerbaijan.  Let us hear what the party’s position is.
    I also want to know how the party proposes to go about getting reparations from Turkey. Courts?  The UN?
    And has the party pushed the reparations issue within Armenia itself?  If not, then we must ask if the ARF is serious.

  9. Thank you all for your views and writings.

    to Toros: you have articulated well!

    Actually we always mention the 1.5 million were murdered 1915-1923. It’s alot more than that. In Adana alone in 1909, 30,000. During 1894-96, 300,000. Later many thousands died, through illness, and starvation, after escaping as refugees to Soviet Armenia & Middle East and other areas. Thousands died on seashores of Georgia and on and on. Would not be surprising if the death toll is 3 million!

    I think a DNA test in Turkey would reveal interesting data.

    G

  10. Rich asks, “Aren’t the Jews receiving reparations, why not Demand it from the Turks as well.” In large part, Rich, because Germany acknowledged what they had done and then made restitution and reparation as best they could. It is a crime today in Germany to deny the Holocaust. It is a crime today in Turkey to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. That is an indication of how much work we still have to do. We need the strength of a united voice. Many of us have undeniable documentation of what was stolen from our parents. We have the names of those who were murdered. We know the erased names of the villages that are no longer on the map. We need a safe, central, depository for what we each know, so that it can never be lost, so that it is a permanent historical record, so that if we do not succeed in our own lifetimes, our children, and their children, will have the information with which to carry the torch. Garabed, you are absolutely right; there were more than 1.5 million murdered. My father always said that there were more than 2 million. No one counted the small children. No one counted the babies born and died during the horrors of The Death March. My father saw babies cut out of living wombs. No one counted them. However, let’s not spend our energies on numbers. We have more pressing issues to address. And let us not become fragmented by criticizing the ARF. Do we need to first work towards acknowledgment and then restitution and reparation? I think we need to do them simultaneously. I don’t think you can have one without the other. Turkey needs to acknowledge its crime AND give us back our lands and property. Turkey will not return anything as long as it denies its crime of genocide. But saying sorry isn’t enough either. I want to walk through my father’s village without anyone telling me I have to leave. I want to drink from the clear spring water my father drank from and eat the apricots my grandfather planted. And I want to raise our flag in the middle of the field that grew the barley my grandmother baked her bread with. I want the world to know that The Mountain always was, and still is, ours.

  11. whan are you guys going to understand that all these efforts are fruitless? Are you aware of what you are talking about? Erzurum will be given to armenia?
    Man!! what a dream. would you like Antalya, Ankara and Adana as bonus, next to Erzurum?
    Is there any wise man out there in your community who can explain to me how you are planning to get Erzurum? Please… step by step.
    a 3 million people, 50% of whom below powerty, will come to get Erzurum and the Turks will meet them with flowers at the gates of the city. i think you can find this video game in a shop in Glendale, for 5 bucks.

  12. The mental masturbation around the idea of getting land from Turkey is a colossal waste of time and energy.  Whether you call it theft, conquest or the pain of history…Armenians can mourn, but there is little they can do about it, so should be thankful for any restoration projects initiated by the Turkish government. As for reparations, there are some concrete things that can be done that will benefit Armenia. The primary one should be the recovery of the stolen Armenian gold, which could make a huge difference at this point in time:

     Armenian wealth was seized in 1915 by the Young Turk government. The Ottoman Treasury received detailed inventories of sequestered property. Certificates were even issued for assets taken from Armenians killed or forcibly deported. The money, like Hitler’s Jewish gold, was moved out of Turkey and placed in Austrian and German banks. After the war, in an official memorandum presented to the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald on why aid must be given to help Armenian refugees, Sir James Baldwin, former Prime Minister, and Herbert Asquith, its authors, say in paragraph four:
    “The sum of 5,000,000 Turkish gold pounds (representing about 30.000 kilograms of gold) deposited by the Turkish government at the Reichsbank in Berlin in 1916, and taken over by the Allies after the Armistice, was in large part (perhaps wholly) Armenian money.  After the forced deportation of the Armenians in 1915, their current and deposit accounts were transferred, by government order, to the State Treasury in Constantinople.”[2]
              Today, this same gold would be worth about $320,000,000 plus interest! The process was as follows: First Armenian accounts and other bank assets were seized in the provinces and then transferred by government order to Constantinople.[3]
              Since official records of these accounts were kept, when will Turkish banks publish the names of those Armenians whose accounts were never claimed? When will the Turkish Government make available from its archives the ledgers listing the confiscated Armenian property? When will the Turkish government return that gold? When will the Turkish Government establish a fund for the victims of the Genocide?
              In addition to the slaughter and expulsion of more than two million souls, the Turkish government stole Armenian assets, seized Armenian property, and destroyed Armenian historical monuments. Collectively these actions represent an enormous illegal transfer of individual and community wealth from the Armenian to the Turkish and Kurdish population through a carefully planned crime.

    In an interesting followup, in 1933, the Canadian government (part of the UK at the time) responded to a lawsuit and paid out a wide range of cash sums to genocide survivors, based on this gold…which ultimately ended up in the Bank of England.

  13. To: Axmet and Karekin:
    As long as you understand that Armenians will NEVER relinquish claims on the lands that were taken by way of genocide; No one is saying that Armenians expect the return of lands in the very near future.  The point is, Armenians will NOT relinquish claims. 

    Axmet, if you have read the Holy Quran, you would understand that taking someone else’s land and property by murdering its owners, is considered a great “Haram”; meaning it is NOT “Halal”.  Turks will never be at peace or enjoy the benefits of the crime of genocide.  Certainly, Armenians will NEVER bless your crime by relinquishing claims.
    Armenians have the responsibility to prevent genocides and insure that there will  be no rewards from genocide.  Just because Turkey is powerful today, does not legalize the crime of annexing lands by-way-of-genocide.
    Do you (Axmet and Karekin) understand that the Armenian genocide is on-going (1915-2010)?  Genocide ends only when denial ceases.  Turkey continues to blockade Armenia for nearly 20 years, causing economic hardship that led to over 1 million people to seek survival elsewhere leaving Armenia.  Genocide scholars explain that these are acts of genocide; depriving people from their cultural environment.  The elements of genocide are not just the act of mass killing.

