Garen Chiloyan & The Armenian Weekly Get It Right

The following letter appears in the current issue of The Armenian Weekly. The letter captures exactly what I try to communicate every April as we take up commemorations of the Armenian Genocide (April 24), and in January and April when we take up the Yom HaShoah and Holocaust Memorial days, and Nakba Day on May 15, and the several other genocide commemorations. And still we do not mark the atrocities commited in the so-called "Congo Free State" or deal seriously with the decimination of Africa and the related decimation of the Caribbean and American indigenous populations. This year Trump essentially outsourced recognition of the Armenian Genocide and is building a record of anti-semitism, and he will not acknowledge Nakba Day or the "Congo Free State" atrocities, much less what has occurred in the Americas. An editorial piece representing the views of the Armenian National Committee of America appearing in The Armenian Weekly has explained this quite well. The problem goes deeper than Trump, of course, and the author of the letter below expresses that succinctly. I do not always agree with everything in The Armenian Weekly, but there is no better source in the United States than this paper for news on Armenian politics and a careful liberal analysis of what the criminal regime in Turkey is up to. Readers are encouraged to visit the Weekly's site and subscribe.  

Dear Editor,

After reading headlines about another year without “official U.S. recognition” of the Armenian Genocide, it is time Armenians realize that we will never get recognition and just reparations by appealing to the morality of bourgeois states. Their own histories are plagued with genocide and colonization.

And if they refuse to acknowledge their own pasts, they will never acknowledge our own.

Talk to any poor or oppressed person, tell them our history of immeasurable pain, and they will not be surprised as they face the same pain themselves.

The Arabs know what we went through. The Kurds know what we went through.

Tell it to any Indigenous person in the United States or Canada or Mexico and they will tell you our histories are the same.

Tell it to the Irish, whose ancestors suffered famine and exodus while the British government forced them to export food to sustain their empire.

Tell it to any person in East Asia, who still remembers the pain that colonialism has caused to their countries.

Tell it to any Indigenous Mexican, whose home was destroyed to make way for sugarcane farms and was forced to work there under appalling conditions. See if they will not easily call what we went through “genocide.”

Tell it to any Palestinian who is living through genocide today.

You will find countless friends among people whose histories match our own. With them, we can force every state in the world to acknowledge what happened to our people.

Sadly, all we care about is suits and ties and wining and dining politicians in lavish banquets. We left the streets for desk jobs and called it “hard work” instead of what it really is: Compromise.

The moment the oppressed and working masses across the globe realize the injustices they have all experienced—and more importantly, realize their collective strength—see if we don’t get genocide recognition and reparations the following day.

Garen Chiloyan,
Watertown, Mass.