ARMINEH ARAKELIAN RECALLS ONE OF THE MOST IMPRESSIVE ENCOUNTERS IN HER LIFE

18:06, August 1, 2013

I would like to share:

When the target of an activity or a struggle is building something
qualitatively new and making the institute of accountability function,
the spirits of anger, malice, violence and hostility to the world do
not lead to this target; on the contrary, they weaken and degrade the
individual and/or group striving for the target. It is essential to be
conscious of DIGNITY at individual and collective levels, to restore
dignity and contribute to positive structural and cultural change.

I recall one of the most impressive encounters in my life; during
my professional work experience in Rwanda (1994-98) with the target
of contributing to the national efforts of building a new-quality of
life and of accountability institutions. During my interview with a
11-12 years old girl named Ange (Angel), only a few months after the
genocide. Once trust was built between us, she opened up and started
to tell me in details how all her family was massacred in front of
her eyes and afterwards she was violently raped by a group of men. I
asked her – how do you want to continue? Do you want to punish those
who killed your family and raped you? The answer of this child (who
eventually had become a woman) was incredible; I listened to her with
all my modesty, I was hardly suppressing tears and she totally sobered
me up. She said: “I don’t want to revenge, because if I let that poison
grow inside me, I won’t be able to live and to love; and I WANT to
live, I WANT to love, I want to get married and have children. I am
ready to call them to justice and make them accountable, so that they
can’t do to others what they did to me and my family.” She assured me
that she wanted to do that for the sake of ending impunity rather than
for personal revenge. “I’m trying to push them out of my personal life,
for the sake of healing my mind and spirit and in order to be able
to create a new quality of life”, she said. I was so touched, I was
absolutely amazed, and her words shook something in all my essence –
that was the consciousness of human DIGNITY (irrespective of age,
sex, ethnicity, religion, etc.) and the ability, the determination
and the positive spirit of restoring that dignity even after having
faced the most severe violence.

Armineh Arakelian 1.08.2013

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress