It is a quiet day in Los Angeles today, as we remember the Armenian Genocide across the sprawling county. Yet it is an important day to reflect on the capacity for human depravity and how overcoming that starts by recognizing evil.
Armenian Remembrance Day 2024
My son is off from school today and my favorite restaurant, Raffi’s Place, is closed in remembrance of the Armenian Genocide. We are having a quiet day at home, but spending part of it discussing the Armenian Genocide with 7-year-old Augustine. He absorbed a lot of information at Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany and asked why his classmates were mourning yesterday and why his school is closed on a Wednesday in late April.
So we discussed it.
I read him a statement issued by President Joe Biden today concerning Armenian Remembrance Day:
Today, we pause to remember the lives lost during the Meds Yeghern—the Armenian genocide—and renew our pledge to never forget.
The campaign of cruelty began on April 24, 1915, when Ottoman authorities arrested Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. In the days, months, and years that followed, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths—leaving families forever broken, and generations forever changed.
As we mourn this tragedy, we also honor the resilience of the Armenian people. After enduring one of the darkest chapters in human history, survivors began forging a better future for our world. With courage and commitment, they rebuilt their lives. They preserved their culture. They strengthened the fabric of nations around the world—including our own. And they told their stories to ensure that the mass atrocities that began on this day 109 years ago are never again repeated.
This remains our solemn vow. Today—and every day—the United States will continue to stand up for human rights and speak out against intolerance. We will continue to meet hate and horror with hope and healing. And, we will continue to stand with all those who seek a future where everyone can live with dignity, security, and respect.
Let us not forget that the Ottoman government, controlled by the Committee of Union and Progress (also called the Young Turks), aimed to solidify Muslim Turkish dominance in the Anatolian region by eliminating the sizeable Armenian presence there. And let us be aware that the Turkish government, even today, continues to deny that such atrocities took place.
See, I don’t hold the Turks today responsible for the massacre perpetuated by their forefathers. But I do hold Turks responsible today who refuse to recognize what happened out of pride and jingoistic delusion. It is a sin…it is a blight on a country that I love.
I do find it interesting, as I observed more than a decade ago during my first trip to Yerevan, that in Armenia the concern appears more on rapprochement and reconciliation with Turkey. Indeed, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian stirred a lot of controversies today by “going easy” on Turkey in his own commemoration address on the Armenian Genocide. Yerevan seeks full normalization of relations with Ankara, including diplomatic ties and the opening of common borders.
> Read More: Feeling at Home in Yerevan
CONCLUSION
I conclude by noting that reconciliation is the most powerful force of good in humanity’s arsenal. Reconciliation begins with recognition of wrong and repentance, which prompts forgiveness, which prompts restoration. Sadly, the Armenian Genocide is hardly a unique blight on human history, but the way we address it transcends many acts of evil: we start first with recognition. May we find the courage to do so.
I hope one day you discuss the genocide going on in Gaza with your 7 year old and also let him know that you are one of the supporters of this genocide… shame on you and your hypocrisy
*rolleyes*
You’re disgusting…but predictable.
Oh Mr Klint, once again you got into a topic you had no clue about but just the cliche narrative of a side. And when reminded of Israel’s atrocities, no meaningful response as usual.
Du bist verloren, Tobias.
Honestly, the trite insults are a bit tiresome. Care to address the substance of what I wrote?
Matthew, maybe Tobias would answer why he does not call upon Hamas with equal fervor to end the war they/Hamas brought upon the people of Gaza. Maybe Tobias could explain what contributions the Hamas leaders, comfortably residing in Qatar, have made toward humanitarian aid for the people they brought the war upon. Like you, I am also very tired of these truth deniers.
Well Mr Klint, the substance of the matter is being or at least trying to be curious and impartial about topics you have no clue about rather than calling names and insults – this includes Israel’s indiscriminate atrocities against Palestinian women and children (and Aid Groups) in the name of annihilating Hamas.
Maybe read Matthew’s text and learn what the word “genocide” means.
