Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Organization Eastern U.S. Central Board member Dr. Aline Baghdassarian’s remarks at the SOS Artsakh! protest, organized by the ARF Eastern US and AYF-YOARF Eastern US, held at the White House on September 1, 2023
We are facing today one of the most serious threats to our collective future.
The enemy has appropriated our lands, appropriated our cultural heritage and our churches.
The enemy has appropriated our identity.
The enemy is rewriting history! Our history!
History books mentioning Greater Armenia are undergoing a systematic edit to erase our existence!
What is this, if not genocide!
Today our brothers and sisters in Artsakh are dying a slow death.
The children can’t go to school. They are denied the essential nutrition and medical care that they need to grow and reach their full potential. Their parents and grandparents are starving to death.
This is genocide!
Yet the same enemy who is choking us is pretending to provide us with rescue breaths.
Breaths, aiming to subdue us, erase us, delete us!
World politics has undergone many major changes throughout time.
Empires that once ruled the world, no longer exist.
Enemies that were our fiercest, no longer exist.
Politics is always at play.
But politics or not…
We are the owners of our lands.
We are the owners of our culture, music, language, art, churches, architecture, rugs…
Armenians are the indigenous inhabitants of Artsakh!
Artsakh has always been self-governed. Think of the Five Melikdoms of Karabakh preceded by the principality of Khatchen. The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII addressed his letters to the prince of Khachen with the inscription, “To Prince of Khachen, Armenia.”
We inherited the land. We will keep it.
Every stone in Artsakh is Armenian. So is every stone in Western Armenia.
The soil is imbibed with our music, the dance beats of our people through millennia, with our blood.
We are the guardians of our lands.
We are the guardians of our language, our traditions, our art, churches, literature and music.
We will keep learning and teaching our history, not the one they’re rewriting and trying to teach us.
We will learn and teach our culture, love it, grow and develop it.
We will remain critical of the information they’re spreading in their propaganda.
We expect friends of Armenians all over the world, supporters of human rights, and our own U.S. government to support the children and families of Artsakh in their fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Our children will firmly stand on the shoulders of the people who have thrived for millennia.
Our children will remain deeply rooted in our faith, our culture, our history and our struggle for existence and independence.
Only then can we build our future on solid ground.
We are our mountains. We are Artsakh!
Aline Baghdassarian
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