  14. Self-deprecating and obsequious people like you, Karekin, are a colossal waste of time and energy, and a space on Earth, too. You go mourn for whatever you call it theft, conquest, or the pain of history and, with your subservient mentality of an Ottoman subject, be thankful to your beloved murderous Turks for any restoration projects initiated by their government. While we’ll call it by its name: a deliberate mass extermination of a race, a genocide, and will demand reparations and restitution for everything that’s been stolen from us. The prescribed punishment for genocide is not subject to the limitations of time and place.

  15. Hey, Axe-met, what a typically Turkish mentality: ‘come and get’ a territory. ‘Come and get,’ duh-duh… Just like your nomadic savage forefathers, Seljuks and Mongols, thought back in 11-13th centuries when their hordes invaded highly-developed civilizations in Asia Minor: Greek, Assyrian, Armenian, Hittite. ‘Come and get’ still represents the limit of the Turks’ mental ability, because nothing has changed in your mentality ever since you settled in the lands of other, nobler and more civilized, peoples inhabiting Asia Minor for millennia. No, Axe-met, we’re not going to follow the same incursion scheme because conquering, scorching, looting, raping, murdering, and committing mass extermination of human beings, is not in our blood. Armenians are above such a low-level mentality. Plus, we’re not focusing on the lands that belong to others: we want OUR lands back, the six Armenian vilayets: Erzrum, Van, Kharberd, Bitlis, Tigranakert (Diyarbekir) and Sebastia (Sivas). They were inhabited by the Armenians from time immemorial, and were brutally emptied by the Turks by means of barbarian methods of race annihilation in 1915-1923.
     
    You go daydreaming that all our efforts are fruitless and watch how your government will be made accountable for wiping out the whole Armenian civilization, as you say, step by step, with more and more countries recognizing the Armenian genocide and imposing the provisions of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention on the Turkish government. ‘Come and get’ maybe a typically Turkish mentality, but in the real world a great number of tools are at work to instigate the disintegration of a country, especially an artificial one like Turkey. Believe me, if the mighty Soviet Union could collapse, Turkey could too. And then, Axe-met, YOU’ll be watching the video game that you’d buy in a shop in Mongolian steppes and Altay mountains, where the Turks originally belong, for 5 bucks…

  16. Armenians need to DEMAND JUSTICE (land, reparation and restitution) for the Armenian Genocide.

     
    WHAT HAVE OUR LEGAL TEAM OF REPARATION EXPERTS BEEN DOING OVER THE PAST 95 YEARS??????? Twiddling their thumbs or trying to tame the tantrums of defeatist curmudgeons in Yerevan who to this day shamelessly shudder at the mere notion of demanding reparations from Turkey?


    Why are you clamoring to sell yourself and our cause short Karekin?



    Why would you Karekin suggest they only return gold and not the swaths of land they also stole after murdering our ancestors?



    Is the passage of time in denial enough of a reason for you to concede more of your families rights after the barbaric crime 95 years later?

    Our communities need to wage a war for JUSTICE not recognition. Besides, with justice comes recognition of the crime

  17. Friends — This Karekin guy is known on other discussion pages for his overly Turkophillic viewpoints. He appears to have excessive rapture for everything that is Turkish. Above all, he has a specific self-deprecating mentality that some surviving victims of a human calamity have: to blame the calamity that has befallen them not on perpetrators, but on co-ethnics who dared to disobey their ‘masters,’ in this case the Turks. Apparently, he visited Turkey several times and enjoyed Turkish flattery. Still a subservient subject of the Ottoman empire in the year 2010.

  18. I would suggest that all of you pick up a good history book and read it. My comments have nothing to do w/ being ‘Turkophilic’…but, they have alot to do w/ historic reality. Our ancestors lived under Turkish rule for a reason….of course, it was not their choice, but neither was Greek rule, Roman rule, Persian rule, Arab rule or Russian rule. I will fight for and defend any shred of Armenian culture I can, but as a historian, I cannot ignore the facts of history. I may not like them, but they remain facts nonetheless: whatever reason you might assign,  Armenians have spent most of their history under the rule of outsiders who were stronger and more powerful.  Until very recently, for eastern Armenia, that included the Russians. None of them have been particularly nice to Armenia or Armenians.  Western Armenia, aside from the Bagratid kingdom and Cilician principalities, has rarely been under Armenian rule, even though Armenians are the most ancient and indigenous people of Asia Minor.  In the face of that history, our efforts should be all about maintaining and strenthening today’s Armenia, because that’s all we have. If you want to risk losing that by creating false hopes about recovering all that has been lost….then I’d suggest that you are the irresponsible one. I am against war and I am against fantasy. Of course, the key point of my words really had to do w/ recovering the Armenian gold to help Armenia.  Why don’t you work on it to help Armenia?  It’s a concrete thing that you could do.  We should get Mark Geragos to do it.  Then again, you could always move to Turkey and buy land, houses and properties…that’s what the Jews did in Palestine.  So, why not just adopt that strategy?

  19. Toros,
    thanks for expressing what is in the minds of amrenian community but they cant openly express. “Today Turkey is strong”. Yes it is and always will be.
    This is it…

