We remember, even when you choose to forget

Every April 24, Armenians around the world gather in remembrance. We gather for the 1.5 million lives lost in the Armenian Genocide—our great-grandparents, our ancestors, our people. We gather not just in grief, but in protest against the silence and denial of those who still refuse to call it what it is. And yet, in 2025, 110 years later, we still have to fight to be seen. Last week, UC Berkeley—a university known for its legacy of free speech and activism—canceled a screening of the acclaimed film, “My Sweet Land,” which had been scheduled for April 24, according to the Berkeley Human Rights Center. It feels as though our story is still too controversial, too inconvenient, too easy to erase. That silence echoes louder in my own life. I asked my high school to include a note about Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day in our daily newsletter—a simple mention and tiny acknowledgment of a vast history. The response was a polite decline. It “wasn’t the right fit.” That same newsletter found space to celebrate Earth Day—which, this year, fell on April 22, just two days earlier. Our planet deserves protecting, yes. But so do our memories and histories. How is remembrance not the right fit for education? This refusal isn’t neutral. It’s a choice—a choice to say our pain doesn’t matter, that history can be edited for comfort, that some genocides are worthy of remembrance and others can be ignored. Our national leaders have contributed to this erasure. The Trump administration carefully avoided using the word “genocide” in an official statement, referring to the events instead as “Meds Yeghern,” an Armenian phrase that translates to “Great Crime.” That’s not a coincidence. That’s political pressure—often from Turkey, a NATO ally that still denies the genocide outright. President Joe Biden’s 2021 recognition was a long-overdue shift in the right direction, but recognition isn’t just a box to check once. It has to mean something. It has to be lived out in our institutions, our schools and our curriculum. Many world history textbooks still do not include instruction on the Armenian Genocide. According to the Genocide Education Project, only 14 states mandate the teaching of the Armenian Genocide. In states without such requirements, educators often note the genocide’s absence from textbooks and are left to introduce it on their own. I am 16 years old, and I have to explain my own history to my classmates. I am 16 years old, and I’m told that my grief is “too political.” I am 16 years old, and I’m watching leaders and institutions tiptoe around the truth of my people’s genocide. The world once said, “never again,” but what does that promise mean if we can’t even name what happened? Education is meant to empower, but when educational institutions avoid uncomfortable truths, they don’t protect students—they fail them. They fail us. In doing so, they help history repeat itself. So, we will keep remembering, loudly and publicly—even when you stay silent. We will remember because we must. We will remember because no one else will do it for us. We will remember—because forgetting is how it all began.

We remember, even when you choose to forget

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Zoe Karibian

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This story is FREE for you...

Zoe Karibian

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