Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Call it what it is "The Armenian Genocide" - Medz Yeghern or As Sikhs would say "The Armenian Ghalughara"

April 24, 2015 commemorates the 100th anniversary of Armenian Genocide. Now, I will be honest, I don't know much about Armenian culture or people except that many of their last names end with "ian" and what I learnt from some Armenian classmates was that it meant "son of". I would love to go see the country and meet people. Only few Armenian Americans I know are our famous California Governor from 1980's, Mr. George Deukmejian and some of the classmates from a class longtime ago. The reason I decided to post something about Armenian Genocide was after reading that Mr.
Obama has decided not to call it a Genocide. It just reminded me of crimes against Sikhs in 1984 in India which people call it pogroms, massacres, genocide which Indian government has refused to
acknowledge and calls it "Anti-Sikh riots" and how Sikh community, Sikh organizations such as Sikhs for Justice, United Sikhs and others have been running pillar to post internationally to get the international community to get it recognized as genocide as well. Since 3000 Sikh lives deserve to be called Genocide, then 1.5 million to 6 million Armenians should definitely get justice in World courts, just like the Jews Holocaust is recognized. The economics and politics are taking over society values of truth, justice and compassion. These wrongs against Sikhs and Armenians need to be righted with apologies from Indian and Turkish governments. The communities and families need justice and closures in their lives. Sikhs can also learn something from Armenians, share the common experiences with the Armenian-American community!
Genocide
Here are some excerpts from one of the news stories I just read where author talks about his great-grandfather from Armenia during Hamidian Massacres, who was not only a tailor but also did poetic work (every time I read the word "Infidel" as below, it just reminds of Sikh and Indian history under tyrannical mughal rulers of India, the Sikh Ghalugharas):


"In 1896, however, the tone of his work changed. As a prologue of sorts to the Armenian Genocide, roughly a quarter of a million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were butchered between 1894 and 1896 in what have come to be called the Hamidian Massacres—named after Sultan Abdul Hamid II. On November 18, 1895, the slaughter came to Kayseri. My great-grandfather was there. A few months later, he wrote a 70-quatrain epic about what he saw. Among the couplets?
“They killed infidels with axes, daggers, and didn’t ask who you were, whether merchant or coolie.”
“They took the babies out of the wombs of their mothers, and those who witnessed lost their minds.”
It’s a wrenching, eyewitness testimonial.
I will never know precisely why my grandfather never spoke of his father’s renown. Perhaps he didn’t realize the extent of Nazaret’s accomplishments. Levon was the youngest child, born only years before his father would die in 1902 from natural causes. Moreover, we can only conjecture how the family was scattered first by the Hamidian Massacres and then by the Armenian Genocide.
When we discuss genocide, we always begin with the numbers: the six million. The 1.5 million. But it’s not just the souls that we lose, it’s the stories."
The World View on Genocide

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