  20. Ahmet, no artificially created state enjoys eternal life. If they teach you history at schools—not distorted history as to what good, merciful, and  caring for human beings’ lives the Turks are—but real history, then you should know that any state that’s been founded on the bones, blood, and lands of enslaved indigenous native inhabitants, ultimately collapse. Any state that prolongs its existence on lies, distortion of historical truth about many ancient nations that existed long before Turks invaded the region, mass annihilation of native peoples to create a homogeneous Turkish state, destruction of their historical, architectural, civilizational traces, or presenting their achievements in architecture, arts, literature, music as Turkish; a state that suppresses disclosure of true ethnic identity of its citizens and can imprison them for speaking the truth by means of Article 301 of the Penal Code, will never exist for long. So happened with the Roman Empire, so happened to the Soviet Empire, so happened to your own Ottoman empire in which Armenian, just like other native peoples: Arabs, Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, Romanians, Cypriots, etc., wanted to break loose of the Turkish yoke, but were wiped out in the most barbaric, savage forms of race annihilation. This is who you truly are, but one day, ONE DAY, you’ll pay the price, Ahmet. Toros meant a different thing by ‘Today Turkey is strong,’ but in the best Turkish tradition you flipped it over, he meant that being strong today does not necessarily mean you’ll always be. In fact I fundamentally disagree with Turkey being strong: it is a very vulnerable country, surrounded by enemies on the outside, and with growing domestic instability posed by the Kurds on the inside. Its strategic importance greatly dwindled and international criticism for human rights violations and for the denial to recognize the Turks’ crime against the Armenians: the genocide, are growing. The country needs drastic societal changes and when they happen, millions of people will disclose their non-Turkish, non-Muslim identity. And you’ll be surprised how quickly the country can disintegrate, a country that was founded on the blood and bones of many native, indigenous peoples, who were conquered and enslaved by the hordes of Seljuks and Ottomans. Those nations will never forget that. In the case of the Armenians, we will never cease fighting for justice, and you’ll be amazed when your government will kneel before the Armenians and ask for forgiveness for mass exterminating millions of innocent men, women, elders, children, and even unborn whom your barbaric forefathers slit off their mothers’ wombs. Unimaginable savagery! You were, are, and will always remain what the civilized world came to call you: barbarian Turks.

  21. Listen, ‘historian’ Karekin, Armenians’ ethnogenesis is widely accepted to form in the 2nd millennium BC. There were various periods that Armenia was an independent or semi-independent state, a protectorate, some of its parts losing independence while some others preserving it, with Greater Armenia falling under the Seljuk/Mongol domination, but Cilician Kingdom able to maintain statehood up until the 14th century AD. Out of more than 3000+ years of Armenians’ existence, Armenians have not spent ‘most’ of their history under the rule of outsiders. What ‘good’ history book are you reading? Last statehood that Armenians have had was the Cilician Kingdom and it fell to Mameluks and then to the loathed Ottomans only in the 14th century AD. Please enlighten us as to how on Earth roughly 5 centuries of non-statehood that followed after the 14th century make up ‘most’ of our history under the rule of outsiders? You don’t have to arrogantly suggest commentators here, whom you have no knowledge about, to pick up a good history book and read it. Go suggest your Turks to admit the guilt and repent for mass murdering millions of innocent Christians instead. When one reads your comments one can see that you still have the millet mentality. Yes, historic Armenia’s geographical position on the crossroads of many warring sides, different civilizations, cultures, and religions predetermined our fate. But a nation, which survived despite all odds and, most of all, the indescribable mass Turkish barbarity in the beginning of the 20th century, believes, and rightfully so, that it will continue to exist forever. No Greek rule, Roman rule, Persian rule, Arab rule, or Russian rule, just as any other rule in regard to any other conquered nation, is supposed to be ‘nice,’ as you put it, to the natives, whether Armenians or not. But only Seljuk/Mongol/Ottoman/Young Turk/Kemalist rule brought upon Armenians pain, sorrow, and destruction in such an enormous magnitude. Nowhere in our history were we subjected to race annihilation, and in the most savage form, as under the Turks. It is explicable, therefore, that we loathe them the most and will never cease demanding justice for wiping out the whole Western Armenian civilization from the face of the earth.
    Please educate us, as well, as to why colonized people live under the foreign rule ‘for a reason’? You said: ‘our ancestors lived under Turkish rule for a reason.’ What reason, may I ask? What is the reason of being conquered, enslaved, oppressed, and ultimately annihilated by the Turks? Do please enlighten me. And even if you come up with an explanation of reason—I’ll wait most curiously for it—why are you neglecting the reason for striving to throw off the Turkish yoke, strive for re-gaining independence on our own lands? Isn’t there a reason for that? As a ‘historian,’ who cannot ignore the facts of history, how many times in history have you seen an enslaved indigenous people remaining dormant under a foreign occupation and not fighting to break loose from the yoke? What kind of ‘historian’ are you? Every nation strives for its independence, just as other Ottoman subjects did: Arabs, Greeks, Bulgarians, Cypriots, Romanians, Romanians, Armenians were not an exception. We were just made scapegoats for the Ottoman losses in the Balkans, and unlike other nations, were slaughtered en masse on our ancestral lands. If you can forget this, most of the Armenians never will. Defeatist feelings never led to victory. Vcitors are those who believe, not those who accommodate, like you. Strategies can vary, and I don’t rule out buying lands could be one of them, but before anything else the Turks MUST acknowledge their guilt and offer apology. How is it psychologically feasible to ‘always move to Turkey and buy land, houses and properties,’ as you suggest without knowing that the genocide-perpetrator nation never apologized? How safe would you feel in your re-obtained properties and what guarantees there would be that these properties, as well as your own life and the lives of your loved ones, would not again taken by people who never apologized for the previous crime against humanity?

  22. Look…an apology from Turkey would be wonderful, and so would reparations, but all the apologies in the world will not and cannot restore a country that was lost to them 1000 years ago. If someone like Mark Geragos can recover that gold for Armenia, then I think he should do it. As for the historical record, for a small start, pick up a copy of Robert Hewsen’s Historic Atlas of Armenia. It’s quite good. Not the only history book available, but new and accurate.  Yes, Armenians have been in Anatolia for eons…who knows…maybe 10,000 years or so, no one is denying that, but a presence does not make a viable country. Oftentimes, these Armenian entities were just very small principalities, not true states or kingdoms.  People are conquered because they are too few in number, too divided or too weak to resist. In the case of the Seljuks, who got help from local Armenian ishkhans and military leaders in their fight against the Byzantines, a small number subdued the settled population. The result was total conquest.  Think about this, if, after several thousand years, the Kurds – who number roughly 20 million – have not been able to engineer an independent state…why do you think Armenians would have a chance to expand what they have now to include lands from thousands of years ago?  Armenia itself hasn’t even recognized Karabagh yet – and that’s rightfully Armenian and was only ‘lost’ because of Stalin!!! Your thesis is vaguely like the early Zionist fantasy of Palestine, because it is pretending that the land (Anatolia) is empty, that no one lives there and that it will be yours if you just yearn for it long enough.  Please, get real. Armenia needs help…plain and simple. As for buying property in Turkey, you should realize that lots of other people are doing it….the British, the Dutch, the Israelis, American Jews…among others. By sitting back and complaining, rather than doing something, Armenians are being left behind. Remember…actions always speak louder than words. If you’re so tough, yes…you should buy land there. At least it’s better than buying land in the US, which we all know rightfully belongs to the native Americans.

