Skip to main content

New top story from Time: What Biden’s Recognition of Armenian Genocide Means to Armenian-Americans

https://ift.tt/3vhVJuO

Armenian-Americans have welcomed President Joe Biden’s historic declaration that the killing and deportation of up to 1.5 million Armenians during World War I constituted genocide as a long overdue yet positive step in reckoning with history.

“We affirm the history,” Biden said on April 24. “We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.” The statement, released on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, marked the first time a U.S. president formally equated the violence against Armenians with atrocities on the scale of those committed in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Turkey, the modern-day successor of the Ottoman Empire, adamantly denies that the killings were part of a systematic plan to erase the Armenian population that would meet the U.N. definition of genocide. Authors and journalists in Turkey who use the term “genocide” have been prosecuted for “insulting Turkishness.”

The U.S. is now among 30 countries, including France, Germany and Canada, that have formally recognized the Armenian genocide, according to the Armenian National Institute. Other U.S. allies, including the U.K. and Israel, have not. Turkey’s foreign ministry said that Biden’s statement “opened a wound” in Ankara-Washington relations and “deeply injured the Turkish people,” in a statement, according to the Financial Times.

But to Armenians, the statement was a long-awaited acknowledgement of an atrocity against their people they believe has been persistently understated. Over a century later, the events are “primary identity markers” of Armenians around the world, says Mary Kouyoumdjian, a 38-year old Armenian-American composer based in New York. “It means we are constantly looking to the past. I think my generation experiences survivor guilt,” she says.

During World War One, the Germany-aligned Ottoman government accused the Armenians of treachery after suffering a heavy defeat at the hands of Russian forces. On April 24, 1915, Ottoman authorities arrested several hundred Armenian leaders and intellectuals, an event seen by many as the beginning of the massacre. One and a half million Armenians were killed by soldiers and police, or died of starvation and exhaustion in long, cruel marches to concentration camps in what is now northern Syria and Iraq. About 500,000 Armenians survived, and many eventually emigrated to Russia, the U.S. and elsewhere. Turkey claims that 300,000 Armenians died of disease and hunger as they were being deported.

Kouyoumdjian’s great-grandparents and grandparents fled to Lebanon, where they mostly settled in Beirut’s Armenian quarter Bourj Hammud, a neighborhood that was established as a refuge for Armenians escaping the genocide. But during the Lebanese civil war that began in 1975 and lasted until 1990, Kouyoumdjian’s parents were forced to leave, gaining refuge in the U.S. Kouyoumdjian, 38, is the first in her family to be born in America.

For 20 years, her work has involved composing music that integrates documentary and interviews with survivors of war and genocide. She said she can’t find a way to separate herself from the people telling their stories. “A lot of these interviews become a form of processing my own family history,” she says.

Kouyoumdjian has mixed feelings about Biden’s announcement. She says it was a “relief” and has given her a “great deal of faith in the president’s commitment to human rights, over political complexities”. But she says it should have come sooner. “The fact that it took 106 years for the U.S. to say something has meant a lot of damage to Armenians around the world”, she says. The wounds of the past will not fully heal, in her view, until Turkey acknowledges the genocide.

Simon Maghakyan, a human rights activist and lecturer in international relations at the University of Colorado, Denver, says that Biden’s statement was an important step in “healing the Armenian community’s intergenerational trauma”. During the genocide, his great-grandfather, who served in the Ottoman army in World War I, fled to Syria, where he met his future wife, an Armenian refugee. They later settled in Soviet Armenia, where Maghakyan’s parents were born. In 2003, Maghakyan’s family moved to the U.S.

Simon Maghakyan’s paternal family in 1955.
Courtesy Simon MaghakyanSimon Maghakyan’s paternal family in 1955, all gone now. On the left, holding Maghakyan’s baby father, are his great-grandparents who had survived the Armenian Genocide in Urfa (modern Turkey).

But Maghakyan says that the U.S. recognizing the Armenian genocide “only truly matters” if the White House takes strong measures to help protect the security Armenians, including in Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region over which Armenia and Azerbaijan recently went to war. “Recognizing Armenia’s past without its present is not meaningful,” he adds.

