BY RAFFI BEDROSYAN It has been a week now since President Biden’s April 24, 2021 statement recognizing the Armenian Genocide. This was a long overdue acknowledgment by the United States of an event that took place 106 years ago, about which there is already general worldwide acceptance of the historic facts. The only issue left was the reluctance of a few states to define the 1915 event as genocide, in deference to Turkey. The symbolic genocide recognition by the US is a political non-event, except for the traumatized Armenians and paranoid Turks. This obsession with properly naming it as genocide has caused many generations of Armenians to be traumatized, not able to move past 1915, spending enormous amounts of energy, academic, historic, political talent and resources at the expense of more productive activities for the growth of Armenia, Artsakh and Diaspora. The Armenians’ trauma is directly caused by a similar and more obstinate obsession by the Turkish state in denying the true facts of 1915, spending not only enormous amounts of energy, academic, historic resources in Turkey but also hundreds of million of dollars in lobbying activities in the US, as well as buying out a few foreign academics to advance their denialist version of history. The Turkish denial is caused by paranoia and fear of the 3R’s – Recognition, to be followed by Retribution (compensation) to be followed by Restitution (land).