  23. To: Aram

    Very well put my dear brother! Karekin has some good observations but mostly ‘turn the othe cheek’ opinions.

    Karekin: If you are a historian…the more reason you should defend the Hye Tahd! Man!
    A historian has the knowledge to substantiate the just claims we are making here. Just because someone plunders your home because of his might…does that give them ownership? Stolen property, even if paid for, is returned to the rightful owner. In this case no payment has been made to anyone for the stolen property! There is no price for the stolen human beings who were lost.

    You need to take the side of JUSTICE!

  24. First apology, then other subsequent steps. What will happen in the process or as a result of it noone knows, so do you. A country can be restored even in 2000 years: Jews stand out as a bright example of this. And, again, what ‘good’ history book are you reading. Armenian was not lost to the Turks 1000 years ago, is this how you familiarized yourself with Hewsen’s ‘Historic Atlas of Armenia’? Last Armenian Kingdom existed up until the 14th century AD, and the House of Osman (the Ottoman Empire) was formed in early 15th century, enslaving many nations, Armenians included. In 1918 the empire ceased to exist. It makes it roughly 500 years not 1000. What kind of a historian are you? Are you teaching at all? Poor kids… Armenian entities were in some historical periods small principalities as were many other nations, look at Italy, for instance, in the medieval times. People are conquered not only because they are too few in number, too divided or too weak to resist, but primarily because invaders come in innumerable hordes, as Seljuks and Mongols, are in essence barbarian savages, and nomads spreading fire and sword on nobler, more civilized peoples. If Armenians were week and divided, how about other nations? How come the Turks reached the vicinities of Vienna and conquered the marble of the Byzantine Christian world, Constantinople in the 15th century? Because they were, first of all, invaders, brutal and merciless outcomers. Seljuks were not the only ones that some Armenian ishkhans used in their fight against the Byzantine Greeks, long before that’d happened Armenians also used Persians against Romans, and then Crusaders against the Muslims, and so on. It all comes from the peculiarities of our geographical position, and playing one powere against the other is still used as a foreign policy and military tool nowadays, didn’t you know that? Then why were the Armenians an exception?
    Kurds have never been able to engineer an independent state whereas Armenians were, and even had an empire at one time under Tigranes the Great. This is why I think Armenians have a chance to expand what they have now to include their ancestral lands. Didn’t Nagorno-Karabakh war show you that it is possible? Armenia hasn’t recognized Karabagh for purely political reasons, when the time is right it will. Are you also a politician in addition to being a historian? Zionist fantasy of Palestine whether or not it pretended that the land was empty, led to recreation of the Jewish State after losing statehood for nearly 2000 years. You call it a fantasy? Look at the map: doesn’t the State of Israel exist? Please, get real. As for buying property in Turkey, the British, the Dutch, the Israelis, and American Jews have no historical attachment and sorrowful memories that the Armenians have. They are buying a foreign land, whereas you suggest buying our own and with no apology from the Turks for being wiped out from it. Well, you remember: actions always speak louder than words, and for 95 years it was the Armenian actions, not just words, that led to international awareness of the Armenian genocide, our demand for justice, and will be crowned by Turkish repentance. All you have to do is to have resilient, not defeatist, spirit and belief.

  25. Garabed….of course, I don’t know where you live or own property, but if it’s not in Armenia and happens to be somewhere in the New World, then you too are probably living on stolen land. Perhaps all of us diasporan Armenians should arrange to give it back?  It’s not really ours, is it? Look…if justice ruled the world (which it doesn’t), then there’s alot to fix. The list is very long, so get in line…and wait, and wait and wait.  History moves forward, not backward. We have an azad Hayastan today that is just barely surviving. Isn’t that more worthy of our efforts? Armenia’s borders have shifted for thousands of years….nothing new about that. And yes, they could shift again, but attempting to change the status quo without a critical mass of people there will be next to impossible and the risk of total annihilation or loss of statehood is high, and for me, not worth the risk. As I said, Armenia has not even re-united with Karabagh yet…so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
     
     

  26. Apology first, Aram? The dead and unborn lives of those who would have followed them can’t materialize no matter how many “apologies” MIGHT surface.  We must move forward on other levels.

  27. Armenians are not living on a New World’s stolen lands as a result of Armenian government’s deliberate mass slaughtering of the indigenous peoples; destruction of their churches, monasteries, schools, educational centers, houses, pastures; looting and stealing their properties, possessions, and insurance indemnities; and portraying native peoples’ civilizational achievements as Armenian, just like the Turks do in reghard to remnants of Western Armenian civilization. Besides, America is, in essence, an immigrant country, not a country that’s been formed as a result of multi-millennia development of a unique civilization, like Western Armenia.

    Full-fledged support of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh and advancement of justice for recognition of the Armenian genocide are not mutually exclusive causes, they’re mutually complementary causes: one cannot be advanced without the other.
    As for recognition of and re-unification with Karabakh, it’ll be done when the time is right, not because anything prevents Armenia to do so right now.

    I’ve never heard such weird opinions from an Armenian. Karekin, are you Armenian or a Turk in disguise?

  28. Will moving forward on other levels materialize the dead and unborn lives of those who would have followed them, Haroutiun? This is a highly hypothetical question. No move on other levels or an apology can materialize the deaths of innocent people, but apology is needed to serve several objectives: juridical, moral, etc. I admit, it may be a chicken-or-the-egg story, but moving to Turkey and buying properties on our own lands without knowing that a genocide-perpetrator nation has apologized, is, mildly speaking, short-sighted.