Last fall, in the latest in a series of conflicts in the region, Armenian forces clashed with Azerbaijan, which was backed politically and militarily by its ally Turkey, killing at least 6,000 Azerbaijani and Armenian soldiers. Sarah Leah Whitson, former director of the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch, wrote that propaganda in Turkish media said that Ankara would “finish off” what it started in 2015. “Many Armenians were truly convinced that Turkish forces would attempt to slaughter the population of Armenia as well,” she wrote.

A Russian-brokered peace deal that ended the six-week war required Armenia to hand control of large swathes of territory over to Azerbaijan. Many ethnic Armenians left the territories that were set to be handed over to Azerbaijan and according to the region’s nominally independent Armenian-backed government, over 40,000 Karabakh Armenians have been permanently displaced.

Maghakyan believes the U.S. should adopt measures providing humanitarian relief to displaced Karabakh Armenians, and sanctioning Turkey and Azerbaijan for their involvement in the recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Many Armenians have also had to come to terms with what Kouyoumdjian and Maghakyan call “cultural genocide”. Maghakyan has been researching the erasure of Armenian culture for the past 15 years. His 2019 research, conducted independently, indicated over the past 30 years cultural and religious Armenian artefacts were covertly and systematically destroyed in an alleged Azerbaijani campaign to eliminate indigenous Armenian culture in Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani exclave between Armenia, Iran and Turkey. Maghakyan and Sarah Pickman, a co-author of the report, found that the destroyed artifacts included 5,840 cross-stones, the earliest of which date back to the 6th century, despite a 2000 UNESCO order demanding their protection.

The genocide happened 106 years ago but Maghakyan says it is still a “modern issue” for many Armenians. He wishes the U.S. recognized the Armenian genocide and accounted for it long before he was born. “We might have overcome the intergenerational trauma by now,” he says.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bihar: Stages collapse during Congress rallies in Darbhanga, West Champaran https://ift.tt/37QFnks

The stage on which Congress candidate from Jale assembly seat, Mashkoor Ahmad Usman was addressing a rally broke and collapsed in Bihar's Darbhanga on Thursday. In a similar incident, another stage collapsed and took down party leaders Imran Pratapgarhi and Akhilesh Singh along with several party workers who were on the dias, during a Congress rally at Bagahi Deoraj in Champaran.

New Dashboards Give a Window into Muni Service Changes

New Dashboards Give a Window into Muni Service Changes By Kate McCarthy An inspector manages Muni service. New dashboards that help inform changes to Muni service are now live at SFMTA.com/MuniData Many factors inform our decisions about Muni service adjustments. These include making sure changes to service support the SFMTA’s values, which are economic vitality, environmental stewardship, trust and equity. We also evaluate travel patterns. You can now explore these patterns using the new Muni data dashboards  (SFMTA.com/MuniData). When looking at possible Muni service changes, the first thing we do is turn to the Muni Service Equity Strategy for guidance. Using the Muni Service Equity Strategy, we prioritize providing Muni service along routes that more often serve people of color, members of low-income households, and/or those who are dependent upon transit service, including people with disabilities and seniors. We also use ridership data to analyze where riders are boa...

India reports first 6 cases of new coronavirus strain after UK returnees test positive https://ift.tt/3pA0T2j

India on Tuesday reported the first six cases of the new coronavirus strain after six people who had returned from the United Kingdom were tested positive for the new UK variant genome. According to the details, the new coronavirus strain cases were reported from Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore. Samples of 3 UK returnees were tested and found positive for the new UK strain in NIMHANS, Bengaluru. The other two cases were tested at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad; while the last case was tested at the National Institute of Virology, Pune.

FOX NEWS: Ohio amusement park shut down after multiple fights break out Kings Island in Mason, around 20 miles north of Cincinnati, closed down 30 minutes early Saturday night after several fights among teenagers occurred, reports suggest.

Ohio amusement park shut down after multiple fights break out Kings Island in Mason, around 20 miles north of Cincinnati, closed down 30 minutes early Saturday night after several fights among teenagers occurred, reports suggest. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3wsn8uI

PM Modi lauds IFS officers for their work towards serving nation, furthering national interests https://ift.tt/36HoEzw

Greeting Indian Foreign Service officers on IFS day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that their work towards serving the nation and furthering national interests globally are commendable. Their efforts during the Vande Bharat Mission, which was launched to bring Indians home from abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic as international travel came to a halt, and other related help to our citizens and other nations is noteworthy, Modi added.

