SYS-CON Media (press release)
April 8 2009
Serj Tankian and the Axis of Justice Launch Armenian Genocide
Recognition Campaign in Honor of the Global Day of Remembrance on
April 24th
By: Business Wire
Apr. 8, 2009 03:05 PM
Known as one of the most outspoken activists in the music community,
Serj Tankian, along with the help of Tom Morello and the Axis of
Justice, is launching a campaign for the recognition of the Armenian
Genocide to commemorate the annual global day of remembrance for
victims of the human rights atrocity on April 24th. Tankian, a solo
artist and visionary frontman for multi-platinum rock band System Of A
Down, has posted a video on YouTube in which he and other activists
urge President Obama to affirm his pledge and officially recognize the
Armenian Genocide, which took place in 1915, just after the start of
World War I.
A powerful indictment of the Turkish government’s denials, the video,
which also features comments from Morello, The Coup’s Boots Riley, and
Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), asks viewers to call the White
House to implore President Obama to put an end to Turkey’s well-funded
whitewash and officially recognize the Armenian Genocide. The video,
which was directed by Ara Soudjian, who also directed Tankian’s
"Money" clip, is currently available for viewing at
&q uot;Last year, Barack Obama noted that many of the same brutal tactics
employed today in Darfur are the same as those used by the Ottoman
authorities against defenseless Armenians back in 1915," Tankian
says. "As we approach the global day of remembrance on April 24th, we
look to both the President and Congress to stand up for what’s right;
to speak against the Armenian Genocide and all genocides at the level
of American values, and to never again allow the United States to be
dragged down to the level of Turkey’s threats. President Obama is the
best-positioned American president in generations to help bring about
real change to how America and the international community confront
mass inhumanity, and our best hope to bring the peoples of the world
together to end the cycle of genocide."
Tankian has also written an accompanying editorial that outlines the
history of the Armenian Genocide and passionately explains his
personal connection to it. (All four of Tankian’s grandparents
survived the brutal massacre.) The editorial is attached to this email
and Tankian invites the media to publish it in full.
Finally, Tankian and Morello have recorded an Axis of Justice radio
show for 90.7 KPFK radio in Los Angeles, which will be broadcast on
KPFK on Friday, April 17th at 7 p.m. and Sirius Satellite
Radio. Congressman Schiff was the in-the-studio guest. For Sirius air
dates and times, please visit
For more information, please contact Reprise Records Publicity:
Brian Bumbery [email protected] 818-953-3203
OUR YEARLY BATTLE OVER THE G-WORD
By Serj Tankian
Every year around this time in April a battle is waged in the White
House and Congress; a unique battle because it is â?? at its
heart â?? over one word, genocide.
The roots of this struggle lie in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire
in the midst of World War I. The rulers of this Turkish Empire, the
Young Turk Party, set in motion a plan to, once and for all, rid their
borders of their largest minority, the ancient Christian Armenian
population of more than two million spread across the Anatolian
landmass. In systematic fashion the Empire’s armed forces killed over
a million subjects, starting with intellectuals and able-bodied men,
and then marched the rest to near certain death in the Syrian desert,
resulting in the near annihilation of an entire people and the exile
of a nation from its home of more than 3,000 years. These atrocities
were widely reported at the time and are today one of the world’s most
thoroughly documented mass murders.
To this day, against all evidence and in defiance of even the most
basic human standards of morality, the Republic of Turkey denies this
crime. They have also mastered Orwellian Newspeak by convincing
generation after generation of Turkish citizens that the genocide
never occurred.
They spend millions of dollars each year, hiring expensive lobbying
firms, creating university chairs that sponsor genocide deniers,
buying into foreign policy think tanks here in the U.S. and around the
world while at the same time threatening to close U.S. bases in
Turkey, block access to our troops in Iraq, threaten trade, or
retaliate against Armenia with blockades and economic pressure. They
think that by erasing a word, genocide, they will somehow escape
responsibility for the wholesale death and suffering, theft and
dispossession they have caused. Turkey can no more evade either the
verdict of history or the requirements of justice by imposing a
gag-rule on the word genocide, any more than a killer can escape
punishment by insisting the word murder does not exist.
