This year, I attended the Burbank Human Relations Council’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. The focus was on assisting those suffering from the ravages of the two most destructive urban fires in Los Angeles. As usual, it was an uplifting event and reconfirmed my inclination to present an Armenian-adapted version of MLK’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech. (I request, in advance, forgiveness for the liberties I have taken with this well-intentioned bit of plagiarism. If you’d like to read the original version, I retrieved it from this website.)
Here goes:
I am happy to join you today in what will go down in history as the greatest national struggle for freedom in the history of our world.
Five score and six years ago, a great Armenian, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, saved the last pockets of Armenian self-governance. This momentous accomplishment came as a great light of hope to hundreds of thousands of Armenians who had been seared in the flames of withering genocidal injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their persecution.
But a century later, the Armenian is still oppressed by the manacles of depopulation and the chains of territorial disenfranchisement. A century later, the Armenian lives on a lonely island of insecurity in the midst of a vast ocean of expansionist barbarism. A century later, the Armenian is still languishing in the corners of the world and finds himself an exile in his own land. A century later, the Armenian still is not free. So, we struggle today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense, we say to the world that we have come to cash a check. When the architects of our world’s order created this system, they were signing a promissory note to which everyone was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Armenians, as well as others — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious that the world has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as Armenians are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, the world has given the Armenian people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this world. So, we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us, upon demand, the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also struggled to remind the world of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of depopulation to the sunlit path of territorial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of territorial injustice to the solid rock of a free, independent, united and socialist Armenia. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the world to overlook the urgency of the moment. This frigid winter of the Armenian’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating spring of liberation and restoration. 2025 is not an end but a beginning. Those who hope that the Armenian needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the world continues with business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in the world until the Armenian is granted his human rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our world until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into passivity and appeasement. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting external machinations with soul force. A marvelous new militancy shall engulf the Armenian community but must not lead us to a distrust of all other people, for many of them, as evidenced by some of their pronouncements, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we struggle, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of human rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Armenian is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of Turkish and Azeri brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels and hotels of our occupied cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Armenian’s basic mobility is from an ever-smaller Armenia to an assimilating Diaspora. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by denialist policies. We cannot be satisfied as long as an Armenian in Sassoun cannot freely and safely say “I am Armenian” and an Armenian in Bolis believes he can only cringingly accept Turkish overlordship. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have experienced great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of Azeri brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Artsakh, go back to Van, go back to G/Karin, go back to G/Kars, go back to Cilicia, go back to the ruins of our deserted cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, that even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the highest human ideals.
I have a dream that, one day, this world will rise up and live out the true meaning of the creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that, one day, on the grand mountains of the Armenian Highlands, the sons of genocide survivors and the sons of genocide perpetrators will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that, one day, even Cilicia, a province whose people are sweltering with the heat of striving to prove that they are Turks (since they are not), sweltering with the heat of forced Turkification, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that our children will one day live in a world where they will not be judged as less than because they are Armenian but as co-equals with all others.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that, one day, in Azerbaijan and Turkey, with their vicious racists and weapons dripping with Armenian blood — right there, in occupied Armenian lands — that Armenian boys and girls will be able to join hands with little Turkish and Azeri boys and girls as brothers and sisters.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that, one day, every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the struggle. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My world, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And if the world is to be great, this must become true. So, let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of Kharpert. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of Sassoun. Let freedom ring from the heightening Taurus Mountains of Cilicia!
Let freedom ring from snow capped Arakadz!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of Dikranagerd!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Teezapayd of Hadroot!
Let freedom ring from Khoosdoop!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of the Araradian plain. From every Ararat, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Garen Yegparian
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