FOX NEWS: Bride's father asks stepdad to help walk her down the aisle in sweet viral moment A selfless gesture by the father of a bride was shared on social media in a viral moment of him surprising the girl’s stepfather by asking him to help walk her to the altar.

Bride's father asks stepdad to help walk her down the aisle in sweet viral moment A selfless gesture by the father of a bride was shared on social media in a viral moment of him surprising the girl’s stepfather by asking him to help walk her to the altar. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/ZkQ1Rpt

Better Connections from Bayview and Hunters Point to Downtown

Better Connections from Bayview and Hunters Point to Downtown By Enrique Aguilar To better connect southeast San Franciscans with downtown, the SFMTA debuted the 15 Bayview Hunters-Point Express in late January, coinciding with the return of T Third train service. Within weeks, average daily boardings reached 1,000 customers on this new service. The 15 Bayview Hunters Point Express  We added this route based on community feedback from the Southeast Muni Expansion Project in 2018, which prioritized a more direct trip to downtown from the Bayview. With the sudden rise of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disproportionate impacts on communities in the Bayview and Hunters Point, fast-tracking the project became critical to our transit planning. Adding service capacity and a direct connection between these neighborhoods and downtown is a crucial step in supporting the City’s economic recovery and increasing job access for essential workers using transit. Using data from the SFMTA Equ...

Plan Your Next Golden Gate Park Trip with Muni

Plan Your Next Golden Gate Park Trip with Muni By Eillie Anzilotti   A map of San Francisco showing Muni lines that offer direct service to Golden Gate Park, including: The 18 46th Avenue, the 29 Sunset, the 5 Fulton and 5R Fulton Rapid, the N Judah, the 44 O’Shaughnessy, the 33 Ashbury/18th Street, the 7 Haight/Noriega, the 43 Masonic and the 28 19th Avenue. Around each bus route shown on the map, a red zone shows the range within 1,000 feet of a stop, orange shows within 2,000 feet of a stop, and yellow shows within 3,000 feet. Here’s a fun fact: 70% of San Franciscans are within a 15-minute walk of a transfer-free Muni ride to the largest public space in our city: Golden Gate Park.   Especially as COVID-19 has heightened the importance of outdoor recreation and park access, SFMTA has made efforts to update Muni service to get people to Golden Gate Park. As of now, ...

New top story from Time: ‘I Should Be Presumed Innocent.’ Hong Kong Media Tycoon Jimmy Lai Criticizes His Arrest

https://ift.tt/342b8VJ Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai said he was arrested on “trumped up” charges, pushing back against landmark national security legislation that has raised questions about press freedoms and the future of the democracy movement. “They’re trumped up. I can’t go further on the details,” Lai said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Friday morning. “Before any evidence, they just claimed and presumed that I’m guilty. This isn’t the way the law is. I should be presumed innocent. We have never supported the independence of Hong Kong.” He said Hong Kong’s future as Asia’s main financial hub was uncertain if there was no respect for the rule of law under the new security measures. “The future of Hong Kong is the future of any other Chinese city,” he added. “Without the rule of law, the international financial center will be finished.” He added that the law sent a “very negative” message to the business community in Hong Kong and overseas. Lai has ...

अगर मैंने आत्महत्या की तो लोगों को पता होना चाहिए किसकी वजह से की - फूटकर रोते दिखे विकास गुप्ता

सुशांत सिंह राजपूत की आत्महत्या हर किसी को एक गहरा सदमा दे गई है और अब सुशांत के करीबी दोस्त विकास गुप्ता ने एक वीडियो में अपनी आपबीती सुनाई है। विकास इस वीडियो में बेहद टूटे हुए नज़र आ रहे हैं from टेलीविजन की खबरें | Television News in Hindi | TV Serials Update in Hindi – FilmiBeat Hindi http:/hindi.filmibeat.com/television/vikas-gupta-reveals-people-want-him-to-commit-suicide-cries-his-heart-out-for-sushant-singh-rajput-090284.html?utm_source=/rss/filmibeat-hindi-television-fb.xml&utm_medium=23.213.205.12&utm_campaign=client-rss