The Armenian Genocide and My Story

The pages of Armenian history are stained by a sagging injustice, a genocide that nearly eliminated a race and a crime that never met consequence. From a young age, I came to understand the Armenian genocide as a justice deferred – an ethnic cleansing that escaped recognition and has since been denied by those responsible.

I learned about the Armenian genocide from our family’s survivors. When I was four-years-old, I first heard my great grandmother’s distant stories about violence and escape. She was a witness to her sisters’ murders; her mother and two-year-old brother were sent to a desert march in Syria. Her family was extinguished, and she was the only one to survive.

Today, politicians debate the pros and cons of recognizing her reality. Turkish government leaders deny her story and attempt to erase those of 1.5 million other Armenians. Our own government fearfully tiptoes around the word “genocide,” because the country that perpetrated the crime is too dear a political ally to offend.

The United States should never use history as a bargaining chip to appease foreign neighbors. Political friendship is not worth that price. We are either a force that stops violence through recognition or one that beckons it with a blind eye.

Recognizing the Armenian genocide is about doing what’s right by history – calling a crime by its true name and holding its perpetrators accountable. This will prevent more genocide in the future.

History proves that we can cauterize this injury through accountability and a relentless pursuit of what’s right – both for the Armenian cause and for all similar crimes. That’s why recognition is so important – it delivers justice to those who suffered, etches integrity into the pages of history and protects those who might suffer tomorrow if we don’t act today.