  29. Hey Aram….perhaps you haven’t noticed that adult, educated and thinking Armenians are allowed to question things.  Questioning things does not make one less of an Armenian…and it’s just plain juvenile to think that way. Unfortunately, too many Armenians have not challenged their ‘leaders’ or demanded a change in strategy, and as a result our community has had to live with a stagnant status quo for a very long time.  It is time for some drastic changes that will produce positive results. Whatever has happened to Armenia in the last 80 years has not come about due to anything Armenians have done. It’s all been driven by external realities.  When you’re small in number, poor and just barely surviving – you have little to no leverage and cannot dictate to the larger powers who actually control outcomes. You must be flexible and adaptable to changing realities, so you can take advantage of them in the best way possible.  I feel that Armenia has done fairly well in that regard, but that it should not bite off more than it can chew.  No matter what anyone says, the situation for Armenia is precarious, and no one knows that better than those who live there. Their priorities should be our priorities, not the other way around.

  30. Karekin;
     
    Perhaps you haven’t noticed that adult, educated, and thinking Armenians know that ‘hey’ is for horses, not human beings. Secondly, my remarks were in response to erratums in your distorted historical comments, and not to your questioning of things. Questioning and making distorted statements are two divergently different things. As for making one less of an Armenian or more of an Armenian, I’m sorry, but we were not introduced in person so I know whom I’m exchanging comments with. What is ‘juvenile’ about it? Reading your comments in this discussion one can question if you really are an Armenian. Where does this self-deprecation come from? What is this statement about: ‘Whatever has happened to Armenia in the last 80 years has not come about due to anything Armenians have done. It’s all been driven by external realities.’ Really? You mean all diasporan infrastructure: benevolent and charitable organizations, Armenian studies’ departments, academic and genocide research centers, religious and cultural institutions, business entrepreneurships, political lobbying and advocacy groups, and individual successes leading to higher social status in respective communities, have all been driven by external realities only? Why are you degrading these achievements? ‘When you’re small in number, poor and just barely surviving – you have little to no leverage and cannot dictate to the larger powers who actually control outcomes.’ A despicable statement. As Henry Theriault put it,all-or-nothing demands came from positions of great material, political, and military weakness and yet still succeeded because of the moral strength of the position of the “weak” vis-a-vis the “strong.” Moral legitimacy is a great force in geopolitics and is the reliable ally of the weak, oppressed, and marginalized. It is the force that those committed to power politics, realpolitik, fear so desperately that they incessantly mock it as if whistling in the dark, ridiculing those who believe in it in the hope that they will stop believing and thus be tricked into giving up the most powerful tool of change.’ In 1915, Armenians were no less ‘adaptable to changing realities’ orchestrated by larger powers who, as you say, ‘actually control outcomes.’ Some of the revolutionary forces ‘adapted’ to covert instigations by the British and Russians against the Ottomans, and what happened? Is this how your ‘larger powers’ control outcomes? Noone denies here the vital importance for a country like Armenia to be flexible and adaptable, but being flexible and adaptable doesn’t mean being gutless and susceptible, Karekin. You need to augment your position every way possible even if you’re ‘small in number, poor and just barely surviving,’ by means of moral legitimacy, resilient spirit, not defeatist moods. And Armenia doesn’t bite off more than it can chew: nothing has so far been done by Armenia that would be off the line. Genocide recognition is an ongoing process and it is by no means something that is exclusive of or hampering Armenia’s empowerment. On the contrary, I think the existence of the Cause and Diaspora’s resolve bring in an element of strength and enhance Armenia’s international posture. ‘Their priorities should be our priorities, not the other way around,’ is essentially a divisive statement, the one that splits the ranks. Theirs, ours? With all the differences, mentality and behavioral schisms, our interests are common: strong Armenia, secure Nagorno-Karabakh, and historical justice for Armenians all over the world. These are common, indivisible priorities.

  31. Karekin, In response to some of your recent comments:
    -The names of the villages our people lived in have been erased from the map. Their bones lie unnamed on barren mountain roads and wind-swept deserts. Fish have fed on our ancestors who were murdered and thrown into rivers. Wild animals have gnawed on their bodies in caves where they were burned to death. Unless we continue to demand justice, until the very end of time if necessary, their very existence will be forgotten, just as their murderers intended.
     – You suggested we read Hewsen’s Historical Atlas. I bought Hewsen’s Historic Atlas of Armenia and it does not show my village, or the village adjoining it,  on any of its many maps. I wrote to Hewsen asking for help in locating it so I could go there. he did not reply. We are in desperate need of accurate maps with co-ordinates showing the erased names and locations of our villages, even the small ones. The place names of Armenian villages have all been changed.
    -You tell us that perhaps we should buy land in Turkey as others already do. Unlike others who buy land in Turkey, we have no interest in simply buying seaside holiday resorts or condos in Istanbul. We want the land that is soaked with our blood. We want the return of the places our people owned and were driven off of. In other words, we simply want what belongs to us, we want justice. The land of our fathers is occupied in large part by Kurds who pay taxes to Turks.
    -Thank you for giving us important dollar numbers, but there is more, much more owing to us. And we want it all back. All of it.
    -I agree with Aram when he writes; “Full-fledged support of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh and advancement of justice for recognition of the Armenian genocide are not mutually exclusive causes, they’re mutually complementary causes: one cannot be advanced without the other.”