There are people who claim there are no such people as Palestinians and those who call themselves Palestinians should instead be viewed by the world as Jordanians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians, Arabs or anything but as Palestinians. Many of those people want to see Palestinians as an identity and a people wiped off the face of the earth in the places in which Palestinians and Palestinian ancestors have had as their homeland for millennia. In some ways this situation with Palestinians is akin to how the Ottoman Turks saw the Armenians, but on a smaller yet more concentrated scale, technologically more advance way and yet without the use of something like a Kurdish militia as a supplemental threat to the Armenians in their homes and communities under Ottoman domain and occupation. And when the Armenians seemed to be a challenge to the territorial domination and the Ottoman Turks felt increasingly insecure as the Sick Man of Europe, the Ottoman Turks played all sorts of dirty games to wipe out Armenians from their homes and homelands under Turkish domain and occupation.
While many Armenians became extremely anti-Muslim because of their communities’ experience during the genocidal campaign by the Ottoman Turks and their allies du jour and then later conflicts with the Shia Muslim Turkic language nation of Azerbaijan, many more Armenians today are very sympathetic to the Palestinian plight as a fellow people subject to threat by occupying forces — occupying forces not inclined to respect their autonomy as a people and allow them peaceful coexistence and autonomy in the homes and communities where they and their ancestors had long lived before being subject to occupation and communal brutality that too often comes from such occupations that want a “more” “pure” nation-state that includes annexing the lands of “the other” and erasing “the other”.
You can find similarities between anything and anything. But one case was genocide – killing a large part of the Armenians, giving them no option to surrender – while the other simply isn’t.
Hamas started a war, and war is hell, and in war innocents die. Hamas can end the war today. They prefer to hold on to the hostages.
Since 1948 Palestinian population grew extremely rapidly, and Israel did nothing to prevent this, and nothing to displace them. There’s a complicated conflict, and there’s injustice, but there’s no genocide and no ethic cleansing.
There’s attempted ethnic cleansing of Jews from their homeland, and claims of genocide serve this purpose.
@Uri: Again, exactly right. Such a clear difference between the current situation in Gaza and the Armenian Genocide.
And I’m also so tired of those claiming that Israel is like Russia. Had Ukraine attacked Russia first, Russia would have had every right to go after Ukraine to ensure it could not attack again. But it was Russia who attacked first. Israel did not attack first on October 7th and to say that the economic blockade and other defensive acts by Israel leading up to October 7th justified the attack fails to recognize all the violence that Gaza has launched against Israel over the decades.
The more Israel is attacked by hypocrites who would be calling on their governments to defend them if attacked by outside invaders, the more I take Israel’s side.
The Israel of 1948 and 1967 and into the 1990s is not the Israel of more recent years. It’s now dominated by far right extremists and the country has been increasingly behaving like a twisted version of Pakistan, Iran and India rather than as a model democracy. It should be no surprise that it’s been Putin, Modi, the MBS type Gulf Arabs and Egypt’s Sissi who have been most eager to play nicely with Netanyahu despite Netanyahu being predictably Netanyahu. They all believe in might makes right and have no real respect for ethnic, religious and political minorities in their midst. That opens a door into barbarism up to and including wanting to starve and dehydrate even massive numbers of besieged kids.
@Matthew
Israel did attack Palestinians first. They had been conducting acts of violence on Palestinians, including Christians, in the West Bank preceding Oct 7th. 2000 Palestinians had been killed by Israel in 2023 before October not to mention the arrests of innocent civilians without even being charged. This violence perpetrated by Israel has gone back 75 years. Israel is an illegal occupying force under international law.
Russia had been attacked when ethnic Russians had been shelled and 10,000 murdered in the Donbas since the 2014 coup up until 2022 when the democratically elected Ukrainian President was forced out by U.S. government orchestrated riots. Ukraine has engaged in genocide by criminalizing participation in the Russian Orthodox Church, speaking the Russian language, and opposing the war and supporting peace. Ukraine pushes lgbt while Russia bans lgbt in schools. Easy to see who the bad guys are. It’s unfortunate the Jewish President of Ukraine, a comedian, has worked for the globalists instead of making peace with Russia. Putin is not good because he opposes free speech but he is much better than the dictators Biden, Zel, and Net. Putin actually is supported by 75% of the Russian public while the other 3 are hated by most.
Sadly, people seem ok with that genocide happening…
Imagine simping for a terrorist organization (Hamas) that isn’t even paying you. I hope the innocent civilians of Gaza and Israel free themselves of this violent tyranny.
Thank you for posting this. I’m struck by something a US park ranger said when I visited the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor about two weeks ago… that particular site is in remembrance of a specific event, but we must think outside of just that context and a narrow mindset to see that horrible events happen around the world, and continue happening in places many of us have never heard of but that should not discount their significance or need to be recognized.
