My response to Anonymous

Just recently one of my posts received the following comment from "Anonymous" - I thought I'd post my response.

"is your "1.5 million + >8" really supposed to mean that you equate the people killed on march 1 with genocide victims?
I mean, does anyone seriously equate these two events? LTP may be crazy for pushing people to hate so much and arm themselves looking for a fight, but I don't understand the connection to a genocide." May 9, 2008 12:53 PM

Dear Anonymous,

Your question brings several points to mind.

First, my intention in listing them together is not to equate them, but to point out their similarities. Starting with the most basic, both are incidents where Armenians were killed. Moving on, both are incidents where Armenians were killed by those more powerful than they. Continuing, one might argue that both sets of victims were innocent (though it seems you wouldn’t quite agree). Continuing, in both cases, those who committed the killings did so to maintain their own power and their own regimes, and to maintain, politically and economically, the status quo. The actual day of April 24, the day chosen to commemorate the Armenian Genocide, as I am sure you know, is the day that Armenian intellectuals, journalists and other thinkers, those with independent ideas, were arrested, deported and killed. Similarly, those interrogated and arrested in the events leading up to and especially after March 1, and those protesting, including those killed, were standing up for their principles, which necessitated change from the status quo, and many of them are themselves intellectuals and journalists.

The second interesting point is why they are different, because, as you say, they are not equal. Obviously, 1,500,000 is a much larger number than 8, or 10, or even 100. Of course, the sheer number is important, but that is not the only factor. We commemorate the victims of 1915, and in doing so we assimilate the commemoration of the Armenian victims of the end of the 19^th century, but we do not have a separate date – we focus on the larger number of 1915-1918, which is understandable. Does this mean the victims of the 1890’s are of lesser value? Obviously not. Would we mourn the fallen soldiers of the war any more or less if there were more or fewer of them. Obviously not. It is who they were, what they believed and fought for, and how they died which we commemorate and mourn.

Now, a small sidetrack. We could debate for hours about whether individuals were armed during the protests in Yerevan. I would argue that they were peaceful demonstrations, and you might argue that weapons were used by some of the demonstrators, and the police were within their rights to open fire either because of massive unrest, or the threat of violence, or something else. I think this is the bottom line – unless you are willing to argue that there were protesters preparing to open fire on the police without any provocation whatsoever, then there is an element of self-defense in a demonstrator using some kind of weapon or tool (I’m not saying they did – this is hypothetical). And if you were to agree to that, and still argued that police force were justified (in the case of self-defensive tactics by the protesters), well, Anonymous, that is like saying the Ottomans were justified in killing the people of the villages of Marash, Zeytun, and others who raised up arms against their oppressors.

This brings us to the next big point. The Genocide was committed by Turks, whom we are all trained to hate and despise (another vortex I would rather not get into). March 1st was committed by Armenians. So obviously, the Turks being Turks, the Genocide apparently cannot even be listed within the sentence (or fragment, as it were) as the >8 killed during March 1-2, which you may be thinking, was the sad, unfortunate, result of some internal political strife. I, like almost all Armenians, have a cultural, even familial, memory of the Genocide which has been passed on to me by my family and cultural history. We all carry a tragic memory of a time which we did not live through, we mourn for the lives of our ancestors, our people. And it sits heavily, always, not just on April 24^th. The murder of Armenians, on Armenian soil, by other Armenians, however, resonates at a different frequency, a different timbre. Stories and pictures, the reality of the Genocide, make me angry and mournful. Knowing that a regime composed of Armenians directly caused the death of other Armenians is sad, and infuriating, but even more so, it so internally devastating, that, to put it in the vernacular, it makes me want to vomit.