I’m personally very familiar with the word genocide. All 4 of my
grandparents were survivors. In the case of my grandfather, Stepan
Haytayan (whose life story is told in the documentary "Screamers"),
Turkish soldiers came to his village, took away his father and all the
Armenian men never to be seen again. This was a standard practice by
Turkish soldiers, who typically rounded up the men to take them off to
"labor camps" where they were to be executed, leaving the women and
children unprotected and subject to forced marches, described by Henry
Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador at the time, as a "death warrant to a
whole race."
The similarity between the treatment of the Armenians and the genocide
today in Darfur was pointed out last year by Barack Obama, who noted
that, "tragically, we are witnessing in Sudan many of the same brutal
tactics – displacement, starvation, and mass slaughter – that were
used by the Ottoman authorities against defenseless Armenians back in
1915." It’s no coincidence that Turkey is one of only a handful of
nations, along with China, that still sells arms to the genocidal
Sudanese regime, or that Ankara is trying to shield its leader, Omar
al-Bashir, from an International Criminal Court arrest warrant.
Even before international lawyer Raphael Lemkin, a Pole of Jewish
heritage, coined the term genocide, it was clear to the world that a
systematic plan of race extermination had been executed by the Ottoman
Turks. Lemkin’s motivation in inventing this term and leading the
charge for the Genocide Convention was, in great measure, his study of
the Armenian Genocide, which he, with great foresight, saw as the
blueprint for the coming destruction of Europe’s Jews by Hitler and
the brutal machinery of the Nazi German state.
For many years, Turkey has leveraged its NATO membership, its former
Cold War role, its lobbying power, and military-industrial alliances
to buy, bully, or threaten other nations into silence on the Armenian
Genocide. Far too many countries, the U.S. included, have been held
hostage to Turkey’s warnings of retribution, but more and more are
standing up to this intimidation. Among these are Canada, France,
Germany, Belgium, Italy, Russia and a growing list that includes 12
NATO allies. Here in the U.S., 41 states have recognized the Armenian
Genocide.
Today, as we approach April 24th, the global day of remembrance of the
Armenian Genocide, we look to both the President and Congress to stand
up for what’s right; to speak against the Armenian Genocide and all
genocides at the level of American values, and to never again allow
the United States to be dragged down to the level of Turkey’s threats.
This April, Turkey will again try to block both the White House and
Congress from condemning and commemorating this crime, giving itself a
vote that it does not deserve in our American democracy. A foreign
government, particularly one that so violently suppresses free speech
by its own citizens, should never be allowed to dictate U.S. human
rights or genocide prevention policy.
We have, sadly, not learned our lesson. Here we are, nine decades
after the Armenian Genocide and fully six years into the Darfur
Genocide, and the international community has yet to forge a durable,
effective response to genocide. Global leaders have proven themselves
unwilling to intervene effectively to stop the ongoing slaughter in
Sudan, and they’ve been unable to summon the courage to end Turkey’s
denials. Why? Because, genocide remains a political issue, bartered
like a commodity by the great powers, and not a moral imperative that
all nations and all peoples must, at all costs, act to prevent.
President Obama is the best-positioned American president in
generations to bring about real change to how America and the
international community confront mass inhumanity, and our best hope to
bring the peoples of the world together to end the cycle of
genocide. He has said that, "America deserves a leader who speaks
truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all
genocides." He’s right. That’s the moral leader America and the world
need and deserve. In the coming days he has the chance to be just that
man.
For more on Serj Tankian’s campaign to urge President Obama to affirm
his pledge and officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, please
visit: to watch a video
commemorating the annual global day of remembrance.