  32. Be ware of a solution that is worse than the problem.
     
    Forgiving Turkey for its crime of genocide and forgetting the past will only encourage the Turks and Azeris to commit more crimes of genocide.  A symbolic apology by Turkey in the absence of serious punishment for a the worst crime humanity has given a name “Genocide”, would be hollow and meaningless.  Turkey’s continuous denial of genocide and the absence of holding Turkey accountable (land, reparation and restitution) would only threaten the security of Armenia.  In other words, it will encourage Turkey to continue with its plan of annihilation of remaining Armenians.
    Genocide comes in many forms, it is not only the act of direct killing; any action that leads a group of people to leave their cultural environment; making living conditions difficult for a group of people to leave; forcing people to seek survival elsewhere; raising children of one group with an identity of another group are all acts of Genocide.    Today, Turkey’s genocidal policies towards Armenia take a different form; imposing a hostile border blockade that has caused economic hardship; forcing people to abandon their cultural environment and leaving in search for economic survival elsewhere.
    Turks (such as Karekin) are crude in their denial of genocide and their reasoning.  Turks often argue non-nonsensically and compare Armenians to the native Americans.   They often argue that the Turkish parliament should pass a resolution condemning the massacres of the native Indians; and that American-Armenians should return lands to native Americans.  Of course, the US does not have a denial policy of the massacres of native Americans; the US does not punish anyone who speaks and writes about the horrific massacres by the US Army.  The US does not deny slavery, etc… and the US honors the native Americans and grants special privileges.  The US does not engage in destruction of native American culture, monuments and erasure of native Americans names of towns, cities, and states.
    It is also clear form Karekin posts (the so-called historian and pretend-Armenian) that he does not know a lick of Armenian history.  He forgets about the first Armenian republic of 1918-20 which tghe Turks (Mustafa Kemal Attaturk) attacked and annexed 60% of its lands (then recognized by US, Japan, France, UK) with full exchange of Embassies.  He forgets the mighty Cilician Kingdon of Armenia (1197-1375) which was recognized by Europeans, Arabs and Persians.  Incidentally, the Cilician Kingdom’s independence is older than the US Independence.  And finally the “historian” Karekin, does not mention the flourishing Armenian Kingdom of the Bagratuni Dynasty that formed the golden age of Armenia (8th to 10th century).
     
    Turks (and Turkophiles like Karekin) would like too convince you that Armenians were a bunch of tribes (Indians) living on lands that belonged to Turks, and lacked any civilization or nationhood.  The Turks committed the worst crime against humanity, before coining the word genocide by Raphael Lemkin o describe the annihilation of the Armenians, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and other world leaders called it the “Armenian Holocaust”.  A nation, a civilization was wiped out of its existence (Western Armenia) and the Turks continue to legitimize the  act as well as the racist ideology that led to the act.
    Denial is not just the simple negation of an act; it is much more the consequent continuation of the very act itself.

    Genocide should not only physically destroy a community; it should likewise dictate the prerogative of interpretation in regard to history, culture, territory and memory. As the victims – Armenians – ‘never existed’.

    The Turkish have not only murdered humans, destroyed an ancient culture/civilization and rewritten history, but they continue to legitimize the act as well as the racist ideology that led to the act.
    Be ware of a solution that is worse than the problem.

  33. To: Aram & Perouz

    Thanks for your response to Karekin. I wrote him a long one, yesterday, but lost it…didn’t post properly.

    I totally disagree with ‘buying’ stolen property. Stolen property must be returned to the righful owner(s)! Period. If other nations wish to buy stolen property it’s not right but it will bite them in the ass someday!

    We want back what is ours! Period! If the thieves sold our property to 3rd parties? they need to return it all and compensate the 3rd parties. That is if the thieves got any thing for the stolen goods in the first place. I believe most of the stolen property was ‘given’ to friends’ to garner their loyalty or favour or whatever?.

    People buy stolen property because they don’t know better. When the theft is discovered…the buyer(s) of the stolen goods lose(s) out! Unless they can successfuly get a refund for the illegal purchase! In this case that should be relatively easy!

    Karekin: Yes I own a bit of property in my country called Canada. I didn’t steal it…but worked long and hard to pay for it. If the property was stolen from the Natives (as you suggest?) Then  the above  formula applies. Pay me for what is mine and give it back to the Natives. Better yet, if it wasn’t for the Genocide I would not be in the Diaspora in the first place. My grandparents were well to do people in Kayseri. I would have become the technician, merchant, manufacturer where they lived.

    Karekin, you need to look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself who’s side you are on?
    Please tell us what you will do have the 40 tons of gold returned to the RA.

    G

  34. I’d like to suggest that all of you get off of your high (and pathetically insulting) horses and get real. My grandfather was a delegate at the first ARF world congress…and I know quite a bit about Armenian history from the inside and the outside. So, I will not and cannot fall for your little bursts of nationalistic propaganda that sit on the edge of fantasy.  Hopes and dreams are one thing, but outright fantasy is not useful in today’s world. If that’s what you prefer, you can all go to Disneyworld.  Yes, the truth about Armenian losses is very hard to bear, but you must learn to deal with it honestly, not by throwing out pat phrases and worn out slogans.  Pride in history is great, but that alone does not restore the past. Chicken hawks often advocate the benefits of war from the comfort of their living rooms….and much of the dialogue here smacks of that mindset.  If you are so upset about the theft of Anatolia/ancient Armenian, then why not face that fact that it is highly unlikely that any of the 1 million American Armenians are going to return the properties they own to the native Americans…it just ain’t gonna happen…no matter how much the Indians want it returned.  And yes, much of this land was ‘stolen’ from them as recently as the late 19th C., just before Armenians arrived in the US.  The situation is the same all around the world…not just in the US, but in Turkey, South Africa, South America, etc.  This is the way of the world and the way of history, whether we like it or not.  And, if you don’t become more realistic, you run the risk of losing sight of what’s really important, and today’s Armenia will slip from our hands. As it is now, it is again a victim of the major powers, who have worked hard to suffocate it into submission.  

  35. After reading all your letters.
    All what you are writing here will get lost if we do not act.
    Armenian qualified lawyers from everywhere should come together and act.
    Signing from which part of Anatolia they are.
    To reach their lost wishes.
    My grandparents came from Dikranagert (Diyarbakir )*
    There is proverb:
    “With one hand you can’t clap”

    We have now very famous lawyers every place on the earth.
    They are well educated and know many languages.
    Is there Armenian lawyers association? Like Armenian Medical Association to start working!

    _________________________________________________
    My grandparents came from Dikranagert (Diyarbakir )
    My mother’s uncle was a well known lawyer called Garabed Dabbaghian. Turks called him Natiq Afandi like to say Mr.speaker we still possess the Tappos so called documents.
    My grandmother gave golds to get that Tappos.
    Garabed was killed at early days of Genocide all his relatives.