I was extremely fortunate to spend a day early this week at Nazarbayev University (maybe I return to teach one day…) and spent a couple of hours in a great and very frank discussion with some political science students. The topic of Turkey came up, as they are seeing much investment and attempts to enclose KZ in its sphere of influence, and there was a general consensus that Turkey is very much trying to “blank slate” many things it its past (and in some more recent times).
The Armenian Genocide gets a lot of attention nowadays but no one talks about the Greek Genocide where 300,000 ethnic Greeks in Turkey were burned alive in the early 1920s and over a million put in concentration camps and forced to leave Turkey where they lived even before the Ottoman Turks invaded Western Turkey.
We also never hear about the 60 million civilians who were put in gulags during the Soviet reign and the 10 million Ukrainians starved by the Soviets during the holomodor from 1933-1941. It was the Germans who liberated the Ukrainians and the Germans who put those 6 million in camps at war time because most were communist supporters and hated Germany. All those camps today are bogus attractions selling the same broken record we hear today in Israel when it’s the Zionists who cause people to hate them with their genocide. Open borders is genocide and that’s what Zionists want for White countries but not for Israel of course.
It’s good to teach your son history but reading him anything Biden or any dictator opposed by half the population says is just propaganda.
It’s amazing that you denounce the horrible acts of Turkey and Russia, but when their leaders, still refusing to acknowledge these acts, support the removal/murder of all Jews from the middle east – you cheer for them.
Or maybe that’s not surprising – you’re simply consistently on Hitler’s side.
The David Arnett character seems like a dyed in the wool “white Christian nationalist” type of the anti-semitic sort that has never stopped hating Jews and whose hatred for “brown” and “black” people is only surpassed by their hatred for Jews of all backgrounds. I would classify such characters as being of the neo-Nazi sort that have never stopped backing anti-Jewish hate and violence. You know, those tiki torch carrying nuts at the “Unite the Right” rally in Virginia where they kept chanting “Jews will not replace us”? The David Arnett character seems to be cut of the same cloth as those extremists.
You couldn’t refute anything I said. The Soviets were monsters. The Palestinians are victims of genocide. The Germans killed millions of communists and took communists/globalists out of power in Germany and put them in camps. The communists murdered 10 million Ukrainians in the holomodor before the Germans freed the Ukrainians. The Ottoman Turks engaged in genocide against White Greeks and Armenian Christians.
You only resort to name calling because you can’t argue with any of the points I made as they are indisputable fact.
Anti White hate and Anti Christian hate are really not cool.
David, you need to stop reading Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes. Your hatred for the Jewish people is obvious to all. You don’t seem to have an issue with Hitler putting Jews in concentration camps because, in your own words, “most were communist supporters and hated Germany.” What disgusting person making such sweeping statements and false equivalencies.
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.” Issiah 5:20.
You started out well then went full retard.
You have a few articles categorized under Aremenia, including this one. You should probably fix that.
Fixed. Thanks Lukas.
Is there any actual benefit for Turkey to keep denying the genocide? If it’s only a question of national pride for a state that doesn’t even really exist anymore, it really is inexcusable.
In other news, I note the flight numbers for the routes flown by the new LH subsidiary haven’t got a LH prime number (they’re VL####, with LH codeshares). Can you reach out to anyone at the airline to check whether these will be considered *A flights for mileage earning and status benefits purposes? It’s bad enough having to avoid Eurowings and Air Dolomiti, if the problem were to spread to a bunch of MUC routes I may have to start considering the possibility of befriending the AMS lounge mice.
They don’t want to pay reparations for the bodily harm and property destruction and seizures that were part and parcel of the Ottoman Turks’ ethnic cleansing and genocidal campaigns. They don’t want to return property to the heirs of the rightful owners who lost or had to abandon property because of the ethnic cleansing and genocidal campaigns of the Ottoman Turkish empire. They are too proud of their days as an empire to admit historical wrongdoings against people under their domain.
It’s hard for proud but insecure people to admit inconvenient truths that challenge their image of their own nation/community. And when they feel there is a risk of losing land or property and being painted as imperfect or even on the wrong side of history at times, they lash out by trying to ignore the inconvenient truths of the past or even the present because of what it means to their own identity and its ability to pop the hubris bubbles.
It is a ???citywide holiday in LA???
2 years ago Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law declaring April 24 as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day in California.