‘Hai Tahd’: New Priorities for a New Agenda (Part I)
The founding of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) in 1890 was a selfless response by a group of men and women to the oppressive socioeconomic and political conditions that afflicted the Armenian population of the Ottoman Turkish Empire.
The history of the ARF during this early period (1890 to 1923) reads like a romantic novel. However, this was not fiction. As fedayee, they challenged the rapaciousness of the Turkish and Kurdish overlords who ruled the interior of Anatolia or the government-sponsored pogroms that were responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Armenians. As political leaders, at times working with the Young Turks, they sought to introduce constitutional reforms to ameliorate the socioeconomic condition of the ethnic minorities within the empire. The incentive for the ARF was to lessen the oppressive burden of Ottoman-Turkish rule on the Armenians. For the Young Turks or Ittihadists, at least initially, the purpose was to maintain a multi-ethnic empire from disintegrating. And in the diplomatic arena, the ARF represented the interests of the Armenian people vis-a-vis the international power brokers such as England and France.
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whooo, all these ‘injustices’ done to us. Makes me want to put my head down on a pillow and not wake up.
Do you mean the establishment and activities of Armenian Revolutionary Federation led to all these ‘injustices’. That’s certainly the impression from the flow of your article.
All these ‘injustices’ done to us by other evil people and we took them like children.
We make for good victims. Actually, that’s the narrative, the narrative of victim-hood, is what is perpetuated by the contemporary Armenian establishment in the US and some of the other Diaspora communities. They keep feeding the people this narrative so they can continue to hold on to power in established institutions.
You want new priorities, a new agenda? Change the narrative that keeps people in their victim status and come up with a new one to help our nation survive and prosper in today’s world, and to propel our people to new achievements, and not keep them in subservient, victim status.