  36. Karekin, do Armenians a favor, could you just stop writing and beating your little chest about knowing quite a bit about Armenian history? Stop this self-deprecating, subservient, obsequious millet behavior, will you? For fainthearted people like you ‘little bursts of nationalistic propaganda that sit on the edge of fantasy’ are expression of patriotic feelings and rightful indignation for the deliberate calamity that’s befallen our people. What does struggle for justice, hopes and dreams for returning what was lost have to do with the fantasy? Can you say the Jews were sitting on the edge of fantasy for 2000 years dreaming about re-creation of their long-lost statehood? Can you say Martin Luther King sat on the edge of fantasy when he led the civil rights movement? Can you say that Mahatma Gandhi sat on the edge of fantasy when he led the de-colonization movement? Former Ottoman subjects: Bulgarians, Arabs, Romanians, Serbs, Greeks were roughly as weak as the Armenians, why could they stand up regardless and why you never criticized them for ‘sitting on the edge of fantasy’? What’s wrong with you, man? Why are you degrading Armenians before murderous Turks? What is this pathetic phrase: ‘you must learn to deal with it [the truth about Armenian losses] honestly’? What is it that we should be ashamed of and thus deal dishonestly? Do you mean to say that Armenians slaughtered the Turks en masse? What is it that many governments, scholars, and organizations haven’t seen and honestly condemned that Karekin the ‘Historian’ only knows? Pride in history indeed does not restore the past, but it can restore justice. It also shows to your enemies that your nation is not a flock of sheep ready to be slaughtered because their ‘masters’ so desire. No one advocates the benefits of war from the comfort of living rooms. Everyone here advocates justice for the people that demands it for 95 years. Where do you see warmongering here? What do native Americans living in predominantly uninhabited lands have to do with Asia Minor, the Armenian Plateau, that’s been densely inhabited with highly-developed civilizations before the invasion of nomadic Seljuk/Turkish savages? We arrived to America because we were mass murdered and forcibly deported from our own ancestral lands, not on our own will. The situation is not the same all around the world, because just a few nations experienced the horrors of genocide, and Armenians are one of the few, first nation that was subjected to genocide in the 20th century. Armenia, Artsakh, and Diaspora are components of ONE entity. All three need to be strong and assertive in their just cause. Minimizing the importance of one component will inevitably lead to the weakening of the other. Only short-sighted, fainthearted, and cowed people can’t see this.

  37. Aram…you really need to do a reality check, sorry.  Armenians, always small in number, have little in common w/ the hundreds of millions of Indians who challenged the British via Gandhi. Moreover, the idea that Anatolia was ‘densely populated’ is another myth. There are 70 million people in Turkey today…vastly more than the 10 million who lived there in 1915, and huge expanses are empty even now because they have never been habitable due to the lack of water. No one is suggesting anything that remotely challenges ‘justice’ for Armenians, but face the fact that there are limits. The further we get from 1915, the more remote the possibility that any kind of ‘justice’ will take place, at least of the kind you advocate. Sadly, we all must accept that the world has moved on to newer, more pressing issues, while some Armenians (though not all) are stuck repeating the same lines over and over again, as if that will make them come true. While I realize Armenians must be their own best advocates, it makes no sense to ask for something that cannot be given.  As much as I hate to admit it, the world is not on our side, it is on the side of oil and money and power.   While it is easy to talk about Armenian issues and justice, it is virtually impossible to bring them to fruition. That is why today’s Armenia and its survival should be tops on our list of priorities.  I do include in that the reunification with Karabagh, which is an inseparable part of historic Armenia.

  38. Listen, Karekin… it’s all about resilience. Resilience.  Based on your ‘reality check,’ weren’t the Indians in the hundreds of millions when they were conquered by the British who were much smaller in number and remote in distance? Yes, they were stronger militarily, but this factor couldn’t salvage their empire when it came to resilience of the suppressed. Further, as compared to vast territories of the New World, more compact Asia Minor (what Anatolia?… oh-oh, that newest Turkish toponym never before existed in history and geography?) historically was densely populated by ancient, nobler peoples: the Hittites, Assyrians, Greeks, Armenians, etc. Don’t you take into account the territorial disproportion of the two when talking about the population density? Judge yourself also by the quotes that you put the concept of justice into, as in ‘No one is suggesting anything that remotely challenges ‘justice’ for Armenians’. Justice has no limits, it’s either full or it just can’t be qualified as justice. Perform reality check also for your other ‘masterpiece’: ‘The further we get from 1915, the more remote the possibility that any kind of ’justice’ will take place.’ Dear ‘historian’, the Armenian meliks maintained full control over Nagorno-Karabakh until the mid-18th century, after that the region fell to the Persian Safavids, Ottoman Turks, and Soviet Azerbaijanis. However, in 1988 the region stood up for justice and broke loose from the foreign yoke. At that time, roughly two(!) centuries have passed since the region last was under full Armenian control. You know why this was made possible? Because the Karabakhi Armenians have what cowed individuals like you lack: guts and resilience. Because the Karabakhi Armenians kept repeating the same lines over and over again that you accuse us of doing with regard to Western Armenia, and finally freed the land and became independent. Your subservient mentality is best expressed in this line: ‘it makes no sense to ask for something that cannot be given.’ Well, Armenians don’t expect something to be given to us although let’s not forget that that something is genuinely Armenian. But no one can stop the Armenians from demanding what is rightfully theirs. If you cease to demand, how on earth you can get what is rightfully yours? Other nagging: ‘the world is not on our side, it is on the side of oil and money and power.’ Oil and money are, unfortunately, important for the world, but they are not the sole determinants in international politics: put it into your pipe and smoke it. There are also such important determinants as geostrategic considerations, race politics, moral legitimacy, and others. Had oil and money been the only determinants in politics, no new state entities would emerge on the world map, as in cases of Kosovo, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, or even very soon Artsakh. And when it happens, ask yourself what you really meant by ‘While it is easy to talk about Armenian issues and justice, it is virtually impossible to bring them to fruition.’ Both today’s Armenia/Artsakh, their survival and Armenians’ pursuit of justice for being virtually wiped out from the face of the earth should be tops on our list of priorities. One does not exclude the other, one only empowers the other because both components are parts on ONE cause.

  39. Aram…it seems very clear from your words that you’re the one w/ the 19th C. victim mentality. Get w/ the program, man…this is the 21st C. As they say, talk is cheap. Let’s see some action.  When Armenia re-unites w/ Karabagh, instead of not even granting it formal recognition, then perhaps I’ll change my views. But, once again, actions speak louder than words….which is all you seem to be able to muster, unfortunately. Forget ‘resiliance’….just do something concrete instead of just talking about it and inciting people’s passions and then not delivering anything. That is a colossal waste of time, energy and emotions.

