Remembering Victims of Armenian Genocide in California. | THIS WEEK IN PROTEST |
Each week, people around the world take streets of their cities to remind their governments that their voices matter. In this series I want to collect the best images from protests around the world.
TRENDING HASHTAGS — #armeniangenocide #1915neveragain
BRIEF.
It’s not a type of protest that this blog covers every week. This post is about a commemoration march that takes place on the same day of every year, for over the past 60 years, all across the world from Los Angeles to Beirut.
101 years ago, on 24th of April of 1915, the government of Ottoman empire started a mass killing that humanity had not faced ever before in history. The task was to eliminate every single person of Armenian origin; to erase the language they speak, the churches they built and everything else that could remind anyone in the world that Armenians once existed on the face of the earth.
What Ottoman government was about to do was so cruel that the humanity with the history of over 4000 years didn't invent a word to describe what Ottomans did to Armenians.
The word was invented 30 years later by a Jewish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin. You can find that word in a dictionary today under the letter G — genocide. Up till today the Turkish government refuses to admit the atrocities and denies the actions that Hitler called ‘our example how to conduct Jewish holocaust’.
What’s Happening?
There are approximately 200 thousand of Armenians in California alone. When the Ottomans started their genocide, millions of Armenians were forced to flee their land and many settled in Russia, France, Lebanon and United States.
The main centre of the Armenian diaspora remains in the City of Angels. This Sunday, approximately 60,000 people went on the streets to remember those who were killed and demand U.S. government to universally admit that their main ally has committed a genocide.
Protester’s Words:
I think my grandparents (who were genocide survivors) would be very sad to know that after 100 years, Turkish government still didn't grow up to recognize its mistakes. They would be happy though, that their sons and daughters remember them and don’t let the criminal run away from the crime scene.
Our wounds are still open.
We see that the same Turkish government with the same politicians using the same methods are conducting the same of atrocities up till today. They target Kurds now. Turks won’t stop until what they did in the beginning won’t be condemned.
One taxi driver in Armenia told me that we should treat our history as driving car. 90% percent of the time you should look straight at the road, but 10% of the time you should look behind you. It’s funny, but true.
FACT SHEET:
Before the genocide: 2 million Armenians lived in Turkey. After the genocide less than 500.000.
1.5 Million Armenians were killed during the massacres
58% of total number of Armenians living around the world was killed during the genocide.
90% of land and property was lost.
Last Thoughts.
This post is dedicated to the memory of everyone who was killed or survived the horrors of Armenian genocide. As one person from California told me “I think my grandparents (who were genocide survivors) would be very sad to know that after 100 years, Turkish government still didn’t grow up to recognize its mistakes. They would be happy though, that their sons and daughters remember them and don’t let the criminal run away from the crime scene.”
_________________________________________________________________
