Two years ago, I, along with countless other Armenians, stood in front of Congressman Adam Schiff. As he walked onto the stage, the crowd immediately became silent, but we continued to keep our flags raised, the red, blue, and orange bands rustling against the wind. The congressman cried out, “Turkey, do you hear our voices?…
When Bruce Badrigian was battling pancreatic cancer in 2012, all he could think about in the hospital was his father and the sacrifices he d made to provide for his family. In his younger adult years, Badrigian s father died and left Badrigian wishing he had spent more time learning about his Armenian heritage. He learned a lot about his family s history of fleeing the Ottoman Empire and starting anew in the United States from his grandmother, Isgouhi, and the aunts who helped raise Badrigian and his four siblings while his parents worked. click to enlarge Photo Courtesy Of Bruce Badrigian
HIS STORY Bruce Badrigian s Armenian family (from left to right), his Aunt Mary, Kachadoor (grandfather), Simon (father), Isgouhi (grandmother), and Aunt Elizabeth.
24th of April 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden has recognized the Armenian mass killing in World War I as genocide on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, leading to a strained relationship between Turkey and the United States.
In his speech on Saturday, Biden stated “Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring.“
The recognition comes 106 years after the beginning of the mass deportation of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. Forced deportations and massacres between 1915-1918, led to the deaths of up to 1.5 million people. The killing was carried out as the Ottoman empire was collapsing, and Turkey’s modern state was being established.
(Jacana 2013) and Darwin’s Hunch (Jacana 2016). She is a Research Associate at WiSER (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research).
US President Joe Biden made a statement on 24 April that officially recognised the Armenian Genocide. Between 1915 and 1917, over a million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks and another million were forced into exile.
“Of those who survived,” Biden said, “most were forced to find new homes and new lives around the world, including in the United States. With strength and resilience, the Armenian people survived and rebuilt their community.”
Biden’s statement on the 106th anniversary of the start of the genocide had great meaning for me personally. I grew up in Watertown, Massachusetts, which is a major centre of the Armenian diaspora in the United States. Watertown is home to the Armenian Library and Museum of America, as well as Armenian churches, grocery stores and bakeries and several Armenian newspapers.
The author’s family visiting the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, Armenia
“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye!”
Matthew 7:5
It was December 2019 and I was driving home from a successful Christmas shopping run when I had to pull off the road and take a moment to collect myself. I had gotten an alert announcing that the US senate had, despite all odds and precedent, passed the Menendez Resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. Even though the House had passed a resolution six weeks earlier recognizing the systematic mass murder and ethnic cleansing of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks as a genocide, almost nothing that passes in the House these days also passes in the Senate. I had not been holding my breath for the recognition to move forward in any way. Learning that the senate passed the resolution, by unanimous consent no less, took my breath away.