  40. The most recent edition of The Armenian Weekly has just arrived. In it is an article by Sarkis J. Eminian. Here is an excerpt from that article which is worth noting.
    “Any approval of the protocols by Armenia would serve as a forgiveness of the Ottomans for their crime against humanity. This is something that would not be right. Because those who are in position to approve the protocols cannot forgive. Only the survivors of the genocide, only the victims carry the power of forgiveness. No one else caries that authority. In retrospect, is genocide forgivable? Is such a crime ever erasable, because diplomacy and politics and power dictate it? No. The carnage that exploded in 1915 is still among us, reverberating like an aftershock. The protocols simply added to the pain.”

  41. O, yeah? And how do you know who I am and what I actually do for the Cause? Action, you said? Weren’t you the one who advocated subservience just a coupel of posts ago? Ugh…

  42. “Victim mentality”??????????????????????????? Aram? ROTFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
    Thanks for the afternoon laugh! You should have pursued a career as a comedian Karekin not a pseudo half baked wannabe “historian”.
     
    In reaction to grave injustice, Aram, like the majority of Armenians, exhibits what is usually termed in this part of the Western world – as a justice seeking mentality. You know…the mentality associated with terms like accountability, laws, morality, transparency and human rights. I’m sure it’s hard to get your head around these ideas from where your likely to have originated Karekin…but they do have merit in democracies.
     
    Aren’t you Karekin, the one advocating that Armenians relinquish more of our rights by ceding claims to our lands??? Only an obedient subject still subservient to ottoman masters would allow themselves to remain a victim of injustice, theft, propaganda and deceit.
     
    Your writing exemplifies the self-deprecating SLAVE MENTALITY of a subject still shackled to a now defunct empire. In other words you are the Turkish government’s favorite slave. Don’t you feel pathetically special…?
     
    Heeeeello!!!!!! Armenians are no longer victims of the 19th century. We are the guardians of our rights and property. Get used to it. Remember 1915 when we couldn’t be guardians of our rights and property. We were victims of genocide then. And have been defending our claims to those rights and property since then, not because we have a victims mentality but because we have a justice mentality.
     
    I don’t want to keep you from your daily chores for your masters in Ankara but in this case, your words have actually spoken volumes about your past and present actions left alone your defeatist doomsday slave mentality Karekin.

  43. I hate to break the news to you, but sadly, very sadly, Armenians lost sovereignty over western Armenia approximately 1000 years ago. This means, they’ve had the same amount of time to get it back…but I don’t see that happening. A thousand years is a very long time, and during that time, Armenians have suffered a multitude of assaults that have decimated our numbers in our native land. Unfortunately, your victimhood is feeding you the myth that western Armenia is coming back and that tens of millions of Kurds will somehow either move away or that the Turkish govt will turn over the keys out of sympathy. It ain’t happening!  Look – secure and reunite with Karabagh. Create a strong, self-sufficient Armenia, and work to maintain our cultural heritage in Turkey, but ‘demanding’ more is really just a fanciful, irridentist fantasy, a left-over mindset from our 19th C. nationalist ancestors, but not much more than that.     

  44. I largely agree with Karekin. Fortify and consolidate Artsakh. Western Armenia is gone but nevertheless, has not known a day of peace since we’ve been gone.

  45. Please be educated, Karekin or whatever real name you bear, that Armenians did not lose western Armenia ‘approximately 1000 years ago’.  I already explained and challenge you to prove me wrong, but you keep repeating the same rubbish over and over again. Even during the Seljuk/Mongol domination in the 11-13th centuries there were several independent principalities in western Armenia. Secondly, you deliberately forget, despite my reminders, about the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia that existed up until the end of the 14th century. And only in the 15th century Armenians became subjects of the filthy Ottoman empire up until 1915 where virtually all of them were mass murdered or forcibly deported by your beloved barbarian Turks. This makes it, I repeat, 500 years NOT 1000 years.
     
    Go tell the Jews that for 2000 years they suffered from victimhood that was feeding them the myth that Judea was coming back. Then open your eyes and see that they actually GOT it back. It’d happened whether or not some Karekin saw it happening. 2000 years, as you may know, is longer time than a thousand years, but it’d happened. How would you explain this given your defeatist, subservient views? How could it happen? Why could this happen to one people and can’t happen to the other? Enlighten me…
     
    About strong Armenia and Artsakh, aren’t you reading posts here? Noone’s denying the need for a strong, self-sufficient Armenia and secure Artsakh, but you keep separating these entities that are components of one cause. If they are separate, then following your weird logic, why is Turkey maintaining the blockade of Armenia, why has it closed the border with Armenia? Because even Turkey, in contrast to Karekin the ‘Historian,’ understands that strong, self-sufficient Armenia and secure Artsakh may be prerequisites to a more stronger, more articulate all-Armenian voice in demanding justice from the Turks for wiping out the whole western Armenian civilization. That is, even small-minded Turks understand that these issues are interrelated.
     
    And don’t give me this crap about fanciful, irredentist fantasy and 19th-century nationalism. If demanding justice for 1.5 million killed, raped, slain, drowned, burnt and buried alive, starved to death innocent Armenians is nationalism, then so be it. What are you advocating on these pages? To shut the hell up and let the murderous Turks celebrate their crime of genocide and its denial? Why is it that demanding justice for a heinous crime against a particular race is perceived as nationalism? If this is a ‘19th-century nationalism’ according to your bizarre psyche, that you clearly suffer from the 15th-century servility complex.

  46. Aram:
    Your arguments for Armenia-Artsakh-Justice for Genocide scheme are convincing and, I’m sure, supported by the majority of the Armenians. All three elements are vital to fortify Armenia’s position in the region and Armenians’ position in the world. Each is inseparable part of our history, national identity, and national aspirations. While emphasis should be made on strengthening of Armenia and Artsakh, the process of demanding justice for the crime of genocide must not cease: this may run the risk of serving our enemies’ agenda: splitting one part of a nation from the other and one element of the national cause from the other. We won’t allow this to happen.

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